Just recently, I started being followed on Twitter by African American Conservatives (@AACONS). As I'd been trying to figure out who the (specifically) black Conservatives were, this was probably more exciting for me than it should have been. I'm not going to apologize, though. I was jazzed. Especially after Olbermann's brilliant "everyone in the Tea Party is white" segment. (I was proud of Conservatives who quickly pointed out that everyone on MSNBC is also white. Speaking of, if Fox News wants to give me a show, I'd totally take it.)
This last Friday I went to a high school basketball game out in the little town of Elma, Washington. The team they were playing was a suburb of Olympia - Lacey. The out-of-towners had a lot of black girls on the team. Needless to say, Elma had zero. Not a big deal, it was totally what I expected from a rural town in southwest Washington. But I tend to notice non-whites in small towns because they just aren't often found there.
I tweeted about my observations and my mother tweeted me back saying that she never noticed people's skin color and questioned why I would. To be fair, I didn't have a good answer. I was about 16 when I realized that I wasn't white - and that some people might look at me differently because of it - and although it hasn't been a prevalent part of my life, it's something I do still occasionally notice. Particularly in small towns.
Never have I been a victim of poor treatment due to my race, at least not to my knowledge. My parents acted like race wasn't on their radar and perhaps it wasn't. It would have been on mine - living as a biracial couple raising a lot of mixed kids in the whitest major city in the US in the 80s and 90s. However, my parents have much more character and grace than I do. Maybe they really didn't pay attention.
That said, I like being mixed. I like that it gives me perspective. I appreciate that because I am a minority (halfsies) among minorities (black), my voice is already unique in the cacophony.
All of this is to say that I do think about the world slightly differently because I'm brown. And not just any brown. Gray brown: half black, half white, all Conservative. I wouldn't have it any other way.
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6 comments:
I see skin color as just another glorious way to appreciate the palette around us.
Thank you for posting this! I really like your blog!!
Common Cents
http://www.commoncts.blogspot.com
ps. Link Exchange??
I definitely stereotype based on CONDUCT, but race is one of those things that is nebulous in America. There is no such thing as a "pure race person". We're all from somewhere else and combining as we have we created America, something remarkable in the world.
America is not a construct of race. Its an achievement of many peoples, many faiths, many colors, many nations.
Barack Hussein Obama was a particularly poor choice for the landmark "first president of color" as there were MANY qualified people who were not utopian socialists and anti-constitutionalists.
However Obama has not been defined by his race while in office, he has been defined by his incompetence. And incompetence crosses all possible boundaries.
Keep posting stuff like this i really like it
nice post. thanks.
All of MSNBC is white...that's RICH!
I remember when European leftist snobs were congratulating Obama for being the first black president. I was struck by the fact that no European country EVER elected a racial minority to their highest office. The closest example was Benjamin Disraeli, a Caucasian Jew.
One of my best friends growing up was named Steven. I liked him so much, I chose his name as my confirmation name. He was dating a girl I really liked named Kathleen. One day another student referred to them as "Salt and Pepper." For the first time in eight years of knowing Steven, I suddenly realize he was black! He was, in fact, half-black, but it never occurred to me that he was biracial.
I had very close black friends as a kid, but like most kids I was ignorantly and virulently racist, sexist, anti-gay, anti-Jew, anti-anything that wasn't like me. In practice I had friends who were all these things, but there was a facade we were expected to uphold amongst ourselves. In a town that was 30% Jewish and 40% black, poor whites felt like the minority underclass.
As a PWT who ascended from utter poverty to an advanced education and successful military career, I'm proud of my achievements. I grate against the notion that I had some inherent advantage because of my race, and that people who led far better lives than me were somehow disadvantaged because of their race. The contempt I have for these sentiments is often confused for racism.
I was an early supporter of Colin Powell for president. He had been my Corps commander for a short time and I admired him. He disappointed me with his decision not to run for that office. Duty had called him and he avoided it. But when he accepted a supporting role later, he dared to criticize the men who took the responsibility he would not take.
I served in the Army for many years side-by-side with black and hispanic men and women who I loved and honored. I look forward to a post-racial world.
But that world is being crafted not as a melting pot but a coat of many colors, emphasizing our differences instead of what unites us.
In Hollywood culture, like the movie Remember the Titans, the whites are always wrong, blacks are always right, and everyone comes together by adopting the attitudes and mannerisms of blacks.
A former girlfriend, liberal and white, was quite impressed with herself when she invited me to see an African American art exhibit. I thought the art was crap. She thought it was fantastic. I can't help but wonder if she'd hold the same opinion of the art if she didn't know the race of the artist.
There are paradigms of behavior which enhance the probability of success. There are behaviors which increase the likelihood of undesirable outcomes. Alas, too many of the former are associated with "white" behavior and too many of the latter are associated with "black" behavior.
It's both illuminating and tragic that Michelle Obama's thesis at Princeton was about whether her "blackness" had been compromised by attending an Ivy League school and whether black graduates of such schools felt a duty to "give back" to the community.
Sad, very sad!
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