I recently found out from watching a discussion filmed on the Phil Donahue show that the term anti-Semitic in its true and historical context refers to people who live in Northeast Africa who speak an African and an Asian language. I'm not from Northeast Africa, but I am African and Asian in my ethnic makeup. I know what it is to be half of a race, semi means half.
I've felt the scalding burn of hatred that comes in the rejection of me as one of their own. The Asian restaurant owner who unapologetically informed me that she was out of rice and indignantly stared at me as I walked uncomfortably out of her little storefront. I saw her eyes still on me from across the street as I briefly turned in her direction to get in my car and shut my door.
In high school, the friend of a friend - who's advances I had turned down because he already had a girlfriend - who told me that I wasn't allowed to say "n*$$@" and got all hyped about punching me in my face if I said it. The subtler form of rejection from a nasty co-worker who told me I was white because my hair wasn't kinky. I straightened my hair. Hid my kinks just like she did. My hair was not as kinky as hers, but humidity and lack of an iron would expose me just the same. One day it did. I still remember the amazed look of a coworker who saw my unsmoothed hair because my friend had delayed in returning me my curling iron. Although by nature possessing a very congenial personality, she warmed up to me even more and seemed delighted to see the true nature of my hair that I had masterly hidden.
Underlying my struggles with peer-acceptance was my struggle for self-acceptance. Into adulthood the struggle was still my companion. I prayed and asked God one time why I couldn't just be one race, asian or black; I never wanted to be white. Why the curse of being both? The days of my childhood were bundled with confusion that comes with being aware that I stand out for reasons I couldn't understand. I was just being myself like everyone else...or not like anyone else?
Constantly my asian grandmother was telling me I'm just like a stubborn Asian daughter; that's wasn't a compliment, sons and obedience are favored. Contrastingly, I was the black entertainment for my older siblings, they would laugh wildly at me, how move my neck and put my hand on my hip when I'm talking back to them. This hostile intrusion into my ethnic identity permeated my social environment. One occasion of many, I was reminded of my unwanted blackness when the most unliked boy in school yells "black girl" at me after I out ran him, and everyone else, in gym class.
Books about being half might have helped me. Real pictures of people in Northeast Africa called semites might have lessened my bewilderment for other people's interpretation of me. I wouldn't have felt like I was the only one. But semite is a political term used in media and badly written U.S. History curriculum. I can't use my semite identity to feel whole around people because a white religious group has trademarked it. How they are accepted as semites is absolutely beyond any reasoning to me. Maybe I should to travel to Northeast Africa. I would be the only semite not offended by anti-Semitic encounters, it would be like a brush with the truth for me. My identity returned to me and one less obstacle to be whole.
Posted By: Denise Gunn
Monday, February 8th 2016 at 9:30PM
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