So I've spent a lot of this year thinking about myself. In retrospect, I probably should have spent more time thinking about medical school, but you know what? My mental sanity is worth more than perfect grades, so I have no glaring regrets.
I realize that I am part of the out group in every single category I use to define myself. Now at first you may think that is cool--we're all taught that being unique is an asset--but decades of living like this is dangerous. And I have no safe place where I can be every single thing I am and not worry that I will be judged. Could this explain my sometimes inexplicable agoraphobia? I think yes. I think that this could explain everything.
Last week I got into an argument with two of my friends. I was livid afterwords--in fact, I couldn't actually focus on my study material and my grade was hurt. But it was an argument about whether or not straight white males have it easier than other people. They, both being straight white men, thought that this assessment was completely invalid. Or at least, that's the way at least one of them made it seem. I tried to defend my position but I found myself being taunted. They weren't getting it. I grew more and more upset. But I guess I shouldn't have been. I should have known that people who are easily accepted into the in group may not understand that it isn't laws and explicit codes that separate out groups from the in groups--there are much more insidious psychological factors that keep not straight, not white, not male people living in less than amicable situations.
I should have known they wouldn't have understood. I guess I should choose my friends more carefully.
Regardless, here it is: my entire life I have been a black female. This is how my life has always been. This is evident to everyone. I do not have to explain my culture for people to start associating me with what they think my culture is. Watch television or even go to a city, observe how people interact, black women are not high up in society. That is not to say we shouldn't be but we aren't. And nothing I can do can change that. I can rewrite laws and I can make grandiose speeches. But the truth is, it's not an explicit thing we can change. It is an implicit quality of society and these things take a long time to change.
I have done a good job avoiding racism. In fact, only one racist thing ever happened to me in all my years of public schooling. College was a different matter, of course, but when it most depended on it, there was little racism directed at me growing up and I am thankful for that. But that doesn't mean I still wasn't affected by racism. As a white person, you probably don't spend a lot of time actively thinking about why most of your teachers are white while most of your janitors are black. I was forced to notice. As soon as I was alerted to the fact that I was "different" and thus not part of the in group, I had to notice all the black people I ever met, having grown up in a suburb that was mostly white and asian. I paid attention. I would not have paid attention as a white person, probably. Or if I did, it would probably be a subconscious process.
And so you see, while life as a straight white male can be focused on doing the things you want to do, life as anything not like a straight white male is full of focusing on the things you should do. I spent all of elementary school incorrectly writing down my race on standardized tests after I discovered that black children don't do as well on them. I wrote down that I was black because I hoped to raise up our average. How did I discover that black children don't do as well as white children on standardized tests? I don't know. Maybe a news program or something. But for the rest of my young life, I was forced to ask myself if I was as smart as a white child. So every time I was placed in an honors class, I was ecstatic, and every time I was placed in remediation, I felt like the largest failure of all time. This is a feeling I don't think white people can truly understand. If you always belong to the neutral group, you don't have to worry about how you reflect on your culture. You only have to worry about yourself. That sounds like fun.
And as I grew up and started reading the internet, I was only exposed to more and more racism and stereotypes that I felt I needed to compensate for. I wasn't becoming who I wanted to be, I was becoming what the in group thought I couldn't be. So even if I achieve "greatness" as defined by straight white men, I am still not doing what deep down inside I would most like to be. When I read that black women and asian men are the least sought after groups on online dating sites, I first lamented the fact that I was single and then I proceeded to think about the possibility of dating an asian man. I had never thought about it before, but now I want to. For no better reason than I feel like we would have something in common: nobody wants us.
Reading things like "Black Women have too many abortions" makes me feel so many types of anger that I do not know what to do. I used to be pro-choice, like really gung-ho pro-choice, like whatever the woman wants, she gets. But now I feel myself becoming more conservative. I'm still pro-choice, but maybe the woman isn't always right. And what should I feel when Newt Gingrich implies that black students should also work as janitors to make sustainable income? Should I feel okay with the fact that white men, with more political power than I will probably ever have, think it's okay to reinstate economic slavery? Let's lower black kid's standards. I know I've had to change mine quite a lot.
And so every time something like this is brought up, I feel an existential crisis building. I feel hate for the people who don't have to respond to things like this.
The dread that if I'm not absolutely perfect no one will be able to accept me.
You are defined by what you have chosen to become. I am defined, and always will be defined, by what I am not. This is no one's fault. This is in no way yours.
Let's do a mental experiment: what if the major holders of wealth in this country, and about 30-40% of the entire population, were black women. How would you feel? Do you think there would be rules put in place so that life would be easier for them? And thus, more difficult for you? There would be. No one would purposefully make laws to discriminate against people (although in all honesty, this actually does happen) but just from carelessness, you better believe that your life would be filled with little injustices. All the time. Everywhere.
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