Ben gave us a book titled "Letters from Mississippi." It had letters, poems, reports, and pictures. I like the idea of the book (reports from civil rights volunteers and poetry of the 1964 Freedom Summer) but unfortunately some of the letters are really boring. However, there is one poem that stuck out to me titled "Mine" by 17 year old Alice Jackson of Jackson, MS. I'll copy the poem at the end if you would like to read it but I want you to read my thoughts on it first.
From history lessons and stories told by older relatives, I've always known how segregation worked in the south but hearing it from this young woman touched me. As I read the poem and she described what she would like to see her home look like, I realized how fortunate my generation is. Yes we also deal with the legacy of slavery (racism in many different forms) but we have never been denied access to public venues simply based on the color of our skin nor do we face the level of blatant day to day racism that our grandparents met.
I do not like the term "African-American" (I would prefer to just be called black considering my father is from Trinidad and my Mom is from Mississippi. "West Indian-African-Native-American" is not the best classification) but I digress. As I read the last two lines of her poem, it got me thinking. Did we even have the term "African-American" back when she was growing up? We were Negroes, not Americans. We were niggers, not people. I still would prefer to be classified as black American but I have a new appreciation of "African-American."
So as I sit here reflecting on her poem, I realize how lucky I am. I don't have to fight as hard as she did to enjoy the rights that the Constitution gave me. I can take pride in knowing that my classification has the word "American" in it. Our next step should be getting rid of the need for hyphens (ex. African-, Irish-, Italian-American) and make us all simply Americans.
MINE
I want to walk the streets of a town,
Turn into any restaurant and sit down,
And be served the food of my choice,
And not be met by a hostile voice.
I want to live in the best hotel for a week,
Or go for a swim at a public beach.
I want to go to the best University
and not be met with violence or uncertainty.
I want the things my ancestors
thought we'd never have.
They are mine as a Negro, an American;
I shall have them or be dead.
- -Alice Jackson
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Asia, this blog is deep and I appreciate you posting the poem. I perused through the section with the poems because I wanted to save that for last. However, you're blog got me picking up the book and heading straight for the poetry section.
ReplyDeleteI must say that I agree with your sentiments about how easy our generation has it today. We really don't have face the blatant racism that existed back then, but that doesn't mean we should neglect the modern day racism of today. I am not saying that your post invites us to forget, I am merely adding my thoughts as an extention to yours.
Many people today think that just because we come so far as to elect a "black" president, all our race related issues are solved. Negative. That is the "sweeping it under the rug" attitude I despise most. I think the racism of today is more treacherous because it is so "hard" to detect. It's hidden beneath the policies of our business, in the admission processes of our colleges and I could go on and on...It's staring at us right in the face but we chose not to see it.
I have some questions for you and all of you reading this? Can we ever be color blind? Is to be color blind the goal? Will color blindness be the death of racism?
I too really enjoyed your post Asia. I think that its really easy for black people now to look at what they don't have and feel like things cannot get better, but in so many ways we're so much more fortunate now than we ever have been. Reading Letters from Mississippi and coming from up North and seeing what people went through then and still go through today has broadened my perspective of the advantages I have today.
ReplyDeleteTo answer Shanika's questions, I would say that color-blindness should never be a goal. How can you look at someone and not see what they are? The point is not to deny people of any characteristics they might have be it skin color, hair type or facial features but rather to look at these things and not have any biases about that person because of their features. The goal should be acceptance. Tolerance will not due. I think that color-blindness is a term which promotes tolerance and is in someways inherently prejudice because it calls for one to like someone despite that persons color and culture. I hope one say society reaches a point where people will be accepted for who they are, not despite who they are.
America is (one of)the most diverse nations in the world, it would be impossible for any of us to be blind to the color and cultural differences which we see daily, and we should not strive do so. Rather the goal should be to eliminate color-bias and assumptions and prejudices people make just by looking at someone else. Until then, racism will still exist.
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ReplyDelete*** i put stuff in capital letters cause i couldnt find the italics button =)
ReplyDeleteDiscussing race isn’t really my forte but I do, of course, have some opinions- ones that will most likely cause some eyebrows to be raised. I do have a disclaimer though, and that is that I am merely attempting to understand your point of views being that you all seem to agree on various points.
My first confusion has to do with the last part of Asia’s post. “Our next step should be getting rid of the need for hyphens (ex. African-, Irish-, Italian-American) and make us all simply Americans.” Why would you want to “simply” be an American? I’m speaking for myself but I am sure there are plenty of people who feel the same way; I take pride in the “hyphen” in my ethnic description. I am Haitian- American. I am a mix of 2 different cultures. I wouldn’t have it any other way. You are suggesting that anyone who is born in this country or becomes a citizen should basically erase where they are from or where their family is from by taking away the “hyphen” and by declaring them American…SIMPLY American.
My second disagreement has to do with the core of your post. Yes (a million times yes!) we have way more advantages than our great-grandparents have had but I think it should just be that- more advantages. I do not see the necessity in appreciating what we have more than we do for that reason. If we do its like we’re afraid they might take our rights away – again. It’s like, I don’t know, taking advantage of a sale cause it will be gone tomorrow. I disagree with that. I think we should be grateful and appreciative because there are people in OTHER COUNTRIES who don’t have the same advantages we do but not because our ancestors didn’t have the same advantages, you feel me?
I hope you understand the difference im trying to describe.
Okay this is getting too long. Sorry! Ok bye.
I didn't understand your second point at all Tahina so I'm not even going to bother with it. In response to your first concern; we are all from somewhere, even the white Americans so why should they be purely American but we have to be hyphenated? My mom was born in this country and so was her mother and her mother and so on. So why can't they just be American? Unlike us (you and me I mean), who are second and third generation immigrants, they cannot exactly trace thier cultural heritage back so I don't expect them to take pride in being called "African American" because they do not have an African culture.
ReplyDeleteI love every inch of my culture. When I'm down here, I kind of impatiently wait for people to ask us if we have been to MS before so I can brag that my mom is from here. Just the same, when flag day comes around in NY, I rep that Trinidadian flag hard.
Essentially what I'm saying is that by claiming to be true Americans or whatever and hyphenating everyone else, whites make it out like they own, have owned, and will always own this country and we're all just immigrants. Last example, WWII Japanese internment. People BORN in this country, who built lives and families and business in this country were targeted and discriminated against because of that hyphen. You can take pride in your culture without being legally or institutionally differentiated.
To Tahina:
ReplyDeleteTaking away a hyphen does not erase one's heritage (only American slavery does that) but rather it creates more inclusion among people of different races in this country by accepting the fact that we all live our daily lives here and are entitled to the same rights as white Americans who are the only group without a hyphen. As a Black American, originally from the south I feel that I'm more "American" as the term stands than most of the white people in Boston who arrived from Ireland in the 1900's. My ancestors built this country and the fact that we continue to be differentiated from whites who came to this nation at the same time period if not later is ridiculous to me.
The fact is, we all immigrated (or were dragged) here from somewhere else at some point. That's the beauty of our nation, and because this is the case I think that anyone currently living in the States is an American because in my eyes to be an American is essentially to have been an immigrant at some point in time. The only exception to this is Native Americans who originated here (at least in the modern era) and Black Americans who cannot trace back there roots and whose culture and identity has grown in this nation. I am not African, and I never will be, so why should that word identify me? I'm a black American born and raised and I too am proud of that, just as Tahina is proud of her Haitian heritage. You say that taking away hyphens erases people's culture, but where does Black American culture come out in the term African-American. In my opinion the answer is nowhere, and that's why I prefer to be called black, because that's what I am, not African.
Similarly I think recognizing the malleability and diversity within the term American can help solve a lot of the issues that come with hyphenated identification systems. It wasn't always the case (i.e. slavery), but today no one can take your culture away from you. However, i think that doing away with a hyphenated class system can give someone the opportunity to feel valued by this nation, rather than feeling like an outsider within a white man's world, if not actually at least nominally. It may sound petty, but it doe mean something when you can talk to someone who has historically been in the position of the oppressor and say 'I am American too, and I have the same rights as you'. I'm not speaking solely for black Americans, because I actually feel that in many ways blacks are further along in being accepted as true Americans than other groups such as Asians and Latinos. I think hyphens unfairly complicate and differentiate the place of whites and non-whites in America, hence my problem with them.
(to be continued)
Moving on to your second point Tahina...I'm not sure if I understand it exactly, but it sounds like you're saying we shouldn't appreciate the advantages we (black people) have today because it makes us seem fearful of them being taken away. I have to say, respectfully, that I think that this point is absurd for various reasons.
ReplyDelete1)Being appreciative isn't about appearances. It's about how you feel. After hearing my mom talk about how she had to teach my grandmother random facts that few white Americans know just so that she could vote, or the things that my mom had to go through growing up in Montgomery, how could I not be thankful for what I have? Yes, I also know that i am lucky to live in America and have American freedoms, but that doesn't mean I can't look back at the past and also be appreciative. 50 years ago, America WAS a different country which my family members lived in, so I am thankful that I live in my world and not theirs.
2) You make appreciation and gratitude seem so sentimental and sappy. Showing my appreciation does not mean that I sit around talking about how glad I am that I'm not a slave and wondering if that could ever happen again. But it does mean that I take advantage of the rights that I have that others in my family didn't, such as voting or getting the best education possible.
3) OUR RIGHTS COULD BE TAKEN AWAY. In what world our the rights of black Americans secure? Every day people's rights are being violated on the basis of race and income level, and I never think for a second that just because I go to Amherst and I'm not dirt-poor that it can't happen to me. If I wasn't appreciative for the rights that have because of time and place I wouldn't give a rat's ass about social justice. But my appreciation is what drives me to want to transfer my opportunities to others, knowing that in a different time or place I could've been disadvantaged as well. In my opinion, the majority of people in power, the people who have the ability to control the outcome of the lives of minorities and poor people, they don't care...at all. And if all the poor people and minorities left America today it would be fine with them. I don't think its fair or wise to underestimate the amount of power some people have...look at what George Bush was able to do to our nation in 8 years? he had no governmental support and he started a war...a war where millions have been killed. Do you not think that he could have just as easily written a law which prevents black people from having access to health-care or education? Do you not think that these laws exist today as we have this conversation?
I know that you (Tahina) still have a strong connection with your Haitian heritage and Haiti itself, so maybe you don't see my point of view. But, I think its a little unfair of you to say that I can only be appreciative relative to other countries. That's your experience, not mine. Even though all blacks now have the same rights constitutionally, that doesn't mean that there aren't people living in the states under the same conditions as those in other countries. And even if all black people enjoyed the same advantages as whites, that doesn't mean that we can't be appreciative to our ancestors who got us to this point.
Appreciation is not about appearances. It's about how I genuinely feel and the experiences that i've had in my life and through the lives of my family members. And ultimately what drives me to want to see more change in this country, so excuse me if this post came off a bit strong but I do have a problems with both of your claims. Just keeping it real.
Amen Kelly!
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