I had the chance to visit Delta Orinoco in Venezuela on two different occasions. It takes a very long boat ride to get there, gliding past the palafitos of Warao Indians, with a chance to see the pink river dolphins.
Once you arrive at this distant outpost of Venezuelan Guiana, one is surprised to see so many nationalities etched into the faces of the inhabitants. Guyana (the former British Territory) is not that far away (by water). The only hostelry was owned a mixed race family, as every one seemed to be. The shopkeeper was a Guyanese Indian Venezuelan. I ate at the home of a lady with very distinct indigenous features who went by the name of HanumanSingh, a typical name from India (via Guyana obviously)
In the United States, Black Bodies are seen as Criminal, Brown Bodies are seen as Illegal and of course Homosexuality seen as Immoral
But within the lifetime of most of us, USA will stop being a white majority country but the dying embers of white supremacists aided and abetted by the elected officials (Miami is rightfully called a Banana Republic), would like you to believe that this country belongs to their exclusive clubs and with Police Brutality not known elsewhere in the civilized world.
Nowadays it is impossible to tell from the surname how long the person is connected to the land now called United States of America.
One good example is my friend Bernal Baca, an activist whose family claims to have been descended from Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca who arrived in the New world in 1527.
Only four of the original party—Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, Alonso del Castillo Maldonado, Andrés Dorantes de Carranza, and Dorantes' enslaved Moor Estevanico—survived the next eight years, during which they wandered through what is now the Southwestern United States and northern Mexico. They eventually encountered Spanish slave-catchers in Sinaloa in 1536, and with them, the four men finally reached Mexico City.
Interesting to note that a black man was the first african to visit these United states in the years of 1530s, long before Puritans and the ancestors of the current white supremacists arrived at these shores.
So when i saw a short video which featured an AMERICAN film makers and activist. Valerie Kaur, unless she told you that her SIKH grandfather had arrived in San Francisco in 1913 from British India, you would think of her as a typical American in anguish at the current state of affairs in the USA. Her grandfather was already in the USA when the current President's mother was in a village in Scotland.
All Americans, regardless of colour should look into the near ancestral origins and would be surprised to see that they are not truly NATIVES of USA.. that honour goes to another group..
This pandemic has arrived at a time when all of us whether we live in the Americas or Europe or Africa or Asia- Pacific can begin to see each other not as the OUTSIDER or the OTHER but as someone that is part of YOU.
in a 1915 poem, the sentiments are clear but why we are still embroiled in this one hundred and five years later ?
I believe in the purpose of everything living,
That taking is but the forerunner of giving;
That strangers are friends that we some day may meet,
And not all the bitter can equal the sweet;
That creeds are but colors, and no man has said
That God loves the yellow rose more than the red.
That taking is but the forerunner of giving;
That strangers are friends that we some day may meet,
And not all the bitter can equal the sweet;
That creeds are but colors, and no man has said
That God loves the yellow rose more than the red.
Valerie Kaur has degrees from Yale, Harvard and Stanford, is a lawyer, advocate for SIKH people and their religion.
Does it take a lot of education to understand tolerance ? in the USA ? Is there a correlation for the adoration of fascism in this country by white men who do not have a college education ?
She is championing a concept of Revolutionary Love , a concept which may change the way people look at one another in the USA.
I urge you to watch her TED TALK. Here is a short video of her passionately expounding her very welcome view about HER country and HER countrymen..
I felt good listening to her.
She is a sensible, tolerant, educated American who cherishes her ancestry and culture much like white Americans cherish their christianity
She knows WHO she is, American who is proud of being SIKH who came to USA in 1913 from British India.
An elder at a midwestern tribe once told me. I cant make out the white person, when I ask them who they are, they say, I am 1/4 German, 1/4 scottish, 1/4 Norwegian and 1/4 Swedish
Four Quarters do not make 1, it makes ZERO..
