Reflections on Affirmative Action

I've been mentioning sports a bit in my blog lately, which I think is a very good topic to intersect with the topic of affirmative action. You see, apparently, along with missing the story about the trans sports commentator, I also missed a story about former NFL football player and current Stanford football coach Jim Harbaugh accusing the University of Michigan, his alma mater, of lowering academic standards for athletes--particularly in admissions and steering them towards "easier" majors. Another interesting thing, though, is several football players from several colleges have not and will not be playing in this season's bowl games because they are academically ineligible or are involved in academic scandals. This is not the first time, either.

These are big stories in the sports world, for sure, but how many people outside of sports who would claim to care about academics or fair admissions standards know about these stories (you see how I didn't know about the Harbaugh story?) or are up in arms about them, using them to say that this is the reason why we should stop admitting "dumb jocks" or lowering the standards for them? I mean, other than Harbaugh?

All I really want to know is--why is it okay for someone--usually black, but often white and occasionally Latino or Asian--who may or may not care about a good education to make 1000 (on the old 1600 scale) on the SAT I or a 17 on the ACT and have a 2.8 GPA but be given a scholarship to schools out of their academic league, such as Michigan, Duke, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, UCLA, UC-Berkeley, USC and so forth all because he can play football or basketball...but a black kid who has, say, a 3.7 GPA in an advanced curriculum, a 1250 SAT I (on the old 1600 scale) or a 25 on the ACT, has written a great personal statement about his or her life struggles, has strong recommendations from teachers, leadership positions in organizations, community service experience and such a strong desire to attend one of the best universities in the nation that he/she is willing to borrow $30000 a year...should be denied admissions to these same schools? And why do some of us complain when the latter student is admitted but we have nothing to say when the first student is, with a scholarship to boot?

The same can be said--and is more often said--with legacies, i.e. people with a parent who attended the school, often having donated money to the school or being famous. But I think using athletics sinks in better with people who are dead-set against affirmative action, because many of these people will not be sports fans and getting into schools that one academically doesn't deserve to happens more with sports or, at least, is more visible. Athletes play games, representing their universities, weekly for months, oftentimes on TV.

Sure, there are positives to the practice of admitting athletes who don't make the grade academically. But the same can be said for minorities who, by many people's very narrow standards, don't appear to make the grade academically. There are just different lines of reasoning to support each. Athletes contribute to the school. Their sports bring in a lot of money, and they entertain people. You don't get that with black students who don't play sports, sure. Indeed, most people don't really feel there is a benefit to them, personally, in having minorities at university--and that's what matters. Remember, everyone's selfish. The US is about "what does this do for me?" Okay. But minorities who attend universities contribute, too--to society. Nowadays, it seems that everyone has something to say about blacks and crime, blacks and hip hop culture, blacks and sexism.

Look--black people who attend and graduate from good schools generally don't commit crimes, generally don't fit in with hip hop culture nor become rappers, generally don't even agree with so-called hip hop culture and generally are more aware and understanding of gender issues. So, perhaps...if you really want this stuff to slow down, you'll want to make good education as accessible to blacks as possible. People love to generalize that education doesn't matter to blacks. Well, education doesn't matter, in general, to the majority of people in this country. But if you really knew, you'd know that racial & ethnic minorities take education for granted a lot less than whites do. That's because whites can spend their days as a teenager skateboarding and getting drunk, then spend college days getting drunk and hooking up, and still fall into a good job. The difference with blacks than with everyone else is that blacks don't see college as a possibility, not just because of admissions but because of affordability and--believe it or not--simple things that everyone else takes for granted such as knowing how to apply for financial aid, knowing all the different forms you have to fill out, knowing how to fill out those forms and then having to pay for many of those forms on top of everything else you have to pay for.

I saw personally when I was applying to law school--and continue to see now that I'm trying to figure out how to pay for the Bar exam and the Professional Responsibility exam (not to mention how I will get to those exam designations or how I will afford to live this summer as I prepare for the Bar exam)--that everyone else, but especially whites, take so many expenses and hurdles that are present in application processes for granted and are clueless that these things are not simple for everyone else. My brother-in-law's sister and brother could not get the help they needed in trying to apply for financial aid, and they have the kind of parents who refuse to help with those things and who don't know when their kids are in danger of failing until the last minute. But all kinds of people have bad and/or uninvolved parents, especially today, not just black parents. And it's hard to expect people who never went to college and never thought of attending college because they didn't have to opportunity to, to understand the importance of it or know enough about the process of applying to help their kids do it.

Yet, the obstacles remain, and non-blacks remain clueless or uncaring about them. Everyone should be treated the same in admissions, only we're not treated the same in every other aspect of life. We should forget the past, only the past still affects the present. Martin Luther King Jr says people should be judged by the content of their character, not the color of their skin...only taking race into account in admissions is about judging people by their character, not their skin color. For so many minorities, their race shapes their character. Those admissions officers at Michigan or Harvard who read the personal statements blacks submit will tell you that, because a lot of blacks cannot write about the person they've become without writing about how race played a role in getting them there. It's not as if admissions officers see that an applicant is black or Latino and admits them on the spot just because of that. All the factors I mentioned above in comparing an athlete to a black academic student play a role, which means admissions officers look at the totality of the person--every person. It is society that still judges people by their skin, not their character...which is the main reason why I consider racial stereotypes and generalizations racist.

I realize that I am not discussing affirmative action and Asians & Latinos (or women and queers, etc), pretty much just blacks. I am also using "minorities" at times, but this is not really an inclusive discussion. As a black person, I know more how affirmative action affects blacks, and I do believe that it is more--if not solely--necessary for blacks than others. However, I do believe that "affirmative action" is not the correct term for what colleges and universities do, particularly the more prestigious universities. "Affirmative action" is the guarantee that those schools will not discriminate on the basis of race. Schools use a diversity policy. In using such a policy, I believe that it is absolutely correct to consider each and every applicant on an individual basis, using several criteria in order to assess each person's total background. I am quite familiar with some schools' admissions process, particularly Michigan, Michigan Law and Harvard & Harvard Law.

Before the affirmative action ban in Michigan, Michigan Law had the best admissions process of any program in the nation, because, the way they did things, a white or Asian student who had a compelling total package but a low LSAT score had as good a chance of being admitted as a black student who did--and, indeed, Michigan Law has admitted many white students with lower GPAs and/or LSAT scores. Michigan Law doesn't have perfect racial & ethnic representation, but they have really good diversity in the true sense of the word because diversity to them was not and is not just about race.

Unfortunately, now diversity will likely continue in every sense but racially--they will still have tons of white queers and white women, white kids who grew up poor and white kids who were adopted by minorities, white kids who are from places as diverse as Germany, Montana, Canada, Alabama and New York, and Asian kids, too...but they won't have that many black or non-white Latino kids. In other words, anyone can go to Michigan Law except blacks and Latinos, unless they're [likely] an (speaking in terms of social class) uppity black or Latino, many of whom will choose Harvard or Columbia instead now because Michigan Law will not be the best school they get into. This is not what admissions policies should be in the US; the way Michigan Law did things prior to 2007 is the way every school and every program in the US should do things.

I have a joke about schools like Michigan now, or schools in lily white states (or states I tend to think of as white) such as Idaho, Delaware and West Virginia: the only black people there are the schools' athletes (or in Michigan's case, I say "the only black people who will be there after a while are the black athletes"). It's sad, but that's probably not all that far off. As much as I love college football, if I could choose between affirmative action and great but academically unqualified athletes, I would choose affirmative action. I just don't know how it makes sense that a black guy who doesn't care about the school's academics, prestige or job appeal can be more embraced by the university and the entire country than a black male or black female who will work hard and give 100% to the classroom...all because the former can throw a ball but the latter didn't perform as well on a test made predominantly by white males with a historical purpose to demonstrate that some groups of people are superior to others. I believe that blacks who want to be in college for college's sake should be the ones who have the doors opened and the red carpet rolled out for them...not athletes.

I think this phenomenon picks up where I was starting to go before, which is that many blacks don't view college as accessible or helpful...unless you're a black male going to play a sport. Because, in truth, unless you're upper-middle class+ and black, and/or have parents with a college+ degree, college is not that accessible to most blacks. But if you can play a popular sport, as I said, it doesn't take much for a college to call you. Suddenly, you don't have to know anything about researching colleges, financial aid forms, application fees or how you might go about paying back college loans. Suddenly, you don't have to worry whether or not you can get a job upon graduation, because you have the chance to go Pro and make millions if you can just stay healthy and at the top of your game. Is it any wonder that paths such as athletics and music are such popular choices for black males? To many, they seem like the only paths for black males.

By the same token, is it any wonder that black females outnumber black males in college? After all, if black women didn't rely on college...there's not much else out there they can do. Going Pro isn't the same for us, and, as women, we're taught about needing stability and security...so we're more practical than to run around trying to score record deals or an agent who will get us auditions for movies/TV shows, even if we can sing or act. Besides...how hard is it to make a hit rap song, do you think? Now answer the same question for black women. Becoming a rapper might be harder than it seems, but I believe the reason so many black males want to do it is because they also believe it's not that hard. Still, more black women might attend college, but the best schools still don't see anywhere near as many black women as schools held in less esteem do--and, as I said, black females at schools like Michigan and USC tend to be from the middle and upper-middle classes+. Those schools still remain much more accessible to black male athletes whose application package would be much less impressive than the non-high-falutin' non-athletic blacks' application packages.

Reflections on Trans Identity

I'm finally finished (for the semester)! Very happy to have some time to myself.

Okay, today's topic:

So, this time of the year has suddenly become even more heavenly for me. Why? Because it's nonstop football and even as much basketball as I can take (for some reason, basketball doesn't interest me nearly as much as college football and certainly the NFL and NBA don't, but I at least watch my school's college basketball team when they're on TV). Well, I was watching a game, and one of the commentators looked "odd" to me. Like...I couldn't tell what his or her sex was. Now, I know firsthand that sports is a sexist and "manly"-oriented world. So, I couldn't believe that they would have a female commentator (i.e. a female commentator the WHOLE GAME and not just intermittently during the game as she's down on the field annoying players and coaches...or perhaps they think of them as eye candy and, thus, not annoying...), and I most certainly couldn't believe that they'd have a TRANS commentator. I've never heard a female commentator an entire game since I've become a fan of sports, and I'd never heard of a transsexual person in sports.

So, I grabbed my lap top and did some research. As far as I can tell, the female commentator really was a female--although she looked like what we associate with transgendered and transsexual people, i.e. men in women's clothing and wigs, and women in men's clothing with short hair--and she even sounded like what many of us associate with trans individuals, i.e. a woman whose voice wasn't exactly feminine. Yet, during my search, I did come across a trans sports commentator. Now, I've been a fan of college football, at least, all year and I still missed this story...probably because I didn't watch Sportscenter and read sports news the way I do now earlier this year when this story broke. Still, this transsexual woman looks more like a "real" woman than the commentator I saw on TV did.

Anyway, finding this out got me thinking. I wrote months ago in my blog that sometimes I sit and think about my relationship to sex and gender. As I was finding stories about Christine Daniels, I would look at any available comments from the public. Some people thought it was great, but a lot of people used words like "sick" and "disgusting." I don't see what's sick or disgusting. And that sentence was my immediate thought...followed by "why not?" Why don't I think something that most people do, even some gays and lesbians and people who are perfectly fine with gays and lesbians? I'm not sure I can say that I've never thought anything was wrong with it. I don't really clearly remember thinking anything about it until I started thinking about what my own gender really is, which I think is key.

In other words, while men and women surely think about their relationship to sex, they never really think about their relationship to gender or question their gender. I think this is due a lot to the fact that many people don't know the difference between sex and gender. "Sex" means sex, i.e. the act, to people. But, put in simplest terms, "sex" really is what we tend to think of as a dual option, i.e. you're either a male or a female (which is not entirely true). While it's become more possible to change sex, sex tends to be pretty static without an operation. Gender is a lot more variable. In fact, I would say that terms many people apply to different queers, such as "butch" and "femme," are terms indicating someone's gender...I don't know what other people would say. Anyway, these things, never being a question or much of a thought to people until they're older (as opposed to homosexuality, i.e. you don't hear "Does your mama know you're a tranny" jokes at elementary school cafeterias), more people feel extremely strongly that there's only man and woman and that something is really wrong with "changing" one's sex and/or gender.

I believe what a lot of people would say about gender and gender roles, i.e. that it's socialized. However, for some people, socialization just doesn't work, and that's an important difference. In some sense, I have never completely accepted that I am a woman, i.e. I couldn't be socialized to fit general ideas about who women are and what they like. It amazes me that so many people make sweeping generalizations about what "all" women like, act like or are looking for, but then I realize that it goes back to socialization and a lack of realization. So I've gotten messages forever about what I'm supposed to be like, but it really just hasn't mattered...not that I don't have prejudices about gender variations, because I do. I don't understand "feminine" men...in fact, they irritate the hell out of me. If a man doesn't like football, he's simply not worth a damn to me because we don't have much else to talk about, especially if they are [feminine] gay men (because I don't know anything about things like musical theatre and fashion, nor do I have any desire to). And I think that women are supposed to "look like women," i.e. long hair or feminine styles at the very least. But just as with my racial prejudices, I have to remind myself of some things, like not all women completely identify with those ideals or would even look right with long hair. As far as the football thing...hmm, can't help that one.

As far as not identifying, I should know better. In fact, being the kind of "woman" that I am is the reason why feminine men and I don't mix. We don't have anything in common. More stereotypical women seem to love feminine gay men, and I think the similarities between them are a huge reason why. But, for me, I've always been good at things that guys are usually good at, and I've always been more interested in "guy stuff" and hanging out with guys. I realize a lot of women are like this, including a lot of queer women. But, although I realize I'm not trans, I still feel a very strong disconnection from femininity and always have. One of my problems with feminine men is not that they aren't living up to standards of masculinity, but that I have a very strong anti-feminine sentiment, i.e. I detest most feminine things and characteristics. Consequently, I feel that I'm the best of both worlds, and I prefer women as friends and romantically who fit that description, as well, and tend to look at more stereotypical women with disdain.

Similarly, I don't understand transitioning from a male to a female, although I do believe the desire is beyond his control. For one thing, I don't understand being born a male with feminine interests. For another, I don't understand giving up the privilege of being male. But, to be sure and clear--I could never see myself trying to pass as a male in any way, and when I say "best of both worlds" I'm signaling that I think some very good feminine qualities do exist. It's just that, in my experience, the majority of stereotypically feminine women and men lack most, if not all, of those good qualities. Or, perhaps put another way, there are stereotypical qualities that aren't used in a good way, such as sensitivity and emotion, in many women. As the stereotype goes, women are too sensitive and emotional. And it's true, but in law school I have met more women than ever before who are sensitive and emotional but to a perfect degree. It's the middle ground of men not thinking about people's feelings at all or demonstrating that they care and women not being overly wrapped up in how they feel or being too mushy/clingy.

Another example is, I think it's natural for a lot of people to care about how they look, but sometimes it's too much...sometimes, you care too much, go too far, take too long, spend too much money, are bitchy about how other people look, let it affect your self-esteem and so on. There's nothing wrong, in my mind, with women who look very feminine and try to--quite the contrary, although it's just not totally right for me. Again, there's a middle ground to be had. The fact that ideas about what I'm supposed to be have always been put out there and I've always subconsciously rejected those ideas because I've never felt they fit me, although I could never know the experience for sure since I'm not trans, I think gives me a little bit better understanding of trans people.

Ultimately, there's nothing sick or disgusting, or even just wrong, about being who you are, even if people can't understand it. I also don't think there's anything "brave" or that much "difficult"--and similar sentiments--about being who you are, which some people commented in relation to Daniels. To me, it's harder to actively try and be someone else, and it's not as if you can change certain things about you--you don't have much of a choice but to be it. I can't help but be black, a female or queer, so I don't think people who are any of these things are brave (and the experiences can be difficult, but simply being isn't. Similarly, announcements concerning identity might be difficult, but I just don't think they're necessary...so they don't have to be brave or difficult). But they're also not sick or disgusting, as being trans is no more of a choice than race and sex are, although revealing you are is more of a choice.

Although I say this, I've mentioned several things I don't understand in relation to sex and gender. But one of the things I stop to remind myself--and think other people should, too--is that those are things that don't work for me but work perfectly well for others. They're not for my personality or body, but they are for other people's. In other words, I could never have a short haircut or a TV show on which I "help" other people's fashion sense by, I feel, criticizing them and trying to tell them how they "should" dress or decorate their house. Sometimes, it's best to shrug off things you don't understand, or try to learn more about them, rather than deny they exist or respond horribly. That's probably the most useful thing I've learned throughout law school, and it didn't even have anything to do with the curriculum. I guess I can even accept that some men don't love football, but that's something I wish even women would love because it's hard having good female friends who don't want to talk incessantly (or even at all) about my favorite team.

But like I said about the best of both worlds, hey--my two biggest obsessions are probably college football and Celine Dion (which, most men I know who love Celine are gay...but, unfortunately, not really younger guys like the ones at my university...though they do like a lot of female singers, which is also what I tend to like...though not necessarily the same ones). It doesn't get more opposite-worlds than that.

Reflections On Skin Color

Ahhhhhhh! Woo. I'm finally getting somewhere--one more "final" left (it's pass/fail and take-home). And by the end of the week, I will be at "home." Good, because it's a change of pace and I can watch all the college football bowl games (not that I wouldn't have anyway). Bad, because I will still have work to do and will be fearing for my life for the next two weeks (and with this being the holidays, it's even worse anywhere). But on to the topic.

I've been thinking. People seem to think that only racial minorities, particularly blacks, have a race-influenced outlook or identify as a group based on race. The Nopper article that I linked to in my last post cites to this book (read the review by Jeffery Mingo, too) with research that essentially says as much. But this past year has convinced me that white people react to racial situations or situations that evoke the idea of race in much the same way as blacks do, except their opinions often are the opposite of blacks' opinions. But whenever whites feel that a white person is discriminated against or that a situation involving whites as the wrongdoers is unfairly characterized in terms of race, the reactions tend to be the same. Whites become very defensive, and sometimes they argue on the white person's behalf to the point of denying any role he/she had or making him/her the real victim. This is also what black people tend to do.

Interestingly enough, because Asians and Latinos aren't in the media the same way as blacks and whites are, what I've observed (at least in Asians) is that they look at these situations involving whites or blacks and take sides accordingly. In other words, race as it relates to blacks and whites divides Asians. For example, I was surprised to go to an "Asian American" message board and see Asians arguing that the Michael Vick sentencing was "racist bullsh!t," just as a black person might say. Of course, you also had Asians making "white" arguments on Michael Vick and against blacks in general, as well. In the few media situations that do involve Asians in relation to other races, I was surprised to see as much neutral language as I did, racially. Here, I'm thinking specifically of the hardly-publicized beatings of Asians by, usually, blacks or Latinos. Now, I was at a message board where a thread discussed beatings by blacks, and, clearly, while there was some racially neutral responses, some Asians did engage in group identification that resulted in an "us vs them"-type response.

On another message board where blacks discussed the increase of Latino-on-black hate crimes, a few Latinos showed themselves and seemed to do the opposite of what white people do while still "grouping" the majority of Latinos--they argued the attacks don't represent Latinos and that the majority of them align themselves with blacks (which, if you read my last post, I obviously question). Some blacks argued the same thing, although one black--as I mentioned in my last post--expressed the belief that immigration is part of a white plan to racially expunge blacks from the US. Although many blacks are suspicious of Latinos, out of all the non-black racial/ethnic groups in the US, blacks probably feel the most kinship with Latinos. And of all the non-black groups, Latinos probably have the most members who identify more with blacks and/or less with whites. So that peppers some of our group identification defend-and-blame games.

This is still not really even the topic of my post. What I'm getting at, though, is people tend to get defensive on a personal level even when someone they don't know, but look like racially, is attacked in any way...regardless of the racial group to which they belong, but most especially blacks and whites. Okay.

A question that has burned in my mind for the past couple years is why do white people get so mad about being called racists, even if a person is referring to the group and not specific individuals? After all, the "goes-without-saying" in the charge is that we don't mean every white person. Furthermore, my very simple logic is that we all think racist things, engage in racially alienating behaviors (i.e. strict same-race dating, eliminating only blacks as possible partners, same-race friends only, same-race neighborhoods, etc) or, at least, racially stereotype (which, when I refer to "degrees of racism" in all Americans as I did in my last post, I would identify racial stereotyping and generalizations as Degree 1 racism, i.e. the lowest level of racism. And, clearly, each higher level of racism encompasses each lower level, i.e. Degree 2 is something like engaging in these exclusionary behaviors, which usually entails doing so based on stereotypes and generalizations. Pure Degree 1 racists stereotype and generalize but usually don't let those ideas influence their friendships, relationships, housing and so on, while Degree 2 racists often do. My white friends are Degree 1 racists. Get my theory?) Now, every racial minority I know has no problem admitting this. But a lot of white people do have problems admitting to having a racist bone in their bodies or even that racism exists or is more than just the exception in the US. Why? And it's not just public criticism, as whites have no problem making racist comments publicly...just problems admitting the comments are racist or that they are racist.

Not too long ago, I think I might have come closer to figuring out the answer by looking at myself. As mentioned before in this blog, I'm biracial, light-skinned, many white features. In relation to other black people, there were a lot of things I didn't experience or completely realize growing up, much like there are so many things white people don't experience or realize about black people. I've used hair as an example before. Now, surely, many biracial blacks have issues with their hair. I never really did, not in the same way that apparently most other black women have. Consequently, I don't really understand the big deal black women make of hair--their own, other black women's hair and white women's hair (more so when they were younger)--or how much their hair has affected them. When I was growing up and other black girls were admiring my hair, I really didn't have any idea what that was all about. Other black females tell experiences about taunts or comments relating to skin color, but, for me, almost all of my black hierarchical experiences were in relation to hair. I don't think I've ever had a black person comment on my skin color or other features, aside from family members.

The fact that black people haven't really raised skin color with me probably contributes to the way I respond to statements about light-skinned blacks being favored over darker blacks. When black people try to point out that white people have all these privileges that blacks don't have, white people deny it, get defensive, don't want to think about it and so on. It's so obvious to us, but these are people who don't experience what we do and, so, don't have the context to think about what we go through. They usually don't know those experiences exist because they don't live it. Race-related comments that are maybe made to black people are comments that white people generally don't hear. When it comes to race, it often takes people telling you what they go through...which is something many blacks don't want to do, and it's a lesson many whites don't want to receive. Yet, it takes both revealing and listening. But that's not just true between blacks and whites.

When I have heard blacks say that black men and whites prefer light-skinned blacks...I stop. "Black men don't approach me," I think. "They pretty much never have. I've seen darker girls with black men who have been interested in them and boyfriends, and I've never had a black or white boyfriend. And pretty much every black person I know, all darker than I am, socializes with more white people than I do." I read stories about darker black women being told things like "you're pretty, for a dark girl" when they are talking about the skin color preferences. And I'm like, "I've never heard anything like this" or "no one has told me I'm prettier than dark girls."

Bam. The first instinct is to deny what is being said. And then when I calm down and think more rationally, I can recall times when black guys have been interested in me. And I can recall times talking to white guys who like "light or mixed black women." But am I still in denial when I turn around and say that I don't know whether or not skin color had anything to do with black men's interest in me, or that I don't think men "prefer" black women, period, but would rather be with white women? Or that white people generally are very uninterested in me?

On some level, I accept that what black people say is true. But there's another part of me that really doesn't want to hear it. Why? I can't stand the thought of being a part of something so silly or that crap like that is still going on. Although I know I'm not the kind of black person who runs around thinking they are better than other blacks because of skin color or thinking that darker blacks are unattractive, I still feel personally attacked sometimes when I hear stories about how bad black women felt growing up because of their hair or skin color, particularly when they mention light-skinned blacks or blacks with "good hair" because that's what I look like. The "goes-without-saying" isn't registering as a "goes-without-saying" to me, even though these women aren't necessarily putting down light-skinned blacks or blacks with "good hair"--they are just telling it how it is. When I hear or read these things, though, I just associate what they're saying with, for example, my walking around campus, passing some darker black women and their automatically assuming that I am that kind of black person. In fact, I feel pretty sure that some blacks do assume that.

And why would that assumption be unreasonable? After all, I'm fairly certain that some white people sometimes worry that blacks in their presence automatically assume they are racist...and they are not wrong. Hell, I do it. Unless I get a good feeling about a white (or Asian or Latino) person, like I did with pretty much all of my white and Asian friends upon first meeting them, I assume they are racist towards blacks. And, though I'm the kind of person who generally doesn't care what people think, I still can't help but not wanting something like what black people see when they see light or biracial blacks associated with me. For some reason, white people thinking I'm racist towards white people is fine--maybe because it's not altogether untrue--but blacks thinking I'm racist towards blacks is not...even though that's also not altogether untrue. I'm at least a Degree 2 racist, regardless of race, because I do let race color a lot of my decisions...decisions that ultimately are exclusionary--particularly of whites, but often times of blacks, too, as well as Asians (as mentioned elsewhere in this blog, I don't have much experience with Latinos in my presence).

For me, the idea that I'm racist and that racism is some big, bad thing based on history is not the problem...although I suspect it is the problem for a lot of whites. For me, the problem is that I am black. And the problem for me is that I think it's crazy for people to think they are better than other people based on things we don't have any hand in. I can control my intelligence and my maturity and my human decency, and, indeed, these are the main reasons why I tend to put myself above others. Still, although I don't place myself above or alienate blacks based on things blacks can't control, I arguably do it with white people--"arguably," because one could question whether or not whites can control their relative privilege and, thus, related experiences, whether or not you can blame individuals for their group's experience...an experience that is not put into motion by them, and whether or not the fact that their experience is beyond their control gives them passes to be Degree 2+ racists when there are other whites who are merely Degree 1 racists despite that.

But when it comes to black people, I don't like the idea that my being who I am can make other black people feel bad about who they are, or the assumption that I enjoy making them feel bad. Make no mistake, I'm not guilty about my relative privilege. I like my skin color and I like my hair--as far as the texture goes, anyway--and I even like looking like my "white" father's family. But I don't like the resulting racial dynamics.

Reflections on Immigration Part 1

Per my last blog post, I saw the perfect news story today (yesterday) about a shop owner (who himself seems like the offspring of Italian immigrants, I would guess) who put a sign out saying "This is America. When ordering 'speak English'." As I'm sure he wasn't expecting, his sign has caused an uproar. Even though I'm in the middle of finals right now and this is not how I planned to approach this entry (which is why I anticipate a Part 2), I felt like responding to the issue in the article and am also not wanting to neglect my blog as I have.

Here's basically where I'm coming from in relation to immigration issues:

I don't see what's wrong with the sign. The story repeats an argument that the sign conjures up the old days when "Whites Only" was explicit (vs the modern days when "Whites Only" is implicit). I don't agree with that. If he were trying to keep immigrants and people mistaken for immigrants, i.e. certain people of color, out of his shop, the sign would have more appropriately been, "No Immigrants." Now. Sure, as I said, these are the modern days when not everyone is openly prejudiced, and, sure, a legitimate argument can be made that specifying a language wipes out those certain people of color as customers. To me, that's an argument that assumes most Latinos and Asians, say, in the US don't speak English, which probably is just as offensive as some people find the sign. It also assumes that if an Asian or Latino or even an African/Island immigrant came into the shop and they spoke English well enough to be understood, the shop owner wouldn't serve him or her. We don't know that.

While we're talking about things I don't understand in relation to this topic. I don't understand why anyone who expresses concerns about immigration is racist. I don't know why wanting English to be the official language of the nation is racist. I don't know why concerns regarding there being people in the US who can't speak English is racist. What I do understand is how Asians, Latinos and other non-white immigrant groups can hear whites and even blacks argue against immigration, and suspect racism is beneath it all. After all, when I hear non-black people talk about how much crime black men commit or say anything else negative about blacks that blacks say to each other all the time about blacks...while I don't suspect it of black people, I do suspect the usually-white people to be racists. And I understand how some of the arguments made against immigration sound, and even actually are, racist. But I've never heard a reason why the aforementioned arguments/opinions automatically mean racism is at work, and, to me, it's not exactly like how "everybody" thinks black males are criminals anyway due to a history of racist anti-black ideology in the US...with saying things like that about black men, the suspicion of racism isn't a huge leap.

Another thing I do understand is having a problem with people saying, "This is America; speak English." That does sound, at the very least, borderline racist, because the tone of it is "English is superior, and American culture is superior, and you 'Mexicans' and your damn Spanish while you're eyeing me up and down makes me angry and uncomfortable." And I won't lie; I hate when people speak foreign languages around me, because I always view it as a way for them to get away with talking sh!t about me without my knowing it. Still, I would never say, "Speak English." Frankly, it bothers me a little bit more when an Asian or Latino doesn't at all know or care about the language of their ethnic origin, and it bothers me a lot more when they don't know or care about their Asian or Latino identity because of over-identification with white Americans. I absolutely believe that people who come to the US from other nations should maintain their culture and that even American-born kids of immigrants should be taught about their culture, instilled with that pride and demonstrate an interest in the language. Of course, that's a personal choice, and it's not as if I can say I speak perfect French or am hyper-into French culture, though I am very "proud" of that part of me. I do wish I could speak fluent French and am very interested in knowing more than I do about the culture.

So my thing is not that they're not American, not white and not trying to assimilate. You know what I think about assimilation if you read my blog--I say f*ck it. Keep your language, speak it at home and among friends, know your culture and who you are. But, at the same time, I maintain that if you're going to come to the US, you've got to know English. It should be required. Instead, the direction this nation is going in, we're all going to be required to learn Spanish, which I don't think is right. English is the predominant language in this nation, and people who want to come here should have to bend in at least that one area rather than us having to change...especially given that many of the Spanish-speaking people who come here do so illegally. It really does just blow my mind.

I was born into a predominantly English-speaking culture. I worked hard perfecting my English language skills and have always been proud of my writing skills in English. I've made 'A's on nearly every English paper. My writing has been praised by lawyers. I don't speak ebonics and don't want to; I love "standard" English and would prefer everyone speak it, not just immigrants. I was believing these strengths would put me ahead of so many people in the job market...and now I go to job interviews and am asked if I speak any foreign languages fluently...which would be fine if I wanted to work in international relations in some way. But I'm trying to get a job in the US where, to me, knowing another language besides English should be a choice, not a requirement. Yes, this rubs me the wrong way, because it's hard enough, as a black female, to get a job as it is. But I don't hate immigrants because of it; a lot of the changes that are taking place in the US in connection with immigration, to me, really are not directly immigrants' faults.

I think it's awesome that there are all kinds of people in the US, but I just think we are to the point, for several reasons, where we need restrictions on immigration. To say that immigration should be cut off completely, I think, makes the "racist" claims more valid. My number one problem with immigration is truly the language issue. Forget feeling uncomfortable when a pack of Asians are speaking Korean in your presence; my thing is pretty simple--understanding. How can the shop owner seriously be expected to serve people he can't understand and who can't understand him?? How is having that concern or that frustration racist? And at a shop or restaurant, not only is it frustrating to the server...it's frustrating to people waiting to be served. What's wrong with saying people can come to the US, but they need to demonstrate an English-language proficiency for the sake of communication and even safety? Serving food is not the only issue; what if someone's life is in danger and an immigrant who can't speak English well is seeking help but no one understands him or her, for example? What if someone who speaks English needs help and the immigrant doesn't understand or can't communicate with others? At the very least, cheap or free English language courses can be offered by some of these Liberals who call everybody racist for worrying about this kind of thing.

Ultimately, I don't know why people get up in arms about this issue either way. Nothing we say will matter. I don't think immigration will be restricted, and I don't foresee English pushing Spanish out in any way, especially not as the official language of the US. Another thing you might know about me is I think Democrats are as full of sh!t as Republicans are. Well, a lot of these [white] Democrats who "stand up" for immigration and call people who don't racists, as far as I have figured out, are really about the economic benefits of it and nothing more...which is funny, because I vaguely recall this being the political party that is always harping on Republicans and money. As I've said before, white people will be white people; they don't truly care about any racism that is underlying the issue or how immigrants benefit the American culture. And since money is almost always at the top of white people's concerns, and white people being the ones who run the US, immigration really isn't in any danger.

So people like me who have concerns don't have a chance in hell of winning this debate. The arguments Republicans dish out are full of sh!t anyway--no one really believes that they care about how immigration hurts black people, for example. My feeling is, ultimately, immigration hurts white Americans, as well...and I think that's not lost on the majority of the whites who oppose immigration, so, once again, I can see where the suspicion comes from. However, I do believe that there will come a time when 1) whites become the minority because of immigration and interracial relationships, but they will rectify that by doing as they've done throughout history, i.e. opening up the "white" label to anybody in the US who isn't black, and 2) "others" will be running the US and/or serious job competition for whites. Now, Liberals make these arguments about immigrants taking the "menial" jobs no one else wants to do. The thing about that is immigrants don't come here to do menial jobs for the rest of their lives, and, indeed, many work their way up to good careers. More than it hurts white people, this hurts blacks. Again, this is not immigrants' faults. White people just do--and will continue to--use other people of color as pawns in their game of systemic racism against blacks...the "model minority" ideal is an example that even many Asians recognize as white people's game against blacks.

As a result, when people argue about all the various consequences of immigration for blacks, it's not necessarily coming from a place of racism. I've seen it while I've been in law school with law firms--if a white business wants to look "diverse" and the choice is between a black and an Asian, or a black and a Latino...so many times, they will hire the Asian or Latino. In turn, their arguments go something like, "We're not racist; we hire minorities" or "Racism is not a problem today in hiring. Just look how diverse corporate America has gotten." And, in a pinch, it's that much harder to argue that blacks are being discriminated against, even though they're still being left out. Unfortunately, employment isn't even the worst of it. More and more racially-motivated hate crimes have been occurring against blacks in certain parts of the US, particularly by Latinos.

My reading tells me that some blacks feel that this is another of white people's games in pitting "other" people of color against blacks, i.e. use immigration as a method of white-man's-hands-clean racial cleansing of blacks in the US. I don't know how true that is, but I have spent months now reading about how so many Latinos and Asians hate black people or have a similar/worse struggle with lightness vs darkness as/than blacks do--I'd actually say theirs is worse than blacks' light vs dark dilemma. And I haven't been reading stuff by scheming whites or bitter blacks--these blatant acknowledgments of racism within the culture have come from pieces written by Asians and Latinos. The fact that so many blacks are ignorant of Asian and Latino culture adds to the harm immigration can put us in. The extra anti-black sentiment coming into the US, especially at a time when whites are once again becoming very vocal and active in their anti-black sentiments, makes the return to the 1960's and earlier that we're looking at three times as bad as before because, this time, 1) it's not just going to be whites, and 2) unlike white people, Asians and Latinos have no residual guilt from a racist history their ancestors perpetrated upon blacks to make them feel bad about having racist thoughts or engaging in racist actions. That is the only thing that has made many white people develop these "liberal" sentiments some of them espouse and keep a lid on blatant white racism for as long as they have before letting it all hang out in various ways throughout the year of 2007.

So when Asians and Latinos do start running America, it's going to be worse for blacks than it is now with white people running it. I'm tired of racism, I think the US has more than enough racism without more racists entering the US, and some of the stuff that has happened this year in terms of race relations are things that I hoped I'd never see in my lifetime. My worry is that what's coming up for blacks in the next couple decades will be worse than what my mother lived through. And I realize there are Asians and Latinos who would like to build coalitions with blacks or identify with blacks on some level, and that not all conform to/will conform to what I've just expressed. Then again, the same can be said for whites...and, yet, look where blacks are.

Whether or not some people want to face it, some--if not all--of these racial concerns are valid. Because you recognize racial tensions exist between your group and others doesn't mean you're being racist by pointing them out. I'm certainly not arguing that these are reasons to end immigration. As I've said, arguments for or against immigration ultimately won't matter, and nobody cares about the racial concerns I've raised--blacks don't know they exist (with the exception of the job market and the relatively few blacks who know about Latino-on-black hate crimes), and white people either don't care or are happy they exist. My feeling is everything I've written is a done deal, so this is not a scare tactic, either, to spur blacks into action. Blacks are done with action, as far as I can tell. We're in a stage of settling for bullsh!t or denying bullsh!t exists in the first place. Nothing anybody says is going to make blacks get up on this or most any other issue that affects black people. As I've said, I merely have concerns.

For me, my arguments for restrictions on immigration if I were a politician or anyone else who mattered would go something like: 1) having a language in the US that everyone speaks at a necessary level of proficiency is essential, and not only do we need to see to it that immigrants can speak that language...we need to do better in US schools to ensure American-born students leave high school at that level of proficiency, as well; 2) the US simply does not have the resources for any and everybody who wants to come here to be able to do so. We already have enough homelessness, unemployment and a decreasing supply of irreplaceable resources, etc. My thing would be to somehow work having a compelling need/reason for admissions to the US into the equation; 3) what is the point of having immigration rules if we're not going to enforce them? Why say you have to go through XYZ process, then turn around and let everyone who comes illegally stay with no consequences? Why do Americans have to pay for breaking laws but no one else does? And, more importantly, why should anybody respect US laws after all this?

Final thought: anybody who knows me or has read enough of my blog knows I have no problem pointing out or admitting to my own prejudices, because I feel that nobody in the US is free from having racist ideals. If my problems with immigration had anything to do with the racial & ethnic backgrounds of immigrants, I would have said so. I'm not like those white people who say, "I'm not racist, but..." then say something totally racist. I know I'm racist. My friends know they're racist. The question, for us, is not "are you racist?" It is to what degree. We talk about that kind of stuff, and we're from diverse backgrounds. We just happen to be more comfortable with saying, admitting and hearing things that most people aren't, because we think it's more useful to the nation than just pretending like this stuff doesn't exist or trying to make everybody be quiet if they don't have anything nice or "correct" to say.

I'm telling you--none of the above has come from a place of racism. I'm not of the degree where I believe everyone in the US should either be white or black and everyone else needs to "go home." If I were, I'd argue for whites to take their @sses "back" to Europe before I'd try to send Asians, Latinos and Africans anywhere else--in case you haven't noticed, whites are the group of people whom I have the most against, as I suspect is the case with most blacks who have a group gripe. Immigration is not a huge issue to me, and it's not an issue that sways how I vote. I probably care less about it than GLBT issues, and if you know this blog you know I'm not all that into GLBT issues (not typical ones, anyway). For me, I just don't understand where people who are pro-immigration are coming from, for the most part, especially when it comes to illegal immigrants...and the little bit that I do understand has come from cursory reads on the internet and my "Liberal" law professors.

Hyphenated Racial Identities

I figure since I don't feel like sleeping and I've been knee-deep in Asian readings all day, I can discuss a little of what I've been reading and meaning to write about now. One such topic that I've been promising for a while now is hyphenated racial identities, and now I'm going to do my best to give you my thoughts on that.

If you'll notice, I don't use terms such as "African American" or "Asian American." I say "black," "white," "Asian" and "Latino." As a black person, I cringe when I hear or read "African American," though I feel like people use that term out of some PC notion that that's the nice, proper way to refer to a black person. People think they're doing a good thing by referring to blacks that way, basically. But I never hear or read it without pausing and thinking about what I'm about to write in this blog post...and when I hear it, I have to fight an urge to "correct" a (usually) white person. As I understand it--and I could be wrong--there are Latinos out there who oppose the term "Latino" or "Latin(o) American"...and I view people's use of that term ("Latin(o) American," anyway) in a similar way as "African American," i.e. PC nonsense.

In my last post, I was saying how my view is that Americans are white people--nobody else. If you take that literally, that could piss you off. But if you read between the lines, hopefully it makes sense. Now, let me say here, I'm fairly certain there's no consensus among blacks on what black people should be called or whether or not "African American" is fine. That said...I spend so much time observing and thinking, and my observations and thoughts on this particular subject is that the majority of blacks, Asians and Latinos don't buy into their American-ness any more than white people do. Sure, you sometimes get these spiels about America being about diversity, built on immigration of people from different nations, how we all should just call ourselves "American" (this argument usually from white people who say that while, in the same breath, referring to people as "black" and so on) and la di da. Nobody believes it. And I'll tell you why I don't think racial/ethnic minorities believe it.

My observation of black people, for example, is we, at the very least, almost never refer to ourselves as American. In fact, if you ask us about our identities...unless we're in a foreign country or talking to someone who is not from the US, we're not even going to think to say "American;" we're going to say "black" or one of those PC terms I hate. These lofty ideas that white people have of America and what it means to be American...the symbols white people associate with American-ness...the charges of if you don't do/think/believe/support XYZ, you're unpatriotic...we hardly think about that stuff, we don't talk that stuff, and we don't engage with that stuff. Like I said, this is not all black people. But, to date, the only blacks I've seen defy this observation have been black Republicans, and we all know that the Republican party is the patriotic-to-an-insane-degree party.

My own personal experience is never having called myself American except when I've communicated with people from other nations (usually online in foreign chat rooms, back when I was into that kind of thing), or when I get up in arms about people in the US helping out other nations before our own. And the times I've communicated with others, calling myself American, it has been strictly as a way to let them know where I'm located. It had nothing to do with how I think of myself. When I really get down to it, I think of myself as nation-less. I'm black. There's no destination for that. There's no origin for that, because, thanks to slavery, that origin has been broken. To me, Africans and recent American-born Africans are extremely different from me and other "black Americans." I feel that a lot of blacks feel this way on some level, at least with respect to feeling nation-less. Many feel as if something is missing. Some of those people seek to find it by learning about Africa, by visiting Africa...or even by trying to assimilate into the US population. Apparently, this happens with Asians and Latinos born in the US, as well. It's just, to me--and from the reading I've done--what you find when you go to places like Africa, Korea or Puerto Rico as someone of that nationality but not born there...is that you don't fit in there, either. Whoever you are...it's no longer there. That's why I not only reject "American" in naming myself, but also reject "African."

I didn't mean to shortchange the Asian and Latino discussion, but...basically my argument for them was going to be the one about visiting the homeland ("homeland" used as place of ethnic origin only) and so often realizing that going there doesn't solve the issues and questions you have surrounding who you are and where you fit in. And like I said, this all comes from my understanding based on works I've read only...so I could be wrong. And I'm sure some people do go to their homelands and feel...at home. And then for me, my discussion is complicated by the fact that there's another homeland for me to deal with, i.e. France. I consider that more parallel to what American-born Asians and Latinos deal with than blacks and Africa being parallel, because with the majority of Asians and Latinos they still have cultural links to the homeland through parents and/or grandparents. Blacks don't have that with Africa.

But another reason why I don't think Asians and Latinos, in particular, buy into their American-ness--nor black people's American-ness--is because, from the readings I've done...they have almost all very consistently spoken of American-ness in terms of whiteness. So many of their stories tell of growing up predominantly around white people--in white schools, in white neighborhoods. And they tell of wanting to be like "everyone else" and wanting to be "American," but their stories clearly indicate in various ways that all these people they wanted to be like were white...because they only talk about white people in their stories, and they only describe white features that they wished they had in their stories. Well, if you conflate whiteness and American-ness...then you realize that if you're not white, you can never be American.

To make clearer why "American" doesn't apply to blacks, I feel--and, I guess it'd be the same for Asians and Latinos--though some of us talk a good game about America being about diversity, a lot of things associated with American-ness are things that are really associated with being white. And they are things that are set forth by white people to indicate American-ness. And let me say this--I know that, ultimately, there's pretty much no one in this country who truly is American. I don't mean to leave Native Americans out. But when you hear phrases like "the girl next door" or "the all-American girl," you know that the people using those phrases aren't referring to Native Americans...nor anybody black, Latino or Asian. And somehow, black-@ss football has shown itself time and time again as the most popular sport...yet, white-@ss baseball remains touted as the "American" sport. And when I call baseball "white"...not only do I mean the majority of the players...I mean the majority of the viewers, as well. Funny thing is white lesbians are always running around conflating lesbianism with softball...which we all know softball is the white chick's version of baseball. No thanks. Even when white people apply these sweeping generalizations to include all of us, it's still hard to feel included...because we (many of us) don't relate to the images/appearances, the descriptions, the symbols nor the hobbies/interests that they describe as meaning "American."

As a black person, I've got to say this--not only have white people "stolen" "American"...I say let 'em have it. After all, the majority of the world hates Americans, and the real positives to being American are things that those of us who aren't white are pretty much never going to have full access to (except if theories that someday Asians and Latinos will be "white" come true...still, blacks will never have full access). So what do we really get out of being "just American" or "Asian American"? I say next time our loyalties are questioned or an anti-America terrorist pops up on the scene, we just shrug and say, "Hey, we're not Americans, isn't that what you've basically been saying to us all along, whitey?" Maybe next terrorist attack, we can get out of dying for a country we don't really belong to. In other words (and all half-kidding aside), while I think a lot of black people have subsconsciously made peace with not being accepted as Americans, my readings tell me Asians and Latinos haven't. So, what I'm saying to them, I guess, is...it's not really a bad thing. You can and do...do a lot for the nation to contribute...you just won't get credit. Then again, you've never gotten credit. What's the difference?

Of course, we'll have to find something to call you. Blacks have "black," which doesn't tie us to a nation...although my personal preference is, and has always been, to be called "brown." "Black" conjures up images of--as my mother would say--someone who is as black as coal, burnt to a crisp, slaving away in the fields during the 1800s out in the hot sun and then dancing around all happy for "massa" and "missum." Be that as it may...if "Asian American" and "Latin(o) American" aren't proper terms, then are "Asian" and "Latino" proper? I doubt it, especially for Asians.

But we could also keep trying for inclusiveness, trying to incorporate some of ourselves into the definition of "American." At times, it seems like we're getting somewhere with this...my personal preference is still to just let white people have "American" in all its overinflated glory.

My final observation is that, as I mentioned that I don't think Asians and Latinos see blacks as American...I don't think blacks see Asians and Latinos as American, either. I thought about it for myself, though, and I realized that my assumption when I encounter an Asian or Latino is pretty much always that they were born in the US. I thought about this because this semester there was a Japanese female in one of my classes...she hardly spoke in class, but when she did it was a bit hard to understand her because she really is from Japan. And I realized...when I hear Asians and Latinos--but particularly Asians (probably because I grew up around Asians all my life, which was not the case with Latinos)--speak with an accent, it surprises me. Still, accent or not, born here or not, it doesn't necessarily make me view them as American.

And this might be another reason why I feel that white people can just have their white-washed fantasy of America. Because to me, us standing on the periphery of American identity is, in many ways, good. I associate so many negative things with, I suppose, the image of "American"--from classism and racism to extreme arrogance and self-centered-ness. Yet, these are not necessarily traits I associate with blacks, Asians and Latinos, with the exception of racism (although all those traits exist in all groups--I just view whites as more extreme, and racism more harmful from whites since they have the power). And I also think not viewing Asians and Latinos as American, for me, goes back to everything I wrote above about "American" meaning "white"...and not being a function of a different physical appearance, racism, xenophobia and the like...because when I look at black people, I don't think of them as American, either.

I think what I will try to do soon here is explain my position on immigration, since that's a hot topic lately...and give an honest response to the charges that anti-immigration automatically equals racism. Until then...I should force myself to sleep.

Coming Out and Culture

Classes are finally over, so I officially have one more semester of this nonsense...well, after I get through finals. A lot of issues for this blog have been on my mind lately, but right now I'm going to go with a "queer" topic.

Ever since I've gotten into the blogosphere, I've been noticing a lot of queer bloggers either engaging in "outting" people or who are all for it--not necessarily in the personal experience, but more so when it comes to famous people.

For example, I wake up today, open up my internet browser and I am quickly led to this story about Queen Latifah. Now, Queen Latifah has been the subject of a lot of lesbian rumors over the years. And I understand the media's job is to forego having their own lives just so that they can remain forever in everyone else's business. I just happen to think that with celebrities and even with conservative politicians who oppose gay rights then turn out to be gay themselves...what they do in the bedroom (or the bathroom or the boardroom or the White House/Senate/Congress and so on) is their own business...regardless of whether or not they appear to be hypocritical, liars or downright harmful to gays.

And for gay people who find this problematic...think about what it would have been like for you if someone told as many people as possible that you were GLBT when you were simply not ready for that piece of information to be divulged. And this is something that a lot of GLBT people have experienced. Being queer is not synonymous with being out. In order words, because someone appears to be straight or dates the opposite sex doesn't mean they aren't queer, and because someone is having relationships with the same sex doesn't mean they tell everyone they are or that that's what they are supposed to do. They have no obligation to anyone but themselves, which includes doing what's right for them. You're not obligated to come out, especially if it's for anyone but you. People who make the choice to come out for the sake of GLBT rights and visibility...make that choice. In other words, at the end of the day, it's supposed to be that person's choice.

Two things:

1) I think there's this assumption that because someone is GLBT, they support GLBT rights or are supposed to. That's a huge part of the reason why gay conservatives, whether they are politicians or not, are considered hypocrites. But, as I've written before, we're not all of one mind. We don't all think alike, view the world the same way or share the same opinions. And I'm glad for that. Having a relatively few gay people who don't share the majority gay opinion is not going to undo what the majority is working towards or counteract it. We don't all have to be the same in order to make progress, and this is something that black people also need to learn, as well. It does cause some difficulties, but they are difficulties that can be overcome. The answer to taking down conservative closet gay politicians doesn't have to be outting them. Really, all you need to do is go to the polls on election day. My strategy is always to vote against people, never for, since I don't agree with Democrats or Republicans.

I see so many gay people who take the stance of..."Obama and Clinton haven't come out explicitly for gay rights, so I'm not voting for them." Guess what, Sherlock? The candidates that are going to come out for gay rights are the last ones who have a chance at keeping that Republican out of office who has explicitly come out AGAINST gay rights. Use your heads and stop being so self(not to mention gay)-centered, because that kind of thing lost Democrats the last election...which is why we have all these politicians against gay rights in office in the first place. There are so many ways to get what you want without wrecking people's lives, doing things to them that you wouldn't have wanted done to you ten years ago when you were in similar shoes, struggling with your identity. And gay rights is not the only issue on the table of importance. I know that if I don't want to see American-born Asians and Latinos shipped "back" to China and Mexico--because, you know, to a lot of people in the US, all Asians are from China and all Latinos are from Mexico--blacks almost completely stripped of educational opportunities via attacks on affirmative action if we're lucky and back as slaves for whites (and this time, for many Asians and Latinos, as well) again if we're not, the absence of government assistance for people who really need it and the rich paying absolutely no taxes...I need to suck up my personal qualms with a Democratic candidate and vote for the one who has the best chance of winning.

I was reading an interview today and saw this musical artist refer to her grandparents, I think, as being half-liberal, half-conservative, saying that you never know where they'd fall on an issue. That's pretty much a good way to describe me, except I often suspect I'm a bit more conservative than liberal. That said, as someone who might be a more-than-half-conservative...I have to admit that gay rights are not important to me, regardless of the fact that I'd much rather feel up a woman than a man. I know a lot of gays find that unfathomable, but I could actually write a book about why they're not. Some people would get it a little better, though not agree, and some...it'd still go over their heads. But as best as I can shortly describe right now, here are a few reasons.

To me, when I think about "gay rights," I think about rights to marriage, children/parenting and being out in the military. On a personal level, these are three things that I have no interest in. I 100% don't believe that these rights should be denied to anyone. But as someone carrying a lot of targets on me for various identities, I don't have the desire or energy to fight issues that don't personally matter to me when there are other issues that I have to fight on a regular basis whether I want to or not. I think most people are this way, i.e. if they don't feel they have to deal with a difficult issue they simply aren't going to. And, if you think about it, the gay politician in the closet often already has a marriage and kids and may have even already served in the military. At their ages, they also grew up in a different time when you could be gay all you want to on the inside, but you're still expected to and likely will get married to the opposite sex and have kids and keep your mouth shut about your sexuality. They probably have never given serious thought to marrying someone of their sex, let alone trying to adopt or conceive kids with someone of their sex, and they probably truly would never want to because the standards of a past society are so ingrained in them. Coming out is all the rage to the younger, whiter generations (more on this in my second point).

I recognize that there are other issues gays contend with, such as housing discrimination at times and hate crimes. But as someone who has had the experience of being a racial minority all my life, I know something that most gay people don't know (being that most gay people are white)--there are some issues that you can fight and expect to win someday while there are others that you'll never win. Today alone, I've read many a white person basically say that someday being gay will be accepted. That's unrealistic crap. I believe that someday, gays will win the aforementioned marriage, parenting and military battles...but as far as making people stop hating gays and stop attacking or discriminating against gays altogether...you can forget it. Someday being gay will be more accepted than it is now, and being gay is more accepted now that is was even ten years ago. But you can never completely stop hatred based on differences.

Finally, I have to admit that I get some satisfaction out of seeing some white people forced to go through things that racial minorities go through. Does being gay make those whites even with racial minorities? No. Does being gay mean they understand racial minorities and their experiences? No. I meet more heterosexual white women and whites who grew up poor (usually, those two identities run concurrently, i.e. they are pretty much all hetero white women who grew up poor) who can have accurate conversations about what blacks experience in the US than white gays. Still, every time I think about joining in a fight that essentially will put white gays back at full white privilege, I really get uneasy...because I think the experience that white gays have in the US is an experience that every white person should have at some point. I can't imagine wanting to make life easier for a white person while, after that fight is over, life is still basically as hard as it always was and always will be for me...even if what they're denied is unfair.

Do the math--there are more people in the US being unfairly denied equal treatment than not, but gays are one of the few groups who are openly acknowledged by half the country as having this experience. That means they are one of the few groups that will be allowed to make progress...while, as stories about Jena Six, West Virginia, Columbia University and Central Michigan University (nooses hung in a classroom recently)...as well as, arguably, attacks on immigration (which I personally agree with, but I know many view them as stemming from racism) and the revival of the KKK make evident, other groups are moving backwards rather than progressing. This is also another example of how you can fight and win some battles, but you'll never win others if you're a minority of any kind. You never stop fighting.

2) You have to realize that you can't force your standards on others and that we're not all from the same culture or the same time. As I said before, coming out is a fairly new, popular concept among the young and the white, not to say that there aren't minorities who also come out or argue as adamantly about the necessity of coming out as whites tend to. But a book I read recently helped underscore this point that, depending on where you're from in life, coming out is viewed extremely differently and is an extremely different experience for some than others. If you have trouble grasping this concept, then I'd implore you to read Martin Manalansan's "Global Divas," which is about queer Filipino males, most of whom immigrated to the US from the Philippines. It will help me make my point rather than me writing an entirely separate, new book in my blog about the issue, this time only about black queers rather than Filipino queer males.

Similarly, we also have to learn to stop being so US-centric. By that, I mean two things--and this is related to a post I've been meaning to write about my problem with hyphenated racial/ethnic identities, i.e. Asian American or Asian-American. But here's a preview. One, there are people in the US who are "American," and then there are others who are "American" but not really, because they have such ties to another nation that they bring in and incorporate aspects of their nations into their identities. White people are "American." Everyone else is "American" but not really "American." As much as some of us want to believe otherwise, there's not much escaping our background, if you're not white. "Global Divas" helps explain this phenomenon, as well. Ideas of American-ness are made by white people (which is why I say white people are "American"), and there's no way we can completely fit those ideas (which is also why I say white people are "American").

This is why (two) I always think it's funny when white gays in the US try to tell a racial or ethnic minority what they should do with their gayness. Heck, I've seen obviously white gays on AfterEllen advising people in other countries to come out, no matter what the situation is that this person has described. Apparently, white gays in the US don't know that in some cultures, being openly gay can get you sent to prison, murdered, or formally taken out, i.e. the death penalty. What's more, though, is there are tons of people who immigrate to the US from these countries with these--to us--drastic cultures, or were born here but have parents here from those cultures, passing them down. And while it might not be that drastic in other cultures, such as the Philippines, they still have their own, different way of approaching queer identity...and that comes with them to the US. For a lot of us minorities, whether we were born here or not, it's something like the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy. Some of us (from all races) have to learn to respect that rather than do like white people always seem to be trying to do, i.e. force their standards and cultural assimilation on others because it's "better." Some of us are perfectly happy with our cultures, or at least accept, respect and/or honor them.

Reflections On Making An Effort

What I wrote earlier today (when I should have been sleeping)...I want to expound on some of those points, particularly what I said about my place in the LGBT community and a victim mentality. I've been thinking a lot about racial dynamics and what that has to do with how much I feel I don't belong in the LGBT community. Let me tell you about how I've perceived my environment, being in law school.

When I was in college, I spoke to people on a regular basis in class. I attended college in the South, in case you didn't know. The South has this reputation as being racist and otherwise unaccepting, which, compared to other parts of the country, I don't think is entirely deserved. While I think Southerners have a lot of ignorance--ignorance that I don't think is unique to the South--they are fake about it. But there's a lot of good in their fakeness--they are very good at it and come off very friendly, no matter who they're interacting with (save a few podunk towns in every Southern state that "marked" people generally know not to set foot in). People in other regions won't even bother. Therefore, I find it was/is a lot easier to feel comfortable around people who are not of your background in the South. Both in high school and in the South, I could attend classes or walk around campus and encounter friendly white students. I usually was not without a companion in class, and that companion (or multiple ones) would generally be white. Furthermore, as written about before, I also had several Asian friends and acquaintances. Two of my roommates in college were Asian. My best friend in high school was Asian.

In law school (in the Midwest), I spend a lot of time alone. If I don't talk on the phone to someone who is likely to be located in another state/region altogether, there is a very high probability that I won't even speak the entire day. This is so even if I attend class. So, I go through days, every now and then feeling like something is weird about the way I'm living but not being able to put my finger on it. But I just did--there are days when I don't see anybody, there are days when I don't speak to anybody (or speak at all) and there are days when both happen. That's definitely weird.

On days when I attend class, I usually sit there feeling very awkward. And I've realized this contributes to why I don't attend class. In classes in which the overwhelming majority of students are white or otherwise non-black...the awkwardness is even more intense. There is one class in particular this semester. It's that time before class starts when students are still arriving, but most of the students are sitting there waiting for class. In this class, everyone's white, except for me, one black male, one mixed black male and one Asian female. I don't know anybody in the class, except the mixed black male...and we're not close, by any means, plus he sits in the back...I was unlucky enough to come to class on the first day when everyone had taken all the good seats, i.e. the seats in the back, and had to make my way to the front. So,. I'm sandwiched between two white females. Actually, I do know one of them, because she was in my "section" my first year of law school. But, naturally, we're not friends.

So, you have that five or so minutes when we're all waiting for the professor to come in and start class. There's a group of annoying white females behind me who talk loudly to each other every time. Everybody else is finding people to talk to. The black male talks to the white guy beside him, and the mixed black guy talks to the Asian female who sits beside him. Like I said, I don't know anybody, nobody makes an effort with me, and I'm not the kind of person who makes an effort, especially with white people because I don't feel that I should have to make an effort with them or that they want me to make an effort with them. At this school, I've found that even when white people--particularly white women--approach me, it's usually with an awkwardness on their part. I suspect white people here would probably feel a lot easier if I gave them some sign by approaching them that I'm not one of those blacks who "hates" all white people or "makes a big deal about race," or that we act like blacks on TV, as one white guy actually said once. The blacks who give whites here those signs are the blacks who are embraced. I've learned/realized, through the class I took last year about Critical Race Theory, that a good portion of the whites who attend this school really didn't grow up around any blacks and don't know anything about black people other than what's in the media. That, I guess, explains the awkwardness some of them feel.

It's not like this in the South. For one thing, white Southerners know blacks, one way or the other, mainly because of things like busing...although that's starting to change. I guess I've been spoiled--I'm used to not having to make any effort and having friendly, unsuspecting white people approach me. And that doesn't happen here; it feels like I am expected to prove myself first. That's something I won't do.

Finally, the professor comes, and I feel so much better because the social aspect is finally shut down.

So, two things about this story. One, I think there are enough white people here who have actually seen blacks in person before starting college and/or are accustomed enough to blacks in their environment for their awkwardness or lack of regard for blacks to be about more than just not growing up around any. Now, one (actually, two) of my best friends and I have discussed this before. Our conclusion? Whites have a victim mentality, too--and not just white gays. White people are scared of how black people will react if they say anything to them. You see, blacks are mean to whites! It's "get yo white @ss out my face!" or "I ain't talkin' to no honkies!" A black ghetto mama will go off! If you're alone with one of us, you might get purse-snatched, carjacked, or even raped or killed! But seriously. I recall a conversation with one of my [white] best friends in which I said, "I don't trust white people," and she responded, "That's why we're scared of you."

She's one of those white people who approaches all kinds of people without any consciousness or awkwardness, as is my other best friend whom I've had these kinds of conversations with. And the second friend actually has gotten weird responses from minorities, particularly black people, from doing that. I admire both of them for having the guts to do what a lot of white people are scared to or simply not interested in doing, because I find myself thinking that their walking up to anybody and being friendly is...not safe, emotionally. So, most people are being defensive, and they're not. My one friend who has gotten negative reactions from blacks from making an effort maintains that she will keep approaching them, because she knows that white people ignore/alienate black people and that's one of the reasons black people "hate" white people in the first place.

And, to her, if anyone has a duty to make an effort and prove that they don't "hate" someone, given the history of our nation and the racial inequality still occurring, it's white people. Every time I think about how she's described the way several black people have been just shocked when she has been nice to them or even because she has spoken to them...has simply said "hi" to them--because where she lives, there's a lot of open racial tension--I laugh...because, even for me, it's so real. I think a lot of blacks are surprised when they meet friendly (towards blacks), non-awkward white (and even Asian and Latino) people, because this is a conversation I've had with some blacks--we just hide our surprise better than the blacks my friend encountered do. Even though we get used to it somewhere along the way and many of us begin to self-segregate, I think it doesn't take very much with black people to demonstrate that you're okay. And yet, white people still expect us to care more about their feelings and their discomfort while putting aside our own. We're the ones expected to risk hurtful racist reactions and just "accept" that white people aren't racist anymore...

...which leads me to my second point. I'm tired of this dynamic. I'm tired of being in environments in which I'm the only black person or one of a few black people. I'm tired of being expected to prove that I'm a certain kind of black person before I get friends or a job offer. My theory is that the majority of black people in my position, particularly black women--that is, blacks who grew up in predominantly white environments, attend "white" schools and are on the track to a good career in which they know they will realistically be, once again, surrounded by white people--reach a point, around their mid-20s or so, in which they get fed up with white environments and being around white people all the time, at least in part because of these dynamics. Imagine if you're a black person who didn't at least have the positive experiences I had in high school and somewhat in college. And I know that my experience in high school is also partially based on the fact that I, without trying to be, appeared to be a certain kind of black person to white students.

And I know black people at my law school who agree with me about having to be a certain way before white people or black people accept you, but they are just a lot more willing to play the game than I am--with both white people and black people. I'm not willing at all. That affects my law school experience, it affects my job opportunities...and it affects how I'm treated in the predominantly white LGBT community. Still, I can't imagine being the kind of black person as the ones I see all the time--the ones who talk about these issues and about white people worse than I do in private, and then are all smiles in white people's faces. I realize a lot of black people view this as a necessity, but I'm just not good at pretending. White people know what kind of black person I am, and I can't hide it. I have no interest in doing so, and, given that I have no interest in white environments anymore...I have no interest in most LGBT environments. Because I know the drill with white environments. It doesn't matter about us all being gay or "oppressed." As I said before, white people will be white people.

And eventually, even the blacks who are good at showing whites what they want to see from blacks get tired of it, and I firmly believe this is one of the reasons--if not the biggest reason--why the legal profession, particularly law firms, can't hold onto blacks. Frankly, there are other jobs in which you can be whoever you are as a black person, and the law isn't one of them.

I asked myself a question yesterday--do I hate white people? I said, "'Hate' is strong. It's not the right word." Almost immediately another word came to mind. I grabbed my lap top and went to dictionary.com. Typed in the word. Sure enough, it was perfect:

resent

to feel or show displeasure or indignation at (a person, act, remark, etc.) from a sense of injury or insult.

To feel indignantly aggrieved at.

French ressentir, to be angry, from Old French resentir, to feel strongly

verb
1.	feel bitter or indignant about; "She resents being paid less than her co-workers"
2.	wish ill or allow unwillingly

Reflections On Reflections

Okay, so I've been absent for way too long. But I've definitely been thinking about this blog. I wonder if anyone even reads it anymore.

It's getting down to the point in the semester where I really can't bs anymore. I just picked my classes for my last semester of law school. I don't know if I will stick with all of the ones I chose--I might make some changes. I also have been writing about sports. I got an article published, and the publishers actually contacted me personally to let me know how good they thought it was and how knowledgeable I am about the team I wrote about. I've found that although it really pisses some men off when a woman knows her sports, a lot of them love it.

Sports has become one of my saviors for this semester. I think one reason why so many women hate sports or just don't understand why men love them so much is because we view them as mindless/unintelligent. That's one of the attractions for me. Traditionally, music has been that, but music today is just so bad. I don't listen to the radio anymore, except maybe a jazz station, and I definitely don't watch music videos. Sports is quickly becoming the passion that music used to be, so much so that I find myself wondering what I could do career-wise related to it. And before you suggest sports law...I'm not "smart" enough to get that kind of job, unless you know of some hole-in-the-wall law firm that won't care that I'm a black woman who is nowhere near the top of her class. I would love to get paid to be a sports commentator, though, particularly just to write articles and analysis. I have found, however momentarily it might last, a [new] passion!!
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Sports is not what I want to write about, though, at least not right now. I haven't really written about queer issues in a while, and I feel that I should...particularly that I should write more about where I am now with my feelings towards the LGBT community, coming out, etc--the issues that really got me started with this blog.

Well, first of all, I remember writing in one of the "Why I'm Not Out" posts that I felt like some people, particularly some people in my family, already kind of know. I've come to the conclusion that my mother really doesn't know. I can tell by conversations that we have. It amazes me that she won't see it. (I frame it as "won't" for a reason) I think that she does think about it, but if I "came out" to her she wouldn't say anything like "I already knew." I think other people in my family might say something like that, i.e. "I kind of thought that might be the case." I've realized that my mother is one of those people who thinks being queer is a choice, and that's the main reason why she doesn't know. So, she'll spend an hour on the phone with me complaining about men and sometimes finish by saying something like, "But, no matter how I'm treated, I wouldn't get angry enough to go to women. I just wouldn't cross that line." And sometimes it feels like what she's trying to tell me with that is "don't resent men to the point of dating women," i.e. she's worried that all the marital problems the women in my family have will make me come home one day and say I'm into women.

Now, that causes a problem for me, because if I ever do decide to tell her that, that's the reaction I'm going to get. But I feel like, all my life, there have been signs that she has to have picked up on with me. That's the reason I thought she knew. But what I've learned about straight people who think being queer is a choice is that they don't 100% believe that to be the case. They contradict themselves and don't even realize it. How can people "look" or "act" gay, even from a young age, if it's a choice? Yet, most straight people recognize certain homosexual qualities in people they encounter, even young kids. And as far as black people go...what is the point of the gay black boy in the church whom everyone knows is gay even though he's never told them he is--and he knows everyone knows he's gay--keeping that quiet but acting the way he does? Most gay people give off gay vibes that they can't help but give off, whether they are open about their queerness or not. So I wonder if hetero black people think gay black males in the church act the way they do as a way of coming out to them, because, otherwise, it doesn't make sense to me for so many black people to think homosexuality is a choice. I just think of "trysexuals," the only "queer" people who choose to be queer, as way more open and in your face than the black male everyone can see is gay but he never says he is ("trysexuals" being people who carry on with members of their sex, but basically simply for fun or out of curiosity, and they remain committed to members of the opposite sex).

Really, everything my mother says about men I already knew--she's the one who is just now learning those things. All my life, it's women whom I've never understood. So, I'm at a point where I don't think I'll ever figure out whether or not I like men romantically, because having everything I thought about men confirmed by women in my family 100% makes me not want to ever be with one. And, I guess, that, in a way, adds something to what my mother is worried about. But, while I knew these things already, I just think maybe I thought there'd be one man out there who wasn't everything so many women say men are that pisses men off. And now, looking at my family, I just don't think there is. Even if there were decent men out there in terms of personality, I ask myself how many would want to be with me, especially considering that black women aren't "in." Either way, that doesn't change the fact that I liked the women better on TV shows than the men when I was a kid, or that I can now think of several girls that I had crushes on growing up. It doesn't change that I preferred to hang out with guys, wanted to be outside playing football and basketball with them in the streets or my backyard in the first neighborhood that I grew up in, or that I tried to play soccer with them at school in elementary and junior high school, or that I preferred (and, honestly, still do) "boy" clothes and toys growing up.

Unfortunately, I think being as old as I am and perpetrating the idea that I'm heterosexual are some of the things that make coming out harder to believe for people like my mother. And I just don't like dealing with difficult things. I don't like confrontations. I like to go about life as if everything is easier than it is, because that mindset makes it easier for me to get through so many things. I just don't see a good way of coming out to people in my family, and I don't like that. There's no way for it to be easy. And the fact that my mother and I do have such a good relationship...I really don't want to deal with it. In the cost/benefit analysis, to me, I would honestly rather keep everything the way it is than come out. Right now, I still don't feel like I'm missing anything by not doing so, and I'm not unhappy with being "closeted"--that's why I don't think it's worth it for me. I'm unhappy with many things right now, and that's not one of them--and I think coming out, especially right now, would make what I'm dealing with now--hating law school and not knowing what to do with my life or how I'm going to pay off my educational loans, feeling really...I don't know the right word...racially, etc--more stressful, and I just don't need anything else right now. Gay people forget/don't realize that dealing with queer issues is not every queer person's only/biggest problem, and I think one reason it's hard to keep up with this blog or write posts that are a little more about being queer is that I do think about so many other things before thinking about queer issues.

I have noticed, though, that I tend to refer to myself as a lesbian more now in writing and in my own head. I'm not sure why, i.e. if it's because of what I concluded about what kind of relationship I could have with men, or if it's because it's just easier to give in to traditional labels, or both. I think the class about queer minorities that I'm taking has made me think more about using the term "queer." I still don't personally see problems with it. But there are just so many diverging thoughts on that subject. And, for me, there's still that problem of just what to call myself if I did come out, because I still don't think "lesbian" is the right term for me.

As far as the LGBT community...I 100% don't see a space for me in it. Different sayings tend to come to me in "moments of brilliance," and I adopt them. One of my latest ones is "white people will be white people." That's pretty much how I sum up the LGBT community, i.e. the racial alienation. As for queer minorities, I know few. And I think, depending on where you live, you have an easier or harder time finding/meeting queer minorities. And then you have to find the ones in that group that you actually identify/connect with. Aside from Chicago, I've never really lived anywhere where that's a possibility. I mean, if you read other posts in my blog about my experiences with LGBT people of color, you know that hasn't exactly worked out yet for me...and knowing my experiences with people of color, period, it probably never will. I'm just not the kind of person who connects with other people based on shared identity. I suspect the majority of my friends will remain hetero, and I feel that I've become very accepting of that.

Another "moment of brilliance" I had also sums up how I view the LGBT community. The LGBT community is the worst characteristics of white people and black people. If you take enjoying/doing lame/crazy things and thinking there's something wrong with people who don't like/do those things, racism, self-hatred/wishing you were someone you're not or at least self-esteem issues that generally stem from your identity, being culturally unaware/ignorant, having a victim mentality sometimes to the point of ridiculousness/paranoia and sometimes it's not entirely justified, and setting silly standards for everyone else of your background (i.e. we're all supposed to think alike, care about the same issues and like all the same things) and alienating those who don't live up to them all the while claiming that you're a "community"...put them together...you've got queer people. And recognize that some of these things apply to both blacks and whites, i.e. all of us are racist, and more than a few blacks are also culturally unaware/ignorant, be it about blacks and/or Asians/Latinos (trust me, we all know pretty much all there is to know about whites, or white Americans from the US, that is).