Its funny how you generally don't think too much about how the rest of the world percieves you. You walk around the streets thinking that people see you pretty much the way you see yourself and when something happens to make you realize that it is different you are surprised. I feel like this travelling thing is a good way to be aware of the effect that you have on other people. I was walking to my school this morning and I got a couple of the usual curious glances. This really does not bother me, and usually I ascribe nothing to it, but other times, like today, I think about what I must look like to others. What does my skin tone mean to them. When I think about myself, I think about being open minded and generally kind to whomever I come across, I think of being interested in the lives of others and the histories of all parts of our globe. I am aware of the differences in social class and skin color but I think that generally I do a pretty decent job of treating all people the same way; a consistent way. That said, I feel that it is important to remind myself from time to time that other people, when they look at me, don't see these things immediately. They don't just assume them.
Here in Peru, and also in a lot of other places like Africa and Asia, having the white face, red cheeks and light colored hair is an instant and glaring reminder of a difference. Unfortunately, this difference isn't always one that has happy memories and/or associations for one or both of the parties present. Sometimes I have to remind myself that my skin color has, at times, been the color of cultural destruction. A color synonymous with evil things, deadly things, oppression, slavery, cruelty in myriad forms and the soul destruction of millions of human beings throughout time. Think this sounds too harsh? Is this thought upsetting you during your morning latté before leaving your nice first world house in your nice first world neighborhood? Well, billions of people in the history of the world may beg to differ. All of the continents of the world have been conquered and exploited by white Europeans at one point in time or another. The imprint of which is still seen in all of these places. Why do you think travel visas to countries that used to be controlled by predominantly white cultures are so expensive for those same travellers. In India, Australia, Africa, New Zealand, North America, and countless other places, english has become one of the main local languages, if not the only recognized official language, but not because the original residents of these places thought it would be a fun idea to learn english. Spanish is the language here in South America but not because the Incas and Mayas thought it would sound cool to speak spanish. Portugese is spoken in Brasil and many parts of Africa too. Why? Because the Portugese colonized them. This may not seem like such a big deal in the US in our day. Or in Australia, but that is because we are the ancestors of the oppresor culture so we teach our children that what we did was to help the poor local people who wouldn't have stood a chance without our generous intervention. It is the same in all parts where colonalization is happening or has happened. In Australia the whites who came were "trying to help" the "poor" aborigines out by breeding out thier "savage blood" and then educating thier young in white boarding schools. Kidnapping children to teach them english and to cure them of backwards earth-based religious leanings, and to give to them the gift of Jesus. And what a gift this has turned out to be. Even now we sell these lies. Not to get too far into current politics, but the "gifts" of democracy and western culture are not as simple as they seem. Why do you think there are Bin Ladens and terror cells and various forms of "blowback" in all parts of this ever-shrinking world? It is because this ongoing caucasian domination invokes all sorts of strong and angry feelings of reprisal.
I can remember the first time that this was really, concretely inserted into my understanding. I was in Spain, and I had been walking the Camino of Santiago in the north of the country. I ended up dating a young Spanish girl named Carmen and when I finished walking the trail I went to stay with her in Madrid for a while. We both loved ice cream and so we sort of did a tour of the "great ice cream spots of Madrid". This is not on your usual tourist map. One night at about 10:30, we went to this place on some small side street and sat down and were immediately approached by a smiling man with a big black mustache and the kind of hat old men in Spain often wear. I didn't speak much spanish at all at that time and Carmen and the guy were carrying on in a friendly conversation for about five minutes before we ordered. He kept looking at me with smiling eyes, he obviously liked Carmen and so he liked me too. I was OK because she was OK. He took our order and walked off to get the ice cream. Carmen told me that he was from Chile and had a funny accent. I thought that was interesting, and how interesting it was to come across a Chilean in the middle of Spain. He brought our ice cream and smiled at me as he gave me mine. "Gracias." I stammered and he smiled wider. Carmen started to talk to him again and I understood that she was telling him about me. Who I was, how we had met, where I was from. Then a strange thing started to happen. His smile slowly dissolved into a look of neutrality, and then his neutral mouth crept down into a deep frown and then his face drew tight and he turned his head and looked me dead in the eye with a look of such hatred like I had never seen before. It was like a big dark stormcloud had rolled in over his head and it was starting to rain. Hard. He said some things to me in a loud voice in a language that I didn't understand. I am sure I looked surprised, and probably a little bit scared. After a few seconds of this he pushed my spoon onto the floor and walked away quickly behind the counter and then through the curtain that led, presumably, to an office or back room. Carmen looked at me with concern. I was in the process of beginning to ask what had happened when the man came out from behind the curtain and continued with his assault. The other four or six people in the restaurant were gazing, wide-eyed, at the spectacle that was unfolding. Unfortunatley everyone there understood what was happening besides me. Carmen pushed her chair back and began getting up and as she did so she began to cry. The man was speaking very quickly now and his face was dark with anger. I started to stand up and as I did Carmen grabbed a fistful of my shirt in her hand and pulled me out the front door, leaving behind the fury of this Chilean and two bowls of melting, untouched ice cream. It was about a block or two of fast walking before Carmen would begin to tell me what had happened and I swear to God that until she did, I had no idea of what had gone down. Well, it turns out that there was a fella that ran Chile for a while by the name of Augusto Pinochet. Maybe you have heard of him, but probably you have not, and even if you have, you probably don't know much about the evil that he perpetrated in his country and you probably know even less about the aid he recieved from the government of who? That's right, us. The government of the good old US of A gave a good hand to a dictator. This, of course, was not the first or only time our government has done this. But in the case of this man, he had lost not only his wife, but both of his children to the hands of the Pinochet strongmen. He knew explicitly of the US involvement and his hatred was so strong for those that had killed his loved ones that many, many years later he would scream at a clueless American that sat dumb in his restaurant in a land far far away. Carmen kept apologizing to me for the things that he had said. She didn't need to. I was not in the least bit aware of the details of what he had said, but his sentiment had gotten through to me loud and clear. That was one of the earliest moments that kindled my distrust for governments and inspired in me an interest in knowing about the lives of others cultures and countries. I was ashamed, in that moment, of not having a clue about the behavior of my own country. It is indeed a shame that American foreign policy shapes the lives of so many of the world's people. And we, as Americans, enjoy the luxury of being able to ignore it, of never needing to learn about any of it, of being able to pretend that it doesn't exist. We shape so many factors of the world at large, and yet we have a populous that couldn't find Mexico City on a map. I was ashamed to not know much of the world, and I was ashamed, as I still am, of the government that constantly perpetuates global suffering and claims to speak on my behalf, and on the behalf of "the people". To conclude the story, it turns out that there is a large population of Chileans in Madrid and elsewhere in Spain. People who fled the terror inspired by Pinochet and his devils. (A start to understanding the Pinochet years in Chile can be found on Wikipedia under Augusto Pinochet.)
So this morning I was walking along in a good old mood. I saw an old man on the sidewalk, just standing there looking out from his driveway. As I passed I said hello, knowing that he probably wouldn't reply, knowing that I was something from far away. I looked into his eyes and they were not hateful, but they held something that reminded me of that man in the ice cream parlor in Spain. The memory I had wasn't a bad memory, but rather a quiet reminder of the lives of others. So many others, who we pass and see in our everyday lives without any thought to what reality in thier eyes looks like. Sometimes we need to be jolted in order to think about life outside of white-world. It can only be good for the world to do this. Good for the world, and good for us individually, if we can only act with selfish motives. If not for reasons of selflessness, then empathize with the world for selfishness. Either way, things get better.
In order to not end on a heavy note, I read a couple things in the news that made me laugh recently. First one: evidently there are a lot of people in America who are lobbying to try to pass a law okaying the possesion of firearms by students on American college campuses!!! Ha ha ha! I am probably opening myself up to second amendment criticism by discussing this, but can anyone think of a worse idea than this one? Let's bring a bunch of other guns into classrooms so that if a guy walks in with a gun, everyone can open up and shoot at him. Is there any way that this is a good idea?
"Well, Matt, we have the right to defend ourselves! If some crazy person comes in shooting I'll rope 'im with my lasso and then put 'im down with my six shooter!"
Good one. It must be related to the juvenile American conception of "killing a lot of people to achieve peace." And you wonder why the whole world is laughing at us!!
"Well, Matt, again you misunderstand...the world is laughing at us because everyone out there is just jealous!"
Aha. How could I not have seen this.
The best, and indeed lightest, is this. In Australia "they" are trying to change the law as to what Santa Claus (that's right, Santa Claus) can say when he is doing his thing in public. "They" are trying to stop him from saying "ho ho ho" and to start saying "ha ha ha" because the former is insulting to women!!! I am all for women and the rights and power of women, everyone knows this. But I don't think that one woman I know would think that this wasn't the stupidist thing they had ever heard of. Political Correctness is quite an entity. I can't wait until some interest group tries to get us to stop urinating!!!
"From now on people must not urinate because the smell is offensive to all humans, and this we can no longer tolerate!!"
"Yes, but if we don't go pee every now and again we will die, this is impossible!"
"Well, all you urinators are just going to have to find another way to rid your bodies of liquid waste. And if you can't figure out a better way than urination then maybe you deserve to die, you human haters!!"
Ok, I am being silly, but a silly question deserves a silly answer right? (Plus kids love potty humor, adults love potty humor. Who doesn't love a good pee joke!?!?) Ho ho ho. That ho ho ho shit is aimed at kids as it is. How, in any way, could this kind of innocence be insulting. Dumb. I'll probably get stopped in customs somewhere for this "anti-PC" view. Well, I'm stickin' to my guns on this one. Don't mind the Second Amendment pun there. Anyway, thanks for reading this, if you made it to the end you deserve a gold star...that is if we are still allowed to give gold stars to good kids. That may be unfair to silver stars...and that wouldn't be nice. Or gold stars for you good kids may make the bad kids feel bad about themselves and we can't have that...
Last thing, the fruit in Peru is out of this world. No joke. They make these strawberry milkshakes from fresh berries that are unlike anything I have had. Last night I had a pineapple that made me weep. Yesterday I had ice cream made from a fruit called Lucuma, I have a hard time describing it, but it was terrific. Yay for fruit...yay for Peru.
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