Yes, you read the title right. I am asking if I, a woman of color should be ashamed. "Of what?" You may ask, and I will say, "A gazillion things."
Now here's the deal, I see things about my race every day that makes me cringe. There is a race war going on and many people may not know about it. However, it's there and we cannot deny it. While I hate using the word race and defining someone by skin color, I cannot deny that I am a person of color. Though I have several different ethnicities running through my veins, people will always see me as 'colored'. Indians will see me as black, my black people now see me as half-Indian, whites will definitely see me as black so it's a lose-lose situation trying to convince anyone that I am all of them.
Here are the questions I have been asking myself:
· Should I be ashamed of being colored when a colored woman says that all whites would be murdered?
· Should I be ashamed when CNN interviews an obviously illiterate girl who cannot seem to even pronounce her name right? (see interview here <http://therightscoop.com/we-dont-need-no-curfew-we-grown-ass-people-baltimore-woman/>)
· Should I be ashamed of black illiteracy, though I am educated?
· Should I be ashamed of black on white racism?
· Should I be ashamed because I know that there are black groups equivalent to the KKK?
· Should I be ashamed that blacks are killing blacks because they don’t seem to know better?
· Should I be ashamed of being of African descent?
· Should I be ashamed because there are more colored men in prisons than any other race?
· Should I be ashamed because there are more colored unwed mothers than any other race?
· Should I be ashamed that there are more teenage pregnancies among black girls than whites?
· Should I be ashamed of the actions of the black female Baltimore Mayor?
· Should I be ashamed?
It’s a conflict that I, a woman of color, have to deal with on my own.
I know that I am an individual, but, it seems what affects one does affect all. There are times I feel when people look at me they see me “one of them.” So I do feel ashamed. I do feel like I must run and hide.
I know you may tell me that I should not feel ashamed, but I do. You want to know why?
We have been placed in that virtual barrel for a long time, where each person of color has been generalized into “those black people”. It seems that when one person of color commits a crime it’s labeled as a black people crime. Each offense becomes a black people offense.
It’s the same with whites. Take for instance when a white depressed teenage youth takes a gun to school and shoots some of the student and teachers, black peoples say “you see black people don’t do that. It’s a white people crime.” I know it’s a load of bull dung, but we stereotype everything by skin color.
We hear that only white people are serial killers like Ted Bundy. We hear that only black people loot; only black people commit violent crimes and gang wars are limited to blacks and Latinos. Oh yes, and Latinos are considered people of color, so basically it’s the same.
So, I’m sitting a million limes away reading all this crap on Facebook and it hits me. What the hell am I to be ashamed of? I don’t live in the United States. I don’t see racism here. No white person coming to Jamaica is ever harmed because he’s white. Any harm that comes to a white person in Jamaica is only because of greed. Someone thinking they have money and rob them. Even gay men are safe here, during the last decade or so.
Racist white people (yes, there are those) don’t come to my country. I don’t think so. Maybe I’m naive, but I would think that if a person were racist, they wouldn’t really come to Jamaica on vacation or migrate here. Why would they want to spend their vacation among people they despise or why would they want to live indefinitely in neighborhoods with 99% people of color?
Another reason I feel ashamed is that I cannot deny my race no matter how Indian my father was, or how white my great grandparents were. I feel ashamed that these people are my brothers and sisters. I am not ashamed of my race, no, far from it. I am ashamed of their behavior.
Tell me, are you ashamed?