Colonized, oppressed people are trapped

There’s a pack of guard dogs in an industrial lot that loyally guard their area. Their owner must feed them enough to nourish them but not enough to satisfy their hunger. They always look ravenous and ready to eat you up. They viciously attack their food so they can get more than their share by beating the weaker dogs. They are grateful to their master for feeding them and are loyal to him in that best friend kind of way.

Colonized people behave like these guard dogs. We have just enough resources to get by and to be grateful for. Thank goodness for welfare and social security benefits and that good-paying job in the strawberry fields. We also fight each other for limited resources so we can have more than the next person.

That’s how people of color remain oppressed. We are so busy fighting small battles amongst ourselves that we get distracted from bigger issues. I remember a time where LULAC members were divided over whether a Mexican-American from Texas or a non Mexican-American should be national president. During that period, we forgot all about social injustice. We were distracted.

A few years ago I conducted diversity training for a national board for a professional association. Some board members were perplexed that the Gay/Lesbian, Latino, Asian and African-American coalitions fought amongst themselves. They figured that since all groups were underrepresented, they should have a common cause and get along.

Instead the board had to work hard at assuring all the coalitions that they were welcome in the profession. I asked if there were limited resources that all these coalitions shared, and if those resources were diminishing as new coalitions formed. They confirmed that this was the case. I asked if the board could allot more money for the coalitions to share. The board had never been asked of this possibility. The coalitions were so busy trying to get a larger piece of the existing pie that no one thought of ways to make that pie larger.

Various civil rights groups push for the hiring of more Latinos and underrepresented groups into higher positions to reflect the population at large. Yet we get into arguments over which minority should get hired. Will any Latino do? Should they be Mexican-American? Cuban? Puerto Rican? Should they be an African American or Asian? Should “they” get positions before “we” do?

I often wonder if the hiring officers (or white oppressors) under pressure to hire a Latino, American Indian or African American will hire a “safe” minority. By “safe,” I mean someone that won’t rock the boat, nor disturb the status quo. Someone that won’t point out their whiteness nor their privilege; someone who can speak to “the people” in their language and interpret why administrators made decisions that are for their own good.

Have I been perceived as a “safe Hispanic?” Have I been distracted from the larger issue in my pursuit to win a larger piece of the pie? I have. My radical friends encourage me to bite that hand that feeds me. I get frustrated with Hispanics that aim to please the master, but then I myself pacify the master. Then I get angry with the master. I don’t know who I should be, and there’s no easy way out.

Living in an oppressed environment leaves me trapped in a conflicted world. It is the same for all colonized people.