Thursday, October 30, 2008

Bandaid effect...

So, I'm working on a research project with my professor on Black Identity, and me being the theory student in our department, I have been reading excessive literature. So, we're sitting there in the office discussing Dubois, talking about insecurity within the self, and how people are conditioned to see things a certain way (ref when Dubois is talking about black being beautiful and the audience laughs out of being ashamed, because the white washed society was defining the conceptions of beauty)... when he mentions band-aids, and how they're racially exclusive, and serve as a reminder to blacks (or any one generally darker, like the many arabs, indopaks ect) that they are the minority....
At first i didn't get it, i honestly never noticed, i just thought band aids were the color they were because they just were (well i grew up with scooby doo band-aids and colorful ones, so i honestly never noticed)... I never realized they were supposed to match skin color (i.e. predominantly white skin color) and I was shocked!!! My professor laughed at me, because I never noticed, he was like "yeah once i cut myself on my forehead, and that band-aid just stood out as a reminder of difference" (not exact quote, but what i could remember of it).
So, I wonder, are band-aids one more example of a band-aid effect not working in our society. Have the issues of race, racial integration and equality been thoroughly discussed and cured, or have they just been hastily covered up with yet another pasty colored band-aid?
I propose we strip the pasty band-aids off, and address the real issue, find the real cure. We are constantly inculcating the "other" mentality within our children. We should be inclusive, regardless of race, class, status, gender, and what not. Exclusiveness is what deteriorates society, because society is all about people coming together! Please, please, please JUST GET OVER YOURSELF! and realize the world surpasses your tiny little bubble of a world.
Lets hope they start selling ebony (as well as other shades) colored band-aids in all stores... lets socialize society a little more effectively... hello it's 2008.... racial equality/respect/so on (in all aspects, including accessibility of band-aids) should be an undeniable truth, not something that is questioned... constantly forcing someone on the sidelines, labeling themselves "the other."
If society persists in this concept of exclusiveness, then we'll never be able to move forward.

I recently found this blog discussing the same exact issue the day before me!!
http://8centimetersdeluded.blogspot.com/2006/10/band-aid-of-any-other-shade-would-heal.html