education can alienate. I often think about why I do the things I do. mostly i do things with narcisistic intentions. I chose to go to school so that could get a good job. I chose my path of study so that I could get good pay. this was the message my parents were fed. this message is true to some extent. what it doesn't explain or help is the cultural stigmas that I wear. it doesn't explain my insecurities. it didn't consider the consequences for becoming educated. and maybe because the consequences are unique to my experiences. the metaphor I have is the blister.
education is an abrasive experience that rubbed raw an unwilling area of my understanding. like a hand on a shovel doing work, strenuous and repetitive work. the area I picture as tender is my communal attachments. I feel like I these communal attachments were worn to a raw friction filled sore. In the process of educating myself I was also distancing myself from my communities that I had functioned in and become comfortable in. I was distancing myself and moving toward connections that are ironically despised by the communal attachments that had embraced me for so long. the distance puts me in a place I call my cultural blister.
is it coincidence that the educational system is dominated by the white culture? are white people better learners? did I have to leave my communal attachments to be productive? in the barrio I am labeled at times a sell out, coconut, or oreo. now in this blistered area I find it difficult in expressing this sadness about choosing my educational route. acculturated people become nervous, defensive, concerned, when I talk about brown, black, and white. I feel obligated to forget the distinctions that reality uses to create advantage. i think it is easier to dismiss the injustice when you are the benefactor. I cannot and will likely never see without prejudice.
I see this sensitivity as the unwilling to touch the sore and raw edges of the cultural blister. in more graphic description this space is filled with puss protecting and obstructing me from confronting the wounded area. I am isolated in this luminal blistered area longing for the simplicity I left in my barrio lifestyle. I feel isolated in my insecurity for participating and contributing to this blistered space. I feel isolated in my hatred for this educational work that divides and has my communal attachments believing that they are lesser. I am suffocated in this pool of puss that compresses my desire to escape the constant pain of knowing I chose this path.
in the metaphor the blister can pop. what will help this callous is either more work or intentionality to break the blister. where I am this morning is fatigue.