On one hand this is a privilege I have: I never have to defend myself or be asked to speak on behalf of certain qualities of my identity. On the other hand it erases a huge part of me- it erases where I have come from, and what I have gone through. I don’t necessarily want to scream at the top of my lungs that my brother is a crack addict and former drug dealer, but sometimes I wish people wouldn’t make assumptions about the privilege I have. I constantly suffer from the trauma my brother has created in my life, and I feel invalid when people can’t see my story and my truth. As I type this out I realize that this is something people of color must feel on an even larger scale- I do not want to generalize or perpetuate stereotypes. However, systemic racism and oppression have created a culture in our society that forms assumptions about people of color as an entire group. I know that if I am feeling unsettled by my own experience, that it must be safe to say that the generalizations society aims towards people of color are not only unsettling but also traumatic due to the wide scale of
On one hand this is a privilege I have: I never have to defend myself or be asked to speak on behalf of certain qualities of my identity. On the other hand it erases a huge part of me- it erases where I have come from, and what I have gone through. I don’t necessarily want to scream at the top of my lungs that my brother is a crack addict and former drug dealer, but sometimes I wish people wouldn’t make assumptions about the privilege I have. I constantly suffer from the trauma my brother has created in my life, and I feel invalid when people can’t see my story and my truth. As I type this out I realize that this is something people of color must feel on an even larger scale- I do not want to generalize or perpetuate stereotypes. However, systemic racism and oppression have created a culture in our society that forms assumptions about people of color as an entire group. I know that if I am feeling unsettled by my own experience, that it must be safe to say that the generalizations society aims towards people of color are not only unsettling but also traumatic due to the wide scale of