I haven’t always been so sensitive to racism. As a white,
heterosexual, Christian-raised male, I wasn’t really exposed to it very often.
It wasn’t until I lived abroad that I experienced first-hand what it is like to
be discriminated against.
The first time it happened, it actually was like a novelty
to me. I was with a real estate agent in Korea. I had lived there for a year,
so I knew enough of the language to get the gist of what the landlord was
yelling to her. She tried to put it to me nicely:
“He says that he cannot show you the property because…well…it’s
for Korean people.”
“A Bigot! A real life bigot”, I thought to myself.
After four years, though, the novelty wore off in a big way.
I could now understand a good deal of what was being said about me when I was
in public. Holding my girlfriend’s hand on the subway was enough to generate
whispers and stares. I would say something simple in Korean, maybe I would ask
about a price in a store, or tell a cab driver where to turn. Some would
respond with a smile, happy that I had made the effort. Most would giggle and
say how cute it was.
“Cute” is not what I was going for.
A few weeks before I left, things got pretty bad. I heard a
group of twenty-somethings behind me having a conversation. One stopped and
said to his friend, “OH! Look, foreigner!”
I stopped dead in my tracks, turned around, and screamed “OH!
Look, it’s a Korean person; A real Korean person! Woooooooooooah!!!!” It was
completely ridiculous, but indicative of just how far I had been pushed. After I
screamed out this phrase in presumably the worst and most aggressive broken
Korean possible, I read the man’s eyes. He was drunk and simply curious. I was
in a part of the city where it was not commonly inhabited by foreigners. He
apologized and walked off.
I never realized how much my experiences abroad had
influenced by opinion of racism until I heard the word “nigger” used in front
of me recently. It used to bother me. Now, it enrages me. And my experience has
made me realize that I can never really sympathize with any hyphenated minority
American for one simple reason: No matter how bothered I was by being
stereotyped, there was always a country on the other side of the pond that
would accept me with open arms. My home would never treat me that way. For
black people and for Native Americans, their home was their source of bigotry.
I expected this lecture to be something that I would only half
sympathize with, and I have to say that the speaker, Dr. L. Marie Anselmi, did
not hit too many of the typical land dispute oriented topics I had anticipated.
I was happy about that. She instead discussed the different types of Native
American stereotypes, and the way that they functioned.
The two most incredible things that she brought up were: 1-
Native Americans carry a card that identifies their Native blood ratio. They
are the only minority group asked to do this. That’s bonkers. 2 – There are
certain Native American tribes that are not recognized as Native American
tribes. This is also bonkers.
