Stories of Racism: Let's have a discussion

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Kimawolf

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I have been browsing some of the recent threads on things like the Zimmerman verdict, the juror's "reasoning" and Questlove's face book postings and I think it's time we have a thread for people to post their own personal stories of racism in and also try to explain how those being discriminated against feel. I won't limit this to black people, because Hispanic and Arabic people go through it too.

So I will begin with a fairly recent event which happened on Monday actually. I am trying to lose a bit of weight and I'm trying to get healthy, so a friend of mine suggests "why not begin running?" Well I think that's a great idea, I can go for a run on my lunch break since I have an hour and 15 for lunch and since my job has a shower, and we have people running out here all the time in this area after work and during lunch.

Let me preface it with I am a black guy, I do have my hair braided and the area I work in is actually a pretty good area of Kansas (Johnson County for anyone in MO/KS). So I begin to run (more like jog lol), and about 10 minutes into it I see a police officer pull up beside me. Now being black, I know immediately this could go bad, the honest truth is black people never like being pulled over or stopped by police, especially black males. We're told at a young age avoid the cops at all costs, and whatever you do NEVER make any strange movements, announce your movements before you do them, etc.

So he flashes his lights, and I stop running and of course keep my hands far enough from my pockets so he has no ideas. He gets out the car and asks me "if everything is alright". I say yeah, why wouldn't it be? Now I know deep down what's going on, but I play along.

He then says "Well we got a call of some suspicious activity in this area." and he's lookin dead at me. I say "oh, really? Anything I should be concerned about officer?" he then proceeds to ask me for my ID. NOW in another world I would be all hell no, screw you etc, but this is reality, and I don't want to get shot or thrown in jail in Kansas so I give it to him, he then tells me he will handcuff me just for both our safey. And he does. he runs it and then comes out his car 15 minutes later and uncuffs me "sorry for the inconvience but we just want everyone safe."

Now it's obvious, someone saw a black guy jogging, got scared and called the police. It's a sad thing, but it's definitely a thing, especially when none of the white people who were jogging were stopped.

Just wanted to share that story first.
 
Kimawolf said:
he then proceeds to ask me for my ID.

Just wanted to share that story first.
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I wondered what would have happened if you didn't have your ID on you. That sucks, I'm sorry that you have to deal with that sort of thing.

I got pulled over by the police a few days ago. The officer pointed out that I have an expired inspection sticker (it's July and it should have been inspected in April). He asked for my registration. I looked for it and only found the registration renewal but not the actual doc. I gave him that and he said it was a renewal. I looked for it and said that's all I have.

He comes back 2 minutes later and tells me that I have to go to the RMV website and get a duplicate registration. He also told me to get the car inspected soon and sends me on my way.

So I got lucky. It probably helped that I had my daughter in the back seat of the car.
 
As a black man who grew up in Bedstuy, I have to say I've been one of the lucky ones. Of my knowledge, I've never been discriminated against or experienced any overt racism outside of Xboxlive. It really is quite odd. I read that Questlove post and then the replies by other black men who have had that same experience or experienced something similar themselves and I've found myself unable to relate. That's why I feel such a detachment from the Trayvon Martin case and look at it from a purely logical point of view devoid of any real emotion.

I've been pulled over by a cop twice but they were both extremely pleasant. Never been stopped in the street, questioned or anything. My only real run-in with cops were my fault. Twice I crossed between train cars and received tickets and there was another incident where my Australian friend came through the turnstile with me not realizing what she was doing. That's… kind of it. I haven't even had issues I've experienced through family members that were considered racially motivated. They fucked up, broke the law, and paid for it. Because I have such a detachment from all of this, I find my views on it very different than that of others. I've profiled my own race countless times because of how they appeared in the street. Growing up, I was robbed and almost slashed twice by the same fucker. Mom had a gun pulled on her in an elevator once and walked into the house terrified. I often look down on people in my neighborhood because of such things. It's something I simply can't help. My reaction to this case has been extremely eye-opening. Whenever someone brings it up I always change the subject because I know what they're expecting of me and I know I won't give it to them. They expect to relate to me and be angry WITH me on my behalf but I'm not angry at all.

I find it all very interesting.
 
It's anecdotal at best but when I bleach my hair I tend not to get pulled over so much or "randomly" selected for pat downs at the Airport.
 
Kimawolf said:
They can cuff you for "your safety and theirs" and they tell you "you're not under arrest, this is just for our protection." trust me, if i'd resisted i'd been beat or shot
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Ridiculous on their part, and potentially humiliating on yours. It was on your lunch break, so it's not a stretch to think that your coworkers could have driven by, seen you handcuffed, and, well, we know how fast rumors in office-type settings fly (assuming you're in an office, as you said it has a shower).
 
Couldn't say I've been a victim of racism myself.

Just posting because reading the thread reminded me of soemthing that happened a few years back. I'd just seen V for Vendetta with a friend of mine, we were talking about it over a couple of drinks. We got talking about the whole "Britain in a Fascist Regime" thing and he said to me "well they banned Islam, so it has it's advantages". I thought he was joking so I pressed him for more, asking "so if every Muslim in Britain was deported and Islam was banned forever, you wouldn't mind?" "I wouldn't shed a tear" was his response.

I didn't really have an argument for him. The best I could do was "but surely so many doctors and entrepreneurs and talented artists would be lost."

He agreed, but he said it would be worth the short term loss.

What shocked me about that was that he's an intelligent guy, who studied at Warrick University. He's still one of my best friends and I still respect him but some of the things he says wow me occasionally.
 
I once got called a "fuckin' cracka" by a black guy on the phone when I worked at EB Games. This was after I told him the trade-in value for his copy of Southpark for N64 would be way less since he didn't have the box.

I thought it was funny and I kind of understood where he was coming from.

Another time I was working at a music store and this teenage black kid comes in with a Nelly CD that he had bought a few days prior and he wanted a full refund. The CD and the case were all smashed to shit. My manager told him no and a couple of hours later his mom came in and accused the manager and I of being racist and that she owned her own hair salon.
 
I don't deal with racism much, but I'm jewish so when it does occur it's always pretty awkward cause I look/am more or less white. For example, in college some guy I was talking to at a bar told me how much he hates jews, then to make him feel dumb I told him I was jewish. He tried to act like he was joking, it was pretty sad to watch.

Besides that, my friends crack jokes at me which is usually okay but it definitely gets old sometimes. Especially when I do something financially responsible and they get all over me for being "stingy". I can honestly say I'm better about lending/paying my friends back than almost any of them...maybe to overcompensate for that particular stigma, I don't know.
 
Being white male i have not much to add. Only one time in a bakery in Normandy the woman refused to sell us bread because we were German.

Story like in OP sounds scary. Must be humiliating. I have been randomly stopped by police several times tho and searched for drugs. And on one occasion i have been handcuffed and arrested just for being a football fan waiting for the train. Obviously that wasn't for racist reasons but certainly a social stigma played a role.
 
I'm Asian (in the British sense of the word). See pic left.

Generally, I've had an OK time with racism. Growing up in the 70s as the only brown family in the local school, there were a few comments from some of the classmates, but nothing persistent.

I have been called a "coconut" once or twice which was strange, but I think the most interesting one is when I managed to get on the old 360 version of "1 vs 100" as a contestant. I did OK, but ended the game and had about 100 messages on there, of which 90% were "Nigger" and "Paki" and other colourful variations of such expressions. Very strange that someone would even think to do that. I imagine they were trying to put me off with message notifications popping up, but I've got them switched off anyway.
 
yukonrye said:
I once got called a "fuckin' cracka" by a black guy on the phone when I worked at EB Games. This was after I told him the trade-in value for his copy of Southpark for N64 would be way less since he didn't have the box.

I thought it was funny and I kind of understood where he was coming from.

Another time I was working at a music store and this teenage black kid comes in with a Nelly CD that he had bought a few days prior and he wanted a full refund. The CD and the case were all smashed to shit. My manager told him no and a couple of hours later his mom came in and accused the manager and I of being racist and that she owned her own hair salon.
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lol, this got me for some reason
 
I remember some old white dude at a gas station approached me to ask a question and then immediately threw his hands in my face saying "pffft, you don't even speak english". I am the whitest hispanic you will ever meet so I stood there in shock and then proceeded to help him with the gas pump. His wife was standing there shaking her head like "Bob, you're a fucking idiot" hahaha
 
I went out with some friends once and we wanted to go to a club and they wouldn't let us in because we were "to many foreigners".

Happend in munich.
 
pardon any grammar issues as I'm using voice recognition to type at the moment.

I grew up as a teenager and young adult in the 90s in Brooklyn New York. Now I'm personally not black but also obviously not white. on Middle Eastern and European but in the past have been mistaken for Hispanic.

At around the age of 17 and 18 me in a close friend of mine who happened to be black used to play a bit of a game to test various people places and situations and how much race played a factor in a particular scenario.

I remember multiple occasions where we would go in and apply for jobs separately (10 minutes in between us). Sadly there were far too many times where I would go in and the place would take my information to potentially call me back. whereas my friend who was black who may have been equally or more qualified in some situations would be simply told they're not hiring.

it was a pretty messed up situation, but it was eye-opening to get and indirect first-hand perspective. There were also multiple situations involving police while we were together where it was pretty clear that he was being singled out because he was black.

as I got older I had a fair amount of white friends who used to argue regarding the so-called race card. They would try to downplay it, etc. used to get into discussions with them to try to give them some additional insight because most of them never really seen pure racism in action up close and personal.

I now live in New Hampshire and have definitely felt out of place on many occasions due to race and my appearance. it's one of those things that's kind of hard to fully comprehend in the hypothetical sense.
 
I've never had any real troubles but had two within a span of a month just last May/June where in once instance the guy gave me a barrage of insults, threatened to kill me and in the other I was almost spat on. In both instances I was told to fuck off to my own country. That hurt :(.
 
Going to a Catholic high school that's predominately white I have some stories. When I replay the incidents in my head, they seem pretty minor but still manage piss me off a little even to this day. It's probably because people I considered friends were involved.

1.21Gigawatts said:
I went out with some friends once and we wanted to go to a club and they wouldn't let us in because we were "to many foreigners".

Happend in munich.
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When I was on vacation in Dubai, me and friend tried to get into a beach bar. We were denied entry because it's "couples only". Meanwhile two white guys walk in and security doesn't so much as glance at them. I wasn't really phased though because I expect that kind of behavior.
 
I got stomped out and called cracka the whole time. Hat and shoes stolen on seperate beatings while called cracka/ whitey/ whiteboy etc..
Had to walk home the long way because "This ain't cow town motherfucker" was announced to me..

And being token whiteboy meant I was never really "safe". One minute lets all play football, next minute get choked out.
Basically I was "cool" till it was fun to beat me up.

This got a bit worse when I hit teen years since I halted my hip hop style at Beasties/B-Boy. White guys in town who went full on DMX with wave caps and such were safe.
Beatings weren't just cracka beatings but cracka ass skater or cracka ass rock and roll beatings.

Good times!
 
I'm black and live in the US. I've never really experienced any overt racism, which is actually kind of remarkable when you think about it. Though when I was in high school, I would occasionally get "you're not really black" from mostly (though not exclusively) non-black people who had a very narrow view of what blackness entails. It didn't really bother me at the time, but it infuriates me when I think about it now.
 
Kimawolf said:
Let me preface it with I am a black guy, I do have my hair braided and the area I work in is actually a pretty good area of Kansas (Johnson County for anyone in MO/KS).
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It is most unfortunate that you experienced that. I live in JOCO and have never had the cops called on me but I am well aware of how certain people react to me. I do have this fear that whenever I go for a run or take my dog out for walks that something like that would happen. ESPECIALLY, since I take the dog for a 30 minute walk at night before bed. I am on high alert.
 
Tashbrooke said:
lol, this got me for some reason
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Yeah we we're a bit befuddled when she said it.

Another time this black teen comes into our store and grabs this new Three Six Mafia CD and comes to the counter saying that he had been in our store earlier and bought it but had accidentally walked out without it. He then said he called and spoke with someone who said he could come by and get it. The problem was that the album he grabbed wasn't even out yet. We usually kept pre-street date albums hidden behind the counter and a new employee who didn't know any better had just put them out on a endcap about 10 minutes before the kid walked in. So I was giddy that I had him caught in a lie. I asked him several times if he was sure that was the exact CD he had bought earlier and he insisted it was. We refused him.

A few hours later him and his mom come back into the store and she starts raising hell about us being racists and what not (she may have been the one who said something about the hair salon now that I think about it).

It drives me nuts that some punk ass kid would play his mom like that and that she now has another racist anecdote to pass on to her friends.


.....one other story,
The first manager at this store was a big black guy. One time I put on the NOFX song "Kill all the White Man" and went to the back to do something. He burst through the door yelling "Man, why the hell did you leave me out there with that song!". I didn't do it intentionally, I just liked NOFX.
 
When I worked for Apple I had a customer come to the genius bar to get her machine. I was usually in the back doing the repairs, so I was not in front much. I was the only black guy in the entire place.

I called this customer and let her know her machine was ready, when she comes she asks for the gentleman who fixed her machine. I was called out and greeted her. She said she spoke to Kevin, I told her I was Kevin. She asks if there was another person named Kevin who worked there. I informed her I was the only one there. She remarked I sounded so polite on the phone. She proceeded to say "I didn't think you kind of people worked on computers"

My coworker looked more stunned than I did when she heard it. After the woman left, my coworker apologized profusely for her, like she had to apologize on behalf of white people everywhere in Georgia. It was kind of amusing, I just shook my head and went back to work.

So many more to share, but that one sticks out the most to me, mainly because how insane it was.
 
Walking through the mall with my wife. Approaching a narrow pathway filled by about 20 to 30 white guys. I mumble to my wife that potential trouble is ahead. It's rare to see a non-mixed group of people, especially that big without there being a racial reason behind it.

I hear someone mumble "nigger" as we get closer. As we pass the crowd someone within the middle says "once you go black you never go back huh?" to my wife. I stopped and turned around. That same voice from somewhere within the crowd is yelling at me to step up to him and fight. I didn't know what else to do but laugh and walk away.

I've also had several incidents with cops. Never been arrested or even in a position to be arrested.
 
dcdobson said:
I'm black and live in the US. I've never really experienced any overt racism, which is actually kind of remarkable when you think about it. Though when I was in high school, I would occasionally get "you're not really black" from mostly (though not exclusively) non-black people who had a very narrow view of what blackness entails. It didn't really bother me at the time, but it infuriates me when I think about it now.
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That sounds like a pretty clear expression of racism. A way to give what appears as a compliment and make a snide remark about a race at the same time.
 
dcdobson said:
I'm black and live in the US. I've never really experienced any overt racism, which is actually kind of remarkable when you think about it. Though when I was in high school, I would occasionally get "you're not really black" from mostly (though not exclusively) non-black people who had a very narrow view of what blackness entails. It didn't really bother me at the time, but it infuriates me when I think about it now.
Click to expand...

Yeah i remember this when I was in High School in Georgia. I would get the "You're not really black" thing from both black people and non-black people. I moved to Florida in my junior year and never got any comments like that so since then I have viewed GA as a pretty backwards place. Other than that, I grew up on military bases mainly and everyone was chilled with everyone.
 
I was stopped and frisked by a cop in my own driveway for getting into my own car at night. That was demeaning. I was also followed around in a supermarket by one of the guards there. He stopped after a couple of minutes but once he saw me going up to the register, he walked straight to the exit and waited for me to pass through. Both of them were old white guys too.
 
I was walking around in a city with friends that, finding out after my experience, is known to be a racist one (apparently, they have Klu Klux Klan descendants there as well). My friends are all white, and I am black. All we were doing was going down to get some pizza at the local pizzeria. As we're walking, I get a bunch of stares from the people walking opposite of me up the street. Now, I am used to this kind of stuff, as it happens to me quite often, so I shrug it off. Usually, nothing bigger than a few stares ever happens. Anyway, as we were walking down, we passed by some police cars, parked on the side of a doughnut shop. They stared me down too. Nothing new. As we pass them, I hear one of them speaking into their radio, talking about a "teenager performing suspicious activities." They then come towards me and my friends and just circle around me. I usually am indifferent to situations like this, and I figured they were just racists, so, again, I just disregarded them and walked around them. Because local civilians were witnessing this, when I evaded them, they began to steer clear from my path, treating me like some sort of terrorist or something, even with my friends there. They were even getting stares, as if they were saying "what are you doing? The policemen followed me (keeping distance) until I left. Couldn't even eat my pizza in peace.

Never went there since.

Long story short: Racism can go suck a nut.
 
Nothing serious as a black boy in the south (Georgia). I'm super introverted and pretty good at keeping myself in the right places though. So all I got is a denial of service at a small hardware shop I normally would've avoided (small, white town mom and pop shops are a no no for me), a few cases of driving while black, and a bunch of random insensitive shit from the masses of non-black people i tend to find myself hanging around.

I did experience something super weird in Everquest though. This was back when it first came out. I was a Euridite Paladin which was super rare. One day there was this guy who just couldn't believe that such a combination existed. He kept calling me a negro warrior. I didn't really respond because in combination with some of the other weird shit he was doing I assumed he was crazy. But the more he said it, the more it irritated other people (along with the trains and other weird shit he was doing). Pretty soon the other people around started confronting him, trying to get him killed with trains, and someone even contacted the GMs about him. I didn't do nothin the whole time. The dude's insanity was pretty amusing.
 
Omegasquash said:
That sounds like a pretty clear expression of racism. A way to give what appears as a compliment and make a snide remark about a race at the same time.
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Yeah, it didn't strike me as racist at the time, and I don't think it was intended to be racist, but it was clearly racist in retrospect.
 
I've sadly dealt with it, everything from racist comments in school, to people crossing the street to tell me to "be with my own kind" when walking with a girl of a different race to mine, to a disproportionate number of stop and searches for drugs when i lived in London. The police searches usually happened when i was on my way back from work, wearing a suit.
 
I used to get pretty upset by people locking their car doors as I walked by. Im talkin broad daylight, vehicle running, about to pull out of a parking lot, I walk past and them car doors lock the fuck up. Im 6'0 150 lbs, no ink or piercings, well groomed, clean shaven, so I took offense to that, would think "I dont even look like a threat, you fucking coward"
 
The first time I played Gear of War online was pretty memorable experience.

My team was a bunch of racist joke telling white guys, that used the "N word" repeatedly. One of them even stated, "I want to play with Cole, because when I die I won't feel bad".

All this time I had my mic silent, as I usually do. But I could not take it anymore more and un-muted, replying "I black assholes". They immediately started shooting and eventually killing me (I didn't even know friendly fire was turned on).

So I respawn and take action, killing two of my "enemy team members" and a couple of the opposing team for good measure. After my little kill steak I quit, because I personally could not let them get any type of revenge.

I have plenty of more seriously hurtful experiences, but I wanted to keep it light...
 
Too add to my "lets beat up the cracka" post, I will say going from a 90% minority school to a 90% white school in 8th grade was a culture shock!

At the white school I was now labeled "bad" "trashy" but some found it cool...but the black guys who came to the school...holy..fuck..god status! Everyone wanted to be thier friends, girls went head over heels for them and it was almost a badge of honor to be friend's with the "black kid"

Poor white kid, can't win lol. Beat to shit for being white in a minority school, ostracized at the white school for being "white trash" "potential criminal"..
 
One time I on my way from the bodega, two under covers jumped out on me. They patted me down, talking shit to me about how I would be in big trouble if they found any drugs or weapons on, of course I had none. After they get through patting down my legs and doing that little knife hand chop to my crotch area they say something about me looking like a suspect in a case. Even though when they were patting me down they were talking shit like it was a random stop. So as they are getting ready to let me go I ask them if they have a fetish that involves stopping black males and feeling them up. One guy decks me and then tells me I'm lucky he didn't book me. All I got from that is that they obviously like feeling up black males.
 
People keep making Fosters jokes and offering shrimp to me because I'm Australian. It's sickening, Fosters is shit and I'm allergic to shrimp.
 
I'm Chinese-American, growing up in Texas I didn't experience much serious racism except for a short period when my family lived in a meh neighborhood in Kingwood. Along with the usual bs of neighborhood kids making slanty eyes at me in school, asshole neighbors telling my parents to go back to China where we belong and laughing at my parent's poor english, our house got egged a few times, got a few windows broken with rocks, the car got keyed, and most strange was that some one kept on putting these huge grapefruit-sized rocks inside our mailbox to block it.. not sure what that meant but it was kinda creepy and annoying. We moved out about a year later.
 
Systemwarrior said:
The first time I played Gear of War online was pretty memorable experience.

My team was a bunch of racist joke telling white guys, that used the "N word" repeatedly. One of them even stated, "I want to play with Cole, because when I die I won't feel bad".

All this time I had my mic silent, as I usually do. But I could not take it anymore more and un-muted, replying "I black assholes". They immediately started shooting and eventually killing me (I didn't even know friendly fire was turned on).

So I respawn and take action, killing two of my "enemy team members" and a couple of the opposing team for good measure. After my little kill steak I quit, because I personally could not let them get any type of revenge.

I have plenty of more seriously hurtful experiences, but I wanted to keep it light...
Click to expand...

lmao, wowwww
 
dapperbandit said:
Couldn't say I've been a victim of racism myself.

Just posting because reading the thread reminded me of soemthing that happened a few years back. I'd just seen V for Vendetta with a friend of mine, we were talking about it over a couple of drinks. We got talking about the whole "Britain in a Fascist Regime" thing and he said to me "well they banned Islam, so it has it's advantages". I thought he was joking so I pressed him for more, asking "so if every Muslim in Britain was deported and Islam was banned forever, you wouldn't mind?" "I wouldn't shed a tear" was his response.

I didn't really have an argument for him. The best I could do was "but surely so many doctors and entrepreneurs and talented artists would be lost."

He agreed, but he said it would be worth the short term loss.

What shocked me about that was that he's an intelligent guy, who studied at Warrick University. He's still one of my best friends and I still respect him but some of the things he says wow me occasionally.
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The things that people say in the comfort and security of friends and family reveals their true attitudes as a person.

Unfortunately, I'm starting to think that a lot more people are a lot more racist and bigoted then we would be comfortable in thinking.

I think that a significant proportion of the last 50 years of progress - largely comes down to people been able to hide their true attitudes better.

... I'm to the point where I think the only thing that can be done to push progress forward is to challenge those attitudes roundly whenever you encounter them - irrespective of who is expressing it.

But... some of the arguments can get quite complex. Not everyone is equipped to make pointed remarks against racism and biggotry. Difficult problem. It's why it persists despite the best efforts of millions all over.
 
captive said:
this wouldn't work considering you wouldn't be able to go anywhere. Racism can be found anywhere. I've seen confederate flags in upstate new york.

i'm finding these stories interesting and some of them pretty disgusting. As one of the stories says his white friend apologized for someone elses behavior.. i find myself wanting to do the same. I wasn't brought up that way and find the behavior repulsive.
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Maybe we should then have stories of racial tolerance and harmony with specific locations, directed at racists, and they will feel less inclined to go there.
 
Eh, dunno if it's welcome but...

Try being white in a gentrifying neighborhood. It's not the same sort of racism, clearly, nor is it anywhere near as bad as what OP posted, for example. When I go to community meetings and give comments on the floor I am sworn at and racially castigated. I've heard plenty of grumbling on the streets although not much outright confrontation. Just a few "you people should get out of this neighborhood" sort of thing. It's amazing how much racial tension gentrification brings out in a neighborhood.

In terms of the other sort of racism, my wife gets a lot of race-based and sexual harassment from people on the street for being asian. Luckily (or not) it's never done in my presence.
 
dcdobson said:
I'm black and live in the US. I've never really experienced any overt racism, which is actually kind of remarkable when you think about it. Though when I was in high school, I would occasionally get "you're not really black" from mostly (though not exclusively) non-black people who had a very narrow view of what blackness entails. It didn't really bother me at the time, but it infuriates me when I think about it now.
Click to expand...
Class is a huge thing that our culture doesn't like to talk to people about. While I don't get nervous around people because of their race, I absolutely will react to what they're projecting about their class/social status. (i.e., I'll lock my car door/roll up windows when the panhandlers are walking towards me in my area, regardless of race.)

I grew up in Fairfax, VA, which is majority white/asian, and you could see the awkward schism you describe as I got into MS/HS. You'd either have people integrating into subgroups (black/latin jocks hanging out with other players, minority band members/anime fans hanging out with those groups, etc.) But you'd then still have the blocs of all-black or all-latino groups sitting together at the lunch table, and you could see some of the "class" undercurrents at work in how they approached things/sorted themselves out. The social trade-offs kinda made themselves clear in retrospect- these were things that as a white guy, I didn't really have to deal with. I just got to pick a tribe, rather than having to choose between the one I was "born" with or the one I decided to choose myself.

Having to "pick" like that sucks. In doing a study of gay and lesbian % rates, they stumbled upon an interesting discovery. The poorer and more non-white you got, the more the reported gay % went up. You could see the power of "status" at work, as it showed that as people had more and more to lose, the "price" of honesty went up and up. It feels sort of like a similar social pressure issue here, where there's a tremendous social cost to integration due to culture, in a way that doesn't quite exist elsewhere, (possibly due to the social legacy of Slavery?), and that creates tremendous problems for kids given all sorts of mixed messages.
 
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