But If You Only Have Love For Your Own Race, Then You Only Leave Space To Discriminate, And To Discriminate Only Generates Hate

--"Where Is The Love?", Black Eyed Peas

I guess you could say it started in Kindergarten at Bethany. That's where I remember learning that people could be grouped by the differences in the appearance. Before then, I was just acclimated to thinking all of us as one class of people. It was a class revolving around learning a dance. The teacher paired all thirty of us to form the lines. I remember all the pretty girls got partnered up with all the pretty boys, and me, not being so pretty, got anchored to the one girl I didn't think was pretty at all. Yeah, I was that shallow... but it was Kindergarten. I also remember thinking that all the prettiest people in the class just all happened to be white. They were all of the fair complexion, all of the lighter eyes, all of them had just the WASPy image that I suppose prevalent even then. Then, as I scanned down the line, the images got less and less uniform. Skin tones got darker, ethnicities started getting more pronounced, and we appeared to have formed some racial scale that I had never even bothered to look before.

I mean--it could have been me. It could have been the teacher had some other motive to align us as she did. Yet, even though I was Kindergarten, I could see what was going on.

That one incident has always made me wonder if I have always held being white as being beautiful. I'd like to think that that one day was when I was taught that the Caucasian persuasion was more appealing to me because then I could always chalk it up to my teacher assigning her values of beauty and perfection to the class. I could always blame her for skewing my preferences irrevocably. But I also wonder what made me think that she was compiling some line-up from prettiest to ugliest if I didn't already have these notions beforehand. How else I could pick out that that's what was going on if I hadn't already been forming those selfsame ideas on my own?

The idea that groups of people will always be segmented was confirmed again by First Grade. I wrote earlier of the Beavers and Squirrels during my time in First Grade. That whole month or two months when that nonsense was going on still serves as the basis of many of my stories. That division of the class for no other purpose but to divide the class still perplexes me to this day. Rather than split along ideological differences or even racial differences, rather than divide into groups of gender or age or social status, that class choose to divide itself for no rhyme or reason. It's what gave me the first idea that you could put any large group of people together--all races, all ages, all sexes, all spiritual philosophies, all manner of demographic categories--and, given time, they would find a reason to divide up into splinter groups, utilizing the smallest of shared interests to facilitate the division. Even while I was with the Beavers, I was always pressing for answers as to the cause of the rift or some kind of answers as to what all the tension was about. Nobody--and I mean nobody--had any clue as to the impetus or continuing factors to why our class chose to be divided.

Yup, it still bothers me.

As I got older, I started to ruminate more on this human condition of segregation. I think it's what contributed to some of the philosophies I espouse today. I began to abhor any kind of organization that placed themselves above the worth of the individual. Religion, of course, was chief on my list. I still refuse to put any stock into any group of people whose only commonality is a belief in superstition and fantastical storytelling. Race was next on my list. Just because I was born Filipino doesn't mean I instantly adopt all of their cultural norms. I hate Filipino food. I don't much care for Filipino traditions. And I really don't place any reverence for an individual over another just because they happen to belong to the same race as me. This is a tenet that my parents, my cousin, and most of the rest of my family cannot wrap their heads around. Everyone has to earn my respect and admiration. I don't give out free passes just because I'm supposed to feel a certain way towards a certain group. It's the same way with sports. Simply because a team is my local team doesn't mean I have to give two shits about them. And we all know how I feel about having any preconceptions as to age when it comes to befriending someone.

Yet I do have certain instinctual leanings that do fall along some pretty stringent lines. I have only dated young white women. That's the truth. And it's not because I think they're any more worthy than other nationalities or races. It's because I went from Kindergarten through Eighth Grade in private Catholic schools where 75% of the student body was white. That's honestly where I honed the notion that my standard of beauty will always lean in that direction. I feel perfectly justified in adopting that preference because that's personal to me; it didn't arise because my parents told me to (they always wanted me to date Filipino girls, actually), or because my friends were telling me to, or because the media was drilling me into that mindset. It's the same reason why I have weird affections for female drummers, basketball players, redheads, Canadians, and Southerners. Each of those has a personal anecdote or story to originate my leanings. In fact, aside from who I date, I can honestly say I don't see the color of a person's skin as being all that big of a deal.

I work with a multitude of races, shapes, and sizes. I've been friends or am friends with the same. Sure, I'll laugh when somebody cracks a good racist joke (which, I know, is wrong... but funny is funny), but you'll never hear me crack one myself. It's much the same with dumb blonde jokes, women jokes, or any type of joke that pokes fun at people different than I am. I laugh, but I don't advocate spreading them myself. I think that's why I lean towards comedy like Mitch Hedberg. Situational humor that doesn't incite anyone to stare intently at lines of division.

I'm not saying I'm perfect and that I act color-blind in every situation, but the advantage of growing up in a school where I was the odd man out most of the time was that I learned to get along with a lot of different people. I was always the one trying to fit in, to fall in, so it didn't make any sense for me to keep someone else out. If I kept a person out of my life it was because I wasn't taking any applications from anyone, no matter their differences. I was an equal-opportunity isolationist.

I think that's why I like traveling too. I like seeing how other cities live because I never want to say it's better here or there (though Boston will always have my heart). I don't really know that until I've seen each and every place. It's just like I can never believe one group of people is any better or worse than any other. I just don't know until I've seen the best and worst each of them has to offer. That's something I'll never be able to see in one lifetime.

And don't even get me started on sexual preferences. If there is any more insipid reason to hate another person it's because they have a clear sense of who they love. If anything, knowing who you want with no reservations is something to applauded not despised for.

I don't know--I still think it's all a mummer's farce. It's like the whole world is still playing Beavers and Squirrels, and I'm still left scratching my head at the inanity of it all.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers