Rascism 2007

A few weekends ago, I went to go see the Dalai Lama at Emory for the "Mind/Life Institute 2007". It was a beautiful experience, and one I'll never forget. I'm more committed to pursuing zen meditation, and I feel this lovely sense of calm, strength, and courage since I began seeing things from a different perspective.

Unfortunately, it's amazing how my current focus on compassion became unraveled in about 10 min. last friday. You see, I received this email from a friend of mine, and it completely sent my blood boiling. Below please find the contents of the email - it's nothing personal - just one of those read and forward on to your friends type thing.

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Someone Finally Said It
(And it's long over-due.)
Proud To Be White



Someone finally said it.

How many are actually paying attention to this?
There are African Americans,
Mexican Americans,
Asian Americans,
Arab Americans,
Native Americans, etc.
...And then there are just -
Americans.

You pass me on the street
and sneer in my direction.
You Call me "White boy,"
"Cracker," "Honkey,"
"Whitey," "Caveman,"
... And that's OK.

But when I call you Nigger,
Kike, Towel head,
Sand-nigger, Camel Jockey,
Beaner, Gook, or Chink
... You call me a racist.

You say that whites commit a lot
of violence against you,
so why are the ghettos the most
dangerous places to live?

You have the United Negro College Fund.
You have Martin Luther King Day.
You have Black History Month.
You have Cesar Chavez Day.
You have Ma'uled Al-Nabi.
You Have Yom Hashoah.
You have the NAACP.
And you have BET.

If we had WET
(White Entertainment Television)
... We'd be racists.

If we had a White Pride Day
... You would call us racists.

If we had White History Month
... We'd be racists.

If we had any organization for only whites
to "advance" OUR lives
... We'd be racists.

We have a Hispanic Chamber of Commerce,
a Black Chamber of Commerce,
and then we just have the plain
Chamber of Commerce.
Wonder who pays for that?

If we had a college fund that only gave
white students scholarships
... You know we'd be racists.

There are over 60 openly-proclaimed
Black-only Colleges in the US ,
yet if there were "White-only Colleges"
... THAT would be a racist college.

In the Million Man March,
you believed that you were
marching for your race and rights.
If we marched for our race and rights,
... You would call us racists.

You are proud to be black,
brown, yellow and orange,
and you're not afraid to announce it.
But when we announce our white pride

... You call us racists.

You rob us,
carjack us,
and shoot at us.
But, when a white police officer
shoots a black gang member
or beats up a black drug-dealer
who is running from the LAW and
posing a threat to ALL of society
... You call him a racist.

I am proud.
... But, you call me a racist.

Why is it that only
whites
can be racists?

There is nothing improper about this e-mail.

Let's see which of you
are proud enough to send it on.
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I have to admit, I flipped my gourd. Here was my response to the email, and yes, I did hit "reply all":

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Wow. How uneducated can you be? The person that wrote that crap should have been chained up in leg and arm shanks, stolen from his family, locked underneath a boat deck in a place where people shit and pissed and threw up and died - then allowed above deck to "dance" in order to amuse the deckhands. If your family was unlucky enough to have been captured with you, your crying baby was thrown overboard so that he didn't bother the captain. To add insult to injury, you are SOLD - for cheaper than a cow - to a man who puts you to work. No "lunch breaks", 401ks, medical insurance, or even the ability to own your own home, marry the woman you want, or bear children unless its okayed by your "massuh". You'd be beaten if you spoke your native language or sang native songs. And it's pretty unlikely any of your fellow slaves speak your language. You are a commodity - like an animal.

So you make it ok through the civil war, and you're "emancipated". Yankees come and "save" you while making a jackass of you - dressing you up and making you dance and sing songs again. Unless you're really special, you end up "sharecropping" - farming the land you worked as a slave, and getting a little money off of it. But not much, because you owe your former "massuh" rent and the land fee and the grocery bills you've been piling up while you wait on the harvest. You are able to start going to a church where you can finally assemble, and if you "get too big for your britches" these stupid white men in gay-ass white sheets come and light your yard on fire or hang you from a tree. If your 12 year old son bats his eyes at a white woman while walking through town, well, they hang him too. (Emmett Smith). They finally pass a law to allow you to vote, but because you're black you have to take a "test" that absolutely none of you could pass about every stinking thing in the constitution. Never mind the fact white people don't have to do that.

Or, let's see, how about life as a Mexican in America during 2007? You come here because your family is starving and hiding from the cops and the drug dealers because they're all on the same payroll. You work shitty jobs - picking vegetables, plucking chickens, or making carpet for up to 20 hours per day. Which "WHITE" people won't do because its so much easier to sign up for welfare after you've made a shit of your life and had your 4th baby by a 4th baby daddy. (And don't argue with me - I've never seen a white person working the fields in Central Valley, CA). Anyway, as a Mexican you either work for cash or you use a Social Security number, so when you pay in your taxes and SSI and disability with each paycheck there is no way you can ever collect that back (No H&R block rapid refund for you, Jose!). Meanwhile, people talk shit about you because you live in an apartment with your 4 brothers and 4 cousins, saying it's nasty. All you're doing is saving money to keep your family alive in Mexico. BUT NOOOOO, you're "sending the money back to Mexico" instead of spending it here. Also a gross inaccuracy, because you're still buying stuff here and paying rent and purchasing cars and shopping for groceries, so in all actuality your contribution to the U.S. economy is pretty great.

Or, let's examine life as John Choo from Japan. You come here in the late 1800s as a slave to asian mobsters (they paid for your boat passage), who quickly sell you to the railroad companies. You lay railroad track in boiling heat 14 hours a day, across 1000s of miles, pretty much walking, following the railroad, as it stretches across the U.S. If you survive these conditions, by the 1940s you and your family have forgotten Japan because it sucked anyway (only rich people and poor people back then, nothing in the middle) and you bought a pretty piece of farmland and began farming cherries, oranges, grapes, and veggies in California's central valley. You live quietly and don't bother anyone. Because you came from Japan the U.S. comes in, takes you and your family and sticks them in a concentration camp, where you have a 50% chance of dying of some nasty disease because the water you drink is contaminated with the shit you shat. Your land is taken, and given away to one of the big companies. You come out of the camp flea-ridden and penniless. And the only reason they could get away with that with you instead of Mr. Weiner or Mr. Haus or any of your other neighbors from german ancestry is because the U.S. didn't really give a shit that 16 million jews were being gassed and there were too many german-americans to start pulling that shit. Besides, in the 1940s everyone thinks german-americans look white, so that's all that matters.

Feel priviliged because you are white. Unless you came from one of the founding families in the U.S., your family was also treated like shit. During the 1800s Irish were not considered white - nor Germans, Polish, Russians, or the Welsh. Feel shame because you will always earn more money, based on your color. Because the likelihood you'll be described as something bad because you are white just doesn't really exist. Try walking down the street

Proud to be biracial, and wishing people were a little bit more compassionate -

L

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Well I first feel incredibly guilty - the Dalai Lama would have said that the most appropriate response to that email was either:

a) Nothing at all.
b) "Please do not send messages like that one to me any longer".

Needless to say, I received a phone call from the sender of the email the next evening, and she was pretty upset. I guess I don't understand, and I probably never will. Typical. I ask everyone to put themselves in another's shoes, and I can't even do that in the case of my friend.

You see, I'm a mutt. My heritage is a mix of EVERYTHING. As a result, I do a pretty intense job of reading about different cultures that are part of me, in order to understand where I came from, why I look the way I do, and what I need to be teaching my children.

I did yell at my daughter for describing herself as white. White is not an adjective. She's kind of olivey-pink. White is not a nationality, or a heritage. You can't be proud to be white - you can be proud to be irish, or german, or french, or swedish. "White" equals the absence of melanin. How can you be proud of that? I'm certainly not going to feel pride in 200 years when my great-great-great grandchildren can't hang because the depleted ozone layer causes them to fry. Talk about a genetic curse.

I just wish more people spent more time thinking about what it must be like to live like someone else. I have a hard time believing that many of these minority groups that are treated like shit don't deserve days to honor them, universities where they will receive a REAL education, and groups to support them. We may have come a long way, but we sure aren't there yet.

Inequities still exist today. Were you ever taught about the Nanking Massacre in history class in school? About the kingdoms of Africa - other than Eqypt? About famous, seminal works like "Their Eyes Were Watching God", or the Tuskegee incident or "Up from Slavery"?

I just wish people could follow one of Don Miguel Ruiz's four agreements - "DO NOT MAKE ASSUMPTIONS". Just because someone looks at you funny doesn't mean they're prejudiced - that is in your head. And trust me, no matter what your nationality is, you still have it better than someone in the world. The idea that you can feel anything other than privileged right now kills me.


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