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2001-07-19 / 7:40 p.m. ~White skin~
Let me see if I have this correct: it's not okay for white people to call black people black. They must be referred to as "African Americans", even if they're fourth generation American. It's not okay for white people to comment on black people's hair, how they wear it, what color they choose to dye it, or what they wear, or basically any other physical characteristic, natural or otherwise. White people must walk on eggshells around black people, because our ancestors enslaved their ancestors. Right? Black people have been persecuted in this country, and others, but most especially here, having been brought here for slave labor a long time ago. They lived in Africa, but now they live here, settled, many generations later. However, it's okay for black people to say whatever they want about whites. Right? Sure. Sure it is. Whites enslaved their ancestors, whites can never pay the debt owed to blacks. Impossible. So, I'm white. No, I won't bother with fancy names for my race. Caucasian? Sure, if you must. European-American? Well, that's more accurate, but white is what I am. I don't feel the need to change the terminology with each passing decade. It's been white, let it stay white. I am of European and British descent, German, English, Scottish, German and Russian Jew. I have dark hair and light, pale skin, but I tan easily. If I were to want to tan. Negroes, Afro-Americans, Blacks, now it's African-Americans, and heaven help me if I slip up (!), rule. Especially where I work. I am the minority, I am the token Caucasian. I have been, since I started there, three years ago. I've never been happy about this, preferring diversity, variety, in all things, have simply seen it as a learning experience, as something I need to deal with, something that will be good for me, in the long run. But ignorance, tactlessness, stupidity, rudeness, these things will never help me. I've been told before that I could "use some sun". White people have said this, my brother used to say it a lot, when we were still speaking to each other. Rude, insensitive, and highly ignorant people have said it on and off since I learned that a tan is the body's defense mechanism against the harmful rays of the sun. And, since I became tattooed. Tattoos are expensive, and if you're not a drunken sailor on excursion in the South Pacific getting an "I Love Mom" or a dancing lady, or a boat anchor tattooed on your bicep, but someone who's spent some time planning on a design with meaning and beauty, well, you decide to stay out of the sun after you get inked. Sun fades ink. Sun=Bad. We do need sunlight, and moderate sun exposure is good, it's necessary, it converts some vitamin into another, or something, details being lost on me, but it may be Vitamin D and K, some necessity for good health. I think it has to do with absorption of a specific vitamin. But....tanning is unhealthy. Period. Melanin is produced, pigment darkens, cancer is only a sunburn away. Look, I'm not good at details, I know that I learn something, I digest what I need to know, I'm good. I love to learn, I love to expand my horizons, I abhor ignorance. And let me say right here that I used to be among the ignorant, lying in the sun for hours, flipping myself like an egg frying in a pan, getting 'tanned'. I used to believe that a tan was good, healthy, etc., before I learned that the beauty/health ideal shifts throughout time, that there was a time when a tan indicated one was a laborer, low class. The elite, the upper crust stayed in, even wore white powder to further the look, white, WHITE, was beauty, it was health, it was the way. L. says I could use a tan. Her skin is black as night, black as the black sands of Hawaii, black as, well, it's fucking BLACK, really dark black, like some deep dark tribe in Africa black, a cause of concern for her, she has said so. This chick, this woman with the horrible self-image, who thinks she's too fat to wear a swimsuit so I tell her she's beautiful just as she is, this woman tells me my skin color is too light. I am so sick of the reversal, so sick of being surrounded by ignorance, by a culture which does not teach manners, The Golden Rule, or sensitivity and compassion, a culture which fears its own mortality to the point that the people flock to churches as often as they can in hopes of some sort of redemption for their souls, hoping they can be the assholes they are and still end up in some happy place when they die. I can't even find the words to express my frustration at my constant exposure to the backwards attitudes, the lack of knowledge, education and simple compassion towards humanity (and don't even get me started on animals - these people hate animals, as a rule). Something so simple as telling me I "could use some sun" turned into loud opinions on the perceived "sickness" of Nicole Kidman, due to her white skin. It escalated in my head, after I said how awful that was, how cruel, how mean, how ignorant, how horrible to hear that white skin is sick skin, that no one should have white skin, what does this mean? My mind raced, my adrenalin soared, my anger was boiling within me, and I knew I had no power to change this. I had no power to make L. see what she'd done, I could not open her eyes at all, there was nothing I could do, and A. told me I should appreciate L.'s honesty. Oh, yes, and if I were to say, "L. your ass is so huge you could use it as a table to seat a family of four for a 6 course meal, with a different wine for each course, all of it displayed on a linen cloth", this would be appreciated, because it's honest? I am not expressing myself very well, I know. My point, again, is that I am the white person. T. has light skin, but she is "African-American", L. has deep dark black skin, but L. would never tell T. she needs some sun. Does this make sense? Who am I asking? This is just me. This whole thing freaked me out and when I came home I burst into tears, major frustration at the lack of power in my work situation, the overwhelming sense of futility, the more than overwhelming desire to be around people with intelligence, education, creative and open minds, threw me into a temporary sinking, hormonally induced depression that could only manifest itself in an outpouring of intense emotion. I'll be okay. I'll go in tomorrow and I'll have to talk to them, all of them, and they won't know what happened to me, they won't know I broke down, they won't know that I am so sick of them, and their ignorance, I'll simply work with them, slightly removed. It's all I can do, for now. I, possibly more than anyone else, know that I can't change anyone's mind, anyone's opinions, I have given up time and again, there's nothing I can do, and this is my frustration. I am surrounded by it daily and it's dragged me down to the point that I am not the person I was three years ago. If I don't leave this job.......I'll lose me completely. Cost of the War in Iraq
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