“Mulatto” Watercolor on paper. Copyright 2012 Totsymae/www.toshfomby.com
Down here in the south, the newest one that is, and being the mature woman I am, I’ve grown toward looking at behavior more than race. You know, I’ve been a few places and among a whole buncha folk from all manner of countries. While there are stereotypes attached to particular ethnic groups, I know for myself that whatever’s in one group, you can bet your last dollar it’s in another. Lazy folk, upwardly mobile, poor, killers, loving and every adjective you can name is filled within every race of folk. Whatever is humanly possible is possible in all of us. There are no exclusions.
You know folks, when I was over in Saudi Arabia, I met up with folk from there in all range of colors. Some with light brownish tones and others of rich, dark complexions. When I went for a required check-up at the clinic, the doctor said, “Turn around, Sister.” I was like, It’s gonna be alright over here. I soon learned just how colorstruck the folk were over there. They love fair skin and think all Black folk over there come from Africa. It’s a very closed society but I couldn’t help thinking how this love for fair skin and blond hair was a concept of beauty for folk who weren’t born that way. None I’d seen or heard of anyway. The big boss once stated, “I don’t want no black person in the office. I want white only.” Well, he got what he wanted and the white woman didn’t last. Ended up being an Asian American running the office who did a damn fine job of it.
I was also surrounded by a small group of Sudanese women, some of who lightened their skin and their conversations led me also to believe that white was right. I’m telling you, folks, I got to thinking if you can’t be black in Africa, where can you be black? And honestly, I tried to overlook this ’cause I was ashamed that they were ashamed. You feel me? These are internal racial inequities and then there’s the rest of the world.
I wanna ask you two questions, folks: What does the evolvement of the Birthers mean to you? Look. You’ve been observing the political scene long and hard enough. Did anybody ever ask Mitt Romney to show proof that he was a college graduate? It’s a fair question, right?
My initial post for Race 2012 was embedded with only questions and I appreciate your responses. George thought we should open the door wider on the topic and if you read her comments, had a lot to say. A whole lot. I had to really ponder her words and learned something . Let me also say that in George’s candid respnses, I think she evoked the kinda conversation we tend to shy away from when discussing race. I had to ponder her experiences and wondered if they weren’t limited to that time in which she spoke. I came to the conclusion that perhaps I am a little rosey-eyed. Maybe it’s only in my mind that we’re better ’cause I want it so for my children and theirs. Maybe I’m just weary of race being an issue. Maybe most of us are. However, the problem won’t solve itself. Do say what’s on your mind and not reserve your thoughts for private conversation. Let’s continue conversations that will heal these wounds that keep opening. I’m not asking can we all just get along without at least talking about why we can’t.
And if I can bother you with a coupla more questions: What is race anyway and what does it mean to you?
I'm an artist who's writing,mothering, blogging and doing a few other things under the sun. I buy toilet paper 99.9% of every trip I make to the grocery store. I'm a people watcher, so I know you're here but drop me a line anyway.
Reblogged this on The ObamaCrat.Com™ and commented:
Beautiful Post Ms. Totsymae.
Thanks, Twin. Barbara reposted too, so I thank you again for that.
I love this blog and I love your watercolor. I just happened onto your blog thanks to Mr. B. I invite you to visit mine. Have a great day.
Thanks, Barbara. And I’ll have to go over and thanl Mr. B. Thanks for reposting. I shall visit promptly. Thanks for the invite.
Reblogged this on idealisticrebel.
I loved reading the comments on the “questions” post. Fascinating!
Race means a whole heck of a lot, and as a white person, I don’t know the depths of what it means in the other seat. We have to see the problem and stop pretending it is not there, it is painful to the core, even when denied. I am glad Bridget wrote that in my comments:
“I think people who say they don’t see race or don’t think about people on the basis of their race are not being honest.” (I’d add, “and a large part of the problem.”) It needed to be said.
Why does it mean a whole heck of a lot?
Well said, Totsy. At a meeting once–a group of mental health professionals “of color” (which meant all colors)–one women talked about the meaning of COLOR for groups that had been Colonized by Europeans. There was indeed a worship of the fair, a wish to BE fair, to shun whatever was the opposite: kinky hair, dark skin, broad features. There is this combination of identifying with the oppressor and distancing yourself from what, by another code of living, would be considered beautiful in its own right.
Those last lines are very well stated. I’ve never had an issue with my physical self, outside of keeping my weight intact. It perplexes me that these identity issues continue to be so prevalent among blacks. These external elements we give so much attention to are only window dressings. It speaks very little to who that person is in the end.
And you are an amazing artist. Love that profile painting.
Thanks, Lisa.
Standards of beauty, race, physical features, they are all sort of the same to me. As a brunet, dark skinned child, I wished I had blue eyes and blond hair and white skin. Short people long to be tall. Tall people long to be short. We look at Halle Berry and call her a black woman, but she’s at the very fair end of the spectrum. Personally, I love the very black skin of the African native. In Asia, most people don’t want to be seen as a “field worker” so they stay “fair”. In India, Bollywood is alive and well with light skinned Indians in all the main roles.
Somebody has taught us that white is “better”. It’s not. It’s not even my preference as a grown woman.. But somebody determined it was the desirable thing. This may have been a way to try and keep the “races” from intermingling, since a lot of intermarriage was illegal until relatively recent history.
It started with the dolls, I think. They used to all be white. Maybe they think women are so simple minded that if we identify with “white”, we’ll never take a peak across the room at Denzel and start asking for trouble. Uh huh..
I’m cool with all variations myself. And it really don’t matter none to me about the outside of the house but rather, what’s on the inside. You’re right. We’ve been taught we’re better, superior or inferior and it’s only been the outside of the house we’re going on. Window dressings are superficial and can be quite deceptive.
Race is birds of a feather flocking together, that ‘stay with you own kind’ thinking that, back in the dawn of civilization, was a good thing because not only is there strength in numbers but that strength increased when being projected by people who either looked the same or came from the same place. Like a lot of people my age, I was introduced to the, ah, dark side of race: “If you’re white you’re right, if you’re Black, step back.”
I learned that there’s really only one race – the human race – but we can be so ethnocentric… and, often, stupidly and dangerously so. What does all this mean to me? That we’re different, not as much by design but out of necessity because, genetically, WE ARE ALL THE SAME. I understand why my skin is dark and why some folks’ skin isn’t. I even understand why every ‘race’ thinks they are superior to other ‘races’ but in the grand scheme of things, none of it really makes a difference; no one ‘race’ is better than any other because we are all born, we live, we die. We haven’t learned that this primitive behavior doesn’t make us better and that our failure to appreciate our diversity is going to eventually doom us to cultural extinction even though our existence is all about survival of the fittest.
So… I wasn’t raised to think in color; I strive to exist as a colorblind person because race, in and of itself, doesn’t define us: It’s how we are as individuals. Race doesn’t mean shit to me… but I have learned to appreciate our diversity. I’ve gotten a chance to see how people of different cultures – and not necessarily color – live and it’s all very interesting. I’ve lived long enough to see a lot of the prejudice go by the wayside but, sadly, as long as there’s one person who thinks that one race is better than the other, we’re always going to have a problem… and as long as no one’s going to try to drop that problem in my lap again, I don’t pay much attention to something that shouldn’t make a difference.
Race is a man made and unfortutnately, a great deal of us have bought into it. I don’t know what else I could add to your comment, other than well said.
The hatred and prejudice is a man-made construct; it has to be taught and learned, doesn’t it? And the real, unanswered question is, “Why?”
OK folk – I live in South Africa. I have blond hair and brown eyes. I am fair skinned. I am part of a rainbow nation. We have 11 official languages. A young child, in a poor black suburb, once told me that I have the heart of a black woman but I am trapped in a white body….I have been treated with both “reverence” and contempt in African and Middle Eastern countries because of my skin color. I wish I could wear dreadlocks but have you ever seen a middle aged blond woman wear dreadlocks? I wish we could live in a world where pigmentation did not matter. I want to live in a world where I am judged on my heart and not the color of my skin. My stepdaughter is fostering an abandoned baby. The first question everyone asks is – “what is it?” meaning “is it a white or black baby?” We just answer that it is a little boy and when people ask “what color” we just say Baby Izak is baby color….
As a matter of fact, I have seen a few middle-aged blond women with dreads… rather fetching, too, I might add.
We’re not only a product of our times but a product of history too. History holds a definitive bookmark that South Africa is still trying to turn the page on. While you have your struggles as a white woman, I’m certain a black South African woman is feeling that ten times over. Just the way it’s been designed.
You answered before you asked, Tots. “There are no exclusions.” One love, one people, one planet. If only everyone residing on it “got” it. Some days the things I see and hear make me want to jump off. Other days I vow to never shut up about any injustice to any person. Great, heartening post that should be front page everywhere. Race to me is “hurry.” Anything else is bullying of some form or another whether it’s fat people, lesbians, gays, red hair, skinny, skin, anything else is just another form of arrogance in motion bullying human beings – in my world. When I worked in domestic violence, the women/men were from all cultural and socio-economic backgrounds. Welfare to rich names living on hills. White to black and everything in between. Your leveling statement eliminates all gray areas of doubt, misinformation and duplicitous beliefs: “There are no exclusions.” Love the way you roar, Tots.
Thank you for chiming in. And you couldn’t be more right. It is bullying. I’ll also add that it comes down to greed as well.
I love this conversation and I am struggling to find a way to participate in it. Race really doesn’t mean a whole lot to me. Culture does, and personally I find cultural differences fascinating. The fact is that culture as race identification didn’t really occur to me until I was in my mid 20s. That’s what being brought up in a liberal household will get you. Whites discriminate against whites too if you go back to the immigration waves of the French (frogs), Germans (Dutch or Krauts), Irish (Mick), Italians (Dago). I was taught all discrimination was wrong end of story. I always believed that civil rights were for everybody.
As a kid I spent my summers outdoors and tanned to a deep and racially ambiguous color. I got teased a lot about being a little Indian. My best friends in the neighborhood were foster children, eventually adopted. No one ever made a big deal about their being black. The “difference” about them was being adopted. The thing is I don’t remember them in grade school, but we weren’t in the same grade so I never thought about it.
It wasn’t until I traveled to Japan that I found myself truly in a racial culture where I could not “pass”. It was eye opening. Being a woman however I have always been very much aware of being discriminated against. Does the double blow of both race and sex make a difference do you think?
Do I think? I know. Because you couldn’t “pass” in Japan, perhaps you’re well aware that being a white woman comes with priviledges, which is why I asked Jodi why she thought “race means a whole heck of a lot” as she put it. This is the issue that got us where we are. It’s why we are having this conversation today. Categorzing folk based on skin color minimizes who we are and retards our development as human beings.
I agree with you there! I think that a significant part of the battle is to open people’s eyes to their racial privilege and then ask why doesn’t everyone deserve to be treated that way.
http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/15/straight-white-male-the-lowest-difficulty-setting-there-is/ Is an excellent blog piece by author John Scalzi that actually gets at the privilege issue in a way many white (males) can begin to relate to it.
Lisa, thanks for that link. And interesting read. I also appreciate your open willingness to understand this from the other side. I don’t know if we progress or if we stop talking and we find ourselves back to where we were when it comes to race. I’m guilty of sleeping on the issue but in the same breath, it’s tiring. Though, I also understand apathy is not a solution.
Being adopted and being different was my first taste of what it meant to ‘look’ different from those around you, my father said it didn’t matter. It did though. Not because children are discerning or born biased, they aren’t but they are born with an eye for what is different and an ear to learn what those differences mean, or to fear those differences. Eventually those reactions become visceral if not addressed, those a new racist is born.
What is race? Nothing. It is made up by those who would hold power. It is that and nothing more. It is the tick mark on the Census, the employment application, the TSA checkpoint or the show me your papers police check. It is that, nothing more or less. Race is what we agreed would define us as groups of people so we could pick and choose who would win or lose in society (this is part of my discussion this week btw).
What does it mean to me? Sometimes it means my husband and I can’t go to dinner without the fish eye stare of some ijit who thinks we don’t belong seated at the same table. Other times it means I have to revisit the scene of the crime, the day three young men kidnapped and shot me simply because they wanted to kill a “white person”. Still other days it is being asked why I don’t hate Black people for the acts of those same three, or the argument that ensues when I explain my reasoning for my lack of hate.
What is race? It is a fiction.
Valentine, I’m sorry that happened to you. There’s black and white anger and the rest of us who feel the senseless wrath of it. I’d like to believe there are less folk who would carry out such an act but what I believe where that’s concern offers so consolation to what happened to you on or anyone has.
Race is a myth that we believe matters. It’s living in the now, so there lies the reward.
Agreed. Senseless then and senseless now. The construct of Race is only as good as we allow it to be. But my friend, we have strong walls built in this nation and they only come down if enough of us push against them.
[...] race”, directly from Monica who is our fearless leader and coordinator for Race 2012. Then today Totsymae also asked the question along with, “what does it mean to you?” These are difficult subjects [...]
The key word in a lot of these very good comments is “different…” and our history has proven that, um, anything different than we are has never been a good thing. We develop these irrational standards that anyone who is not like us is beneath us; we will condemn an entire race of people for the actions of a few… because that’s what we do… it’s what we’ve always done.
Except there are those of us who just want this dumb shit to stop because IT SERVES NO PURPOSE other than to create fear and hatred for those who, for some reason, can’t deal with the fact that we are all different… yet really the same (because the science says so).
Again, I couldn’t agree with you more.
Totsy, You bring out the best in your readers. They listen and add their comments in a meaningful, thoughtful way. And that is a tribute to you and the way you write from your heart and honestly. I don’t think much about the birthers. They are confounding. I know we have race issues and have always had them. But I never felt it was such a part of the election process until now, starting with 2008 election. President Obama tries to distance himself from any discussion of race, but I think it really is the number one reason people don’t like him. It’s interesting to learn how race is treated in the Middle East. Thanks for leading the way in conversations about race.
Thank you, Monica. Though, I’ll give them all the credit for being thoughful, observant and on par. They challenge me to think and I certainly appreciate their analysis. You and your company have done us all a great service by initiating this kinda conversation. So, thank you again.
I think that distance Obama has on addressing race really has brought out the worse in folk. It makes folk angry that these entitlements associated with race are no longer in place and the comfort zone is no longer that. Silence can be golden.
Sometimes racial inequalities go over the heads of those not effected by it. So I was taken by surprise when a friend pointed out to me that a lot of the tea party’s themes were racially biased and inflammatory. We need to hear that, just as men need to hear that women don’t want to be called ‘babe’ and ‘honey’ and ‘doll’ unless called that by our significant others in a moment of sweetness. Thanks for pointing this out. I can’t even believe that the ‘birther’ issue is still raging out there.
Well, folk who suffer those inequalities recognize it immediately. We almost expect it. I’ve not been so bothered by folk calling me honey as I would be by someone calling me the N word. It’s really nowhere near being the same.
No it isn’t. But has the tea party been that ridiculous? Even the most dim witted among us recognize the N word’s racist, hate filled intent to humiliate. It is the subtleties that go unchecked, that slip past unnoticed, unless you are the victim. That’s when it needs to be pointed out.
Race means NOTHING to me…I deal people as individuals, not as some group……this also goes for religion or sex or well just about everything…
Being the world traveler you are, I can see that. ‘Preciate cha, Lobotero. So, NOTHING it is.
Race is a socially created concept that separates us from others. Genetically, you can’t see race, but socially it is part of every single aspect of life. No matter how you try to eradicate it, it seems to be every growing, just changing shape. There’s a whole lot less shown publically, but there is too much underlying systematic racism in our country that I’m curious to see what happens in this country over the next 50 years or so.
For me, I’m proud of who I am. And I have never once been ashamed of being black. There’s has been plenty of instances where others looked down on me because of it, but I know that I come from a strong heritage that lived through slavery, jim crow, and everything else that was thrown their way. If they can survive that, then I can survive anything.
I concur. I know folks in general like differences and that’s okay. I am concerned about those external attractions that we internalize and embrace more than what we’ve been gifted with. I just never could comprehend that.
I believe that any quality or characteristic that divides us is exploited by certain people or groups for various reasons. Sometimes it’s to build shared identity or unity among people who have that common quality; sometimes it’s to build solidarity against people who don’t share that common quality. Race is one of those qualities, as are sexual preference, religious affiliation, what school you went to, whether you eat meat or not, political affiliation, favorite sports team, rich versus poor, North versus South, you name it.
For reasons I don’t fully understand, people want to highlight their differences rather than their similarities. Maybe they are proud of their birthrights or their choices or their beliefs. Maybe they need to believe that they are right and everyone else is, therefore, wrong, bad, lesser. That’s no way to live in my book.
While I honor individual differences and the unique experiences that shape each of us, I don’t lump people together as categories and make assumptions about all of “them” based on prejudice and assumptions. I know that there are many, many people who do.
When I hear someone say something stereotypical, I gently remind them that, chances are, there are more differences among people in that group than between people in that group and people in other (their) group. Example: when looking at people based on race, I bet poor people of any race have a lot more in common with each other than any racial differences taking away the factor of wealth (or lack thereof). So it’s not race that is the issue at all.
I’m rambling now and have a ton of blogs to catch up on. So I’ll leave it at that.
Those gentle reminders are key. Folks get so that they don’t step outside of themselves. You’re not rambling. Making good sense to me.
As always, I enjoy reading your writing Totsymae! I don’t think about the birthers at all actually (there, they get a little bitty lower case “b”).
Glad to get that out of the way.
I think that race is largely constructed as one of your commenters noted. The media does a remarkable job of perpetuating and ensuring that this construction remains. You would think that someone is paying them to do just that. Case in point: If a man commits a crime, without seeing a picture, the viewer will know if he was black because it will be among the first things noted by the reporter (kinda like the first five ingredients in a food product). If that man happens not to be black or hispanic, his race will usually be conveniently left out. The reader is then left to assume that the criminal was white. He just gets to be a man. Whole. Human. Period. Still a criminal, but nonetheless, a man. Does he not have a race?
By extension, this construction causes folks to be categorized, compartmentalized, and one-dimensionalized. The first thing that comes out of a person’s mouth most of the time when describing someone is a rattling off of physical features – hair color, skin, eyes, height, etc. Only after that, are more identifying non-physical features highlighted, such as what the person wears, drives, children’s names, etc. Behavior is too often a distant third. I think turning the pyramid on its head would force us to consider folk more for the strength of their character and less for their ethnic “presentation”, but it certainly would not make the “issue of race” go away. America’s history is entrenched in divides along the lines of race and class, and I have no reason to believe that that paradigm will shift until ethnic groups are no longer the minority.
You know, I never had to think about race — maybe because nearly everyone looked like me — until I left my country. I was more aware of class, which differentiated mainly based on wealth. It was mostly the white and almost white people who had it. The rest of us struggled to get it.
As I got a little older, I became aware of color because of what we heard was happening to black people in the US and South Africa. It was incomprehensible, and still is, that there could be so much hate. Honestly, I’m still baffled by it. It might be born out of guilt but I don’t know. It’s the only thing to me, that makes sense. But now, it’s embedded so deeply, it’s almost in the DNA, holding the country hostage.
An open and honest discussion needs to take place – perhaps something like the Truth & Reconciliation Commission that SA so courageously created could work. We had a wonderful opportunity during the last election campaign when the president gave that speech in Philly. I was disappointed that he left so much unsaid. But maybe if he gets a second term, he can use the power of the office to speak out. He’s certainly touched the issue — remember when he invited the cop who roughed up Skip Gates to the WH or his comment about Trevon Martin? He can and should do it.