I don't listen to much rap but I know that in America, hip hop is a powerful, powerful machine. I bought my first hip hop album, Stillmatic, when I was 12 or 13, and I knew immediately that something had changed in me because of that album. I've never been rich, I'd even argue that middle-class is somewhat of an exaggeration for my family, but I've always been safe and I've always had opportunities. I couldn't quite put my finger on what that was; I just knew that there was a disconnect between what we're learning in school and what was relevant to so many other children. We would learn about the Civil Rights movement and the abolishment of slavery, and yet, NaS was giving us insight into a 21st century America where your skin color and the neighborhood you lived in still held you back from your dreams. My jaw hit the ground, I started looking shit up and reading on my own.
Nowhere in school did we acknowledge or tackle these issues. I was a lot more aware at 13 than I was at 12 and I never looked back. That's the power of music. Hip hop in particular, because it's an art that gave voice to an oppressed race in America.
It doesn't do it that much anymore because it's been bought, embellished, and mainstreamed into something that's more profitable but much less meaningful. There aren't many Nas', Common's, The Fugees, Erykah Badu's, NWA's, TPacs, Q-Tips, or The Roots that are my age or younger. It's 95 percent crap but you can't even blame the people making the music because they aren't their own bosses. White execs want them to make hits instead of bringing up awkward racial issues.
I was 6 when "Illmatic" came out in 1994, and yet 20 years later, people are still talking about how that album opened their eyes to the perspective of a populace of people who lived in the ghetto and who aren't privileged enough to believe in the American dream. They're talking about it at Harvard where NaS has his own archive and fellowship. That's powerful. If we look at the state of Black America, and all of the cases we've seen in 2014, those stories still strikes a cord.
So as 2014 is wrapping up, and I'm doing my annual playlist, I thought that I would include some songs from J. Cole, Lupe, Kendrick Lamar that meant something. Because hip-hop is so mainstream, a lot of white kids or middle class kids buy it. And children tend to be very self-absorbed, and they think the world revolves around them and their neighborhood and their boyfriends and girlfriends and a lot of really unimportant things. Kids don't watch CNN but rich kids listen to J.Cole because he's cool as hell. So when he makes a song like "Be Free" or when he questions the state of equality and freedom in America, hopefully that plants a seed in some of these teenagers and makes them question, "wait a minute, so... not every kid has food on the table every day? So not everyone is treated equally by police? So not everyone has job opportunities? So not everyone's parents worked one job and could sit at home and help them with homework every day? So red-lining... what's that? How did that cause the creation of the American ghettos, and in turn segregation, and in turn overpopulated prison systems filled with Black and Brown bodies." J. Cole and Kendrick Lamar are cool to kids so they're like "wait a minute" when they say something real. It makes them want to learn about the things they're shielded from.
That's the power of hip hop.
J. Cole "Be Free"
Wu Tang "Ron O'Neal"
Jhene Aiko "The Worst"
Lupe Fiasco/ Guy Sebastian "Battle Scars"
Kendrick Lamar "I"
J. Cole "Apparently"
"And how could I be so selfish, I know I can be so selfish
I could tell by how I treat you with my girl
Damn she so selfless, but she put up with my way
Because she loves me like you do
And though it don't always show I love her just like I love you
And I need to treat you better
Wish you could live forever, so we could spend more time together"
"Please don't take this personal,
But you aint shit, you aint special
Until I made you." -Jhene Aiko
I love sitting at the kitchen table in the morning and sipping on a cup of bitter black coffee. It's a wonderful way to ease into the day. But lately the news just hasn't been the sipping coffee kind.
In the media, they have these wacky commentators always talking about "justice." What they always fail to mention is who wrote "justice" and who benefits from "justice" and whether said "justice" is fair. Certainly not for young men of color. And here in this country, we're at a standstill over that again. We put band-aids over it and it keeps re-emerging, like maggots, over hundreds of years. Every few months, there's another child on TV, whose life is cut too short, and who will see no justice. We talk about it for a few days. We forget. And a few months later, another one hits us like a bullet through these children.
I think one of the things that holds this country back is it's lack of acknowledgment to the people who made it what it is. This country became successful on the backs of slave labor. Industries bloomed, white families sent their children to colleges because of this. Black families were torn apart for this country. After slavery, Freedmen were essentially still property on white landowners. It wasn't that long ago. And the thanks that black families got for this is to be relegated into communities where the jobs are bad and the education is worse. Communities where they are underrepresented by public officials and overly policed.
That disenfrenchisement and the feeling of being left behind, by a country they and their ancestors built, and by the powerful people who gained wealth from it, is at least one of the roots to this problem. Where does passivity and obeying the man the way MLK did in the 60's get people of color in 2014? I think the Ferguson community is showing to this very defensive country the people it's leaving behind and the gaps in our justice.
Invest in people who invest in this country.
Stop talking and give people jobs.
Give people training.
Give people education.
Give people healthy grocery stores and good food.
Treat black and brown people like any other person.
Give people a better outlook for tomorrow.
Don't make youth feel like they can be the next Michael Brown because they are targeted or because they have no other options.
Opportunities are the only way stereotypes are erased and communication opens. We're doing a good job at crushing dreams and shoddy job at providing opportunities for certain members of this nation.
It isn't right.
"Let's dance in style, let's dance for a while
Heaven can wait, we're only watching the skies
Hoping for the best but expecting the worst
Are we going to drop the bomb or not?
Let us die young or let us live forever
We don't have the power but we never say never
Sitting in the sandpit, life is a short trip
The music's for the sad man" -Jay Z ft. Mr. Hudson
Being young, being a woman, and being a racial minority can sometimes be a silencing existence. I certainly felt that way in grade school, during my first few years at Colby, and during my time in Washington.
But I don't anymore. I don't self censor depending on audience.
I work and go to school with folks who are in the majority for the most part and come from more educated and richer families... but whereas in the past, that may have been a barrier, or that might have been very self-silencing, it now isn't.
I'm not allowing myself to self-barricade myself from things that I can do, or from exploring opportunities.
That must be why I'm in the field of education-- because I never felt particularly bright I.Q. wise... It didn't, still doesn't, come naturally... and it takes a little longer for he neurons to fire. Or the reason I'm in Anthropology, because the institutional culture of education must feel a little alien to certain kiddos.
But I did fine in public school, because a lot of high school teachers didn't perceive a lot of the incompetence in me (or maybe they saw that "average" intelligence as more than). Despite me being fat, and quiet, and weird. And some even thought I could go to Colby so I went to Colby, and nearly Wellesley, on my self-perceived averageness.
At Colby, I had a Biology Professor (of all people! I am a terrible science student), get me into the International Honors Program to travel and explore global health with a group of brilliant (neurons definitely quickly firing type of brilliant) young people who I was astonished to be in the company of. The Yoshi Ondas, and Casey Lyons, and Edward Muguzas, and Thuy Ann Les were so smart and insightful.. and I too, got to be there.
In Anthropology, Professor Tate walked me through the process of exploring my family's Amerasian history, and to explore biracial histories of war. And Education Professors, who understood me as more than a student, have gotten me each job I've worked in since graduation.
I know that they know what I have to give. I know that they value it.
I had a UNE Professor suggest that I shouldn't limit myself to the UNE or other Maine Grad programs after I get certified to teach K-8. She thinks Masters or Doctorates in Ivy League places in Boston are not only possible but should be strongly considered because I'm "smart." All the while, I'm drowning in homework and relearning science concepts that didn't really stick in high school or Colby. But she sees something. I haven't put much thought into a Doctorate... but she thinks it's possible.
And why wouldn't it be? Why would I have to finish my Masters at UNE when I could go someplace more well-known?
I'm not much more/ if any better than average. Most of us are... that's the meaning of "average" on the spectrum, but my potential reaches higher than that because of the time I've put in to fight it, and the messages I've gotten from the people who've touched my life.
I know that they hear me when I speak. And my colleagues hear me. And my classmates hear me.
That's what I want for my students. That's the message I want to give. That not everyone is born to effortlessly ace tests, but that students have the potential to go far if they see their potential, and if teachers see something quirky in them that allows them to be a valuable, contributing, member to society-- and that people hear them and see them.
It's so simple but it's not the case right now. Less than 25% of Mainers over 25 have a Bachelors Degree. Less than one in four adults, walking around in this state, that resides in THIS nation, have graduated from college! Only one in four adults have an expertise in a scholarly subject beyond High School. Even with the plethora of community colleges and affordable colleges, like USM, that's our truth.
If my super average ass can do it, why can't so many of our other kiddos? What messages are they getting or more importantly, not getting?
That's part of the reason I'm doing this, too. I need to have an expertise and a voice that's loud enough to shed some light on why every kiddo doesn't feel special or confident enough to pursue something more than what they see.
I've always had certain students who unexpectedly bond to my heart. There are certain naughty preschoolers who I miss.
But this year, with the older elementary kids needing less monitoring, I have more of an ability to listen. The more I hear their stories, the more certain students are putting trust in me, and starting to work with me. The trust of a child means everything. And I love when I make them feel like the coolest, quirkiest kiddos.
That's planting another seed in their trees of unique brilliance.
As a child, I found it utterly silly that Vietnamese folks would make a checklist of how much money each guest or family would give during certain celebratory events. The practice was to ensure that when the time came to attend the guest's own events, that the contribution or gift would be of equal value.
Guests who didn't show up wouldn't be invited again and their events wouldn't be attended, and guests who failed to equally reciprocate may also get the same treatment.
Seems a little petty, in my books, at least as a child it did. But as an adult, there is an unquestionable value to the practice. Parents take care of their children and children take care of parents as they age. It is fair, equal, balanced and people feel valuable.
The foundation of any relationship, I find, has to be that way.
As a woman, I tend to check in with my value system often, to make sure that I am nourished as much as I am nourishing... and when I'm not feeling nourished, I cut people off with quickness.
As a teenager or a kid, or even many grown-ups, feeling accepted and doing things for acceptance is normal and human, but that can't offset loyalty and self-worth.
Having 5 friends who are loyal and check in when it's inconvenient is better than having 10 friends who flake. Having met a lot of people who are flaky, who are takers, and knowing people from the other side who give so much that they drain and wound themselves without receiving the nourishment they deserve, I pledge not to do either. It's a hard lesson to learn but a valuable one for everyone.
It opens up the door for organic relationships. Any healthy organic relationship is seamlessly that way.
Maine is not unlike the deep South, or D.C., or the heart of America where there are rich folk, there are college professors and intellectuals, but where for the most part people tend to struggle. It's poorer and much more conservative than it's Northeast neighbors.
There are hard workers who tend to stay exactly where they were when they left high school. And because of the lack of travel, lack of exposure to different voices, lack of receiving push back and challenged in college, tend to be very Mainer in thought. If you're looking for a state that represents the honest working White poor, this is it.
It's quite interesting, the perspective of this population, who, for the most part, believe that don't have any leg up on people of color because of their own condition. It's a population who can be desensitized or sometimes unfavorable to racial issues.
Especially now, when Black boys are still getting blatantly murdered, and being put on trial over-and-over again for their own murders, having their characters questioned when they are no longer here to defend themselves; that speaks to the fabric of this country and the narrative and mindset of this country. That happens because people don't open their hearts before they judge.
Portland has Northeast politics but also a hint of Southern conservatism because of the growing population of immigrants and people of color... and it's always in the air... it's kind of hurtful.
The cure is travel. The cure is to expand beyond all White circles. The cure is money. The cure is to get to know individuals of color for who they are and to examine self biases. But the stumbling block is fear and apprehension. And going against what your parents and grandparents may have taught.
The White perspective is worth examining... looking into... and really grasping. How do you get a population to understand that biases and racism exists when they, too, feel like they are not benefiting from the fruits of their labor and from the resources of this country?
How do you get a middle or lower/middle class Mainah... to see that it really is not as easy for others? How do you widen perspective now that it is growing more diverse? Reaching the defensive only works when we work to examine why those defenses are up.
People aren't innately bad. Maine is just small in more than one way.
It also helps to not be so radical in approach. When people come to the table, they won't be transformed or open when consistently lectured at about their "ignorance." Every body is ignorant. But coming to the table, and helping people grow, is crucial.
Yes allies are privileged, yes it's not about comforting the privileged/oppressors, but a lot of the literature now seems to sabotage people coming to the table in the first place. It's a balance to consider.
"There aint no gun they make that can kill my soul" - J. Cole
I knew a girl named Emily in high school. Emily was better at math, science, and a slew of other academic subjects than me but what bothered me the most was that she so effortlessly ran the two-mile race in gym class. While I struggled with it, she breezed through it. Right then and there a seed was planted.
I ran with my uncle. I ran the the Back Cove boulevard. And over time, what was hard became easy and light. I've run two half marathons now. It centers me, making me physically stronger, taking away my back pain, oxygenated my lungs so I can breathe, and my brain so I can think. Its gotten my through losing friends, feeling stuck in places like small-town Maine, unseen in places like D.C., and through difficult break-ups.
I'm not the best runner, I'm not even particularly fast, but I am runner and I love it. For my brother, it's dancing. For another friend, it's yoga. It's the thing that helps a person be her/his best self. It's the thing that a person can do for herself. In a way, it's self help and self care. It's independence.
I think about all the things I'm plotting to do and all the places I'm plotting to go when I run and it excites me. I'm sane because of it and glad that I found it. If I could give advice to people who are bored or sad or think that another person can swoop in and save the day, I would say that they need to find their passion that allows them to be their best self first. Being a positive best self is the first key element to building positive relationships anyways. Without knowing how to oneself happy, one can't expect that from another.
"If you like it, then you shoulda put a ring on it" Beyonce, Single Ladies.
I have 1.5 years to do whatever it is that I need to get done in Maine and to get that paper that said I worked hard. Not a paper that says I'm smart or better, but one that says I finished and I put the hours in.
One of the lessons about having people I love far away is that they too, are pushing through, to get to where they need to be. There are things people trade for other things, in hopes that, somewhere in their life they'll be lucky enough to have both.
Because I put 200 percent into anything I want to attain, I realize that I too, have to be there. I have to push through the hard part to get to the happiness. And hopefully, in time, it gets a little less hard. Right now, the only thing on my agenda is this paper. Not a significant other. Not friendships. Because I don't ever fail myself the way other people do. The next 1.5 years is prove to myself that I can do it by myself. Then I can hopefully lean, hope, and be human... but not until I heal from the hardest relationship.
Sometimes people have to push through and people have learned this much faster than me. Probably because I want everything and I deserve everything.
But because I want it all, I can't settle for subpar when I already knew, when I already had, something much better.
I wrote this piece in 10 minutes while drinking some vodka. It marks the return to my poetry.
I drag it out until the fibers rip and then
I try to stitch them back together
They're contorted, ugly
The result of multiple fights... in which, I am the only one
fighting
The result of a love that was fucked from the beginning
But, let me tell you
that fuckery was orgasmic
Each step lifted from the quick sand tasted like chocolate brownies
after sex
like thunder after drought
like a massage after going miles and miles
and miles down failure lane
that lead to nothing but glimpses of what won't be
and still I methodically stitch
I am the GOD of us
I make impossible rise
I am the power to your power Listness
I am the soldier
I was surrounded by a group of young progressive Vietnamese Americans/ P.O.C. in Philadelphia when I realized how my journey towards defining "progressive" has shifted throughout the years.
I told the group, that at nearly 26, being "progressive" means so much more than political leanings or being against oppressive systems, being progressive means knowing how to love, knowing how to have conversations with someone unlike you, and knowing how to empathize with them and to feel their pain. Being progressive is not a "holier than thou" stance, but more so being able to acknowledge that someone else's truths are just as real as your own.
Although anger provides urgency, and anger is real and genuine, love is more revolutionary because it is the ONE weapon we have over deniers, haters, and oppressors.
I am seeing that my friends are older, and thus I am as well. I am beginning to leave a legacy. I am beginning to surmount my place on this earth. I am beginning to become a role-model, I am beginning to think about family, not only the one I was born into but the one I wish to create. What values will I plant as the matriarch of this family? I want to be progressive and active and fiery throughout my life, but I want to make sure the center of that push for justice and opportunity for people of color and for women, is immersed in love.
It surprises me how fast time passes and that I'm no longer a "child" but I like it, I like knowing where I stand and I like evolving.
A transition from the winter body to the summer body.
Fresh healthy foods.
There are career goals and ways to get there for Autumn.
But for now, it is undoubtedly spring, the best season. The season where there is light and warmth without overbearing heat. The season of strength and subtlety. The season of my birth.
I found myself reunited with my ability to engage in difficult conversations and to speak out.
Peek part of the playlist below.
Melanie Fiona's "Give it to me Right"
How did I live without this song for SO long?
"You've given me more than I can return,
Yet there's also much that you deserve.
There's nothing to say, nothing to do.
I've nothing to give,
I must live without you.
You know we're heading separate ways."- Alex Clare. Preach!
Celia Cruz "Quimbara"
I have NO idea what she's saying but this song is a classic.
By the end of 2014, I hope to know.
This song is AMAZING.
This song just reminds me so much about youth and innocent love.
On three separate occasions, in the last two years, I've had Black men say to, "you haven't been through anything."
I was leaning back on at a Rwandan restaurant after my then-partner had said that to me, when I noticed the pattern. Usually, when things like that get said, an automatic defense mechanism sparks-up, and people say, "listen, I've been through A,B,C.... etc," but I think there was some merit to what they said and some merit to their point of view.
Isn't the reason why many activists are activists,
why certain people speak,
why people take up causes,
why certain people care about things social constructions like race or sex,
why people are curious about things,
why certain people measure themselves to their contemporaries...
because of the agency that they have?
I'm not saying this is always the case BUT I am saying that my friends had a point.
-->
Multiple winters have been packed into this winter. Multiple summers, too, will likely be packed into the upcoming summer. I would not proclaim myself an environmentalist, but something is going on.
Like clock-work, each year, I have stomach issues. As a vegetarian and a runner, I know that the body is very intuitive. Like environmental droughts or hurricanes, sickness never occurs out of the blue, the body gets sick because it is not being provided with what it needs. When something is not right at the core, that's how it manifests itself. And I know that, it gets sick in order to heal. It is attempting to fix the person as a whole.
->
Nothing worth having is ever convenient. A question women have to ask themselves about their relationships is: "Is this person here for me or is this person here for me when it's convenient? Better yet, is this person here for me when he/she/they conveniently want or need me?" Women are socially taught to hold-out, believe in people, understand complexities in behavior, be loyal, and value circumstance. I was raised in a culture, where regardless of male faults or male violence, divorce as a way out for women is frowned upon. The "ride or die" glamorization/pressure/mentality for women has been the foundation of our social upbringing. Men aren't brought up that way. They don't need to ride or die for women, their brothers maybe, but not women. So as women, does being convenient symbolize how we value ourselves?
Isn't the test of a person's character whether or not they choose to be there when it's most inconvenient? It is complicated but I think young women sometimes don't treat ourselves with the understanding and consideration we give others.
--- >
I was in 9th grade when Taylor Dahl died. I remember he just an average kid in every sense of the word. Pretty dorky, but nice enough. But I remember sitting in Sociology class, taught by Ms. Pratt, I believe, the first day back from winter vacation, and getting the news that Taylor passed away during his trip to Colorado. I told him I was jealous that he got to travel for break. I remember them saying his mom was a single mother and he was her only child. I have since forgotten most names and faces of the kids I went to high school with but when a child dies, you never forget. It was 10 years in January.
-->
Part B
“What I would say to him is that not only did you take Jordan’s life but
you took my future. I won’t have grand-children, I will never have a
daughter-in-law. I don’t have those things anymore, but
what he’ll need to understand is that in some way shape or form: he will
pay – even if we don’t ever receive the verdict for Jordan.” -Lucia McBath, Jordan Davis' mother on what she would say to his killer, Michael Dunn.
In 2014, just as in the 50s and 60s, there is a range of people of color who are deeply divided. There are Apologists who have people of color take on their own burden, take responsibilities or fault for their burdens, and who successfully maneuver through White norms, and urge people of the color to do the same. I would presume they see color and race, but their focus is on something else. Their idea of how to beat the system is almost to ignore it and go above it. I.E.--> Clarence Thomas.
And then, there are folk who are out on the front lines everyday. Everything has to do with hierarchy and supremacy. Folk who say if you're playing along with the system, then you're just a puppet, you're just in the belly of the beast. Really radical folk. Folk who rightfully say, if they have to teach their sons and daughters that they have to do twice as much, be twice as good, watch out for cops, then, really they are condoning a system of racism. Playing into it. Perpetuating it.
There are folk who want to work along with White folk because White folk right now, have power to change systems and then there are people who believe in P.O.C. movements, P.O.C. perspectives and P.O.C. solidarity.
Neither is wrong. Both sides and everybody in between came to their perspectives for a reason. The problem here lies in how do we call each other IN and talk about compromise because shit keeps happening because there's never been a united front. "Fuck everybody" is ridiculously naive but kissing ass doesn't work either and the people who pay are 17-year-old kids like Trayvon and Jordan who had their entire lives ahead of them.
Then there are people like President Obama who perhaps think things that men of color may think but don't speak them, and perhaps the reason he is where he is today, why he was re-elected, is because he isn't socially threatening to people in his ilk.
But white people are able to think and talk about white people. Most laws are written, passed, and enforced by white people. The most wealth is held by white people. Little things like clothing designs, vernacular, what is taught in school text books is also white dominated. So people are understandably upset with the President and people who take on that way of being because he, as a man of color, conducts himself in a way that ALSO makes White people central and that ensures primal white comfort. He is hyper aware of the white gaze.
BUT, he is the mark of success. AND, he is advancing the plight and outlook (if not reality) of men of color by being who he is and setting THE ultimate example.
As a growing woman of color trying to strike an appropriate balance and to work through understanding race approaches with both urgency AND maturity, I ache for Jordan's parents. Even if I turn out to be a Barack Obama type eventually, even if I turn out upper class, or even if I am currently, subjectively, a non-threatening, small, relatively soft spoken biracial woman, if I am blessed, I will mother a Black little boy and Black little girl one day. How do I tell the world to value my daughter's body and individuality? What do I say to my future son about how to dress, how to navigate, how to act, and will those things matter? If you put Clarence Thomas, Barack Obama, an obedient or a ten times more militant/ strong black boy in the same vehicle as Jordan was, if you put a rich, a middle class, or a poor boy in the same vehicle as Jordan was, Michael Dunn would have done the EXACT same thing because the fear and the perception of enhanced threat he, and in association, many Americans felt, comes from the fact that the child was Black.
That's where I think, people of color need to come together. The scary thing is that no matter their political differences, no matter their different perceptions on government programs, no matter their take on how to buck the system, no matter if they are divided on the importance of White allies, of wanting to be more "White/ mainstream" or wanting to be proud and be unapologetically a person of color with their own standards, whether you're Martin or Malcolm, in 2014, at the end of the day, it still doesn't matter. Walking down the street, people see your body, your race, and your image first.
It's a simple question but a complex issue. After all, race issues are profitable. Afterall racism benefits a lot of people. People make money spewing hatred. So, how can we make minority images overall POSITIVE? Are we losing the race battle?
--
"Hey.. The victory's found in truth,
like innocence found in youth
Self defeat is your own dispute
and man you put yourself in a ya own shoes
Either you're winning or losing
don't you get it confused
Tay you starring in a ya own movie
playing of a role you choose so
Stand up and fight if you know say you're right and no you won't ever fail
Tipping the scale and the wind shall prevail and the boat shall forever sail."
Damien Marley in Strong Will Continue.
Let's End Positively
"Your love is bright as ever,
Even in the shadows,
Baby kiss me, before they turn the lights out
Your heart is glowing,
And I'm crashing into you,
Baby kiss me, before they turn the lights out
Before they turn the lights out, baby love me lights out." -Beyonce
"There's a war on the streets and a war in the Middle East." - 2Pac, 22 years later, crazy.
"I am from the miles of water in the Pacific
which connect my past to my present
I am from Vietnamese street talk
to African American dialects
I am a belief in love and passion
I am from sweet-toothville
I am from womenkind and womensorrow
I am from funny dumb jokes
from the league of runners who travel the world,
from the league of writers who paint the road those runners tread on,
I am from imagination and reality
I am from shyness and courage.
I am from opinions." - 1/21/14
As an ice-breaker, my grad Professor asked us to jot down a short I AM FROM poem. I am the only person of color in that class and so I chose to write a little bit about where I was and am from. My work culture and school culture are very White. Having a foundation of what makes up me has been a coping mechanism as I begin to locate and keep myself whole in Maine.
--
Culture, in short, is a collective of people in a system
who follow and understand the same set of values and norms. Being a
diversion from said "culture" is taxing. Those people are called
activist. They work for social change, from the inside-out, from the
bottom-up.
Many never exist to see the change that
results. I ask myself those questions every day. Do I
exist to make Maine feel more inclusive for folks like myself?
Do I work my ass off to make sure that I amount to something here? Or,
do I use my energies elsewhere and tell myself that that isn't my
responsibility, tell myself that my energies should be used to ensure my social and emotional health.
--
This reality was the primary reason why I left this state after College. I wanted, so badly, so viscerally, to see more faces and be inspired by more people like me. I needed to have conversations and get advice from people of color about how to manipulate around and maneuver into professional fields where, historically, people of color are shut out of. And I needed that support system.
In some senses, D.C. did that. I had Program Managers and lead teachers who were women of color. And I saw, other young people, like me, who were working to get there. While the Capital is really a heartless place to live, a place where gentrification runs rapid, and an even harder place to form genuine friendships, it showed me a glimpse of progression.
Maine, has the possibility, but it moves slowly. Because any young, progressive, intellectual, proud person of color who wants to form strong connections with other P.O.C. won't live here. Southern Maine has a huge population of 1.5 and second generation young people under 35 whose parents and relatives come from all around the world, from Jaimaica to Viet Nam, to Somalia, to Cambodia, to Burundi, to Puerto Rico, to Sudan, to Thailand to basically everywhere. It's fucking awesome. And those kiddos are as American as anyone else. But their parents are not. When they go to school, the won't see teachers who look like them. When they go to work, they won't see bosses and colleagues, and co-workers, who talk their language. When they go to grad classes, they won't see professors or other students who relate to their cultural sensitivities. And if they want that to change for their younger siblings, and children, they either have to leave or choose to be the guinea pigs and trail blazers.
That choice, man.
--
Here, it is as if long-term residents can't grasp that their culture IS
culture. That anyone who is new has to penetrate the set culture. When my organization did a workshop on how to talk to parents on home visits, we spoke about poverty a lot, but the organizers didn't touch on race. It bothered me SO DEEPLY. When you have privilege, it's hard to see.
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Being in Maine, oddly, has made me think about the Philippines.
About making the transition from preschool to elementary-aged students
here, and then using that knowledge to go back there.
The Philippines because it has a complicated history as a Nation and its
people have a complicated identity, just as I do, the Philippines
because it transitioned me here, yet I never looked back to it. To Manilla and the Refugee site and how that changed the course of my life: how that changed my future.
When
I was with my ex, I thought too about teaching in Zimbabwe or elsewhere in
Africa. And also too because those who related to me and accepted me at
Colby were from Zimbabwe and other countries in Africa: so much more so
than the African American and Asian kids ever had. It still crosses my
mind.
The struggle of, a sense of outcast, the bonding of people from elsewhere in prestigious White spaces. Maybe it is that I need to get out of the White space once in a while just to see how the world, outside of white spaces builds relationships.
I am being educated in Maine
but I can't imagine staying. Mostly because, I am 25 and I don't know where I belong yet. I am working towards it but I have no idea where IT is, I just know when it doesn't fit.
Where will I be most of use, where will I make the strongest connections and speak with my strongest voice.... Here, I am spending all my time penetrating culture and deflecting the alienation I feel about striving for my goals independently, there is little room for voice. It's funny how one feels right at home in South Africa, or in a class of students from different colleges going at it out about social justice, about hunger and sexism, about Education but in her hometown, where she is an educator, she doesn't feel herself present. She has everything to say but she can't speak.
I will probably go to the end of this Earth, to find a piece of this
Earth, I belong to and can make a mark on.
Lately, J. Cole has been doing what only NaS once did: creating songs that make me cry and make me think.
"And girl I know it hurt but if this world was perfect
Then we could make it work but I doubt it"
"But it was not your fault but mine, And it was your heart on the line
I really fucked it up this time, Didn't I, my dear?"
Up until November, I had always HATED this song. But now, it's kind of an anthem.
In This is How You Lose Her, Junot Diaz writes about all the trials and mishaps of his lead character's (who undoubtedly is based on him) relationships with family and women. The complications, mistakes, karma, and dickishness (TM- MyTien Huynh, yes) just turns out to be funny.
The trials and failures of human relationships, and the awkward interactions between people is painful but yet those mistakes, the saltiness, the bitterness, the 'oh my god, I can't believe I did that' is so funny in hindsight.
If I were to write an autobiography chronicling my relationships between 16 and today, I would find it funny too. Not necessarily because anyone was a mistake (people aren't mistakes), or any visceral pain was so powerful or unexpected, but simply because there was a slew of snowballs that I wasn't ready for, yet I took anyways, and slid on my face, and got some scars, got some jadedness and sarcasm in my personality, and all of that creates a funny lived experience most adults have to deal with. And to be fair, I threw some snowballs too. We all do.
When a person's fairy tale goes awry, his/her reaction and how pissed a person gets about it, how stupid they look or feel, how pathetic they become is hilarious. You can prepare to a certain extent but life also has it's plans for you.
It's a reminder that no one ever gets to their perfection, they continually keep trying. Sometimes they fall on their face, sometimes they fall on their ass, sometimes they're not proud of the shit they do but they did it, and it's history now.
The painfully funny reality is that people will move forward trying to avoid writing more 'funny' chapters in your autobiography but they inevitably will. It makes people bitter and complicated and unique and all of those things in the long hall are wonderful.
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