SO JUST A QUICK INTRO TO BROWN MAN'S DILEMMA, THE NEW WEBLOG FROM ANOTHER DEADLEE BLOG INPIRED BY A GREAT WRITER -- JR! I AM WITNESS TO A LOT OF SMART BROWN BOIZ THAT DON'T GET A CHANCE TO REACH A BROADER AUDIENCE WITH THEIR ART AND WRITINGS. A LOT OF BROWN BOIZ ARE UNFAIRLY LUMPED WITH GANGSTERS AND THUGS, AS PEOPLE CAN'T GET PAST THE STEREOTYPE. A BROWN MAN WITH TATTS AND A SHAVED HEAD CAN BE MENACING TO A LOT OF PEOPLE, BUT IT'S TIME TO SEE THERE IS MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE. THIS WILL BE A SPACE FOR THE BROWN BOY TO FINALLY BE HEARD. MY FIRST GUEST BLOGGER IS A HOMIE FROM WEST COVINA, CA - ANONIMO. CHECK BACK TO READ MORE FROM ANONIMO AND OTHER BROWN BOIZ! HERE IS HIS FIRST IN A SERIES OF GUEST BLOGS!
A BROWN MAN'S DILEMMA
I come to an intersection on some street on an otherwise typical day taking a stroll to the b-ball court at a local park. There's a car that looks like it wants to take off before I cross but which seems held back by an ideology known as the California law, which we all know of course gives me the right away. Apt to obey the driver reluctantly let's me go. But in so doing the driver suddenly locks the car doors. A "CLICK" on all sides of the vehicle confirms any doubts that I'm making any of this shit up. The fact she's a woman seems reason enough for me to accept that she may indeed be afraid because I am a big buff guy with tats. But then there's the fact that this has happened on several other occasions, ALL by white women mind you, and never by a woman of color, in case you're missing the point. This causes me to rage inside. There's no doubt that its not simply that she's a woman and I'm a man that causes her to barricade herself within in her vehicle. No rather it is because I am not only a Mexican but a dark skinned one at that. And because she is a white woman she feels all the more fear to protect herself from my darkness. I know women of color don't have any special physical powers that make them immune to violence any more than what a white woman would have. Although some David Dukes out there would like to believe so. So why are these woman reacting differently? Well we all know why. But like the good American I am, I don't even wallow in the embarrassing situation enough to talk shit to her or even act as though I want to back hand the bitch. In fact I don't even make eye contact with the poor lady, and I even go out of my way to make sure I bounce the basketball to cut any tension she may have that I might attack her. I just walk on by appearing as if nothing happened. I mean I even feel guilty and to some degree sorry for her as I'm beginning to wonder if in some small way I am at fault for making her feel the way she does.
But once I'm across the street and away from the frightened creature that is her face I reflect about what just took place, playing it over and over again in my head, gritting my teeth, becoming psychotic, detesting that I can't get over it as it becomes indelibly etched in my memory, becoming a part of my psyche, eating away at my consciousness until it eventually it begins to fade into the farthest reaches of my mind, until of course, like clockwork it strikes again, adding yet another battle wound in my private yet very public war against our contemporary and very real problem of racism in America.
In the United States there is a premium placed on white bodies. Just go to any beach and watch whose getting a tan. It isn't us dark folk pouring on the cream. No we are in the shade, hiding from you, protecting ourselves from the ostracism and stigmatization that comes with wearing a dark skin. You'll never catch a person who will tell you to your face that your skin color is a threat to their own safety, or to their aesthetic sensibilities. No. Instead they do what most people do when they don't want your company: they ignore you.
Today racism in America is quite elusive and isn't easily defined by race as it was just 50 years ago. No rather it is one that is less based on one's racial identification and more tied to skin color. Simply put, for the most part, variations of skin color determine how most people will treat you in this country. I've spent a great many times in my life looking from afar, avoiding the hustle and bustle of the white masses just because it has been a nuisance to constantly negotiate the hate stares and gazes that are directed at me constantly because of my skin tone. I'm sure my black brothers understand my plight. If anything they have it worse than I do, for unlike black people, I don't have the racial baggage attached to me like they do from centuries of slavery. But black or Latino, being dark in this country is still something we haven't come to terms with yet. Instead most people will hide behind a mask of tolerance only because it is no longer socially acceptable to be an open racist.
Within the Latino community there's an interesting angle that skin tone takes that is unique to "our people." Since language is the one denominator that holds us all together as a group, there is often a spectrum of colors within the "Hispanic" rubric that is inclusive of almost all types of people of different shades and nationalities. As a result we are often deemed monolithic, of having one racial heritage, and similar background. But this is an illusion of course, as you will find that skin color privilege favors light-skinned Hispanics as darker skinned ones are marginalized and are even seen as inferior by most Latinos. And don't be fooled by statistics. While some stats might propound the progress Hispanics are making in this country, there is no one adding the numbers on how it is the light skinned Hispanics acquiring all the opportunities and the benefits of the American dream. While I was an undergraduate at UC Berkeley I noticed that on paper we represented 10% of the total student body. But as a student on campus, I noticed amongst the throngs of Hispanics but a few dark skinned ones. Interestingly enough, most of the light ones, with their white skin and colored eyes mind you, went around playing the race card ("I'm the first Latino this and the first Latina that") with their white boyfriend or girlfriend on their arm and with all their white friends on the sideline telling them how hard it must have been for them to make it as a minority. I find it so hard not to laugh. I don't care if they claim a Spanish surname or speak the language fluently, in my eyes they are white. So too does the rest of the nation see them the same. But hellbent on their victim status, or the fact that its fashionable to claim a Latino or native American background, they wear it proudly only because they have no clue what it really means to be one. A 2006 Harvard study conducted by many experts in various fields concluded that due to various factors such as colorism indeed the darker one's skin is in the less likely one is to succeed in our Eurocentric, white dominated society. No shit. All they had to do is ask any brown brutha on the street and they would have gotten the same answer.
In case you're asking yourself where this is going, let this essay serve as a reminder that aside from all the gains made through laws and movements, it is those simple day-to-day situational encounters with people that really tells us how we really feel about each other. For the most part white women are locking their car doors, suburbanites are calling us thugs and stupid in their homes, dads are threatening their daughters with disowning them if they ever dated us, a proud Latino who is down for La Raza secretly wishes for a light skinned baby with light eyes, of course cursing the white man at the same time. Yes. This is the country we live in today. The one that will continually be plagued with social issues that seem impossible to rectify only because we can't be honest with ourselves on how much we are ruled by color.
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It is another typical day and I am approaching an intersection. I am sensing a familiar scenario, for it is a white woman whose car meets me at the crossroads. I can turn away and avoid what I know is going to happen, perhaps but for a moment, allowing her the satisfaction of my not existing and to appease my natural inclination to avoid the embarrassment of another's stupidity. Indeed I take a side route and am forever lost to her gazing eye. But this is only temporary. I am still angry. And so are a lot of us. Soon enough you will have to face me---us.
by Hector from East Los Angeles
