equal-opportunity contempt

Today I was asked how much I would have to be paid in order to become black. After some head-scratching the terms were laid out: reality would be magically altered, and nothing else would change, I’d just be black. I didn’t bother asking if I would have a larger penis.

My response was a bit of a puzzled “nothing?” as I feel the question is disingenuous. What the question-poser really wanted to know was why being black would be more or less desirable than my current skin-tone. Why dance around that question by attempting to pose a less sincere version of it in hopes of tricking someone to answer “correctly?”

The answer is that it really doesn’t matter on any level. My maternal grandfather was Mexican. Two of my grandmothers were Native American (different tribes.) My mixed ethnicity means nothing to me until I fill out government-required forms, and even then it means trying to figure out what box(es) to check. Due to the racist nature of these questions I never answer caucasian, even though that would be the largest piece of my ethnicity-pie. Beyond checking boxes, it means nothing to me. I don’t consider myself Catholic, nor do I actively identify with either Native American tribe. My identity is not dependent on my parents or my grandparents or my great-grandparents. No ones should be, but sadly, that’s rarely the case.

Some people give up because they grew up “on the streets” and don’t seek anything beyond that existence. Some allow themselves to be defined by the religion they were raised with. Others become willing slaves of the dollars they throw around. Whether they are the loud black homeless addicts that live in the park outside my apartment, or obnoxious drunken white frat-boys, their existence is equally inconvenient for me. Since I don’t live in the U district I have less exposure to the latter than the former, but know with confidence that I feel contempt for both groups equally. In both cases basic decency is ignored in favor of adherence to negative stereotypes.