Colorblind

I love lovely people.  People who are smart, caring, understanding, compassionate, generous, unselfish, friendly, and kind.  It doesn’t matter how much money they have, what color that are, or where they live.  I see them for the individual that they are.  I can’t stand a true asshole.  However, I have a soft spot for assholes; the kind that play dirty because they are really sensitive and act like assholes to put up a wall around their emotions.   True ignorant assholes come in all forms, shapes, and colors.

I grew up in a small town, a rural area that is extremely racially segregated.  In 2014, it still is that way.  I have lived and visited many places where it is not so segregated.  I have had friends from all different types of racial and cultural backgrounds.  I think it is amazing that there is still this huge cultural gulf between black and white people.  I think it is because we don’t attempt to really understand each other’s cultures and it sets the stage for negative stereotypes to form.  I think prejudice is a natural human reaction in humans weather it is race, religion, beauty, or any other likewise category.  Most of us are intelligent enough not to play out our prejudices in racist ways.

I really hate this colorblind society that is being created and being sold as a so-called post racial society.  I hate when people claim they “don’t see color”!  Why the hell not?!  We are two different colors and two different cultures and they are different.  Why can’t we celebrate those differences?  Why can’t we stop attaching negative attributes to skin color?  I have female friends who are white.  They are beautiful women who are smart, funny, dynamic, good mothers, fun to be around, and I like them for who they are.  Saying they are white is merely a physical characteristic, not a summation of what they are, just what they look like.  If someone asked me about one of them, I can’t just say, “She is white” and you will know everything there is to know about her.  I have female friends who are black.  They are beautiful as well.  I can’t sum up who they are by merely stating their skin colors either.  That is why being colorblind and saying you don’t see color is bad.  I want you to see me.  All of me.  I want to see all of you too.  Yeah, I get mistaken for a white woman on the telephone and my old co-worker from Disney World named Kesha often shock people when she shows up and she’s a white girl.  Being white doesn’t automatically make one racist and being black doesn’t automatically absolve one from not being racist.

In America, the “white race” and “black race” are social constructs.  A list of stereotypes, usually perpetuated by the media, politics, selective hearing, racially motivated Catch-22s, self-fulfilling prophecies, and willful ignorance.  Sometimes I wonder will these divides last forever.  It seems that we take two steps forward then one step back.  I think that true America, people who have dreams of America actually being what she claims to be; a beautiful melting pot of races and cultures instead of oil and water in the same bowl, are sick of the racial divide in the country.  I know I am.