I am looking back at close to 65 years of life
I was raised in an oppressive cultural vacuum. On one hand I was taught the consciousness of the
the culture of the white/western European settler, the iron fist of the conqueror wrapped in the velvet glove of the civilizer. The cultural virtues of white men. Puissant, powerful, determined, forceful, tough and triumphant. These were the values that white men should uphold. And I was a failure according to these valued virtues. I was not strong or forceful. I was incapable of obtaining these virtues. I was diminished in my own mind. I realize now the impossibility of me carrying these virtues because I was also from early childhood on taught that I was antithesis of values due to my race. That I was both the conquered and the civilized, that I was darkness the savage the primitive inferior in all ways the white mans burden the shadow a darkness that must be ever kept from the light of European purity, the shining temple of European superiority that has since morphed into white civilization. I was taught by films, television, parents and the children I was raised with that I was the stain that proved their superiority I was burden by settler myths of their own superiority and the manifest obvious inferiority of a lesser spieces. I battle that insecurity that trembling anxiety of my worthlessness every day. It is a battle to breath, to stand, to shift the shackles enough to find moments of freedom of self worth. It is a battle I do not welcome but I will fight it always. I have no choice.