my oh my
One of the biggest effects of the little bubble of diversity I experienced growing up is that I have this strange inability to deal with racism as well as I should. Then again, even if I had grown up in a major metropolitan area that was charged with racism, I might still be this way. If I could say this deficiency hadn't ruined some friendships, then I'd feel a bit better about it. How do you describe that powerlessness to someone who hasn't felt it before? I have some insanely liberal friends, and I live in Austin, but I realize this is Texas, and this is UT. So what to do...
Not take any shit like my dad tried to teach me to do? I'm tired of going through the explanation of the manipulations of evolutionary theory, and the justification required for colonialism. I'm tired of explaining the history of African civilizations, and the existence of actual social structures. I'm tired of explaining people centuries and continents removed from me. I'm tired of having to defend being proud of what I am. It's funny that I'm proud of what I come from? Why do you find that hilarious? Gah...it's so frustratingly inadequate to describe what affect racism has on me in words. It's as if you're attacking something I can't defend but want to so desperately. You're attacking not only an identity that I have no control over, but the people who have protected and nurtured me from birth. You're telling me that you have no respect for the cousins I played with at family reunions, and the father who gently pushed me on my way to riding a bike, or the men and women in my family that I have admired for years. That in essence you have no respect for what I am and come from.
How do you explain that to someone who clearly doesn't (or does) realize that what they say bothers you? Saying things like I'm half "oriental" excuses nothing. Who even uses such a degradingly general term anymore in this global age?
Saying that I have pretty skin because it's lighter than some other black people or hair because it's not as tightly curled angers me like hell. That is not a complement! What do you say to someone you slowly realize is so blindly racist? "Oh you're right, my people are ignorant, "nappy", dirty, and overall less than." How do you keep from wanting to hate someone who so blindly and sweepingly hates you and everything you've grown up in? Or more relevantly, how do you keep away the sadness at the things they will never know and appreciate? As always I could be wrong, but who else can tell me what I feel if not myself?
Let me get back to studying then...
Not take any shit like my dad tried to teach me to do? I'm tired of going through the explanation of the manipulations of evolutionary theory, and the justification required for colonialism. I'm tired of explaining the history of African civilizations, and the existence of actual social structures. I'm tired of explaining people centuries and continents removed from me. I'm tired of having to defend being proud of what I am. It's funny that I'm proud of what I come from? Why do you find that hilarious? Gah...it's so frustratingly inadequate to describe what affect racism has on me in words. It's as if you're attacking something I can't defend but want to so desperately. You're attacking not only an identity that I have no control over, but the people who have protected and nurtured me from birth. You're telling me that you have no respect for the cousins I played with at family reunions, and the father who gently pushed me on my way to riding a bike, or the men and women in my family that I have admired for years. That in essence you have no respect for what I am and come from.
How do you explain that to someone who clearly doesn't (or does) realize that what they say bothers you? Saying things like I'm half "oriental" excuses nothing. Who even uses such a degradingly general term anymore in this global age?
Saying that I have pretty skin because it's lighter than some other black people or hair because it's not as tightly curled angers me like hell. That is not a complement! What do you say to someone you slowly realize is so blindly racist? "Oh you're right, my people are ignorant, "nappy", dirty, and overall less than." How do you keep from wanting to hate someone who so blindly and sweepingly hates you and everything you've grown up in? Or more relevantly, how do you keep away the sadness at the things they will never know and appreciate? As always I could be wrong, but who else can tell me what I feel if not myself?
Let me get back to studying then...