Can Black ever be White?

When I was growing up in a Canadian city that was predominantly white during those days, elders in my family would tell me that I needed to work harder than my white friends and get better grades than them to have an equal chance in the job market as them. “If you and Sarah both go for the same job and have the same grades, she would get the job,” an elder would explain, “the only way you would get the job is if you have better grades than her.” “Why is that?” I would innocently ask. “Because she is white and you are not,” came the reply.

This is 1990s that I speak of. Not so long ago. I was consistently made aware of my skin color by family members because of the prejudices they suffered. They didn’t want their children to go through the same injustices that they did.

multi-color-ism

They didn’t want their children to be told to ‘go back where they came from‘. I, on the other hand, happily unaware of their realities didn’t think that it would ever happen. Not anymore at least. How could Rick and Sarah (my closest friends at the time) be any different than me? We enjoyed the same books, shared the same jokes, had similar interests … how were we different? I didn’t want to see any difference because there was none. I didn’t want to accept that I was not like them. Skin color did not count as a difference, I was certain. That’s what schools taught us. Racism was a thing of the past. Elders were just being delusional or at least that’s what I thought until the day when my cousin of maybe 5 came running to me in the playground I’d taken him to and said, “Roo Di, that boy there doesn’t let me play on the swings. He told me to ‘go back where I came from‘.”

I stood there. Frozen. This was in Summer 2004. I clearly remember. With a 5 year old tugging on to my hand not knowing what he had just done to me, I saw my world collapse for a brief moment. Like in Bollywood films, my times with Rick and Sarah in school and white friends in uni and white friends at the time flashed before my eyes. I couldn’t have imagined any one of them saying any such thing to me. And here he was … a little white boy … barely maybe 10 … in a relatively upscale neighborhood … telling my brown cousin to ‘go back where he came from‘ … not knowing that his ancestors too came from somewhere else.

Ironically, my cousin was from Vancouver (not the city I am from) and he assumed that’s where he was being told to go to. When I took him back home later that evening, he told everybody that there was some bully in the playground who told him to go back to Vancouver. I didn’t change his truth either. Neither had I bothered to go talk sense to the young lad who had offered my cousin the precious advice. I still don’t know if I should have. There was no point, I thought. It would’ve just caused unnecessary trouble especially since I hadn’t actually heard him say the words. My little cousin’s words were all I had to go with. So, I let it go. That was 2004  and now it is 2008. America is going into its Presidential Elections with a part-black candidate as one of the candidates for the first time in American history. It is most definitely a moment in history that, like so many others, I am proud to witness. Barack Obama along with his wife, Michelle Obama, proudly stands as a symbol of change … as a symbol of initiation of times when skin color shall no longer judge the value of an individual.

Despite all this positivity, the cynic in me is restless. I read on a liberal website someplace that no black man can win in USA until the white majority is ready for it, and sadly, the cynic agrees. This view can also be manipulated as that a black man can only win in America if he is a Republican party nominee. A black person as a Republican party nominee? you scoff … well, surely it seems improbable but certainly it is not impossible.

It is not long now before America elects its President. The cynic will happily admit defeat if Barack Obama wins but if John McCain is chosen as President, the biased cynic will not accredit McCain’s superiority as a candidate but solely his skin color. I am not an American citizen yet but always find myself drawn into the political mayhem here every four years. Part of the reason probably is because there is nothing interesting about Canadian politics. Everyone around the globe looks at US every four years to choose the best leader for it’s just not the destiny of America that depends on his leadership but of the entire world at some level. The stakes are high for the Republicans this time considering the unpopularity of the past 8 years but John McCain would still win. Oops did I just let that slip? I was meaning to remain unbiased in this post but seems like I can’t help but be biased. McCain will win no matter how ridiculously ill-planned his plans for the country might be. There is no reason for me to listen to what he has to say. I can watch his speeches while U2 blasts in headphones encompassing my ears. I don’t need to hear him. I can see. I can see that he is white and that’s all I care about.

Now he has chosen an ex-beauty queen, mother of five, pro-guns, anti-abortion, pro-abstinence, born again Christian, governor of a land up north somewhere that’s hidden in snow most of the year and with negligible population, Sarah Palin, who believes that climate change is not man made and that polar bears should not be put on endangered species list, as his Vice President. Media is now talking of her lack of experience in politics and especially international relations which the Republican campaign office had been accusing Obama of before Palin entered the picture. Another rumor doing the rounds of internet is that her fifth child is in fact her teen-aged unwedded daughter’s child who Sarah Palin showed the world as her own to save her daughter the disgrace. However, Palin family refuted that rumor by announcing that their daughter, Bristol (17 year old), is now 5 months pregnant and will marry the father of the baby soon. If she is 5 months pregnant, then Bristol couldn’t have given birth to the ‘fifth baby’ who was born in April. Internet rumormongers, however, claim that the Palin family is lying about the current pregnancy to hide the truth about the ‘fifth baby’ to avoid any damage to the campaign.

Point of that story is that despite ALL of that, McCain and Palin are still going to win. Simply because they are white. :) Had any of this happened to the Democrat nominee Barack Obama, the Republicans’ family values team and their moral police would’ve buried Obama and his family alive by now. In Palin’s case, all they are saying is that Sarah Palin and her family believe in the ‘family values’ and therefore, shall support Bristol’s decision to have the baby and continue their support as she marries the father of the baby. Ahem.

Perhaps I am being too cynical. Perhaps American public is intelligent enough to actually listen to what both the candidates have to say before making their decision. Perhaps it will be an election based on policies and platforms of both candidates and not their skin color or religious affiliations. Perhaps I will be proved wrong. In fact, I want to be proved wrong. Will I be proved wrong?

We’ll find out … in 2 months … 2 months before Bristol’s baby is due.

(Photo by me. I dedicate it to SidhuSaaheb and Reema who appreciated the first photo I took with the new camera) ;p