My head is spinning, my
heart is hurting.
My head struggles with
reason, with a countless number of questions regarding the pointless loss of
life that seemed to rock America, a Nation less than 15 miles from my very
home, this past week. As an American
friend and I struggle through the questions, one text aroused within our
conversation that captured my attention the most. It is a question that has been on repeat on
my mind, it is “Really though, how do we fix this?” Even from thousands of
miles away, I can hear the pain in her heart for her country and for all the
lives lost. From there, the conversation
continued as we debated/questioned/wrestled together, with the thought of how
one country (America) is so very different than its neighbour to the North
(Canada). Especially when we, Canada,
are literally like a ‘hop, skip and a jump’ away. Do I have an answer? My brain wants to give one. My instinct is to mention the difference in
policy, governments and even the mentality of the people themselves, but my
heart is quiet. It is truly weeping for
the lives lost regardless of age, nationality, gender, and skin colour.
I saw a series of post on
Instagram recently by a white humanitarian photographer whom I follow. The posts were simple. Each post had a black background with one
simple word in white making up one of the most popular, current hashtags. BLACK
LIVES MATTER. His message was clear, but
as I read the caption below it, tears began to flow from my eyes. I could relate, somewhat, on a personal
level. He talked about disliking his
white skin colour, to the point where he was even ashamed of it and how he wanted
to ‘rip it off’.
I get it. I do. I get it in a very personal way.
I cannot even begin to
explain to you the number of times I have been approached throughout my
travels, by someone of a different skin colour, who simply wanted to ‘touch my
skin and absorb the ‘purity’ within it’.
What about the number of times street kids have singled me (or the group
of friends I was with) out? Begging for
money or anything else we had to offer, simply because of the skin colour we
bore. I’ve been to African markets with
national friends of mine and without national friends of mine and I am tired of
being taken advantage of simple because of my skin. More so, I am tired of how local vendors were
completely rude and obscene to my friends but yet ‘as respectful and helpful’
towards me simply cause they wanted to make a sale (needless to say, that
vendor did not get any business from us).
What about that time in a
Thailand pharmacy when I almost bought a SKIN
WHITENING shampoo/lotion? Seriously,
what would have to be IN something like that to physically lightening the skin?
The sight of rows upon rows of products like those; further broke my heart. Or
that time in India when a gang of men on motorbikes, showed up screaming at the
store owner of the small tailor shop we were picking our Punjab’s up at. The men on bikes were threatening the store
owner simply because he was doing business with people of white skin colour
(us). On our way back home, we were
caught in a riot of protestors and forced to walk over fire (literally) that
was burning across the street.
Africa is the hardest for
me though. I’ve heard story upon story
from those of coloured who have lived through racial tensions. I recall a conversation I had with Oma, my
host grandma during my time in Capetown.
If anyone understood racial tension, it was this sweet, 80+ year old
lady. She had personally lived through
the Mandala era and experienced much more in a single life time than anyone
should. Yet here she was, sharing her
heart with me, saying how she wouldn’t ever change her skin colour for
anything. How she is proud to be a lady
of colour and everything that comes/came with it. Her dream is that her two young grandchildren
could grow up in a world where fear ceased to exist when it came to skin colour
and racial tension.
The single hardest
conversation in regards to skin colour, which I have ever had was with one of my
grade 10 female students in Zambia in 2015.
A year later, and it still brings tears to my eyes as I think about how
her body physically trembled as the pain beside me and how the pain in her voice
came through as she shared her one wish with me. She wishes that she would have been born white instead of black, born North American instead of Zambian. I could hear how the distaste she had for
herself simply because of her skin colour.
This young, beautiful 16 year old, ashamed of who she was simply because
of her skin, unaware of the power that her life really held. As I sat next to her, I prayed for words to
encourage her with. None came. Instead, we simply cried together. Black and white. White and black.
I didn’t write this post
to ‘stir anything up’. Rather, as a way
for myself to process current events, along with past situations both global
and personally.
In parting, I would like
to leave it with two simple quotes that have been challenging me lately. My prayer is that they will challenge you as
well and together, we can be unified voices in a world that is crying out for
something more, BEFORE another life is lost.
“We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence
encourages the tormentor, never the tormented” – Elie Wiesel; survivor of a
WW2 Nazi concentration camp and author of the autobiography “NIGHT”
“If you
are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the
oppressor” by Desmond Tutu, a black South African social rights activist.
