The Fight for Black Voices is A Fight for All Voices

I am Latina. My mother tongue (was) Spanish. I was born with jet black hair, almond shaped, dark brown eyes, and an olive complexion (according to the human skin color spectrum on the Fitzpatrick scale).

Before I was adopted, I lived in an orphanage in El Salvador in Central America. My birthmother, Esperanza (Hope in English) had more children than I could count on one hand- maybe even two- and poverty- stricken, had absolutely no way of feeding, clothing, or educating us. So, (along with one of my sisters) I joined hundreds of other children in a Salvadoran orphanage from around toddler age until I was six years old, when an Italian- American, English-speaking woman adopted me and threaded me into the American fabric.

But just because I was adopted and transplanted into a new culture, new language, new community by a white American woman, didn’t automatically provide me with the “right” to be there. I wasn’t organically ushered in, unicorns and rainbows to ride on as I leapt into this new world.

No, the reality was entirely different. 

I was an adopted, Spanish-speaking, darker-looking person who did not fit into a mostly (since there was me) white Irish/Italian- American suburb of Brooklyn, NY. Period. No sugar coating it. That was my reality.

But it was also my reality that I had a mother who was strong, resilient, powerful, bold, an educator, and a force to be reckoned with. 

She ensured my first experience in education was at the "highest caliber" possible, which meant I joined the “gifted” 1st grade class in the second half of the school year to learn from what was considered “the brightest and hardest working”. Within months I was speaking English fluently, and by the time the new school year began, I joined my fellow seven-year-old peers in second grade.

But despite my mother’s best efforts, the road ahead was rugged and challenging. Every year in my new community, school, and extra-curricular activities (soccer in my case), seemed like a fight for my personhood.

Sometimes it was because I was Latina, sometimes because I was adopted, other times it was because I was a girl, and sometimes it was because I came from a “working class” family.

Every aspect of “what” I was, was always more important than “who” I was.

Soon, like many of us eventually do, I fell into “default mode” where defining what I was becoming, rather than who I was becoming, became the focus.

Herein lies the cycle, the system that we use to tear each other apart and tear each other down that is perpetuated, adopted, and maintains the notion of what is “normal”, aka the status quo.

But the question I have always asked myself is “Why?” Why do we do this to one another? Why do we emphasize and prize what we are over who we are? Why do we participate in a process that leads to dehumanizing ourselves by putting each other into boxes that separate us rather than draw on our human core that connects us?

From our personal to our professional lives, the process of dehumanization is present every single day. From what we wear, the accent we have, the color of our skin, the children we can’t have, our sexual orientation, our professions, to the house we live in (it’s an endless list), we all experience it to some degree.

But the reality is that while we all experience it, we do not experience it equally.

More than any other group of people in America, the Black community has endured dehumanization in ways many of us can’t even imagine, and not wanting to, we struggle to face it and address it.

 But as much as some would prefer to look away and proclaim that it has nothing to do with them, as humans, we are inextricable linked, which means (though some will disagree) it has everything to do with all of us.

Martin Luther King said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutually, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all directly”. Because of who I am, and where I came from, this is the principle by which I live my life, and something I consciously work on every day.

But while many companies and individuals alike splatter this quote on their social media pages one day of the year (or during Black History month), the truth is, consciously or subconsciously, we participate in this system every single day of our lives.

We are constantly evaluating and judging one another based on a dehumanizing system that focuses on “what” we are, rather than “who” we are. We (intentionally or not) seek what separates us, rather than what unifies us. Then our actions, what we say, how we treat people, what we choose, finds its basis (and justification) there.

Yes, we have been conditioned. Yes, every day the conditioning continues. 

We begin our human experience with an inner-child society slowly puts layers around. Over time, who we are gets lost within what we are told we should become.

If we look at what the Black community has endured in America through the lens of this inner child, without all the layers, and consider how we are connected by similarities and our human core, confusion (and disbelief) follows.

Why?

Because when we dig deep, we realize how arbitrary and contrived these societal constructs are. We realize how far removed from our human selves these arbitrary boxes have pushed us.

What this also means is that while we stand on one side of those constructs today, benefiting and profiting from it, we never know what tomorrows arbitrary boxes hold.

So, why not remove the boxes entirely?

What would it mean for us as individuals if we did?

Why does that proposition confuse some of us, scare us, make us feel like there would be no order if they were removed?

We are not going to have all the answers right away but starting to ask ourselves these and other questions that break down these walls, could be a valuable starting point. From there, we can start looking for long-term solutions. And from there, we can take the next right step.

Because I think, if we can begin with the Black-American experience that is plagued with unacceptable conditions like slavery, racism, fighting for civil rights, human rights, equality, equity, and we begin to unravel this thread of America and begin to realign our actions, our belief systems, our humanity here, then, maybe- just maybe- we can learn how to realign it everywhere.

What are your thoughts?