Master Status Assignment

Hanna L…….

SW207-02

Master Status Assignment

Let The Colors of Our Skin Make Brilliance

            “Hanna, if you ever marry a black man, I will disown you,” is something my uncle used to tell me often when I moved here in 1996 from southern California. My common comeback to his racial remark used to be, “Then you better disown me now because I will love whomever I love.” Then I’d notice his face would turn red with anger and his cheeks would puff out because he couldn’t change my beliefs; that everyone is equal no matter the color of their skin. My mother had always told me I was free to love or befriend whoever I wanted, as long as they treated me like I was precious gold.   Race was never an issue until I moved to Missouri. The color of skin was never an issue, until I moved to Missouri. When I moved to Missouri, I would learn that my pale, white skin would earn me “respect” and “privilege” from other fellow pale, white skinned people. It would only be acceptable to be friends with other people “just like me.”

            Growing up in Southern California, “white” people were a minority. In fact, to be honest, many races were minorities. Because there were millions of Mexicans, Blacks, Asians, Indians, Whites, and so on, a person would find it very hard to be racist. With so many cultures living on just one street, the thing you shared in common was that you all came from a different heritage. You were alike in being different. It was hard to separate yourself from any other cultures. You wouldn’t make it in So. California by being racist because you wouldn’t have a majority race backing up your beliefs, in the end you would have made a great many people mad/offended.

            I am not sure how much of my thinking came from growing up in such a melting pot of cultures, and seeing everyone for who they were not what they were is the root of my strong belief in equality. Or, how much of it is from my mom consistently drilling into my head to love everyone for the qualities they had on their inside as opposed to the color of their skin on their outside[A1] . I am pretty sure it came from both. In elementary school I shared a classroom with 30 other students who had all come from different backgrounds. In fact, when I think back on it, I can only remember one other “white” person in my class. In my eyes, all I saw were other children my age, some darker, some lighter, some with different shaped eyes, some with frizzier hair, but we were all children. To me it was no different than having a brother or sister who just happened to look different from myself.

            When I would come to Missouri to visit family I saw and heard things at first I couldn’t understand, and later would learn to resent. My family is very white, very fair skinned; blue eyes, dark blonde hair, and they felt because of those traits they were better than everyone else. When I moved to Missouri with my mother, I realized that here in the Midwest things are very black and very white. A person either lives (if they are white) in the white area of town, and the blacks live in black neighborhoods. The only time the two different worlds mixed is when a white person couldn’t afford to live in the expensive white neighborhoods, and could only afford the black, run down neighborhoods, or, if a “white” person rebelled and associated with the “black” people.

            I would later hear my family members using derogatory words towards people of darker skin, I would constantly hear how much better we were because we were white and privileged. Our music was better, our food was better, our people were safer. There was this invisible line of hate between the two races. This tension separating them their entire life. I was only 11, and could not understand this incredible amount of hate between white people and black people. I couldn’t understand why I was better than some one who had black skin. I would fight these opinions my family had, I would stand up for the “black” people. I felt they needed some one to show that they were just as good, and just as deserving as any white person. But my fight was against a brick wall. No matter how loud I screamed, how wrong my family was, no matter how much I tried to show they were people too and bled the same, I was ignored. Because my family found it so easy to hate and discriminate, the “black” people thought I was just like them, and they hated me; because I was white.  Because I was the symbol of what had held them back. I was the symbol of what kept them enslaved for hundreds of years, I was the symbol that kept them in these poor neighborhoods with bad jobs and run downed houses. I was the symbol of the white man’s hate; because I was white. [A2] 

    &nbs

p;       Instead of being of privileged race, I was also discriminated against. I was just like them because they hated me for the color of my skin, just like my family hated them for the color of their skin. I felt like there was no winning. I was trying to fight for them, and prove to other people who felt like my family that just because their skin was darker it didn’t mean they weren’t human, that they didn’t bleed and hurt the same as a white person. Even now that I am older, and I see how deep rooted the racial discrimination is, I still find it so hard to understand how it can be. How, can any logical, rational person, even for one second, think that just because the skin is different, that they are less or more of a person? These thoughts just cannot form in my head; the fibers just wont connect together to create hate. Sadly, I am still arguing with the brick wall that is my family.

            When I was sixteen, nearly seventeen, I met and fell in love with a guy who came from a mixture of races. His father is very white and his mother is very black. But when you ask him what color he is, or what race he is, his reply is simple. “I am American.” When he fills out paper work for school, for grants, for anything he puts neither black nor white. He checks “other.” When I visit him in New York no one pays any attention to us holding hands. No one stares, or makes rude remarks or gives us dirty looks. But when he comes here, to Missouri the stares and remarks begin. Because his skin is dark, they see a white girl with a black man. The look on their faces say, “what a shame that white girl went slumming.” I know that’s what their stares mean, because my family would say the same thing when they would see a white girl or boy with some one of the black race.

 My grandmother, when she was alive, would always ask me, “Hanna why this boy? Why can’t you find a nice white boy and be with him? Why do you want a black boy?” No matter how much sense it made in my head, I could never get her to understand my answer. “Because Grandma, it’s not his skin I fell in love with. It’s not the texture of his hair, or the roots of his ancestry. It is the man he is inside. The giving, loving, caring person he is constantly showing me. The man who holds my when I cry and kisses me when I smile.” Much like my uncle who I mentioned in the beginning, she still saw his skin color. Her face would get red with frustration and her cheeks would puff out in anger. To her, he was simply a black boy taking advantage of a good, white girl.      

            When I associate with people I don’t see the color of their skin. I don’t see their sexual preference, their social class, their gender or culture, ability or disability. I just see if they are some one who shares the qualities I look for in a friend, lover, companion or what have you. Do they help an elderly person cross the street, do they give a dollar to a homeless man, do they listen to you when you need to talk, and do they do their best to make this world a better place. It shouldn’t matter if they believe in God and I don’t. It shouldn’t matter if I like girls and not boys. I know in places like California and New York racism does exist, but I don’t think it’s a prevalent problem. I think the mass of different people outweighs the small amount that is considered racist. But in rural places like Missouri or Montana or something were a majority of the occupants are “white” Americans, racism is a bigger issue because it can be. Also, it’s easier to get away with it, because you are in the part of America that was so rich in slavery and discrimination that with each generation it is passed along. In bigger cities and melting pot states the idea and ability of being racist isn’t accepted so you’re forced to change your way of thinking over time. [A3] 

            I am not sure this problem will ever dissipate. I think if more children are lucky to be born to parents like my mom, who drilled into me the idea that everyone is created equal, and deserving of all life has to offer, and that everyone deserves respect no matter their color, gender, sexual orientation, religion or social class, then discrimination would disappear.  What’s very sad is that by discriminating, people are allowing themselves to miss out on some truly amazing, talented and smart people just because of something as silly as skin pigmentation. I want so badly to break through the racial barrier and show them the beautiful colors that can be made by just allowing yourself to accept them and become one with them. Something brilliant can be made of that. If red would just hold hands with brown and yellow and blue they would see the magnificence they can become.

Hanna: Excellent paper. I appreciated learning more about you and the challenges you have gone through, with trying to get others to be more loving and accepting. Thanks for your insights and reflections. Your paper is one of the most eloquent and impassioned. I love your title! Score: 20/20.  

PS I have just moved here from Atlanta, which is similar to moving from CA. It is a bit of a shock, the lack of diversity and openness. You are fortunate that you had the CA experience, so you know there is something besides MO.