Suburbia (Warning: the beginning is slightly angry and it gets happier towards the end)

Sometimes suburbia upsets me, like when people who I know to have very limited experiences try to shun others who they deem "inferior" to themselves.
When cliques of far more "superior" people are formed at the expense of those crowned with middle school titles of "uncool." Like-Oh, I'm sorry. Your skinny jeans and oversized glasses give you an excuse to be rude.
-"No, but I smoke cigarettes and only lived in the suburbs 23 of the 25 years I have lived."
Impressive......
(Sarcasm abounds).

Except no one calls anyone uncool in their twenties, they simply give looks and walk around with an air of superiority.
Little do they know that this is precisely what their fathers and mothers did before them, excluding Blacks, Latinos and others who were not deemed as "superior."
" Oh no!" Cries the hipster. "I voted for Obama."
Obama?
Your previously conservative ass voted for Obama?
Well, don't you get a golden star! Oh, wait! You went on a study abroad trip for two semesters and had a cross cultural experience too?
Wow. Good for you!

And then, there are parts of suburbia that are near to me. Like the beaches and the families and the moms who bake you cookies when you meet them. And the hobbies and the outings.

And then there are the experiences I have in this place (that happens to be in a suburb) with people who are genuine. They transcend every category I might have placed them in, just because we are friends. These people are not 'suburban.' They're not 'White' to me. They're not way too privileged for their own good. And they're not people I resent because I gave up what I had in a cosmopolitan hub to live in a place where no one would understand my experiences. These are lovely people. Compassionate people, who I know by name and as individuals-who may or may not fit into the stereotypes I may have for them. You want to make fun of my occasional accent? Go ahead, because we're cool like that. My defenses are down. Fists are lowered. And we are more similar than any theory or category might deem us to be.

Stereotypes are for people we resent. They are reserved for people we misunderstand or who misunderstand us. When someone offends us we call them "suburban" and remind them of how oppressive they were to our people so that it stings. We speak in grand large scales. We remind them of how provincial and narrow their experiences are. We remind them that they, in fact, are not superior. We unleash the ghetto and scare them with our slang. And it works. Two neck rolls and one finger raise and I get you to crawl back behind the white picket fence you grew up in-fenced from the large, diverse world that you got a peek of on your trip to Uganda your junior of college, but will always remain somewhat clueless as long as you live in the hipster world of rebelling against daddy and mommy (and of course, your Palestinian scarf does not mean that you are a hipster. You are, in fact, not a hipster).


But isn't this the root of many conflicts, small or large scale, in the world? You shun me, I let you know who's boss. You make me feel small, I make you feel small. And suddenly, we draw our guns.
And then, in a whole other realm, friendship happens, where we are given the space to breathe; to get to know the idiosyncrasies, the "weirdness" and the "coolness." Where masks are let go of. And suddenly the "suburban" person you were trying to belittle becomes your best friend. The approach here is different. We come to the table as equals, with nothing to defend. We offer our weapons as gifts and leave them at the irrelevant corner they belong in with crayons and beanie babies.

I see you. With clarity. Because all you are is my brother. All you are is my sister. You are not my attacker. You are not my oppressor. You are not the privileged kid who is trying to pretend he or she knows something about my culture and my demographic that I supposedly do not know just because you heard about it on NPR. You are blood, flesh and bones. Just like me.
I am not your judge, smashing my gavel on the pages of history to make you feel ashamed of your skinny jeans, pretension and escapism. I am your housemate who yells when she's offended, who you get to tell to shut the hell up, because I'm only bullshitting because I'm offended. You call my bluff because we are the same and different. And we revel in it all. Together.