What Some Anglos Are Thinking
Today I spoke to a young Black man of 25 years and he shared that white women are more attentive to him than Black women. He shared that some white women go after him aggressively and when in groups will make comments like: "You did not even look at us" as if to let him know that he needed to stand at attention and not pass them over. It sounded as though they were more aggressive in their pursuit of him because he did not seem interested in them. It seems like a case of the forbidden fruit and their struggle that we as men of color have around this syndrome where we are looked at as sexy and anglos who have a particularly offensive perception. I for one know this first hand because like this young man I was pursued relentlessly by anglo men who in the long run would share that not only were they raised in an environment that was colorless they'd not experienced any person of color for any length of time. In some cases it would be unveiled that their parents were racist and I became the object of their offensive comments couched in a joke. Today I understand that my own self-worth was in question when I allowed others to abuse me verbally and disrespect my culture and a very important and sacred part of who I am. Although not all whites have the same perception of people of color my experience has been that too many do. As obvious as it is for people of color like me it is not something we talk about openly and in fact still a "taboo" subject for people who would rather not know that racism and stereo-typing is flourishing in America. People like Lisa Ling, a reporter who does documentaries on taboo subjects might do one on this subject: The perception of people of color by Whites.
I am a person who is recovering from the abuse by someone who allowed his family to bash my ethnicity repeatedly by making passive aggressive statements, having names for Blacks and coaching it in a joke. The fact was that deep inside they thought themselves above me and would refer to me as egotistic. Who did this Hispanic think he was, having three degrees and being so uppity? I had to finally become confrontational and years later he made this statement: "I can't help it if my family is racist". After years of denial there was one admission thaat this family was who I thought they were and that he'd truly allowed them to run a muck and indirectly and directly abuse me. I personally think he enjoyed it in a way that was sick and emotionally unhealthy. This experience helped me to understand that this kind of garbage like behavior still exists.
As human beings and as people of color we need to respect our life and think more of ourselves than to allow ourselves to be perceived wrongly and allow others to mistreat us. We must be in an awareness that racism is being practiced in many passive ways that cannot be seen readily. We are still in a place where our own perceptions of ourselves is self-hating because we would not tolerate the disrespect if we loved ourselves enough. My contention is that we loose our dignity as people when we say it is OK for others to abuse us whether we are Latino, Black, Indian, Polish or Italian. Nothing is worse than self-loathing because being in that place we justify the abuse.
There are people in my life who are "white" who I love. I have people in my life of every culture and just in my family alone there we have: Mexican, French, Spaniard, Puerto Rican, Indian, Black and Italian heritage. We are a family who love and respect each other's culture and a family that understands that America has a lot of work to do around race issues. We can see the view of each person and respect each other's ways by not making jokes around race because none of us think it amusing or funny. In fact we find it offensive and a passive way to insult others. Each of us knows that we are more alike than different and that there are good folks in every culture.
It is time to begin loving ourselves by standing in our beauty and demanding respect for who we are. Nothing matters more than who we are and ethnicity is a large part of who we are. The more we close our eyes to racism and the acts of racism in our society the more we will see more of it. This is the time to stand up and admit the truth. This is the time to really start a journey where we are all equal in every aspect. We can talk about what needs to be done or we can become part of the solution. The first step is self-love and self-respect and the second is to have zero tolerance of what is going on today with people of color when we are treated unfairly or being abused. As Maya Angelou would say "When we know better we do better".
Elliott Maximo Collazo
I am a person who is recovering from the abuse by someone who allowed his family to bash my ethnicity repeatedly by making passive aggressive statements, having names for Blacks and coaching it in a joke. The fact was that deep inside they thought themselves above me and would refer to me as egotistic. Who did this Hispanic think he was, having three degrees and being so uppity? I had to finally become confrontational and years later he made this statement: "I can't help it if my family is racist". After years of denial there was one admission thaat this family was who I thought they were and that he'd truly allowed them to run a muck and indirectly and directly abuse me. I personally think he enjoyed it in a way that was sick and emotionally unhealthy. This experience helped me to understand that this kind of garbage like behavior still exists.
As human beings and as people of color we need to respect our life and think more of ourselves than to allow ourselves to be perceived wrongly and allow others to mistreat us. We must be in an awareness that racism is being practiced in many passive ways that cannot be seen readily. We are still in a place where our own perceptions of ourselves is self-hating because we would not tolerate the disrespect if we loved ourselves enough. My contention is that we loose our dignity as people when we say it is OK for others to abuse us whether we are Latino, Black, Indian, Polish or Italian. Nothing is worse than self-loathing because being in that place we justify the abuse.
There are people in my life who are "white" who I love. I have people in my life of every culture and just in my family alone there we have: Mexican, French, Spaniard, Puerto Rican, Indian, Black and Italian heritage. We are a family who love and respect each other's culture and a family that understands that America has a lot of work to do around race issues. We can see the view of each person and respect each other's ways by not making jokes around race because none of us think it amusing or funny. In fact we find it offensive and a passive way to insult others. Each of us knows that we are more alike than different and that there are good folks in every culture.
It is time to begin loving ourselves by standing in our beauty and demanding respect for who we are. Nothing matters more than who we are and ethnicity is a large part of who we are. The more we close our eyes to racism and the acts of racism in our society the more we will see more of it. This is the time to stand up and admit the truth. This is the time to really start a journey where we are all equal in every aspect. We can talk about what needs to be done or we can become part of the solution. The first step is self-love and self-respect and the second is to have zero tolerance of what is going on today with people of color when we are treated unfairly or being abused. As Maya Angelou would say "When we know better we do better".
Elliott Maximo Collazo
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