Okay, just a little food for thought… we are who we are and we are never going to be anyone else and can never really know what it is like to be anyone else. I am sure you agree with this line of thought. I am a white American woman, aged 28, who grew up in the center of California in the countryside between two rural towns, went on to join a sorority at Fresno State University but left and dove into mid-level management at the age of 20, lived in national parks for 7 years and then dramatically changed my life and moved to Brazil after falling in love with someone on foreign exchange. My story is completely unique, as your story is completely unique. I have definitely come across a variety of people in my life, but I will never know what it is like to be a man, or to be black, or to be an Ivy League graduate or to be the first black president of the prestigous Harvard Law Review. I don’t know what it is like to grow up in Hawaii. I don’t know what it is like to have a very non-American name. I don’t know what it is like to lack a father figure while growing up with my grandparents.

With that said, I do know what it is like to finally start to see the world and the US for what it is. To finally have that breakthrough moment where you say… humn… things just aren’t right… it doesn’t make me unAmerican, and it doesn’t make me unpatriotic, in fact just the opposite because it drives me to ask questions and to research to find the answers about what we do and why we do it. I feel more American now than I ever did and am grateful for this every day.

I remember watching the WeatherUnderground documentary a few years ago… one of many documentaries I have seen in my adult life and to be quite honest… even though I don’t agree with what they were doing, I understood why they were doing it. There is a big difference. People go about things the way they see best, we always try to do what is right, we try to follow through with our convictions – that is why people join the Armed Forces or join the clergy or go to a University. Everyone has a different and totally unique way of looking at things and working towards their goal. I think above all else, trying to understand the reason of why people do what they do is of the utmost importance. That is where the real answer is, at the root, it always is.

To be able to see things for what they are. To be able to atain a birds eye view is to turn a blizzard into a breeze as they say. To be honest this is why Intellectuals are Intellectuals. Those Intellectuals usually go on to teach in the most prestigious Universities and write books and become successful in the Academic world, this is no coincidence. They have the ability to see beyond what most people see and have revelations and realizations about the things that have always been right in front of us.