On the heels of THAT...

With all the wonderful racially insensitive things I've bumped into this summer, you'd think I never crossed the Mason-Dixon line back in 2001...!

Without going into too many specifics, I had another issue in which someone relatively close to me didn't understand my feelings about something that was blatantly stereotypical of African Americans. I was worked up enough about this to ask friends what to do and while some wanted me to just tell her off, the others were of one mind:

"Why bother? This person is obviously not worth your time, so ignore them. You can't change their views!"

But to that, I reply with the words of James Baldwin: "We are responsible for the world in which we find ourselves, if only because we are the only sentient force that can change it."

And therein lies the rub. Once it comes to something racial, it goes beyond my personal wants and into African American ambassadorship. Frankly, I'd LOVE for this person to leave me alone for the rest of our lives (and I felt that way BEFORE all this), but, if I go and hurt their feelings, they'll think "Black people are too sensitive about these things...they don't understand MY feelings." And NOW I've made it difficult for some other black person down the road. It's a chain effect that my generation and those before me pay a GREAT deal of attention to. We watched great men like Martin Luther King and learned that if no one tried to change the attitudes of the world, we ALL suffered. We needed to show gratitude for those who fought for our rights before us by continuing to change people's views wherever we went and set positive examples for those to come. So, none of us are comfortable just letting ignorance or stubbornness in race relations go. I have friends who became doctors and lawyers and other upstanding community members. For my part, I became a teacher and teach kids as they grow to treat everyone with respect, no matter what family members might say. It's a lifelong balancing act, saying what you think, but finding the right words and ways to say it so that you make a difference.

Honestly, there's just so much more to being darker skinned than anyone ever imagines. You become the channel through which other races and cultures learn...and it's up to you what they take from their experience. Most of you are blessed with the ability to be responsible for ONLY your actions. If you say something rude or make your point to someone, they can ONLY say "Well, (insert your name here) sure pissed me off" or "(insert your name here) makes a good point". For me, it becomes "Well, black people ARE just as violent as they say" or "Well, there ARE some good ones after all". People will genuinely base their experiences on their one or two friends/enemies of a certain culture or race. If I'm lucky, I meet someone whose mind I change so that they think of me as JUST me (or just think positively about the whole race so they can spread the word to friends). Since I don't know whether it's a lucky day or not, I play diplomat rather than take the chance.

Anyway, on the up side of all this is school. The first week of school is ALWAYS the promise of fresh young minds that will learn and pass information along to the next person they meet. It's like my own lifelong grassroots effort! :-) So, for now, I'm looking to the future and shelving the past...after all, it makes it easier to travel down the road of life when you look where you're going!

D.