What we don't talk about

I would never claim that I don’t “see” race. I most certainly saw it when I stepped off of the NYC metro at the 125th Street stop, ascended cigarette butt-littered concrete stairs, and arrived face-to-face with a bright red awning reading “West Harlem Fried Chicken.” I turned and started down the sidewalk, dragging my luggage past a man with dreadlocks missing two teeth and a woman wearing high-heeled sneakers, pushing a stroller with one hand and pulling along a wobbly toddler other. To my right, an illuminated vertical sign announced that I was passing “Pasquela’s Salon.” Up ahead, several boys huddled under a purple shimmer-y awning labeled “Sylvia’s: Queen of Soul Food.” Good-bye Newark airport, I thought. Good-bye CVS and Borders and Starbucks. Hello Harlem.

I would be the first to say that I felt out-of-place as a white twenty-two year old, wearing jeans, a fleece, and a bouncing ponytail, dragging my suitcase around Harlem at 6 p.m. Sure, I went to a half-black, half-white school district for six years and studied abroad for a semester, but the more I travel, observe, and interact with people of other races and cultures, the more I realize how little I truly know or understand about the tangible differences there are between us. Race is such a touchy subject, everyone likes to immediately go for the feel-good, “everyone is the same underneath” appeal—which, to some degree, is true. We all share the same degree of humanity, the same essential human desires and raw emotional qualities. We are all capable of suffering or rejoicing, of feeling envy or gratitude or sorrow or relief. However, there are fundamental differences that, oftentimes, everyone seems to not so much ignore as to avoid. The more I recognize this avoidance in myself, the less cultural understanding I realize I have. It makes me wonder how equipped I am to handle certain situations.

For instance, I have never thought twice about dating someone of a different race. It simply has never crossed my mind as an important or deciding factor. However, when I stop to consider it more seriously, there would almost certainly be repercussions from the outside world if such a situation came to pass. Say, for example, I dated an Asian boy. I don’t know this for a fact, but I would anticipate that most people would expect him to be extremely academically intelligent, while perhaps lacking English skills. If I dated a black guy, on the other hand (and please excuse my choice of language—it just strikes me as more “real” than saying African-American, since no one says German-American or Italian-American or Spanish-American), some people would pat me on the back for "crossing racial boundaries" or some such perceived “achievement”, while other people would abhor the very notion of dating someone so “different”, for who-knows-what reason.

Plus, I have no idea what the guy's family would think. Would they treat me like some sort of foreign outsider? How could I ever become part of their traditions and customs without seeming like an imposter? This is how I feel a lot of times (like an imposter, that is) when I interact with people of different cultures or even from different geographical areas of the United States. I often innately pick up how they talk, and then when I catch myself imitating their speech patters, I start to worry that they think I've been making fun of them. I don't mean to--it just happens.

Can a white person use Ebonics without being labeled a “wigger?” Can a black person play Scrabble or listen to soft rock without being called an “Oreo?” Do these things matter, or should they matter? I had a conversation with my cousin while I was staying with her in NYC concerning the importance of clothing as a representation of status. In certain cultures, wearing the right kind of shoes represents a specific sort of stigma. You don’t step on someone’s shoes. Maybe that would be equivalent to spitting in their face, or maybe to tearing up a page of their notes, I don’t know. But I remember those pristine white sneakers with the laces—untied—tucked under the big white tongue, from high school. Me and “mine,” we didn’t value that. Some of us may have bought expensive footwear, some may not have, but no one paid any attention. It just goes to show that value systems are different. I am finding out more and more that I don’t know what those value systems are. I want to know, but more than wanting to know, I want to understand. Maybe by understanding, I will find that small little way to slip inside the system.