They say your brain and your body changes every second, you are not who you are a minute ago, and this makes society variant. People change, leaders change, ideas change but there are a couple of main subjects that remain and one them is race.
"Excuse me, Professor? What do you mean by my race? I don't think I understand that concept."
"Look at your hand: Would you call yourself white?"
"What do you mean 'white'?"
"Just tell me what color you see."
"Umm... I don't know, I look a bit yellow today."
"No, I meant your skin color as in your race."
"Well, I am Turkish. What would that make me? Meditteranean?"
"Is that the race you define yourself?"
"No, I am Turkish."
"Why don't you just answer the question properly?"
"Why are you so determined to make me see myself, define myself, with just a color?"
This was the legit conversation I had with my English professor at my old school. And also the first time I encountered someone who was so obsessed with skin color.
I honestly wasn't trying to annoy her, though if I had the information and knowledge I have today I would probably annoy the shit out of her, I literally didn't know how to answer that question. At that time we, my family and I were new to this country so you can guess how much I was confused with all those new information, a brand new culture.
But why was she trying so hard to teach me about this skin color nonsense?
"This is how it works here." Those were the words she used.
As someone who is an outsider, it is very clear to see the problem of this country. People like my lovely English professor are the problem. People who want to categorize others by their color, not by their successes. I am just a small- smaller than you can imagine- part of those affected by this encounter who refused to accept it. What about the other more than 43.7 million people? How many of them accepted it? How many of them teach this "culture" to their children, their students? Read the Wall Street Journal, turn on the News; you will see them in their suits or just simply look around while walking around in the city and you will see that person who accepted his/her "destiny".This is not how things work. Not in my perspective.
Every human being is different than the next to them; physically and mentally. And if you put a shy guy and an outgoing guy in the same category, that’s where you make your mistake. There is a big problem with race in almost every country, but the one we are living in, United States of America, this problem is greater than others. We said the government is responsible. First, we put the dissimilar ones together and then we separated the similar ones; orange, purple or grey but with people. Balance shouldn’t be a delusion but a path to many things.
Focusing on one problem will not be a solution. Society is one of the many things people share in this world. Keep shaping it in your hands; there will be no end of it, therefore,
