I have a dream...
...that we will one day live in a nation where we are not judged by the color of our skin, but by which clique we choose to belong to
By: Nick Jaynes
Issue date: 5/11/07 Section: Opinion
I was walking through campus the other day and saw a pack of hipster folk standing around, talking. As I walked by, I made note of their tight pants, disheveled yet perfectly placed hair, neat-o sneakers and messenger bags. But what I also noticed was a lack of ethnic diversity in their group. It was just a bunch of white kids.
In our modern American culture, white people are provided the opportunity to be whatever they want to be, whether it is a jock, a goth, a prep, a punk, a hipster, a hippie, etc. But people of different ethnic backgrounds, often referred to in this country as "minorities," cannot really be defined by anything other than their race or national origin in the eyes of those around them.
Take for example a story I heard from a fellow student. This student was recalling how in one of his classes the only African-American student in the whole class would fall asleep, every day, in the third row, right in front of the professor. "C'mon!" the fellow student said to his friends, "How do you fall asleep like that right in front of the professor?"
That is where our culture has (or has not) progressed to, and it's sad. That sleepy student wasn't just a guy. He was "the black guy." He wasn't anything but his race to the storyteller. You may see a white girl sleeping in class and she becomes the "hippie girl," but you see a Persian girl sleeping in another class, dressed the same as the other girl, and she is "the Middle Eastern girl." Her skin supercedes her values, dress and personality.
The only major ethnic group that doesn't suffer this automatic categorization is the generic "Asian" ethnicity. Every once in a while you'll see the Asian emo kid or the Asian hipster. He's still Asian, but he's allowed to be part of these new subcultures, because overall, Asian kids are gaining ground in white culture. This may be because Asians are the closest to white people in skin color. Perhaps this is why it would appear they are more easily able to transcend their race and find themselves in another social category.
In our modern American culture, white people are provided the opportunity to be whatever they want to be, whether it is a jock, a goth, a prep, a punk, a hipster, a hippie, etc. But people of different ethnic backgrounds, often referred to in this country as "minorities," cannot really be defined by anything other than their race or national origin in the eyes of those around them.
Take for example a story I heard from a fellow student. This student was recalling how in one of his classes the only African-American student in the whole class would fall asleep, every day, in the third row, right in front of the professor. "C'mon!" the fellow student said to his friends, "How do you fall asleep like that right in front of the professor?"
That is where our culture has (or has not) progressed to, and it's sad. That sleepy student wasn't just a guy. He was "the black guy." He wasn't anything but his race to the storyteller. You may see a white girl sleeping in class and she becomes the "hippie girl," but you see a Persian girl sleeping in another class, dressed the same as the other girl, and she is "the Middle Eastern girl." Her skin supercedes her values, dress and personality.
The only major ethnic group that doesn't suffer this automatic categorization is the generic "Asian" ethnicity. Every once in a while you'll see the Asian emo kid or the Asian hipster. He's still Asian, but he's allowed to be part of these new subcultures, because overall, Asian kids are gaining ground in white culture. This may be because Asians are the closest to white people in skin color. Perhaps this is why it would appear they are more easily able to transcend their race and find themselves in another social category.
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Julian
posted 5/11/07 @ 5:02 PM PST
"Is this racism? Or is this just a lack of white personal identity, which fogs the perception of everyone around us?"
It's you.
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