Monday, September 16, 2013

We just need to grow up

Normally I do not pay attention or take certain websites so seriously. However, this #BuzzFeed article caught my attention as it flooded my Facebook news feed with words associated to it like "Disgusting" "Outraged" "Angered" "Disturbed..." and so on and so on.

Clearly my friends were in a rage about something and I wanted to know what it was.

So I read the following post http://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesthis/a-lot-of-people-are-very-upset-that-an-indian-american-woman with the title " A Lot of people are very upset that an Indian-American woman won the Miss America Pageant". As I began to read the brief and started to scroll through the highlighted tweets, I found myself beginning to be really disturbed by the comments and the feedback that was being made.

Here we are again 2013 dealing with the very real fact that there are people in this country who continue to talk to me as a young "Black" woman in America, that my plight in that is no longer critical. I am constantly bombarded with messaging that racism does not exist in this country. But an post pointing out the very real responses of several ignorant people, leaves me wanting to shake those people and say " You will NEVER get it!" and "Your continued ability to be blind to it, continues to allow the space for ignorance and stupidity, like this to prevail."

 I will give room to the fact that this post only highlighted the negatives, but did not highlight any comments that might have been positive post the announcement.

I don't want to get angry anymore, I want a solution to how we overcome statements like these and how we as a country don't celebrate the successes of individuals who achieve so much. My solution, I continue to encourage and develop young women around me to be proud of who they are, to be proud of their individualism, to be proud of their background and where they came from. We live in a country that has a mass amount of power and potential and to keep being metaphorically punched in the face when things like this come out is disgusting, degrading and overall annoying.

To the individuals who made these comments, thank you for reminding me that our work is NOT at all done. And that there are still some very valuable lessons that need to be learned. We have work to do and I plan on being a voice for that work.