"America Is Coping with Black Excellence" by Madison Spence-Moore

Approximately twelve percent of the people living in the United States of America are black, but as a child growing up in the tiny hamlet of Boyertown, Pennsylvania, I could have sworn my family was the only black family in the world. Then, of course, I got a little older; my world got a little bigger. I found out that there is much more to the color spectrum than just black and white. I realized just how different I truly was, and I was unwilling to accept it. It was difficult for such a shy girl to stand apart from everybody in such a way that I could not hide. It took my entire childhood to grow into my identity. My personal sense of self was constantly being challenged as I was surrounded by people who just did not look like me; this helped me to build endurance when faced with racism and injustice. My identity grew once I stopped holding certain elements of the color spectrum to such a high standard.

It was nearly impossible for me not to notice that my dreadlocks and tanned complexion were so different from the blond strands and pale skin that surrounded me. It had been this way from kindergarten through second grade. I was sick of it. I did not like all of the random kids touching my hair without asking, or the adults in the mall asking me how I washed it. All of this attention simply did not appeal to me, which led to a very little Madison marching up to Mom and proudly stating, “I want straight hair,” which led to my very confused mom replying, “What?” However, she could not refuse me for she had been straightening her hair all of my life. So the next day we bought a box of relaxer, chopped off my dreads, and straightened out my hair.

At the time the change was fantastic. I could brush and style my own hair, I felt like I was more like my peers than ever before. Little did I know what I was really doing to my true identity. As stated by Rosheen Awais, a brilliant Hijab-wearing Muslim,“We are victims of our own conscience. We work for this audience, we earn for this audience and often we do what we hate to do in order to reach the infinite expectations of this audience. However, we should not fall victim to these expectations and the expectorants, who hide us from our true self” (Awais).  I was never trying to be more like me; I was trying to be more like them. I was putting on a mask; I was performing to fit a mold that simply was not meant for me. It was not until the end of junior high school that I was able to let the curls grow and cut the broken ends.

Now I had entered high school with brown skin made darker by the sun and curly hair that I did not know how to style. This is one of the troubles with being a brown girl attending a dominantly white school. I had no one to turn to for help within my school and no one who could give me any advice on how to take care of it. No one within my school shared the same struggles. The loneliness stung. As Muslim writer Arbaaz Khan, who was born and raised on Long Island, wrote: “This oppression is something that I dealt with throughout my high school years, which aided in masking my true self” (Khan). What questions would they ask? What racist remarks would be made? My overwhelming fear of judgement and ridicule caused me to keep my curls out of sight. I usually kept it braided, twisted, in a bun or in a ponytail. I could deal with the fact that I could not hide my skin, but I kept trying my hardest to hide my hair. I was holding on to fitting in for a little bit longer.  

There comes a time when it all becomes too much. Pretending to be somebody you are not just to please everybody else is actually quite exhausting. Dr. King expresses it best in his “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” stating, “If I sought to answer all of the criticisms that cross my desk, my secretaries would be engaged in little else in the course of the day, and I would have no time for constructive work” (King). King’s words truly helped to deal with criticisms in a smarter way. For my whole life I had only been doing what was expected of me based on the critical eyes of the white people who surrounded me. I never took the time to focus on myself and understand who I really was or what I actually wanted. I was offering less time for my own self work. I had to understand that my true identity is more important than the identity expected of me by others. For my situation, the only way that I would be able to focus on my own identity was by first blocking out any and all hateful and ignorant comments. I had to stop seeing white people as white people, and just see them as people.

I thought all of the white people around me were the same, and I was the only different one. However, I realized that I was only categorizing white people the way they had been categorizing me. We are not all only black or white. We try to divide ourselves, attempting to fit into these different boxes labeled by shape, color and size. I needed to understand that each individual person is different and should not be characterized based on things like race and gender. I had to look into one of the most well known Martin Luther King quotes for help: “I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character” (King). In a way, I was creating barriers around myself as my peers had been creating barriers around me. I was believing that I was the only one who was different, but in reality we all are. At face value I was seen as different in my small town, but I came to appreciate that the ignorant people who stared at me in the hall or made racist remarks are just as different to each other as to me.

This realization led to my curls coming out of the cave and into the light. At first it was difficult wearing my hair in an Afro style surrounded by such flat strands. However, by the end of the day, it truly felt right. I was more confident than ever. I focused on the love and support of my close friends, and the hateful ignorant comments slowly started to fade away. It was only after I stepped into this part of my identity that I became able to inspire my mom to go natural and for my sisters to stay natural. It took a little while, but once I was secure with myself, I could, like Raymond Chappan, a Syrian Jew growing up in Brooklyn, focus on leading others (Chappan). My mom cut her relaxed hair a few months after me, so we actually embarked on our curly hair journeys together. My younger sisters did not really have much of an opinion on the state of their hair. I was happy to know that they had our curls to look at and be inspired by.

Watching my sisters grow up in that same neighborhood I did, I realized just how much black community culture I missed out on as a child, especially music and dancing and food. An interesting question arose in my writing class: “Do you think you’ll be able to experience the culture that you missed out on now? Will the experiences have the same impact as they would have when you were younger?” Yes and yes. I did miss out on a lot culturally growing up, but that does not mean that I cannot grow to become a part of the culture. “...My sense of freedom came from going to college. I left my 'bubble' cave and went on to learn things on my own. It took me some time to adjust to the light, but now that I see clearly, I am learning a lot about the world and can finally begin to morph into my own” (Chappan).

I repeated the words of Malcolm X in his speech, "The Ballot or the Bullet" to myself: “So, where do we go from here? First, we need some friends. We need some new allies” (X). At Hofstra University, I have been able to do just that. My number of black friends has grown tremendously from high school (zero) to now (eight), four of whom live in my building. I know it does not seem like much, but after growing up in an all white area, I will take what I can get and be grateful for what I have. My new black friends do not even realize how much they are helping me to grow my identity as a black woman. Ditto the many clubs and organizations centered around black culture, such as the NAACP and the Black Student Union.

I was shocked at how perfectly Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” mimicked my situation so well. As a child I was ridiculed for how my hair looked, so I changed it. I was being chained inside of the cave, and when the shadows told me to change it because that is not how it was supposed to be, I did. I then became more aware of just how unhealthy my habits were for my hair and my health overall. I had to break free of the chains and walk out into the sun. It took my eyes a long time to adjust to the brightness and beauty of the sunshine, but soon enough, I was able to proudly walk into the sun. After I made it out, it was all Brother Malcolm. I was now able to accept myself, even though some of the white people around me could not. I had pulled my chair up to the table, but I was still unable to eat. Does this mean that I should sit back, relax and watch as Caucasians eat at the table while I stare down to an empty plate? (X) Of course not. Only when I ignore the hateful comments and embrace the color of my skin will I break down my barriers. Only when my hair grows so high that it touches the sky will I truly be satisfied. Only when my sisters can grow up to fully embody their curls as I have will I have done my job. We are all different. However, more importantly, we are all people. Only when we embrace our perfections and imperfections can we come together as one and really be happy.

Unfortunately, America was only designed for the success and prosperity of white people. It is even worse because they know just how powerful black people are, but they refuse to give up any of the credit. They cope with my excellence by telling me that how I look is wrong, and how my appearance should be changed to something less intimidating. Many folks are going to have a rude awakening once they learn that they are just as different from me as I am different from them. However, it will be a good thing. Their world will grow to be a little bit bigger, and the color spectrum will not matter as much. The chip will fall right off of their shoulder. My brown skin and curly hair are a huge part of my personal identity, and I recognize that I am different, but I also understand that we are all members of one cohesive unit, and that “every individual is an expression of the realm of nature, a unique action of the total universe” (Watts).

Works Cited

Awais, Rosheen. “A Hijab-Wearing Muslim Reflects on Identity in the Age of Trump.” TakingGiant Steps. February 2017. Web.

Chappan, Raymond. “Bursting One’s Bubble to Discover One’s Identity.” Taking Giant Steps, March 2016. Web.

Khan, Arbaaz. “Internal Jihad: My Identity as a Muslim American.” Taking Giant Steps, December 2016. Web.

King, Martin Luther. “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” August 1963.

Plato. “The Allegory of the Cave.”

X, Malcolm. “The Ballot or the Bullet.” 1964.

"My Subcontinent Is Always in My Subconscious: Indian Heritage in America" by Alisha Andrews

One’s identity can be found through life and the experiences within it. In our WSC class my peers found their identity in different ways: going into the army at the age of 18, living in a negative town their entire childhood, being a certain religion that is misunderstood in America. The experience that helped me find my identity was being the first generation, American-born citizen and living through the struggles of my immigrant parents.

The process of immigration is difficult, but the process of an immigrant adjusting to America is never ending. Both my parents came to America at the age of 18 with their cousins from India, all without their own parents. All 15 of them lived in a 3 story rental house in Queens Village where everyone lived paycheck to paycheck. My parents had 3 jobs at one point so they could live a decent life. My mom took on a job as a cashier at JC Penney and Walmart and as a bank clerk. My dad took on a job as a limousine driver, bank clerk, and a cashier at a local department store. Even though these jobs seemed simple, it was tough for my parents. They had thick Indian accents and would get yelled at by customers to “learn English” and comments like “you should not be working here.” When my dad was a limo driver he had to learn all of New York City's streets and directions to get his clients to where they needed to be. He had no GPS back in his day and would get awful comments if he made one mistake, but little did the people know that he was just learning about America, let alone these locations! Both my parents always got the comment to “go back to your own country!”

These comments reminded me of Gloria Anzaldua’s remark, “We know what it is to live under the hammer blow of the dominant norte-americano culture” (Anzaldua, par 43). The white Americans around her felt as if they owned this country. They believed not knowing fluent English, not having an American accent, and not having white skin means that you do not belong in America. They viewed people with brown skin as inferior and stupid and that they weren’t “qualified” enough to live in this white man’s world. But my parents had tough skin. They were ready to endure these kinds of indifferences and not let it affect them. I give them so much credit for staying strong because they are humans, too, who have feelings, but were treated like subordinates. They worked 7 days a week to save up money for a car so they could have a vehicle. Before they had a car, they were walking to all their destinations and this was hard especially in the harsh, cold winters of New York. Both my parents and their cousins saved up $3000 to buy an old, used car. Even though it was a junk from a shady store in Queens, it was something they could use to drive places. They gave the car dealer all the money they saved up for months to get a car that stopped working the day after they bought it. Yes, they got played. They were just learning the hustle for money in America. But this experience helped them learn that not everyone is who they say they are. My parents struggled so much their first years in America. They went through these hardships and sacrificed everything they had and started a new life all over again just for my brother and I to live a better life than they had.

My brother, Albie, and I were the first generation to be born and raised in America. We were the first to go to school and to university in our families in America. Both of us were exposed to the American culture right away as we entered the school system. We grew up with English as our first language and Malayalam, which is a South Indian language common in Kerala, India, as our second language. My parents made sure that Albie and I became adjusted to both the American and Indian culture. But these two cultures clash at times. In India there is a hierarchy with gender. The male is the head of the family and is seen as superior and has all the freedom in the world. The female is seen as inferior and taught to be conservative and quiet. My parents immigrating to America and seeing a different viewpoint instead of sticking with India’s traditional ways helped build my identity. “Some women can escape social conformity and become conscious of the incredibly sexist, patriarchal society we live in. Others are trapped and are incapable of realizing their true identity because they are the product of someone else’s identity formation” (Solis, par 2). Since I was fortunate enough to grow up in America, I was given the opportunity to put my education first before anything else. I could get a job that did not include housework and I do not need to settle to be a housewife like in India, where it is common for 18-year-old girls to get married off. America holds opportunities to show that women are just as equal to men and can succeed in anything they do through careers and having empowering platforms. In India these opportunities are looked down upon, so many women put a hold on their life so their husbands, fathers, or brothers can live the life they want. I learned that I am more than what a man sees me as even if it is an object, reproducer, or inferior. I was born a woman and therefore need to hold strong to this identity, especially coming from an Indian, sexist community.

The South Asian community also has a persistent point of view when it comes to careers. If you had a daughter, she was supposed to be a nurse or a doctor. If you had a son, he was supposed to be an engineer. Indian parents have such a limited mindset for jobs. They believe only the STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) jobs can make you money and be successful. This gets me furious. As a woman not interested in any of the four choices, I feel as though my brown people look down upon me. I am a public relations major in the communications field, which is nowhere dominant with colored people. But this taboo on communications and how it is a “useless field” did not stop me. Constantly getting comments like “communications is not stable,” “you will never make any money with public relations,” or “you should switch your major before it is too late” did not hinder my decision. In fact, it encouraged me to prove them wrong! I chose Hofstra because it is one of the best schools for communications and will continue to go to this university for the next four years. “People might not always think the same way as me either because their identities have been more or less developed, or because their identities have been established in a completely dissimilar system” (Davis, par 9). The brown community does not see the value in communications, but I do. Communications is part of my identity. I am a social person who needs to see “the real” in every person and see the bigger picture of that person’s purpose. Working in public relations is not just a “hello” and “goodbye” conversation, which many people think it is, but investing value in a person, company, or venue. I knew that if I listened to these people, I would most likely be in a nursing program and dreading every second of it. These people have minimal capacity when it comes to career choices. I am proud of myself for keeping true to my identity and my own interests because my career in public relations will define who I am instead of being someone who I am not.

Staying true to my identity as a brown-skinned Indian woman was like fighting a battle with myself. Growing up I realized that I was different from other people in my elementary and middle school. The kids and teachers had lighter hair than me, different colored eyes, and fairer skin tones. To be honest. I felt out of place and wanted to fit in and the only way was to be white. This mindset of fitting in with the white kids destroyed my self-esteem entirely because the reality is that I am brown. I wanted to be from Europe and not Asia. In middle school we had culture day where we talked about our heritage and I was extremely embarrassed to tell everyone that I was Indian. I avoided using words like “curry” and talking in my native language so kids would not laugh at me and see me as the “weird girl.” I wanted straight, thin hair and not thick, curly hair. I remember one white girl coming up to me in elementary school and asking me, “Why is your hair so curly and black?” I just stood there and questioned my hair as well because I did not know why my hair was different. I wanted to be superior and not inferior. This hierarchy between races that I mentally created really affected the growth of my identity. When I was younger I viewed white people as a higher race. I belittled myself because of my own skin color.  I was one of the few colored people on my school bus in elementary school. This led to the white kids bullying me and calling me names like “Indian warthog” and such. This created the fear in my mind that the whites had power and control over me. If I saw a white person standing behind me on the lunch line, I would let them go in front of me. If I needed to pick a partner for projects, I would instantly pick the white girls first. In a sense, I idolized having white skin. I saw white skin as the key to having a successful, easy life.

Oh boy, was I wrong! As I got older I realized how limited was my mindset. There was no real reason to think of my brown skin and my culture with a negative connotation.“...you’re dumb enough to walk around continuing to identify yourself with that Party, you’re not only a chump, but you’re a traitor to your race” (Malcolm X, par 13).  I needed to accept that I was an Indian, brown-skinned girl and that will never change. I had to be proud of who my parents were and who they raised me to be. I had to get out of this narrow-minded environment where I superiorized white people.

Going into high school everything changed. I viewed everyone as equal and that no one was better than another because of their skin color. I realized that skin color is part of one’s heritage. Everybody is still human, as cliche as it sounds, it is true. If you live closer to the equator you will have darker skin. If you live farther from the equator you will have lighter skin. This is just geography and not something you can control. So to belittle myself off these factors that I could not control was insane of me. I started accepting myself for who I was and started being more confident in my heritage. If I could go back to the girl who asked me why my hair was so curly and black, I would tell her it is because I am Indian and this is what most South Indian girls have. I learned to embrace my Indianness and become aware of the rest of the world. As I grew older I realized that there is more than the white race and so many other cultures to be exposed to. "Whereas, our argument shows that the power and capacity of learning exists in the soul already; and that just as the eye was unable to turn from darkness to light without the whole body, so too the instrument of knowledge can only by the movement of the whole soul be turned from the world of becoming into that of being, and learn by degrees to endure the sight of being, and of the brightest and best of being, or, in other words, of the good” (Plato, par 46). Plato explains how I felt with my entire Indian crisis. I needed to find strength within myself to identify as an Indian and not be ashamed of it. I was stuck in this close-minded mentality that limited my capacity and power to find acceptance in myself. My viewpoint needed to be expanded from this “white supremacy” to seeing all races as one.

My viewpoint changing really helped develop my identity. I am nowhere the same person I was a few years ago. My homeostasis changed. My parents made a pathway by immigrating to America to be exposed to many opportunities which I will forever be thankful for. Being in communications field for my career adds onto my identity as a socializer and a barrier breaker for the Indian community. Accepting my skin color and being proud of my Indian heritage, while conquering my irrational fear of white supremacy, evolved myself to be true to who I am. As they say in Malayalam, നിങ്ങൾ നൽകുന്ന ജീവനെ സ്നേഹിക്കുക (niṅṅaḷ nalkunna jīvane snēhikkuka), love the life you are given.

Works Cited

Anzaldua, Gloria. "How to Tame a Wild Tongue."

www.everettsd.org/cms/lib07/WA01920133/Centricity/Domain/965/Anzaldua-Wild-Tongue.pdf.

Davis, Brittany.  "Mastering a Free-Thinking Perspective." 1 Jan. 2017, giantstepspress.blogspot.com/2016/03/mastering-free-thinking-perspective-by.html.

Plato. The Allegory of the Cave. VII, ser. 514a-521b, faculty.ycp.edu/~dweiss/phl224_human_nature/Plato%20republic%20allegory%20of%20the%20cave.pdf.olis,

Solis, Lola. "Is Feminism the New F Word? From Resistant to Responsive,"  giantstepspress.blogspot.com/2016/04/is-feminism-new-f-word-from-resistant.html.

X, Malcolm. "The Ballot or the Bullet." 1964. www.infosec.aueb.gr/Besides%20Security/TALKS/TALKS-10-X%20(The%20Ballot%20or%20the%20Bullet).

The Plane Ticket to Forever: A Chinese-American Writer Reflects on Good Fortune by Robbi Reed

Most people go on journeys trying to discover who they are or who they aspire to be in life. For me, I have always known exactly who I am. My journey started 18 years ago, halfway across the world, in China, when my mother came to adopt me. It was my mother who gave me the foundations for a better life here in this foreign country that I now call home, a life that has allowed me to branch out and seize every opportunity presented to me. Thanks to my unique journey I have known who I am from a young age.

Many people say they have the world’s greatest mom, but very few have a mom that will travel 22 hours with 2 layover stops for them.  Alan Watts's The Book: On the Taboo against Knowing Who You Are encourages its reader to see that God as love instead of as a human figure, so when I look at my mom I see God as a state of being. Alan Watts stated, “We do not need a new religion or a new bible. We need a new experience—a new feeling of what it is to be ‘I’” (Watts, par. 4). I see her and God as one and not as two separate individuals. My mom and I have such a strong bond and she has taught me to always strive to live with a positive outlook. In kindergarten, when my peers made stupid comments about my adoption, she told me to never feel sorry for being “different.” In third grade, I got into a fight with one peer specifically and she exclaimed, “Well, at least I’m not adopted!” I remember trying to think of how that was an insult. I have never viewed adoption as the act of giving up one's child, but I have viewed it as a privilege that someone made an effort to make you a part of their life. I was lucky enough to be one of those kids. 

We learn from Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” that it is our job as humans to help one another so that we may all benefit. We are all trapped inside this competitive state of mind that we must be the best:

“Then, I said, the business of us who are the founders of the State will be to compel the best minds to attain that knowledge which we have already shown to be the greatest of all-they must continue to ascend until they arrive at the good; but when they have ascended and seen enough we must not allow them to do as they do now” (Plato, 5).

However, we rarely stop to think about helping the people around us. Learning at a young age to always pay it forward has influenced my decision to become a doctor. As Lawrence Kohlberg states in his “Stages of Moral Development,” in stage six we must realize the importance of communication between a group of people. Furthermore, we need to be able to reach out and help others so that when we are in need of help, someone will step up and do the same for us. I have learned from an early age in life that we must pay it forward because if one person suffers, we all suffer.

In Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham City Jail,” we see that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” (King, par. 6). In my case, I used to get taunted in elementary school for not having a “typical” family. However, my mom and I decided to do something about it. Using Gandhi's famous adage, “Be the change that you wish to see in the world,” as our guide, we started a support group called “Forever Family” in which all “non-typical” families could come and celebrate our difference and talk out the struggles we are dealing with. Surprisingly, most of the problems have been caused by the school district. People in school were being ignorant and insensitive to many of the “not normal” families. What they failed to realize is that families come in all shapes and sizes. No one is lesser than another for being different. While growing up I have never felt “different” or “not normal,” and as I have become older, I realize how lucky I am to have friends who like and accept me for who I am. “I will no longer be made to feel ashamed of existing” (Anzaldua, par. 11).

Gloria Anzaldua’s message in  “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” is simple yet powerful. She talks about how she does not want to be judged for who she is; instead, she wants to be recognized for it. Everyone is so quick to judge one another before even having a conversation. After middle school, I attended a private school called Long Island Lutheran. Whenever I told people where I went to high school, their whole demeanor towards me changed. The judgement on their faces casted me off as a stuck-up, snobby, rich girl who is above attending a public school. Little did they know that this was not the case at all. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to go to private school and I never took a day for granted. My mom, being a single parent, worked so hard to be able to send me there. I am blessed to have a mother who cares so much about me, that she was willing to work harder to be able to send me there. Even in high school I felt judged by many because I valued my grades over going out and partying. What I took away from Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself” was that one is known by the company he or she keeps and also it is never okay to exclude anyone for any reason. All people are equally worthy of love and attention, and so no one should be turned away. The people I hung out with in high school were considered to be the “nerds” of the school; my best friend was the valedictorian of our class. The way my group of friends showed off was by being in the top ten percent of our graduating class, not by drinking ten beers in two hours. Many people in our grade didn’t accept us because we didn’t have the same views on certain topics as they did. Walt Whitman said,

“It is for the wicked just the same as the righteous . . . I make appointments with all,

I will not have a single person slighted or left away,

The kept woman and sponger and thief are hereby invited . . . the heavy-lipped slave is invited . . .  the venerealee is invited,

There shall be no difference between them and the rest.

This is the press of a bashful hand . . . this is the float and odor of hair,

This is the touch of my lips to yours . . . this is the murmur of yearning,

This is the far-off depth and height reflecting my own face,

This is the thoughtful merge of myself and the outlet again.” (Whitman, section 19)

I have realized that it is hard to find people who accept others for who they truly are, but once you do, it is the most amazing feeling in the world: to not be judged.

Malcolm X’s “The Ballot or Bullet” reveals “it’s freedom for everybody or it’s freedom for nobody” (X, par. 6). This means that everyone either gets treated poorly or greatly. Furthermore, we all get treated the same way no matter what. By treating everyone the same, judgement is eliminated. I do not understand making assumptions about people and prejudging them. Degrading someone else isn’t going to make one better, for as Whitman wrote in "Song of Myself," "Whoever degrades another, degrades me." In addition, one may not know the other’s situation. It has happened several times where people have come up to me and have just assumed that I speak Mandarin. They are so shocked when I open my mouth and confidently tell them in my Long Island accent that I am from New York! Moreover, people are also confused when I introduce them to my mom. It takes them a couple of seconds to realize that looks do not make people a family; love and compassion are what makes a family. However, when I show people who my sister is, they never question our relations because we are both Asian. What I have learned throughout my journey is to never make assumptions based merely upon looks.

Some people do not need to take a journey to recognize who they are. I am lucky enough to have a loving mother who is really involved in my life. I am able to tell her anything. She is the single reason why I am the I am today: a strong person who does not care what people think. Without her, I might still be half way across the world.

Works Cited

Anzaldua, Gloria. "How to Tame a Wild Tongue." (n.d.): n. pag. 1987. Web. 04 Dec. 2016.

Gandhi. "A Quote by Mahatma Gandhi." Goodreads. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Dec. 2016.

<http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/24499-be-the-change-that-you-wish-to-see-in-the>.

King, Martin Luther, Jr. Letter from Birmingham Jail. Place of Publication Not Identified:

Betascript, 2011. Web. 07 Dec. 2016. <https://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/documents/Letter_Birmingham_Jail.pdf>.

Kohlberg, Lawrence Kohlberg. "Moral Development: Lawrence Kohlberg and Carol

Gilligan." Encyclopedia of Educational Theory and Philosophy (n.d.): n. pag. Web. 07 Dec. 2016. <http://info.psu.edu.sa/psu/maths/Stages%20of%20Moral%20Development%20According%20to%20Kohlberg.pdf>.

Plato. The Allegory of the Cave, P. Shorey trans. From Plato: Collected Dialogues, ed.

Hamilton & Cairns. Random House, 1963. Web. 03 Dec. 2016.

Watts, Alan. "Inside Information." The Book. ABACUS ed. London: Sphere, 1973. N.

pag. Print. 03 Dec. 2016.

Whitman, Walt. "Song of Myself (1892 Version) by Walt Whitman | Poetry Foundation."

Poetry Foundation. Poetry Foundation, n.d. Web. 07 Dec. 2016.

<https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/45477>.

X, Malcolm. "Malcolm X: The Ballot or the Bullet." Malcolm X: The Ballot or the Bullet.

N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Dec. 2016. <http://www.edchange.org/multicultural/speeches/malcolm_x_ballot.html>.

A Hijab-Wearing Muslim Reflects on Identity in the Age of Trump by Rosheen Awais

Self /self/: In psychology, self is defined as the set of attributes, abilities, attitudes and values an individual believes defines who he or she is. We believe we are beautiful, smart, loved, hated, short, tall, poor or rich. For some, it takes until adolescence to define oneself, and for others, it takes us a lifetime to define ourselves. Unfortunately, we define ourselves based on the approval of others. But who are the "others," the judges, the expectants? This "other" is not a person, or a group of people, yet is the invisible audience we believe are standing in front of us; we are victims of our own conscience. We work for this audience, we earn for this audience and often, we do what we hate to do in order to reach the infinite expectations of this audience. However, we should not fall victim to these expectations and the expectorants, who hide us from our true self. I have been a victim to this audience for far too long; even today, I dress, I act and talk the way others want me to talk, the way I believe I will be able to fit into society. Even if I stand out in a sea of blonde hair and blue eyes, I work to act like one of them despite the fact that I am a brown-eyed, hijab-wearing Pakistani. In the words of Malik El-Shabbazz, “We’re all in the same boat and we are all going to catch the same hell from the same man. He just happens to be a white man” (X, 1964).

Let me identify myself: I am Rosheen Awais, an 18-year-old daughter, sister, and student. I am a Muslim from Lahore, Pakistan, but born in Woodside, Queens, New York. I am smart (smart enough to get into Hofstra University), I care about the people around me, and personally, I believe I can care too much, but if anyone takes advantage of my affection, they’re nothing to me. I just identified myself in the “worldly” or “material” sense; how I perceive myself as a person, who I am, what I do, even my interpersonal characteristics are part of “me.” The real me is who I am as a whole. I am a follower of Allah, a believer of the six articles of faith and a follower of the five pillars. I believe in the immortal, the King of kings; I believe that the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) was the last prophet, and I believe in the final revelation. Nevertheless, Islam is not about believing; it is not a religion. Rather, it is a set of principles for life: I pray five times a day and I fast for one month each year, devoting this month to God and remembering the less fortunate. The same Sharia law that some Americans fear is taking over the original law of the land is not a law; it is a lifestyle. In the Qur’an, Surah 5 Verse 32: “If you save one man’s life, it is as if you have saved the lives of all mankind.” How could a religion that preaches love and sympathy for every human being, regardless of what they believe and who they pray to, have such mercy on a non-believer? I could be just like many other young adults who “did the physical part of their religion, but never let their heart out.” I could, like millions of others, still be standing in a dark tunnel, waiting for a ray of hope; but no: I have found my ray of hope in my religion, in the perfected religion, even though I admit every day that I am in fact far from perfect. Islam is not a material characteristic; it shapes one’s life, how one should act, and remember that no matter what: God is “Al Basir and Al Sami” (All Seeing and All Listening). If us humans cannot identify our whole self, remember: even God needed to use 99 names to convey his identity.

Earlier I had said that I was an American, but now I will say I am an American by name. Malik El- Shabbazz states that: “Being born in America doesn’t make you an American, you wouldn’t need any legislation, you wouldn’t need any amendments to the constitution…”, and he is absolutely correct. Most of the people who call themselves “Americans” have ancestors as early as grandparents who moved from Europe or Asia to America (X, 1964). America is stereotypically seen as the Christian, melatonin-deprived, deer-hunting Republican population who managed to get a man addicted to spray tan into office. In reality, America includes the little ripped pieces of cloth left on the floor, in a reservation, living poor lives or managing casinos on the U.S-Canadian border. Even though the Indigenous live in their homeland, America is nothing like home to them. Taken over by strange outsiders and their diseases, the real America is falling through. My point is: who am I to say I am an American because I have a blue and gold passport, or I speak English with a New York accent? I am simply a guest who is long due to return home. Referring to the quote by Mr. X, if this had been our home, we would not fear hate crimes and seek deportation; we would pass legislation just so that a hijabi can work at an Abercrombie and Fitch. Who I am is who my ancestry is: Pakistani, from a family as early as my grandmother, who came from Amritsar to Lahore at the tender age of 6 months came to create a new identity that was nothing much more different than their Indian roots but moved to Pakistan to enjoy the freedom of an Islamic Republic. Now one may argue that my grandparents, who came from another country are not technically Pakistanis. Well, I must refute: Pakistan was created by Quaid E Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah to give Muslims in India a new land to identify with, a land with legislature following Sharia law, where a country can be run the Islamic way. My grandparents and great grandparents belonged because the law, the legislature, and the country was founded for them. I am a Pakistani because I know that if I am ever forced to leave a country that is not mine, Pakistan is the only land that will ever embrace me like my own mother. I just returned from Pakistan after eight years of constant yearning. Like an addict, I begged to go back one more time, with each passing year, thinking about what I would sacrifice to jet set back to Lahore for one week. Even after living in America for 18 years, my country and my culture run through my veins. I have lived amongst people completely opposite of me for my whole life, yet I still am shocked at some of the habits and lifestyle of the people who live in America. Instead of blood, ganne ka ras (sugarcane juice) runs through my body, and the burning smell of sittay (wheat chaffs) floods my nose with each memory.

My material self---where I was born, my ancestry, my religion---extends to my whole self, who I am from the inside, my past, my upbringing and where I really am from. I described two attributes that define myself as a whole, my religion and my ancestry. Personally, I feel more comfortable around people who are like me, who dress like me, eat like me, and have a lifestyle similar to mine. Although I come from a third world country and I am living in America, something inside always attracts me back to Lahore and Pakistan, and attract me to people who are from Lahore and Pakistan. I have lived in America my whole life, but what I know is that I will always feel like an outsider, no matter how well I speak the language, dress myself and how educated I become. There will always be someone to say, "Go back to your own country," so go ahead and buy me a ticket back and I will gladly pack my bags! In regards to Islam, being a Muslim is comforting to me; I know that in every high and low there is a greater Being who I can resort to, even if every human on earth is against me. Although I have never seen God, I have a blind trust, a trust that has been reinforced by the miracles in my life. Some may refute that miracles are only coincidences, but I must refute that these so called coincidences which are often out of my reach happen so perfectly. I am comfortable in my hijab, and I am comfortable on my knees on a prayer rug.

 

The mosque at Lahore

Works Cited

Malcolm X: “The Ballot or the Bullet.” Malcolm X: The Ballot or the Bullet. Social Justice

            Speeches, n.d. Web. 08 Dec. 2016.

"Running Off the Rails" by Shoujing Zheng

 

 

Many people have convinced themselves to believe they are who they are in order to cater the favor of the society. The minstrel believes he comes to the world to ease people’s mind with his magnificent melody. The butcher believes his existence is for cutting pork or shark fins. The lawyer believes he is the defender of justice. As Alan Watts, a British-born philosopher, points out, “Every individual is an expression of the whole realm of nature, a unique action of the total universe.” Yet this realm of nature has its own limitation, which confines most people to a fenced enclosure during most of their lives, like a transparent dome above everybody’s head. Normally the dome is hard to perceive. Even though people do realize its existence, most of them try not to touch it because of the overwhelming force coming from the society. The force, which keeps the wheels of people’s train-thought on their rails, is known as a taboo.

I grew up under such a dome, a meticulous and artificial wall determined by my country. My father’s generation used to be fed with the information that China is the strongest country in the world while the people living in capitalist nations are waiting to be emancipated by the great proletariat. With the passing away of Mao and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the propaganda finally declined and people began to realize how poor they were and how this country desperately needed to develop its economy. Nonetheless, the dome is still there: the main news agency is still run by the state, and people cannot found other parties and only join the communist party. The constitution provides us with the most munificent rights in the world, the right of freedom, the right of parade…. Yet those empty promises just exist in the books. Indeed, we live in intersting times.

I began to gradually get the sense of the taboo after finishing my University Entrance Examination, a special Chinese exam that compels students to spend every available minute of their high school time studying if they want to go to a prestigious university in China. In order to find out the truth that the government was hiding, I read and watched almost anything I could get. I spent so much time, and so many efforts, that the learning experience of Frederick Douglass speaks to me so well when I read about his story: “I often found myself regretting my own existence, and wishing myself dead; and but for the hope of being free, I have no doubt that I should have killed myself, or done something for which I should have been killed.”

I also associate with the movie “The Matrix.” Although the hero Neo always feels that something, a tiny portion of his life, is too abnormal to believe, he would never have imagined that human beings, lying unconsciously under the icy boxes while stuck in the illusion of enjoying civilization of modern life, are actually under the control of the ruthless machine. Neo suffers from great pain and numbness after he confronts the unbearable truth, which pushes him into the transformation from just being a normal and mediocre person who is under the manipulation of the captor to an omnipotent savior. That is what Neo has gone through when he tries to figure out the truth of life. Just like Douglass, I didn’t handle the blocked information very well. The anger caused by feeling fooled and the pain caused by fear occupied my life at the same time. What I feel towards Neo is envy. He is chosen to fight against the taboo while in real life most people can do nothing but become a coward filled with hatred. After all, life is not a movie.

But I don’t want to be a hater, nor do I want to be a coward. There are many ways to cope with censorship, and leaving is one of them. Frankly, this is one of the reasons I chose to become an exchange student and study in America. When I read “The Ballot or the Bullet” by Malcolm X, I admired his guts to boycott the discrimination by shouting out: “I’m one of the 22 million black victims of the Democrats, one of the 22 million black victims of the Republicans, and one of the 22 million black victims of Americanism.” Yet the nationalism he advocated to remove the taboo is too violent for me or for normal people. The nationalism may work well for black people fighting for their rights in 1960s, yet the last time Chinese people tried to join a march for liberty and democracy, it led to difficulty.

While I came to America, the sense of loss, across the Pacific Ocean, came along with me. Avoiding shall never be an ultimate solution. It may ease the mind for a while, but it hides somewhere deep in the heart like a volcano waiting to erupt again. You have to face it in a nonviolent way, be optimistic and stayed open-minded. Like Watts said: “Faith is, above all, openness—an act of trust in the unknown.”

Openness is actually what Watts implemented in his life. As a westerner, he embraced Buddhism and Hinduism, which obviously contradict Christianity in a lot of aspects. He criticizes commitment, saying, “Irrevocable commitment to any religion is not only intellectual suicide; it is positive unfaith because it closes the mind to any new vision of the world.” An open mind liberates Watts from the confinement of taboo, a dome that is so effective that people have stayed inside it for hundreds of years.

With the help of an open mind, a seemingly unsolvable problem tangling me for a long period is resolved. The government may be tenacious about the absolute governing over its people, and is very sensitive about any movement that threatens its governing. The first step you need to do is still hold the open-minded attitude. After accepting a fact for what it is, you can start to learn about it and try to communicate or interact with it. Total repudiation can only ruin all the progress that has been made so far and result in a retrogressing crisis. If you want to liberate your own people, you have to liberate yourself through an open mind first.

No matter whether you live in China, America, or anywhere else in the world, there was, is and will be a transparent dome. The society can never be perfect, so the impetus for making today better than yesterday shall always exist. Individuals can never be perfect, so people have the desire to learn so as to overcome their deficiency. The taboo should not be the blasting fuse for violence; it should be the start for improvement. An open mind can create a tolerant society which allows different voices. If you get tired of keeping the wheels of thoughts on the same rails all the time, why not try to run off the rails for a time or two. Maybe a whole new rail can be found by a movement that someone claims to be dangerous.