kermit had it wrong - being green is a piece of cake. it's being brown that's tough.
it’s far from easy being brown these days. though i’m not sure it ever really was. not on this side of the world anyway. don’t worry, this isn’t one of those blogs. i’m not one of those crazy radicals. (just plain crazy, maybe.) i'm writing about what it's really like to be brown.
for the record, i’m not speaking for ‘my people.’ quite frankly, i’m so confused, i’m not even sure who my people are!
let’s start there, why don’t we? everyone else gets to be a colour, so why don’t we? there’s black, there’s white and then the rest of us...all conveniently lumped together under the heading of asian. anyone been to asia lately? it’s a pretty big continent. in fact, it’s huge. how fair is it that all of us people from different countries, of different cultures are crammed together under one label? why not call us miscellaneous and be done with it? or better yet, other.
it’s probably best to tell a story in chronological order. but let’s start with a committee meeting i attended in what was a quite white environment. i thought this was a meeting of like-minded anti-discrimination activists, but turned out to be a gathering of politically correct, um, people, who were just trying to make sure everyone had the right labels. this is where i learned i am, and should refer to myself as, asian. imagine my surprise. and unlike most surprises, this one wasn’t pleasant.
it’s far from easy being brown these days. though i’m not sure it ever really was. not on this side of the world anyway. don’t worry, this isn’t one of those blogs. i’m not one of those crazy radicals. (just plain crazy, maybe.) i'm writing about what it's really like to be brown.
for the record, i’m not speaking for ‘my people.’ quite frankly, i’m so confused, i’m not even sure who my people are!
let’s start there, why don’t we? everyone else gets to be a colour, so why don’t we? there’s black, there’s white and then the rest of us...all conveniently lumped together under the heading of asian. anyone been to asia lately? it’s a pretty big continent. in fact, it’s huge. how fair is it that all of us people from different countries, of different cultures are crammed together under one label? why not call us miscellaneous and be done with it? or better yet, other.
it’s probably best to tell a story in chronological order. but let’s start with a committee meeting i attended in what was a quite white environment. i thought this was a meeting of like-minded anti-discrimination activists, but turned out to be a gathering of politically correct, um, people, who were just trying to make sure everyone had the right labels. this is where i learned i am, and should refer to myself as, asian. imagine my surprise. and unlike most surprises, this one wasn’t pleasant.
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