Photo by rnugraha
I was born different, and this was a good thing, so my parents told me. I’m sure that you have heard the same. With a full head of red hair (2-6% of world’s population has red hair), glances from others were commonplace. Older adults couldn’t keep their hands off my curls while those in my age group looked the other way, or had something not-so-nice to say.
Rather than embrace my difference, I made efforts throughout much of my life to eliminate it, to become more of the same.
I didn’t know what a fro was, but I had one until middle school. Buzzing my hair, and bleaching it from time to time was how I moved along through much of my later youth. I wanted to fit in, look normal, and simply feel okay.
I continually made efforts to figure out why my most pronounced difference was frowned upon, why others looked down upon me, judged me for it. I was always observing others (still do), trying to understand their point-of-view, so I could avoid internalizing it fully.
Thinning hair, years of college, intense conversations, and books such as Ishmael (Daniel Quinn), Foucault and Social Dialogue: Beyond Fragmentation (Chris Falzon), and The Giver (Lois Lowry), have steered me in a different direction, an openness towards difference. I have come to believe that it is the quality of difference that humans have most in common. It is not only okay to be different, it is unavoidable - it makes us human.
This is my message, this has become my way of life.
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Jason Simon
think open, think different
