Brown (a poem)

They say to me,

“You’re not really brown, you know.”

Or,  “I thought you were White.” and

“Oh, well you don’t look

(insert: Latino, Spanish, Jewish, Arab, Middle-Eastern, BROWN.)

I know what my skin looks like:

café au lait, with too much lait

Brown isn’t a skin colour,

Brown is an experience

Brown is being told

To speak English

Brown is being called a terrorist on the train

When someone confuses your yarmulke with a kufi

Brown is people mispronouncing your name

Every fucking day

Brown is being afraid security is gonna be called

 When you’re browsing the aisles

Brown is being told to go back to where you came from,

When your apartment is just a block away

Brown is being assaulted in public,

With everybody watching

Brown is being scared of walking alone at night,

Of airports, the police, your own neighbours

Brown is being told

Your experience doesn’t matter

Brown is an experience.

I am brown.

Personal Space: The Grocery Store is Not a Country Club

My friend S. recently told me a disturbing story. This is nothing new to me, but it was one of the first times he had experienced racism in Portland due to his experience. So you know, S. is half Moroccan like me, but he has darker skin than I do.

S. is health-concious and prefers shopping for his food at places like Whole Foods, New Seasons etc. He was in NW Portland's Whole Foods (located on the skirts of the Pearl District) last Sunday to do some shopping but he had to use the bathroom. Whole Foods has a customer only policy on bathrooms, and S. for all intents and purposes was a customer. He did not have the entry code on a receipt though, because he wasn't finished shopping. This is where the trouble started. S. waited while the bathroom was occupied and then tried to enter after an older White man came out. The man tried to stop S. from going in, demanding to see his receipt and when S. didn't answer him the man started calling for security. S. theorized to me that his skin color and his reticence (and possibly his attire) led the man to believe he didn't speak English nor was a customer of the store. It was humiliating and afterwards S. went to the manager and told him what happened. Fortunately the manager was sympathetic. Unfortunately there is nothing he can do about. Nor will it be the last time something like this happens.

I have had many experiences like S.'s and sadly I was not surprised by his story. I was disgusted, of course, and also saddened that he had to experience this. S. comes from a more multicultural/multiethnic community in Pennsylvania and I don't think he has had to confront other people perceiving him as an "Other" before.

I found myself thinking more about this incident and then about two days later I had an epiphany. Rich (and/or) White people constantly feel entitled to question the presence of people like us in a space that they perceive as "theirs". The neighborhood in which this particular grocery is located is demographically-speaking, overwhelmingly White and furthermore the Whole Foods brand attracts mostly wealthy White customers.

What I don't understand is why the customer decided to intervene. It really wasn't any of his business. That is what Whole Foods employs security guards for. Moreover, S. was carrying a Whole Foods bag, so theoretically he was also a customer. This man decided that my friend did not belong in his space, his neighborhood and felt threatened. Why do White people feel they can question this? The rest of us are certainly made to feel that we can't question gentrification, be it in our working class neighborhoods, our gay bars or our religious community centers.

The grocery store is not a country club.

I want JUSTICE

I want justice for victims of racial violence. The world has gone mad. It is disgusting. 

Everyone has been talking about the Trayvon Martin (learn about it here) case...frankly I am glad it is getting so much press. It has brought up a lot of strong feelings in my community here and I want to touch on how it relates to the injustice of the system here in Portland.

It's been about a month since the shooting of Trayvon Martin, and on March 13th a local Latino man (link: Alberto Flores-Haro) was shot in the stomach by our notorious police force when he came out into his yard to check for intruders late in the evening.

On top of that, I discovered today that the Portland Police Bureau is considering reinstating Ron Frashour (AFTER HE WAS FIRED!), the officer who shot a mentally-unstable, unarmed Black man in the back with an assault rifle (Jason Campbell) last January. An arbitrator for the case states that "it was reasonable to believe that he could be armed" (Portland Mercury, 2012). What was the justification for this? Was it reasonable because he was Black and upset? The record states that it "appeared" he was reaching for a gun as he ran away but many local citizens are unsatisfied by that idea. I am one of them.

The Trayvon Martin case stirs up a lot of feelings for those of us living here in Portland because of the nature of the crime: An unarmed young Black man being shot to death. The Portland Police Bureau has a sordid history (google Portland Copwatch) of shooting unarmed homeless, disabled and/or people of color. With the possible reinstating of Frashour,it appears that we cannot control the police and we have no voice for justice in our city.

Is there justice anywhere?

Worst F*cking Nightmare

In light of the recent gentrification topics, I found this image particularly hilarious.

It's the Holy Trinity of what I want to avoid while walking down the sidewalks of Portland: liberal heterosexual White couples, their kids and their dogs.

Bike Lanes: White People Ruin Everything

Well, that's it. Today I found out that the North Williams Stakeholder Advisory Committee has reached a decision and decided to go ahead with the bike lane expansion on North Williams Avenue. This, after months of debate, is yet another blow to the historical African American community in North Portland. What disgusts me most were the circus antics of the committee and City Council, pretending to give a shit what residents think. 


One of the biggest problems with the average Portlander is they have no idea what gentrification is, or how they're contributing to it. Portland used to have a vibrant Black community centered by a "main street" that is now occupied by the Rose Quarter transit center and highway ramps. Now as then, the city has ignored the history and legitimacy of the Black community in Portland. 


People continue to move here, and these people are overwhelmingly White, upper-middle class educated heterosexual couples. One such citizen, Angela Goldsmith, was interviewed by the Portland Mercury in their article "It's Not About the Bikes" (http://www.portlandmercury.com/portland/its-not-about-the-bikes/Content?oid=5619639) and opined: "I'm not selling my property so I don't give a shit." Really classy. Turns out Goldsmith was one of the first gentrifiers to swoop in after the construction of the Legacy hospital (which displaced hundreds of Black families and shut down local business) and buy a house. She now owns three properties in the area. I feel like Ms. Goldsmith is a prime example of the issues surrounding gentrification and the N. Williams Avenue problem. It's easy for a White person with power, privilege and money to dismiss the concerns as trifling.

I'm not really sure what else to say. I'm really angry right now, but honestly not surprised. I should have expected it. Right now I'm just questioning what I can do to fight back on behalf of the Black community. At least I'm talking about it.


For further reading about Portland's sordid history of gentrification and discrimination, please read Karen J. Gibson's "Bleeding Albina, A History of Community Disinvestment, 1940-2000". It can be found here: (http://www.kingneighborhood.org/history/Bleeding%20Albina:%20A%20History%20of%20Community%20Disinvestment,%201940-2000.pdf)

Speaking up, speaking out

Lately I am running out of things to say, it seems. I have been harping on the same subjects over and over and to what end? There have been myriad encounters and stories like my previous post here in this city. It's something that doesn't seem like to change. I want to challenge people to think outside their privilege and see the reality of our society but at the same time I am having issues getting past the anger I feel when I am being discriminated against. 


I'm tired of being told that I'm demasiado intenso, that I just need to have a positive outlook, that I shouldn't be so mean. Most of the people telling me this are my White friends. It probably doesn't help that most of my friends here are White...but what do you expect? My cousin Armenia, on the contrary, reinforces me against giving in to complacency. She thinks it is a positive trait that I am so outspoken and that I will confront people who are being racist/homophobic/classist/sexist etc. 


I guess the issue is that I need to find some happy medium without giving up the fight. I think maybe that I don't have to be so combative, but I also don't have to stay silent.

Decolonization

I’m reflecting on last night, where again I have found myself the only non-White person at a party. Something in me urges to write about this experience, I’m trying to be nonplussed about it, but it’s hard. It’s always hard.  I realized today that I’m sick of letting myself be co-opted for whiteboyworld’s entertainment. I know I live in Portland, where it’s 85% Caucasian, but I’m still breathing, still a part of that other percentage that all the White activists ignore when they rail about classism.

Back to the party…I remember when me and two other of my companions sneak our way back up the stairs on a mission masquerading as a smoke break to really clear our heads. Some of the partygoers leak out after us and strike a conversation in the driveway. We all introduce ourselves. Predictably there is an audible silence after me and the quintessential nicewhitegirl says how she likes my name, how it’s a cool name. Oh yay, the tokenism has begun. At least they didn’t ask me where I was from. I just smile awkwardly and that’s the last time I speak directly to anyone I don’t previously know at this shindig. I realize it’s time to go when some newcomers have a side conversation about what’s the PC term for a Native American while one of them is wearing some Urban Outfitters shit with a “Navajo” design fluttering above her tiny midriff.

I can’t stand this world. I feel like more analogously Caucasian faces and thought-patterns are slowly blotting me out.  I’m tired of being the only coloured person at the party, the only Latino in the “Hispanic” food section of Fred Meyers, the only guy on my block who rocks a skullcap. I’m not a token, I’m not going to be colonized for someone else’s mental well being because they have a friend that is queer/of colour/Jewish etc. I’m not going to teach you a pithy lesson from my homeland; I’m not going to teach you Spanish.

Yes, I am going to be offended by your racist good intentions. I’m going to talk back; I’m going to correct your perceptions. I’m going to make you mad, I’m going to dismantle your co-options, and I’m going to throw your world for a loop. I’m not going to sit here and let you blot me out for this anti-septic, White, bourgeois vision of what you think your community should be. Fuck that noise.

I’m decolonizing that shit.

Gay is NOT the "New Black"

Although the hubbub has died down around the catchphrase that so-called GLBTQ activists coined, “Gay is the new Black”, I feel like now I can coherently address the issues around it from my perspective as a queer-identified person of colour. 

The problem with this phrase, other than the obvious denigration of the Black experience, centres on choice. No, not the choice that the rabid Christian right is always squawking about…I am not talking about the choice to be GLBTQ, because as any educated person would know…it’s biological. I am talking about the choice to come out and identify oneself in the public sphere as GLBTQ.  This is key.

People of colour do not choose to identify as people of colour, we don’t “come out of the closet” so to speak about being Black, Latino, Asian etc. It is easily identifiable by our skin, our hair or our speech patterns among other things. It is written upon us for all to see. This is the difference between being a person of colour and being GLBTQ. Arguably you cannot “see” GLBTQ.

Identity politics aside, being identified as person of colour is not a choice. (White) GLBTQ people have a choice and the privilege to come out and be identified as GLBTQ. Those of us who are not White, and regardless of our sexuality, do not have that privilege. Therein lies the difference and should point out the issue in claiming that “gay is the new Black.” Black is still Black and the last time I checked, the civil rights struggle for racial equality was far from over.

The Semite in Anti-Semitism

[Ed. note: I find it very fascinating that almost all spell-check programs, including the Microsoft package, do not recognize "Anti-Semitism" as a word. Think about that.]

I admittedly hijacked the conversation in the comments section on a Racialicious blogpost entitled "Racial Fractures and the Occupy Movement", but every time this particular subject arises I feel compelled to say something. The commenter wrote this: 

"Antisemitism as being under the umbrella of racism defines Jewish people as being a Jewish race.  One can be racially White, Asian, Latino, Native, and/or Black, and also Jewish.  Anti-Jeiwsh sentiments, actions, and negatively impacting behavior in general should included too, but I don't think it is appropriate to generalize it to race.  That would be a major oversight.  Also, the term "Semite" refers to many different people, or which those who identify as Jewish are included.  By using that term, did you mean to highlight oppression of Jewish people in the United States, Middle Eastern and/or Arabic people in the United States, or specifically all of the groups under the definition of the term "Semite"?

I'm using the definition from wikipedia, so I am open to discussion to continue disambiguating this term."

[...cont. edit]

My response to his comment is as follows:

"Dear Gregory, 

As a Sephardic-Jewish linguist and activist, I have to contest what you wrote. The word “Anti-Semitism” and the word Semite have historically been used to refer to anti-Jewish bias and Jewish people for countless years both as a racial/ethnic group and a religious minority.

The use of “Semite” in the linguistic sense of the word can and does refer to Hebrew, Arabic and Geez-speaking (among others) groups of people but does not refer to an ethnic group outside of Jewish people. The Wikipedia article you referred to actually points out this explicitly by informing us that the term was coined in the 19th century in Germany and roughly translates from German as “Jew-hateness” or the hating of Jewish people. 

There are many arguments for including other ethnic groups in the term Semite, but the word anti-Semitism continues to refer to the hatred or bias against Jewish people and personally I believe that using it as an umbrella term does disservice to the awareness of anti-Semitic actions against Jewish people. I would also just like to point out that the last two FBI hate crime index reports have listed Jewish people as one of the consistently attacked group in the religious tract (above Muslims even after 2001). 

Perhaps it is contradictory of me to end on this note but this is not the time to be watering-down terminology and discussing terminological problems. We need to be fighting racism in all its form, not being distracted by pedagogy.  

Thank you."

I am honestly not sure what else to say on the subject. I just find comments like his quite contradictory and also troubling. It is troubling to me that people want to gloss-over the problem of anti-Semitism as something of the past...it is still a problem here in this country! It's racism! Racism is still a problem too.

Under the Table (a Tale of S. W. B.)

I don’t like screaming the r word, I really don’t. I like giving people the benefit of the doubt, I swear! I don’t want to be seen as the Cassandra that is cursed so that no one listens to her warnings.  I understand that people get tired of talking about it…but that’s complacency you know. It is just an excuse for complacency.

Anyway, I was downtown last afternoon, more specifically in the Pearl District (see: Gentrification Vs. Development) waiting for an interview at an art college when I decided to kill some time while I waited by going into Sur La Table. This place is a hoity-toity kitchenware store right across from Powell’s books, catering mostly to upper-echelon foodies and culinary hobbyists. They even have cooking classes.  There only other location in the area is in Lake Oswego.  Should have been my first warning, right? Mistake No.1.

Whatever. I’m dumb like that.

I walked in and was immediately but passively accosted by the phenomenon I (not so) fondly refer to as “Shopping While Black”, or SWB. This is related to the phenomenon known as Driving While Black. Basically, when one walks into a “finer” shopping establishment and does not fit the nice-rich-White- lady/gentleman stereotype, one is subject to this phenomenon. It can manifest as employees following you around the store, being overeager to direct you to a particular section of the store (clearance, for instance), positioning themselves between you and the exit or even telling you that they don’t carry “those kinds of items here.” Yeah, I’ve heard that before too. 

So at Sur La Table, the second I walk in, a blonde NWL comes right up to me to ask if I can be helped with anything. Normally I just say no, but this time I asked about frying pans (Mistake No. 2) and she directed me to said section, and explicitly pointed out the two-for-one deal. As if. She hovers a bit, till finally I kindly and passively let her know that I’m just browsing and she can fuck of somewhere else. I’ve already been subjected to two examples of SWB, but then I notice immediately that she wanders away to the end of the display case-created “hall” where she positions herself in the way of main exit, pretending not to be watching me. Right. Like I don’t know what she’s doing. Loss prevention my ass.

At this point I am pissed off and definitely not going to buy their overpriced Scandinavian cookware. I walk around from the pans, wipe my hands on a few baking trays out of spite and then continue around to the main exit so as to not walk by this NWL. She, of course, pops out from her completely obvious station as Guarder Against the Poor in Our Store (did that make you chuckle?) and wishes me a nice day.

I didn’t even look at her. Bitch.

Normally I get over occurrences of SWB after a few hours and a few cigarettes. I woke up however, a day later, still pissed off. I ranted on the phone to my mother about it, who has resigned herself already to the fact that this isn’t ever going to change. She suggested dressing up super nice and just trying to interact with the same employee to teach her a lesson. I, in turn, wanted to call up rant at the manager, lie and say that I was a relative of Ina Garten (the Barefoot Contessa) because, 1) being half-Jewish I decided that we were related and 2) that she would never support Sur La Table again after I related this experience to her. 

In the end, this being untrue and probably unhelpful to my blood pressure and karmic state, I decided to just give them a nasty YELP review and write this blog.

The End.

untitled

Nasty snares, stares
Milkmaid complex
Poisonous smile


I can't deal
With your evil
Incandescence

Gentrification vs. "Development"

There is nothing that makes my blood boil more than gentrification.

Today on my lunch break, I was listening to a conversation my coworkers were having about the Alberta neighborhood. One of the managers lives near there. He called it the 'hood. Now, Alberta has been gentrified out of the ass since the late 90s with upper-middle class (over)educated, 30-something White couples moving in, buying houses and displacing what has been a historically Black neighborhood since the Vanport flooding in the 40s. Now I am all for everyone living together...I mean we're supposed to be a pluralistic society, no?

HOWEVER. This isn't integration. This is just pushing people out of their neighborhoods into crappier areas with less resources and infrastructure. This is especially problematic if you consider how segregated Portland is already. According to census information in Multnomah county, people of color (and working class Whites) are clustered in communities past 82nd Ave where there is a much lower economic level and many families living in bad conditions. The neighborhoods out there suck, basically. It's more dangerous too.

At one point during the conversation, another coworker said rather blithely "I went to that [Alberta] area as a child a few times and its just so developed now." She was implying that all the new White-owned businesses and new condos were improving the neighborhood, that it was more "fun". (Sidebar: Now I like this particular coworker, but she is naive. The worst part is she's a POC like me, but the Whitest one I ever met.)

Anyway...back to the issue. You call it development, I call it gentrification.

Just Say NO!