Wondering

Posted By: Kat
Date: Tuesday, 9 September 2003, at 3:04 a.m.

I would really appreciate it if someone could clear up some of my ignorances. First of all I'm a 48-year-old white woman. My mother is from Lithuania, blonde, blue-eyed but my father was Native American Indian, black hair, brown eyes. I'm white with dirty blonde hair, brown eyes. I grew up WHITE. However, I am fully aware of what the "white man" did to the Native Americans through my father. When I was learning American history even as a child I noticed that all history books were not teaching the truth about anything. As I grew older I began to listen more to the American Indian heritage inside of me. And I have never been fully able to understand or agree with white supremacy attitudes. Looking back at human history, I have always felt that colonization, etc. was a kind of evil. I don't like what white human beings have done to this world and yet I am one. I don't like what happened to the Mexicans and Indians that were here in California (my home) when the Spanish ships landed. I don't like what happened to the Polynesians when the English landed in the South Pacific. And I don't like what happened to the African continent and it's people either. I have often wondered what this earth would have been like if people had never robbed others of their homelands and cultures. But I sincerely don’t know if this problem is only about "race". I sometimes wonder if mankind himself isn’t just so corrupt in the heart and disturbed in the spirit that even if you had One Race left on this planet a similar and horrific history would take place. People will fight amongst themselves when they have no one to take over and destroy. Jealousy and envy is the nature of the human heart when deprived of spiritual intelligence.

I recently took a short vacation to the Caribbean and came home listening to Bob Marley which led me to other artists and finally I began researching Jamaica. Now I’m listening to reggae everyday and wanting to know more. Before this happened I knew nothing about the history of Jamaica and I had never known anything about the Rastafarian religion or anything else for that matter about that island or about Africa. Something deep inside of me has connected to the sadness of the African heart. I mean no offence by this. I am not African and I don’t know if there are any blacks in my ancestry, but that’s not the point. As I grow older I find that most of what I’ve done in my life was to please other people. I’m now in the process of breaking away from what other people want from me and setting out to do exaxtly what I want to do. I call this Freedom. To live without Freedom will destroy your soul. I can’t re-write the world’s history. All I can do is be responsible for enlightening myself. I can only follow my soul’s awakening and express it the best I can for the second half of my life. I wish we could all do that, then maybe we’d treat each other right. With growing older I have finally become happy with the way God made me. But I’ve lately been questioning where my heart belongs because the “system” has injured me too and I am angered by the way it operates. I’m not white trying to be black. I’m me becoming ME. And somehow I got touched by a dead reggae song-writers life in the midst of my own trauma. I bless that trauma now. I came through it with a deeper “over”standing of what is going on in this world and what I want my place to be in it. I’m not going to grow dreadlocks, steal a black woman’s man or start talking different. The change is inside. And although I don’t yet understand it I do know that I’m more peaceful by it. I reached out and started studying another culture and got touched. I find something personally comforting in the plight of the Rastafarian to live in this world, because I struggle with this world myself on a different level. I cannot become Rastafarian and don’t want to. What I’ve learned though, as I slowly educate myself, is that the Rastafarian has been poorly treated and therefore from now on, whenever I see one I will be most respectful and gracious. Sometimes maybe that’s enough to get more started. Respect can make someone’s day, even prevent a tragedy. You never know when a accepting smile or comment is going to uplift a stranger’s heart for a moment and change their mind about something that was hurting them. I can’t darken my skin color to be understood or accepted by black people either and that’s not what I want. All I can do is be kind to my neighbor. Discovering what the Rastafarians believe and go through has enlarged my consciousness. This is not the first time I feel humbled by another race and culture. I studied Martial Arts which led me to Bruce Lee and then the Oriental philosophies. God is found in true compassion and sometimes we are led to it in the strangest ways. If it wasn’t for that trip and the discovery of Bob Marley’s words and music I never would have become acquainted with Jamaica, Africa and then the Rastafarian religion. Then it occurred to me that there are most likely very few Rastafarians who even care whether or not I’m listening and learning. It occurred to me that as a white person I could never really “support” this movement anyway. And I guess I’m not supposed to. Like I said, all I can do as a person growing older, wiser, and perhaps more delicate too from the awareness of pain from this world, is to be more kind and responsible in my own behavior. I sincerely wish all the best to those who CAN support the true Rastafarians. I know so little and I realize now that although I’ve learned more it really isn’t my place to do anything other than be loving in my own way. I’m grateful I did discover Bob Marley. You may think that’s silly but it opened me up to some knowledge I didn’t have before. I think that’s important.
I was really wondering what Rastafarians think of “outsiders” like me seeking knowledge. I just don’t want to go somewhere I don’t belong. An “intellectual” understanding is never enough for me. But no matter what suffering I myself have experienced I can never know what it is or was like to be another soul. Whatever “touched” me about this movement I’ll probably never know, but it was real enough to keep me curious and interested over the course of several weeks and through many books and websites.
Long ago I used to get into discussions with my friends (white) and I would find myself saying things like, “the white man is destroying this planet and should leave indigenous races alone”, “the white man is not superior”, and “I don’t care if the white man is destroyed, he’s a bad seed”. I meant that as a whole not referring to individuals. I have never understood where these feelings come from since I’ve lived my whole life as a privileged white person! My friends never thought anything unusual about these comments considering I was part Indian and they were smart and knew enough about history to often agree with me. But I now find myself wondering who and what I am sometimes. I cannot and never will discard that part of myself that is white because it honors my mother and that’s my skin color. I can’t ignore that part of me that is Indian because that is where my spirit resides. So whenever you see and think you know a person only by their skin color remember they may not be only what they appear. They may be more. I think that’s why I was drawn to Rasta. Here was a spiritual yearning not appearing like my own but very much like it in the sense that it knew there was something very much wrong with this world. It’s wrong to me that one race has tried to diminish another while also ignoring the natural order of things as revealed in nature. But I can’t do anything about it except be open to more learning and be led by my own burning heart’s desire in whatever way it needs to go for it’s own fulfillment. I hope every Rastafarian stays strong enough to do the same. It’s a cold world out there. Love and goodbye.
(I know if I stick around I’m going to get alot of flack so I’m obviously a coward)

Kat

Please forgive all misspellings and improper sentences.

Messages In This Thread

Wondering
Kat -- Tuesday, 9 September 2003, at 3:04 a.m.

Re: Wondering
pharonic -- Tuesday, 9 September 2003, at 3:55 p.m.

Re: Wondering
Warrior Cherub -- Wednesday, 10 September 2003, at 12:43 a.m.