it's painful

As we’ve been looking at race in this class, I am struck again and again by how it truly is system. Like Tatum's conveyor belt analogy, we can either do nothing and move along or we must walk in the opposite direction.

Personally, I have wanted to get off the conveyor belt altogether and run onto an airplane and fly away. I’ve never felt that America is a post-racial society, but I do think it’s a way of escape. I’ve wanted to escape. The realization of a colonization of the mind, as the Adams text mentioned, can be a painful one. The Racism and Immigration timeline reminded me of a Native American history class I took a couple years ago here at UT. When I saw the history of our nation through the lens of how it affected the Native Americans, I was shocked and pained. I would walk out of that classroom in a daze, realizing that I had been taught to think about Columbus Day, Thanksgiving, or Westward expansion in a certain way. I had been given only certain facts. I had been given a sanitized view. In that experience, when I realized that my own mind had been colonized, it was painful. I knew it wasn’t my fault, but it still was painful. There were times when I was in pain at the thought that I am American.

The Puzzle of Race article made an all-encompassing statement about race: race is a key causative factor in the creation of the modern world. I never thought about it like that and honestly if I only thought about this modern world, I would be overwhelmed. We live in a modern world and race very much has played a role in creating this system. I don’t know how this fits into any of the theories that we talk about, but I know there’s a Creator who transcends any modern world. There’s a Creator who made us and I have to know this perspective. I know there’s more to me than man’s definition, even my own definition.

Growing up and even now, I look at a tree and wonder at how it grows simply. I wonder at how as I have grown I’ve had to develop theories about my own development and it didn’t feel simple at all. Social identities aren’t oppressive, Adams’ text pointed out, but the forming of my social identity in this nation hasn’t been an easy or even an enjoyable process. Talking about it helps and listening to others helps and as silly as it sounds, simply looking at trees helps too.