Being brown sucks

[Solid-]

I am from an area in the North East that is predominantly white. I also attend a University that many people consider snobbish, or waspy. (Honestly, the product of ignorance in my opinion, but anyway ...) What I wanted to say is that I have not seen any racism or criticism, and none of my brown or black friends have ever said anything about it to me.

 

I think you may be projecting your own insecurities and self-hatred onto others. I could give you a bunch of examples of x black/brown person doing this, but I don't think that would help. Do you honestly think that you experience discrimination on a daily basis? Could you give an example?

 

I think my main problem is not hatred of being brown, but rather wishing i was white

[HellFrost666]

im degrading myself because my color is a defection of human beings.

 

And who among us has the right to decide what is a "defection"?

[sophie274]

No i dont but i have been opened to the world of how being brown is horrible and a defect of humanity

 

Can you explain this? Why is it a defect of humanity? Why is it horrible?

[Weeblie]

im degrading myself because my color is a defection of human beings. The worst part about being brown is nevermind id start a racist argument here. You wanna know a funny story. This has happened to me twice the same scenario. Whenever i travel, i always go with my faily. So once we were going thru security check, and the offical there stopped me and said we have to do a random security check ( lol what BS), and then my dad said i was with the family, and the offical was like ohh ok, you just fit the profile of a suspected terrorist. They are not supposed to say that, but he did, in front of me and my family. This has happened to me twice, being degraded to a piece of crap because of your color in front of your loved ones

 

Eh it happens. They went through my luggage at customs when I got back from Europe. Opened some gifts and ruined one of them. Whatever. Doesn't mean I'm a defective human being. Is it degrading? Not really. Just irritating. Besides they don't always have the brightest people working in the security department. My friend had a situation where he had sugar packets in his pocket. The security guard found them, opened up a packet and swallowed the contents, then said, "yep that's sugar alright"!

 

I mean who does stupid crap like that? Yeah it sucks, but if I look back to when I was a little kid...things are so much better. No one asks me if I'm white or if I'm black anymore because they finally realize I'm neither one of those things. They ask me other irritating questions, like...what are you? But they're learning. People are definitely way more open-minded. Shoot. Things are even better than when I was in highschool. So I'm optimistic that things will only continue to improve.

 

If you really can't stand it in Miami...maybe you might want to move to another city? New York is pretty diverse. Parts of Europe are awesome, like London and Amsterdam.

[Solid-]

Can you explain this? Why is it a defect of humanity? Why is it horrible?

 

Im going to be completely serious and uncensored about this post im about to make. Mother natures diversity is beautiful, but being brown in our world/society is like being the scum of the earth. When youre brown you are either a latino or the mexican who is a dumb physical laborer and the rest of the ignorant sterotypes, or your a muslim/arab who will terrorize people. People think like that and it sucks. NO ONE can deny this because you know that a majority of people think like this or almost all and im talking deep inside.

[Solid-]

When things like this happen to you more then 5 times, i dont think its a coincidence and dont just happen randomly and take every eigth person like the FAA says.

[Solid-]

I think im just going to commit suicide by marinating myself in a bath of bleach that way i can be white forever. No i am not joking.

[CarnelianButterfly]

Most of my family is dark, my brother however is blond and blue eyed. He's still my brother, I could care less what color he is. I used to be mistaken as being Mexican, I didn't care, I'm a brilliant woman and I happen to have some natural skin color.

 

My friend is Palestinian, he's always stopped in the airports, do they know he was a founder of a campus organization to promote peace in the middle east? No, they just see him as a color, but he doesn't care because he knows that it keeps him safe.

 

You think being white will solve all your trouble, it won't my blond, blue eyed brother is a community college drop out and has been arrested several times. Me, the darker child, has a BS in engineering and almost done with my MS. Hmm, wonder how that happened.

[HellFrost666]

For you to say that a majority of white people think this way is still stereotyping.

[sophie274]

Im going to be completely serious and uncensored about this post im about to make. Mother natures diversity is beautiful, but being brown in our world/society is like being the scum of the earth. When youre brown you are either a latino or the mexican who is a dumb physical laborer and the rest of the ignorant sterotypes, or your a muslim/arab who will terrorize people. People think like that and it sucks. NO ONE can deny this because you know that a majority of people think like this or almost all and im talking deep inside.

 

I feel your anger and frustration, but again I don't quite understand where it is coming from. Have you convinced yourself that the above is true? Maybe it's because I'm white, but I would definitely say that a majority of people I know do NOT think that brown are scum. "Latino, mexican, arab, muslim" to me are words that just identify an ethnicity or culture, no more, no less, no stigma attached.

 

I know I can't convince you by saying that. I just feel that you've done so much work in convincing yourself that people are extraordinarily racist that anything they do will be misinterpreted.

 

According to what you said, your feelings of self-hatred don't stem from experiences with discrimination. Do you think you feel this way about "brown" because you are different from your family? Because of your mother's remarks?

[Solid-]

Most of my family is dark, my brother however is blond and blue eyed. He's still my brother, I could care less what color he is. I used to be mistaken as being Mexican, I didn't care, I'm a brilliant woman and I happen to have some natural skin color.

 

My friend is Palestinian, he's always stopped in the airports, do they know he was a founder of a campus organization to promote peace in the middle east? No, they just see him as a color, but he doesn't care because he knows that it keeps him safe.

 

You think being white will solve all your trouble, it won't my blond, blue eyed brother is a community college drop out and has been arrested several times. Me, the darker child, has a BS in engineering and almost done with my MS. Hmm, wonder how that happened.

 

 

See the only option to cure this problem is to not care or accept this problem. I refuse to do that and accept that other people view me as a piece of crap because of the color of my skin.

[HellFrost666]

I am blond, blue eyed and pale, and my life has not been perfect. I haven't been as unfortunate as CB's brother. White people have problems to is what I am getting at.

[sophie274]

 

My friend is Palestinian, he's always stopped in the airports, do they know he was a founder of a campus organization to promote peace in the middle east? No, they just see him as a color, but he doesn't care because he knows that it keeps him safe.

 

I wanted to add, I really agree with this.

[sophie274]

See the only option to cure this problem is to not care or accept this problem. I refuse to do that and accept that other people view me as a piece of crap because of the color of my skin.

 

But do they REALLY?

[Weeblie]

When things like this happen to you more then 5 times, i dont think its a coincidence and dont just happen randomly and take every eigth person like the FAA says.

 

Well yeah it's not random. But why let it get to you?

 

And geez louise. Marinating in bleach?

What happened to you today?

[Solid-]

I feel your anger and frustration, but again I don't quite understand where it is coming from. Have you convinced yourself that the above is true? Maybe it's because I'm white, but I would definitely say that a majority of people I know do NOT think that brown are scum. "Latino, mexican, arab, muslim" to me are words that just identify an ethnicity or culture, no more, no less, no stigma attached.

 

I know I can't convince you by saying that. I just feel that you've done so much work in convincing yourself that people are extraordinarily racist that anything they do will be misinterpreted.

 

According to what you said, your feelings of self-hatred don't stem from experiences with discrimination. Do you think you feel this way about "brown" because you are different from your family? Because of your mother's remarks?

 

Im sure that has contributed, but theres nothing i can do to fix this problem but accept that i am differnt and be viewed as what i said in the above post. I dont wanna accept something that is not true, i dont want to accept that people view me as things that are not true even tho they are "ignorant". All of you who stop and think WHY whites think like this, they have legit reasons, think about it.

[renaissancewoman101]

Color is only skin deep. Who you are is WHAT defines you.

[Solid-]

Color is only skin deep. Who you are is WHAT defines you.

 

Thats true but its BS created by some anti-racist propaganda group so people would stop to thinking like that but ITS NOT WORKING =(

[Solid-]

I wanted to add, I really agree with this.

 

You agree because that friend has accepted to be thought of as a piece of crap person and all the negtaive things associated with being brown even tho he is not.

[Solid-]

No matter what happens or what people do racism will always be present in the world because as long as we have different races/cultures/ethnicites/religon etc, we will always have racism

[sophie274]

You agree because that friend has accepted to be thought of as a piece of crap person and all the negtaive things associated with being brown even tho he is not.

 

I don't particularly want to get into this because I don't think it's relevant, and it is a hot issue. My point was is that security guards are not stopping someone because they hate his/her ethnicity, but rather because many terrorist attacks have been perpetrated by people of the same age/gender/ethnicity as him, and because their goal as security guard is to ensure the safety of the travelers. That's all.

 

As an aside, my dad, white as can be, is stopped literally every single time. I guess he looks suspicious. Oh well.

[sophie274]

No matter what happens or what people do racism will always be present in the world because as long as we have different races/cultures/ethnicites/religon etc, we will always have racism

 

That may be true, but don't you think self-hatred can be a form of racism?

[Dako]

All of you who stop and think WHY whites think like this, they have legit reasons, think about it.

 

 

Earth to Solid. All white people aren't the same, and you're stereotyping a group.

[CarnelianButterfly]

Thats true but its BS created by some anti-racist propaganda group so people would stop to thinking like that but ITS NOT WORKING =(

Is this the same group that produced he lunar landing footage or the group that knows where Jimmy Hoffa's buried.

[pianoguy]

Solid,

 

You are whining. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps. There are worse things in the world. You have enough food to eat. You are healthy. You can walk. You can speak and see and hear. You have a roof over your head. You have clean water to drink. You go to school. You can read the books you choose to.

 

These few things make you more fortunate than most of the world's population, regardless of being brown.

 

Let me tell you a story. You've probably heard of the composer Ludwig van Beethoven. Beethoven was the greatest musician that ever walked this earth, his music brings hope and life to a great deal of the world. He spent most of his life in horrible physical pain from an intenstinal disorder. In addition, he began to lose his hearing at about my age (20) and was completely deaf by 40. But he didn't lose his hearing all at once. No, that would be bad, but it would be easy to get over after the initial shock. No, Beethoven lost his hearing bit by bit, piece by piece. One day he would wake up and it would be a bit better, another day it would be a little worse. But he knew, he knew that eventually he wouldn't be able to hear a thing. For about five years he also had tinnitis, which is a maddening condition in which the patient hears an extremely loud, high-pitched sound constantly, even while asleep. It would be a cruel fate for anyone. For a musician, it is torture. When you listen to his greatest pieces, those composed when he was completely deaf- the joy and sorrow and love that you feel in those works--- it's overwhelming, and to think that their creator couldn't hear one note of it.

 

So, how did Beethoven respond to this? He could've sat around and whined about how unfair it was that a great musician such as him should be deaf. He could've complained about how society treated him unfairly because of his condition (studies have shown that the deaf are more isolated even than blind people!). He could've sat around wallowing in self-pity, wishing that he could have his hearing back.

 

But he didn't. This is what Beethoven said:

 

I will seize Fate by the throat!

 

In this life you are dealt cards. Your only choice is what you can do with those cards. You can sit around wishing that you had better cards, or you can make the best out of the cards you have.

 

Your deck isn't perfect. But it is alot better than Beethoven's deck. It is alot better than most of the world's deck, the part of the world that lives in fear of war, or famine, or disease, or drought.

 

Stop worrying about your deck. Start worrying about how you are going to play it.