Page 319 - Mike Ratner CC - WISR Complete Dissertation - v6

“I never heard those stories. For several years, my husband had an African American nurse

in his office. She was wonderful and she would tell him things [that were happening in the

African American part of town]. He would come home and say, ‘Did you know this was

going on?’ He was learning from her, it is almost like we needed mentors to help us see

these things.” (P15FW)

“First of all it takes very good communication, to understand somebody else’s perspective,

or you don’t even know their perspective exists. I just think that maybe there is still some

hard feelings put away, harbored somewhere. I don’t think that really comes down to the

color of skin, I think that comes down to one person knows right from wrong and another

person doesn’t and because the other person doesn’t know right from wrong, he offends

everybody else, or maybe there are some unspoken rules of a certain group of people that

you don’t belong to and you don’t know those rules.” (P16MW)

“When she responded to him, I noticed he colored up. I definitely knew he was getting his

answer, just not the way he expected it. He went away, I am quite sure, with a few new

thoughts in his own mind. But, this is what I am saying… the actual white person does not

know from where we stand, or what we think. They have their own thoughts about us.”

(P13FAA)

“I think [hearing her story and her experiences] that that kind of a shifted him a little bit. I

know that he felt really horrible about some of the things that Jane experienced.” (P12FW)

“I think that it [the dialogue] was great and if it touched the life of one person you have

created change, have you not?” (P03FTRM)

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