The "American Race"

In America today it seems like having an "American race" wouldn't be completely out of the question. Our country is a "melting pot" of many different ethnicities and many different cultures. As we learned from one of the theoretical articles today, interracial marriages are on the rise. Mr. Kunkle made the point that it's hard to find someone who is completely Caucasian or completely African-American. If you look back far enough, you can usually find an interracial marriage in any given family. So it seems to me that there is such thing as an "American race" in today's world. It's a kind of smorgasbord of different skin colors, ethnicities, and cultures.

I read the theoretical article by Barrett and Roediger "How White People Became White." This article takes a more historical spin on the issue of race and racism. At one point it talks about a continuous political argument going on concerning whether new immigrants should be considered part of the "American race." Honestly this term very much offends me when it is used in the context of keeping people out of this special "race."

Just looking at the term "American race" makes me question its historical usage. The word "American" tends to invoke thoughts of freedom and equality. But in this time, the "American race" included only people considered "white." And "white" didn't mean having white skin; it meant that you had white skin, were from Eastern Europe, and were living in America at the time of the revolution. Now basically that excludes the Irish, Germans, Italians, etc., not to mention the African-Americans, which is so stupid because blacks fought in the Revolutionary War right along side whites. 

I guess I am just saying that the "American race" of old is absolutely backwards, but the "American race" of today can actually be something. We just have to take this idea of a country race and run with it. We have to come to the realization that race isn't the color of our skin or our ethnicities. Skin color doesn't matter--or at least it shouldn't. It's time we understand that.

Banksy

Graffiti is commonly thought of, especially by the government, as something that destroys public property. To me, it is just large names painted on freeway underpasses, trains, and large buildings. Sometimes the designs or colors are cool, but they never really mean anything important to me. When Mr. Kunkle first told us about Banksy, I was intrigued. Here was this great artist who went around drawing graffiti, not just in London but in the United States as well, without taking credit for it. And not only that, his artwork has a deeper meaning behind it that is meant to impact the world for the better.

This piece of Banksy's work is located near Qalandia. This image is of two children digging under the security wall. Ironically, the wall that is supposedly keeping them safe actually is keeping them from paradise. I think Banksy is trying to draw attention to the 

fact that isolating yourself from the rest of the world sometimes stifles the freedom and opportunity of the people. Sometimes when you hide yourselves off from the rest of the world in an attempt to keep yourselves safe, you actually bring harm to yourself. He wants Israel to wake up and see that it is time to become part of the world instead of withdrawing within itself. 

This drawing that Banksy painted in London shows how graffiti is really art. This man shows the stereotypical image of an artist painting graffiti on a wall next to other images of graffiti. He seems to be trying to make a point to the government that graffiti is art and erasing it is destroying art.

Identity

I learned the art of changing at Nkrumah, a skill that would later become second
nature to me. Maybe I was always good at it. Maybe it was a skill I had
inherited from my mother, or my father, or my aunt Dot, or my Nana, the was some
people inherit a talent for music or art or mathematics. Even before Nkrumah,
Cole and I had gotten a thrill out of changing--spending our days dressed in old
costumes, pretending to be queens of our make-believe nation. But only at
Nkrumah did it become more than a game. There I learned how to do it for
real--how to become someone else, how to erase the person I was before (pg. 62).

In the first part of Caucasia, identity seems to play a crucial role in the lives of Cole and Birdie, especially Birdie. As illustrated in this quote, Birdie changed who she was, so she could fit into her new school (which happens to be all black--and she looks white). It seems to me that Birdie is reaching the stage where she no longer has her own identity. Her identity, instead, is determined by the people around her and how she can fit in. She wears this mask over who she really is, making it hard to get a feel for what she is actually like--insecure. Birdie cares so much about what other people think that she doesn't stay true to herself.

The sad part is that as she changes on the outside to hide who she really is on the inside, who she is on the inside actually changes. "But I [Birdie] did feel different--more conscious of my body as a toy, and of the ways I could use it to disappear into the world around me." She is becoming even more insecure because she had temporary gratification of fitting in to the world around her. It's like she has this temporary high from changing her look that she does it over and over again to get that same feeling back. It seems to me though that Birdie learns this way of life from Cole.

Cole was the first one to start changing when both girls started attending Nkrumah. She altered her habits, looks, and actions to become like the popular girls. Birdie simply followed her example, so she (Birdie) "lose her [Cole] for good." Even the mother recognizes the problem with changing who you are and what you look like to fit in with other people. In her words, it is "the end of freedom."

"The end of freedom." The end of their ability to be themselves. Once they change for one group of people, they have to continually keep that change up, so no one knows who they really are. They get caught up in a web and eventually change permanently. If only they didn't feel that they had to change to fit in. Kids can be so vicious sometimes.