Homeowner’s racial call-out offends family

DEAR AMY >> Am I racist?

A couple of teenagers were at my front door, and I shouted to my husband: “Hey, there are some

Black kids at the door, and I don’t have time to deal with them.”

Kids at the door in my neighborhood are usually selling something or are looking for yard work.

My biracial future daughter-in-law was present when I did this and took offense. Apparently, behind my back, she and my stepson discussed how “un-woke” I am.

Anyway, I love these two so much that as soon as I learned she had been offended, I immediately sent a note of apology to her.

I am in my 60s and was raised in the South.

My grandfather referred to all Black people using the N word.

However, I was active in civil rights during my youth.

I was the first white student at my high school who insisted to be put on bathroom cleaning duty just like the students of color had to. (The white students got to work in the office.)

As a reporter for a newspaper in the South, I had a gun pulled on me as I was covering a boycott of white businesses.

But these kids have never bothered to ask.

I meant no harm referring to these teens as “Black kids.”

I don’t enjoy receiving a lecture on being “woke” from two suburban Midwesterners, one of whom has traveled the world working with the disadvantaged.

I know their hearts are in the right place, but what about giving someone the benefit of a doubt, before inferring they are racist?

— Woke Enough

DEAR ENOUGH >> Do you identify white people who come to your front door using their race as the primary descriptive? I assume not.

So yes, you doing so only with Black people is a racist way to communicate.

You seem to believe that because you aren’t as racist as you were raised to be (and have demonstrated some admirable moments of not being racist), this means that you have conquered racism.

This is an extremely flimsy defense.

You also believe that this young couple should not throw down the race card because you have faced a variety of racial issues over time.

But if all your previous experiences (including reporting for a newspaper) didn’t teach you that all human beings need to continue to learn, grow, and change, then what was the point of having these experiences?

If you have apologized without understanding what you are apologizing for, then your apology doesn’t mean much.

The word “woke” is being bandied about a lot lately and applied in many different contexts, but I take being woke as the ultimate goal of the lifelong process of awakening to the human experience, as it is lived by others.

So, wake up, already!