We are more than how we appear. Our eyes deceive us as easily as they convince us that we’re seeing a truth. Truth doesn’t appear on the surface. Sometimes it can only be found when you look much deeper. I live that truth everyday because I’m more than I appear on the surface. Probably because my surface seems to confuse so many people. The most common question in my life is, “What are you?”. How do you answer such a blatantly rude question (even if it’s asked in ignorance)?
I typically choose:
- I’m human
- I’m a woman
- I’m working on being the best person that I can be
- I’m curiosity constantly seeking more
- I’m complex
- A work in progress
I could probably go on forever. After all, I’ve had years to practice for this question. And luckily, I’ve also built a (sometimes) tough hide to deflect the negativity that comes from and with this attitude. Yes, I’m multi-racial and very proud of all of my heritage. No one particular portion of me is more important than the other, because they all are bound together into one single person: ME.
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Let me tell you a short personal story: When I was 16 or 17, I went to a Veterans day parade in San Diego to show respect to the amazing men and women who are protecting our way of life. I feel an affinity because my father was career-Navy. I went because he wanted to be there, and it was important to him and to me. My mother is Japanese, which makes me half-Japanese (with my other half including British, Scottish, French, and Irish…that I know). You’ll soon see why I’m explaining this fact to you.
The parade had barely begun when a belligerent war veteran (probably World War II given his comments) shouted at my mother that a Jap had no right to be there. As my father wasn’t nearby, I instantly went on the defense, while trying to calm the man down. He wouldn’t stop, and his words got uglier by the minute. Eventually, I let my rage take over and shouted back at him that he had no right to judge, because Americans had bombed my grandparents’ house which had been the only home that she’d ever known. They lost everything with the exception of a shoe and a bucket. I think I told him the whole sorry story of what the war had done to them? I’m not sure, as I don’t like to think about this particular moment in my life.
My Japanese family didn’t hold my being part-American against me when I finally got to know them again. They loved me for simply being me. But he decided to turn his tirade onto me because I was “polluted” and much worse. How do you respond to that kind of tunnel-visioned hatred? I decided to tell him how I felt about his prejudice, and what I’ve gone through my entire life. Eventually he stopped, but probably only because he ran out of words. I couldn’t blame him, because I had a suspicion of what he’d gone through. And I had learned my own valuable lesson that anyone can get carried away by emotion, even someone who is fighting against the effects of prejudice. So exactly how long does this mindlessness have to keep going on before people open more than their eyes to this disastrously destructive view? It’s a lesson that I have to remember everyday so that I don’t repeat what I did that day. Some days, I wish that I could just forget this ever happened. But obviously, that day hasn’t arrived yet.
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Which brings me to my point: Don’t judge a person on their outward appearance, no matter what their race, gender, or all of the other categories that we use to place a stamp on people. People are not standard-sized envelopes that need some kind of group stamp for proper sorting. History, culture, individual beliefs, and so much more shapes each and every one of us into unique individuals. We don’t have to belong because someone says we have to. We should belong to whatever we want to belong to because it’s what we choose.
Isn’t it about high time that we start to look deep inside by getting to know others around us. It’ll only broaden our worlds, and make communication possible because we’ll have a common positive starting point. Lately, it’s pretty evident that this is what we need if we’re going to have a future.
And if you think about it, all of us get darker from the summer sun. It’s called tanning (which some people pay money for). So, wouldn’t that skew our perception even more? See, the eyes can be tricked, which is why we have 5 senses and a mind to help put together a better idea of what reality really is. Believe more than what your eyes see.
**Don’t feel sorry for those experiences that I’ve described. They hurt, but they also helped form who I’ve become: a hopefully-tolerant human being. Just remember not to repeat them yourselves, and this world will have taken a positive step forward towards a collective future. We need to stop putting up barriers, and start putting up strong bridges.
A few other voices on racial prejudice:
Defining Race Has Never Been Easy by Cord Jefferson
Don’t Call Them Post-Racial by Dom Apollon
