I’ve always been interested in politics and government relations. It was only right that when I matriculated here at VMI, I studied International Studies (IS). Of course your first two semesters are spent with your face in one of three places: the ground, cadre’s face, or rat classes. After a year of attending mandatory rat classes I attended my first IS course, Intro to International Studies. We were discussing the upcoming election, which was about one year out, and reviewing possible propaganda from previous years and countries. After we took our first quiz, I received a zero out of ten because the professor said he was looking for an answer more along the lines of… (As he proceeded to tell me his interpretation of the image which just so happen to align pretty strongly with his political views). I walked out of that class to my next one, Ways of Reading, and expressed my disappointment to the legendary MAJ Heard. He suggested that I look into picking up English, Rhetoric, and Humanistic Studies minor (ERH). I told him I’d look into it. Dazed and confused at why my English professor suggested I pick a minor when I’m barely passing his class was like a revolution that occurred in my mind.
I divided head first and completely skipped being a minor. I began this journey as an English major in the fall semester of my third class year. I had the institutional luxury of taking American Literary Traditions, per my degree requirement. What I didn’t know was that MAJ Heard would shed light to my understanding of what it meant to be an English major, and how I can find and develop my own thoughts and ideas around the issues we discussed. Within that class we read, what is now one of my top four favorite books, “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” by Junot Díaz. The book sets out to describe this life of a young Dominican boy, Oscar, and his experiences growing up in Paterson. This was my first introduction to this idea of colorblindness. This kid, who is obsessed with fantasy novels and science fiction, is somewhat an outcast. The racial ideology that attempts to serve as the best way to end discrimination is by treating individuals as equally as possible is opposite of what Oscar is experiencing within his own community. This theme stuck with me throughout my courses. I found myself searching for a commonality between my course works, and if there wasn’t one I’d made that stretch to create one.
Somehow, someway Colonel Miller must have hacked into my head and figured out that I loved MAJ Heard’s style of teaching. The next semester I was blessed to grab the last spot in his ERH 400 level course, titled Major Figure: Toni Morrison. Over the course we reviewed several of her novels to include “Playing in the dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination”, which is a collection of three essays discussing race in American literature. Morrison reviews the methods that literary whiteness and literary blackness are assembled in American literature as well as the effects of race in American literature as a whole. After reading this I instantly found myself back at this theme of colorblindness but within American literature. I was fascinated and found that this is a common theme in most, if not all, of Toni Morrison’s books.
Things really launched off last semester when I took MAJ Iten’s Civic Discourse class. There I was instructed to pick my own topic that I’d be working with for the entire semester. In the brainstorming process it wasn’t hard to choose the one thing that I felt most passionate about and that kept repeating itself over the years: colorblindness. But in what context, I’d ask myself. So I picked Police Brutality, a controversial topic that many citizens have different views and experiences with. I began my research and was amazed at some of the responses I read when people were asked to discuss colorblindness, racism, or a topic unidentifiable by them. What was common across the board was the response of “I don’t see color”. When I began to write my argument I stated that, issues of Police Brutality exist for that very reason, people not seeing color. If we recognized that African Americans, particularly males in this case, are being treated and imprisoned at a much higher rate than any other race here in the United States, then it safe to say we see color. In fact, we need to see color in order acknowledge this as a problem.
Fast forward a few months to the fall 2017 semester and I taking my Senior Capstone course. When we begin this drafting process I knew immediately I wanted to continue my research on Colorblindness. For the first few weeks, I struggled with trying to find a clear site of analysis and what I was going to use as my primary text to examine. I spent weeks Googling: colorblindness and trying to find something that I saw interesting and noteworthy enough to write my entire capstone on. After all, this was my senior capstone and I didn’t want to look back thinking I should I have written about something else. One day, I came across a speech by President Barack Obama titled: Colorblindness. This was his 2009 address to the NAACP for their 100th anniversary. Such an incredible milestone being achieved by both Obama and the NAACP, I thought this was going to be a great topic. Like most essays, I grappled with the writing process. Frustrated at typing so many words, aggravated because I couldn’t get my thoughts to cooperate, and displeased with the pace at which I was going, I somehow ended here, writing my reflection to what I’ve already written. One thing I found to be consistent throughout this process was attentiveness to the topic itself. I never deviated away from this colorblindness. The more I read and the more I watched that speech over and over again, the more I became fascinated with what colorblindness is.
Ultimately, I have to thank that awful Intro to International Studies for leading me to where I am now, writing this reflection.