"Black, White, Yellow, and Red" this was my answer when the Anthropology professor asked the freshmen class to name the human races.
The class did not laugh but my anthropology professor laughed so hard that his tears were creating rivers on his face amidst our drowned looks .
"Wrong" he yelled, "African American, White, Asian, and American Indian is the correct answer".
I had the good sense not to correct the subject expert but my humble mind labored over my public humiliation for over two decades and I can yet to differentiate our answers although my maturity and seasoned American way has shed some light on the absurdity of the moment.
Maybe, my politically correct professor was not laughing at my answer but rather at my uncensored and honest reply uninhibited by the affirmative action folks who will eventually get under my skin as well.
I was a freshly arrived foreign student and this affinity to submit to the order of the day was yet to be instilled.
In the Muslim world, where I come from, we say that "we are all the slaves of God" and yet in our colloquial language we refer to dark skinned individuals by the word "slaves" even though we are not much lighter than them and we share many of their features...hypocrisy at its best or is it human nature and the desire to be correct, under threat?
Think about it. I have and I am tempted to blame our human nature and our willingness to conform. Isn't that what the German people did under Hitler? Isn't that what Obama, our black president, raised by a white woman, did when he lost his negro to be elected? Does that make it correct? Are we losing our humanity in an effort to gloss the obvious and benefit from our membership?
My overly friendly neighbors are welcoming to us and yet their truck is adorned with the confederate flag. Our black friends are friendly to us and yet we don't get invited to their summer camps because "it is a Christian gathering". We train our teachers about diversity and yet the superintended of our school explains "the relationship between a Muslim and Islam" like being "an American and a Christian".
The examples abound and the solution is obvious but people will continue dancing to the beat of the moment and to the unfulfilled rewards of the equality mirage which we wholeheartedly contradict.
It is a sad day when I hear of more labels popping out and people being divided by this invisible line that is supposedly meant to bring them together. I asked a friend of mine if a mutual friend of ours was Christian; she said "No, she is Catholic". I was surprised at her answer but I am glad I did not brag about my religion because, only yesterday, the Shia and Sunni factions of Islam are dividing Syria and both sides are killing their fellow Muslims. A close look at any religion will prove futile to any warring factions because all religions subscribe to peace and yet the young desperate men continue to bend under the will of powerful leaders and to find release for their suppressed testosterone...
People are turning against each other and they are hard pressed to offer forgiveness for the price of war, instead, someone out there, usually a third party, is getting rich and their goals are being served.
In this country, it is not yet a raging war and the devil is busy with easier and more lucrative markets overseas but I sense it and it is coming in my children's life time when they will take refuge from their neighbors or even be moved to concentration camps for their likes because they don't really belong; they really aren't Black, White, Yellow, or Red, and they might still profess to the Islamic religion. The federal ethnicity categories are expanding but they are yet to comprise all the races as I see it and "other" is usually my choice unless I am made to abide to my Federal classification of White. I may be White on paper but we do not fit the White classification of the general public nor ours and yet we submit, or should we rather be grateful, to Uncle Sam's blindness. Why do we even need this classification other then to further bleed and enlarge the schism.
I say an African American man is a black man if his skin is as rich as mahogany and he is proud of his fore-bearers. I say an American Indian is red if his skin is the color of the red dirt that was soaked in his ancestors' blood. I say an Asian American is Yellow if his eyes are slanted like a beautiful crescent shining over us. I say a White is White if the fruits of his labor propelled us into the industrial revolution. I say we are all Americans if our combined contributions are greater than our individual offerings and if we pledge allegiance to this country above any other while being human, sincere, raw and yet gentle like we were meant by the creator.
I say enough bigotry and politics because it is not bringing us together but rather splitting us like running a finger through a spider web. The spider and our humanity will keep mending the fence but sooner or later the spider will run out of thread and unless the pointing finger is severed, humanity will be lost.