Pieces of Me: Color Me Blind

[ellyssian]

I had a dream,
Last night I was blind
And I couldn't see
Color of any kind

Picture the world,
Minus a rainbow
When day becomes night,
Then where will the sun go
Dancing alone,
Just me and my shadow
Color me blind,
So I can see no evil

Extreme - Color Me Blind

In kindergarten, I came home one day - so the story goes - and could not for the life of me determine why a girl in class was being singled out and picked on. There was nothing I could find in her that made her more annoying, more abnormal, or more (or less) anything else unusual. Oh, and the coolest thing, her skin was a really dark brown, almost black...

While driving around somewhere, with some purpose long lost to time, I saw a group of kids chasing another kid. Seeing this kid about to get the crap beat out of him, I pulled the car over, abruptly, half up on the sidewalk. All kids stopped. Turned out the situation was just a classic case of bullying, but what surprised me - and pissed me off - was that the group of kids actually expected me, at two to three times their age, to join in and kick the hell out of this little kid. You see, my skin color was the same as the group, and different than their victim. That group of kids ran pretty fast once they realized I was not on their side, and once I said they had a certain amount of time in which to run, and I started counting... of course, there was a 10-15 year age difference, so I wouldn't have done a thing to them, but they didn't know that.

When I was attending Berklee, I took the T into Harvard Square, and the Dudley bus from there, down Mass Ave, over the Charles, and just past the Pike. One day a group of kids got on the bus at Kenmore Square, and they spread out, each one sitting down next to, and terrorizing, someone. One sat down next to me.

He made a point of looking at - and admiring - my watch, and other things that are, I suppose, "stealable." The others were doing likewise with their targets (for lack of a better word.) After a while, and a bunch of pointed questions about money and me being in possession of it and me wishing to hell I had some and answering fairly and casually, he stopped messing about with the watch or whatever it was at that minute.

"Aren't you afraid of me?"

"No, why I should I be?"

He made some comment about being a minority, as if that should cause some kind of alarm. I gave him a "what, are you from another planet?" kind of look, and then explained that I had long hair and there are far more guys with black skin running around than guys with long hair, so I'm definitely in the minority. That, and he wasn't acting anything like the jocks who engaged me in a brief car chase in Belmont (which ended with me pulling over behind the police cruiser, and the police cruiser pulling out and going after them...) or a faceless guy in a Sears repair service truck who called out to me one morning: "Hey, ya look like a broad! Bet ya fight like one too!" (who was reported, and perhaps tracked down, and - I'd like to think - shown the door), well - if he acted like any of those things, then I might be a little concerned about him sitting next to me.

The rest of the bus trip we talked about music, and the other bus passengers visibly relaxed when his friends joined in our conversation.

Oh, and as for the song - yeah, I know I already quoted an Extreme tune, but this one just fit perfectly. After all, I do have trouble differentiating some of the reds and blues to enough of a degree that I have been officially labeled as color blind.

Picture the world,
Without any color
You couldn't tell,
One face from the other
I don't understand
Why we fight with our brother
Color me blind
Just to love one another

Extreme - Color Me Blind

Comments

[erce.livejournal.com]

hmmmm... the thoughts I have after reading this post remind me of the thoughts that I had after seeing Crash (which I must add is a fabulous movie IMO) which was to the effect that our assumptions about one another appear to be the "devil in the details" of some of the worst aspects of human nature... or something of that sort. I'm writing with a terrible headache tonight so I may be making more or less sense than I think I am. sorry, if it's indeed less.

[eyes-of-cyrene.livejournal.com]

Two things that came to mind when I read this (by the way, excellent) piece of you...

Tuesday night I was at a workshop about organ and tissue donation. One of the things that the woman who was speaking said with regards to tissue: When skin is harvested for grafting (from someone who's donating tissue), any skin can be grafted to any person, regardless of race, because the skin that's harvested is uniform. We are all the same color until you dig deeper.

I have a post brewing about the way people choose one aspect of a person, be it race, religion, or what have you, and base their opinions and expectations of that person on that one thing. We are all a sum of our parts.

I'm glad to be getting to know you.