Where are you from?

I immigrated from the country of Jamaica when I was 12.  When I first arrived, most Americans looked identical.  Although I grew up watching television, with a predominantly white cast, it never registered the subtle differences that manifested between each person.  Green eyes, blue eyes, blond hair, brunette, the only idea that registered was they were not like me.  I had black hair and dark brown eyes and frankly so did many people I knew from childhood.  As diverse as Jamaica is, with its Asian and Latin Jamaicans these traits were more or less indistinguishable to me. 

Upon moving to the States, these traits became more defined and exotic.  They were all exotic except it became increasingly apparent that I was the foreigner.  I spoke differently, I spelled words using the Queen’s English, I had no inkling for their social cues.  All of the material things they sought after with such reverence was not something I shared.   I often asked myself why?  In Jamaica, being the smartest was the way to becoming popular and being sent to a bad high school was equivalent to death.  For the people I met, wearing $200 Jordon’s (shoes) seemed much more important than being able to pay $1.98 for their lunch. 

In Twilight: Los Angles we saw many people looting that rampaging through the streets fighting and injuring themselves and others for “free” goods.  People running through the streets with flat screens, shoes, clothes jewelry, food in vengeance for what happened to Rodney King.  George Bush said, the riots were not about King and were simply people misbehaving with King as a good excuse. He said “the LA riots are not about civil rights.”  While the makes of Birth of a Nation dubbed the riots as the LA Rebellion.  Both of these comments carry a lot of implied understanding.  They carry a certain perspective intrinsically linked to each person’s socioeconomic experience and overall grasp of life’s available opportunities. As a “black” American, it is incredibly difficult to judge nearly 20 years into the future the actions of rioters.  The level of violence during the so-called rebellion against innocent bystanders and other rioters alike one can definitely assign partial blame to all those involved. 

Anderson states one of the ideas that lost hold on society recently is the idea that society should be organized around “high centres—monarch who were apart from other human being…” The LA Riots, I believe, at least embodies a rebellion against this conception.  I believe, they saw particular groups of people who benefited from the disparity between groups.  Some sought to rightfully so to address these issues but were unfortunately underrepresented in media due to the riots.   KRS-One said in Birth of a Nation, “strengthen your community by protecting it.”  The problem is how does one do that in a  fragmented community one understands from experience is completely belied with injustice?