It Happened All Over the World...

Colonialism... it's not dead yet... it's still happening and its disastrous effects will never go away...

I don't know how many of you have actually ever had the opportunity to look at your world with new eyes..

I came here for the first time in August of 2002 and stayed for three months... in the north end of Seattle, spent a lot of time in the U-District and down town in the CBD...

And even there, walking the streets seeing new sights every day, I was struck how down trodden even well dressed African American people looked...

They appeared to be participating in society - nice clothes and shoes, on their way to or from an office or whatever, but they all - without exception - walked with their heads down, not willing/wanting to make eye contact... 

There was absolutely no pride in their stride...

I was shocked... This is what I expected (as an outsider) to find in the south of the US 50 years ago, 100 years ago - not in Seattle in 2002... 

And from what I can tell, nothing has changed 9 years later...

And then, of course, there is the tragedy of genocide carried out on the First Peoples of this land, the repercussions of which are still so obvious today...

So where does this shame and humiliation carried in the body language come from?

Could it at all, even a tiny little bit, have anything to do with having to turn one's back on one's origins, roots, culture and "act white" to get a foothold in this society?

Could it have anything to do with being expected to abandon one's own heritage and conform to and perform in an "alien" environment?

I wish that some of you here could participate in the "blue eye-brown eye" experiment, carried out by Jane Elliott in 1968... (see the link)

Jane Elliott - A Class Divided

And we wonder why there is an achievement gap in American schools, a gap between white student performance and the performance of native, black and latino children...

Walk in someone else's shoes for a mile or two - use your imagination...

I know what it's like to go to school and not be able to speak English...

and to be thought of as less than because of that...

and having to work hard at school because I wanted to be accepted and to meet the family push to use education to get out of poverty/climb the social ladder/achieve acceptance, and at the same time, underachieving (I was quite 'bright') to avoid more of the limelight...

and having a name that no one could pronounce...

and having cultural slurs hurled at me - ones I didn't understand...

and being ambushed on the way to or from school and being hit, kicked, punched and beaten with pieces of wood...

and not having my origins or culture valued, recognised even...

and not feeling at home in my native culture, not knowing my history because not enough of it got transmitted/maintained in the process of meeting the demands of assimilation...

I understand this issue because really, I'm not Dutch, I'm not a Kiwi, I'm not an Australian, I'm not an American...

I think too much like a Dutch person to be called/recognised/accepted as a Kiwi, and too much like a Kiwi to be accepted as Dutch...

My Dutch relatives recognise my Dutch blood but I don't fit into the culture and our conversation can't reach really deep levels because although I "feel" what they are talking about (it's in my blood/DNA and comes out in how I dress/decorate my house/approach problems etc), I don't have enough personal experience within the culture to contribute meaningfully ...

My Kiwi friends say I sound too much like an Australian, my Aussie friends say I sound too much like a Kiwi and my American friends think I'm British...

I like that I have had this diversity in my life - it's given me many opportunities and experiences and understandings I might not have had, but there is a rootedness missing...what the children in trans-racial adoption families talk about...

Many other immigrant children I have talked too have exactly the same experience... and it doesn't change as you become an adult...

For some - when they go back to their native country, they feel like they have come home; for others, they feel even more alienated...

Many people here seem to have no sense of the 'other' and blithely put forward pontifications that have no basis in the realities of those 'other' to them...
 

So many people cannot allow others to be as they are...

It seems to be a case of assimilate or die... "You're in America now, you're in the west.   What's wrong with you?   If you'd just be and live like us, you'd be fine..."

If only those others amongst us would do what good "white" people did, we would all be well and happy and successful at school... 

In fact, we would all be "white" despite our skin colours and cultural heritages...

Yes - kids are adaptable and flexible and capable of learning whatever they need to survive in this world...

But I say the system and society ought to adapt to the needs of the people, not the other way round...

DON'T ASK CHILDREN TO LEAVE BEHIND, ABANDON THEIR NATIVE CULTURE, don't teach them within a racist, eurocentric, standardised curriculum and process...