I would like to apologize to any black person and any dark skinned person that has heard me say “I want light skinned children” who was offended. Hearing that out of context, yes, makes me sound like a racist. But, allow me to explain the entire conversation that was missed. By doing so, I know that not only will I confirm your initial thought of my racism, but, you can also add coward to it and also stupid.
The reason why I’m addressing this issue is fairly simple,
too many people have heard it and too many people I’m with at the time have
called me out on it. Not the racism
part, which what does that say about them, but the “didn’t you see the black
girl next to you?” or my personal favorite “how could you say that to him, his
best friend is black”. Ladies and
gentlemen, I have my reasons as I will now explain. Not to justify my stance as much as express
my freedom of speech.
Here we go.
Growing up in LA, MacArthur
Park to be exact, as an illegal
immigrant you got to see a good share of violence and danger but not much
racism. We were sheltered from the
outside world in that little Central American utopia. Unfortunately, my mother wanted us to learn
outside our means. So she sent us to
schools in better neighborhoods while still living within our means. Like I said though, no racism, or so I
thought.
So I’m in HS talking to my friends about elementary school
and it hits me, there was only one black kid in my elementary school for ONE
semester. It wasn’t until I was in High
School, HIGH SCHOOL, that I realized that.
Mar Vista Elementary was in the residential area in the city of Santa
Monica , so, big money.
48% of the students lived in the neighborhood, white kids, 48% were
shipped in on yellow school buses, Latino kids, and somehow like 4 Asians snuck
in when we weren’t looking. That’s a
joke, relax people, just trying to release all this racial tension in the
air.
Junior High and High School were uneventful, if I ever beat
up someone other than Latino it was cause they had it coming not cause of the
color of their skin. After HS joined the
Marines, and well, we don’t see color there.
We’re all dumb, good for nothing recruits who can’t even wipe their own
asses correctly, color has no factor when it comes to stupid in the Marines.
After that I didn’t see racism until I became a trucker for
those years, well there was all that racial profiling while I was working Loss
Prevention for a department store. That
shouldn’t count though, considering it was me doing most of the profiling, but,
that’s neither here nor there. As a
trucker, driving through major cities and so many minor cities, you speak to a
lot of people. Some great, open minded
individuals. Way too many foul mouths
spewing all the hatred that can only come from generations of hand me
downs. The scariest part being that they
mean and believe it.
So, a little background on me. I am not your typical Latino, for one, I
think I’m white. Secondly, I have little
to no accent when I speak. Finally, I am
light skinned, well light enough to not automatically be assumed to be
Latino. Now, put all those together and
I can pass by unnoticed or in most cases be included in groups of white
people. And, that’s when racism pops
it’s ugly little head.
So here’s the thing.
No one’s been directly racist to me, nope, I’ve heard some ignorant
shit, seen some prejudice and read about plenty of bad shit done in the name of
skin color all throughout history. You
know what, that shit scares me. Mainly
cause you can’t shoot it dead, you can’t eventually over come it, it has
absolutely no cure and is random as fuck.
One thing I want to make clear before I continue, I believe
that every race has these same examples.
Every race has faced the same obstacles, blacks have had the worst by
far. I am not playing the violin for all
those poor helpless latinos that can’t even get a break, no, far from it, I am
taking the cowards way out and not playing at all. I’m actually advocating being really quiet
and hopefully just going unnoticed.
I look at all these things, include my life experience
wearing this skin and I say “I want light skinned kids”. That stupid sentence, cowardly embodies the
only security I can give my unborn children.
Because I can’t promise them financial security, or that my drinking
won’t incur hardships, worst of all that my lack of a male parental figure will
make me unable to be a good father, I want to provide for them the one thing I
might have some control over.
They will be fighters, they will have confidence in
themselves, they will be artistic, they will know right from wrong, they will
live fulfilled lives. What I have hope
they wont have is a crutch, a chink in their armor that the enemy can see a
mile away. It’s stupid to think this way,
I know, but there are too many parts of this world that see things very simply
put, in black and white. I’d rather they
not thread the line but infiltrate and attack from within, nothing like being
the cavalry that flanks the enemy and helps turn the tide. Defense is fine but the offense usually comes
a little better prepared.
In the end I’ve become what I want my children to avoid,
I’ve become a racist person that sees the world in black and white. I’ve become that person that I’ve hated
growing up, the privileged naïve kid that has never been to the bad part of
town, or that is so closed minded to the troubles in the world that you just
want to smack them in the head for saying the most ignorant yet most innocent
things. Because they have been sheltered
by parents that wanted the best for them, parents who saw the bad in the world
and rather than try and fight an unbeatable monster instead chose to avoid it
and hide.