Manifest Destiny?
Is it time to be spreading ourselves and our resources out geographically?
If you answered yes, I think you are taking a number of things for granted here that not everyone has the luxury to do. I was born in Seoul, Korea and adopted by upper middle class Germans living in Minneapolis. I attended small private schools all of my life, so the amount of racism, or other sorts of ostracism were kept to a dull roar at best.
However growing up a 6’1” Asian in the Midwest, I was acutely aware of being the other and it was not until I moved to New York City that I felt that I could really walk around without sorely sticking out. Having grown up in MN, unlike a lot of New Yorkers, I am aware that a wide open country exists between the Hudson River and Los Angeles. I did not move to NYC until I was 23. But before than, I did a lot of mountain biking, camping, fishing and just discovering what this country has to offer.
I however, was the first Asian, that a number of people who call the USA home, had ever seen. A lot of the awkwardness as well as intolerance I encountered all over the US, outside of urban areas, I think was mitigated by socio-economics. This may have worked against me in some cases. Outsiders showing up in foreign engineered cars does not rest well in a lot of these places. Regardless, white, as in the color of your skin, is still very very important in a large part of this great nation.
This melting pot called America, fewer and fewer citizens are white, and short of moving a whole group of people just like yourself to a place outside of an urban setting, you are just setting up a ghetto, or are looking to not have to engage on the community level, which a lot of people with white skin take for granted, when they propose that our resources be spread out.
I would love to be able to move to a smaller community besides upstate New York, but believe you me, almost the rest of this country, would be the last place I would consider calling home, ever. It is a place where you can spot a stranger, but it is also a place where if the color of your skin is not white, it will forever be held against you, or at the very least, keep you from feeling as part of a community.
I don’t think the only answer lies in manifest destiny.
It is about addressing the problem instead of chronically treating the symptoms.
It is about teaching people that along with all of this freedom comes the responsibility of their choices.
It is about making people understand that other people do not have to be wrong in order for their way of life to be right.
It is about turning off your cell phone and your pager and your blackberry and communicating with the people who are in front of you, right here and right now.
It is about turning off your television and instead of watching other people, starved for any sort of validation, reacting badly to horrible situations, start living your own life for your own sense of self.
It is about not buying everything lock, stock and barrel.
It is about stopping identifying yourself with a brand.
It is about exercising the biggest muscle in the human body without letting it get ahead of ourselves.
Most importantly it is about having the strength and resolve to live your life like you mean it, but be yielding enough to realize that you will not always have it right.
If you answered yes, I think you are taking a number of things for granted here that not everyone has the luxury to do. I was born in Seoul, Korea and adopted by upper middle class Germans living in Minneapolis. I attended small private schools all of my life, so the amount of racism, or other sorts of ostracism were kept to a dull roar at best.
However growing up a 6’1” Asian in the Midwest, I was acutely aware of being the other and it was not until I moved to New York City that I felt that I could really walk around without sorely sticking out. Having grown up in MN, unlike a lot of New Yorkers, I am aware that a wide open country exists between the Hudson River and Los Angeles. I did not move to NYC until I was 23. But before than, I did a lot of mountain biking, camping, fishing and just discovering what this country has to offer.
I however, was the first Asian, that a number of people who call the USA home, had ever seen. A lot of the awkwardness as well as intolerance I encountered all over the US, outside of urban areas, I think was mitigated by socio-economics. This may have worked against me in some cases. Outsiders showing up in foreign engineered cars does not rest well in a lot of these places. Regardless, white, as in the color of your skin, is still very very important in a large part of this great nation.
This melting pot called America, fewer and fewer citizens are white, and short of moving a whole group of people just like yourself to a place outside of an urban setting, you are just setting up a ghetto, or are looking to not have to engage on the community level, which a lot of people with white skin take for granted, when they propose that our resources be spread out.
I would love to be able to move to a smaller community besides upstate New York, but believe you me, almost the rest of this country, would be the last place I would consider calling home, ever. It is a place where you can spot a stranger, but it is also a place where if the color of your skin is not white, it will forever be held against you, or at the very least, keep you from feeling as part of a community.
I don’t think the only answer lies in manifest destiny.
It is about addressing the problem instead of chronically treating the symptoms.
It is about teaching people that along with all of this freedom comes the responsibility of their choices.
It is about making people understand that other people do not have to be wrong in order for their way of life to be right.
It is about turning off your cell phone and your pager and your blackberry and communicating with the people who are in front of you, right here and right now.
It is about turning off your television and instead of watching other people, starved for any sort of validation, reacting badly to horrible situations, start living your own life for your own sense of self.
It is about not buying everything lock, stock and barrel.
It is about stopping identifying yourself with a brand.
It is about exercising the biggest muscle in the human body without letting it get ahead of ourselves.
Most importantly it is about having the strength and resolve to live your life like you mean it, but be yielding enough to realize that you will not always have it right.
posted by yellowcracker @ 3:07 AM
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