a goal
| 06/12/01
Ideally I would want to be color-indifferent. Realistically, I strive for color-blind. Currently, I am neither. It took some brainwashing for me to get here. Being raised in West Africa, color- besides the occasional 'light-skinned'/'dark-skinned' debate- was never really an issue. But West Africans are human beings, we need to discriminate too, so instead of racism, we came up with tribalism. There is the smart tribe, the dumb tribe; the pretty tribe, the ugly tribe; the hard-working tribe, the lazy tribe; the money-hungry tribe, the cold, ruthless tribe. And of course, one tribe that is unanimously blamed for life's many problems, one tribe that keeps the other tribes down. The master tribe. And so it is not uncommon to see fights along tribal lines, and deaths resulting from them. Certain tribes get picked on, other tribes get all the breaks. Inter-tribal relationships are generally frowned upon, though secretly, some would view marriage to a member of the master tribe as 'moving up'. Sometimes it seems as if tribal lines are all that everyone thinks about, it seems as if what tribe a person is from is far more significant than who a person really is. That is, until you come to America. Living in a culture that doesn't recognize such sub-divisions (much less value their significance) dampens our obsession with the issue. On the rare occasion that I have asked a fellow country-person what tribe he/she belonged to, more often that not, their answer was, Why? And not in a manner that suggests defensiveness, but rather, genuine confusion. As if the question was just plain silly. So now I am tribal-indifferent. As are most Africans here in America. Because tribalism just seems silly. But to millions of Americans, racism doesn't seem silly. And as a Black person living here, I have gotten caught up in whole, sorry, spectacle- it runs my life to the point that it is the first thing I notice when I meet a person (other than my race), and the most essential adjective I use to describe that person to someone else: I went to the store and this Asian woman... We were at the movies, when a White man... I'm saying something every time I use those descriptions- by using the person's color or race, I have saved myself the time of having to describe anything else about that person. Race is descriptive enough. I am color-conscious. But as I surround myself with more and more people of different races, and colors, it becomes harder and harder to rely on pre-conceived descriptions. And recently, I have found myself omitting the generalizations, and sticking to more individual characteristics: cute, butt-ugly, smart-as-hell, dumb-as-shit. Exposure has afforded me the luxury of eliminating race from descriptions- and it seems as if it is not really that significant. I am learning, and the more I learn, the less I see. I am becoming color-blind. But even under the darkness of color-blindness, I think I will still be able to sense it. It is one thing to see a color, and disregard it- it's another thing to not recognize the significance of color when you are aware of it. Just as many in this country would not know the significance of, or appreciate the differences between the various African tribes, the most ideal state would be color-indifference- a level at which one can neither see color, nor understand it. A level at which the concept of color seems silly. Just as it did before I came here. Like I said, I'm striving for color-blind- that should be enough. Besides, now that my vision has been tainted, it's going to take a hell of a lot to make me forget what I know about color. Even in Africa, there are enough races there now to sustain me. To forget, I would have to go to a place where race and color really have no meaning at all. Somewhere far. Like the moon. Or another galaxy. Or the internet.
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