"Honestly, they look down at themselves. You know, I had this girlfriend in Miami...It was incredible. She always had to tell me that she has a college degree, and all the things she achieved and she would always buy me something and do anything to make me feel good. And I mean, gosh, she looked GREAT, she was such a cool and nice lady....But still she seemed to have to do this. I got mad, really....
Ah- You will understand that, when you live here a little longer. When I first came here, I was like, Hey, cool, I wanna get to know Afro Americans, and they all loved me where we lived. We lived in that neighborhood where only blacks would live. They LOVED me. I was the cool European you know, who didn't have any prejudices yet and stuff. But after a while, boy, it s so annoying.... They really look down at themselves and thats why they need such big cars and bling bling and all that stuff....Always acting as if they were big and stuff, but in reality they look down at themselves. You know, in Miami, the BEST looking guys would date the ugliest European white girls you can imagine...they could have had anyone, but they seemed to take an odd pride in dating a white girl or so, I don't know.
Also, when you get mad at someone who is black, he will never take it personal but always blame it on the colour of his skin, on the fact that you are white racist trash. The same with Jews, I am sorry to say that, but experience just showed me that it is like that in most of the cases. You can be best friends with a black person but when it comes down to it and you have a fight they will always accuse you being a racist....or at the restaurant I worked at...nobody wanted to have the tables with only black people....because they would always make trouble and leave the table without paying and stuff, accusing you being a racist and letting them wait longer than the rest and shit....I couldn t believe it, but it was really like that..."
Silently I gaze out into the darkness. In the distance I hear a car driving by, HipHop bounces through the air....
Afro Americans.
Africans.
Europe, Africa, America.
These words hurt, damn. These words hurt big time. When I was at the shore of Manhattan I cried bitter tears because it hurts me to remember what my ancestors did. It hurts me to see what we do now, what we do passively by letting it happen without interfering too much. All of us, no matter which colour your skin has. There are always good and bad people no matter where, I mean, gosh, there must have been people cooperating in Africa to make the slavery possible. And I know there were people. - The holy New York Stock Exchange Temple. It s a temple, damn, it s really the building of a TEM'PLE! I couldn't really believe it.
I slept three nights in Brooklyn, NY. The first night Franchize, a Nigerian Rapper was introduced to me by a Canadian guy whom I had met in the airplane. The next night I sat next to this guy who was having a passionate conversation about Socrates on his phone. As I was studying philosophy the whole last year I was, naturally, amused and alerted. When he hung up the phone I smiled at him and asked him what the matter was with Socrates.... He was waiting for the bus but after one and a half hours of amazing conversation he decided to give me shelter for a night and I could stay at his place for the next two nights. We hung out the whole following day, he showed me around in New York....He was a good guy. He didn't get sexual. He was just showing a great deal of amazing hospitality. I felt so lucky and blessed to be able to experience this. I lost my wallet in New York. Someone found it and gave it to a guy whos number happened to be in there.
The guy I stayed with, let us call him Mike, was Afro American...One of his grandmothers was half native American half Afro American.
I wonder, whether he would call me a racist when having an argument. I don't know, but it makes me all sad.
Even if my brother in law was right with what he was saying I would not just let it be like that. There is a psychological reason behind everything. And a responsibility of all of us to change, face the future and the past in order to go on.
America.
I am surprised that I find it so different from Europe, but it sure is. I miss Berlin a lot, I miss - well, real Cafes, you know, I can't really put a finger on it, but there is a difference... The buildings are different. The people are different. It s almost as if there wasn't only the American Dream breathable in the air but also a whiff of ignorance we use to blame Americans with back in Europe. People are so damn assure of what they are doing sort of. It feels like a huge swimming pool in which the people dwell. I felt as if I have roots over here, when I was in Europe...My mom is Alaskan and there is definetly something belonging to America inside of me, but I have a hard time finding it.
It s so strange because I love the music so much. So much great music, inventions, movies and stuff come from America. Who can blame a people to be patriotic? Germans have too little of that. A broken self-esteem that will need hundres and hundres of years to be recovered. Maybe better not? Hm.
I love the music and yet I can't associate it with the people. I can't find the soul, thats it. My sister would laugh at me reading this, I know, because she uses to say she had an overdose of new age stuff. But honestly, where is the soul? It s seems to be so fucked up, I don't feel like the people have a right living here. But in the same time, who am I? History is history and bad things happen all along and yeah, a people invades another country and conquers that land. its been not the first time to happen.
But still it makes me feel so odd. And then again, when I think of how much I love any kind of music and dance that comes from the 'black diaspora', the whole black atlantic area I start being amazed as to how fertile a originally incredibly unfair and bad action, that is slavery, could produce so beautiful a culture.
Is it, that pain always gives birth to new beautiful life???
please, whoever reads this - please share your thoughts with me. I am truly still at a loss to understand what I am confronted with. Especially what my brother in law said about Afro Americans in the beginning....How do you see all this? Would you agree? Differenciate? Negate????
2 comments:
So much to say...hmmmm.
I understand what your brother-in-law says. It is not entirely correct, nor is it entirely wrong, it is merely his experience and his perspective.
The race issue is strange. Growing up I felt guilty of my white skin, my horrible ancestors that could do such a thing. Did MY ancestors do it? I don't know. Do I feel guilty simply because I am white? Sometimes.
Strange.
But it's all in how we see ourselves, our perspective. Do I judge myself based on how someone else sees me? What if they judge me on the color of my skin, and never bother to get to know the woman under the skin? Racism goes both ways, all ways. And it's stupid. Ignorant. Idiotic.
I confided in a black friend one day, "I just don't know how to respond! When I talk to black people, I feel like I should be extra nice to them so they don't think I'm a racist! But then I'm acting differently because of their skin, which is a weird kind of racism in and of itself, right? Even if I"m being extra nice!"
He just looked at me and said, "Why don't you stop looking at skin and just treat each person like the individuals that they are?"
Duh. What a reality check.
I think growing up near Detroit just made me hyper sensitive to it. That is MY perspective.
As far as America and it's soul, it's a strange kind of spirit. It's individual, very seperate people, who feel patriotic about their individuality. You know, the whole freedom thing we talk so much about? Yah. We come together, but as individuals. It's weird.
When I went to Canada, I was blown away by the difference in their patriotism versus ours. Very strange.
I could talk about this all day, but I should be making dinner. Ha.
I thought you were heading to the west coast? Any chance you're going down to Virginia? (grin)
I grew up in N. Minnepolis and the wave of riots hit there shortly after they started. It started with two girls fighting over a piece of clothing at the big parade they have downtown every July. My high school had a large majority of black students. and a lot of them were my friends. Not close, but I didn't have time for a lot of close friends anyways. I couldn't understand any of it. But I knew not to venture past a certain block because it was very unsafe - even in a car. My brothers and mom were really prejudice. Then my sister had a child by a black man and they disowned her, wouldn't even talk to her passing on the street. A close friend 3 houses away from mine brought her baby home to meet her parents. She was so distraught when she came out of the house she wouldn't even show me her baby. Going back to Mpls. in 1975 I found out that you don't even look at a black person because they accuse you of staring and get all hateful. I tried to visit my old neighborhood a few years ago ( the one I grew up in) It was not safe to be white and be there. I could go on and on. But what does it matter if you are black, pink, purple - its the way you treat people that counts. There still is so much hatred between the two races. But it seems the majority of people just want to get along.
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