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Monday, June 2, 2008

The Hues of America

Our intrepid China traveler Pat Kurz is home and has been participating in the presidential election process. She has some insights she wants to share with the neighborhood. Here’s a guest blog from Pat. ~Stephanie

Tacoma is a city of diversity, but there are communities very near Tacoma where a monochromatic lifestyle is indeed possible.

This campaign season has forced into the open a topic many of us would rather ignore. During my five month stay in China, I learned that when the Chinese think of an American, the face they picture is Caucasian. I suspect that is true for most foreign countries. Our leaders are mostly white men, so it’s not really surprising. If you only visit selected American places, especially small towns away from the coasts, or West Virginia (apparently) you could receive and hold indefinitely the impression that The United States is a white, Christian country.

Yesterday, at Tacoma Mall, I saw two people walking together who embody my idea of America. I noticed them because one of them was absolutely stunning in a floor length, purple gown and stiletto heels. The rich purple complemented her deep brown skin. Her hair was swept up into a feathered crown. She seemed a bit overdressed for the mall, but even more overdressed when compared to the woman walking with her. She wore jeans, a sweater with wide horizontal grey stripes, non-descript sneakers, and her mousy-brown-straight hair was shoulder length. As they walked together, they were clearly engaged in comfortable, friendly conversation. Their smiles were genuine, their friendship shone clearly; an aura of conviviality surrounded them. A glamorous, slim black woman and a very average white woman walking along as natural as could be, and that, to me, is one of the best things about America. It is time that the leadership of America reflects the citizenship of America.

There’s been talk in recent years that we are really two Americas, and they’ve been color coded into red and blue. Maybe that’s code for white and blended. The heartland of America, the interior, seems to find it easier to identify “us” and “them.” If you’re white and you can manage to live in such a style that you never see people of color, or if you do they are easy to ignore as part of the landscape, as a gardener, perhaps, then you might actually think of America as a white country. The actual statistics of our ethnic diversity would be meaningless if you are insulated from an ethnic experience. Tacoma is a city of diversity, but there are communities very near Tacoma where a monochromatic lifestyle is indeed possible. The existence of these Caucasian enclaves does not change the fact that they are aberrations. Any American’s everyday reality of a mono-white America is in reality unreal.

A recent Bloom County comic in the Sunday paper involved the regular cast of characters beginning a debate centered around the current presidential primary campaign. Their first question was, “Is Barack Obama a black man with a white mother or a white man with a black father?” When no one in the strip had an answer to the question, they ended the debate and went swimming. I was immediately reminded of a student I had years ago, a very lovely young woman with creamy beige skin tones, very curly light brown hair, and a hint of Africa in her features. Her father had one black parent. For Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, she received an invitation to the breakfast for all of the African-American students in the school. I innocently handed it to her in firstperiod. She flew into a rage. “Why do I have to be black? Why can’t I be white? Almost my entire family is white. I hate that side of my dad’s family! They have never been nice to me! Why can’t I choose the white side of my family?!?”

I had no answer for her, but it reminded me of the scene in Showboat when Julie has to leave the boat because according to Mississippi law, a person with “one drop of black blood” made one black. The problem is that Julie is married to a white man, which was illegal in the state. Her husband takes some of her blood into his mouth in order to split hairs, saying there is at least a drop of black blood in him, too. Naturally it doesn’t work and Julie leaves the Showboat. It still seems to be true that in America, the great melting pot, if you have any non-white relatives anywhere in your family tree, you are not white. Tiger Woods is considered by most people to be an African-American golfer despite the fact that he is more ethnically Thai than black. We do not seem to have moved very far past Julie having to leave the Showboat. In our human need to define people, we have left no wiggle room. The census did not allow people to choose multiple ethnicities until 1997 as if before that time we could all easily be plopped into clearly defined racial categories of Asian, black, Native or white. It’s past time to move beyond defining people in these narrow terms.

In his speech in Philadelphia, Barack Obama said, “Race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now.” He’s right. We have avoided an open discussion about race for quite some time. 60s civil rights legislation was a step in the right direction but clearly we cannot stop there. There are still inequities and misconceptions from every corner. Jon Stewart’s take on Obama’s speech was relief that we finally had a politician who would talk to Americans about race as if we were grown up. Let’s truly grow up as a country. Let’s bring the issue of our ethnic diversity on to the table and let’s elect Barack Obama so that an important face of America more accurately reflects America.

21 comments:

Stephanie Frieze said...

Although we’ve come a long way in this country toward creating a land of equality with liberty and justice for all, it saddens me that in studies small Black children still prefer the white baby dolls or a mixed race child should ask you, Pat, why she cannot choose to ignore her African heritage. Hopefully when our children realize that it is possible for someone who looks like them to attain the highest office in the land they will love and believe in themselves. Thank you for your thought provoking post, Pat.

Lorraine Hart said...

Well written Pat, without melodrama or assumptions, just simple eloquence. Thank you.

With the science now available to retrieve our ancestry, we discover rainbows within all of us. Let us celebrate in this country...then put our shoulders to the wheel to turn to a better future.

Stephanie Frieze said...

Yes, Lorraine! Our family mythology is that my maternal grandmother was Native American so I had my NDA tested. Ten percent "sub-Saharan African" was what came back. My aunt's reaction was, "Why couldn't we have got the curly hair in that 10%?!" Yes, since we all did come from the cradle of Africa, what did happen to the curly hair??

VW said...

Voting for Senator Obama just because of his race is just as much an error as not voting for him because of his race.

I personally do not plan to vote for him, but his race has absolutely nothing to do with my decision. My decision is based upon what I consider to be important issues confronting America and while racism still exists, electing Obama, Clinton or McCain will not erase it.

My head is not in the sand over race. I've raised a step-daughter who is black. I've had to deal with people who've had a problem with that (Both black and white)a few times in the last 11 years.

VW

JosephMcG said...

Obama and Clinton have opened up the doors... women are brilliant human beings... (most of the world doesn't get that one yet) people who are mixed race are brilliant human beings... (that one reduces many of us to silence), people who are dark skinned are human beings (that one is hard to handle all over our world), people who are fair skinned are human beings (given the decision making that has been going on in this country since the Mexican American War) that is hard for most of the rest of the world to handle...
and Tacoma is multi-racial and cultural... but, give any of our folks thirty five minutes to start really talking... rainbow all the way, and the class, gender, race differences will make it very, very hard to hang in there and get to the point where we actually understand and accept each other...
Obama or Clinton or doing their work... are we, today, listening to those who differ from us on gender, class, culture, and racial issues with understanding and acceptance...
tonight I shall try one more time to be open, honest, and accepting...
thanks for keeping the real conversation going, Pat

Stephanie Frieze said...

I would hope that people vote based on their values not only of race or gender, but on integrity and beliefs. Here's to being blind to color and clearsighted as to honor,truth and substance.

Stephanie Frieze said...

Pat, we have here in the Neighborhood have talked before of the "invisible backpack" those of us from the majority race carry whether or not we realize it; a backpack of privilage that pervades all our interactions with the world. Beyond practicing love and tolerance for all who cross our paths, putting down the contents of that privilage is difficult because our cultural system is set up to honor it. I hope that the ultimate result of this election is further enlightenment between the many colors of America which will lead us to be colorful, but united.

Lorraine Hart said...

Vhuwhu...nowhere did Pat say to vote for the man simply because he is black. What she was saying seems more to me about the government actually reflecting the diversity of this country in the global arena. It was a simple and eloquent point made.

Perhaps some will vote for Sen. Obama simply because he is black...but I believe the overwhelming democratic turnout for both Obama and Clinton shows how fed-up those of us who don't feel represented are. That has nothing to do with gender or colour.

Stephanie Frieze said...

I do not believe that Pat advocates anyone voting along racial or gender lines. This is a historic time as the good ol' boys' club is being broken up. I hope that forty years from now Americans will look back on this year as being the beginning of a ground swell of involvement of the heretofore disenfranchised in American political thought and government.

VW said...

Let’s truly grow up as a country. Let’s bring the issue of our ethnic diversity on to the table and let’s elect Barack Obama so that an important face of America more accurately reflects America.

Not directly, but that sentence pretty much means the same thing.

It doesn't say elect Senator Obama because of his stance on National Security or health care, etc. It says elect elect him "so that an important face of America more accurately reflects America."

I've read and reread that statement. I printed it out and asked every one of my colleagues hear at work (we have a diverse shop) and every one of them said it sounds like "vote for Obama because of his race" to them. So it just ain't me.

VW

Stephanie Frieze said...

I am sure that there will be far more people who do not vote for Obama BECAUSE he is black than those who vote for him because he is. There are no doubt legtimate reasons not to vote for either candidate, but race ought not to be one of them. I am sure that not voting for him could be misconstrude as racism. That is what four hundred years of blatant and tacit racism has bought us.

Lorraine Hart said...

Vhuwhu, to isolate that sentence...admitting yourself it was indirect...and then interpreted alone...you argue one sentence's semantics over the obvious intent of Pat's essay.

These last eight years have been a great civics lesson and I believe Americans are getting smarter about working to be represented. Don't kid yourself that this isn't about the issues of today, that it's about fickle choices of race and/or gender...it is sooooo about the issues of today...and hope for tomorrow. We're holding on by our fingernails!

VW said...

It's not an isolated sentence. It's the concluding sentence to the entire post. It is a summing up. It's what the entire post was about.

I've shown it to several people and all have come to the same conclusion including a couple of Obama supporters. IT JUST ISN'T ME.

It might be indirect in the sense that it says it in different words, but the intent is there.

Explain to me how that summation doesn't mean what I and others say it does.

And even if it is just one sentence, if she didn't mean it, why did she write it?

VW

Stephanie Frieze said...

Even if Pat's intention was to say that Obama should be elected because he's black--and I do not believe that was her intention--breaking the color barrier of the oval office is important for a huge segment of American society, actually to all of us. Just having the opportunity to vote for a Black man or a woman has been history making.

I would be tempted to say that Obama could not have made it this far if he were incompetent, but we have ample historical proof that incompetency is not a barrier to election to office. Fortunately, I believe that all the candidates are competent so everything else being equal it comes down to a chance to change course or stay headed toward the rocks.

VW said...

well I don't know if that was her intent or not, but that is what her words say.

And I really think Senator Obama is not quite ready for prime time.

More to follow on that.

VW

Pat Kurz said...

Wow, I did not expect so many great comments. Stephanie, you are right; I am not really saying to vote for Barack because he is black. I obviously support him and I have many reasons for that support, but I am so frustrated by tacit racism that I am especially excited by his candidacy, and yes, that excitement comes because he is not white. The 2008 campaign has finally given Americans the chance to elect a President who will present to the world a face that more accurately represents our true national identity. We are not a white country.

Here is another possible final sentence:
Let’s bring the issue of our ethnic diversity on to the table. What a perfect time for Barack Obama to be a nominee for President of the United States of America. That is indeed real change for our supposed melting pot.

Stephanie Frieze said...

Thanks for the clarification, Pat. We are a muliticultured, multicolored nation that ought to be seen to embrace and celebrate all spectrums. Race should not be the primary concern of voters, but this election is historic because it puts a new face on the presidential race and there's no way around that.

VW said...

Actually, I agree that it shows we've come along way with having Senator Obama as a presumptive nominee of a major party. Obviously I don't support him, but the fact that he was able to win the nomination is a great achievement. I think we all agree on that.

VW

JosephMcG said...

I like Barack because he listens to people of all different races,
he is chosing to create a space where people can honestly share who they are and what they need,
he understands that we must work together if we are to make a difference in this world, and we have the right to reach out to people who differ from us in their understanding of the land and how it is to be used, the resources existing on the land and in the sea and who has the right to control those resources, and violence and nonviolence... who has and is using nuclear power and oil reserves and how those type of resources are to be used...
my question is are we using those resources for the good of the generations who will follow us or because we have gotten used to using them to meet our own present needs...
I think we move through our days on a very specific level... how can I get to work and how can I get home tomorrow... very good questions... survival questions... but I do not think that, in the long run, the real question... that question is how can I feel understood, accepted, and affirmed right now... let the conversation continue...

Stephanie Frieze said...

In many ways Obama embodies what is best about America.

Joseph, your reflections on what should be important to us are good. You're always keeping us real.

JosephMcG said...

Thanks, Stephanie... Thanks, Pat, keep writing... your experience in China has given you a very important way of helping us to get a good look at ourselves... keep growing and writing and questioning... we need you