Elenamary

I was born to a Mexican mother and a white father. I was born to an immigrant and a third generation American. I was born to a parent who only spoke Spanish and a parent who spoke English and Spanish.

When Reverend Wright’s sermon on Hilliary Clinton first hit the news I wondered what he could have possible said to offend so many people. In fact I still wonder.

Here is a brief excerpt (for the full transcript and video go here):

I am sick of negros who just do not get it. Hillary was not a black boy raised in a single parent home. Barack was. Barack knows what it means to be a black man living in a country and a culture that is controlled by rich white people!

Hillary can never know that. Hillary ain’t never been called a nigger. Hillary has never had her people defined as non-persons. Hilary ain’t had to work twice as hard just to get accepted by the rich white folk who run everything or to get a passing grade when you know you are smarter than that C-student sitting in the white house.

What about this sermon is untrue? What is so offensive? I am more offended that these things can’t be said loudly. I am also offended that to Obama’s response (full transcript and video here), right-wing radio accused him of throwing his grandmother “under the bus”. Obama’s speech reminded me of three things. He reminded me of my father, my friend, and of myself.

I can no more disown him [Reverend white] than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

My father often refers to me in terms I hate. Terms, that make me wince in pain. His racism sometimes overt but more often then not covert, is always there. I know however, that my father loves me. My father is just as much a part of me as my mother. The history that made him is also my history. My friend is still my friend. She may not understand how hurtful it is when she wants to ignore racism as I have it thrown in my face, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t love me, that she isn’t loyal to me. It just means that she has experienced the other side of the coin, the side with white privilege that doesn’t have to question any of this.

Obama’s speech echoed for me perhaps in a way it did for others that are like me. Those like the India María; ni de aquí ni de allá.

This is not to say that race has not been an issue in the campaign. At various stages in the campaign, some commentators have deemed me either “too black” or “not black enough.” We saw racial tensions bubble to the surface during the week before the South Carolina primary. The press has scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and black, but black and brown as well.

We are divided by being “not enough” of one and then being told we are too much of the other. We are divided by ethnic and racial lines and sometimes by religious lines too. It is not a world I want my children to grow-up in. My children will be mixed too. They have to be, because I am. I think Obama shows us our real American future and it frightens us. Our children will be mixed, they will be the children of immigrants and non-immigrants, of black, white, brown, yellow parents too. They will be the children of Christians and Muslims and Jews and Hindus. They will be monolingual, bilingual and multilingual. And our children will reject and reform the world that puts them in boxes.