I had a unique, if not unsettling, experience with loss (change doesn't seem like the right word here) of identity when I moved to the United States. I was 18 and I had lived in Sao Paulo, Brazil, all my life. I had attended the same school for 14 years- Graded- a school for the wealthy elite of Sao Paulo, which means it was predominately white and, as we used to joke, a "bubble" all of its own. And all my life I had identified as "white". I checked the box "Caucasian/White" in my college applications.
I never even considered, for a moment, that in another country, in the eyes of others, I was not "white" at all. Words like "racial minority", "person of color", "white privilege" and "passing" were not part of my vocabulary. Of course I was aware of racism, of prejudice, of the horrors of white supremacy and the constant struggle of non-white people to fit in to a society whose history rejected and oppressed them. And while I acknowledged those issues as human problems, I always thought that I would never truly be able to empathize with people who suffered from racism because, well, I was white.
I believed it would be offensive for me, a white girl, to say that I really understood racism on a personal level. Racism was, to me, the pain of others. I didn't exactly see this as a disadvantage ("white guilt" doesn't seem to exist in Brazil), I simply took it as one of the cards I was dealt at birth. I was white. This was not just an understanding (or a misunderstanding, as some of my college friends would see it), this was my identity, my truth, my root.
So you can imagine how confused I was when a college friend of mine, who was black (that is how she preferred to be called, I hope I'm not offending anyone by not using a more politically correct term), asked me how I felt as a person of color- an international one, nonetheless- at Sarah Lawrence, also a predominately white school. I was so confused that I don't think I even answered her properly, I said something like, I have no idea, and dismissed the subject. It perplexed me- but I thought maybe she was just confused. Then, not long after, in a conversation about racism with a white friend of mine I started saying something along the lines of, "Because I'm white..." and she interrupted me, saying,
"But you're not white." Well, now I wasn't just confused, I was getting angry. My reaction to her blunt statement shames me now, but I have to forgive myself for not knowing any better at the time. I was starting to sense that those people (Americans) did not want me to be white, and I thought it was because they thought I wasn't American. Well, I argued, I was an American. Legally, I was an American Citizen (my father has American Citizenship), and for all intents and purposes, I could consider myself an American if I wanted to- I spoke the English language better than most of the Americans I had met in fact, and I had been thoroughly educated in American History and Culture. Moreover, I lived there, legally, and was attending higher academia as an American. So why couldn't I say I was white? I wasn't trying to prove or deny anything, I was just trying to identify myself the only way I knew how.
It was my friend's turn to be confused and on edge now. She had absolutely no idea why her stating the
fact that I was not white had offended me. She started to say, apologetically but still perplexed, "Well, I guess you can
pass for white, but you're not actually white..." and I interrupted her, "
Pass for white??? What does that even mean???" That was a truly new idea to me. People
passing for white? Was she really accusing me of
wanting to be white, but not really
being white? And did people actually do that, so much so that there was a term for it?? Like most people who have never been and never thought they would be considered a racial minority, I didn't quite grasp why someone would want to
pass for a race that was not their own. My friend tried yet again to explain,
"Well, you can say you're a Latina, a Hispanic maybe, or a Person of Color, and you might even feel white or dress white or sometimes look white, but you're not white." The questions burned through my mind at the speed of lightning. My vision started to blur. My heart was racing and I was experiencing so many different feelings that I'm not sure anything I said from that point on was even coherent. In fact I think I sat in paralysis for quite a while, my friend not knowing what the hell was wrong with me.
I didn't know it at the time, but my body was physically manifesting the experience of undergoing what was about to be one of the great Paradigm Shifts of my life. It would be a long road from there. There would be extensive conversations with people of different races, with people from different countries, with teachers, with counselors, with my family, and with myself. There would be a lot of reading and writing. There would be loss of friendships. There would be long heated arguments in college kitchens with friends of vastly different backgrounds.
All of it as I tried to understand how, for most of my life, I had been given one identity, and then suddenly, in a different country, that very identity, with all of its privileges and prejudices, could be taken away from me. I need to explain here that one of the reasons my experience was so unique was because I was at Sarah Lawrence, which is historically known as a boiling pot for political and civil activism, and these topics were not taken lightly at all. In addition, Sarah Lawrence is next to Bronxville, a very upper-class, and very white, small conservative Westchester city, where a "person of color" easily stood out. The kids at Sarah Lawrence said Bronxville was a scary place, the kind of place you imagine secret KKK meetings still took place, but for me it was no different than what I had known all of my life: a bunch of rich white people who lived in their own little bubble, and if anyone knew what they were really like, they'd laugh to have ever felt threatened by them.
One particular argument on one particular night in my second year in college sticks out in my memory. I was living in the multi-cultural house and there were a bunch of people in the kitchen one night, most of whom were not white, all of whom were activists for racial equality. And they started saying pretty horrible things about a white boy who up until then everyone in that room had called a friend, and whom I'll call Edgar here to protect his privacy. Edgar had apparently said something about how he had never done laundry before going to college, which gave away his wealthy background, and they had presented him with their lecture on white privilege, to which he didn't seem to respond in the "right" manner (which I think would have been to apologize for being white and ignorant of his privilege). So now they were in the kitchen outraged, calling him all sorts of names and saying they no longer considered him a friend. I wasn't looking to start trouble, I just wanted to understand something, when I said,
"How come you guys don't get mad at me and lecture me on white privilege?" The agitated room went silent. One of them finally said, "You're not white, Larissa. Not here. It's different." To which I responded, and until this day I still don't know where my courage and clarity at that moment came from, "No, it's not. Where I come from I am white. I am just as much of an ignorant spoiled white brat as Edgar. The only reason you are 'forgiving' me for it is because in your eyes I'm not white, but my background is the same as his, and if you think about it, I am no different, the only thing that's different is your perspective of me. I never washed a spoon before I came to college, just like Edgar never did his own laundry. The reason I never washed a spoon is the same as his, because I thrived on my white privilege unknowingly. So you should be lecturing me on white privilege and ending your friendship with me too." No one knew what to say to that. We discussed it for hours, but no one was really able to respond to the problem I had just presented them with. They understood what I was saying, they had attached a profile to me when they met me: Not White, therefore it was okay for me to have money, because I would never be able to take advantage of any white privileges, and since I was a person of color, I must have struggled with racism throughout my life. When they learned that they were mistaken, they didn't really know what to do- it was an entirely new issue.
A new set of questions would present itself. Could they be friends with someone who was a person of color in their country but did not -
could not- identify with their struggles and pains (or at least not at that point)? They thought they could, but in the end, sadly, I lost most of those friends. They wanted me to be as angry as they were at white people, and I wasn't. They didn't want me to present the perspective of a white person, and they certainly didn't want me defending rich white people. I tried, I really did, to understand them then and salvage those friendships.
But they were young and they were angry (rightfully so, I would later understand their worlds), and they were not looking for mere friendships, they were looking for allies. And I wasn't willing or even capable of being one. I have now lived in the United States for seven years and see things that I didn't see then. I noticed, for example, that when I went into a store like Prada or Chanel, I was often followed, or at least watched, by a security guard. I thought it was because I was young, and maybe in some instances it was, until I went with my mom and the same thing happened. I started paying attention, and when I noticed that none of the white women and men in these stores were ever followed or watched, I started to feel a chill crawl up my spine. The same sort of thing happened if I went to a fancy restaurant- the treatment seemed different. These little things that I had once thought either didn't exist or existed only in the minds of paranoid people turned out to be very real, and very cruel.
I grew up thinking I would never personally experience racism. No one taught me how to handle it. I wasn't prepared. And when, as a young woman fully capable of understanding exactly what was happening, I actually felt it, right there on my own skin, it seemed like the world as I had always known it had been a complete farse. How would I ever find anything beautiful again in this world where people were capable of treating others as inferior to themselves because of the color of their skin?
The parameters of my reality have changed a lot because of this experience, and I am grateful for it. When I see or hear about people of color being treated differently than white people I identify with their pain, because it could be me. What I had always thought I was safe from is now something I deal with constantly. When Barack Obama was elected president, I was elated that history was forever changed, and now every black child in America would grow up thinking they can be president one day if they want to- a thought I probably wouldn't have had seven years ago. I notice now when campaigns and ads use mostly white people, or only white people, and I am aware of how often (or should I say how rarely?) people of color are cast in leading roles. The list goes on and on, unfortunately.
Knowing what I know now is beyond measurable value, because there is no greater lesson in life than empathy, I think, and my absolutely unique experience expanded my vision of the world and my understanding of humanity, leaving me with a truth I'll share with you here. I carry it daily in my heart and on the surface of my skin, and maybe some of you do too...
The pain of others is our pain as well, and if we think it is not, life will teach us otherwise.
