In class we were asked to write what we thought race was, what our definition of it was. It turned out to be harder than we all thought. The initial reaction in my head was skin color. Yet, I didn't write that down. It felt, well, racist. When asked how many people write down skin color maybe 3 people raised their hands, I not being one. I wondered how many other people had done what I had. Here we were in class, saying things like "nationality" and "background" were race.
Now every time I visit my own blog I see that picture of all those crayons and in class, reading Fredrick Douglass and talking about race, that picture isn't just crayons anymore, it's a representative of the people in the world, of race. Now I'm not comparing race to a happy coloring book filled world of crayons because race is not a happy issue like that. But as I look at the picture more and more I see new things. One particular part of it that's interesting is the color white. It stands out. There's no doubt about it. In the original picture (re-inserted at the bottom of the blog post) there is one white crayon in about the middle of the picture that clearly stands out. Yes, white traditionally stands out as a color but that made me think more and more about superiority. All the other colors are "darker" than this white and kind of blend together if you squint your eyes. Is this how we used to think, how some people still DO think? All those people, over there, if you ignore humanity, squint your eyes a bit, they blur out, like they don't even matter anymore. All that matters is that the white people, they still stand out of a crowd.
So maybe I'm over analyzing a picture of crayons but all I know is that it sparked something in me about race. About color of skin. No one wants to admit it, but that's what race is all about. If you squint your eyes all you see is color, the person themselves don't matter anymore. It's this that shaped the history of slavery. Not seeing the African Americans as people, only as "blacks".
All the colors of crayons versus "flesh" colors. What do YOU see?
Sam,
ReplyDeleteGood job here and throughout the blog! I like the feeling behind this post and the way you have begun to extend our class discussion. I'd like to see you unpack the phrase "flesh color" a little further. "White" is not a flesh color (even with albinos!) nor is black a satisfying color to describe the wide pallette of people referred to as "black."