Suppose you were purple.
Seriously. Suppose you were born purple. Your parents and family members have normal human colors, but you are purple because of some genetic mutation, or act of God, you know, whatever reason floats your boat (although God making you purple would be a great joke, for Him). Take a moment in your short 24-hour day to think about what you’d feel like if you were purple. Go on, take a moment.
If your reading this part I’ll assume you’ve thought about it, or that you lack the capacity to think. If you are a part of the latter group you have my sympathy and I suggest you stop reading now. If you’re part of the former group perhaps you’ve thought about how you’d view yourself in the mirror every day. Maybe you thought as you shop in a department store for the right shade of facial makeup you’ll end up going home with your money still intact. Maybe you wondered what nickname kids would give you and how that name would follow you through high school: “plumface”, “Barney’s baby”, or “purple slurpee butt”. Maybe you’ve thought about how the opposite sex (or same sex, you know, not meaning to alienate) might be aroused by your rather unique skin tone.
Now, here’s a thought that hopefully you considered, or should have considered: imagine you’re in a room full of non-purple people. Or, better yet, imagine if you were in a school, or college full of non-purple people. As you walk to class among a crowd you imagine your head, with iPod headphones in your purple ears, bopping like a beacon plum in a sea of non-plumfaced people. Suppose in the middle of an intelligent conversation among peers a certain incompetent individual with a silly white grin and no sense of the phrase “foot-in-mouth” perks up the annoying courage to ask: “can you speak like Barney?” And suddenly the conversation changes to a one-man/woman-show and you are your peers like entertainment monkey because now they’ve all become incompetent individuals with no sense of the word “humility”. And so you find yourself parading your purpleness trying to do your best impression of the “I love you…We’re a great, big family song.”
Does the seem outworldly, or far-fetched? If so, yes, it is far-fetched. So, let’s just change two things: imagine you’re brown, and that incompetent individual asks you to “say ‘Thank you, come again,’ funny.” Do you know how this scenario ends? Pretty much same as the last one – you are still an entertainment monkey. Now, what if you were white? Chances are you won’t face many scenarios like this, because let’s be honest, white people aren’t colored. But, let’s just say a certain incompetent brown peer among other brown peers asks you to “run and stand against the white wall” just so they can see if you blend into it. Who knows? Maybe you will, white chameleon.
Frankly, in a world pretty much gone to the gutter it would seem a plumfaced individual will fit in just fine, because all of us with our various skin tones have our share of humiliation, some skin tones more than others. So, if there is that urge in the middle of that intelligent conversation among peers to ask that one purple peer to sing like Barney, try and resist until you realize now is the opportune time for a joke (and the moment is when the conversation is over and everyone leaves). And make sure it’s a good joke, becuause regardless of skin tone, if its not funny, its insulting, and you’ll get some broken bones and a purple eye.
3 comments:
your blogs are too long...
Why purple? Pink is SO much better...
This morning while driving to work I was listening to Alice @ 97.3 (the only acceptable station in the morning apart from NPR) and a person called in and said that she is offended when blacks are referred to as minority. She said, infact any ethnic group does not like to be referred as the minority, may it be Latinos, Asians, Indians. According to her if all these groups are put together they are bigger than the presumed majority. Obviously all kinds of stats were pulled up and compared from all ends about how that is only true at the coasts and not in all of US. At face value, if people call South East Asian Indians minority, I guess I'm ok with in cuz we are infact a minority, however it seems like when they use minority for everyone except the white population, it seems like all of the non-white people are gathered and put under one label.. kinda like the western treatment of the african tribes.. when slaves were captured populations from tribes that would normally not see eye-to-eye with each other were placed next to each other.. I'm not saying that all of us MINORITIES cannot see eye-to-eye with each other, all i'm saying is that each one is different therefore difference must be respected.
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