REFLECTION: Inertia and Pa’delante

This shift in perception increases the ability and effectiveness with which we-simple humans-people of color-POC-may adapt and change. In a world such as ours, in which change of such enormous magnitude is called urgently, this perspective is invaluable. Exposed to, while experiencing U.S.A. power structures in the normativity supported by (in)equity of daily interactions, those of us-deemed foreigner-POC-are posed under more scrutiny, called attention to, and differences are emphasized as flaws. As such, in our U.S.A. world, being different-than an idealized norm-is enough reason to be labeled, minoritized, and/or diminished. In other words, demonized. The environment created by the 45th U.S. president with his “Make America Great Again” campaign, has brought back an archetypal group member, American identity, as “a person who respects political institutions, who is part of a Judeo-Christian religion, speaks English, a member of [the White] racial group. Certainly, some people define the prototypical American as White, Christian, and/or born in the U.S.” (Gidda, 2016, n.p.). In addition, this GOP-American longs for a time when ethnic minorities weren’t in powerful positions or weren’t as successful as working- and middle-class Whites. This sentiment is fueled by how the 45th has exploited those racialized beliefs by repeatedly playing on their supporters-GOP Americans’ prejudices against non-Christian-especially Muslims, immigrants, and minorities. Thus, individual rights and freedom are given yet sort of questionable for hyphened, undefined, different peoples. It permeates everything and academia is not an exception.