Post Colonial Perspectives, Young, Intro.
The Introduction Montage was a really interesting read for me" particularly because it challenged me in the beginning. "It has been said that there are two kinds of white people: those who have never found themselves in a situation where the majority of people around them are not white, and those who have been the only white person in the room (pg 1)." Unfortunately, I am the former, not the latter, white person. I'm ashamed to say that but that's always been my case circumstantially. It's not a deliberate thing, in other words, it's just always turned out that way.
The second paragraph though, did not address white people, or me, because white people are the predominant power in this country and have been for centuries. However, I read these questions: “Do you feel that your own people and country are somehow always positioned outside the mainstream? Have you ever felt that the moment you said the word ‘I’, that ‘I’ was someone else, not you?… Do you feel that whenever you speak, you have already in some sense been spoken for? Or that when you hear others speaking, that you are only ever going to be the object of their speech? Do you sense that those speaking would never think of trying to find out how things seem to you, from where you are? That you live in a world of others, a world that exists for others? (Pg. 1)” I know that these questions do not directly relate to a white person because white people have been sitting fat and content in the driver’s seat of this country. The fact that white people have alienated other people and forced them out of the mainstream of society is not excusable. The fact that white people force other people to speak for their people and culture as a whole, and not as individual people, is a crime. The fact that white people, in general, do not make the effort to understand where the minorities are coming from and pay respect to their backgrounds, is not okay. I recognize these flaws, and as a white-person, fairly liberal, and having been brought up with a profound respect for humanity as a whole, I’m ashamed of people of my color in the past, and certain individuals in this day and age who cannot seem to get along with people of another color only for that reason. I’ve been raised to see people as people, and to be very individualized.
I also feel ostracized in a way. It’s not my fault I’m white. It’s not my fault that people of my skin color oppressed thousands of others of a different color in the past, and even today. I have experienced a smidgeon of what others have gone through, and I recognize that others have gone through so much worse that I can‘t even hope to compare. Through my experience, however, I can feel completely friendly towards people of any different heritage, but I can’t approach them as a group because I’m white and they’re not, and don’t particularly welcome those who are; possibly because of the history of their people and mine, or maybe out of a collection of personal experiences. I understand, of course; historically, and through a personal basis, it‘s not like my people did a lot to make friends of a variety of creeds… who knows? Maybe that‘s the way certain groups of people behave in Humboldt County, or maybe it‘s a world-wide change. I don’t know. But I feel responsible for the way things have come about, for why people feel as though they have to band together, and to be made to feel responsible for things I would never do, and have never done, and cannot change; and having to pay the penalty for it by exclusion puts me exactly where different people have been for centuries… just through a few sentences from the introduction. The effect is Masterful because I can relate through the backdoor, once again, not mainstream. The way that has been done puts me in the place of the inexperienced minority, and increases my ability to relate. Brilliant.