“Raven, tell us about yourself,” my professor asked on the first day of our public speaking class. “I am an outcast, a revolutionary, an immigrant son of a racist dad,” I replied.
At the age of 8, my father sent me away to an international British boarding school. The week before I left, I was barely able to fall asleep with all the thoughts running through my mind of the activities I would be doing with my new friends. Unfortunately, the first week of school, my fantasized reality shattered into a million pieces. I remember approaching a classmate named Aaron and asking him to play. “Hey Aaron*, let’s play basketball after our classes,” I suggested. “No! Go play with your kind,” he replied. My young mind did not quite grasp the meaning of “my kind,” and I was left confused. I spent multiple nights laying on my bed, wondering why Aaron didn’t like me. Is it because of the way I look? It can’t be! No matter how hard I tried, I could not find the answer. The common factor was that Aaron looked different than me, and I looked different than him. This was the first time I was exposed to colorism.
Over the next couple of months, I began to recognize a similar trend of avoidance involving students who looked just like me. One evening, a group of my classmates — including myself — were late to the evening study period, and the warden made us run three laps on the field at the end of the corridor; however, after we were finished, the warden commanded me to do an extra lap. I immediately stood up and confronted him: “Why am I supposed to run an extra round? Is it because of who I am?” He ignored my question and replied, “Because I want you to.” I knew something was not right, even at that age. This was the first time I was exposed to oppression.
As someone with a Catholic background, I was expected to be religiously Catholic by the school’s administration. There was always a presence of faith in God within me, but I was not devoutly religious; I wanted to look outside the box, and I was fascinated to learn about the various cultural backgrounds of my friends. My principal, who was also a priest, demanded that I be present at morning mass every day. One Sunday, he asked me to recite a verse from the bible, which I was unable to do. My principal then struck me to the floor and hit me until I could not take it anymore. This was the first time I was exposed to bigotry.
Years later, I graduated and moved back home. One night, at a family gathering, my father and I were sitting next to each other at the dining table when he spoke, “People of the Islamic kind are always the same — ignorant and violent.” Immediately, Aaron’s* vivid statement about “playing with my kind” echoed in my head, and I could not keep quiet. “Why do you say so? Is it because they look different from you?” I argued. It all seemed absurd and bigoted to me: how can a person love their own family and culture and yet hate others? The fire of activism that had ignited in me at school had transformed into a blaze with my father’s homecoming reception. I realized I had jumped from one land of discrimination to another.
Discrimination is a boulder that prevents marginalized and socially neglected people from getting a chance at life. Without that boulder, a black mother encourages her son to start a political career without taking his skin color into account. Without that boulder, an Immigrant Hispanic father believes his daughter can make a stance against injustice without the risk of losing her life before her first day of college. Without that boulder, a Muslim sister trusts that her brother can follow his dream of being a news anchor without worrying about his first name being Mohammed. Without that boulder, there is the collective chance for the growth and development of a better, refined humanity. Discrimination crushes that little hope for each of those individuals.
*Fictional name masked for confidentiality and privacy.
