Something Sinister This Way Remains

Racial and cultural identity is an important part of an individual’s ability to relate and navigate the multifaceted adult world of America (and I dare say the world at large, but America specifically as a highly diverse and relatively young national entity). We have been made to feel as if embracing our racial identities is somehow Un-American; that by harkening back to our roots of some other place we are somehow that much less patriotic or dedicated to these United States—unless of course its an accepted other country to be supporting. An Italian flag flying side by side with an American flag is unquestioned, an Irish flag swaying in synch with Old Glory is of no concern. The Puerto Rican flag, however, seen wavering on a porch is somehow seen as a rag sullying the scene. Of course, the real crime is that while Italy and Ireland are sovereign and independent nations from the United States, Puerto Rico specifically is a part of the states—yet people don’t see it that way. They see brown and yellow s**** playing trumpets and congas stealing their tires. Should you see a Dominican Flag, a Haitian Flag, or worse yet: an unknown flag flying why that is downright suspicious and invites thoughts of calling…well…someone to warn them. Unless you are flying a flag from a pre-approved “white” nation your flag is an offense and flying it will leave you open to snide and rude comments to the effect of “Why don’t you just go back there then?” from your neighbors behind your back.

The nations in question are almost undeniably “other” nations in the sense of their racial heritage, though this status of “other” is immensely convoluted and confusing. Italy, for example, is a nation of brown Mediterranean people—southern Italians and Sicilians especially—yet they are accepted into the mindset and classification of “white” as readily as water into a glass. Their remaining ethnic pride is then considered to be quirky, even charming or endearing. “Whiteness” is then a slippery beast to saddle because many Semitic peoples are the same hue as Italians or Greeks but are pointed out as Arabs, Jews, “others” and their pride can be somewhat less endearing. Yes, Jews too—some will be surprised to learn that Jews are not exactly white folks though we’ve done a marvelous job and trying to assimilate into the rank and file of the increasingly tan American sense of “white”. The plight of the Muslim in this country post-911 requires no exposition—it’s a nigh endorsed xenophobic discrimination. The issue here really is not only ability to assimilate culturally, because really all immigrant groups have done this in their second generation here in a stellar manner and without fail, but also the ability to fall in an arbitrarily short spectrum of melanin before white skin becomes brown. Wonderful for the assimilation of people in that range of non-Anglo Saxon Gaels to be considered white, but then there are those of us who will never quite fit on that paint chip.

For the undeniably brown, there exists no post-racial America. There instead exists a frustratingly still-racial-about-the-wrong-things America. This is an American concerned with clothing, body language, and music volume not ideas, philosophies, and traditions. This an America concerned with statistics and hues, preconceptions of the masses versus the merit of the individual; an America that not only judges books by the covers but burns them without even reading the summary. The only thing even approaching “post-racial” in this country is the shift towards classist suppression over the same old garden variety color-based one…but even this is just a palette expansion because the majority of the racial minorities exist at the lower rungs of the class structure anyway (its why the shift is not as noticed as it might be).