Sunday, Nov. 24, 2002
People of Color, again, posted at 8:41 p.m.
Epiphany in Baltimore has moved to epiphanyinbaltimore.blogspot.com Despite my diaryland drama, it was a good weekend. Hugasoul mentioned to me that she wished her drama was all on the Internet instead of in real life, so that put things in perspective. The truth is, I put up so many fences around myself in real life that I don't allow a whole lot of drama into my life. So when it does come - even via the Internet - it upsets me.I've been trying to figure out why the entry got to me so. After talking with Hugasoul, I think it was the last lines: "Perhaps this is being taken as a bit of an attack, but I assure you that it isn't meant for that purpose. I just thought that I would call your attention to it. You do not have to take my words seriously, I do not mind if you disregard and delete my message, but I just wanted you to read this." To me, those lines were sort of put in there to not allow me to have the feelings I did. Sort of, "I don't care if this makes you feel rotten, because you can just delete it if you want to. Whatever." So that pissed me off. And then the general tone of it, from it being unsigned (preventing any dialogue about the topic) to it calling me a fake.
But I'm over it.
I wanted to respond to a few more entries, though. First, a big thanks to many of you who came and wrote nice things. Skylar711 wrote something that really made me feel good, and I can say the same for Kinetix and Roxyeliot and RaeAnne. Those was nice to read. I got to the point where I was dreading guestbook entries, but they reminded me that a guestbook can be a good thing.
A few other people left thoughtful entries in response, as well. An anonymous high school student wondered why I took the comments as an attack when they were polite (I disagree that they were polite, though), then wondered why I capitalize the B in Black but not the W in white (I'm not sure on this, it's just how I always learned it, even from high school. I've done it all of my writing life, and just thought it was grammatically correct. No subversive reasons there, I assure you.) Another anonymous reader said that the term "people of color" is offensive, which seems odd to me. I agree with Roxy in that anyone who thinks the term is offensive lacks awareness. I'm not saying that it's a term that everyone likes and that no one can take offensively, but if a person has any sense of how the term came about, then he or she would know that the intention is not offensive. Secondly, I would ask that anonymous person what other term they would use instead that encapsulates all racial minorities and mixed raced individuals? To me, it's all about intention, and I think anyone who uses the term "people of color" is being as good-intentioned as they possibly can be. (And, by the way, why would that term be offensive at all? If anything, it seems like to me that it would be offensive to white people. I mean, my skin does have color to it - a light tan - not blank. I don't see how using the term "people of color" in any way implies that white people are great, as the guestbook-signer says.)
Anyway, I will continue to use the term until a better one comes along. Though I do agree with Bre that most people don't really concern themselves too much with what they should be called as a people. As long as the intention is pure, it seems to me that we can move on to different things.
By the way, I wish all my guestbook signers would actually sign their entries. Then we could have a dialogue instead of me writing entries about it, because there are a lot of other things that I'd rather be writing about.
That's for the next entry, though. I need to get a fresh start. I'm ready to put this behind me, because it's odd when writing in this journal is not a fun thing to do. I always told myself that I would continue to write this thing if it remained fun, so whenever it ceases to be, I always wonder if I should still be doing this. But I should be. My next entry will be fun. Though I'm not sure if it'll come tonight or tomorrow.