WVSU Yellow Jacket — Are you free? I don't think so...
By Sean Rose
Over the rainbow and down the street a little ways lives a friend of mine that does quite a bit of business with parties in the former Soviet Union. He ships over lava lamps, dried tea leaves and General Electric light poles and brings back funny little sets of Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky dolls. One fine evening while dining with visitors from our former cold war enemy Russia, one of them enlightened us all. "For a free country, you sure do have a lot of rules!" Yes Slava, we do.
Now, I am a firm believer that we are blessed to live in the best country on the face of the earth. Every single person in this country is living better than 80 percent of the people on earth, even if they are living in the streets. Most people don’t have a clue as to how good we have it here. But as a people we are not free. Not by a long shot. Black History Month and the discussions it has placed me in on the WVSC campus have opened my eyes to the chains people wear every day.
Since I have been subject to public ridicule of late, I am going to break it down to the lowest common denominator, a factor that puts us all in the hate limelight.
For those of you who do not know, becoming a resident of this country isn’t as simple as deciding to come to America. Fact is, the United States Government makes money off importing immigrants from all around the world. You can’t just come live here; you have to PAY to come live here. This is how it works. You go to the "transferal" office in the country you currently reside in and apply to come to the U.S. If you are approved, you sign a loan agreement with Uncle Sam. Uncle Sam then pays for your trip to America, places you in a community with an ethnic population that matches your country of origin and you start working paying back all that money plus interest. Now, some years back I had the pleasure of living in one of these communities. Through a friend I met a fine lady and proprietor, Mrs. Baw. Mrs. Baw was one of the top chefs in this community, across the city for that matter. Through one channel or another, I decided to go to work for her and be trained in Asian cooking.
Now, as you may imagine, the restaurant employees were all of Asian descent. Most were from Vietnam, Mainland China or Korea. In the kitchen where I was to be working, no one spoke English. Nada. Other than laughing at select curse words, they were as clueless as I was to them. But If I wanted to learn, I had to work the same as all of the other employees, so workweeks at the restaurant were six days a week and 12 hours a day. My coworkers in the kitchen made it hell on me from the start. They pushed and pushed and pushed, and nothing was ever good enough. After say a month or so, I had quite enough of the hassle, and I asked one of the waiters who could speak some English to do a little translating. Now armed with a form of communication, the head of the kitchen told me in so many words that he didn’t like me, whites, blacks or any other Americans. We are all spoiled, lazy and fat. Also, I had a job that one of his friends should have. His friend needed to support his family here and back in Vietnam. His drive was to make me quit as soon as possible. Well, I managed a year and a half of 72-hour workweeks, and I learned a great deal from that man; I would even go so far as to say we became friends.
Bringing that back to West Virginia State College is easy. I stood up for myself in confrontation. I had faith in myself and my own abilities and that is all it takes to overcome anything. My drive broke his stereotype, and I became an equal. Truth be told, and I’ve been reminded people don’t like the truth, we all face obstacles everyday. Some have it easier than others and that will never, ever change. So deal. Stop living in a prison of your own mind. The very minute you set a title on yourself based on something as trivial as skin color, you have surrounded yourself in a cage that you will never escape. How can you believe in yourself when you are concerned with how other people will classify you? If most people spent half the energy they do complaining in some form of productive endeavor, no one would worry about racism and hate because we all would be successful and happy.
Take my advice and stop blaming the world and everyone else for the problems you face, and look inside to see what is holding you back. Self-confidence in the face of adversity. That’s all it takes. After all why would someone else believe in you if you don’t believe in yourself?
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