During these past few years we have witnessed the premature death of many artists in diverse fields, and in particular artists of color. Our most recent and public loss was actor, Elizabeth Peña, dead at age 55. It is said she died of “natural causes following a brief illness.” There is nothing “natural” about a premature death in the 21st Century. There is an “illness” that all people of color must live with in our society, even those with their star anchored in the stratosphere - discrimination. We are still considered “other,” and our achievements carted out for public display during the same months that celebrate imperial invasions and genocides coded as “discovery.”
We know of the public losses, and then there are the staggering statistics we don’t see; among them are the suicides and suicide attempts among Latina girls. For one of many articles on the subject see: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/07/20137217262714490.html.
As a Puerto Rican/Roma (Borikua/Gitana) I have always been keenly aware that I must work twice as hard in all endeavors, despite decades of proving twice the excellence, to get a just wage and work for which I am more than capable. My “white” privilege ends the moment I open my mouth to introduce myself. Whatever bigotry I experience, witness or must interrupt on a daily basis, grows exponentially for my sisters and brothers who are not as melanin challenged as myself. The insults, exclusions, condescensions, assumptions regarding who we are and what we can do, are always just below the surface, regardless of our station in life. We are welcomed into institutions when it is convenient or necessary. We can live next door as long as we don't marry your daughter. The attempts at erasure by exclusion are forever present. It is most dangerous and insidious when as people of color we do this to each other, as we carry out the bidding of the Master in this perpetual Plantation, to gain mainstream favor, disfiguring ourselves into images of compliance to standards of beauty, behaviors, speech, dress, Europeanized male codes and rubrics of arts production, squeezing our size 12 souls into the size O attire of “Americanized” cultural “normalcy.” When we have legacy building events and barely anyone shows up, it should not be brushed off as just par for the course. Something is profoundly wrong and in need of attention.
Of course we’re dying young. Either because we deny who we truly are for acceptance, or because we defy this colonial mind-set, retaining the authentic self. Either way, we must constantly live in the consciousness of self to survive. What must I negotiate today in order to survive and put food on the table? How many insults will I have to endure so that I can maintain the equilibrium of the room and not harm the innocent? Who will I need to educate today when I go to the post office or supermarket? How will my physical and mental health be compromised by the a pervasive culture of normalized violence, which includes discrimination by intention or tacit consent?
I have a daily practice of mental martial arts. I am forever forging tools that will allow me to fully be who I am and speak the truth without feeling the need to harm anyone in the process-including myself. Bigotry and discrimination can be legislated against (although some legislation endorse both) but for the human mind to evolve beyond these aberrant corruptions is not in the foreseeable future. I love a challenge.
I refuse, with intention, to not be a victim; however, this doesn’t mean that I am not victimized. I simply deepen the skills with which I respond, learning from the warriors who have come before me.
I recently walked into a venue for one of my book signings, where I was greeted by a top to bottom once-over look and a sneer. The verbal greeting dismissive, the welcome (a misnomer) begrudging. Apparently my look and being did not meet with approval, regardless of how well I dressed. The accessories I wore were perhaps a little too creative and my handshake too assertive for a woman. Clearly, I had been forced down the throat of my host by the institution in which this person is employed.
As the reading and intimate engagement with the audience went on, this person, who at first behaved as if in a hostage situation, began to relax, actually have fun, and even the camera came out. I would make for good publicity and make the place, and this person look good. It turned out that I was a viable commodity and a human being worthy of respect after all. My weapon of self-defense? I remained fully present to those who attended because they wanted to share that moment of life with me. I shifted from anger to compassion, retained my balance, and despite the promise of a full house, with only a few people in attendance, I had a great time. Sometimes the haters will realize all the fun they're missing and life energy they are wasting. Once in a while they come around to self-realization. Good for them.
These offensive and complex encounters happen all the time, to people of color, in particular. You arrive with an exemplary track record and a Curriculum Vitae that requires a U-Haul, but you must still prove yourself. The end result is still an insult, because one should not have to “win” people over just to receive the most basic respect and courtesy. People of color are more often than not viewed with suspicion and prejudicial doubt. Even the most nuanced of these moments do not escape us. The insidious are the most dangerous - the ones we might not quite catch, but our bodies feel. The side glance, the brief look of disdain. Our cellular memory retains them all, our brain recording every incident. The body responds when we must constantly live in a state of hyper-vigilance. Cortisol is released throughout the body, drenching us with toxicity from the inside out, harming our physical and emotional health, threatening our life expectancy. We must be subversive and pro-active, guarding our health with intentional choices of what we put into our bodies, our minds, staying physically active, and asking for help when we need it. Living in an intrinsically racist society that persists in lauding its Founding Fathers who owned slaves, and (just for starters) ignores the genocidal actions and erasure against the First 500 Nations, demand that we protect our minds, bodies and spirits.
We do our best to forgive and forget, but I am not convinced this is a favorable policy. I prefer to call-out and interrupt, challenge and create change. Unconditional love and the cultivation of empathy are underrated tools of resistance, as are self-care and an unflappable sense of humor. Couple these with the creation of art and righteous indignation, unity with like minds, and we can activate change one human interaction at a time.
I still hold onto the idea that the devil is not in the details, but in their absence. The absent details of history taught to our children. The revisionist history that depicts people of color as victims: slaves, coolies, pesticide drenched field workers and nothing more. The occasional person of color turned icon and used to represent us all. The marketing that makes sure we are shamed by our appearance so we might buy the products that will make us acceptable: coloring our hair and bleaching our skin; the scalpels that will trim our lips, hips, noses and epicanthic folds. The marketing and discrimination that make us terrified of aging and spend our hard earned money trying to reverse Nature’s course.
Yes, we are dying young. Ethnic cleansing takes many forms - creating cultures of addiction (decode the billboards in economically oppressed communities for starters; menthol cigarettes contain sugar and quell hunger); making synonyms of “lack” and “exploitation;” unquestioned, so-called traditions, like eating unhealthy foods as a mark of cultural identity (like you’re not a “real” Puerto Rican if you choose tofu over pork); the corralling of low income earners into shoddy housing (where cut corners benefit the corrupt); underserved communities where toxic waste dumps are also housed near the teaching hospitals-the poor have always been expendable and subject to experiment; disrupting cross-cultural unity by creating competition for crumbs through out-dated non-profit models: you’re only as good as how much jargon and bean-counter pleasing you can write into a grant (RFP has come to mean Regurgitate Fiscal Preposterousness); we are complicit in our own demise when we only look out for “our own” and allow the perpetuation of exploitative and unreasonable institutionalized models that feign equitable distribution by funders. For a microcosmic look at the macro picture of economic exploitation coded as a "lack of resources" all you have to do is check out the budgetary distributions within institutions of "higher learning" or federally funded institutions for the arts. We already know the costs of war for profit.
How many cities have populations where the majority are people of color? I live in one of them, Springfield, Massachusetts. And how many of those cities are run by an elite few, made possible by our disunity and the mutual suspicion that we have foolishly bought into? Yes, we are dying young. And we will continue to do so as long as we remain in isolation, silent, with each group scrambling and looking out only for their own.
Who are “my own?” Amina Baraka a formidable artist and spouse of the late Amiri Baraka said, “I don’t care what color you are, my question is, whose side are you on?”
I can answer only for myself. I am on the side of those who seek and work for justice for all oppressed peoples. However long we live, let us live twice each day in the memory of those who have died too young. Live true and with intention.
Whose side are you on?
We know of the public losses, and then there are the staggering statistics we don’t see; among them are the suicides and suicide attempts among Latina girls. For one of many articles on the subject see: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/07/20137217262714490.html.
As a Puerto Rican/Roma (Borikua/Gitana) I have always been keenly aware that I must work twice as hard in all endeavors, despite decades of proving twice the excellence, to get a just wage and work for which I am more than capable. My “white” privilege ends the moment I open my mouth to introduce myself. Whatever bigotry I experience, witness or must interrupt on a daily basis, grows exponentially for my sisters and brothers who are not as melanin challenged as myself. The insults, exclusions, condescensions, assumptions regarding who we are and what we can do, are always just below the surface, regardless of our station in life. We are welcomed into institutions when it is convenient or necessary. We can live next door as long as we don't marry your daughter. The attempts at erasure by exclusion are forever present. It is most dangerous and insidious when as people of color we do this to each other, as we carry out the bidding of the Master in this perpetual Plantation, to gain mainstream favor, disfiguring ourselves into images of compliance to standards of beauty, behaviors, speech, dress, Europeanized male codes and rubrics of arts production, squeezing our size 12 souls into the size O attire of “Americanized” cultural “normalcy.” When we have legacy building events and barely anyone shows up, it should not be brushed off as just par for the course. Something is profoundly wrong and in need of attention.
Of course we’re dying young. Either because we deny who we truly are for acceptance, or because we defy this colonial mind-set, retaining the authentic self. Either way, we must constantly live in the consciousness of self to survive. What must I negotiate today in order to survive and put food on the table? How many insults will I have to endure so that I can maintain the equilibrium of the room and not harm the innocent? Who will I need to educate today when I go to the post office or supermarket? How will my physical and mental health be compromised by the a pervasive culture of normalized violence, which includes discrimination by intention or tacit consent?
I have a daily practice of mental martial arts. I am forever forging tools that will allow me to fully be who I am and speak the truth without feeling the need to harm anyone in the process-including myself. Bigotry and discrimination can be legislated against (although some legislation endorse both) but for the human mind to evolve beyond these aberrant corruptions is not in the foreseeable future. I love a challenge.
I refuse, with intention, to not be a victim; however, this doesn’t mean that I am not victimized. I simply deepen the skills with which I respond, learning from the warriors who have come before me.
I recently walked into a venue for one of my book signings, where I was greeted by a top to bottom once-over look and a sneer. The verbal greeting dismissive, the welcome (a misnomer) begrudging. Apparently my look and being did not meet with approval, regardless of how well I dressed. The accessories I wore were perhaps a little too creative and my handshake too assertive for a woman. Clearly, I had been forced down the throat of my host by the institution in which this person is employed.
As the reading and intimate engagement with the audience went on, this person, who at first behaved as if in a hostage situation, began to relax, actually have fun, and even the camera came out. I would make for good publicity and make the place, and this person look good. It turned out that I was a viable commodity and a human being worthy of respect after all. My weapon of self-defense? I remained fully present to those who attended because they wanted to share that moment of life with me. I shifted from anger to compassion, retained my balance, and despite the promise of a full house, with only a few people in attendance, I had a great time. Sometimes the haters will realize all the fun they're missing and life energy they are wasting. Once in a while they come around to self-realization. Good for them.
These offensive and complex encounters happen all the time, to people of color, in particular. You arrive with an exemplary track record and a Curriculum Vitae that requires a U-Haul, but you must still prove yourself. The end result is still an insult, because one should not have to “win” people over just to receive the most basic respect and courtesy. People of color are more often than not viewed with suspicion and prejudicial doubt. Even the most nuanced of these moments do not escape us. The insidious are the most dangerous - the ones we might not quite catch, but our bodies feel. The side glance, the brief look of disdain. Our cellular memory retains them all, our brain recording every incident. The body responds when we must constantly live in a state of hyper-vigilance. Cortisol is released throughout the body, drenching us with toxicity from the inside out, harming our physical and emotional health, threatening our life expectancy. We must be subversive and pro-active, guarding our health with intentional choices of what we put into our bodies, our minds, staying physically active, and asking for help when we need it. Living in an intrinsically racist society that persists in lauding its Founding Fathers who owned slaves, and (just for starters) ignores the genocidal actions and erasure against the First 500 Nations, demand that we protect our minds, bodies and spirits.
We do our best to forgive and forget, but I am not convinced this is a favorable policy. I prefer to call-out and interrupt, challenge and create change. Unconditional love and the cultivation of empathy are underrated tools of resistance, as are self-care and an unflappable sense of humor. Couple these with the creation of art and righteous indignation, unity with like minds, and we can activate change one human interaction at a time.
I still hold onto the idea that the devil is not in the details, but in their absence. The absent details of history taught to our children. The revisionist history that depicts people of color as victims: slaves, coolies, pesticide drenched field workers and nothing more. The occasional person of color turned icon and used to represent us all. The marketing that makes sure we are shamed by our appearance so we might buy the products that will make us acceptable: coloring our hair and bleaching our skin; the scalpels that will trim our lips, hips, noses and epicanthic folds. The marketing and discrimination that make us terrified of aging and spend our hard earned money trying to reverse Nature’s course.
Yes, we are dying young. Ethnic cleansing takes many forms - creating cultures of addiction (decode the billboards in economically oppressed communities for starters; menthol cigarettes contain sugar and quell hunger); making synonyms of “lack” and “exploitation;” unquestioned, so-called traditions, like eating unhealthy foods as a mark of cultural identity (like you’re not a “real” Puerto Rican if you choose tofu over pork); the corralling of low income earners into shoddy housing (where cut corners benefit the corrupt); underserved communities where toxic waste dumps are also housed near the teaching hospitals-the poor have always been expendable and subject to experiment; disrupting cross-cultural unity by creating competition for crumbs through out-dated non-profit models: you’re only as good as how much jargon and bean-counter pleasing you can write into a grant (RFP has come to mean Regurgitate Fiscal Preposterousness); we are complicit in our own demise when we only look out for “our own” and allow the perpetuation of exploitative and unreasonable institutionalized models that feign equitable distribution by funders. For a microcosmic look at the macro picture of economic exploitation coded as a "lack of resources" all you have to do is check out the budgetary distributions within institutions of "higher learning" or federally funded institutions for the arts. We already know the costs of war for profit.
How many cities have populations where the majority are people of color? I live in one of them, Springfield, Massachusetts. And how many of those cities are run by an elite few, made possible by our disunity and the mutual suspicion that we have foolishly bought into? Yes, we are dying young. And we will continue to do so as long as we remain in isolation, silent, with each group scrambling and looking out only for their own.
Who are “my own?” Amina Baraka a formidable artist and spouse of the late Amiri Baraka said, “I don’t care what color you are, my question is, whose side are you on?”
I can answer only for myself. I am on the side of those who seek and work for justice for all oppressed peoples. However long we live, let us live twice each day in the memory of those who have died too young. Live true and with intention.
Whose side are you on?
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