Saturday, March 31, 2012

Leveling the field

Imagine being marked because your skin isn’t the preferred or valued tint. Unless you are ethnic and a shade of brown you cannot know and it isn’t easy for non-ethnic people to grasp even my most diverse friends who have many hues in their friendship pool they cannot imagine it. I also want to express frustration at the economic gap that has spawned decades of misery within the ethnic community and still has not been rectified in our society. In fact there is no example of the same socio-economic disparity within the white community that hasn’t spawned crime. If you are poor and don’t have any other options you will be a criminal because we need to have our needs met regardless if it is legal. The human animal will do whatever it takes to feed themselves and maybe their family. If you belong to a group of people who cannot find a way and you happen to be on the bad side of the socioeconomic divide you will commit crime. When you see the profile of wealth it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see a racial preference or trend. It is a white man who is given all of the opportunities in our society and so much so it is hard not to think there is an unspoken conspiracy to keep the non-white people down. I personally have pushed against this thinking because I come from the great”white” north; Canada where we are so far removed from the American south we have forgotten our ancestors struggles.Canada, where I have benefited from a safe childhood sequestered away from racial tensions until my family moved to Detroit in the late 60’s to get a green card and work for Motown. There we were thrust or dumped into the ghetto where we had to fend and endure near rape and physical violence that when we finally left almost two years later we still don’t remember who drove us to LA. My mother being shell shocked (divorce,moving,money stress) jammed my sister and I into a strangers car; a man and a women who then drove us to California. I promise you it was a stressful drive but somehow we realized LA would be kinder, better than the ghetto of Detroit Michigan and we were right.It almost doesn’t matter who drove us to California because we made it intact. Do remember making sure the man stayed clear of us and the while women was the creepier one and thankfully there were With only two nights of sleeping in motels which must of been tricky because this was the 60’s and a lot of places weren’t friendly to blacks. We made it and I will say my poor 8 year old psyche was on alert always because someone had to protect us from adults and I was it.Now as an adult myself and a middle aged woman of color, I pay attention and being a mother myself to a young man I like the rest of the world am in pain, because of the Trayvon Martin cases world wide. In fact it seems after decades of denying my race, because in denying it I could infiltrate and integrate or so I thought. Today I can attest, that denying my race was erroneous thinking. No matter how integrated one may think they are, they are not the same as them. We are different and diverse and it is a good thing. So now awake to the fact that my race is and is not going away and it has been in many moments of my career and life a liability. So, I can breathe a sigh of sadness for all of the above. It doesn’t help the planet to deny ones heritage and racial makeup just as it doesn’t help the planet to bludgeon society every minute of everyday with it “hello new Black Panther party”.Somewhere or somehow there has to be balance. How do we balance life in this society when there are giant gaps and injustices and plain straight up forces of suppression? There is a thought that the FBI and the CIA in the 70’s encouraged drug use in the ghetto’s to distract and disable the men and women who lived there. Drug saturation to keep the brown masses down. It could be argued it happened but it is unprovable because if those agencies were doing that they certainly don’t want the brown masses to know it. Let's face it every day horrendous stuff is done against humanity somewhere globally by agencies everywhere. It is a huge almost unfathomable crisis. Still here in America we need to be vigilant and protect our brown skinned children and men from harm and we also need to help educate and encourage better choices and help those driven to the edge of society and crime. I do know that a scintilla of the defense budget could create a G.I. Bill educating the entire veterans core. We could rebuild roads and bridges, provide for better mental health clinics and rehab facilities. So much could be done and legally we must begin to examine laws that are geared to suppress the men and women who happen to be of color. This isn’t a thorough comment I know and this subject to huge to even begin to comment on but I have to say something. My heart is broken and it doesn’t seem to be healing anytime soon. I want justice, a more level playing field because it is constitutionally right that all men be able to walk home in safety with their skittles and ice tea.

3 comments:

Dwane T. said...

The thing that hurts most in instances where there is a Trayvon Martin type of issue, is that while it brings the hurt to the surface, it also brings the hate to the surface. Rae, you said:

"It is a white man who is given all of the opportunities in our society and so much so it is hard not to think there is an unspoken conspiracy to keep the non-white people down."

And because of that, you will be considered racist against White men by White men who don't see themselves as having opportunities. Their reference point for Black people are the rich actors and athletes they see on their specialized shows, the poor criminals they see on the news, and the angry people they see yelling about justice for... somebody who needs justice. They're not rich like the athletes, so they don't see any "White Privilege they have. They work for a living, so they aren't like the crooks and welfare recipients who live off of other people, and they don't have anyone fighting for "White Rights", so they feel like they are the ignored population. The feel like they are unfairly targeted. They feel like everyone is ganging up on them. And to an extent, they are right.

They are right because most White men don't do anything directly to Black people to hurt them. They may vote for a candidate that agrees with them that Black people get all the breaks. they may make negative comments about them in front of their children. They don't tell their children to hate Black people, but it doesn't matter because children are going to believe what their parents believe until the world teaches them otherwise.

They are victims... just like Black. Just like the majority of Black men are neither rich athletes and actors, nor poor and on welfare and/or criminal, the Majority of White men are not shooting Black people or denying them jobs. But they get blamed like Black men do. The difference is, our legal system does not allow the average White man who isn't rich, and isn't a criminal to get punished for stereotypes, while it does allow the average Black man who isn't rich and isn't a criminal to get punished for them. Those who defend Zimmerman's actions as valid, have trouble doing the same thing when the situation is reversed. If Black Trayvon was a 250lb 28 year old man following a 140lb, 17 year old Zimmerman, and the older Black man shot the White kid, they never say he is justified. They always add something, or ask questions. But they never say, "same circumstances, same result". For those who can't say it would be the same thing, they need to recognize that they are part of the unspoken conspiracy.

Lucy Dee said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Lucy Dee said...

Imagine being marked because your skin isn’t the preferred or valued tint. Unless you are ethnic and a shade of brown you cannot know and it isn’t easy for non-ethnic people to grasp even my most diverse friends who have many hues in their friendship pool they cannot imagine it."

Growing up a black female in a predominantly white upper middle class neighborhood, I often struggled trying to 'play nice' and not be one of those 'angry black women' you see on TV or in films. I didn't know when I was allowed to be angry because I didn't have another ally (who was white) who understood me. Bottling up that distress was debilitating. Communicating it became a daily challenge.

This made the dating landscape very difficult and strained, especially if the suitor was white. How could he ever understand the madness in my head or the pain in my heart? At one point, I had given up all together--a very easy route to take.

Now, I'm hopeful. And writing has been therapeutic. Being a comedian at heart, I've been able to pen several screenplays (Rom Coms) on the subject, which has helped greatly when it comes to healing.

After all, I’m not sure how else to quell the feeling...

"So now awake to the fact that my race is and is not going away and it has been in many moments of my career and life a liability. So, I can breathe a sigh of sadness for all of the above.”

This is my biggest fear: that my race will hold me back from what I'm 'allowed' to achieve. I attended the best schools in the US. I made the ‘cut’ for many positions I’ve applied to. But yet, I still have a hard time finding myself and my place in society. I still question where I’m supposed to be. A white male never has to question his success. He receives it through contacts (perhaps nepotism), or he achieved the right GPA, or he worked hard. Either way, it’s never questioned. He has it. He’s white. End of story.

But me? A black female. Am I being accepted because I'm a cute female (a question I often posed to myself while navigating the standup comedy landscape.)

Am I only here because I ‘played the game?’ I acted in the part -- the role that society asks me to play.

Does my worth only go as far as my skin color?

These questions resurface every time I have an encounter with someone outside of my race and they ask, “So what do you do?” I cringe at those words.

Suffice to say, the barometer does not use the same units of measure for whites as it does for blacks. It's a completely different rubric -- kilometres v. miles... litres v. gallons...


"How do we balance life in this society when there are giant gaps and injustices and plain straight up forces of suppression?"

I think the only way is to continue the conversation. Write about it. Tell stories. Create TV and movies. Don’t let it fade. Make it known. Make it so that you can no longer ignore it. And as you say, “Level the playing field.”

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