When the elections were still going on I was frequently asked the following:
“When will you start asking the RIGHT questions?”
You ask me this, but before I have the chance to speak, you find the need to silence me because no matter what I say, nothing will measure up to what you know. And while I attempt to speak you dismiss my argument simply based off of the fact that you believe me to be overly emotional; blinded by my womanly tendencies. The amount of work I have invested cannot nearly measure up to anything you have achieved. It matters not that I have worked twice as hard just to prove that I am worthy of having an opinion –a privilege you were born with.
Privilege. What privilege?
My parents were not born here. They did not speak the language that was brought over by the “right kind” of immigrants. The degrees they received, the work they had accomplished; it did not quite translate over. Their beliefs: devalued; their culture; dissipated. Assimilation had been the key to survival and so they attempted to rid themselves of their ethnicity. They prayed only that their children had a better opportunity to attain the American Dream.
What’s so wrong with the American Dream?
So there I was, spending my entire life trying to erase that part of my identity –taking pride in the fact that I was clearly more “American” than others. And for a while it seemed as though I was successful. Yet, no matter how white-washed I became, I found myself having to prove myself time and time again by distancing myself from my heritage. So I couldn’t possibly understand the struggles faced by other ethnicities and races when I hadn’t even tried to understand the struggles faced by my own.
Well, what even is the American Dream?
It’s the Horatio-Alger myth –you know that story about the American who tried their best and made it from rags to riches? Wait no, I forgot to mention that you have to be:
white…
and male…
and straight …
and of a certain socioeconomic standing…
What were we talking about again? I know, it’s easy to get lost amongst the many requirements it takes to become a self-made man. After all, we’re too busy blaming people for their inherent laziness and their tendency towards bad behavior and decisions, to even bother questioning the systematic limitations. Who could blame us when we’ve been raised to never question the traditions our very country was built upon? We feed off of this token economy that puts exceptions, such as Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, on pedestals; saying “If they can make it so can you!” But we forget that every social institution is still being heavily enforced and maintained by the small elite that can easily distract the majority (made up of minorities) that have the power to make a change.
Now that we have elected our president, the real question then becomes:
When will YOU start asking the right questions?