So, I know it now: I AM BROWN.
"You are brown and you don't matter"
These are the exact words thrown at me in the past few months by a few so-called first world "WHITE" people. And Alas, it was in one of the most tolerant and immigrant-friendly countries, "The Netherlands".
Coming from a Third World country, we have certain expectations from the First World. And, trust me whenever we say expectations, they are really high, in terms of almost everything! The situation we have lived in our entire life and the kind of transition we have seen in our home country has made us excessively tolerant of almost everything. So, that might have been the reason why upon being called brown, I just couldn't say anything. To be honest, if we categorize people on the basis of their skin color, I definitely am brown. I don't deny that.
However, here the central question is was it ever about my skin color? I believe, not.
Was it about that attitude of finding pleasure in putting people down just because they belong to a certain race and have a certain country wise status? I believe, yes.
For me as an outsider coming from the Third World, my delusion that First World would be an ideal place, a paradise, filled with people who respect individuals for who they are, and not where they come from, has been demystified.
The more interesting part is, when I questioned them back on how they could be so racist towards anyone coming from any part of the world, they would bluntly ask me to accept the fact. The fact here is my Brown-ness. And this brown connotation brings with it multiple assumptions. The first one being, why am I not undergoing any cultural shock? How is my English pretty fine (and funnily enough one person even pointed out how I could possibly score more than him in an English Language exam)? And, above all how did I ever manage to afford the school? The biggest of all assumption has been a constant questioning about my knowledge and my ability to actually accomplish things.
Honestly speaking, this did make me shudder and question myself almost every other day. Coming from an entirely different part of the world, living on my own (in a student house crammed with over 300 students and unavoidable social obligations), and struggling with the course that deals with a given legal system (BTW, another reality check: All of my classmates have a background in EU law except me, and I am pretty sure that already puts me at a comparative disadvantage), life has not been easy so far, even in the FIRST WORLD. Well, I have seen worse, life has never been easy, never will be. And, I am not even an optimist, I am rooted in reality, (the majority of which has been instilled in me through my experiences back home).
So, in an entirely different world, thousands of miles away from home, going through such discrimination on a regular basis makes me wonder why I chose to come here in the first place. I start doubting everything I believed in. I started doubting my own abilities until I made myself realize that, if I made it here from Nepal that too with a gracious scholarship, I definitely have that in me. Thus, having evolved into a strong person, I always end up convincing myself that these petty things don't define me and have nothing to do with me. Nevertheless, I wonder what if another brown (let's say much younger and much more fragile) underwent the same thing? And, judging from what bullying in any form can do to humans, even the thought of it makes me quiver.
Well, life isn't fair and will never be (Who could know it better than a person coming from an unstable, war-torn, calamity torn, nepotism filled country like mine).
However, as to the racists here, I have come to the conclusion that they cannot be changed. As my father used to say, "It is always easier to wake up a person when they are actually sleeping than when they are pretending to do so." So, I have come to terms with the fact that no matter how hard I try to defend my race or my color or my own self in front of these blatantly racist humans, I am never going to be able to change their mindset. It is something that has been imbibed in them. They don't want to change. If they did, I am pretty sure they would learn to respect humans first, irrespective of their color.
And, btw, they keep forgetting the fact that white is also color if brown and black is a color. So, as per their definition, all of us, we are colored people, just that our colors vary.
These are the exact words thrown at me in the past few months by a few so-called first world "WHITE" people. And Alas, it was in one of the most tolerant and immigrant-friendly countries, "The Netherlands".
Coming from a Third World country, we have certain expectations from the First World. And, trust me whenever we say expectations, they are really high, in terms of almost everything! The situation we have lived in our entire life and the kind of transition we have seen in our home country has made us excessively tolerant of almost everything. So, that might have been the reason why upon being called brown, I just couldn't say anything. To be honest, if we categorize people on the basis of their skin color, I definitely am brown. I don't deny that.
However, here the central question is was it ever about my skin color? I believe, not.
Was it about that attitude of finding pleasure in putting people down just because they belong to a certain race and have a certain country wise status? I believe, yes.
For me as an outsider coming from the Third World, my delusion that First World would be an ideal place, a paradise, filled with people who respect individuals for who they are, and not where they come from, has been demystified.
The more interesting part is, when I questioned them back on how they could be so racist towards anyone coming from any part of the world, they would bluntly ask me to accept the fact. The fact here is my Brown-ness. And this brown connotation brings with it multiple assumptions. The first one being, why am I not undergoing any cultural shock? How is my English pretty fine (and funnily enough one person even pointed out how I could possibly score more than him in an English Language exam)? And, above all how did I ever manage to afford the school? The biggest of all assumption has been a constant questioning about my knowledge and my ability to actually accomplish things.
Honestly speaking, this did make me shudder and question myself almost every other day. Coming from an entirely different part of the world, living on my own (in a student house crammed with over 300 students and unavoidable social obligations), and struggling with the course that deals with a given legal system (BTW, another reality check: All of my classmates have a background in EU law except me, and I am pretty sure that already puts me at a comparative disadvantage), life has not been easy so far, even in the FIRST WORLD. Well, I have seen worse, life has never been easy, never will be. And, I am not even an optimist, I am rooted in reality, (the majority of which has been instilled in me through my experiences back home).
So, in an entirely different world, thousands of miles away from home, going through such discrimination on a regular basis makes me wonder why I chose to come here in the first place. I start doubting everything I believed in. I started doubting my own abilities until I made myself realize that, if I made it here from Nepal that too with a gracious scholarship, I definitely have that in me. Thus, having evolved into a strong person, I always end up convincing myself that these petty things don't define me and have nothing to do with me. Nevertheless, I wonder what if another brown (let's say much younger and much more fragile) underwent the same thing? And, judging from what bullying in any form can do to humans, even the thought of it makes me quiver.
Well, life isn't fair and will never be (Who could know it better than a person coming from an unstable, war-torn, calamity torn, nepotism filled country like mine).
However, as to the racists here, I have come to the conclusion that they cannot be changed. As my father used to say, "It is always easier to wake up a person when they are actually sleeping than when they are pretending to do so." So, I have come to terms with the fact that no matter how hard I try to defend my race or my color or my own self in front of these blatantly racist humans, I am never going to be able to change their mindset. It is something that has been imbibed in them. They don't want to change. If they did, I am pretty sure they would learn to respect humans first, irrespective of their color.
And, btw, they keep forgetting the fact that white is also color if brown and black is a color. So, as per their definition, all of us, we are colored people, just that our colors vary.
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