So when I was 5 my family moved to South Africa, that was the first I had ever seen white people in real life. I remember being amazed by their skin color and hair texture, but then I learnt about apartheid in SA. I mention my time in SA because as I was reading about race politics in the Caribbean I could not help but be amazed at some of the similarities between these two places. White minority in parts of Southern Africa (Zimbabwe and South Africa) and the Caribbean is what first stood out to me as the most striking similarity. Whenever I learn about all these racial inequalities it is hard for me to separate my emotions because I always think to myself that these are my people who have been so unfairly treated. So back to white minority rule, it baffles how foreigners can come take over a people’s land and then end up governing them for centuries. Not only governing them but setting up policies that are meant to strip them of their humanity (SA and Zimbabwe). I find it interesting how this is something that is so common to all the places that white people decided to “settle in”. I remember last semester I was taking an international relations class and one of the presentation in class was on Robert Mugabe the former president of Zimbabwe. He is credited with ending white minority rule in Zimbabwe however he was also a dictator that had been in power for more than 30 years(let’s not go into that). However, my point is that the whole class presentation was on how he was such a horrible president and I sat there thinking well darn is no one going to recognize what this man did for black Africans in Zimbabwe in 1980? My question after the readings on race in parts of the Caribbean that are still under the rule of white elites, who is going to be their Mugabe and will there ever be end to white minority rule in some of these places?
In many of my classes, it has become apparent to me that I am deliberating people deliberate themselves. People trying to socialize their right in the world most and be perceived by the world in the same light they perceive themselves.
The journey of identity, both external and internal, is encompassed by philosopher Alan Watts’ quote “I believe that if we are honest with ourselves the most fascinating problem in the world is: who am I?” This is the question we spend much of our life attempting to answer. This is the question we intellectualize through paintings, films, and novels. This is the question we continue to politically disregard though it is the foundation for all our politics. For many people of color in the United States, this is the question dictated by racial stigmas, which demands that the development of who they are is dependent on how they are racially categorized.
And what is a person of color? What by the existence of that identification alone is implied about humanity? I think it means that we, as people of color, live as an additional or almost, accidental people. Why is it not enough to just say person when I speak about myself or when someone else speaks about me?
I find this so frustrating as well, it is so alarming looking at the dates when countries received their independence in comparison to when European countries came in and started their rule. Then to look at some of these places now and still see white people having such control and influence, it is simply unjust.