Official Start Time: 1:30 a.m.
Date: 3/1/09
Official End Time: 2:00 a.m.
It was only a day or two ago that I asked myself what does it mean to be white? The skin color as you've probably guessed is my reference and why is it that when you behave and act your age that people consider you to be white?
Now don't get me wrong, I have no issue with being white, black, yellow or even purple. What I am concerned with is why I've always been called white? Why everyone I've ever known has slowly grown to either be white or black? The divide just drives me crazy for I know that color shouldn't be a factor in this equation and yet no matter how hard I try to redefine it, it comes back to haunt me, like a piece of life you can't live without.
So to give you some background information, I'm Dominican. My parents are from a little island in the Caribbean where people speak Spanish and basically live normal lives. I can't tell you more, because even my parents aren't what you would cast as your typical image of the everyday Dominican.
My parents are what you would call "white". They went to college, taught us to be proper, encouraged us to read, and basically acted as good parents in my mind, but white parents in the minds of all the people I knew. My environment has always been a one of poverty or at least part of the lower class by definition. Many of the people I know never went to college and their kids sadly so are heading down the same road. Many drink and live life in the now rather than for the future to come; not because they want to but because of circumstance they are forced to. It is the age old story of the ghetto and how people usually depicted as the intellectually inept are really those just trying to get out of a life they never thought they would live.
Being faced with such extremes, my parents sheltered me and my siblings from such a life. We always had food on the table and a bed to sleep on. We had books to keeps us company and stories to pass the time but we never had the world around us. We were sheltered from the rain and the wind that is the ghetto all because we feared that it would tear our house from its roots and plant us in an alter dimension where corruption ran free.
Growing up this way, away from the ghetto, made me what many classify as white. My intelligence was way higher than those of students raised in the ghetto and for that I was an object of envy. I enjoy school, I liked reading, and my vocabulary didn't exactly fit my age: I was basically a white kid trapped in the body of a Dominican child in the ghetto.
I appreciate my environment for without I wouldn't be who I am today. I do not however understand the criticism of being "white" in the ghetto. You would think color wouldn't play a role and yet it still does. Many students are still stigmatized by the color of their skin and resisitent to crossing the bridge that defines our cultural divide, and I say it's about time that we put old beliefs to death.
The history dates back to the Age of Imperialism and the white man's dream of conquering the world. He took the savages he founds and gave them names that we recognize on maps but our ancestors don't. Like gods, the white man brought with him many opportunities that we are blessed with but at the same time he opened man to a cruel world where he would be defined as the lower level of life: never equal to his brethren.
And who could blame the white man. While out on his journey to save the world he came across souls that needed direction: direction that could only be applied by the sword and through blood shed. Having claimed dominance over his people, the white man never got a taste of how it feels to be oppressed and there is unbelievable evidence that makes this statement true.
If you were to look at the world map, you could see the "white" part of the world during the Age of Imperialism being focused around Western Europe. Outside of that region came the Ottomans in Turkey, the Ummayyads and the Abbasids in the Middle East, the Indians in India, the Chinese in China, the Japanese in Japan, the Mesoamericans in Mesoamerica, and the Africans of Africa. All of these people have thrived and made amazing accomplishments that have pushed man forward only to be "civiilzed" by our white brothers.
We could go on all day about the pros and cons to life with our white brothers and how it has changed the face of the Earth and how really the oppressed and are only oppressed in the presence of their oppressor but the point I am trying to make is that this story dates back farther than you or I can remember.
The goal of "civilizing" such savages according to the white man was to create a better world full of order and structure. The world already had order and structure, it just had one to many people running it. So the white man was really just the project manager who took his position to the next level: he made one order and one structure whether we liked it or not. He was in charge and we were to obey to his rule whether we liked it or not.
It makes me sick looking at the Boer War in Africa, the Opium War in China, and how even those who were white skin tone like in Eastern Europe weren't technically white and probably to this day still aren't. With such a reputation, no one wants to be white. No one wants to be linked with being the spreader of disease and the object of hate by millions upon millions of people and yet it still continues. The definition has changed but many are labeled as white: for having manners, for acting smart, and for actually having a purpose in life . . . as if to say that colored people don't have a purpose.
Once you gain you're purpose, you become white. I've seen it happen over night and how once you start getting you life on track, you become white. You start thinking responsibly and you become aware of the obstacles that lay ahead; never imagining that with each step you've grown further and further away from your fellow man.
I for one do not believe that life should be this way. We shouldn't be labeled by the color of our skin or the heritage we've been graced with. We should embellish our minds and our purpose considering race, skin color, and environment as features that add-on to our persona rather than define our persona.
SIncerely, Hector Guzman
Date: 3/1/09
Official End Time: 2:00 a.m.
It was only a day or two ago that I asked myself what does it mean to be white? The skin color as you've probably guessed is my reference and why is it that when you behave and act your age that people consider you to be white?
Now don't get me wrong, I have no issue with being white, black, yellow or even purple. What I am concerned with is why I've always been called white? Why everyone I've ever known has slowly grown to either be white or black? The divide just drives me crazy for I know that color shouldn't be a factor in this equation and yet no matter how hard I try to redefine it, it comes back to haunt me, like a piece of life you can't live without.
So to give you some background information, I'm Dominican. My parents are from a little island in the Caribbean where people speak Spanish and basically live normal lives. I can't tell you more, because even my parents aren't what you would cast as your typical image of the everyday Dominican.
My parents are what you would call "white". They went to college, taught us to be proper, encouraged us to read, and basically acted as good parents in my mind, but white parents in the minds of all the people I knew. My environment has always been a one of poverty or at least part of the lower class by definition. Many of the people I know never went to college and their kids sadly so are heading down the same road. Many drink and live life in the now rather than for the future to come; not because they want to but because of circumstance they are forced to. It is the age old story of the ghetto and how people usually depicted as the intellectually inept are really those just trying to get out of a life they never thought they would live.
Being faced with such extremes, my parents sheltered me and my siblings from such a life. We always had food on the table and a bed to sleep on. We had books to keeps us company and stories to pass the time but we never had the world around us. We were sheltered from the rain and the wind that is the ghetto all because we feared that it would tear our house from its roots and plant us in an alter dimension where corruption ran free.
Growing up this way, away from the ghetto, made me what many classify as white. My intelligence was way higher than those of students raised in the ghetto and for that I was an object of envy. I enjoy school, I liked reading, and my vocabulary didn't exactly fit my age: I was basically a white kid trapped in the body of a Dominican child in the ghetto.
I appreciate my environment for without I wouldn't be who I am today. I do not however understand the criticism of being "white" in the ghetto. You would think color wouldn't play a role and yet it still does. Many students are still stigmatized by the color of their skin and resisitent to crossing the bridge that defines our cultural divide, and I say it's about time that we put old beliefs to death.
The history dates back to the Age of Imperialism and the white man's dream of conquering the world. He took the savages he founds and gave them names that we recognize on maps but our ancestors don't. Like gods, the white man brought with him many opportunities that we are blessed with but at the same time he opened man to a cruel world where he would be defined as the lower level of life: never equal to his brethren.
And who could blame the white man. While out on his journey to save the world he came across souls that needed direction: direction that could only be applied by the sword and through blood shed. Having claimed dominance over his people, the white man never got a taste of how it feels to be oppressed and there is unbelievable evidence that makes this statement true.
If you were to look at the world map, you could see the "white" part of the world during the Age of Imperialism being focused around Western Europe. Outside of that region came the Ottomans in Turkey, the Ummayyads and the Abbasids in the Middle East, the Indians in India, the Chinese in China, the Japanese in Japan, the Mesoamericans in Mesoamerica, and the Africans of Africa. All of these people have thrived and made amazing accomplishments that have pushed man forward only to be "civiilzed" by our white brothers.
We could go on all day about the pros and cons to life with our white brothers and how it has changed the face of the Earth and how really the oppressed and are only oppressed in the presence of their oppressor but the point I am trying to make is that this story dates back farther than you or I can remember.
The goal of "civilizing" such savages according to the white man was to create a better world full of order and structure. The world already had order and structure, it just had one to many people running it. So the white man was really just the project manager who took his position to the next level: he made one order and one structure whether we liked it or not. He was in charge and we were to obey to his rule whether we liked it or not.
It makes me sick looking at the Boer War in Africa, the Opium War in China, and how even those who were white skin tone like in Eastern Europe weren't technically white and probably to this day still aren't. With such a reputation, no one wants to be white. No one wants to be linked with being the spreader of disease and the object of hate by millions upon millions of people and yet it still continues. The definition has changed but many are labeled as white: for having manners, for acting smart, and for actually having a purpose in life . . . as if to say that colored people don't have a purpose.
Once you gain you're purpose, you become white. I've seen it happen over night and how once you start getting you life on track, you become white. You start thinking responsibly and you become aware of the obstacles that lay ahead; never imagining that with each step you've grown further and further away from your fellow man.
I for one do not believe that life should be this way. We shouldn't be labeled by the color of our skin or the heritage we've been graced with. We should embellish our minds and our purpose considering race, skin color, and environment as features that add-on to our persona rather than define our persona.
SIncerely, Hector Guzman
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