All You People Look Alike to Me

I am a white Australian. On my father’s side we have some German heritage I think, but on my mother’s side we trace back to one of the First Fleet convicts (for US readers, that’s roughly the equivalent of the Mayflower pilgrims).

I grew up in a small, quiet suburb, surrounded by other white faces. As far as diversity went, we had the deaf-mute hairdresser and the postman’s gay son, but racially it was an all-white area. This was in the late 70’s, early 80’s back when Greek and Italian immigrants were being referred to as “New Australians”. The first dark-skinned person I ever knew was a boy named Joshua, in primary school. We weren’t exactly friends, but we occasionally sat at the same bench at lunch and knew each other enough to say hello and have a chat with.

I only found out he was Aboriginal when, one time, he said something along the lines of “You know what we Aborigines do when we…” I can’t remember the exact quote, but the point is that was the first time he had referred to his ethnicity. Other than that, nobody ever mentioned it or asked him about it. It was as if nobody noticed his skin was a different color, or if they did, they simply ignored it. I never questioned it at the time (at that age, I just accepted a lot of things about the world as simply “that’s how things are”) and of course it’s good that he didn’t get teased or picked on because of it, but looking back now I realize that it was my first encounter with a phenomenon that I have come to call the “Global Grey Theory”.

Basically, I believe that people are so determined to not make a racist comment (or afraid that they inadvertently might), that they simply don’t discuss a person’s race at all. They selectively forget, or ignore, any cultural difference between themselves and the other person, as if they subconsciously view everyone on Earth as the same uniform colour (thus the term “Global Grey”). Admittedly, the concept isn’t entirely a bad thing.

Racism is unacceptable under any circumstances and wanting to not be racist is certainly an admirable endeavor, but I have grown to feel that using this particular method to achieve it is flawed, as it also prevents us from learning about other cultures as well.

Grey is the New Black

I can vividly remember the first time I learned that the “N” word (and no, I don’t want to type it anymore than I would ever want to say it) was an offensive insult to Africans and other dark skinned people. I was watching a comedy movie, one of those fast-paced slightly dirty gag style things, and there was a sketch about a daredevil/thrill seeker who was about to perform some kind of dangerous stunt.

He was dressed up like some kind of motorbike stunt man, but when he began his “stunt”, he walked over to a group of black men, stood right in the middle of them and shouted that word, then ran for his life with them chasing him. I asked my mother what he had said, because I didn’t get the joke, and she explained what the word meant. I’ve never said that word again ever since. I say “again” because there is a chance I may have used it unknowingly. You know that old nursery rhyme “Eeny meeny miny moe, catch a tiger by the toe”? Well, I have this vague, uncertain half-memory that, way back when I was very little, I used to say that rhyme but I didn’t use the word “tiger”.

Of course this was years before I knew its true meaning, and I’m still not 100% certain I really did it or whether I’m mixing up the memory somehow. Even if I did, I’m sure that I said it, not as a word in its own right but more as just a sound to fit the rhythm of the song. You may know that back in ye olde tymes an apple was actually referred to as “a napple”, well I think what I might have been actually saying when I said that rhyme was “an igger”. And yes, even typing that gave me a sour feeling. Call me over-sensitive but I really, really, really just do not like that word.

Anyway, after my mother explained about that word, I learned that there are certain words that should not be said to certain people. And since I had only discovered this one by accident, I figured that there must be plenty of others out there that I didn’t know about and to be on the safe side, I should probably just not talk to people with dark skin or different shaped eyes in case I accidentally said one of these offensive words. I had succumbed to the Global Grey Theory.

You Finished? No, But I Have an Uncle in Denmark

I started getting my first glimpse of the wider cultures of the world in high school, although not until my last few years there. At first, it was another all-white affair. I recall a Maltese girl being in one of my classes for a while, and I think I met my first Macedonian and Czech guys during my time there as well.

But the first big change came during my senior years, when my family decided to host an exchange student from Norway. All of a sudden there was this strange, very tall, oddly-accented young man living in our house. He wore sandals all the time. He utterly hated pumpkin and removed it from his plate whenever we had baked dinners. He visibly wilted in the summer, to the point of getting off the school bus, walking straight across the road to the beach, and plunging head-first into the water, school uniform and all. He taught us how to ask for a room with a bath using words that didn’t even sound like words, and, most importantly, he talked about his country. He answered questions about it. We had discussions about the difference between Australia and Norway, and he was happy to do so. Even when we got things wrong, or made silly comments, he didn’t fly into an offended rage, he simply explained the difference.

Suddenly I realized that it was possible to talk to people from other cultures about their culture. I realized that it was allowed to ask questions, to be curious, to want to know about other countries and people from them.

The second thing that helped open my eyes was when I gained my first hero/idol. To put this in context, I had never really taken on any celebrity as a focus of attention. There were actors and music artists/groups that I liked, but none that I actively collected pictures of, or followed the career of or anything like that. Until one day, when the cast of a new television show that was starting soon were revealed. Amidst the promotional material, there was a photograph of a man with dark brown skin, broad, flat features, heavy of frame and with long black dreadlocks.

To this day I can’t explain the why of it, but all I know is that the instant I saw this guy, I wanted to know everything about him. For 11 years I collected every photograph, news clipping, magazine article and promo picture of him I could find. And I tried to learn as much about him as I could. One of the first things I learned was that he was Fijian. I had been to Fiji once, on a family holiday cruise, but had been too young to really pay attention to things or remember them. But now I had a reason to pay attention, to want to know more about Fiji and Fijian people.

If they were anything like the guy I had seen, then they were people I wanted to know about. The exchange students had shown me it was possible to learn about other cultures, but this Fijian man had made me want to learn about them. As time passed, I broadened my interest to include other island nations of the South Pacific, and today my main focus has actually shifted from Fiji to the indigenous Maoris of New Zealand (but that’s another story altogether). My deep interest and attraction to this part of the world and the people from it is a direct result of that first fascination with the Fijian actor.

Never be Rude to an Arab

The lasting result of all of this is that I’m no longer afraid to acknowledge peoples ethnicity. Often I’ve asked people where they are from, or what their background is. I’m always polite about it, and tell them that if they consider it a personal question, I apologies. But so far, nobody has gotten angry. Most respond happily, a few seem confused at the question, but answer anyway. When they ask me why I’m asking them, I tell them the truth: I’m curious. It’s interesting to learn where people are from, and I often find people are happy to talk about. Some even have a great sense of humor about it.

I’ll finish up with a personal anecdote on that topic: I used to work in a call center, and was friends with an Indian guy who also worked there. He was fairly dark-skinned, but didn’t have an accent or anything like that. We had talked about his background before, he was totally cool with it and knew that I wasn’t trying to put him down in any way, so we often were able to share a joke about ourselves and our cultures. One day, there was a major power outage in the city, and our center was affected.

All the lights were out, and even though it was during the day and all the blinds were up, it was still rather gloomy inside. While we all sat around waiting for the computers to come back on, my Indian friendsuggested we pass the time by playing “murder in the dark”. Without missing a beat, I turned to him and said “that’s not fair, you’ve got an advantage”. He laughed. Everyone else nearby looked at me as if I’d just put on a white sheet and started burning crucifixes. One woman stared at me, mouth agape, and whispered “You can’t say that!” in a shocked tone.

To this day I still find her reaction amusing, although I can understand why she said it. I had said something which referred to his dark skin. I was publicly admitting that he had dark skin, and that was a breach of the Global Grey rules. Now, I certainly would not have said it if I hadn’t been friends with the guy. I never make comments like that unless I know the person and know that they would be ok with it, but I do sometimes forget that others around me don’t know that, and so they must think I make these kinds of comments all the time without thought for who they’re aimed at.

So, I guess if I had to leave you with one final thought, it’s this: there are a lot of interesting people in the world, from some really interesting places. Don’t deny yourself the chance to meet them and learn from them. You might just learn something about yourself in the process.