Friday, September 23, 2016

Being Color Brave

Growing up there have been a few times where I could say the words "I felt invisible." Feeling invisible is the most isolating feeling in the world. You feel like no one can hear you even when you are crying out for help. People seem to look right through you and it's almost as if you are nothing. I was never the "skinny girl" and in the dance world that is not always the best option. I would go to extreme lengths to keep my weight down. I was constantly surrounded by tall, thin, and muscular bodies. Being 4'11 most of my teenage and adult life, tall and thin was never really an option. I look back on my life as a high schooler and think to myself, it was never as bad as I thought it was. I always pushed myself away from others, and my entire high school career I thought it was the other way around.

Speaker Mellody Hobson dives into the meaning of the statements, "being color blind" or "being color brave." When watching her TED talk she discusses the subject of race. Mellody herself was the victim of racial discrimination when she showed up at a luncheon in New York with a friend. They had arrived and were asked where their uniforms were as if they were the wait staff. From this day forward she was more aware that racial discrimination was still a huge deal going on in today's society. Being color blind to many people can seem like a positive thing. It says to the world that you choose not to see color. Mellody discusses how that is not always a good thing. She states, "You see, researchers have coined this term "color blindness" to describe a learned behavior where we pretend that we don't notice race. If you happen to be surrounded by a bunch of people who look like you, that's purely accidental. Now, color blindness, in my view, doesn't mean that there's no racial discrimination, and there's fairness. It doesn't mean that at all. It doesn't ensure it. In my view, color blindness is very dangerous because it means we're ignoring the problem." 

On the other hand being color brave is a positive look at the color of ones skin. She states, "We have to be color brave. We have to be willing, as teachers and parents and entrepreneurs and scientists, we have to be willing to have proactive conversations about race with honesty and understanding and courage, not because it's the right thing to do, but because it's the smart thing to do." Being able to actually talk about the situation is the only way racism is going to stop being at the forefront of our society.

Mellody and organizations like Youth In Action(YIA) which our previous blog post is about, are begging to get the ball rolling in taking social injustices and making them everyday discussions around the circle. Today our class got to see first hand what these youth do everyday in order to make a positive impact and change in the communities that they live in. Mellody is an amazing example of why stereotyping and racial discrimination need to be a thing of the past. Due to the fact that she lived her life being color BRAVE as opposed to color BLIND so many doors opened for her and she is living the life that she had always dreamed of. 







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