When people refer to the different cultures that constitute the U.S. and have nearly built it from the ground up, the common term “melting pot” is used. Although the term does a good job of describing the birth of the new culture existing in the U.S. created from people of outside cultures, it allows for the oversimplification of the experiences of those who make up this melting pot and undermines the progress that Americans still have yet to make in accepting cultures outside of their own.
One of the most important issues that comes with the grouping term is that the “melting pot” comes from a smaller sector of the pot. It occurs in areas in which POC largely make up the demographic. According to the definition of what a melting pot is, especially in these areas, we should be combining our cultures to construct a unique one in which our individual cultures are indistinguishable, or in other words, have “melted.” For this to happen, though, acceptance of each other's cultures must be abundant. Despite having similar experiences because of a common oppressor, racism is not scarce in places where white people are the smallest percentage. Despite their absence, prejudice still prevails in these communities, a reality that the Black lens illuminates.
Prejudice prevailed in elementary school when I was reminded that my hair wouldn’t lay flat, but I’d look better if it did. Prejudice prevailed all throughout middle school when boys, who were members of marginalized ethnic groups, made it clear that they’d rather do anything than be associated with a Black girl. Prejudice prevailed all four years of high school, even now in my last one, where slurs made for Black people casually left non-Black people around me like it was second nature, like the n-word was a crucial part of their vocabulary. Prejudice prevailed in my freshman year of high school, where a classmate told me that he didn’t think slurs were “that serious” after I explained to him why non-Black Latinos in our school saying the n-word made me uncomfortable. Prejudice prevailed when that same boy admitted to racial slurs being a common occurrence in his family, one excusable because, according to him, he had a Black grandparent somewhere down his lineage. Prejudice prevailed when his friend approached me to, through laughs and called me a “strong Black woman” for telling “Mexicans to stop saying the n-word.” Even as a Black Dominican himself, he let prejudice take a grip on him, too. Prejudice prevailed when I realized I’d never stop experiencing the same uncomfortable experience: casually hearing a Black slur as I walked down my school’s hallway, and quickly realizing that it did not come from a Black mouth. Prejudice prevailed when the same classmate who convinced himself that his greatest grandparent secured him a spot in the Black community gossiped about how I made everything about race, and how I refused to let my community be the butt of his jokes. Prejudice prevailed when a Puerto Rican classmate posted that he was incapable of supporting the Black Lives Matter movement because of a viral video in which a Black man harassed a Hispanic street vendor. To him, one video made police brutality against an entire race reasonable.
Prejudice prevailed yesterday when, on our way to the museum of African American Culture and History, 8th graders taunted their Black “friend,” pointing to the fields we drove past and calling it his “home” repeatedly. Prejudice prevailed when another said that his ancestors picked cotton for his. As black children, we feel compelled to assimilate through these jokes, to laugh alongside these people, to sit in the middle and allow fingers to be pointed in our direction. It is only as we grow older that we realize that the jokes we pretended to find amusing were the source of our trauma. Prejudice prevailed when after getting a slap on the wrist once teachers were told of their conversation, they continued to make the worn out joke of not being able to see their Black friend as we drove into dark tunnels. Because of colorism, I myself have never and will never hear that joke said about me, but the amount of Black students who have in this melting pot supposedly filled with accepting, like-minded POC, is infuriating. Through these experiences, including those I have yet to mention, it became clear to me that “POC,” another word used to group people, often excluded Black people and our experiences. Even in places where non-white groups are the majority, Black culture is one that Latinos tell their children not to “melt” with. There are still disparities in the melting pot in places where we are expected to be a collective.
Superficially, non-white/American groups are bound, or more so expected to connect because of the way in which common experiences at the hands of the same power have disadvantaged our communities for years and continue to today. Although this idea can generally be agreed on, to say that we experience the same racism could not be more untrue, one of the main reasons for this being how often racism itself is perpetuated and enforced by other POC themselves. This regurgitation occurs not only through the use of slurs or the memefication of George Floyd's death after students in my school jokingly made edited photos of him their social media profile pictures, but also through the way black people are spoken about in their homes. The criminalization of Black men in the lectures of Latino parents or the caution they drew around Black women and our supposed violent ways gave their children a reason to come to school and torment their Black classmates without second thought or repeat racist jokes taught to them by the alt-right pipeline with no shame, only to later learn that white people did not love them either.
The belief that POC cannot be allies to racism is, I believe, what has allowed this environment to prevail in places where POC make up most of the demographic. The belief that because Mexicans, Dominicans, Peruvians, or Puerto Ricans have to put up with racism too, they could not possibly be its catalyst.
On social media, it is common to hear from Black people who have grown up in predominantly white areas and schools that they desire going to a school where there is a mix of POC, where they imagine there’d be less discrimination and more unity. In reality, because of the racism many ethnic groups have to unlearn amongst themselves, a large POC population does not signify the absence of racism. Being that I have grown up in a city in which the day you saw a white person outside of your teachers was extremely rare, I’ve come to accept the fact that there is work to be done in these areas too, and that racism has been able to take a toll strong enough so that oppressors don’t have to be present for it to thrive.
The ongoing problem of racism in POC communities is addressed when conversations on race are no longer taboo, and when we realize that neither of us are favored by our oppressors as long as our customs and faces do not look like theirs. It is also addressed when we learn that the reason so many non-Black people feel comfortable disrespecting Black people and culture in every aspect is because they do not see us as one with their community, as shown when issues like immigration only center non-Black people.
Most importantly, though, the problem of racism being well and alive in communities in which it is least expected to be is allowed when POC, each with our own distinctive obstacles and achievements, are grouped together as one with little consideration for how different our experiences are. For this reason, Black people online have emphasized why the term POC is problematic.Umbrella terms cannot be used correctly when discussing very individualized experiences. Black experiences are not the experiences of other POC (and vice versa), and they (POC) have therefore become too comfortable with creating a false proximity to Blackness, one that they believe justifies the disrespect of Black people.
When I asked the mayor of my city, one made up of a 92.33% Hispanic/Latinx, 4.47% Black, and 1.76% Asian student body, to create a stronger initiative for the height of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020, his response was that he and his wife sympathized with the movement given that they are Dominicans and that the issue would be taken up with the representatives of the Board of Education. Following this, there was a suggestion that he made in joining his youth council. A segment of my email read, “It was exhausting going through those days without hearing from our school leadership, especially for members of our Black community. While we are both glad and grateful that we (the city) issued an eventual response, that delay was felt and heard.”
My next email asking about his youth council was never responded to, and no major change for the Black Lives Matter movement followed. Pictures and videos celebrating the city’s police department did, though, and continue to be uploaded to this day (despite the department’s reputation for brutality and feelings of superiority because of their occupation). For a city that prides itself on its diversity, it consistently fails to show up for black people and students, exemplifying that simply being POC does not imply being anti-racist. Just because we are POC does not mean our pot doesn’t have a hard time melting, just as it does in places where we make up the smallest percentages.
Call out your friends.
Use umbrella terms lightly.
Unlearn and abandon your parent’s racist lectures.
Work in solidarity with those in your community, not in competition with them to be the
oppressor's favorite.
