4 Race in the Midwest by Shannel Stinner

There’s something that people need to understand about me whenever the subject of race comes up. I was raised in Cheyenne, Wyo, less than 50 miles from where twenty-one year old, Matthew Shepard was brutally beaten and tied to a fence for being gay. He died six days later in a Fort Collins hospital from severe head trauma. This murder made national headlines, putting Laramie, Wyo. in the spotlight. Cheyenne is a place that most people will only drive through on their way to somewhere better, unless they are going to Nebraska, in which case, I’m sorry. In Wyoming, we say it’s so windy because Nebraska sucks. Cheyenne is one of the windiest cities in the state, with speeds averaging 11 mph and gusts up to almost 50 mph. This is a place where windburns are more common than sunburns. The climate is harsh, at best. A quick Google search will tell you that the average temperature is 46°, average snowfall is 59” lasting nearly 8 months out of the year. This is why everyone in Wyoming owns a pick-up, not because they are over-compensating for anything, but without one, you are not going anywhere in the winter. I loved waking up in the winter, peeking out the window to see the world covered in a soft, blanket of white, even though that meant I would probably need to dig the car out of the driveway. In order to survive the Wyoming weather, you’d better be tough, regardless of skin color.

Cheyenne’s population was 60,008; nearly 80% white, 15% Latinx, and just over 3% black, thanks to F.E. Warren Air Force Base. I remember going “on Base” to visit friends and there were black people everywhere. I was surrounded by black folks as a child. I remember going to cookouts in the summer with dozens of black families like a Tyler Perry movie. I would sit in the kitchen all day, watching the women make baked beans sweetened with maple syrup, potato salad, macaroni and cheese, and gossiping. Once when I was 4 or 5, I watched them clean and cook the chitlins. Big mistake! I took a tiny bite, started choking and swore I would never eat them again, and haven’t.

I was a quiet and inquisitive kid, preferring to watch what everyone was doing rather than seek out attention. At these get-togethers, I loved to follow my older brother and his friends around. They all took care of me, bringing me treats and teaching me how to fight. One of them would stand behind me, grabbing my wrists and I’d ball up my tiny fists. They’d control my arms in boxing matches with the other kids. Fighting was a normal part of my life. My father always said, “ If someone’s messin’ with you; handle it. You better not go tellin’ the teacher!”

My Father was known for handling business in Cheyenne. His best childhood friend, June, told me about a day when a white kid took a ball away from them on the playground at school. Now, there was no way the black kid was going to tell on a white kid to a white teacher, so he let the boy take the ball. But, that day after school, my dad went to the boy’s house and asked his father if he could come to the door. When he got there, my father pulled him outside and beat his ass, in his own front yard, with his dad there.

He was a hero on the black side of town. I could walk down any street on the west side of town and people would shout my last name at me. “Stinner!” “Stinner!” “Ole’ Lor’ you must be Stinner’s daughter!” According to these folks, I resemble my father so much so that everyone recognized me. June’s wife, Ruby, would stare at me and lovingly say, “I’m trying to find your mom in your face, but the more I look at you the more you look like Stinner.” In junior high, I went home with a friend after school and her mother stared at me and then asked the question I already knew was coming, “Are you Stinner’s daughter?” “Yes, ma’am.”  Most of these encounters would include a story about something crazy, yet heroic that my father had done, and it usually revolved around race.

But his battles didn’t come without scars. He was a severe, abusive, alcoholic/addict, although he never raised his voice or hand at me, that I can remember. The last time I saw him, it was Cheyenne Frontier Days and we spent the whole day at the fair where we rode every ride together. He passed away days later. I was eleven when he died, disheartened at the stolen opportunity to have him in my life. The cause of death reported on the death certificate is walking pneumonia, but most people suspected drug overdose. My father’s drug abuse was no secret, however, his closest friends blame his abuse on his step-mother. The woman his father married shortly after his own mother walked out on both of them.

My paternal grandfather was a gentle, loving soul who was also highly respected in the community. I never knew what he did, but I knew he worked at the Cheyenne Country Club where he was so highly regarded that they named a street after him.  I’d swell with pride, driving on that road, thinking “that’s my name on that sign.” We never knew my father’s mother and I only saw a picture of her one time that I recall. Grandpa Stinner was married to a woman named Iona and they had a child together, Uncle Leigh. Iona frightened me and her dog, an American Eskimo named Pepper was equally as terrifying. Whenever we went to visit, Iona had to lock Pepper in the laundry room, where he would bark and growl at the door the entire visit. Being a very imaginative child, I played out chilling scenes of what would happen if Pepper ever were to escape in my head. And, one day it finally happened, only it was more horrifying than I could have imagined. It unfolded so fast; I remember seeing Pepper running full speed toward my mother, a sheet of white flying past my face as he lunged toward her. She put her arm up to block and he bit down. When all the commotion was over, and Pepper was safely locked in the laundry room again, we assessed the damage. I saw deep holes on the back of my mother’s arm oozing with dark red blood and every shade of bruise was forming around the area. I was dumbfounded. It was winter so my mother was wearing three layers of clothing, including an alpaca sweater. Iona owned several of these dogs, when one would die, she’d get another, all named Pepper and all needing to be locked away from people. It occurred to me when I was much older that she could be abusing these dogs and that’s why they were so vicious. This was the woman who also raised my father. As a child, I begged not to go to her house, especially after my Grandpa Stinner died.

I was not that lucky, though. My brother and I were forced to spend weekends with her. Iona was self-proclaimed “Holy” person and she wanted to make sure that my brother and I were Holy, too. She would lecture us about God and the Bible over a breakfast of sugary cereal and 7UP.  On Sunday morning, best believe we were going to church. She would make me wear frilly dresses with ribbon in my hair and shiny patent leather shoes. Iona always wore an elaborate hat, as many black women do at church, and she carried a big Mary Poppins-like carpet bag with an endless supply of things one might need to keep kids quiet. I would munch on the snacks and watch these Baptists engage in what my young mind could only determine to be insanity. They spoke in tongues and passed out in the aisles, full of the Spirit. EVERYONE played the tambourine and the songs were upbeat hits like, Satan, we’re gonna tear your kingdom down. I found religion shocking and perplexing, always wondering who wrote these books and why should I care? My experience with this woman is crucial to how I developed an understanding for race. Because of her I’m able to identify with this female archtype in Black American culture and the importance of the Church to black communities. The Church building was a focal point of this community. The basement was a night club during the week and the space was often used for black gatherings. I also experienced the toxicity of her parenting and grew to understand how it affected my father. On more than one occasion my mother told us stories of how ruthlessly Iona would beat him when he was a child. He rebelled the only way he knew how, beating up white kids and eventually his wife.

My mother’s father was just as well known in Cheyenne as my father’s. Cleothus Rogers Wise was an extremely well-respected anesthesiologist, living in a house he built on 65 acres of land. He had horses, a red Maserati, a white wife and nearly white passing children. My grandpa was my favorite person in my family, and we had a very close bond. He was also very quiet and inquisitive, and we could spend hours together in silence, puzzling. He was born and raised in Texas, and my great grandma never missed a Cowboys’ game. After high school he moved to France to go to college, because black men were not permitted enroll in secondary education the South at that time. He taught himself French, pursued his degree in medicine and married a young, Swiss model named Barbara.

After receiving his doctorate my grandfather returned to Texas with his new family. My grandparents were forced to hide their marriage and their first child who was born in Switzerland, Marie Scarlett Wise, aka my mother. Whenever they left the house, my grandmother had to hide under a sheet or blanket to prevent my grandfather from being seen with a white woman. Or, she sat in back, as if he were the chauffeur. In the early ‘60s they decided to move north to avoid the possibility of my grandfather being lynched and eventually ended up in Cheyenne, Wyoming. My grandfather became a famous doctor and made millions in the 80s. I’ve had people tell me that they rescheduled their surgery because he was on vacation and they did not trust anyone else to put them under.

I was just as recognized in this white, upper class society as I was in the hood. I can remember walking into a drugstore with my Grandpa Wise and people treated him like royalty, a kind of respect I had never seen white people give a black man. They addressed him as sir and opened doors for us. My maternal grandparents were so well regarded in town, that our family had a standing table at Cheyenne’s famous Hitching Post Inn that read Reserved for Dr. and Mrs. Wise. My grandpa was the most successful person I knew, and I looked up to him. In 5th grade I started learning French to have secret conversations with him.

As a child I moved freely between these worlds, having two identities. I knew without being told that if I ever encountered police, I was a Wise and if I was out in the streets, I was a Stinner. But I only began to understand the distinctions of these two worlds as I grew into an adult because racism is a fickle beast, especially when it has the ability to turn itself in on you. Like a blanket of fresh snow, institutional racism covered my childhood. Each experience its own snowflake, creating layer after layer of racist ideologies that I was taught to believe. I was taught to hate myself for having nappy hair and brown skin and I wanted a white girl name like Jennifer. There was a black girl who was in the color guard and because I played flute in marching band our paths crossed from time to time but we were not friends. One day she was ambushed by a group of band girls who wanted to know how often she washed her hair. She said once and a week and the white girls tore in on her about being dirty. Desperately looking for back-up, she asked me about my hair. But, I knew the white answer and said every day. She stared at me with defeat and sadness in her eyes. Because of institutional racism, I looked down on the same blacks I spent so much time with as a child for not doing more to overcome poverty, without understanding the system that caged them there and my role in it. I was afraid of black men and blamed them for going to jail, believing that if they would stop breaking the law, they’d stop being arrested. Internalized racism caused me to resist everything associated with being black.

I came to Boise in 1997, after my mother moved here with her husband du jour, to go to Boise State. My first year, I took French 102 and became friends with a girl named Janice. She had short, curly, red hair and she was very outspoken in class. On Halloween she wore blackface, with my full support. At this time, I had never heard the term internalized racism but I was becoming much more aware of the dangers of having a black body, despite my attempts to fit into the white box. Our French professor was so impressed with my ability to pick up the language that he asked me to meet with him and the head of the French program, who happened to be his wife. Madame Constant was a very strict, tight lipped professor, who would stare at you emotionlessly through her glasses with serious eyes. She intimidated everyone despite being no more than 5’2” and a 120 lbs. Later we would became good friends and I took several classes from her. They strongly encouraged me to apply for a teaching assistant program in France where I would have the opportunity to teach English to French students. I applied and was posted in a small town about 40 miles away from Paris. Life in France was everything I dreamed of, but it also added a new layer of internalized racism covering my consciousness, while removing others.

Racism in France looks more like nationalism. Hate isn’t based on skin color, as much as nationality. The dynamic is closer to the way Americans hate undocumented workers from Latin America and they share similar struggles.  When I lived in France, some cities had laws and policies that prevented immigrants from buying or renting homes in certain areas, getting certain jobs, and fully participating in French life. On more than one occasion, I was stopped by a Frenchmen, telling me I was getting off on the wrong subway stop, if I happened to be getting off in a wealthy arrondissement. I had never been in a place where people wore their racism on their sleeves and to be honest, it was refreshing. In the States, we pretend that it no longer exists and whenever I’m faced with a difficult situation, I wonder if it would have happened if I were white. It’s exhausting to analyze small moments of every day to rule out racism and France gave me a break from it. There were times when I would walk too close to a woman on the quai in Paris and I would see fear in her eyes as she clutched her purse closer to her body. The first time this happened I was so confused. Why was she scared of me? Growing up the way I did in Wyoming, it was easy for me to forget that I am black and white people will often react to me with fear, hate and violence, if necessary, simply for existing. It was sad and intriguing to watch people’s faces change the moment I spoke. My American accent melted their fear and hate, surprised they’d ask, “Vous êtes américaine ?” Once they knew where I was from, I was immediately accepted into the group, the same way a police officer in Cheyenne would let me go when they realized I was Dr. Wise’s granddaughter. I wasn’t like the Africans, I was American. I ended up falling in lust with one of these Africans from Burkina Faso and got pregnant, leaving him in France when my work visa expired.

When I returned to BSU, I was still wearing this snowy veil of internalized racism like a heavy gauze covering my eyes, whitewashing my perspective. But this veil slowly began to melt as I made more connections on campus. In the early 2000s the MSS and GEC were known as the Cultural Center and the Womens Center and they shared a tiny building on the corner of University which is now a parking garage. I went there between classes, because I didn’t know where else to go and I knew that was a safe place for a young, black, single mom. I met unforgettable women in that space from both centers and shared amazing moments with them. Women who helped me reshape my understanding of gender, race, sexuality, families, addiction, mental health, and most of all, friendship.

There were five of us moms who met through BSU’s single parents club and we became very close friends. We built a support system for each other, when one of us had class, work, or an activity someone else in the group would take care of the kids. We raised our children together while earning our degrees and they also went to BSU’s childcare center together. This group of now young adults still refer to themselves as The Pride.

There were nine children in this group and none of them were white, however, none of them were as starkly dark as my children, especially Aziz. He is so dark it makes white people uncomfortable. Most people are either fascinated or afraid. With nervous laughs, they will make comments such as, “Make sure he uses sunscreen because you don’t want him getting any darker!” He is either a threat or a fetish. One night while getting ready for bed, 3-year-old, Aziz asked me why they were brown and everyone else in their class was pink. I asked him what color I was, and he said brown. I asked what color his father was, and he pondered and said purple. I replied if your parents are brown and purple what color will you be? He said brown, but I could tell it pained them to say this. A year later when I got pregnant with his sister, he begged me to make her pink. Sadly, he would not have his first black friend for another 12 years.

Over the years, while pursuing our degrees and in some cases, having more children, the five of us moms, pushed each other to grow and the more we grew the more involved we became on campus. I served on the Women’s Center and Cultural Center Advisory Boards; the Cultural and Ethnic Diversity Board; mentored non-traditional women, coming back to school after a break; and became president of the Black Student Alliance. I had dinner with Gloria Steinem before I fully understood who she was and why she mattered. As I participated more and more with both centers, I was led to more people who would continue to push me beyond my limited understanding of race and gender, peeling off the layers upon layers of ingrained hate.

I was first introduced to the idea of internalized racism in my African American Literature class taught by Marcy Newman. One the first day of class, she addressed the fact that she was a white woman teaching literature from an ethnic group she had no place in. But, it was work she was committed to because no one else was doing it. She shed light on a new world of black authors who I had never heard of. I met Huey Newton and Angela Davis, slaves whose biographies I never knew existed, civil rights leaders I never heard of, and authors and poets who made me feel proud to be black. Marcy also screened Spike Lee movies at her house where we’d deconstruct the plot and discuss the racist symbolism. It was like seeing Do the Right Thing for the first time. I remember sitting in class feeling angry that my high school education had been so lacking and not by accident. The less we know about our history and accomplishments, the easier it is to oppress us.

Marcy taught me many lessons outside the classroom. She had a service-learning component to the course partnered with the Idaho Black History Museum where I spent hours reading newspaper articles from the late 1800s, learning about the first black people to come to Idaho and why they came and what they had accomplished. Some of the news was disturbing, but it filled a hole that I was unaware I had. I had no history of my people other than they were slaves. This work gave me a new narrative. It taught me that the same way there are a million ways to be white, there are just as many ways to be black. This epiphany freed me from the stereotypes that I was subconsciously confirming to. I could dress any way I pleased, listen to music that was not rap or hip hop, watch any movie, and love whoever I wanted.

Marcy and I worked together with several organizations on campus and often crossed paths in the Cultural Center. At one of these intersections there also happened to be a white male student in the space with a Confederate flag on his jacket. Still viewing my world through my snowy lens of institutional racism, I was unaware that I should be offended and learned another important lesson from Marcy that day. She wasted no time, demanding he leave. He, of course, tried to argue that this was a safe space for everyone, and the symbol represented Southern pride. Institutional racism supports this idea, in the same way it supports the idea that the civil war was about States’ rights. She sliced through his weak attempt, informing him that the presence of that symbol immediately made the space unsafe for the very students the center was created the support. She was one of my first true allies, who did the work and put her body on the line, the same way black bodies are always on the line.

While all of these experiences helped me start to unravel my beliefs about race, it wasn’t until my children’s father, Maroff, arrived from Burkina Faso that I began to understand how deeply ingrained racism was in my own psyche. He came from a world where everyone was black, and racism was discussed theoretically more than as an everyday reality. When I went to visit his family, I did not see a white person for over two weeks and when I did, I pointed, excitedly. My mother-in-law, slowly pushed my arm down and told me not to stare, explaining that white people came there often to steal their culture by learning how to drum and dance. That day I also learned that I and everyone of color stand out like this at home.

Maroff’s early experience with racism came in the form of European colonialism. While under French rule, Burkina Faso was known as Upper Volta, only gaining independence in 1960. As a child growing up in the Ivory Coast, he also faced discrimination because he was Burkinabe. Burkina Faso sits at the bottom of the Sahara Desert, making the northern region of the country, nearly unlivable. For this reason, many people migrate south to the Ivory Coast to work on dangerous cocoa bean and fruit plantations, similar to the northern migration of our southern neighbors.

Shortly after he arrived in Boise, Maroff began experiencing a type of racism unlike anything in France or back home. Starting with a visit to a doctor, who was also a friend of the family and she only half-jokingly suggested he change his name to something easier for Americans to pronounce. There is no way to describe the rage he had during that moment. He constantly pointed out these microaggressions that happened everyday, opening my eyes to institutional racism and the role I played in it. He often said that being here was like living in an inverse world.

The first year he lived here, we started plans for having a second child and attended Boise State together. He enrolled in a French elective on African Literature, taught by a white man who learned French on his mission. There was a day when the subject of colonialism came up, and another student stated that “colonialism was the best thing that ever happened to Africa.” The teacher nodded and continued with the lecture. Maroff sat there, speechless that a group of white people who had never been to Africa could make such a bold, blatantly racist statement without any recourse from the teacher. Being from Africa and living with the scars of colonialism, Maroff could not let it go. He interrupted the class and asked the student to explain exactly what he meant. The situation quickly escalated, and the teacher called campus police. The 4th floor of the Education Building was evacuated and Maroff was arrested and suspended from the University. White students in the class could not understand why he was so angry and why he could not have a rational discussion about it, missing the fact that racism is irrational. We met with the head of the Modern Languages Department, who actually took our side and she promised to implement diversity training, but that was not soon enough for him and that was the last semester he would attend. This begs the question of how many others have given up and left.

That summer while pursuing my degree I gave birth to our daughter, who much to her brother’s dismay, was not pink, however, she is not as dark as he is. Studying French from such a young age nurtured my interest in language acquisition and I was attracted to the Bilingual/ELL Department. It’s safe to say that this degree was structured to help us reconstruct our beliefs about race, gender, ability and oppression. It would better renamed Critical Pedagogy. I was required to take Multi-Ethnic Studies, Linguistics, and Spanish; all of which shined the sun on my own hateful beliefs. Like shoveling snow in Wyoming, I had to dig through years of reinforced racism. Still, it was the education classes that turned the heater on full blast, melting the snow of internalized racism and sexism, turning them into tears and helping me reform new ideas.

Most of my education classes were taught by Roberto Bahruth and we had a special bond. My father’s name was Robert and in a lot of ways, he became a father figure. I spent time at his house with his wife and children. He let me use his office as my mother’s room for times when I had no option but to bring my new baby with me to campus. He taught a class about strategies for teaching Language Arts, which was responsible for several students’ divorces, including my own. He designed his curricula with his students in mind, knowing we were mostly women of color and more specifically Latinas. The content was focused on strong female characters who murdered their abusers or left their families entirely in order to put themselves first. He broke through chains of oppression that we were unaware had us bound. I would follow him to his office after class, because I wanted to continue the conversations-hungry to learn more. He gave me books by bell hooks, Paolo Friere, Noam Chomsky, Henry Giroux, Donaldo Macedo, Gloria Anzaldúa, Peter McLaren and so many more. Every summer the department would invite professors from other universities to BSU for intensive programs and I was fortunate enough to spend time with some of these great minds.

Nearing graduation I was excited to start student teaching and using all of the theories and strategies I had studied. I was assigned to student teach in Kuna and quickly learned that I could not be the kind of educator I wanted to be. My 6th grade class was almost half Latino. I decided to celebrate Dia de los Muertos with these students and the Latino kindergarteners. We worked on projects outside of classroom time and the students had a binder full of ideas and activities. These kids were so excited to be seen, heard and celebrated, that they gave up their free time to work on this project. However, the principal squashed our plans because a white parent wrote a letter protesting the holiday. It was a slap in the face and a depressing reminder that we do not matter in a white world. I was excused from my post and completely defeated. When this happened, I called Roberto but he was out of town. His wonderful wife, Guisela, heard the tears in my voice and asked if I needed to come over for a hug. I completely gave up on myself, but my advisor, Arturo, did not. He called me into his office, and he looked at me and said, “This isn’t about you. This is about your children and your family. Your kids need to see you walk across that stage.” I was reassigned to a middle school in Caldwell where I stayed in my lane, stuck to the prescribed curriculum and met the requirements to graduate. It helped that I was also working with alumni from my department.

I graduated from Boise State the same year that Obama became president, with my degree. I was a changed woman, however, while I was able to dismantle many of my own racist beliefs, it did not change the world around me. The only difference was my perception. I pick up on microaggressions and passive racism that seemed normal to me before. I call people out on their racism, when it is safe enough to do so. And, I often remind people that I am most likely the only black person they will speak to today, this week, this month. I remind them that every time a young black person is shot by police, I see my children on the ground. I remind them that they will never know the stress and trauma of having a black body in a white world.