Facebook Ignorance

Read this comment posted on by someone I'm friends with on Facebook and then read my response below.

There are just so many things wrong with this post. It's difficult to know where to begin, so I've decided to dissect it line by line to dispel any thoughts that any part of this Facebook post is (a) accurate (b) not-racist. It's completely racist. There is no single sentence in this post that doesn't reek of white supremacy and entrenched racism. This reflects the superiority complex prevalent on the political right as well as the sheer ignorance many people brought up in overprivileged white communities experience. Am I surprised that someone would think it was okay to post this on a social networking site? No. Not at all. But I've been quiet way too long for me to see something like this and respond with something simple and dismissive like "the ignorant will remain ignorant" or "stupidity is rampant in society, we can do nothing about it."

Let's get to the good stuff. The beginning of the second sentence reads, "However, the liberal media and president Obama are incorrectly portraying this shooting as a case of White vs. Black racism..." I suppose the author believes that Fox News' approach to the situation is a better one, the news station where Geraldo Rivera claims that black parents just shouldn't allow their kids to wear hoodies because the hoodie was as much to blame as the killer. The liberal media is accurate in their portrayal of this as a case of White vs. Black racism. First of all, George Zimmerman is half-white, half-Hispanic. His features are primarily European; we can assume that his experience in society was equivalent to that of a white man. Being half-white is enough to give someone the assumption of white privilege. True, blacks can be a target of racism from a variety of races, but the media is not incorrect in portraying George Zimmerman as white. The author also tries to detract from the fact that this is a hate crime by trying to make it a political statement, as if a black boy's murder is some grand ploy to discredit the GOP.

Another brilliant addition to this second sentence of supreme wisdom is "...a) there is nothing to prove that Trayvon Martin's race played any part in his murder". How many black men have to be murdered for people to realize that race plays a part in their deaths? How many black men have to be killed on the streets for moral elitists to realize that racism still exists in the United States and it isn't the victims' fault? If this author could look me in the eye and tell me a white boy of that same stature, wearing a hoodie, walking home with Skittles and Iced Tea would have been gunned down, he will not only be lying to my face, but he will be demonstrating how seriously entrenched his racism is. Of course the killer will not say that race had anything to do with it, which, if you want proof, is the only way you can get it. But the fact of the matter is, it was an issue of race. If it wasn't, Zimmerman would have backed down when the police told him to over the phone instead of pursuing and violently murdering an innocent child.

Next, he says that "...Latinos in this country are just as oppressed as Black-Americans." When I got to this part of this status update, I couldn't resist scoffing. I am not saying that Latinos do not face discrimination or outright racism based upon the color of their skin, their language and even their culture but the two are not comparable. First of all, in a hate crime like this one, it doesn't matter if the murderer experienced more or less racism throughout his life. The fact of the matter is, Trayvon Martin was killed because he was black by someone who believed himself to be racially superior to him. Black men are villains in society as soon as they were born. Police brutality is unfairly prejudiced against black men. The brunt of racism exerted by the authorities is focused on black men. The two are not comparable, and should not even be compared at all in this case.


The author proceeds to express frustration with what I assume he believes to be Obama's racism. He says, "What frustrates me most, however, is that President Obama has said 'If I had a son, he would look like Trayvon' which implies that his caring interest in the care stems from the fact that Trayvon looks like him." This was a hate crime. This hate crime was committed because Trayvon Martin was black. The author, so busy practicing his color-blindness, must not have noticed that President Obama is also black. In addressing a hate crime like this that quickly rose to national attention, how could the President ignore race? Brushing the issue of race under the carpet doesn't eliminate racism. Ignoring racism only allows it to become quiet, secretly practiced in the home and then allowed to erupt in hate crimes like this, when people can no longer keep their immense hatred to themselves and explode in extreme violence targeting those who do not deserve it. (Note: No one deserves to be killed by a hate crime.)

The dear poster then suggests that black people must abandon our racial identity for racism to stop. This is yet another example of entrenched white supremacist sentiment. In order to appease his false sense that the United States has racial equality he expects people to abandon their identity and assimilate to his. Black culture is different. Black culture is important. Yet, he proposes we "stop defining our lives and our actions by race, then and only then will the racial divides in our country dissolve." This is racist for, "give up your identity to fit my perception of normal and then I will not discriminate against you and support the systematic murdering of your people." The color of our skin is a part of our ethnicity and a part of our nationality. Ignoring skin color will not allow racism to disappear. If I forget for a second that I am a black woman, this will not change how people see me. I cannot hide my darkness. I cannot hide my unruly hair. I cannot hide my black identity and racial equality doesn't mean I have to hide my identity either. Solving racism isn't going to happen as a result of me pretending not to be black. It's going to be solved by people just not being racist.

Not wanting to leave us at the end of his post with any confusion as to whether or not he is racist, the author blames this hate crime on the President and black people in general. He places the blame of "stereotyping, racism, hate crimes and disunity" on the victims of the entire situation. Make no mistake, black people are the victims here, but in an attempt to make the killing of Trayvon Martin an egocentric event, he ignores the fact that racism and discrimination is caused by a white supremacist attitude and not the people who have to worry about their children being legally gunned down for no reason.

Like most racists, he tries to conceal his true hatred for blacks in a wordy post that blames the victim and the liberal media. It reeks of ignorance and disgusts me to the core. Racism is not controlled by the people on the receiving end of it. It is caused by people who perpetrate racist ideals, people do not take the time to educate themselves, people who believe themselves to be morally superior to everyone around them and people who advocate the false notion that color-blindness can exist. He prefaces his post claiming that he is "horrified" Zimmerman hasn't been arrested. But he shouldn't be. People like him are the reason that Zimmerman is free and Trayvon is dead. People like him are the reason that I live in fear of having black sons. People like him are the reason there will be more Trayvons for years to come. 

Relevant Blogs

Yesterday I promised I would post articles, but I think that just posting links to blogs will provide a much bigger picture. Now, there are some posts that I don't entirely agree with but this isn't the case with the majority of them. All of these are tumblrs, and I'm sure there are great blogspot blogs, but I'm early on my path of discovery. 

Happy reading!

http://morecoffee.tumblr.com/

http://menwhotrustwomen.tumblr.com/

http://daughterofzami.tumblr.com/

http://ethiopienne.tumblr.com/

I can update this list and maybe create a special page for it later, but for now enjoy scrolling through and educating yourself.

Black Feminism

I have recently discovered the community of black feminist bloggers on tumblr and worlds have been opened to me that I never knew existed. My entire life there have been feelings and thoughts about society inside of me that I have been unable to express. I do not have a beautiful style or a beautiful manner of expressing myself. I view my writing as that of some kind of dumbed down Hemingway. It has always been hard to know if my feelings are legitimate when there has been no support system or any group of people to tell me that it is okay to feel these things, that my thoughts are more than a loner's delusions. It has been difficult to accept my feelings as legitimate when I can barely find the words to express what is going on in my mind. How can anyone understand what I'm thinking, if I cannot express my thoughts and seem to barely understand them myself?

My voice has been institutionally silenced over the years, an intelligent voice that thinks critically about society and wants to understand the world around her. I feel like all I needed was to be educated by someone like me: someone young, black and intellectually capable who continues to defy what society tries to enforce. I understand that what I struggle with is different from what a 100% black female struggles with; I will never be able to really understand what someone darker than me struggles with, but I am willing to educate myself about it. Along with my struggle to find my own identity, I have been educated about the true depth of a black woman's struggle. I have been educated about what it means to reconcile my desires to be a feminist and my desire for racial equality without compromising my culture.

There is so much that I have yet to learn. Reading a few blog posts here and there is not going to be enough, but it's a start in becoming really educated. There is so much that I want to learn and my journey is just beginning. The education I'm receiving is never taught in schools. God forbid you give women, black women in particular, a way to empower themselves. God forbid you teach them about their true potential to impact society. I want anyone who reads this blog to become acquainted with the issues I am talking about. Tomorrow, I will look for some good posts that I've read and link them here. I don't have confidence in my eloquence in rewording them.

It doesn't matter if you are white, black, biracial or multiracial, we can all learn something by standing together with our human sisters. Racism is a social construct that we can begin to destroy as individuals.

Spring Time

I am ambitiously trying to blog outside today. In a wave of unbelievable March weather, it is around eighty degrees here in Vermont and I'm sitting outside trying to make the most of this while it lasts. Of course, my mind is occupied with a variety of somewhat topics, none of which I feel strongly enough about to flush out a blog post. However, today my mind wandered upon something uplifting that changed my mood for the day and caused me to reflect on how I've changed over this past year. This time last year, I was finishing up my final year of high school. I was on spring break about to hear back from a number of colleges at the same time. My news would be mostly good (with only one real disappointment). However this time last year kickstarted my realizations about entering the adult world. I was traumatized by the epiphany that my life and relationships with my friends would change.

Now, I look back at that time, and all the promises I made to myself and others. I feel like I can confidently say that I managed to hold up my end of promises especially about communication. Anything that fell apart was not as a result of my lack of effort. I still remain very close to the girls I prefected a dorm with and I occasionally am in touch with younger students at Groton through various social media.

I have not lost sight of my goals or who I am and would venture to say that I am actually closer to self discovery, something that was definitely my intent. Although academics have not been easy, I have been managing everything that I needed to do successfully. I am working towards something that I have not yet given up on.

My biggest fears seem to have been for naught. However, I still have some regrets and want to make some changes about the way I have started off college. I just wanted to write something small to encourage everyone reading this to continue with their goals. College can be whatever you want it to be. It took me some time to realize that, but I am working on making that realization a part of my daily life.

Oppressing Ourselves

A lot of us may have noticed that certain people, or maybe even just people in general hold a certain power over us. There is something about them that makes us forget our instincts of self-preservation and allows us to become emotionally vulnerable for moments, days or years at a time. This tendency to be weak for a short while is acceptable with someone who will not take advantage of us, but this emotional exposure can quickly morph from a simple change in pace to something masochistic and potentially dangerous.

We forget to love ourselves sometimes, especially if we are in darker places, and believe that we do not deserve to be loved. Letting someone take advantage of you is one of the worst things you can do, no matter how you are feeling. Not only are you feeding yourself to future trust issues, but you are also forcing yourself to experience the emotional pain of disappointment.

It can be difficult to accept that someone you like or love doesn't feel the same way about you. (Yet sometimes difficult things must be done). If something feels incomplete or incorrect, what is the point of continuing to pursue it hoping for some prospective completeness that you crave but can never have? I may not be one to talk; at some point or another I too have filled my head with silly delusions about people who have eventually left. However, I recognize my mistakes. The only bad mistake is one you do not learn from. Before positioning yourself somewhere as an easy target, I want to help you assess your life and how you are emotionally treating yourself. It is difficult to give up on someone or the precious hope of someone perfect, but it is even more difficult to piece yourself together after you have taken one too many falls.

The first step in all of this is convincing yourself you are in control. Although we are not in control of our feelings most of the time (you may love someone totally undeserving or someone who isn't necessarily your "type"), our actions are in our control and to a certain extent we can regulate our thoughts. Think about what you really want out of a personal connection whether it is a friendship or a romantic relationship. Then, it's important to think about whether the person you are preoccupied with can give you want you want, and if they can't give you what you want, do they seem willing to change in the future?

I don't believe that every person will be able to give you everything that you want out of a relationship; there are areas where compromise must exist to compensate for human imperfection. However, it is important for us not to compromise too much for a false sense of security that will eventually diminish leaving us with a crude picture of our delusions. A moment of unhappiness or a fight is not enough to cause us to break off a connection with someone, but when the bad moments start to outweigh the good ones, you will know this in the back of your mind.

What can we do once we have recognized that we are in control and secondly that we may be compromising our happiness for someone who will never compromise their happiness for us? The next step is to eliminate this person from our plans for the future. When you think about where you will be in ten years, imagine a life without them. It is possible to move on from someone. Everyone has done it. Once you recognize your potential to exist without worrying about whether or not this person will remember your birthday or be there for you after a huge disappointment, you will eventually recognize your full potential for freedom and for finding happiness somewhere else.

When things aren't going well and do not fit our imagined constructs of perfection, we can sometimes try to force situations to be what they aren't. If some boy you like doesn't like you back, you will start to attribute meaning to his whispered words and casual glances turning them into something meaningful when they really might just indicate friendship. If someone is vague or ambiguous, there is a tendency to hold out false hope that something may happen in the future. This behavior is destructive. I've been there. Reaching out to friends for advice can often eschew what you are trying hard to avoid: the fact that someone isn't interested. Your friends may know that if you tell them the truth you will not listen or sometimes they've known the truth for so long but feel guilty for having held out. Your friends are there to listen to you, guide you and help you, but they cannot constantly provide harsh reality checks without ruining your friendship. Reality checks are up to you.

People should stop being instruments of their own oppression. There comes a time when you have to truly love yourself and believe that you are in control of your happiness. If you are not happy with yourself or the direction of your life, the "promise" of a future with someone on the cusp of adulthood like yourself will not fix your unhappiness. Whether you are thinking about the comforts of marriage (which is crazy by the way) or just a long-term romantic affair, these are not solutions to uncertainty about the future. Uncertainty is a part of being human. It is our essence and plays a role in our universal significance as a species. Uncertainty cannot be fixed by hurting ourselves for a vague promise of something that would be great "if only".

Focus on people who want to be with you or around you. Focus on how you can make your own future more certain on your own. Focus on loving books, poetry, photography, nature or something that involves expressing human spirituality. A famous Jamaican once said "Liberate yourself from mental slavery". These words become more and more important as we grow up and find ourselves entering a world of adulthood that we feel totally unprepared for. Enslaving yourself to someone's happiness when they couldn't care about your own is not healthy and I would venture to say it's morally wrong. Take a hint from Epicurus. Live for yourself, pursue pleasure and maybe then you can break your cycle of oppression.

The Egoists

I have been traditionally bad at taking criticism. Since I was a child, I did things the way I felt was right. I would follow orders the way I was expected to, but "suggestions"or less powerful commands were frequently ignored in favor of decisions that I'd made on my own. To some extent, everyone is bad at taking criticism, but there is a point when you must get over your egoism and accept that other people's view of the world may be more correct than yours. There are specific cases especially when other people's criticism matters. If someone is pointing out a comment you have made that is racist, misogynistic or in some way discriminatory against a group of people, your opinion on the comment doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if you "meant it as a joke"or believe that you "don't have a misogynistic bone in your body".

If someone, especially someone who belongs to the group of people you are "not offending", is trying to correct you, then it's your responsibility to get over yourself, apologize, and try to see what you are doing wrong. If you are unable to do this, then something is wrong with you besides your ability to assess which jokes are appropriate and which ones are not.

There are a certain group of people, most often (in my experience) men, who possess entrenched arrogance so profound that it shocks me continuously. These are also often people who parade around claiming to be the "good guys" simply because they open a few doors and pull out chairs for a lady or two. Now, I'm not going to get hyped up about someone holding a door open for me, but my point is, if you claim to be a nice person, this needs to be reflected not just in shallow mechanical social requirements but also in the way you think.

One of the main ways this arrogance is shown is through an inability  to understand that someone else has the right to correct you. This is often accompanied by becoming agitated and fiercely denying that you are a racist / misogynist when no one has yet accused you of such a thing. When I say, "That's racist", I am not telling you that you are racist, I'm pointing out how inappropriate a comment you made is. I'm sorry about your feelings, but who is looking out for the feelings of people in my race? Nursing the wounds of the overprivileged is the least of my concerns. I am not responsible for your insecurity or your inability to listen to any opinion other than your own.  Of course, the arrogant person jumps to his own defense, rather than opening his mind, quickly painting me as the "angry black woman" who is overreacting, probably because of my period.

The thing that is most unfortunate about situations like this is the depth to which these social abominations are entrenched. An arrogant person will genuinely believe that one Harvard psychology test or the fact that they have a girlfriend proves that they are incapable of racism or sexism. They change the victims of their ignorance into attackers to protect themselves from self-awareness. These types of people will juxtapose the phrase "I am not a misogynist"with something like "women in power are sexy" and see nothing wrong with this. Of course there's nothing wrong with it. Women in power are so uncharacteristic and taboo that when they are in power, they must serve a sexual purpose. Thank god! At least they are sexy so they can serve some role pleasing men. Their power cannot be respected and treated as equal to a man's power, it must be sexy. 

Sometimes, the people who think and behave like this are people close to us. Is it worth it to try to change a mindset that seems impenetrable? Any criticism is seen as a blow to the ego and met with fierce opposition. How can you reach out when reaching out seems to be so fruitless? To a certain degree, we all deviate from our goals of being perfectly egalitarian; we may accidentally make an ignorant comment or maybe we genuinely believe something that is wrong and should be against our personal philosophies. The difference between the occasionally deviant egalitarian and the moral egoist is willingness to accept criticism. I am not one to waste my time. You shouldn't be either. Some people are unchangeable, unfixable and want to remain in a state of perpetual ignorance. This is of course easier for white males in society than it is for anyone else. In the end, it is up to you to decide whether or not you want to be around these kinds of people, forced to eternally be a crusader for a lost cause.  Personally, I am willing to put a certain degree of effort into changing someone's mindset, but after awhile I will move on, fixating my activism on people who have a chance at goodness.

A Narrative

Mornings are time for specificity and organization. Everything must happen a specific way to set the tone for the day. As light slowly begins to fill my room, I wake up, instantly reaching for the gadgets that anchor me to society. I turn every alarm off, everything meant to startle me into the waking world in the event my brain lusts after slumber a little too long. I try to roll out of bed slowly so I don't wake my roommate, unaware of whether or not I am successful. Teeth. Jeans. Brush hair. Contacts. Thick swipe of black eyeliner. Books thrown into a tote bag or a backpack, depending on my outfit and I'm out the door.

On a good day, I can accomplish all of this in fifteen minutes flat. I go to the nearest dining hall for breakfast and sit in a cozy diner style booth with my laptop open. I have to have Orange Juice first, then some kind of food, then coffee. Then more coffee. And my ten minute cups time me through the morning until I am forced to get on with my day and go to my first class, something I often times dread, preferring to sit and write for hours on end in my little booth.

Ritual dictates my days and my weeks. Without a clear idea or schedule I would be lost. I am perpetually following a script for my life. On good weeks, this schedule is perfect and represents exactly what I want. On bad weeks, I throw it all out. I skip class, I miss appointments and I fall off the face of the earth. I want to disappear, so I do. Fuck schedules. Fuck classes. Fuck requirements...

In my head, I've always thought of my tendency to do that as "going to the darkness". No dawn, no day, I'm always in this twilight. Although I am convinced my morning ritual is what keeps me sane, I know that it only keeps me alive. Sanity is something very distant, something I aspire to. I will be sane when I no longer fade to darkness or when I no longer need silly ritual just to get me to class or to make sure that I get up in the morning.

Although once I try to spill words onto a page, my words become unstable and harder to maneuver into perfection, in my head everything is stuffed with imagination. Intense thought spews out and tries to escape from my tightly shut chest. Everything in my heart and head is under lock and key and I have always operated under the assumption that someone else possessed the key that could pry me open and  force me to be rid of my emotional hang ups. It's either that, or I have to accept the fact that I have the potential to fix myself, but some mysterious force makes me incompetent and unable to do so. I am holding my breath until I am asphyxiated, waiting for some unknown variable to complete the insolvable equation of my despair.

Every inhale is followed by a sharp exhale: realization. Some breakthrough that liberates me from this expectation that someone else needs to help fix me. But once I breathe out, releasing all the tension from my suffocation, once I discover satisfaction, I need to breathe in again and feel the taboo pleasures of being asphyxiated through my own willpower. My breakthrough is diffused and I am right back where I started, gasping for air.

Three shots in. Too much for my head but just enough for my heart. A quiet evening morphs into something with potential before vodka and seltzer has time to catch me up to what is happening. An arm around my shoulder. My head rests on a rib cage, making direct contact with the source his rhythmic breathing. Of course there are words, which come so easily when you've had a bit to drink and you are no longer afraid of showing that you are human. Then I heard your heart beating, you were in the darkness too... But everything ends. The infinite is a construction beyond human comprehension; although some moments should last forever, they are so mostly prematurely terminated. Soon, I begin to realize that the words coming out of my mouth are too much. The thoughts running through my head are too much for me to handle... You left me in the dark. Everything is happening too fast for me to process.

I make a hasty escape to my cave of sobriety and lie in my bed thinking more than I should. The unknown has broken through my careful guards against emotion. My daily rituals are insignificant in keeping me sane in a world of the unexpected. Perfection in the morning is so much harder to keep up with at night. During the daytime with the protection of rituals, when emotions or thoughts become too much I can run away. This is supposed to prevent me from "fading to darkness" too easily. I do everything in my power to prevent the trigger of depressive thoughts. I do everything to protect myself.

In the safety of my bed, I realize that I am not protecting myself, but punishing myself. I don't want to feel because I think I don't deserve it. In reality, I want to feel someone else's heartbeat next to mine, a soothing repetition, letting me know "you are not alone" with each pulse. My feelings always become more complex than just wanting to have someone to keep me company at night. I am always the one who thinks more, feels more and loves more, whether or not I express that to the outside world.

I refuse to constantly put myself in the position of being the feeler, the thinker or the lover. I possess an inability to control the intensity of my emotion. Not being in control terrifies me. No matter how nice and sweet some boy might seem, given a week and a half of me believing them to be different.  I can peel away their layers of kindness and destroy my illusions of difference faster than most. No, I don't think all guys are assholes, but I think I can provoke people into revealing the negative aspects of their personality.

The only thing I can control is my negativity, but even that seems like such a burden. Have I ever pondered what would happen if I did let go emotionally. What if I actually let someone know that I could feel? What if I showed someone my emotions to someone?

What am I so scared of?

I fear commitment, wanting too much commitment, unhappiness, too much happiness, and so many other things. If I am too happy, then what I view as an inevitable fall from this joy will hurt even more. I am concerned that each time something bad happens to me, it will be harder for me to bounce back in one piece. I imagine myself crumbling at an accelerated rate as it becomes more difficult to rebound from disappointment.

But I can't let this negativity dominate my thoughts. I know that I will never be happy if I view everything as an opportunity for failure rather than an opportunity for something amazing. My main problem is reconciling how I should feel with how I do feel. It's something everyone faces to some extent; I am not alone in this. And dear reader, you aren't either.