Skit: I went to DC

A while back I went to DC to see my friend we lovingly call Mom.  Mom is the type of guy to make sure you have a coat,  hat, and Long Johns on in 25°. Overzealous mothering type for sure.
While I was there we talked about the different groups we felt a part of and we both feel most comfortable in the white queer movement. Mom is half Latino non Spanish speaking. I'm all Black and Spanish speaking. We discussed what it was like to not feel ethnic enough. I have never felt part of the black community and Mom feels that the language barrier creates more disparities between he and the latino community. We were both raised in primarily Caucasian neighborhoods and when examined define our ethnic backgrounds by the stereotypes. Mom sees latino men as not being able to escape the poor or working class life that is plagued by wage disparity and crime. In his lense latino men don't go to college and higher education isn't expected. Mom just doesn't identity with that.  He has always valued education, and middle class life was always the goal. Similarly I feel like the African American community lacks drive and long term goals. I have always felt like we have valued different things. This not actually being the case but it was what I grew up believing. Mom and I addressing this internalized racism that we grew up with is something we are still coming to terms with.  I feel more at home in the Latin@ community as I feel like we do value the same things, education, drive, hard work, and  family. But what makes a community is more than values and actions in the media, it's people and history. You will never know what your community values unless you talk to them. Vernacular and language really don't separate a community, mindset does. We both know so one in the community who seems drastically different from us but at the points where it matters we were brought up to value the exact same things.  Our racist perception of people based on how they dress and talk has shaped our relationship with our community in a negative way.  It has also led to self loading and a disconnect between us and our heritage. To begin to self heal would be to seek queers like us.  We might not be ready to jump right into our communities. However, we can reach out to begin to build  a ethnic queer group, as we both seem fairly comfortable in our queer identities. We can begin to deconstruct years of the wrong ideology we learned through friendship and open minds. I think relationships building and the understanding we came through that will be a helpful tool in beginning to accept ourselves our communities.