Week 3: Tip of my Tongue

Seminar Thoughts: Towards the end, the topic came to defining racism. And like I WISH I had said what was on the front of my mind. At Highline College, I took my first class with a social justice focus. It was a coordinated studies course and on my transcript it was split into two classes: Critical Thinking for Equity and American Diversity. Each week we read a chapter on a form of oppression. During the first week they defined racism for us. How I understood it was this: all white people are racist because they benefit from racism. That’s how I understood all the forms of oppression, by pointing out who benefits from the system and who doesn’t. Now, my thoughts on these definitions have changed. Because to say all white people are racist assumes a pretty rigid boundary and it leaves little room for nuance. Or maybe “white people” is used generally like when we say “I hate white people” or something like that. (For example, I always say I Hate Men and I don’t mean I hate each individual men personally and I don’t treat and look at men with absolute hatred. I mean, I wouldn’t be partnered with a man if I hated men unless if I just wanted to marinate in the hate every single day.) Anyway, I wanted to share that definition in seminar because I think it gets people to think in many different ways and I just wanted to throw a definition out there. And hear people critique it, react to it, disagree – dissect – unpack it. But I didn’t I kept my mouth shut like I usually do lol. It’s a problem because I had that urge to speak and I just held back. Sometimes in seminar when I actually do speak it just feels like a performance and I’m not being authentic. Also in life in general and specifically in this class I feel like I share a lot of the same views as other students but they all just words things much smarter and better than I ever could. It’d take me a long time to share my thoughts in a clear way.

But that’s just a prime example of me diminishing myself in an accepting and open class. Like ugh. My goal is to actually say something, I’m not even going to put a time deadline on it because I know I’m working towards it. The discomfort feeling is absolutely real. I just wish I could believe in my words more.

Anyway, this week we read Donald Duk and I really enjoyed this book. I felt like this could/should be made into a movie. The imagery, the storyline, the history packed into it would make such a riveting story. The dream sequences and the dialogue would just come alive onscreen. The character of Donald was so real in his thoughts and behavior, he wasn’t someone to root for but you wanted him to be okay in the end. By the end, when he stood up for himself to his racist teacher and recognized the contributions of his ancestors closed the book real nicely. It was great. When life happened over the weekend and we were gone for the most part of Sunday I was behind in my reading. But on Thursday I practically read the whole book and I just had a good time. I’m glad I got to finish it because it was a nice wholesome story with a focus on family, heritage and coming of age.

General Life Thoughts:  It’s Saturday 11:20PM right now and on my mind is just kind of fried. I drank so many cups of tea it has lost its flavor. I still need to read and then I can go to sleep. Tomorrow I hope to do more reading and research. Also tomorrow Jackson and I are going to clean the apartment and that’s going to be an adventure. I just hope that like I can get a couple of episodes of Days of our Lives in before the weekend is done. It kind of sucks how the NBC website/app deletes episodes after a certain amount of time. Ugh.