How I Feel as a Non-Black Woman

As I sit here literally with tears in my eyes writing this, I am outraged of the social injustices going on in the United States. Our country was founded on principles of freedom and justice for all.  At least that is what my parents sought when they left their home of Cuba in the 1960s with my older sister who was not yet two at the time. I remember my sons asking me as toddlers what I did for a living. How do you explain that you are an affirmative action and equal employment opportunity consultant to a four-year old? All I could say was that I helped companies treat people right. As they got older and started to hear more about affirmative action, they translated what I did as “Mom, you help Black people and Hispanics get work.” Even though that was not exactly right, they were at least starting to understand that people of color face obstacles that people who are not of color, in general, will never fully comprehend.  

I am outraged that even when video tapes show proof of police brutality targeted at African Americans, evidence of racial profiling taking place, and EEOC settlements taking place because organizations have looked the other way while management intentionally verbally and, at times, physically harassed a person because they were a person of color, that people try to argue with me that equal amounts of injustice exist for people of all shades of skin. Even though I am Hispanic, because the shade of my skin is fair, my hair is straight, and my eyes are blue and I am a woman, I will never know what it is like to be DWB “driving while black” or WWB “walking while black”— phrases that I came to know after hearing friends of mine who are African American tell heart wrenching stories of their personal experiences being pulled over by police while driving their nice car in a nice neighborhood simply because of the color of their skin.

I feel sad.  I feel sad because my heart is breaking for the evil that exists within some people in this world who are racist or prejudiced against people of color.  And, I am sad that some of these people choose to act out negatively on their points of views towards people who look differently than they do.  I do not know what the solution is to actually make change in the world for the better. Every opportunity where I see disrespect, cruelty or injustice unfolding in front of me, I take the opportunity to speak out against it in a calm but authoritative way. Up until now, the offenders have seemed remorseful. But did it make a change in their hearts and actions towards those that look different than they do? I could only pray that it did. I can only continue to stand up and not be a silent bystander when injustice goes on around me. Otherwise, I would be making a statement that racism, prejudices, and allowing stereotypes to be carried down generation after generation is acceptable. And it most certainly is not!

I am cautious and afraid. I want to help in the fight for injustice but because of the shade of my skin, I am taunted by those that look like me that they have felt injustices by Blacks themselves and deserve my empathy. Even though they heard my eloquent and statistically backed-up arguments for the need for equality and respect for all, they were not truly listening to what I had to say. And I am cautious because when I speak out against injustice, I worry that I am not using the correct words to clearly express the situation and make things worse because I offended someone by using the term ‘African American’ or ‘Black’ because some prefer one word over the other.  

I am hurt because although I do not look like the men and women who recently died when they should not have because they were Black or African American, I do care.  I do want the social injustices that are happening to stop. I want equal opportunities in the workplace and in schools. I want people of color to be able to drive in any neighborhood or shop in the nicest of shopping centers and not be targeted or followed around by store clerks as suspicious criminals. I want the world to get to a place where we see each other exactly the way we appear but we embrace those differences and actually take the time to look beyond those differences long enough to get to know the individual to form a judgment as to whether they are good. I hurt because no matter how sincere I am in my hurts for all people that have faced injustice due to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, veteran status, national origin or any other classification, there are still going to be people that will not believe that I care simply because of the shade of my skin. And that simply is not fair.