If Lilly thought "What does SHE know about the minority experience," she wasn't the only one! I was raised in Walker, LA. Walker Jr. High has an interesting history that includes David Duke's crowning as the Prince of the KKK in our very own school gymnasium. If that makes you uncomfortable, now think of attending a school that had so few minority students that I could count them on two hands and list their names. Moreover, male teachers at Walker were maybe 1 in 10. I was one white girl in a school full of them.
My first year at LSU I had the privilege of learning from Professor Broom, an African American male teacher. I wouldn't participate in any race discussions and actually asked him the politically correct terms for "blacks" and "whites" thinking those incredibly taboo words.
Fast-forward to Summer '07. I spent some time working for a film production company and was given the opportunity to move to Los Angeles to work with an MTV and Warner Bros casting agent.
Her name is Pamela. Her daughter is a recording artist. Her son is a working actor. And they are black.
I lived with them for more than a month. I ate their food, I used their shampoo, and I shared in their Hollywood gossip. I was "the white girl." Visiting their Hollywood gyms, their sporting events, and their work places, people would say 'Oh, this is that white girl you told me about.' I wasn't pretty enough to work with them. I wasn't wealthy enough to play with them, and I wasn't black enough to have the "right curves."
Somedays I got angry. Everyone had something to say, some judgement to make about the white girl. I'd call my friend to vent "do these people know who I am?" They didn't even know how hard I had to work to get to L.A. I wanted "them" to see me the way everyone "else" saw me. And so begins my tale.
I came home to Louisiana. I returned to the majority, my white friends all living similar experiences, getting similar educations, having similar finances; yet, something had changed. I was more aware of the experiences of others. I wanted to shout to every closed-minded individual that saw themselves as the one figurine living inside a snow globe of their ideologies, too cloudy eyed to look outside. I wanted to tell them (my mother included) that they are not safe from the scrutiny of others. Despite what America, our families, our educations may have shown us, each of us is a minority someWhere to someOne. For this reason, hiding behind our "groups" and calling it individuality, and separating ourselves from others based on race, gender, or socio-economic status, only limits our knowledge. It limits our perspectives. It narrows our language and our critiques on life (Lilly mentioned this also in her discussion on Covino who says its okay, its even the rhetorician's job, to upset uniformity. To find new or alternative ways of seeing, hearing, and responding to things).
In one discussion in Professor Catano's class, I told my story because I needed some credibility, perhaps rightfully so. We were making and breaking arguments for "Group Identity." It had been read so positively. The textbook even seemed to offer it as a positive tool for creating one's self in society. I cannot agree with this. When I lived as a minority, reaching to another white woman in another state did not improve my situation. Recalling all the ways that I 'appear' normal (questionable) among my own kind only further separated me from the people I wanted as peers. The best way for me to improve my relationships with the "majority" was for me to shed my group identity and be an individual. As an individual I learned a lot of new things about myself and let a lot of old habits go. Just as ALT describes ways that a speaker can reach an audience by revealing and masking certain aspects of the speaker's personality; I connected with people in a new way. Still, my character, my race, my 'low-budget' life style : ), my face, my curves, these things never changed. Only my appreciation for these things improved. It's amazing the humility you can learn when you're taken from your safety zone, but also how much pride you can muster when you feel alone or different.
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