I used to think, and to believe, that not seeing the color
of other people’s skin was a way to contribute to the growing number of people
who are building bridges between their white selves and people of color in the
ongoing effort to fix the racism issue; at least here in the states. I really believed that by not seeing that
someone else had different color skin I was being forward thinking, open minded
and was showing that I was not among
those who knowingly or not are racist.
I really thought that this was how I could best be a soldier
in the war against racism. I think now that I was wrong. I meant well, but I
was dead wrong.
I say I was wrong because to choose not to see a person’s
skin color at all was in a way an insult to who they are. Our skin color, which
no one has by choice, is an integral part of who we are and how we move in the
world. It’s an outward advertisement of our ancestry and what ethnic group we
may belong to by virtue of our DNA. I
started to see how insulting it might be to a person of color to only see them
without their skin color, as if it was something negative to be ignored. By doing that I would basically be saying to them that the color of
their skin wasn’t good enough and if I see them as white like me or to have no
skin color at all then I’ll better be able to connect with them and relate to
them.
I saw that this way of seeing things might be considered
racist by those people on the receiving end of this philosophy and I decided
that perhaps there is another way to show my desire to connect with and relate
to people who are by virtue of their ethnicity different than myself. Then it occurred to me that the best thing to
do, for me personally at least, was to see their skin color and to appreciate
it for its tone, its depth, its beauty and how it compliments who they
are. I have all my life said, who knows
where I got this from other than inside my own head and heart, that in my
opinion on the whole there were more truly strikingly beautiful black women
than white women and I guess what I mean by that is that I’ve always been drawn
to tribal, exotic people who were different than myself and most of those tribal exotic people have much darker skin than my own lily-white skin.
In any case, it is my philosophy and how I choose to be in
the world to SEE other people’s skin color: not in a way to be set apart from
them but to appreciate that aspect of their being in an effort to be a part of
them, a part of this beautifully diverse group of beings we know as humanity. A kinship perhaps where it's evident that one of us got dad's eyes and the other got mom's hair color but still related; an acknowledgment that we are ALL human and by virtue of our DNA are all related, all kin, all basically the same in so many ways that truly matter.
In closing I’d just like to share my dream for humanity. My
dream for humanity, well one of my biggest dreams, is that at some point
(hopefully in my lifetime) that skin color will not be an issue for anyone and
most importantly won’t be an issue of shame or uneasiness for those people who aren’t white. The idea
that white skin is the most desirable skin color is simply something that small
minded white men who felt the need to be superior cooked up that planted the seed that became racism. White skin IS NOT the most desirable skin color but it
is simply one skin tone/color among many, many, many that are all equally
beautiful, all equally desirable and should be all equally accepted as ‘normal’
by human beings around the world. This division by skin color doesn’t exist
absent the ideas and ideals of human beings. Despite the experts who claim that
racism in a naturally occurring condition of the human race I believe that it
is not natural in the very least and that when humanity chooses to stop judging
others by their skin color or ethnicity and start judging them on their
character that then and only then will we achieve a level of evolution that is
long overdue.
There is NO racist gene. It’s a learned trait and even when someone has been
taught to be racist they can stop being racist. Just because a thing has always
been or is now doesn’t mean it always must be that way. Let us begin, one by one, to BE the change we
seek to find in the world by making the choice to not only see the color of
other people’s skin but to embrace it wholly as a part of who they are and is one
of the many things that makes them so beautiful.
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