This is a very difficult thing for a white person to write, and yet as a person who believes that we’re all animated by the same energy, and skin colour is nothing more than gift wrap, I feel it’s important that it’s said.
Imagine
If a speaker stood on a stage to speak to a multicultural audience, and they asked all the people of colour to stand up, what do you think would happen? For me there are three likely choices:
- Some people of colour would stand.
- Some people would not stand because the request made them uncomfortable, and they feel singled out.
- Everyone would stand. To me this is the least likely option.
It’s option three that I want to explore.
‘People of colour’ has a very specific meaning, non-white. So would white people in that audience think of themselves as a colour, or would they follow the traditional route that non-white people are people of colour? There would not be any insult intended, it’s just the language we’re used to. A description we’re used to.
Yet I am white, well a sort of creamy colour with pink cheeks and the kind of veins that gives you purple stripes as you get older, and I am a colour. That’s a fact. I’m not a nothing. Even if you have a plain sheet of white paper it’s always described as white, because it is the colour white. You don’t say ‘that sheet is purple and that sheet is nothing.’
I’m not complaining that we’re being erased here, nothing of the sort it’s not true, I’m reflecting on the fact that in thinking ‘people of colour’ and ‘the others’ that we’re talking division into being all the time. If we accepted that we’re all people of colour then straight away we eradicate one pointless division.
I’m not interested in discussing skin colour when I meet anyone, I’m interested in who they are, and whether the heart that beats in that chest is a kind one. Whether we can talk or not.
If there is hostility I don’t think “ah…that’s skin colour doing that”, I think “that’s not a very nice person”. Not instantly of course, you’ve got to find out whether people are okay. But if they’re carrying any form of prejudice and sharing it too enthusiastically, I will never blame their skin, it can’t speak. I also don’t care what gift wrap they come wrapped in, not nice is not nice.
Until we’re wise enough to remove as many barriers as we can, there will always be divisions. Divisions that serve no useful purpose except to make this world less certain for future generations.
We can keep up the in fighting, the focus on difference, or we can see how much our societies really need to change, and step up and be the change we want for the children of the future.
So if ever I should be in that very weird situation where people of colour are asked to stand up, I’ll be the first person on my feet. Right alongside my soul siblings.
We’re all soul. All energy. All light. Must be hard to tell us apart in spirit.
Deb xx
Deb Hawken - Amorah 