D.D. Shipp

D.D. Shipp is a college student, currently enrolled in the Scott region for Eastern Iowa Community Colleges. He is looking to transfer to the University of Iowa in the near future, and currently writes essays, and poetry in his free time. His current major is Journalism and Mass Communication, and he would like to become an accomplished writer for literary magazines, where his essays may later be published, as well as a published poet in its own branch. Most of his works are based on a hybrid of his personal and public blog, Quatervois.

Easy read of the essay in the images above:

Race Is Not A Spectrum

Throughout my preliminary school adventures, I often heard the same tale over and over again in regards to my ethnicities and race. One particular cloudy day, in a dreadful classroom that only serves as a reminder of everything I think wrong of myself, I heard the teetering and the tottering of the disrespect and the voices of those I tried so hard to fight against in the years building up to said preliminaries. The battle of races. My own. A lot of children go through culture shocks, whether that is discussed or it is not. A culture shock formed its way into lives in many ways, especially for those close to me. I have spoken with many white friends of mine who are of course a part of the majority, and they have told me that their culture shocks usually occur around their first days in preschool and kindergarten. Seeing many people of color and not knowing how to grasp onto the fact that most of the media and ways of life they were raised around, and some even taught up to that age, revolved around their own majority. For me, my culture shock was moving from a suburb, of which I was surrounded by what I thought to be class, elegance in which the nature around the surrounding gates reared in its regality and majesty, and full of welcoming faces that were not of my own; to moving into a conjoined identity of complexes, not necessarily poor, but very much not of middle class either. 

This was my culture shock. To be thought of as an outlier and an exception to the majority as the minority with that class factor, with that prestige. Now thought of as just another kid from the projects, a talented kid marred by his external factors that did not internally affect how he performed near his peers, and even superiors. Or so I thought it wouldn’t ever be an issue.

This fateful day in my preliminaries, that math class that I desperately wanted to get out of so badly, exhausted and exasperated of being the butt of all jokes due to my overly charismatic, yet foolish nature. This nature that would hopelessly, yet so effortlessly carry itself into high school. This day in middle school though, a particularly shy girl who always wore her hoodies over head and only spoke when appropriate to the manner of our subject, or when personally attacked, mentioned a blow that I would not have seen coming a million years beyond me. “You’ve always struck me as the whitest black guy I’ve seen.” Then, from that particular moment on, that idea of how others perceived me was commonplace. There would be so many times I would pathetically, and foolishly, accept this as if it were gospel, when it was just a false sense of preaching. I often think back to how people said this like it was a normalized decency. 

I sense now that this of course was not an acceptable way of validating, if you even want to consider that, someone’s background. I have always struggled with my background, as I am of many ethnicities that I hold near and dear. They all mean so much to me, and something I look to adopt more into my daily life as I explore myself more and more, in the forms of cultural basis. The Filipino culture from my mother’s side, where I would like to prioritize the harmony and humility of a society, or a social setting over my own individual needs. To truly make global peace obtainable. Canadian culture from my father’s side, where I want to study the different indigenous groups that the nation has offered throughout the years in so many forms, whether it be through the nation’s past of colonization from Euro-powers, or through emigration in the early to mid 20th century. It is these things I focus on for my future, rather than what stereotypes, and socialization differences are placed upon me by others.

I am not one to blame the entirety of a race because of my own experiences, but over the years I have learned that I am not alone in the factor of generalizations. I have come to learn that the overall stereotype of what it means to be “black” or to be “white” is something that is not just terminal, but also external. To walk around my high school campus and be of social nature and exuberant behalf was wonderful, I am not to be mistaken on that front. However, it was a genuine issue I ran into to talk to friends that were POC, and for them to be, jokingly or seriously, criticizing my lack of POC friends. This has always stuck with me, and it is something I have always seriously struggled with in my life. I grew up around white friends and family during crucial developmental years of my childhood, and then was relegated to what many people would call the “projects” or the “slums” for the latter half of my childhood, as well as my adolescence. Growing up in these circumstances, it truly was a half and half struggle for myself. I didn’t understand racism to a full extent, and when I was with many of my family members that are a part of the majority, there were often slight looks my way. They obviously have worked in extensive fields, and been a part of lucrative businesses that would have catered to everyone of every ethnicity in race, so there would be no prejudice right? 

Well, they didn’t really understand the concept of having a biracial child within their bloodline. I do not blame them for this. It is difficult to grasp just how interesting of a child I was. Not in the sense of talent and external nature, but in the sense that I truly was different from everyone else I was surrounded by. When my family members looked at me, they had a troubling, and almost inappropriate sense of affirmative action. Any biracial child does not have to be accepted in any mixed family purely based on their race, and it pains me that the prospect of being the only black kid in a white family was unfortunately the only reason they felt the need to protect me. I still do not understand why any child, or human being in any country, especially America, should be subjected to the mere thoughts of being different just because they are of culture. To be mixed with any form of race or ethnicity, is a gift. To be recognized in such a sense, that any form of culture that is rich and lucrative, is at your hands. There has been a stigma in America, to make many cultures lesser than to simple Americana. In recent years, we have had months dedicated to several ethnicities. Black History Month throughout February. Asian Pacific American Heritage Month in May. Native American Heritage Month. These national celebrations — and I say national, because it stands that these months are supposed to be dedicated for the minorities in a nation where our own government and people support these months as if they are the only times we are to celebrate such achievements from such rich cultures — are acceptable. It is in my eyes, unacceptable to subject such dedication and recognition to just one month. From the rich history of African civilization; to the profound true elegance of nature and mana that Oceania brings; to sharp-witted, and beyond-our-years intelligence and poetic history of the Natives, there will always be something to be proud of in not only our individual cultures, but global culture. It shames me, and greatly disappoints me that some of us live in a nation where our own ideals, our own hypocrisy, and our own egotism is on full display. On full display in the sense that we think of our own history as so important to place high on a rhetorical pedestal, while perpetually placing other rich histories, those with much more rhetoric and much more culture, into a class of the “minority”. It pains me to know that these months, in the eyes of not only politics, but American civilization, can only be celebrated when they are designated. There are many rich cultures that occupy our nation, and build such a foundation. For these cultures to be recognized in the public for only a month is disingenuous. There is no rhyme or reason for why these months are selected for celebratory matters; they are just picked. Like a circus wheel. Ironic, in the sense that it seems our legislation and the game of politics is like a circus.

When a nation puts the importance of its founding fathers, who were a part of the majority in the public eye, and creates a revisionist structure when it comes to our history, it affects our society in a modern sense. Kids like myself who are both white and black, will have to struggle with American idealism. The idealism that carries on with being seen as two halves. One half of you has been praised, destined for success, and seen as the subject of joy within a country that can do no wrong. While the other half of you has been looked down upon, taught to hate yourself, and pushed down to the bottom of the barrel. I am here to say that there are many biracial children who live, not only in America but around the globe, being taught to hate themselves. The thing that is truly awful about that, is that the people who are teaching these innocent beings to hate themselves, are the same ones who are being force fed the same flawed idealistic hypothesis that have plagued so many nations. 

Biracial children should be taught that they have a gift. I grew up hating myself. I surrounded myself with the majority just to fit in. Just to have a reason. I was taught, not only by the media but also by my own family members, that I have to identify as one kind. Why? When we distance ourselves from what we are as a whole, we fall into the endless, terminal trap of falling victim to what society wants from everyone. To disassociate with our true sense of self. Dividing what we are will only damage us in the long term. I was often told that I could be whatever I wanted in life, but to think of my life as easy because of these words would be hard, because I was also often told that I am different, because I am biracial. Why can’t I just be biracial? Why do I have to be black or white? Why do I have to be subjected to being a color? I do not want to live my life being just a color, I want to live my life being a sign of change. I want to live my life as transparent, clear to the eye of what is otherwise shaded by the terrible theorems that society has placed upon race and cultures.

There are many stereotypes within African-American households, or at least the stereotypes aforementioned are how others may see African-American households. The household will have a mother, a father who may or may not be of divine soul, and two or three loving kids all under one roof. Whether that is a rented roof, or a paid off roof. There will be a roof. In many eyes, this roof is on the verge of destruction. This roof is about to break down on itself in the literal and figurative sense. In the literal sense, the roof is shallow, almost dense. The state of the architecture is subpar to poor. In the figurative sense, the mother and the father are constantly fighting their superiors in the establishment. And not only the establishment, but the legislation as well. This is a fight that no black man or black woman can win, as much as we tell ourselves that we can. We are victims of a “democracy”. This is what democracy wants: to take away the pride that brings everyone together. These same households are thought of by the rich as working a 9-5, living in Section 8, having to participate in side hustles to make ends meet. These ways of living are looked down upon by many. I was a child who watched my uncles on my mother’s side do the side hustling. I often accompanied them to their dealings of marijuana or blow; this is just what reality is to some children. It should not be like that, but to blame African-American kids for how they behave in classes and how they act in social settings after being brought up in such a rough patch is the same way one may blame a white child for being sheltered all of their life, and reflecting that shy and almost stoic nature into a public setting. Except there will be compassion for the latter and not the former, because that is just how America is. Staying with my father’s side of the family, I was always struck by their scholarly ideals, and proclamation of class. They had it all, and a huge part of me always wanted to be seen as “them”. 

I realize now that being a part of my father’s side of the family is essentially just being seen as an Afro-American who may be “whitewashed”. No biracial child should have to live with what our nation has told them. No biracial child should have to pick a label of which they should not be taught. No biracial child needs to live in chronic fear of being shamed for representing their culture. I hope that in our future, we do not look at a group of ethnicity, and think that one ethnic bias is superior over another. I hope that we are able to conjoin the idealism behind the term, “minority”, and turn it into a majority. The majority that is proclaimed as being white, will one day be thought of as the majority that lives at peace with not only those of being black, but any color. Race was never, and should never, be a spectrum on which to tier.