The words: "Colored”, "People of Color".
I am not alright with these words. Humans are infinitely far more than skin color alone. Colored started as a way to segregate and describe African peoples as a part of the colonial system. The Jim Crow laws and culture segregated African Americans and Europeans by the words " Colored" and " White". And by using the words of the oppressor class, Black activists challenged the system of oppression. But, we must go beyond definitions based on skin color. The world is not separated between " White People" and " Colored People."
There are thousands upon thousands of ethnic, cultural groups of people in this world with their own unique culture, national, religious, and ethnic histories. People are not a skin color they are full sentient beings, with different genetic, environmental, cultural, religious, dietary, ect circumstances.
To merely say that we are all people, and a small portion of the global population is White while the rest are " colored" is so Eurocentric, skewed, and apparent of European colonialism.
Youth from around the world are currently feeling the pull between their own traditional culture and the Western world. This of course has good and bad consequences. This phenomenon is not exactly new, but part of an ever accelerating trend that had begun since the age of exploration and European colonization.
European colonization has been both cultural and economic. It's been about robbing other peoples of their own indigenous culture and supplanting it with " Western culture". Its economic policies went hand in hand with this as market liberalism called to break all barriers. And this global " trade" took the form of stealing from the colonized, and selling it to the colonizers.
Dispossessed indigenous peoples of the world, lost a tremendous amount of cultural tradition and personal identity when they were colonized or sold and stolen into the global European slave trade.
Colonization destroyed so many things. It separated millions of people from their home lands, and from their own people. People were separated from hundreds and thousands years of cultural, environmental, and ethnic history.
The dream for so many people now is to enter " middle class" Western civilization. The dream is to " make it rich”, to find opportunity. Of course, everyone wants a better life. But the legacy of colonialist dispossession continues. And this holds true for everyone, even those of the colonist class. Native Americans, African Americans, European immigrants, Indian people, Asian peoples, ect, ect.
This ongoing process and phenomena is producing a global culture, but is also isolating and separating people. And this shock to cultures and traditions has had so many different types of reactions. But all in all, dispossession of cultural identity is one of the most painful things that a person or group of people can go through; a cultural and physical diaspora.
For ABCD, me haha, (American Born Confused Desi) and other immigrant peoples, connecting with a homeland, a people, a culture, traditions, and histories is so important in crafting an identity, making sense of the world, belonging, confidence, and understanding who you are.
For millions, whose ancestors were slaves, they don't have the opportunity, ability, knowledge, or any remaining connection to their own peoples. Their cultural identities have either been eradicated by generations of slavery and domination, or subverted to fit the criteria of the dominant European class.
This is one of the true sorrows of slavery and colonization; cultural eradication. But of course, pieces of dismantled cultures persist and continue to exist in various forms. The worst fate is " cultural appropriation" which is evident everywhere.
Humanity can certainly progress forward, and universal love and brotherhood could be things to aspire to, but the work needed is tremendous. Dispossession, extreme conservatism, ultra-secularism, hyperinvidualism, ect, ect disconnect us, deprive us, oppress us, and blind us.
There must be a middle way; between progress and tradition, between personal identity and group identity.
Above all else, there must be deep self-reflection in every human being. Dispossession has made us all crave to find our people again, or at least a group of people to unite with. This is both good and bad consequences. This has arisen to all types of subcultures and movements.
European colonialism broke down, altered, and eradicated the traditions and cultures of the world. Now is the time to break down the colonized classifications of humanity based on skin color alone.
Find out who you are and the history of your people. Find your own his/her/our story.
Decolonize yourself. I see the good things coming.