It came as a shock then when my first college girlfriend told me her ultra-conservative father didn't approve of our relationship on account of the color of my skin. Honestly, I wasn't so much insulted as I was confused. I had never been told I was different before based on something so trivial and meaningless. Of course this did nothing to improve my opinion of this man who worshiped George W. Bush next to Jesus, but my life carried on without a hiccough. Then came the 2008 presidential election and the rise of the birthers. I knew, both academically and anecdotaly that racism was alive in America, but until then I had assumed that it was something far more private, as my ex-girlfriend's father had never so much as mentioned it to me (we had broken up by then for unrelated reasons). Still it didn't have much effect on my personal idea of self. I was surprised that these people would so brazenly come out of the woodwork but figured it was just latent southern-conservative racism coming to the forefront and it would pass over quickly. But it didn't. The trend was picked up by the monied interests of the Tea Party movement and reinforced for months, if not years until it finally whimpered away into the shadows under an onslaught of evidence.
I assumed that was the end of it. I read stories from places like Arizona where that ultra-conservatism was still considered tasteful in public, or Donald Trump trying to stir up a dead debate, but overall it seemed as though American's were happy to put that sordid chapter of thinly veiled racism behind them and move on with the mess of politics as usual. As usual, I was wrong. A passing comment on my facebook feed from a friend I had know for years made me do a double take. Somehow she had tied in the birther debate to the upcoming 2012 election and Obama's political attacks on Romney refusing to release his tax documents to public scrutiny. I'm usually a pretty calm and level-headed person so I can't tell you why it set me off, I don't much know myself. To provide some perspective she comes from an extremely wealthy white family, her father was a CEO of some well-to-do company and she had never seriously wanted for anything in her life. It came as no surprise when she sided with Wall Street during the Occupy protests and was in favor for rulings like Citizens United. In general her views were the complete opposite of mine, but they were more often than not a product of reason, and so I could tolerate them. I couldn't figure out how an educated and well-studied woman had found reason to dig up the birther debate. I made a comment to her about how inappropriate and offensive it was and as expected she went on the defensive. The argument, though, is not the point of this. It is the fact that it even started.
The root of the whole birther debate was racism. The idea that a dark skinned person should be accorded extra scrutiny because he had the unfortunate combination of extra melanin in his skin and a parent of foreign birth. It postulates that the natural state of being American is white, and any other skin color is automatically something else. I've noticed this more and more as I grow older. Minorities are just as guilty of this line of thought, and even more vocal of it as they don't fear the "racist" label like a white person would. On several occasions I have had people tell me that I cannot, in fact, be American because Americans are white. At first this notion was funny to me, I thought it odd and comical, but it persisted. I heard it over and over again. That I was not an American because my father had dark skin. Do I feel like a different person? No, but I have tragically developed a more realistic view of race relations in America and I understand that race is not solely a matter of what you feel, but what others feel, because ultimately they will treat you differently for it. I think it is interesting that I have grown to feel this as an adult, with adult understanding and emotions rather than those of a child, as many have had to do. I wonder what kind of difference that makes, if my process of realization is a fundamental reason why I still don't consider my skin color to be a factor of my identity, that I feel "white." But the cold hard truth is that race is dynamic and by no means solely dependent on internal factors. I can feel white all day long, but at the end of the day it is apparent that other don't share my sentiment. It has been robbed of me by a subconscious racism that many people don't even realize they have, and I am reminded of that every time someone relates race and ancestry as factors of my citizenship. I miss not having to care about it. I miss my ethnic background being only a point of pride and not a point of judgement. As much as I feel white, I miss the naivety of my youth when I could be white.
