Racial identity and the "in-between" space

Angry. Pained. Lost.


Reading Darkroom was incredibly emotive for me. It reminded me of my time living in Charleston, South Carolina, and all the livid experiences I faced as an "in-between" person of color. I think of the future, when I'll move back to the south--Norfolk, Virginia--to be with my Navy nuke husband, and I can't help of all the people who are still living with this backward and demented construct on race, and I can't help but think of the people who insist that this world ought to be colorblind, and no matter the level of society I'm in, I realize time and time again that "race issues" is a pandora's box, nobody will want to talk about it, and to be ostracized for it, it hurts and it makes you tired. But these are only the preliminary thoughts I have on this moving memoir.

I've been having a difficult time this semester--balancing everything, from my husband's Navy life to my academic life, and I can that this book came at a heavy time. There is a thing about the South that's intoxicating, whether it's the chimes of the cicadas, the pristine beaches, the stalks in the marshes, the food, the colonial architecture, the cobble-stone streets, the sprawling plantation and huge angel oak trees that hold the world still--and yes, they do, they hold the world still. The South still has so many problems, whether it's facing their destructive past and sugarcoating it, to its economic, racial segregation--I can't tell you how many times whenever my husband and I would walk into a low-end restaurant or diner how many faces would turn and look at us. And stare. For moments that seem like forever. And their eyes would dart, follow us to our seats. Yet, there are parts in the South that are slowly reflecting how multiracial America really is--like Norfolk is an example, with its burgeoning Filipino, Chinese, and latino communities alongside with the black and white communities. I could have never been able to comprehend the stretches and devastations of race without living in the South. I have a lot of love for South Carolina, Alabama, Virginia, these Bible-belt states, and it's for many reasons, but mainly because, like this book, I want it to get better. There's a maddening beauty there, that's steeped in sadness and destruction, and I've met many, many beautiful folks, of all colors, from my time there.

And yet, what's strange about it all is that as a Filipina American woman, I was considered "white" there. Especially due to my education, to my clothes, to the way I spoke. Nobody in the publishing company I worked for knew there was an Asian girl in the production department until the only half-white, half-black woman in the whole company told everyone else. When we first saw each other across the hall, in the break room, we knew we had to talk to each other. That "race" didn't compute to our coworkers.

It's why I really connected with this book. One of the Navy wives I've met attended high school in Birmingham, graduated in 2009, and still received all the racial slurs you could think of. The work's not done yet. Not even close.

What I really loved about this book was the immigration arc of Lila's family. The maps were incredibly compelling, the art was finely tuned and crisp, the photographic imagery tied with the black-and-white montages lingered and haunted me, especially the night of the march, the night where the state troopers of Alabama clubbed freedom fighters for the sake of madness.

In a sense, I wanted more from this memoir. The artistry just left me breathless, but the return home to Argentina came too soon. Despite this minor detail, I still loved the memoir and really wanted to end with this quote by Toni Morrison. Lila Quintero Weaver was able to extrapolate from the images of her past these specific moments that say so much, that are so revealing of what racism really does to the human soul. It makes one bereft. It's a monstrous exercise that's more harmful, ten times more harmful, to the racist than the one who experiences racism. My times in the South taught me this. That no matter how many white men told me "Where are you from? No really, where are you from? Your family? Do you know any other Filipino women? I love Filipino women--they're submissive, docile, and beautiful. Better than white women," and no matter how many stares and looks and angry eyes my husband and I received for just existing, that despite these things, I knew who I was, I was proud of who I was, and I didn't need to take something away from others in order to be who I am.

Toni Morrison, of course, says it better:

"Yes, I do, Charlie, but let me tell you, that's the wrong question. How do you feel? Not you, Charlie Rose, but don't you understand that the people who do this thing, who practice racism, are bereft, there is something distorted about the psyche? It's a huge waste, and it's a corruption and a distortion. It's like it's a profound neurosis that nobody examines for what it is. It feels crazy. It is crazy. And it leaves, it has just as much of a deliterious effect on white people; and possibly equal as it does black people. I always knew that I had the moral high ground. All my life. I always thought those people who said I couldn't come in the drugstore, I had to sit in this funny place, I couldn't go in the park... And I thought they knew that I knew that they were inferior to me, morally. I always thought that. And my parents always thought that. 

But if the racist white person--I don't mean a person who is examining his consciousness and so on--doesn't understand that he or she is also a race, it's also constructed, it's also made, and it also has some kind of serviceability, but when you take it away, like take your race away, and there you are all strung out, and all you got is your little self, and what is that? 

What are you without racism? Are ya any good? Are ya still strong? Still smart? You still like yourself? I mean, these are the questions, part of it is, 'yes, the victim, how terrible it's been for black people...' 

I'm not a victim. I refuse to be one. 

If you can only be tall because somebody's on their knees, then you have a serious problem. And my feeling is, white people have a very, very serious problem. And they should start thinking about what they can do about it. 

Take me out of it."

-- Toni Morrison 

I want to apologize for being late, Elmaz. It's been a tough week. <3

~ Melissa