Last night I was talking to my good friend Derek, who was born and raised in Zambia, about some of the things I wrote about in my previous entry. As friends we think it's funny that he is American African and I'm African American (Sorry if this offends Mimi or Precious). We were saying that we experienced reverse lives. Where I would be the only black person in a group of white people. He was the only white person in a group of black people And I was asking him did he ever experience any racism or notice racism when he was growing up in Africa. Because I was curious how things were over there. At least in Zambia.
He was explaining to me that he really never experienced much. He wasn't sure if he was just naive and because he didn't have a command of the language then maybe some things they said or thought he just never heard. He also was explaining to me since Zambia was colonized by the British they instituted a class system. Which separated the Africans from white people. They also had an established mode of conduct under which most people operated. He said because of this everyone pretty much knew what was expected of them and acted out on these assigned roles.
This lead me to think about the issue of whether or not the racial tensions where merely hidden underneath the socially constructed norm. I was thinking about a particular incident that occurred a couple of years ago. I was working in Southwest Virginia and I became friends with a white coworker of mine. We both attended Virginia Tech and worked at the same store so we had some things in common. Most of the people who read this know me, but Sally (that's what I'm gonna call her) was born and raised in Southwest Virginia. She's white around the same age as I am, but had very little interaction with black people. Well after a few months she told me how some over her friends would come over on a Friday night to play cards and have drinks. Then one day she invited me over. Not really sure why. I will tell you that I later found out that neither she nor any of her friends that I met that night had ever hung out with any black people socially. Well we got over to her place and I met some of her friends. I'm not really sure what they had been doing before we got there, but I walked over to the kitchen table and sitting on top was a huge stack of jokes that were basically all racial slurs against black, jewish, and polish people (they had accompanying pictures). Well I lifted up the stack and everyone noticed what I was doing. It seemed like everyone froze waiting for my response. Well I'll tell you a lot of things went through my mind...I'll tell you about it in the next post. Have a good day.
Enjoy!
I am 50% Left Brain and 50% Right Brain. Interesting...
| You Are 50% Left Brained, 50% Right Brained |
 Left brained people are good at communication and persuading others. If you're left brained, you are likely good at math and logic. Your left brain prefers dogs, reading, and quiet. The right side of your brain is all about creativity and flexibility. Daring and intuitive, right brained people see the world in their unique way. If you're right brained, you likely have a talent for creative writing and art. Your right brain prefers day dreaming, philosophy, and sports. |
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4 comments:
How could you leave that story hanging? I never heard that one before...
I enjoy your blogs :) Have a nice day
Because I'm twisted. That's why it's called unraveling a twisted thread. It's not called straight stories by tanika. haha.
I love that you're twisted. I've had interesting conversations about affirmative action and race relations in the south with some country boys this week. It's a topic I tend to be reluctant to comment much on (other than with close friends) because so many people are so easily offended, and I don't want to offend them by saying African-American instead of black or vice-versa or to offend someone by saying true things I've said before and offended people, like:
1) how I'm offended that someone hates me because one of my great-great-great grandparents might have owned a slave and/or because I'm from the south so clearly I must be a card-carrying member of the KKK,
2) that sometimes i'm really glad i'm white because racism sucks and is still a very real problem, but in a setting where white is the minority I sometimes wish I weren't white,
3) as a child I wished I was Vietnamese because I knew a bunch of Vietnamese kids who were all, in my opinion, gorgeous, smart, and nice (practically perfect...),
4) that genetically I'm a "minority" (for real).
I don't claim to know what it's like to be anything other than me. I'm really glad you've been talking about race because it's making me think about something I tend to ignore when possible (not proud of it, just being honest).
You know most of the time I'm mostly about getting people to see things from another point of view besides their own. If in some way I can accomplish that. I feel like I've done my good deed of the day.
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