Overheard at my hostel
BRING US TOGETHER BY PULLING US APART
February 18, 2016 @ 11pm | Aji Hostel, Santiago
11:07 pm
It’s official. My first night in Santiago was great. I met people from all over the world. People from the Netherlands, Scotland, Australia, Germany, and Sweden to name a few. I must admit, staying in a hostel is pretty darn cool. While chatting after dinner, my new friends and I talked about the differences we had noticed between our native countries and the country we were all visiting [Chile]. We discussed road rules, popular foods, and even what it’s like to grow up in these places.
While on the topic of university life, one of the girls asked me: “Hey, are colleges in the United States the way they seem in the movies? You know, with the sorority and fraternity houses? The parties?” Hahahaha. No. Well at least not in my opinion.
I explained to her that it all depends on what school you go to and what type of people you associate with. At my school, we have a variety of greek organizations on campus, but your experiences with greek houses and parties all depend on what your race and ethnicity is. For example, on my campus we have multiple sororities and fraternities that are ultimately divided by cultural ties (ain’t that ironic). There are organizations that are mostly white, others that are mostly black, latino, asian, etc, etc.
“The moment I had explained this, I realized “Uh oh, I just uncovered one of America’s secrets: we’re a super racist country. It’s going to be a looooong night.”
She goes, “What do you mean? It’s not as fun as it seems? I didn’t know that everything was about race.” Well, long story short it’s not. But it really kinda is. I explained to her why greek life had to be that way. I explained to her that black greek organizations were formed at colleges and universities that were founded specifically for them. I explained to her that historically speaking, blacks were not allowed to attend certain schools and at some points in history they weren’t allowed to attend school at all. I explained to her that because of this, blacks in the United States had to create their own platforms to get their piece of the pie. I explained to her that channels like BET and TV One were created for black people so that they, too, could see themselves being celebrated (not degraded) on television... And then it hit me
Although the goal of programs that are designed specifically to give minority groups a voice, they further divide us as a people. Instead of making the bigger picture look better, we create multiple smaller pictures that reinforce the idea that the United States of America is a country divided by race. We are not a melting pot. We are a pot on a broken stove. We are simply a pot with multiple ingredients that have failed to mesh together time and time again. I feel as though today’s social justice movements are good because they spark conversation and progress towards a common goal, but I also feel that they are problematic because they continue the racial divide. Yes, I admire and embrace my identity as a black woman in America. Yes, I do feel that #BlackLivesMatter. However, I do think that we should go about solving matters of race in a different way. Why is there no collective movement that embraces the struggles of those that have to hyphenate their Americanness as a whole? [Ex: Asian-American, African-American, Hispanic- American, Indian-American, Latin-American] I think the we, as hyphenated Americans, should take a stance against systemic racism and corruptive attitudes as a whole.
How do we go about that? I don’t know. That’s just me and my hippy “come together” idea having self. I’m no expert. These are just my developing thoughts.
The truth of the matter is, tackling racism in the United States is a VERY sticky situation. It’s such a sticky situation because we can’t get everyone on the same page. Shoot. We can’t even get everyone who identifies themselves as black on the same page. But that’s another story.
My conversation with the girls ended a little something like this. Every country in the world struggles with racism and the government should do a better job at discouraging racist behavior. However, shortly after talking about hate speech directed towards Jews, I realized something. The girls were agreeing on the idea that some of their mother lands had laws set in place that I’d like to see in America. One trend that really stood out to me is that in certain countries, those who communicate hate speech are subject to being punished by the law. However, in America we have this “beautiful” right called ‘the freedom of speech’ which allows us to verbally assault others at free will. By freedom of speech, not only are we allowed to stand up for our rights, but counteractively, we are allowed to say any negative comment that comes to mind. We are allowed to say whatever we want about other groups of people as long as we’re not posing a “physical threat” against them.
Should we amend the first amendment? I. Think. So.
Rough Translation: Christ had hope and that hope is all of us.
Wait. Is this what they meant when they said study abroad will change the way you think about your country? I wasn’t ready. And it’s just first day. Wow.
