Agree to Disagree?

That was a common phrase one of my friends used when we would have different viewpoints on a certain topic. On some nebulous issues, I acquiesced to the request. On other issues, I knew I was right. This is one of those topics.

Before I get to all my other points, the main theme of my feelings on whether my life would be easier if I were white is this: It's not about you. It's about me. I recall my early years at LMU when one of my closest friends, who is white, couldn't understand why there where ethnicity-specific clubs on campus. She felt that they were more divisive than inclusive, because they focused on being black or Chicano/Latino or Asian/Pacific Islander, and in some cases, even more specific than that. She felt excluded because she wasn't any of those things. I tried explaining for years to her--and subsequently to one of her more clueless friends who expressed frustration that he couldn't start a club about white people pride because he'd be called a racist--that these clubs created as a safe space for people who felt marginalized at LMU, a majority white school. I also explained that white people, and other people who didn't share the ethnicity of that specific club, could freely join those organizations. In fact, I spent more than a few occasions at events sponsored by the Han Tao organization, and I wasn't Chinese. Also, the year after I left, the historically Latina sorority on campus voted in a half black-half South Asian woman as their president. The sorority was also probably the most diverse organization on campus, with white, black, Latina, Asian and "other" members, even though they were focused on the Mexican community. Correspondingly, the traditional, i.e. white, Greek organizations had blindingly white brotherhoods and sisterhoods. There were a few Asians, and a handful of Latinas in them, but only three black people total in them when I left.

Looking back, what I should have said to my friend was, "It's not about you." Because it's not. My being a member and an officer in Sistah Friends, a club for and about black women, had nothing to do with my not wanting to hang out with white people or other nonblack people. Or with men, for that matter. It had to do with my wanting to associate with other women who understood what I was going through. I still have that need now, but no club. I shouldn't have had to defend that concept to someone who could hang around people who looked like her wherever she went on campus. I had the double whammy of being a film student in the Honors Program, as if those two populations weren't exclusive enough in themselves. In most of the classes that I was required to take, I was not just the only black woman; I was the only black person. And sometimes, I was the only nonwhite person in the room. Additionally, most of my teachers were white, and most, if not all, of the people whose worked we discussed in our classes were white as well. Books, movies, videos, performances, plays, essays, publications, almost all created by white people.

I didn't really notice this, or care, at the time. I was enjoying myself and my classes and my classmates and my friends too much. But now I'm really getting upset about it. Because this is the time that having more black friends would be handy, so they could back me up. However, I don't have them. So I alone get the honor of explaining to people that I really like, that, despite their delusions, we don't exist on level playing fields. I know what it's like to be white. I can open up any mainstream newspaper, book or magazine, or turn on any television channel, and learn about the white American experience. I have been doing so since the day I was born. But if you are white, unless you make a conscious effort to do so, you cannot easily understand the black experience, much less expect that your point of view on certain topics is a fully informed one. I have been actively studying the overlapping issues of race, gender, class, ethnicity and nationality for the past eight years. So I usually know of what I speak, more so than someone who hasn't been studying these issues, because they have had no prior need to.

To think that California people are more open-minded than...I'm not sure than whom...could be considered naive at best, and clinically insane at worst. I can't find the stories that I wanted to link to. But there are two instances that clearly stick out in my mind as evidence that some of my fellow Californians need to wake up. Most recently, there was the immigration protest downtown at which the LAPD was shooting rubber bullets at law-abiding individuals, including families with infants and other children. Then there was that shooting in 2004(?) where the LAPD shot and killed an unarmed 13-year-old boy who was sitting in a car. The families with children were mostly Latino. The boy was black. One of the reasons I can't find these stories easily is because they didn't garner much national media attention. I think there was a white woman missing that day. And every other day in the news cycle. I have yet to see a Missing Asian Woman story ever.

Back to the actual topic at hand. I like The Cosby Show. I think Denise is an aimless flake, though. How could she marry some guy in Africa and adopt his kid without telling her parents? My favorite character is Vanessa. She's funny. I also love A Different World. That was an amazing show for so many reasons. But those are just two series by the same guy. Even though The Fresh Prince and The Cosby Show currently run ad nauseum on numerous networks, how many (quality) series with nonwhite casts have aired since their original cancellations? How many of these series lasted more than a season? And where would such shows go now that UPN is gone? More to the point, tell me how many shows are on right now that have almost exclusively white casts. Then tell me honestly that the systematic exclusion of almost any face darker that a brown paper bag on TV doesn't have an effect on society in general, and on me in particular. There are still "journalists" in our mostly white news media that can't get over the fact that Barack Obama is black. To them, there is no other reason that people wouldn't vote for him. Just like the only reason people won't vote for Hillary Clinton is that she's a woman. Oh wait, no, that's not the only reason. Duh. But these "journalists" can't get past his color or her vagina. In the film arena, it's getting just as bad. During the previews before Harry Potter today, the only nonwhite face I saw in the five movie trailers was Ludacris, who was playing a greenscreened elf in Fred Claus. I thought the failure of Little Man had ended that ridiculous film technique.

I understand that there are many people out there who have problems finding relationships, regardless of age, gender or color. I have met some of these people. I empathize with their plight. I am not saying that they should have no problem making friends or finding life partners if they are white. I'm saying that if I were white, it would be easier for me. It would also be easier for me to be employed in the job that I want to do. I don't understand how people can't get this. We live in a country that was founded by white men slaughtering Native Americans, enslaving Africans, and then forcing Japanese-Americans--many of whom were born in this country--into internment camps. A country that until 1967 outlawed miscegenation, and pretended that these quadroons and octoroons had previously come out of nowhere. (I found some links. Hooray!) A country that still practices racial profiling, even more so now in airports and immigration situations under the guise of "national security." Yet I'm supposed to overcome all of that institutional hatred, and find a friend, a boyfriend and an employer who won't notice that I happen to be black. Okay, I'll get right on that.

Readers, please don't think that I am saying all this because I'm arrogant and I think that I'm smarter than all of you. Obviously I'm not, because I still can't figure out how to change the color of my blog from pink to purple. I continue to love you all dearly, even if you can't fully understand where I'm coming from. For more insight into this messy topic, I refer you all to The Race Card: Ethnicity on TV on the TWoP Forums, and to this Racialicious article: Craigslist Personals: Desperately Seeking Diversity Training.