I had to tell a colleague I can’t go with him to a writing retreat because I’m excluded based on my race. I felt ashamed when I said it. Not for myself but because neither he nor anybody else will refuse to go to an event where colleagues and friends are excluded for racist reasons. That it’s OK to keep people out because of their skin color, and that everybody has accepted it, is an absolute shame. But the people guilty don’t feel it.
8 responses to “The Shame of Others”
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No awareness of the irony at all?
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Isn’t one of the ways out of this by having this conversation with this colleague, telling him how you feel?
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Why would I humiliate myself like this? As we say, once you have to explain, you really shouldn’t explain.
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Of course, I could go. And nobody would say a word because people around here have zero social skills and don’t know how to handle such things. But it’s not the point. The point is a betrayal by a friend. By all of the friends and colleagues who should refuse to go.
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Portland, Oregon actually does consider Slavs to be a minority and an (honorary) community of color:
https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/socwork_fac/128/
And I hope that a new MENA US Census category will be added to the US Census in 2030 so that I could mark both White (East Slavic) and MENA (Israeli) on my 2030 US Census entry. Then I can also be a person of color as someone who is 3/4 East Slavic and 1/4 Jewish, with a Jewish last name and also with Israeli citizenship due to me being born in Israel.
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So, whenever anyone hosts an event that’s only for communities of color, just show them this relevant section in the article above:
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A conservative literary critic and college professor
Clarissa's Blog 
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