Color Complex

“It is hard to free fools from the chains they revere.”
-Voltaire

It’s funny how some people can talk SO much and have an opinion about any and everything, but when you actually listen to what they’re saying, weeding out all the “you know what I’m sayin’s,” to the “likes” and all the “ums,” and not to mention the endless stream of profanity, all you’re left with is an empty and pointless conversation. A conversation I was so lucky to be trapped in some months ago.

I was in the living room when my roommate came in with two guys behind her. My initial impression of these guys was not a good one. They just did not rub me the right way; we had as much connection as two magnetic poles of the same charge. Both of them had this air about them; this so called “tough” exterior which was nothing more than a façade that pathetically attempted to compensate for their lack of depth and intelligence. Sounds harsh, I know, but first impressions are everything and I was not impressed.

We were all seated on the couch and someone started a conversation. I continued to flip through the channels in search of something to watch. Meanwhile, the three were talking and race became the topic of discussion. Some views were exchanged, and just when I was about to leave the room, one of the boys turned to me and said, “see you ain’t gotta do much to work in Corporate America. But a nigga like me gotta act like a white man to make that cheese.”

I paused for a moment, completely taken aback by his ignorant statement. For the first couple of seconds all I did was stare at him, with his blue-black tattoos staining his already dark complexion, and a smirk on his face that revealed his crooked and painfully yellow teeth. I just couldn’t believe he had the audacity to tell me that I “didn’t have to do too much.” To the simple-minded, this statement would have been perceived as a compliment. He did say I would be successful, but on what grounds? And why does he have to act like a “white man” in order to make it? One who is articulate, who can actually speak in complete sentences without cursing, and one who has practical goals that can be reached are not characteristics only held by the white population. We don’t have to act like another group in order to be successful; it sickens me to know that there are so many like him in the world with his mentality, constantly using skin color as a crutch.

We are doctors, lawyers, writers, actors—you name it; and it is NOT because we’re trying to act like someone else; it is who we are destined to be. That guy is a prime example of why certain people do not amount to anything in their lives—because they are forever feeding into stereotypes and succumbing to inferiority. I feel so sorry for them.

Jennifer Vassel