summercomfort (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
summercomfort) wrote2008-11-10 11:01 pm
summercomfort) wrote2008-11-10 11:01 pm
Racism and Prop 8
I'd been feeling a bit stressed about Chinese school lately, but there's nothing like a dinner full of Tofu House goodness and hearty talk with my boy to bring my spirits up. :D Plus I now not only have a pseudo lesson plan for tomorrow, but also have accomplished a small modicum of Chinese school work.
And so, it's time to talk about something that's been on my mind recently: Racism and Prop 8.
First, Racism. This is the thing that made me donate money to Obama: his race speech. Specifically, these two parts:
"Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, "The past isn't dead and buried. In fact, it isn't even past." [...]
A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one's family, contributed to the erosion of black families - a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods - parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement - all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us. [...]
But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn't make it - those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations - those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways."
And
"In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don't feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience - as far as they're concerned, no one's handed them anything, they've built it from scratch. They've worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they're told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time."
(And here's the disclaimer for me getting the race bits wrong.)
Race is a funny thing, because it's something we can't choose. If I didn't want to seem gay on the streets, I can choose not to hold a girl's hand or kiss her publicly, but I can't choose not to seem Asian on the streets. I can change my name to sound less Asian. I can wear more yuppie and less fobby clothing, but I'm still Asian. I'm still in a Race Box. Asians are doctors, lawyers, engineers. Asians are hard workers. Asians are professionals, not politicians. Latinos and African Americans are boxed into the working class, untrustworthy, extended-family focused, good at music and sports (soccer and basketball, respectively). Whites, the formerly unmarked class, are the yuppies, the hipsters, the WASPs, the white liberal guilt and the white supremacy. So on and so forth. I can't even escape the Race Box when I'm in China. I have an automatic inferiority complex when I see foreigners. Or racially white but ethnically Kazakhs from Chinese Turkestan. Or a racially white Hispanic/Latino.
But what really hit me about that speech was the second part. The part about the immigrants and the history. I feel stupid for not thinking of it that way until Obama mentioned it: the juxtaposition of the immigration time line with the slave/civil rights time line. Civil War: 1860-1865. Civil Rights movement: 1960s. Majority of immigration to America:
(The colors here are: Asians are red, Canadians and Latinos are orange, Africans are dark green, and Europeans are patterns of yellow)
Most of the white immigrants came after the Civil War. They came to a racially defined society, and after a generation of being the dirty Eastern Europeans and fascists, have now assimilated. Everyone eats Italian food and celebrates St. Patrick's Day. Asians came for the railroads, and then got blocked by immigration laws and internal shit until after the Civil Rights Movement. For Asians, no matter how many generations we have been here, we're still seen as foreigners. Well, at least we're seen as capable, docile foreigners (if slightly communist/imperialist and not to be trusted with government secrets). I suppose we're lucky in that our role in this racist society is the exotic other, and quite excluded from black/white struggles. (Except for when foreigners seem dangerous and should be put in camps). As someone who teaches Chinese as a heritage language, I see myself as a 1.5 generation immigrant first, and Asian second. Even though I can't escape my Asian designation, I also connect with all the other immigrants who are trying to reconcile/translate/transmit their native culture in a new land. (Russian language schools, Japanese school, Hewbrew school, etc).
And yes, from an immigrant's perspective, there *is* an inclination in me to say, "So what?" when confronted with the traditional Black/White struggle and cries of inequality. Yeah, public schools are not very effective, but then again my parents made me memorize the times table when I was 6. I didn't learn much in elementary school because my English sucked, but I went home, learned Chinese, learned English, learned math, and learned American ways. Memories of doing math homework on crappy old-school printer paper that mom saved from school. My allowance was $1 a month so that by middle school I had $20. My mom showed up in America with $30, and my dad put all of the money he earned in China into a gold necklace. So yes, there's that inclination to say "If we can start here with nothing, then you, who have been here for generations, who know the language and the culture, can surely succeed."
But that's not true. I didn't start here with nothing. I started here with people expecting me to be docile and hard-working, and so they were willing to give me that chance to succeed. We started here because my mom came as a grad student, so there's a family culture of valuing education and self-learning. I started in college campuses that are safe and tolerant. I had my parents as role models of success through academia and hard work. In other words, I started out ahead of people who have been here for generations but have been kept in a different Race Box.
A small aside about immigration: Yes, I believe that if you are a loyal contributing member of a society, you should not be deported (just as if you're in a loving, functional relationship, the government should recognize it.) But please also recognize the hard work that legal immigrants put in in order to immigrate to the US. I started out with more in part because it cost my parents more to get here.
What about now? The Race Boxes are getting thinner, fuzzier. Turn on the TV and it's not only blacks as basketball players, football players, and rappers, but as readers, doctors, detectives, lawyers and now, U.S. president(-elect). But they are far from gone, as evidenced by the recent Prop. 8 hullabaloo. (But also by so many other issues that won't get into here)
Why are so many people blaming the passage of Prop. 8 on the African American turn-out? (Versus, say, evangelical turnout?) Did the majority of one marginalized population forget that, hey, it's a whole other marginalized population who can vote, whose opinions you should perhaps reach out to? And this is a group of people who have been Race Boxed into crappy education, crappy living conditions, and for whom "civil rights" means fighting for the right to vote, learn, eat, and sit in public while being not even themselves, but their skin color? It really saddens me how divisive this has become. Even if we as a society haven't quite decided whether marriage is a moral/religious issue (and therefore should not have any govt legislation at all, and should be conducted by individual churches), or whether marriage is a civil right (and so every one should have equal access), surely we can agree to react as strongly to someone saying the n-word as to someone saying the g- or f-word?
Finally, about the actual passing of Prop. 8. Although I'm disappointed, I'm also patient. When Prop 22 passed in 2000, it was 61% against gay marriage. Now, 8 years later, it's only 52%. If this is a linear trend, we just have to be patient for another 2 years. And I don't mean sitting back and waiting for magic to happen in those 2 years. But to point out the inequality when the occasion arises. To talk to my students about civil rights issues of both kinds. To have education and debate and outreach. Without hatred. Without violence. I'm sorry, but some of the reactions to the passage of Prop. 8 seem almost petulant. Instead of rejecting the African American population, how about learning from them? Perhaps we need some of the patience and perseverance and organization of the Montgomery bus boycott.
So, finishing off with the Obama speech:
"That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races." All of us minorities need to channel institutional anger into effective action.
And so, it's time to talk about something that's been on my mind recently: Racism and Prop 8.
First, Racism. This is the thing that made me donate money to Obama: his race speech. Specifically, these two parts:
"Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, "The past isn't dead and buried. In fact, it isn't even past." [...]
A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one's family, contributed to the erosion of black families - a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods - parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement - all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us. [...]
But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn't make it - those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations - those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways."
And
"In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don't feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience - as far as they're concerned, no one's handed them anything, they've built it from scratch. They've worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they're told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time."
(And here's the disclaimer for me getting the race bits wrong.)
Race is a funny thing, because it's something we can't choose. If I didn't want to seem gay on the streets, I can choose not to hold a girl's hand or kiss her publicly, but I can't choose not to seem Asian on the streets. I can change my name to sound less Asian. I can wear more yuppie and less fobby clothing, but I'm still Asian. I'm still in a Race Box. Asians are doctors, lawyers, engineers. Asians are hard workers. Asians are professionals, not politicians. Latinos and African Americans are boxed into the working class, untrustworthy, extended-family focused, good at music and sports (soccer and basketball, respectively). Whites, the formerly unmarked class, are the yuppies, the hipsters, the WASPs, the white liberal guilt and the white supremacy. So on and so forth. I can't even escape the Race Box when I'm in China. I have an automatic inferiority complex when I see foreigners. Or racially white but ethnically Kazakhs from Chinese Turkestan. Or a racially white Hispanic/Latino.
But what really hit me about that speech was the second part. The part about the immigrants and the history. I feel stupid for not thinking of it that way until Obama mentioned it: the juxtaposition of the immigration time line with the slave/civil rights time line. Civil War: 1860-1865. Civil Rights movement: 1960s. Majority of immigration to America:
(The colors here are: Asians are red, Canadians and Latinos are orange, Africans are dark green, and Europeans are patterns of yellow)
Most of the white immigrants came after the Civil War. They came to a racially defined society, and after a generation of being the dirty Eastern Europeans and fascists, have now assimilated. Everyone eats Italian food and celebrates St. Patrick's Day. Asians came for the railroads, and then got blocked by immigration laws and internal shit until after the Civil Rights Movement. For Asians, no matter how many generations we have been here, we're still seen as foreigners. Well, at least we're seen as capable, docile foreigners (if slightly communist/imperialist and not to be trusted with government secrets). I suppose we're lucky in that our role in this racist society is the exotic other, and quite excluded from black/white struggles. (Except for when foreigners seem dangerous and should be put in camps). As someone who teaches Chinese as a heritage language, I see myself as a 1.5 generation immigrant first, and Asian second. Even though I can't escape my Asian designation, I also connect with all the other immigrants who are trying to reconcile/translate/transmit their native culture in a new land. (Russian language schools, Japanese school, Hewbrew school, etc).
And yes, from an immigrant's perspective, there *is* an inclination in me to say, "So what?" when confronted with the traditional Black/White struggle and cries of inequality. Yeah, public schools are not very effective, but then again my parents made me memorize the times table when I was 6. I didn't learn much in elementary school because my English sucked, but I went home, learned Chinese, learned English, learned math, and learned American ways. Memories of doing math homework on crappy old-school printer paper that mom saved from school. My allowance was $1 a month so that by middle school I had $20. My mom showed up in America with $30, and my dad put all of the money he earned in China into a gold necklace. So yes, there's that inclination to say "If we can start here with nothing, then you, who have been here for generations, who know the language and the culture, can surely succeed."
But that's not true. I didn't start here with nothing. I started here with people expecting me to be docile and hard-working, and so they were willing to give me that chance to succeed. We started here because my mom came as a grad student, so there's a family culture of valuing education and self-learning. I started in college campuses that are safe and tolerant. I had my parents as role models of success through academia and hard work. In other words, I started out ahead of people who have been here for generations but have been kept in a different Race Box.
A small aside about immigration: Yes, I believe that if you are a loyal contributing member of a society, you should not be deported (just as if you're in a loving, functional relationship, the government should recognize it.) But please also recognize the hard work that legal immigrants put in in order to immigrate to the US. I started out with more in part because it cost my parents more to get here.
What about now? The Race Boxes are getting thinner, fuzzier. Turn on the TV and it's not only blacks as basketball players, football players, and rappers, but as readers, doctors, detectives, lawyers and now, U.S. president(-elect). But they are far from gone, as evidenced by the recent Prop. 8 hullabaloo. (But also by so many other issues that won't get into here)
Why are so many people blaming the passage of Prop. 8 on the African American turn-out? (Versus, say, evangelical turnout?) Did the majority of one marginalized population forget that, hey, it's a whole other marginalized population who can vote, whose opinions you should perhaps reach out to? And this is a group of people who have been Race Boxed into crappy education, crappy living conditions, and for whom "civil rights" means fighting for the right to vote, learn, eat, and sit in public while being not even themselves, but their skin color? It really saddens me how divisive this has become. Even if we as a society haven't quite decided whether marriage is a moral/religious issue (and therefore should not have any govt legislation at all, and should be conducted by individual churches), or whether marriage is a civil right (and so every one should have equal access), surely we can agree to react as strongly to someone saying the n-word as to someone saying the g- or f-word?
Finally, about the actual passing of Prop. 8. Although I'm disappointed, I'm also patient. When Prop 22 passed in 2000, it was 61% against gay marriage. Now, 8 years later, it's only 52%. If this is a linear trend, we just have to be patient for another 2 years. And I don't mean sitting back and waiting for magic to happen in those 2 years. But to point out the inequality when the occasion arises. To talk to my students about civil rights issues of both kinds. To have education and debate and outreach. Without hatred. Without violence. I'm sorry, but some of the reactions to the passage of Prop. 8 seem almost petulant. Instead of rejecting the African American population, how about learning from them? Perhaps we need some of the patience and perseverance and organization of the Montgomery bus boycott.
So, finishing off with the Obama speech:
"That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races." All of us minorities need to channel institutional anger into effective action.
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I was not aware that high black turnout was being blamed for the passage of Prop 8. As far as I can tell the real story is in the demographic breakdown of the returns, which tell us that all we have to do to win a plurality on this issue is to wait for the Greatest Generation to finish dying.
Also: citations, statistics, paragraphs with indents, social criticism.. you and Jono are starting to blog alike...
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Totally agree with you that we need to look at the real demographic breakdown, instead of jumping to the race story. (Although I'm certain it's just so juicy for the media! Let's not talk about actual problems plaguing the black minority, let's talk about how they're against civil rights for other people.)
Nah, Jono's the one who has serious blogs. For me, it just happens after I sit on something for a while. I'll be back to my usual whinging in no time. ^^;;
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This year I think the pro-choice movement made a lot of headway by showing moderate types that "pro-choice" doesn't mean "pro-abortion." (I could be totally wrong, but I'm basing it of the fact that the issue barely came up, and when it did, it hurt conservatives.) I think that in the future, you'll see the same kind of thing happen with gay marriage: people will start to realize that it won't mean churches have to marry gay people, but rather that in the same way you wouldn't fine someone for being gay, you shouldn't prevent them from having certain tax breaks. Really I hope the ultimate outcome of this is to have government stop dealing with the term "marriage" completely.
About race, etc., I know the place my dad comes from is from having attended mixed race schools in the 1970s -- there was a lot of white v. black violence, which really caused him to consider himself just as oppressed as black people were. So he has a tough time realizing that being in the race box affects people in far more numerous and subtle ways.
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Interesting info about your dad! Thanks for sharing. :)
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That's right, keep it classy that way. Embitter the very black gay and lesbians who could probably help GLBT organizations change this situation. Turn Prop 8 into a multi-decade setback instead of a couple-year setback. Thank you SO fucking much.
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Also, yeah, way to ruin your own movement people.
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Jesus, people! Don't vote quid-pro-quo. That way lies madness.
Vote for the state you want to have.
yrs--
--Ben
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The racism post prop-8 appalls me. I grew up in Atlanta and remember a lot of the clashes the gay and black communities had in my neighborhood. The gay community (which, as well all know is not all-white anyway) needs to do better outreach and better organization if they want the black and latino communities on their side. The Mormons did a ton of outreach to both groups, and I didn't see any evidence of the anti-prop 8 groups doing much. Really, the anti-prop 8 campaign seemed pretty poorly done overall.
On a different note, I found this really interesting: "I can't even escape the Race Box when I'm in China. I have an automatic inferiority complex when I see foreigners. Or racially white but ethnically Kazakhs from Chinese Turkestan."
Since I've been reading a lot about things like Han supremacy and discrimination towards the Chinese minorities, I'm really curious about this. If you have time, could you talk about this a little? Do you think your feelings towards ethnically white Chinese minorities are common among other Han people, or is it a Sushu thing, or what?
And as an even less related side note, I love the story about your dad's giant gold necklace.
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Re: Chinese Turkestanis. My feeling comes from the fact that when I see white people, I think "higher and better". So when I see white people in China, even Chinese Turkestanis, I think "white person!" and all that entails. So it has nothing to do with Chinese minority status. I'm just trained to discriminate by race. In terms of my thoughts about Chinese minorities in general, a part of me says "How cool, all these nifty cultures!" So sort of like what we think about Native Americans. Part of me says, "I hope that the Chinese government is good to them." I mean, I know that minorities get to have more kids and stuff, which sounds good, but I don't know if it's compensating for something, like, oh, getting stuck with crappy land or crappy jobs.