Judgment Part II

I want to make a clarification from the previous post on "Judgment." A friend wrote me privately and expressed dismay at what he believed was my unfair prejudice against white people and my unconditional embrace of people-of-color. More specifically, he was dismayed that I would not have locked my door against a person-of-color acting in the same manner as the young white man because I would not have been afraid of the person-of-color in the same way that I was afraid of the white man.

Actually, I would have been equally nervous due to the circumstances (nighttime) and the behavior (approaching cars, erratic hand gestures) whether it was a white person or a person of color. But the difference, I think (because this is all conjecture) is that I would not have locked my door consciously because I would be too aware that my actions would be tinged and possibly regarded as a reaction of race rather than circumstance. It goes back to the helpful comments posted from the last blog entry--I am being too hard on myself about judgment because it is natural to have some anxiety driving in an urban area at night and being approached by a man who is acting in a somewhat erratic behavior.

I wrote the post (as I write many of the posts) both to be provocative (in the best sense of provoking discussion and thought) but also to really challenge myself (and possibly others) to consider the kinds of quick judgments that we make about people--and how oftentimes they are based on race.

I do believe that I may put myself in danger one day by having this kind of reaction--that there may well be a person of color acting in an erratic manner who may do violence against me and I may second-guess my reaction due to the kinds of anti-racist thinking and training I've been doing over the years. In fact, a friend of mine shared a story that I think illustrates this quite well. She once owned a store in Boston, and this friend is a white Jewish American woman, educated and trained in anti-racist thinking and practice. A young black man entered her store, and she felt nervous, but quickly dismissed her fear as residual white racism. The young man, after browsing for a bit and waiting for the other people in the store to leave, pulled out a gun and demanded money from her register. After some years had passed, and she told me this story, what she came away with was the fact that racism did inhibit her instinctual judgment. Because her visceral response to the man was that there was something wrong--in his body language, in his manner of walking into the store--but she believed it was her internalized racism coming out rather than seeing the man for the threat that he was. This is part of the legacy of racism, because she was trying to account for his race in a different manner rather than to see him as a man who is threatening.

The legacy of institutional racism is such that we often second-guess ourselves about people either living up to or defying the stereotypes. It goes back to the Vietnamese nail salon post--there are many nail salons owned by Vietnamese people. I'd even say that whether they are owned or whether they simply work in them, my anecdotal evidence places it to be about 70-50%, which is definitely higher than the population of Vietnamese Americans in the Bay Area let alone the nation. This doesn't mean, however, that every Vietnamese woman you meet works in a nail salon. Yes, black, Latino, and Asian people commit violent crimes and robberies. And there are many white people who live and practice anti-racist values. And there are certainly many people of color who hold bigoted and even racist beliefs. But there is a difference between a system of racism and individual acts of racism and bigotry, which is going to be the subject of my next post.

Can I be racist?

When I took my first "race" theory class, an African American introduction to race class my Sophomore year at UCSB, our professor, Dr. Claudine Michel, discussed, at length, the difference between institutional racism and bigotry. Anyone could be a bigot, but racism as a unique form of discrimination, could only be wielded by those within the power structure of a given society. For South Africa during the apartheid era, this meant white Afrikaners. For Tibetans living under Chinese rule, this mean Chinese people (probably specific the Han majority). And for those of us living in the U.S. this meant white Americans. Therefore, I would tell my friends, people of color (and me in particular) cannot be racist.

And yet, theory only takes you so far. Because at heart, racism is about power--about people in situations of power choosing to use their race as a measurement of superiority against others. And so, although I agree, in general, with Dr. Michel's definition--and although that's how I tend to define racism--as part of an institutional power structure, the social (and racial) landscape is changing--slowly but surely. In Hawaii the dominant ethnic-racial group is Japanese American (with Chinese coming a close second). And definitely in different parts of the country, saying that just because the larger US society is white dominated doesn't mean that if you are white you always have access to this power structure or that if you aren't white, you don't. So while I think, in general, I don't have access to power and the force to discriminate at random and at will, I also think that especially given my relative (and relatively small) status as a University professor, I do have an amount of power I could exercise and therefore I could, in fact, discriminate against all non-Asian Americans (or non-people-of-color--shouldn't I just say white?) people, which would, in fact, make me racist. Or at least my acts racist.

Of course I'd love to hear other opinions on this.

Also, final note: It seems like this has become the word to watch out for lately--that in the last twenty or thirty years to call someone racist or level charges of racism becomes such a force--and that there has become a backlash against calling any but the most obvious and violent of acts and people racist (in other words, it's still OK to bash the Clan but less OK to start calling the Republican Party out, and even less OK to start calling out the Democratic nominees for some of their stuff). Which is why I tend to avoid the term. Not because I think it's not relevant--it is in so many small ways--so many unintentional racist acts by well meaning people--by progressive white liberals, by progressive-liberal African Americans, by progressive liberal Asian Americans. And yet, I do still think it's important for us to call things as we see them--we live in a world in which your chances of survival, if not simply daily comfort are greatly increased if you look white and better, still, if you are a straight man. There are still plenty of policies that are getting reworked in a different language that, at the end of the day, still spell out institutional power that target non-white Americans. Which, to me, seems racist.

Purity

I'm leaving for Toronto today for a cousin's wedding, and I'm really looking forward to the trip. I haven't been to Toronto in over 8 years. And because I'm headed to Toronto, I'm reminded about an incident that happened to me at a conference.

I had been talking about my Chinese Jamaican family (most of whom live in Toronto) and this woman (an older, white woman) turns to me and says:

HER: "I don't mean to offend you, but I'm wondering if you can answer a question."

ME: (bracing myself) "OK"

HER: "I recently returned from Toronto and noticed a lot of Asians there. And it's not that I have anything against miscegenation. But many of them were mixed. And I was just wondering, why can't they keep pure? They have such a lovely culture--why aren't they proud of who they are? Sometimes the mixture looks fine but other times it's so awkward. Why can't they keep to their purity."

ME: (mouth slightly agape, completely at a loss of what to say and fully aware of how careful I have to be because the woman sitting next to me is actually the wife of a colleague. And yet I think, this is my moment to speak truth to power, but then I wonder, is this an educational moment, and then I just feel dumbfounded and what runs through my head is, "REALLY???!!! You're actually saying this to ME???!!! THIS IS SO RACIST, AND I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU ARE SAYING THIS TO ME! PURITY??!! HITLER TALKED ABOUT PURITY???!!! What should I do? Tell you I'm going to get on this problem right away? That I'll be sure to issue a letter or proclamation to the Asian citizens of Toronto informing them that if they were attractive and could ensure attractive looking mixed-race progeny then it's OK to go ahead with their miscegenation project, but otherwise, stick to your race???!!! And miscegenation?! Who uses that word anymore?! That word has such a controversial connotation--rooted in a history of race baiting. Couldn't she at least have said *interracial*?")

ME: Uhhhh...Yeah....there are a lot of Asians in Toronto.

[the next speaker gets up to the podium to show a power point presentation, the lights go down, and I barely pay attention because I'm kicking myself the whole time about my lame response]

Anyway, maybe I'll look into that proclamation when I get to Canada. After all, we wouldn't want any awkward looking miscegenated Asian people running around Canada. After all, they're not pure.

Duke Lacrosse--The Exonerated?

Today I heard that Mike Nifong, the disgraced D.A. who mis-handled the Duke Lacrosse rape case, apologized to the three men he originally accused and said that there was not substantial evidence to link them in the rape case. And as various magazine and newspaper articles, and even a book written by the former Duke Lacrosse coach all emphasize, these young men were all victims of "racial profiling" and are, instead, innocent of the charges brought against them.

And in the wake of this media storm, I'm not sure what to think with respect to the woman who brought these accusations against the men. I certainly feel sympathy for her, because regardless of whether she made up her story or she was, indeed, sexually assaulted, she more than likely did not bargain for the reception she received at the house party in which the lacrosse players were present and she more than likely did not think when she was a little girl that she wanted to earn extra money to support herself through college by taking off her clothes for drunken college boys.

If she did lie, well, then that's a topic for another post--because it is damaging for women to lie about rape--there are so many women who are raped every day, many by people they know. And they are afraid to come forward because of the criticism and judgment they will face--most especially the idea that they are lying. And in some cases (a few I know personally) the man in question probably didn't think that he was raping a woman who was crying or saying no, as incredible as that is to believe. There were two such cases of women I went to college with, who told me their stories of male friends raping them, while they were sleeping, even after they had said no--but because they were drunk or because they were making out, or because they were friends, the idea that they could accuse these men of rape never entered their minds, and they were both clear that they were sure that these men had no idea that what they had done was rape, even though the women just lay there, and in one case, she cried the entire time. So if this woman did lie, well, she's doing a lot of damage for a lot of people.

But putting aside the veracity of her story--the larger problem I have with the exoneration of the Duke lacrosse team is over issues of race, class, and sex. There are the facts of the largely white team members and the two women, one African American, the other half-black, half-Asian. There is the overheard racist remarks outside the house ("Thank your grandaddy for my cotton shirt") and the racist comments that the women reported went on inside the house. There is the privilege that comes with wealth and with attending an elite university like Duke and with playing for an elite sport like lacrosse. And then there's the fact that this group of young men, athletes, who ostensibly represent their school, didn't think twice about hiring women to take off their clothes for them. Strippers, exotic dancers, whatever language you want to use, it's women who, I believe for the most part, are doing this to gain money, a lot of money relative to the labor involved, although perhaps not a lot of money relative to one's mental and emotional well-being. I don't know. I have acquaintances who have worked in strip clubs before, and they talk about a feeling of empowerment, but mostly they talk about how good the money is, and that the cash flow outweighs the crap they have to put up with.

What I'm trying to get at is that regardless of whether or not these men sexually assaulted this women--I don't feel the Duke lacrosse team is fully exonerated. Yes, they may not have perpetrated rape, but are they totally innocent of the white privilege, the class privilege, the very male privilege that they wear as casually as they wear their uniforms? And Duke students who support these players, do they stop and think about the larger picture--that rather than seeing themselves as embattled victims of a corrupt legal system--as victims prosecuted by the media, perhaps they need to really think about what it means to have the privilege of attending Duke University or any four-year university--of having a college degree, something only 25% of the US population has. Shouldn't Duke students, lacrosse players and non-lacrosse players alike, owe it to themselves to question the kinds of privilege they walk around with and the ways in which subtle promotion of white male superiority gets produced around not-so-innocuous parties involving dark skinned women taking off their clothes at the command of white men?

The Passing of Sekou Sundiata

The morning of July 18, 2007 (just 2 days ago) the poet, artist, activist, intellectual, Sekou Sundiata, died of heart failure. I first met Sekou as part of an inter-disciplinary honors forum my class, "Mixed Race America" was taking part in. 2 other classes, all focused around issues of identity and race, to a large degree, met with him one night as he talked about his latest artistic piece, THE 51st DREAM STATE and led us in a discussion about race and citizenship and our post-9/11 world, sharing a particularly powerful anecdote about heading to the site of the twin towers a few weeks after they fell, and finding himself confronted with his own racial anxieties, prejudices, and fears, as he imagined a man heading towards him as one with Arab features--as someone who could be a terrorist--someone who could hurt him and countless others. But as the man came closer, his Middle-Eastern features morphed into a Latino man hurrying past him, up a flight of stairs, and Sekou realized that he had turned this Latino man into a terrorist -- coloring him with his fear and imagination, because of the state of terror he had internalized.

Sundiata was 58 years old. He will be missed. We need more poets to speak our fears and to adress, directly, our internalized racism and anxieties about the "other." I'm glad I got to meet him and to see him produce THE 51st DREAM STATE.

If you would like to hear a clip of Sundiata, go to this Salon.com site:

Audio clip of Sekou