Left to my own worldview, I typically don´t even classify people in my mind by ¨race.¨
I´m much more likely to discriminate against you based on your beliefs...I know plenty of amazing ¨white people,¨ like the duo who have so graciously offered me this platform today, but flat-Earthers are intellectually subhuman and should be removed from the general public for re-training.
Man, I´m a little cranked up these days...I´ll turn it down to like a 6.
Yeah tho, the point of my opening riff is that here are so many more significant details to a given Earthling that for me, the color of a person´s skin ranks around the color of their shirt when playing the Sherlock Holmes game with random members of the public: sure, a given shade could say something...but also, maybe not. Just another stat on the trading card: male, speaks English, right-handed, permanent suntan...right?
Solipsismaside, it´s become impossible to ignore since about Trayvon or so that the color of my skin is a significant detail to OTHER PEOPLE...perception being reality, that means it is a very significant detail about who I am as a person.
George Zimmerman certainly recognized the specific shade of the teenage boy he stalked and murdered on that rainy night, even in the most violent seconds of his pathetic, overlong life secure in the belief that he could leave this black body in the streets with the United States legal system standing behind him thanks to a lifetime of reassurance.
Spoiler alert: he was correct to believe this..
Watching that tragedy unfold from my suddenly divided workplace (imagine thinking there is another side to that story!) along with witnessing the naked racism unearthed in everyday society by the ascension of former President Obama, quickly made me realize that I was not entirely welcome in the nation of my birth.
Of course, my parents had The Talks with me that so many black parents have to, how life will be just a little bit harder around these parts because brown, but these were the years that cemented my eventual departure from the Old Country.
For the record, my ticket was officially punched around the time The Living Embodiment of White Privilege, a failed businessman and game show host, was taken seriously as a Presidential candidate...I arrived here in México in February of 2016.
Since that time, there have been many validations of my Decision.
Guy did end up winning the election, in case you missed it…pretty sure the entire executive branch is compromised, so that´s cool.
The plague struck, and brilliant armed civilians stormed state capitals in protest of basic protective measures.
My good judgment in abandoning the US was even reflected in something as simple as Ann Cooper (aka Dog Park K****) knowingly brandishing the power of the white supremacist American nation-state in response to the most trivial perceived slight from someone she considered beneath her.
Still, to say I had arrived in paradise would be an overstatement...sure, it was nice to get out of the burning house and take a walk to the beach, but even in my new and beautiful surroundings it was almost impossible to escape the pervasive contagion of white supremacy.
For example, Puerto Vallarta is home to a large community of people who call themselves ¨expats,¨ which for me--someone with a keen eye for such things--makes a certain statement of superiority in and of itself...someone who goes TO a poorer country and someone who comes FROM a poorer country get two different names, isn´t that cute?
I´m a writer, and was always broke, so I´m an ¨immigrant¨ too...but you get it.
By any name, the social stratification was clear. Most of the area´s prime real estate is only affordable for those who can buy more than one home, with the legion of locals that keep the attractions running and all the beer fridges full shoved rudely up into the towering hills and sprawling void beyond the carefully developed city center.
Here, moderately wealthy Americans and Canadians can take up the White Man´s Burden, leading these noble savages out of the wilderness to a lifetime of service at the newest resort, where the privileged can snap their fingers at a teenage girl for a refill on their mimosa and yell at a pool boy for extra towels.
Dirt roads and tin roofs surround a nexus of American chains...it´s basically colonialism with work uniforms, all because a couple of movie stars arrived on these shores about half a century ago and decided ¨yeah, this place should be A Place.¨
Seriously, look it up...it´s kind of a wild story, but not why we´re here today.
Today some establishments in town openly cater to foreigners only, many venues are priced completely out of the realm of everyday earners, and disrespecting service staff is shamefully common in this community of retirees and kinda-riches.
Entitled vacationers who would ask if they should use pesos or ¨real money,¨ who demand Mexicans speak perfect English in service to them...far from universal, but shockingly common. The reality that many people that profess to enjoy life in this country really just love the idea of stretchy dollars and a servile, dark-skinned underclass was often as obvious as daylight in this sunny city by the sea.
A mixture of bemusement and disdain was palpable in many white-dominated environments, but sometimes the message was more direct than others.
Once, at a party hosted by a local ¨ex-pat¨, one woman thought it would be hilarious to suddenly start shouting ¨get away, black man!¨ as I walked into the room. She must have found my colorful sashes threatening...I guess it would have been a funnier joke if that exact attitude and the society that supports it couldn't leave me face down in the street in some places.
The episode was emblematic of practically my entire life experience...being made to feel like The Other, pretty much anywhere...after a while, all you can do is lean into it.
Eventually finding some public-facing promo work, I soon found myself in a singularly strange position. Here I was, the exact kind of person much of my prospective clientele had left the country to avoid, intruding on their spaces as something of a novelty.
I felt their fake smiles, the corrosive cordiality shown purely because I was the guy from the thing, the delightful Seussian creature here to take some pictures and make things a little more colorful. The Entertainment to go with The Help.
I think people forgot there was a guy under the face paint...I damn sure didn´t.
Nope, that guy was still black wherever he went. Once, during a shakedown, the friendly officer noticed that I was freaking right the **** out while being questioned and amicably laughed off the source of my concern: ¨Relax buddy, it´s not like this is America.¨
Please read that again: ¨[American cops shoot people like you, around the world it is known. Not like you´re going to end up dead this time, pretty lucky choice of country man! That´ll be 15 bucks please.] ¨
Suffice it to say it took more than a couple of grams to smoke off that anxiety.
..but yeah, that´s how it went for a year or two, trying to ignore the feeling that this was all there was, a somewhat comfortable and enjoyable existence with the caveat that change was not on the menu.
Sure, I didn´t have to be in the office at 8:30 Monday morning, but here I was still hoping for the thinnest tolerance from people who probably also thought George Zimmerman deserves to be walking around eating cheese fries and making memories today.
More small-minded humanoids who would be nice as long as I made them smile, but would also be happy to demonstrate that I did not matter.
My saving grace was that as an adamant absurdist, I believe that existence itself has no objective point--there IS no fairness, no justice, only stuff--and so having a few beers and enjoying the ride to the dystopian cyberpunk white supremacist future seemed like as good a use of time as anything.
...and then, 4 uniformed gang members in Minneapolis set the entire world on fire.
At a police officer´s glance, and in my mind´s eye, George Floyd could have easily been me. I saw myself slowly dying on the asphalt, a peace officer´s knee on the back of my neck strangling the lifeblood out of my system while two others made sure I could do nothing to resist and a fourth kept concerned civilians from preventing my ignominious demise.
So pardon the **** out of me if I´m beyond overjoyed to see that people around the world have had enough.
I support the demonstrations currency unfolding in the US with the entirety of my being, the depth and fullness of my mind and soul, and furthermore I could not give the foremost **** what enduring justice costs your stupid economy that you decided long ago that I should have have almost zero stake in.
Nothing in society works until it works for everyone...let every police station, sports stadium, movie theatre, office building, fulfillment center, theme park, and other piece of civil décor be burned to cinders before We the Society tolerate a single repeat of George Floyd´s state-sanctioned murder.
There were certainly people that were surprised to hear me, normally a staunch supporter of parties and pacifism, suddenly morphed into a masked revolutionary in what seems like the space of a few months...to those people, I suggest improve your understanding of the world around you and how it affects the people you are forced to share it with.
My anger at the structure of society is not something I´m emphasizing now, but something I have had to repress for a very long time. I suspect people believe that my gregarious outlook and overall sunny disposition is one borne of ignorance, the blissful grin of an idle mind...allow me to forever disabuse you of that notion.
Being happy and black at the same time on this side of the planet is HARD ******* WORK.
It is a constant process, an almost militant commitment to gratitude for life´s small victories. I've thought about which picture I want the news to use if I´m murdered by police. I´ve developed a rich and fulfilling internal life in part as a defense mechanism for the world´s more unsavory realities. Hell...I have had to face the fact that I should probably hate you and everyone who looks like you.
Yeah, it would actually be pretty easy for me to make a case to myself to DESPISE ¨white people.¨
I think it is important to understand that my conscious decision to embrace ALL of the people in the world around me is not in ignorance of what has happened before--indeed, is still happening even as the cities of our planet burn in righteous condemnation.
It is a foregoing of vengeance, a sacrifice in the interest of maintaining a world that works for everyone that has to live in it. The people that designed this toxic system will NEVER get what they deserve for inflicting it upon the peoples they continue to victimize with warped and rapacious methods, and should feel blessed beyond belief that buildings and businesses are the target of this long-brewing backlash in full bloom.
The same way so many breathless op-eds in recent years compared men to bowls of poisonous Skittles, insisting that no sane woman would take of this treacherous indulgence at the risk of their dignity, body, and life, a cursory glance at history should dictate that I (and every thinking black person on the face of the planet) dedicate my life to the destruction of whiteness and the fall of Babylon...but because my deepest interest is in a brighter future, that is not the path I chose, nor one I endorse.
You´re welcome.
