Last Halloween I saw in Prisma (Finland’s Wall-Mart) a young man in blackface. He was wearing a brown 1970’s leisure suit with its typical wide collars and bellbottomed pants. He also had a black afro wig on. This does not happen in America. A Caucasian would be lynched for doing that. It is considered incredibly racist because of context. Finland does not have this same context making it not racist but ignorant. Just like the rockabilly girl with a confederate flag sown on her jacket she is probably more ignorant more than she is racist. This post is not for Americans but for other people around the world who don’t get the context.
Most of us know the context of the Nazi flag in Finland and it is only used by racists. This was not the case a few decades ago. I read a passage in a book called Häräntappoase by Anna-Leena Härkönen about this. Not having the text in front of me I will summarize from memory. The main character mentions a problem his school had with punks wearing the Swastika, in his school you weren’t really a punk unless you had one. The school had to ban them and educate the students on the holocaust. Did this dampen the enthusiasm of said punks to wear it? Not particularly. When you are proud of your identity and one of your symbols is tied up to ignorance you stick with your guns. I kind of think that a lot of rockabillies would still wear the confederate flag even if you told them what they meant; the compassionate intelligent ones would stop.
Let me explain the context of blackface as well as I can. I am no expert on it but I think I can explain a few things. It goes back to the Jim Crow era in the US, and to an even earlier time. Jim Crow laws were enacted in the South after the North won the civil war. They essentially kept Black people in the place they were in before the war. It allowed for the same discrimination. Essentially Blacks and Whites were separated in all public arenas and it made it possible for White healthcare workers to refuse lifesaving treatment to Blacks and even to refuse to perform their jobs in their presence. They prohibited intermarriage between Blacks and Whites and you were considered black no matter how little black blood you had, unless you could “pass” for white, which meant living as one and presenting yourself as 100% Caucasian [link].
This affected the casts of plays and movies, because Blacks and Whites did not perform together. For this reason White actors donned black paint on their faces to play Black people. They were always portrayed as dumb, lazy buffoons or as evil, violent and oversexed. These roles reinforced the role of blacks as less than, as animals. This helped to fuel a perversion of justice known as lynchings. Lynchings were a grotesque pass time for Southern Whites. If a Black man so much as looked at a white woman in a way that was interpreted as sexual interest by on lookers he would be hunted down and hung up on a tree and people would picnic with their children as his body bloated in the hot sun.
Lynchings were the furthest and cruelest extreme of Jim Crow. It also fostered poverty, ignorance and hopelessness. Blackface is a symbol of degrading blacks and portraying them with negative stereotypes and fueling violence and injustice. Blackface is the symbol of death and injustice the same way the swastika is or the confederation of the southern United States is. Let’s just stop blackface in Finland before it becomes a thing.
Showing posts with label racism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label racism. Show all posts
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Like Race Chugging Lysol...
Do you ever feel like having discussions with certain people is like race chugging Lysol? Even when you win you still end up blind and brain damaged. You know, like most internet arguments. I have a friend who says the most ridiculous things. Not like the world will end this December but still pretty dumb.
“Have you noticed you never see disabled Rom (gypsie) children? They must keep them somewhere.” This is said in a tone implying something nefarious is going on. Perhaps that is because they are a small minority; there are fewer gypsies in Finland than black people. I see very little majority Finn disabled children in public why would I expect to see many more disabled Rom kids?
“Did you know President Tarja Halonen is secretly gay and her marriage is a sham?” How is that relevant, pray tell? I really do not care. Her secret post-menopausal yearnings are of no consequence to me. Still, I would like to point out she has a daughter, she was living with her boyfriend prior to her election and after it and only married due to a public outcry that they would not let the presidents boyfriend live in the official residence so she was not really interested in having a marriage, sham or not, she was perfectly content. It was society at large that wanted it. What makes her seem lesbian? Is it because she has short hair? Is it because she is not pretty? Is it because she is the first female president the country has had?
“Why do Native Americans live on reservations? Why don’t they just live according to their traditional ways in nature?” OMFG!!! I have just lost my sight! Go live is a sauna!
Also I have found myself saying: “Please stop imitating what you think is native American singing.” and also “Stop singing in fake African, it is really offensive.”
This girl is not stupid. She is not untraveled. She is not stuck in an ethno centric bubble. She has traveled. She hangs out with a lot of international people. Why do things like this come out of her mouth? Why does she think people with a different culture are somehow fundamentally different from her? Why do many of us think this?
“Have you noticed you never see disabled Rom (gypsie) children? They must keep them somewhere.” This is said in a tone implying something nefarious is going on. Perhaps that is because they are a small minority; there are fewer gypsies in Finland than black people. I see very little majority Finn disabled children in public why would I expect to see many more disabled Rom kids?
“Did you know President Tarja Halonen is secretly gay and her marriage is a sham?” How is that relevant, pray tell? I really do not care. Her secret post-menopausal yearnings are of no consequence to me. Still, I would like to point out she has a daughter, she was living with her boyfriend prior to her election and after it and only married due to a public outcry that they would not let the presidents boyfriend live in the official residence so she was not really interested in having a marriage, sham or not, she was perfectly content. It was society at large that wanted it. What makes her seem lesbian? Is it because she has short hair? Is it because she is not pretty? Is it because she is the first female president the country has had?
“Why do Native Americans live on reservations? Why don’t they just live according to their traditional ways in nature?” OMFG!!! I have just lost my sight! Go live is a sauna!
Also I have found myself saying: “Please stop imitating what you think is native American singing.” and also “Stop singing in fake African, it is really offensive.”
This girl is not stupid. She is not untraveled. She is not stuck in an ethno centric bubble. She has traveled. She hangs out with a lot of international people. Why do things like this come out of her mouth? Why does she think people with a different culture are somehow fundamentally different from her? Why do many of us think this?
Sunday, November 20, 2011
When You Have no Idea
This post is a somewhat a departure from religion and other themes I cover. I was reading some fitness blogs, as I often do. I am also thinking of starting taekwondo again, the popular and greatly criticized sport (criticised by people who don't understand the point of it). So I have been thinking about fitness and body image a lot. I think I understand how it is for people who are overweight and are trying to get into shape. Hard, that is what it is. Slow progress is also what comes to mind, nothing like what shows like the biggest loser would have us beleave.
Still the truth is, I have no idea what this feels like. I have never been overweight. I have never been so out of shape I was endangering my own health. I do know what it is like to struggle to get back to my prepregnancy weight and not achieving it for years, but that is not the same thing, because I was normal weight through all this. I was "overweight" slightly during my pregnancy but the second I gave birth I was normal weight for my height, so not the same thing at all.
I don't undertand what it is like to carry another me in excess fat. I do know what unexpectedly gaining weight does to my running. I do know how it slows me down and makes my runs shorter and frustrates me, but that is not the same thing.
I am not writing this to show off the excellent convergeance of nature, nuture and will. I am saying that we do not understand the strugles of others especially when we have not lived through them. It would be arrogant and selfabsorbed of me to think these minor physical problems I have gone through tell me one thing about the struggles of truly overweight people.
People who are thin often think they know what is going on and compare it to their own struggles and come up with an offensive and wrong picture of overweight people. They are not any lazier than the general public, they can be extremely hard workers and that may contribute to their weight problem. They do not necesarily gorge themselves, just a few extra unused calories a meal over a few years can do more than a few weeks of total gluttony. An extremely large person can't just get on a treadmill and start sprinting away the pounds, no matter what the biggest loser would have you beleave.
Did I get it right? I did say I do not know what it is like to be overweight or the struggles but like with any people who are different from me I try to encounter them as people and look past the differences and try not to explain them away using my own experience. If we do try to explain things using our personal experiences to explain other people in areas we know nothing about we end up with statements as stupid as: "That person is black because they haven't bathed in a while." That statement is offensive and completely incorrect, unless the person we are talking about is a caucasian coal miner. Weather or not a person's circumstances match ours, or not, we should attempt to get to know them as real people and not lessen their humanity by turning them into objects and narrating their stories outselves.
Still the truth is, I have no idea what this feels like. I have never been overweight. I have never been so out of shape I was endangering my own health. I do know what it is like to struggle to get back to my prepregnancy weight and not achieving it for years, but that is not the same thing, because I was normal weight through all this. I was "overweight" slightly during my pregnancy but the second I gave birth I was normal weight for my height, so not the same thing at all.
I don't undertand what it is like to carry another me in excess fat. I do know what unexpectedly gaining weight does to my running. I do know how it slows me down and makes my runs shorter and frustrates me, but that is not the same thing.
I am not writing this to show off the excellent convergeance of nature, nuture and will. I am saying that we do not understand the strugles of others especially when we have not lived through them. It would be arrogant and selfabsorbed of me to think these minor physical problems I have gone through tell me one thing about the struggles of truly overweight people.
People who are thin often think they know what is going on and compare it to their own struggles and come up with an offensive and wrong picture of overweight people. They are not any lazier than the general public, they can be extremely hard workers and that may contribute to their weight problem. They do not necesarily gorge themselves, just a few extra unused calories a meal over a few years can do more than a few weeks of total gluttony. An extremely large person can't just get on a treadmill and start sprinting away the pounds, no matter what the biggest loser would have you beleave.
Did I get it right? I did say I do not know what it is like to be overweight or the struggles but like with any people who are different from me I try to encounter them as people and look past the differences and try not to explain them away using my own experience. If we do try to explain things using our personal experiences to explain other people in areas we know nothing about we end up with statements as stupid as: "That person is black because they haven't bathed in a while." That statement is offensive and completely incorrect, unless the person we are talking about is a caucasian coal miner. Weather or not a person's circumstances match ours, or not, we should attempt to get to know them as real people and not lessen their humanity by turning them into objects and narrating their stories outselves.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
WTF? or Who are the True Finns?
I usually do not like to blog about politics especially because it is a hot button issue I know very little about and used to be uninvolved in not having the right to vote in the USA. Now that I live in Finland I can vote, recieved my letter telling me where to vote and when. I have hundreds of candidates to choose from here from a couple of dozen parties. I am just guessing here I have not actually counted or looked up the number and am not going to.
The big parties are Kokoomus and SDP. Currently Kokoomus is in control of the parliament. Other little parties are Vihreät (Greens), Työväen puolue (workingpeople's party) and my current favourite Vasemmisto liitto (the leftist unity). All translations are the best I can do and not necessarily the official translations. There is not polarised conservative liberal divide. There is no conservative at all by American standards, until now. There is a cluster of deformed, hateful, ignorant parties rising up around the monstrosity of the Perus Suomalaiset (my translation would be basic or stereotypical Finns but we will just call them the WTF party).
When ever a member of the WTF party is interviewed on television, they sound uneducated. They lack a proper grasp of the Finnish language. They sound hickish uneducated and aggressive. That is my opinion. Their platform is, get those damn dirty immigrants out, they are all freeloaders and do substandard work and are lazy. When you point out to them that there are plenty of hardworking well educated diligent immigrants they say: "Oh them, they are fine, we are just against those that freeload and wont assimilate." Never mind most immigrants into Finland are here to study, work or following their spouses that do. Finland takes in less refuges based on population than other Scandinavian countries. I spend a lot of time with immigrants and have met no one that fits the description that the WTF party has labeled as the vocal majority and the trouble. Where are they?
They released their statement of principles and there is one particularly troubling part. They state that foreigners are supposed to follow Finnish laws and customs. I thought the first was a given but what does the second part refer to? They do not qualify it further. Are they just referring to eating rye bread, saunaing, swimming in a frozen lake, speaking Finnish etc.? Perhaps they want them to conform to the seedier side of Finnish customs like binge drinking, depression, collecting unemployment while being depressed and binge drinking. Teens drinking alcohol in the backs of busses and cussing loudly at night. I am sure they mean the better side of Finnish custom but being so ambiguous is dangerous, for them, the immigrants and those Finns who care about them. Honestly, is a black man ever going to assimilate to their satisfaction? He can learn Finnish, get a job, pay taxes, become a citizen, vote but they still would not want him to marry one of their daughters unless he could wipe the black off his face.
They are against such high "kotiutumistuki" (settlement aid), what kotiutumistuki? You can't even get it unless you have lived here for like six months and take Finnish classes or go into mol (government employment agency) approved work training. Besides it is not higher than "työmarkkinatuki" that is given to unemployed Finns that have never held jobs to aid them with living expenses so they can find one. Immigrants need that money. They have a hard time finding jobs unless they are very highly trained. Othervise they need the extra time to learn Finnish and to get trained for a job that they have harder time getting because they maybe brown. Discrimination in hiring may be illegal but it does not mean it does not happen. The only difference between kotiutumistuki and työmarkkinatuki is that one is given to immigrants, the other to citizens and kotiutumistuki is given for longer giving the immigrants more of a chance to not only get job training but ALSO to learn Finnish.
I am not saying there are no problems with immigration in Finland. What I am saying is that the WTF party is blowing it way out of proportion. They have no idea what the challenges faced by immigrants are because all the experience they have with it is traveling to other countries, getting plastered for an entire week at a time, acting like an idiot and not remembering a thing about it. That too is another Finnish custom.
The big parties are Kokoomus and SDP. Currently Kokoomus is in control of the parliament. Other little parties are Vihreät (Greens), Työväen puolue (workingpeople's party) and my current favourite Vasemmisto liitto (the leftist unity). All translations are the best I can do and not necessarily the official translations. There is not polarised conservative liberal divide. There is no conservative at all by American standards, until now. There is a cluster of deformed, hateful, ignorant parties rising up around the monstrosity of the Perus Suomalaiset (my translation would be basic or stereotypical Finns but we will just call them the WTF party).
When ever a member of the WTF party is interviewed on television, they sound uneducated. They lack a proper grasp of the Finnish language. They sound hickish uneducated and aggressive. That is my opinion. Their platform is, get those damn dirty immigrants out, they are all freeloaders and do substandard work and are lazy. When you point out to them that there are plenty of hardworking well educated diligent immigrants they say: "Oh them, they are fine, we are just against those that freeload and wont assimilate." Never mind most immigrants into Finland are here to study, work or following their spouses that do. Finland takes in less refuges based on population than other Scandinavian countries. I spend a lot of time with immigrants and have met no one that fits the description that the WTF party has labeled as the vocal majority and the trouble. Where are they?
They released their statement of principles and there is one particularly troubling part. They state that foreigners are supposed to follow Finnish laws and customs. I thought the first was a given but what does the second part refer to? They do not qualify it further. Are they just referring to eating rye bread, saunaing, swimming in a frozen lake, speaking Finnish etc.? Perhaps they want them to conform to the seedier side of Finnish customs like binge drinking, depression, collecting unemployment while being depressed and binge drinking. Teens drinking alcohol in the backs of busses and cussing loudly at night. I am sure they mean the better side of Finnish custom but being so ambiguous is dangerous, for them, the immigrants and those Finns who care about them. Honestly, is a black man ever going to assimilate to their satisfaction? He can learn Finnish, get a job, pay taxes, become a citizen, vote but they still would not want him to marry one of their daughters unless he could wipe the black off his face.
They are against such high "kotiutumistuki" (settlement aid), what kotiutumistuki? You can't even get it unless you have lived here for like six months and take Finnish classes or go into mol (government employment agency) approved work training. Besides it is not higher than "työmarkkinatuki" that is given to unemployed Finns that have never held jobs to aid them with living expenses so they can find one. Immigrants need that money. They have a hard time finding jobs unless they are very highly trained. Othervise they need the extra time to learn Finnish and to get trained for a job that they have harder time getting because they maybe brown. Discrimination in hiring may be illegal but it does not mean it does not happen. The only difference between kotiutumistuki and työmarkkinatuki is that one is given to immigrants, the other to citizens and kotiutumistuki is given for longer giving the immigrants more of a chance to not only get job training but ALSO to learn Finnish.
I am not saying there are no problems with immigration in Finland. What I am saying is that the WTF party is blowing it way out of proportion. They have no idea what the challenges faced by immigrants are because all the experience they have with it is traveling to other countries, getting plastered for an entire week at a time, acting like an idiot and not remembering a thing about it. That too is another Finnish custom.
Friday, December 31, 2010
I have The Internet
So, I have been away. Not a good sentence to start a blog with, it tells you this is going to be boring and I will make excuses and such. Also I might tell you what is going on in my life, which is not what I started this blog for. I started this to talk about my thoughts on various things and that is very different from what I am actually doing. The topic of racism is still at the surface so I think I will write on that.
I thought I had blogged on racism before in my old MySpace blog but after tracing the blog back several years I found that I had not. The main thought of that imaginary blog post was that we evolved for racism. Back in the day when we still lived in caves, huts made of animal skin or what ever. We knew everyone around us and we all looked pretty much alike and there was not a lot of mixing with those other people across the river with the strange customs and odd clothes and those unnatural brownish eyes and what not. Those weird people may even have been enemies so it was safe for primitive ignorant man to stay with his own inbred group and breed a myriad or special genetic diseases only present in Finns (or insert there what ever small group of people). It was a survival trait to be suspicious of anyone who seemed different because they were probably out to get you.
With that sort of a legacy, no wonder we still get uncomfortable when we have to share an elevator or a bus bench with a person that is a different color or nationality. This is a completely inappropriate reaction today. Now we are hampered by our genetics. We have come a long way from those club carrying grunting simpletons that acquired this trait that helped them survive and turn into us. Still we have a long way to go and this trait is in our way.
I don't think there is a simple quick fix. We cannot go and have the racist gene eradicated from our kids to give them an edge in the global community. We cannot just tell ourselves that our feelings are wrong and stop it is not that easy. Still I think we must strive to be better than animals. The difference between animals and humans is that they are at the complete mercy of their genetics and do not even realize it. Humans can realize that they have a problem and struggle against their natural tendencies and better ourselves. Man is where the falling angel meets the rising ape.
I have many friends of different colors, nationalities, cultures and native languages but I still struggle against my tendency to feel uncomfortable with a person who does not look like me. I accept this is a condition that I will never be rid of but I have been struggling against this since my teens, since I was old enough to realize I had a problem. I will keep struggling until I die and am freed from the burden of my outdated genetic tendencies. Best we can do is realize we have a problem and forgive ourselves, but never give into it or believe the lie that natural=good. The second we start equating natural with good we may as well start condoning murder because someone pisses us off, because wanting to kill someone who angers you is perfectly natural.
I thought I had blogged on racism before in my old MySpace blog but after tracing the blog back several years I found that I had not. The main thought of that imaginary blog post was that we evolved for racism. Back in the day when we still lived in caves, huts made of animal skin or what ever. We knew everyone around us and we all looked pretty much alike and there was not a lot of mixing with those other people across the river with the strange customs and odd clothes and those unnatural brownish eyes and what not. Those weird people may even have been enemies so it was safe for primitive ignorant man to stay with his own inbred group and breed a myriad or special genetic diseases only present in Finns (or insert there what ever small group of people). It was a survival trait to be suspicious of anyone who seemed different because they were probably out to get you.
With that sort of a legacy, no wonder we still get uncomfortable when we have to share an elevator or a bus bench with a person that is a different color or nationality. This is a completely inappropriate reaction today. Now we are hampered by our genetics. We have come a long way from those club carrying grunting simpletons that acquired this trait that helped them survive and turn into us. Still we have a long way to go and this trait is in our way.
I don't think there is a simple quick fix. We cannot go and have the racist gene eradicated from our kids to give them an edge in the global community. We cannot just tell ourselves that our feelings are wrong and stop it is not that easy. Still I think we must strive to be better than animals. The difference between animals and humans is that they are at the complete mercy of their genetics and do not even realize it. Humans can realize that they have a problem and struggle against their natural tendencies and better ourselves. Man is where the falling angel meets the rising ape.
I have many friends of different colors, nationalities, cultures and native languages but I still struggle against my tendency to feel uncomfortable with a person who does not look like me. I accept this is a condition that I will never be rid of but I have been struggling against this since my teens, since I was old enough to realize I had a problem. I will keep struggling until I die and am freed from the burden of my outdated genetic tendencies. Best we can do is realize we have a problem and forgive ourselves, but never give into it or believe the lie that natural=good. The second we start equating natural with good we may as well start condoning murder because someone pisses us off, because wanting to kill someone who angers you is perfectly natural.
Saturday, October 30, 2010
The First Week, Briefly
I have been pretty busy, well not literally just a lot of new stuff has happened in a short time.
Interesting aside, I am really sorry not to have a picture, it was just so shocking and happened so fast, we saw a Finn in black face. No, not a black Finn, we have a few black Finnish citizens but a white guy dressed like '70 black fella. "Play that funky music...white boy?"
It has been a proper cloudy damp fall here. Yesterday it was sunny and pretty but other than a walk to the store we were stuck inside cleaning. Cleanliness it a part of the contract to stay here, still they can't send anyone over to fix the fracking bathroom sink. This is an expensive residence.
Today we went to Jarvensivu, the part of town I grew up in. We had a good walk and felt shocked that the late '80 are alive and well. Teenagers are idiots.
Here are some things that are way better here than the US:
1. Everyone walks so the side walks are a single car lane wide and the crossing spots on the roads are ample and convenient.
2. Busses are frequent and easy to use. They are not only taken by the really poor but even by middle class working people and upper class teenagers. Even elementary schoolers take them unsupervised.
3. No one pities us for not having a car. Do you people realize how annoying that is? It is not a hardship not to have a car, you are just lazy. STFU, offer us a ride, thanks, but hold the side order of pity.
4. There is a lot more international food at the grocery store.
5. The food is a lot healthier, lower in salt, fat and sugar with out being much more expensive.
6. Getting Marcus's paper work to say here indefinitely done will take 120 euros, a few hours of our time to fill out the paperwork tomorrow a trip to the police station Monday, 7euro photo at the photo booth, turning it all in and a few months of waiting.
Things are already looking up. I will also get my unemployment application in Monday. I was not able to do it before because it takes a few days for my new residence to get to the central database and can't get Tampere benefits when I am not a Tampere resident.
Not very interesting, I know, but have been too preoccupied to think of a good blog to post. For something more interesting and comprehensive go to soremoose.blogspot.com. My husband has written a few good and interesting posts about his first impressions.
Interesting aside, I am really sorry not to have a picture, it was just so shocking and happened so fast, we saw a Finn in black face. No, not a black Finn, we have a few black Finnish citizens but a white guy dressed like '70 black fella. "Play that funky music...white boy?"
It has been a proper cloudy damp fall here. Yesterday it was sunny and pretty but other than a walk to the store we were stuck inside cleaning. Cleanliness it a part of the contract to stay here, still they can't send anyone over to fix the fracking bathroom sink. This is an expensive residence.
Today we went to Jarvensivu, the part of town I grew up in. We had a good walk and felt shocked that the late '80 are alive and well. Teenagers are idiots.
Here are some things that are way better here than the US:
1. Everyone walks so the side walks are a single car lane wide and the crossing spots on the roads are ample and convenient.
2. Busses are frequent and easy to use. They are not only taken by the really poor but even by middle class working people and upper class teenagers. Even elementary schoolers take them unsupervised.
3. No one pities us for not having a car. Do you people realize how annoying that is? It is not a hardship not to have a car, you are just lazy. STFU, offer us a ride, thanks, but hold the side order of pity.
4. There is a lot more international food at the grocery store.
5. The food is a lot healthier, lower in salt, fat and sugar with out being much more expensive.
6. Getting Marcus's paper work to say here indefinitely done will take 120 euros, a few hours of our time to fill out the paperwork tomorrow a trip to the police station Monday, 7euro photo at the photo booth, turning it all in and a few months of waiting.
Things are already looking up. I will also get my unemployment application in Monday. I was not able to do it before because it takes a few days for my new residence to get to the central database and can't get Tampere benefits when I am not a Tampere resident.
Not very interesting, I know, but have been too preoccupied to think of a good blog to post. For something more interesting and comprehensive go to soremoose.blogspot.com. My husband has written a few good and interesting posts about his first impressions.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
How I became Infected
When I was little I did not really know what racism was. It was around, it always is but you don't really get it until you see it yourself. As a child I heard all the jokes about the Gypsies being lazy thieves but yet really good singers and dancers. The Saami were claimed to be drunks. It was not really real to me because I had never knowingly met a member of either Finnish minority. That is because in reality no one looks like the exaggerated caricatures shown on TV.
Then I moved out of my sheltered life and into the United States. I moved from a country practically oblivious of the implications and evils of their racist attitudes to one very conscious of them. I was taught about the civil rights movement and became not only an admirer of Martin Luther King and of Rosa Parks but of the underground rail road and all the people who had stood up for that was right even at the cost of their own lives. I became emotionally involved with history of the civil rights movement and became emotional when confronted by injustices of any kind. I felt that to stand by and let something like that happen was wrong. I bristled when ever my parents or anyone said anything negative about someone based on looks, race or nation of origin.
I also became friends with people of varied back grounds. I was in ESL so I became closer and could identify better with other immigrant children than the people at large regardless of actual ethnic origin. The thought of hate groups like the KKK wanting to hurt my friends was horrifying to me.
I was happy when I went after my first year of school to ESL summer school. It was like school with all the bad boring parts removed. I expected everyone to be nice. There was only one other white person in my class besides me but he was a boy and so I wanted nothing to do with him. The definite majority was the Vietnamese girls. There was about four of them but they seemed like more because they spoke Vietnamese together separating themselves, loud, boisterous and confident in their numbers. They played a game I did not understand and was not invited to join, not that it occurred to me, they seemed so insulated. There seemed to be a leader and her second, little kid gangs always have leaders and a hierarchy, like chickens. The leader had long hair and her second had very short hair. They seemed very tall and pretty to me, but I do not know if that was reality or an image borne from their confidence, self assurance and popularity.
I got along with other girls in the class and other classes just fine. The Somalese girls I took the bus with were nice and so was the Korean girl who was both in my class and on my bus, she was quiet but nice.
Then one day in class I changed my seat. Our seats were not assigned. I just wanted a change. One seat was differently made than mine and I wanted to sit in it so I moved. Unfortunately that seat was in the second to back seat of the Vietnamese row. I sat down behind the short haired girl and right in front of another girl from a different country. After a while of enjoying this novel seat the short haired girl turned around.
"You can't sit here you are not Asian." she said. I felt shocked and confused.
"But she is not Vietnamese." I said indicating the girl behind me.
"But she is Asian." she replied. I felt confused I did not understand. I mean I did, I had been bullied all my life. I could not deny I was not Asian. I felt heat on my face and my brain was not working so I moved back to my old seat. I was upset, humiliated and did not understand for a long time that I had been a victim of racism. I did not know it could happen to me. I did not really get it until years later that it did not matter who was really the majority what mattered was who was the majority at the moment. Being discriminated does not make someone a more understanding person and less likely to repeat it, it makes you more likely to repeat it.
Racism is an infection that is passed from person to person. Not only from discriminating father to discriminating son by example but from racist to victim. Making the victim scared and hateful. It was years after this my heart rate stopped going up when I was alone in a room with Asian girls and if I found out a girl was Vietnamese it got even worse. I became nervous and panicky and wanted to escape before I was attacked. I felt awful about this but could not control my feelings.
All over that minor little childhood incident. I am pretty thin skinned I guess. Not like anything truly bad happened but it is the principle of it. I admired Rosa Parks so much and I was not able to emulate her. If you cannot live by your convictions what are you? I have been wondering that myself. What am I if I cannot do the right thing when it matters so much to me.
Then I moved out of my sheltered life and into the United States. I moved from a country practically oblivious of the implications and evils of their racist attitudes to one very conscious of them. I was taught about the civil rights movement and became not only an admirer of Martin Luther King and of Rosa Parks but of the underground rail road and all the people who had stood up for that was right even at the cost of their own lives. I became emotionally involved with history of the civil rights movement and became emotional when confronted by injustices of any kind. I felt that to stand by and let something like that happen was wrong. I bristled when ever my parents or anyone said anything negative about someone based on looks, race or nation of origin.
I also became friends with people of varied back grounds. I was in ESL so I became closer and could identify better with other immigrant children than the people at large regardless of actual ethnic origin. The thought of hate groups like the KKK wanting to hurt my friends was horrifying to me.
I was happy when I went after my first year of school to ESL summer school. It was like school with all the bad boring parts removed. I expected everyone to be nice. There was only one other white person in my class besides me but he was a boy and so I wanted nothing to do with him. The definite majority was the Vietnamese girls. There was about four of them but they seemed like more because they spoke Vietnamese together separating themselves, loud, boisterous and confident in their numbers. They played a game I did not understand and was not invited to join, not that it occurred to me, they seemed so insulated. There seemed to be a leader and her second, little kid gangs always have leaders and a hierarchy, like chickens. The leader had long hair and her second had very short hair. They seemed very tall and pretty to me, but I do not know if that was reality or an image borne from their confidence, self assurance and popularity.
I got along with other girls in the class and other classes just fine. The Somalese girls I took the bus with were nice and so was the Korean girl who was both in my class and on my bus, she was quiet but nice.
Then one day in class I changed my seat. Our seats were not assigned. I just wanted a change. One seat was differently made than mine and I wanted to sit in it so I moved. Unfortunately that seat was in the second to back seat of the Vietnamese row. I sat down behind the short haired girl and right in front of another girl from a different country. After a while of enjoying this novel seat the short haired girl turned around.
"You can't sit here you are not Asian." she said. I felt shocked and confused.
"But she is not Vietnamese." I said indicating the girl behind me.
"But she is Asian." she replied. I felt confused I did not understand. I mean I did, I had been bullied all my life. I could not deny I was not Asian. I felt heat on my face and my brain was not working so I moved back to my old seat. I was upset, humiliated and did not understand for a long time that I had been a victim of racism. I did not know it could happen to me. I did not really get it until years later that it did not matter who was really the majority what mattered was who was the majority at the moment. Being discriminated does not make someone a more understanding person and less likely to repeat it, it makes you more likely to repeat it.
Racism is an infection that is passed from person to person. Not only from discriminating father to discriminating son by example but from racist to victim. Making the victim scared and hateful. It was years after this my heart rate stopped going up when I was alone in a room with Asian girls and if I found out a girl was Vietnamese it got even worse. I became nervous and panicky and wanted to escape before I was attacked. I felt awful about this but could not control my feelings.
All over that minor little childhood incident. I am pretty thin skinned I guess. Not like anything truly bad happened but it is the principle of it. I admired Rosa Parks so much and I was not able to emulate her. If you cannot live by your convictions what are you? I have been wondering that myself. What am I if I cannot do the right thing when it matters so much to me.
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