Let me first preface
this by telling you that I am a Taiwanese Asian-American. I say this now,
because it will save you the trouble of having
to find my name, and then guess (which won’t be hard) if I am a
minority, which one, and “how much” (maybe my mother was white). It’s important
to know my race, so you can judge how seriously to take my article on race – I’m
a minority, but I’m not black, so that makes me partially, but definitely not
fully, qualified to speak.
Will a story of how I’ve
been discriminated against help? I’ll make it quick.
I go to a
predominantly white college (this is because we don’t offer special scholarships
or special treatment for minorities, and thus, are less enticing than the
larger institutions who do). One time, while comparing scores on a bio exam
with a white friend, he said, “Yeah, but of course you got a good score. You’re
Asian.” He meant it as a compliment, so I never told him how upsetting it was
to have my hours and hours of studying invalidated by the coincidence of my
race.
Good enough for you?
Good. So with that in mind, here are an
Asian’s (my name, age, and educational level probably aren’t that important)
thoughts on this article.
Mr. Metta seems to define “racism” as systematic oppression by a group, as
opposed to the (entirely white) tendency to define it as some aspect of an
individual person, and yet his attacks get rather personal.
“And White people, every
single one of you, are complicit in this racism because you benefit
directly from it.”
"Millions of
Black lives are valued less than a single White person's hurt feelings."
Why, then, is he being
inconsistent in his language, attacking white people as single people, since
the whole point is to address a system, and since he himself becomes annoyed
that white people are responding to the accusation as innocent individuals
rather than a guilty group?
The reason for this
is, I think, the impossibility of addressing systematic oppression as a system.
The only way to change a system is to change the individuals who run it, and,
as such, Mr. Metta’s attack on an entire group, insisting that white people are
wrong to take it as individuals and must shoulder the collective guilt and
subsequent responsibility of a group, will be responded to, perfectly
logically, the way that his aunt responded to his sister.
To Mr. Metta’s white
aunt, his sister’s “suggestion that ‘people in The North are racist’ is an
attack on her as a racist.” He claims
that that’s a wrong-headed way of going about things, but I’m happy to inform
him that his aunt has a perfectly good head screwed on perfectly well. She is a
member of the so-called “people in The North.” Thus, according to Mr. Metta’s
sister, she is necessarily a racist. She probably wishes people would stop
making generalized statements about her based on where she comes from and what
color she is.
Oh wait.
That’s racism.
And no amount of
saying “I’m black, you can’t call me racist” is going to change that. In fact,
even that statement in quotations is racist.
Racism is organizing
people into categories by race, and then acting as though characteristics other
than their skin tone are true for the entire category (“he’s Asian – of course
he’s good at math”). Claiming that it is the system’s fault that a black person
thinks about black people as a group is no excuse to continue to think that
way. If it truly is the system’s fault,
and black people are blameless, then white people like Mr. Metta’s aunt should
also have their white guilt revoked. It’s not their fault. It’s the fault of
the racist system that they grew up in. And yet Mr. Metta is calling for all
white people to take responsibility for (tacitly or openly) supporting a system
of oppression. He might call on black people, starting with himself, to do the
same.
I’ve read 1984. I’ve
read up on the Nazis, Communist China, and North Korea. I am a firm believer in
the power of language to shape the mind. And it is the language of “I’m black,
you’re white, he’s Asian, she’s Native-American” that continues to perpetuate
the problem of race as a dividing line between people. Language creates
distinction, creates separation. You want to be proud of the racial or regional
collective you are a part of? You want to wear a kilt or a cowboy hat or spray-tan
yourself orange, go right ahead. But you have to remember that you don’t just
carry your country’s or your people’s pride. You carry everything.
Wallace responded, “How
are we going to get rid of racism and...”
Freeman cut him off
with “Stop talking about it. I’m going to stop calling you a white man, and I’m
going to ask you to stop calling me a black man. I know you as Mike Wallace.
You know me as Morgan Freeman.”
I’m not saying that
black people should disavow their identities as black people. But complaining as
a collective about being judged as a collective is still going to get you seen
as a collective. “I was hurt by your racist statement unfairly applied to me”
is different from “your racist statement is offensive to black people
everywhere; how dare you define us blacks as _______.”
Taking a look at Mr. Metta’s
“racist system,” then, we find that his definition of his aunt’s participation
in it is that she is “upwardly mobile, not racially profiled, able to move to
White suburbs, etc.” Only one of the three things he mentioned is directly
linked to race. The other two are things mostly determined by wealth and job
opportunities, some of which may be determined by the racist mindsets of the
individuals in charge of distributing wealth and job opportunities. Racial
profiling, too, is a product of such mindsets – any laws actively encouraging
it should and are being torn down nationwide.
We find that most of
his other descriptions of his racist system are not really about systems, but
about conditions and crimes, of which being black is secondary, tertiary, or
not even really a factor. Mr. Metta would do well to remember that correlation
does not equal causation. Higher black populations in poor neighborhoods, shoddierschools, and prisons does not actually mean that somehow being black in Americamakes you poorer, less likely to get an education, or more likely to commitcrime. He even goes so far as to say, “‘better schools’ exclusively means ‘whiter
schools,’” which ignores the thousands of factors that go into what makes a
good school, some of which may be linked to race, but none of which predetermine anything. I don’t see men’s
rights activists (okay, I don’t see them at all, because feminists won’t allow
it, but that’s a different issue) screaming against the fact that nine out of
every ten incarcerated people in the United States are male. Why? Because they’re
not in jail because they were male, or black, or what have you. They’re in jail
because they’re criminals.
Mr. Metta says, "Racism
is a cop severing the spine of an innocent man. It is a 12 year old child being
shot for playing with a toy gun in a state where it is legal to openly carry
firearms." That is not racism; that
is crime. And that is punishable by U.S. law, regardless of the race of the
cop, the innocent man, the twelve-year old, or the shooter. Mr. Metta claims, “People
are dying because we are supporting a racist system that justifies White people
killing Black people." No system in the U.S. supports that. The law is clear:
killing people is wrong.
Sidebar: I have a friend
at _undisclosed large university_ getting his Master’s degree in law. His
professor once painted a picture in which a white cop shot a black man for a
certain reason, and the ruling went in favor of the white cop. He then asked
the students in attendance to raise their hand if they agreed with the ruling. He then painted the exact same scenario, but
with a black cop shooting a white man. He asked for a show of hands again. The number of raised hands changed. This
should not happen.
So, in reality, Mr.
Metta’s “system” is a nebulous set of prejudices held not by the actual,
concrete systems within America, but by people. It encompasses any act, within
or without the realm of justice, civil law, or common decency, that is
perceived as racist. The only thing holding this thing together as a “system”
is the common factor of PEOPLE.
And I know this is
tangential, but I cannot let an attack on The
Lord of the Rings go without comment. The
Lord of the Rings features a predominantly white male cast because The Lord of the Rings was written with
male characters (and hence is being more faithful to the original source
material than the upcoming Ghostbusters film, but that’s another thing for
another day), based in large part on Tolkien’s desire to create an alternate
history for England and Continental Europe. It’s a fictional world, but one
that is built largely upon a real (also white) one. You want to see more black-dominated fictional
worlds? Go spend your entire adult life making entire languages and cultures
out of Egyptian hieroglyphs, Proto-Saharan, and Wadi El-Hol, and I can promise
you someone will be interested.
If Mr. Metta really
wants to throw historical accuracy (whether the history is fictional or real)
out the window, I’d like to see how he responds when I cast an Indian actor as
the lead in the next Martin Luther King biopic (imaginary). I’d like him also to
go face the crowds of Asian-Americans who protested the casting of non-Asian
actors in Avatar: The Last Airbender
or in Broadway’s Miss Saigon (both
real). Yes, the non-Asian actors in
question were white, but if historical accuracy is really his issue, then if
they were black folks in yellowface it shouldn’t matter. If it matters whether
the non-Asians were black or white, I might have to call him a racist, or, at
the very least, favoring his own race.
I understand he is
trying to say that American movies predominantly have white people in hero
roles and misrepresent black people, but we don't complain when white people
aren't portrayed accurately in black comedies. We don’t complain when Bollywood
films have a mostly Indian cast.
Last thing, I promise.
Mr. Metta says, near the end of his “sermon” in a church, “This is why I don't
like the story of the Good Samaritan.” After one gets over the massive irony of
the place in which he spoke these words, one must realize the further irony of
the title. The black man in this picture is not the beaten, bloodied man by the
side of the road. The black man is the Good Samaritan, a member of a people
group that was reviled by the Jews who passed the beaten man, reviled by the Jews
to whom Christ spoke the parable. The black man is not the man looking for
help, but man who goes out of his way to help someone who hates “his kind.”
Yes, he is “systematically challenged in a thousand small ways.” Living in the
1st century A.D., he’s probably systematically challenged in a
thousand big ones. But he is not on the side of the road, beaten. He is on the
road, helping the beaten, one man at a time. He doesn’t leave a note with the
innkeeper, saying, “When the guy in the next room wakes up, make sure you tell
him that the one who paid his bills was a Samaritan and that he should rethink
his life and also tell all his friends what great people Samaritans are,
actually.” He says, “Let me know if there are any further expenses. I’ll pay them.”
So, by way of a
conclusion, if Mr. Metta is seeking systematic change, he must first appeal to
the individuals who are within the system, who are “running” the system (which
few, except perhaps the media, can claim to do). He needs to give us
individuals, black, white, or neither, something specific with which to change
the system. And that which he can give us is the power to see each other as
individuals, rather than as a mass of black people who need help, or a mass of
white people who need to feel guiltier about not helping.
He is understandably
frustrated about the lack of change in this country. But perhaps this is
because, as he points out, Martin Luther King didn’t end racism. Ending slavery
didn’t end racism. Racism is founded not upon an institution, but upon a
mindset. And the only way to change a mindset is to change the individual to
whom that mind belongs. Mother Teresa once said, “If I look at the mass, I will
never act. If I look at the one, I will.”
So I’m going to go up
to that one friend of mine, as well as any other friends who attempt to
compliment me for my smart Asian genes that I’m happy they find me intelligent,
but I’m hurt by the fact that they attribute intelligence not to me, but to the
fact that I’m Asian. I’ll tell them I don’t like my work invalidated by my
race. And I’ll hope that that makes a difference the next time they get their
privileged white asses handed to them on a math test or in a basketball court.