“Men Without a Country: Mike Brown, Trayvon Martin, My Father and Me”
“The historical atrocities and the daily microaggressions. Kids who screamed “Chinese Pig!” and adults who asked in an exasperated tone “I mean where are you from originally?” John McCain and the gooks he could never forgive. Making it to callbacks three times in a row only to never be the “fit” they were looking for. Being complimented on my English. Being criticized on my English. The tingle of nerves bristling at standing next in line to a FOB with a thick accent and a bad haircut, the desire to scream “I’m not with him! We’re not related!””
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/08/12/men-without-a-country-mike-brown-trayvon-martin-my-father-and-me.html
I went to a talk by Te-Nehisi Coates, a writer for The Atlantic who wrote among other amazing things “The Case for Reparations”, and at the end someone asked him if he felt American and how he felt about America in the context of what had happened to Black Americans here. I don’t remember exactly what he said but I remember it being unsatisfying — along the lines of ‘it’s not perfect, but it’s the only home we have, so we have to identify as American’.
There is a thing where being ‘American’ means having a narrative where your ancestors came here seeking the American dream — not as slaves, not as people who came against their will and had less freedom once they got here — and then were able to have children who lost markers of the countries they had come from and assimilated. And there is a strong, implicit assumption of European ancestry there, in that narrative. And someone really needs to crack that narrative open and make it workable.
(credit to JL)
