CHOP-TENSILS

I've MOVED!!!!

2009-08-27T09:23:00.000-07:00

So I've been trying to get this audio stuff going on this site way too long, and I finally took Ansel's advice (among others). So - I'm off to Wordpress. There you will see the same great Choptensils writing (with all the archives, comments, etc. from before) with enhanced features. And, most importantly . . .

The Choptensils PODCAST!!!!

So - head on over to the new site for Choptensils:

www.choptensils.wordpress.com

Another Camp Triumph: Wasian Pride

2009-08-25T09:30:00.000-07:00

This will be a briefer post on another camp triumph – and one that hits even more personally.

It’s about Wasians.

Specifically, it’s about two Wasians: myself, and a camper.

If you’re unclear on what a Wasian is, it’s a bi-racial, White and Asian person. You should already know my mix, but the camper’s mix is White (mother) and Cambodian (father).

This particular camper happens to be one of my middle school students who I had all through last year. The same kid who asked me about my choice in music, and when I told him I listened to “pretty much anything,” he answered, “is that because you’re Wasian, and we don’t really fit in anywhere?”

Outside of his brother, I’m very likely the only other Wasian this kid knows. And so he – being a conscious being – has attached to me. Because he is trying to figure out his Wasian place in the world, and there are not a lot of places to look when trying to find this answer. Especially in Portland.

So I’ve assumed a lot of responsibility for this one kid – because I understand just how important it is for him to have a Wasian role model (since I never had one). Somebody to help show him how a Wasian can be in the world.

And we’ve talked about it a lot. Talked about not fitting in and how our mix determines how other people perceive us. And we unite over it (he often would yell “Wasian Pride!!!” when he saw me arriving at school in the morning) and share a very overt connection over our specific mix.

So when he made it out to camp, we came to a decision: we were going to write a “Wasian rap” and perform it together at the camp’s big Open Mic night.

I’m not really going to go into much more detail than that. It’s not necessary. Just the fact that this kid – self-identified “Wasian” (I’ve never used the term until he started referencing it) – wrote a piece about his own identity and life, and I had the honor of being invited to share the stage with him as he performed it for a crowd of his peers (none of them Wasian, of course).*

I saw his pride. I heard it in his voice when he spoke into the mic and introduced our performance with, “We’re both Wasian . . .” And so I couldn't control the sh--eating grin that spread over my face when the crowd went nuts for him, afterwards. Because he's a great kid, and I get excited for all of my kids when they get to have a moment like that (a moment of bravery when they stand up in front of their peers and share a piece of themselves). But it was even more sweet because I couldn't help but think about my own youth, and how cool it would have been if my specific way of identifying could have been validated like that - so strongly and positively - before I grew into adulthood.

I complain a lot. A lot of this blog is full of negative experiences. But this was not one of those. I got to be a role model to a kid who is currently living an outsider life – one that I can directly relate to - and share a moment of triumph with him.

And he’s not going to follow in my footsteps – Hell no. No, instead, I hope that he can jump past a few years of my own insecurities and, as a result, walk his own path more strongly and effectively. And wherever that takes him – that’s exactly how Wasians do it.

Because that's the ultimate goal here, as a role model: to validate the kids' experiences and identities (however they are) while showing them that those very experiences and identities don't have to be strict guidelines to how they end up living their lives.

Yeah - he's Wasian, and proud of it. And that's a very positive thing. And, more importantly, having grasped that so early, he is now free to do whatever he wants with it.

And that's that.

* The two pieces we spliced together for the performance didn't end up being about being specifically Wasian, but they regarded our identities and how we are as individuals in the world - which, in the end, is about being Wasian for both of us.

** The photo is of Kip Fullbeck, Wasian author of "Paper Bullets," sometimes spoken-word artist, and creator of the Hapa Project.

Girl Power

2009-08-21T12:05:00.000-07:00

I’ve been away from the internet (at least on a regular-use basis) this past few weeks as I’ve been working at the arts camp I’ve worked at the last five years. In brief, this is an arts-focused camp for more or less the same population of kids that I teach (in some cases, literally the exact same). Professional artists are brought in to teach various art classes (photography, film, theatre, poetry, sewing, drumming, and more), while other more camp-y stuff happens.

Anyway, I wrote a spoken-word piece addressing gender inequality* (specifically, media oppression of women and hip-hop misogyny) a while back, with the intention of sharing it (at least, an edited version) with my kids. And so, at camp, I performed it for the kids (the high school group).

And I can’t even begin to explain the reaction it got. All the girls in the audience left their seats, screaming and clapping, because it spoke to them. In appearance and attitude, I kind of represent a lot of stereotypical concepts of “masculinity” in this country, and so I think it shocked the Hell out of them to hear me speak out.

And it only got better – because, that night, when all the kids were getting ready for bed, meeting in their smaller groups for nightly check-out sessions, a number of the girls’ sessions revolved entirely around their reaction to my piece. Talking about how guys mistreat them, how they sometimes let that happen, what they can do about it, etc.

The following morning, camper after camper sought me out to request a copy of my poem to take home with them. And the best part? It wasn’t just the female campers. No – many of the male campers asked for a copy to take home, as well (and this was individually, with no females to see the request – they actually just wanted a copy).
By the end of that session, I had given almost every single camper (and the staff, as well) a copy of my poem.

But it didn’t end there. For the rest of the session, an implicit theme of “being a gentleman” began to trickle into camp – male counselors were teaching their groups how to be respectful to women and having them practice; male campers were asking female staff for tips on how to treat women right; female campers were talking to each other and the males about general respect and how to represent themselves.

And, as all this went down, I have never felt better about my work or what I do. Never. Not even close. This was my life’s work coming together so perfectly. Getting myself to a place where I could consider forms of oppression that I’m a part of; writing down my thoughts as a poem; performing it; and actually hitting my audience. Not just touching them and making them think for a moment – but hitting them in a way that moved them to want to do more (and actually following up).

And it was with kids. Girls/young women at a moment in their lives when they are choosing their paths – and may just be able to alter them a little bit to keep their heads above water in an oppressive world. Boys/young men in a position to either run with their privilege or change how they walk through the world.

And I don’t really expect that it’s going to alter their paths. Certainly not all of them. Probably not most of them. But – for a moment – it hit them. Hard. And maybe that will push them just enough to end up in a position to be hit again later on. And then maybe again. And with enough hits – paths really can change.

It’s like reverse-oppression: pile on enough POSITIVE situations and consciousness and you might just get the strength to blow through that pile of negative ones.

And I’m not writing this to brag – although I am, a little. Because I’m proud. I’ve worked my ass off to get to this point. Because, if I didn’t love those kids and put in the work to really know them and relate to them, they wouldn’t have listened. If I hadn’t earned their respect and kept my integrity, they wouldn’t believe in me. If I hadn’t put in the years of personal work and self-reflection, I never would have written this.

And so I’m proud of this one pay-off. Because there’s not a ton of pay-off (at least not on this type of level) in this line of work, and I think I’ve earned this one. And it inspires me. It gives me the fuel to see that I’m on the right path, myself. It hit me back, and helps me see what I want to be doing, how I want to do it, and that it can really work.

And that – that’s something.

• Here’s the (edited) piece that I shared with the kids (again, it's meant to be spoken, so there's power lost in the translation):

Male Privilege

This one’s for the women that have to deal with these guys
That don’t know how to treat ‘em, always feeding them lies
Brainwashed by the media, every female objectified
Ignore the patriarchy, cuz you’re doing just fine
Ignore the patriarchy, and you’ll do just fine

Easy to say, but harder to do when-
They say you’re too skinny, too fat, or the wrong complexion
Constant messaging starting to make you think that all of this oppression
Is truth – representing a man’s ideal of perfection
But you
Can’t do
Your life under faulty conventions
But don’t take this man’s word – just look in the mirror
And I know this world has tried to instill in you a fear of
Seeing yourself raw, stripped of all that you’ve been taught
By a man’s world, constantly trying to hide what you’ve got
Wouldn’t want you feeling confident enough to rely on your mind
Cuz then the job you rightfully got would likely be mine
Get you to compete with each other so you’re not competing with us
So when you catch your men cheating, you call the women the sluts
And that’s messed up – we’ve kept you down enough to fight with each other
While this brotherhood of men tries to forget the first mother
Cuz that’s the secret, you see
We keep you down out of jealousy
All the same abilities, but men have one piece missing
The act of creating life, God-like in a human form
Men feeling less-than because our only contribution is our sperm
7 minutes to your 9 months
Insignificant to creation once the mating is done
So we flip it – our insecurity makes you the objects
Increasing our own importance by taking away the meaning from sex
So come on ladies – don’t pander to your man
If he’s not treating you right, make him spend his nights with his hand
Cuz you’re the Gods on this Earth, creating life
While he’s just a sperm-donor that just happens to look like . . . a man

This one’s for the women that have to deal with these guys
That don’t know how to treat ‘em, always feeding them lies
Brainwashed by the media, every female objectified
Ignore the patriarchy, cuz you’re doing just fine
Ignore the patriarchy, and you’ll do just fine

If you can get some help . . .

Cuz to the rappers of color – what the Hell are we thinking?
We get ‘em saying “those people” say “those things” about “their own women”
And the messed up thing is that we let them
Misogyny’s the b, so let’s get it out of our system
These are our mothers, our sisters, and someday our wives
Ones who tried to raise us right and even gave us our live
Get over the creation-envy and stop oppressing our own
Cuz the oppression we dole out is the oppression we bring home
So it’s time we grow up and start acting like a father
Drop the macho act and raise every girl like a daughter
Cuz if they were our own, could we look them in the eyes
When they realized our lyrics held them objectified?
Talking about hos, degrading women in our videos
As if we don’t even know where all that money goes
Back in the pocket of the patriarchal regime
Who appreciate our part because it keeps their white gloves clean
Laughing at how we always do exactly as they want
Crushing our own to keep others happy at the top
So if we really want all of this oppression to stop
We should start with our own actions and words and turn our misogyny off
Start acting like real men and turn our misogyny off

This one’s for the women that have to deal with these guys
That don’t know how to treat ‘em, always feeding them lies
Brainwashed by the media, every female objectified
Ignore the patriarchy, cuz you’re doing just fine
Maybe if we restore the matriarchy, we could be just fine.

On a "Chinese Bride"

2009-07-09T08:47:00.000-07:00

So, I am officially headed to China in the Fall (end of September/beginning of October). Since this is the official plan and where my near-future is taking me, I - of course - have found myself talking about it with many different people.

There are a number of reactions to this news - mostly positive - but one of the most common comments I've gotten back (especially from acquaintances, but also from real friends) is a reference to me coming back with a "Chinese bride." Seriously. I've heard this many more times than could even slightly be due to coincidence.

And it's not a coincidence. Not at all. It's a "funny" joke just as creative and new as a really tall person being asked about the weather.

"Oh - you're going to live in China for a while? I bet you come back with a Chinese bride!" Ha. Ha. Ha.

Do I really need to break it down for folks? It all just falls into the theme of race-based objectification of women. In this case, it's part of the whole "exotic, yet submissive" meme that always flows around stereotypes of Asian women. It's that damn Asian fetish rearing its ugly head, yet again. It's also part of the general exploitation and de-humanization of non-Western countries and women of color by the Western (generally white, but not only white) world.

So - people's first thought when I talk about going to China? That I must be going to pick up a bride. Like I'm going shopping for a woman. And since we all know how submissive and eager-to-please Chinese women are, of course I could buy one while I'm there. It's a lot cheaper than mail-order, and this way, I can have a pick. Let's think back to the "good old days" of opium dens, "dragon ladies," and cultural exploitation. Right off the bat.

This pisses me off on so many levels, but it's that first thought aspect of it that kills me the most. I say I'm finally going to China, and that's what I hear. Nothing about how great that is, from a cultural sense. Nothing about my identity or how much I'll probably learn. Nothing about learning the language, maybe seeing family, etc. No - time and again: "Chinese Bride!! HA HA HA!!!"

And that just shows how insidious racism is in this country. It's like me talking about China is my own version of the Implicit Association Test** - I say "going to China," and everybody else spits out their first association: "Chinese Bride." Cutting through all the bullshit. Friends, acquaintances, whatever - that's what comes out. People that know me and my background, and they jump right past respect and support to a triggering stereotype.

And I'm not saying that any of these people are actually racist. I don't think they even know what they're saying, really (or how I take it). Some probably mean something entirely different by it. But it just sums it all up for me. No matter the intentions, or how much we talk about it, the racist power of the media and popular culture wins most of the time. I can't be "on" all the time.

This is the thing, too - if folks took two seconds to think about it, they would never say this to me. I'm mixed, Chinese/white. My dad is white. My mom is Chinese. I constantly fret about that being the vast majority of interracial Asian/white couples: white male, Asian female. I battle against the "Asian fetish." I don't fully believe that all of those relationships are based on love and not an objectifying, disempowering racial stereotype. So why the Hell would I head to China - where the power dynamic between me and the women would be even more lop-sided - and be a participant in exactly what I loathe most in American society?

And sure - some of it is based on the assumption that I want to marry a Chinese woman, period. The unfortunate stereotypes associated with "Chinese brides" being coincidental to the assumption that that would be a way for me to connect to my identity, or satisfy my dead grandparents, or something like that. But again - those who know me should know that I'm not stupid enough to work that way. A Chinese romantic interest isn't going to make me any more Chinese than I already am. It also annoys me that the assumption is that - since I'm half-Chinese - I must need a Chinese lover to make me whole. Doesn't really work like that.

For those who think I'm "overreacting" and/or "misunderstanding" - that's exactly the point. Again - race doesn't happen in a one-time-only vacuum. If all these other bits and pieces hadn't been piling on for the last two decades, I wouldn't be "so damn touchy" about all this. But they have. And I am. And I have every right in having those reactions. In fact, it would be kind of amazing (or maybe sad) if I didn't.

So think of this as just one more lesson about the power of race in this country. How it all piles on. How one stupid, "joking" comment can just blow things up. Yeah - I can take a joke. And I can also work from experience. If only one or two or even three people said it, I could "relax" and just "take a joke." But when it becomes an over-arching theme?

Right.

And don't even get me started on the lady whose only reaction was to keep telling me, "You don't even look Chinese!"

And now that I've written all this? How mentally-twisted would I be if I ended up falling in love in China . . . Thanks, media-influenced racial stereotypes.

Aiyaaa. Can we ever win?

* I should note here that the image with this post is a painting by Chi Tung Chiang. I don't actually know him at all, but I wanted to give him credit, and if you are interested in seeing more of his work, go to: www.chipainting.com

** If you don't know what that is, read my reference to PRIMING, then go to this website: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/backgroundinformation.html. I highly recommend you check out the tests - you'll learn a lot about your thoughts in a short time.

On Sex and Male Power, Part I

2009-07-05T20:37:00.000-07:00

I suppose I could have used a more titillating image to go with this piece. But if I had - wouldn't I just be playing the same game that I'm about to challenge? As a male, would using an image of female subjugation to draw attention to injustice be anything but exploitive?

I don't know. Mt. Rushmore may not be sexy, but it gets part of the point across, and it does so without blurring boundaries.

Because that's what this post is about: the blurred line between "consensual" sex and male dominance in U.S. society. A big jump-off from my usual line of questioning, but one that is late in coming. I should have written this a long time ago, but I think I only recently have been able to touch on it effectively.

So here goes:

I start with a premise that few would deny - we (U.S. citizens) live in a patriarchy. In this society, males dominate. Males dominate positions of political power. Men make more money for doing the same jobs that women do. Men dominate the media - making it so that women in the media are often objectified and sexualized; even those bringing us the "news."

I don't think I have to go into any more depth there. That's all patently obvious.

Level Two:

Due to the level of male dominance in our society (and especially in the popular media), all things being equal - things are not equal between men and women. From birth, girls in this country are inundated with messages about their "roles" as females - generally about the need for being "attractive" (and how to do so), the need to be submissive (to some degree) to male desires.

Yes, men are also told their roles throughout life. And most men don't actually fit within those roles. However, there is a much larger pressure on women to focus on how they look, how they present themselves, and how they put in the effort to gain male attention - in all contexts, including "professional" areas where those ideas should seem irrelevant.

Level Three:

I am now going to focus on a sub-set of male-female relations in this society: heterosexual sexual relationships. Because it is within this realm that I believe the media plays the most direct role,* and it also happens to be within my realm of experience.

So, recently, I've had some discussions with friends (one in particular) about whether or not it's possible for sex to be "just sex" between men and women in our society. More specifically, we've discussed the man's responsibility in those situations. To start, we'll go with the "random hook-up" scenario.

So a female (call her "F") and a male (call him "M") are at the club (or the bar, or wherever), and they're doing their thing. Having drinks, talking with friends, looking around at those of the opposite sex around them. At some point, F and M see each other, and they're intrigued. They come together, maybe dance a bit, do some groping - they get excited. A while later, they're at F's house, having sex. Numbers are exchanged, nobody makes a further call. End of story.

In this scenario, let's say that all F wanted was sex. She felt the need, she went out and did something about it. Nothing wrong with that. M was doing the same thing. Totally mutual. Totally consensual. Totally equal. Right?

Well . . . the problem is this: we've got that whole "Madonna/Whore" thing going in our society. I.e. a woman that is fully comfortable with her sexuality and demonstrates that is a whore, while a woman who is not and does not is of virginal purity. There is no in-between. And I know the minds of men, and I'd say that that belief falls out far too often (among women, too, although more submerged).

So men want to date and love the Madonnas, and they want to use and cast away the Whores. The problem being, of course, that there is no true dichotomy like this, so women run a constant risk of being cast as the Whore in men's minds - which often precludes an opportunity of further connection and a true relationship (because men close that door when their judgment comes down).

So we go back to F and M and their "consensual" sex. If F really only wanted sex, then she's okay - as long as she doesn't mind the possible judgment that will come from M (and/or his friends or whomever) about it all. But what if she finds, somewhere along the line, that she is actually attracted to M on a different level? What if she decides, sometime during the rise to sex or afterwards - that she would like to get to know M?

Well - then she's in trouble. Because our society has pounded into M's brain that F must be a slut because of her willingness to have sex (or engage in sexual acts) right off the bat. Even though he did the same thing and gets off un-judged. So he decides that F is decidedly un-dateable and won't give it a further thought. Because, if she's a "slut," then she must be more likely to cheat, less likely to commit, less intelligent, less "worthy." All a bunch of BS, of course, but the truth seldom does people any good when ingrained bias rears its head.

On the flip side - M can roll both ways. If he just wanted sex - he just got it. However, if he wants more, he can go for it - still with no guarantees, but without being cast as "undateable" simply because he was willing to have sex.

And that's the man's power in this situation. His power is that he gets to cast a judgment with the weight of society behind it. He gets to have a one-night stand without losing anything, while the woman makes a choice (conscious or otherwise) to give up a further opportunity by having that one-night stand.

Okay - so there are a lot of questions and arguments against what I'm saying here. But the guy could want more and get rejected, too, right? If the woman just wants to have sex and the guy wants more, then doesn't she have all the power?

Sure, to answer the first question. But that doesn't change the inequality of the overall situation. A black man can be a white man's boss, but that doesn't mean that the black man isn't oppressed by overall institutional racism. Same here. A woman can have more power in a given situation, but that doesn't empower her on a societal level. I often hear women talk about "taking back power" over their sexuality - and I'm all for it - but you can't do that operating within a vacuum. Part of that must come knowing that there is a sacrifice to doing so. Hopefully at less cost than the benefits, but a sacrifice comes. One that a man never really has to make.

As for the second question, what I just said applies, and so I disagree. The woman doesn't have all the power because she has to make that choice, before sexual contact has occurred. The choice between doing what you want in the moment, at the possible cost of a loss of further connection, versus holding back on immediate desires, so that future options are available. And going with the latter still guarantees nothing, possibly making things worse if all the guy wants is sex in the first place. A lot of possibility of disappointment here (and I'm not even talking about the fact that most guys are terrible lovers).

Finally, Level Four:

I've tried to lay this out as concisely as possible, but it's a deep dilemma - one not easy to explain. But I think we've finally gotten to the point where I can write about the man's role in all this. Right now, I'll just use myself as the example.

So - say I'm in M's place in the previous scenario. I think F is sexy, and I want to do something about it. She says she wants to do something about it. We're agreed. So shouldn't we just do something about it?

The problem is - I've already thought through everything I wrote above (and so much more). I know I have the power here. I know that there's a risk that F might not actually want "just sex" - that she may want something more and feel that that's a way to get that. I also know that - having the power - I'm in a position to have F feel used when all is said and done. I also know that maybe F really does just want sex, and has no interest in more - which maybe I have interest in. I know that - maybe - F is making a conscious choice to forgo further opportunities by choosing to have sex.

Okay. Okay. So there are a lot of possibilities. Some end with "no harm, no foul." We fulfill basic needs, we part ways, both none the worse for wear. But a number end with negatives: maybe she'll feel used; maybe she's doing something she doesn't really want to try to get more; maybe I'll end up wanting more, and she's already eliminated that option - so I'll get hurt; maybe I just have flat societal power over her, and that just doesn't feel good, no matter what she actually wants.

So, in my position, with all the possible negatives that can come from this, how can I go through with it? How can I feel okay about possibly using a woman? How can I feel okay in a situation where I might be abusing my societal power?

My personal answer? I can't. So I don't put myself in those situations. I will make sure women feel wholly safe with me (something that takes real time - not a night, not even a few days), so that they can make an honest choice for themselves, without the pressure of patriarchy influencing it.

On a more general level, I just ask men to be aware of their power. And the devastating effects it can have (not that it always does, but can have) on another human being. To be aware that, in our society, sex is not "just sex." There is history and pressure and injustice and inequality behind it. To be aware of that - and to make subsequent decisions with that awareness in full view. You all might not make the same choices that I do - maybe mine aren't the right ones - but awareness never hurt anybody.

As for the women? Bring that same awareness. Make your choices for you - knowing that - most often - the men aren't going to bring that awareness. Know what you want - and go for it. I'm in no position to be giving any other advice on this one - since you are all the experts, and I'm just working on suppositions.

There is so much more to be said and written on this topic. I know I've left glaring holes and haven't made myself fully clear. But this part of the fight needs to be mentioned - by me, in this space - and waiting to say it "just right" likely means that it won't be said at all.

When it comes to gender and sexuality - I'm the oppressor. I'm the privileged one, here. I don't have many answers. I'm starting to find the right questions. And I hope all you experts out there (women, LGBT) wouldn't mind helping me out on this one.

I'm out of my element here. And that's where the learning happens.

Don't Expect Us to Thank You

2009-06-29T10:10:00.000-07:00

So I just got back from a one-week training for the arts camp I work at during the summer. The camp is for more or less the same kids I teach (same background - poverty, abuse, etc.), so we do some heavy training for staff to help them best serve our kids (at this point, I am involved in leading some of that training).

Each year, as part of this training, we have a discussion about "difference" (usually focusing on race and ethnicity, but not tied to that alone) with new staff.* This is an opportunity for these folks to have a real conversation about their experiences of race (with some guidance and facilitation, of course) to better understand where everyone is coming from. It's also a chance for our staff to become a little more comfortable with this conversation, as it is one that very much affects the kids we work with (whether they are kids of color or otherwise).

And I always love it. Just watching people get real and say what they've always actually thought, but in a respectful way. People really listening to each other, whether or not they fully understand or agree with each other.

We started at 7pm and just kept it going until 1am - because it needed to go that long. And now, because we gave it that time, it can keep going - which is the whole point (because even 6 hours of conversation doesn't even skim the surface).

And, this year, we got to a point where some of the white youth workers got hung up: the lack of appreciation they get for the work they put in with youth of color. As best as I can summarize it, it goes like this:

People of color, in general, have a lot of assumptions about white folks and their level of being able to be allies, and their true willingness to do so (as well as their intentions behind doing so). We assume that white youth workers don't get the kids, aren't willing to put in the work, and aren't as able to successfully work with kids of color as an adult of color might be able to.

Okay - a lot of assumptions. Not always there, but I would agree that they are there pretty often.

So the issue was for these white youth workers who have done the work. Their experience was that they have busted their asses for kids of color, only to watch the kids' parents dismiss them as "rich white men/ladies" even though they had crappier cars than the parents. They worked their asses off in schools, at camps, in any number of ways for kids of color - and yet they still run into social workers of color who dismiss their level of competency or caring.

And it chafes. It frustrates. It even leads to some resentment and bitterness aimed at the very families and people of color that they are trying to help.

"I'm putting in the work, so why can't they see that!?? Why can't they appreciate that!??"

All very valid frustrations. Totally understandable. Unfair, even.

And yet.

And yet, my response is: don't expect us (people of color) to thank you. Because we shouldn't have to.

Let me be clear here: when I mentioned the kids I serve at the beginning of this post, I very intentionally made no reference to race. And yet - I bet the majority of readers assumed that "the kids we serve" are largely kids of color. It's inherent in the work I do that it involves working with racial and ethnic minorities. And yet - 50% (or more) of our kids are white. With many of the same family and social issues as the kids of color.

But that often gets left out of the picture. Because, in youth (and social work), there's this unstated sense that the kids you work with don't really need help unless they are kids of color. That the "roughest" kids are kids of color. That "urban" youth are kids of color. It's like a youth worker badge of honor to talk about all the black kids, or Latino kids, or brown kids they work with. It shows that they are a "real" youth worker. That they're doing the "hard" work.

The implications behind that? That people of color can't help themselves. That people of color are helpless victims. That they are exactly as the media says they are: lazy, criminals, drug abusers, and unable to take care of their own children.

And this frustration with a lack of acknowledgement for their work by white youth workers plays into all of that. I don't hear these youth workers sighing, "why don't the white parents thank me for working with their kids?" When race is mentioned in that context, it's the parents of color - or else it's just "all parents." There is the implication that these white youth workers are "helping" the kids of color in spite of the adults of color in their community. That it's the white folks who are better able to supply that support - so "why can't they appreciate that!?"

More importantly, this line of thinking is completely counter-productive in terms of what should be the mission of these workers: to help redress wrongs; to help empower kids born with less systemic power; no matter their background (racially, or otherwise). Because that mission is simple - it's just doing the right thing. And so - if that's all this work is really about, why should anybody be thanking you for doing it?

When did this world get so fucked up that we get frustrated when we're not applauded for doing the right thing?! When did things get so flipped that we want to quit because the kids we're working with don't validate us? When did it become okay for us to resent a group of people for their ingrained distrust of a system that we are actively working to change because we don't believe in it!??

Folks of color in this country do not get to opt out. It's not an option to quit dealing with race, or to quit battling the system. It's not an option. They are in it for life. So maybe one year, or two, or even ten years of working side-by-side with us isn't enough for us to fully trust that you're not going to quit on us. Because we've watched so many before you come in with fire and passion, only to get frustrated and quit a few years later (often blaming us for the difficulty).

That frustration you feel when things aren't changing, and we're not giving you medals of honor for being in the fight with us? Just a taste of a lifetime of disappointment. Just a taste of the permanent frustration of watching young, idealistic, white social guerillas bail out a couple years in when they start running out of money or get beat down by the impossibility of the situation. From watching the government "apologize" for stealing Native land without reparations. For "apologizing" for slavery without actively doing anything about it. For being the "land of the free" while we target Mexican immigrants and Arabs. Knowing that we're not so far removed from the government passing laws to specifically exclude rights to people of color.

Nobody thanks me for working with white kids. Nobody thanks me for always having white bosses. Nobody thanks me for living in the U.S. as a person of color and not giving up.

And I'm not so naive as to think anybody should - or would. I would never expect it. Sure - it would be nice. And validation to some degree is important. But I still continue to do what I do in spite of all that.

So here's my final message to white youth workers: don't expect us to thank you. Don't condemn us and judge us and blame us for the difficulties of changing the system, and then expect us to excuse you of your white privilege or to trust your intentions. If you're doing the right thing, then be satisfied with that - and don't have us doubt that you really are by demanding accolades for it.

Join us in the trenches. Work with us, side by side. Better your understanding. Feel how f-ing hard it is. And don't you ever quit on us. Don't you ever give up on the fight to do the right thing. And realize that we don't have that choice.

And you will receive our respect. And our trust. Maybe.

But we've been burned before. We've seen a million people just like you come and go. Maybe it will take ten years for us to believe you won't enact your privilege and quit on us. Maybe twenty. Maybe a whole lifetime. We've been burned so many times before - by people that looked and acted and spoke just like you.

So don't expect us to thank you. Ever. It might happen. It might not. It's not your right. We don't expect you to thank us for working with you, do we? No. So don't demand the reverse.

Finally, though - to any white youth workers that made it through this whole post: thank you for reading. Now - go do something with it.

* For more information on the diversity of the staff, read my post from last year, "On Real Diversity."

No Goodbyes

2009-06-19T12:43:00.000-07:00

It's been a full few weeks. Wrapping up the school year. 8th grade promotion. Getting ready for my summer job. And leaving this job behind.

This week has been my "close-out" week, meaning: no kids (more or less, I've actually spent some kid time this week, but no classes). It's just adults cleaning up and organizing our classrooms, closing out student files, running inventory, and preparing our spaces for next school year.

Of course, for me - there is no "next school year." I'm out. Going to China in the Fall, and so I'm not part of this school's future plan. Which is all sorts of crazy.

And so the process has been a slow one for me. I should have been finished yesterday - but it's going to be a push to even be finished by the end of today. So I'm alone in the school, packing up my things, saving the taking-down of kid artwork from my walls for last . . .

And, in the end, it's perfect. Because this job has been all about loose ends and a lack of closure. Kid after kid comes in here, becomes part of my life (and I their's), and we form a relationship. Then - suddenly - they just disappear.

Maybe their family moved to try to get work. Maybe they can't afford to live in town, anymore. Maybe the parents shipped them out to another family member in a different state. Maybe Mom is back, or relapsing, and she drags the kid back down, and they stop showing up. Maybe it's got to do with gang activity. Who knows?

It's literally - one day, the kid is smiling and talking about how they are "finally getting it," and then the next day they're just gone. No goodbye. No warning. Nothing.

And I've learned to get used to that. And so it only seems reasonable that that's how I'm going out (in some respects).

For my goodbye present from my co-workers, I got a piece of artwork (framed) from one of my kids (one who I - obviously - had a close relationship with). It just so happens that he's the same kid that got in a fight outside during our 8th grade promotion ceremony. So - the last time I saw him? As I watched him walk away from our school, pissed off about the fight. No goodbye. Not even close.

The last thing I said to another kid (a girl who never fails to crack me up) was telling her she couldn't come back the next day (because I had just broken up a fight with her and another student). That's how our kids go out. No goodbyes.

They knew I was leaving the last two weeks of school, of course - so I did get to close with a number of kids, but it's the loose ends that stand out right now.

Other staff members? I'm not leaving until September (from Portland), so I've left them with the "I'll see you before I leave for real" knowing it's not true. Maybe I learned that from the kids. Maybe they have taught me that goodbyes are over-rated. People leave. People walk out of our lives. We move on.

Because - for the kids I work with - that's just how it is. And making a big deal out of every loose end is a good way to go crazy. And - let's be honest - we do move on. Every time. Nobody has such an impact on our lives that we literally can't survive without them.

And so I take another lesson from the kids. I'll clean out my room, lock the door, and just turn my back and walk away. No awkward September visit. No lingering. Clean cut. Turn. Walk.

Because where I work - there are no goodbyes. We move on.

And so - for now, at least - I'm not a teacher, anymore.

And that's that.

I Love Kids

2009-05-27T18:49:00.000-07:00

My posts are way too often tinged with negativity and semi-whininess. So I thought it's about time I post another celebration.

So today at work, I was really bored. I mean, really bored. And that's not something that happens so often when you're a middle school teacher. Some years - it never happens at all.

The reason was that the kids were doing testing (their final round of standardized math testing), so all I got to do today was sit around and watch them test. No teaching. Not a lot of interaction. So little going on, I ended up completing about a million kid word searches that I had on hand (for the kids, of course).

Of course, testing isn't always boring. But my kids have a good thing going these days, and that's their pride. They honestly believe that they can do these tests, they take them seriously, and so they are willing to focus for them. That's not something that happened my first years at the helm, but I've got it going, now.

And it's kind of a problem. Because, when they're totally focused like that - I don't know what to do with myself. I just watch the clock and look forward to "later" coming. Because I didn't choose to teach to sit around and watch kids work silently. Not me.

I chose to teach because I love interacting with kids. I mean - f-ing love it.

And I was thinking about that today (because I had a lot of time to think). Why is it that I love being around kids so much? Especially these middle school kids who so many other folks can't handle?

I thought it through: well, there's their energy. They bring so much energy, I can't help but get a little bit infected by it. They also like to play around - and in such a better way than most adults do - so I get a big kick out of that. In fact, I have my kids calling me out from time to time because I "play too much" (sometimes, I'm actually the one who breaks their long, focused silences because I need to joke around). They're so very unpredictable and ridiculous - and I've never been one to enjoy the comforts of routine or outright predictability.

All good reasons to like hanging around kids. But not enough, really, to love them, right?

And then I got it: I love kids because they are the one sub-set of human beings with whom I can just flat-out get over myself. I don't take anything personally with them. They can insult me or try to be "mean," and I just find it amusing. They can do the most irritating things in the world, and I crack up because it's so ridiculous. They say something ignorant about race, and I just shrug it off and use it as an opportunity to do some real teaching. I don't get all caught up in my own world with them. I can just accept them for who they are - and love them for it. I can forgive them for their actions - because they're just kids, and they're learning how to be people in the world.

And that's not how it is with adults (as hard as I try to react that way). I can't forgive adults so easily. Whereas I don't trust adults to just tell me the mildly painful truths instead of trying to sugarcoat things - kids will just say it. They don't make things more painful by throwing white lies around. They're devastatingly honest (at times), and I love them for that, as well.

And just as I am able to forget myself and just be with kids, I can also get over their self-centered natures. Because they are kids - and kids should be the center of their own worlds. A kid shouldn't care about what's going on in my real world. A kid doesn't need to ask sincere questions - because I should be doing all that with them.

Adults? Yeah, right. Human adults are the most disappointing creatures. So few are any different than those kids in their self-centeredness, in spite of their supposed "maturity." And since they are adults - they just disappoint.

Kids are supposed to be ignorant - they really don't know any better, and so they give me hope. Because they can learn, and change, and improve in how they are in the world. Adults? Too caught up in their own pasts and fears and insecurities to make the right decisions or really change.

And I wish I was perfect enough to feel otherwise. I wish I could just love all these grown-up kids without judgment like I do with the younger versions - but I can't. Sometimes, I can do a pretty good job of it. But too often I'm unable to pull myself out of the picture and just let things be. To not get caught up in my own world and wholeheartedly explore and enjoy theirs. I just end up disappointed too often.

But with the kids? Never. They never disappoint me - and all too often they make me proud. They constantly surprise me and make me laugh harder than I thought possible. They bring out my very best, consistently. When I'm not in the best mood, they snap me out of it quick. When I'm in the best mood, they come join me. Just watching kids do random little things - like talk to themselves, or laugh at something that isn't funny at all, or get all excited about a gift or new toy - just gives me the biggest grin. What can I say?

It's the kids.

I'm about to take some time off from teaching, but there's no way in Hell it's going to last too long. Make my trip - learn and see what I need to learn and see. Then get my ass back with the kids the next moment. That's the only guarantee I have for my future. And that's - honestly - all that really matters, in the long run.

So I dedicate my upcoming trip and all the things I do to the kids. Because.

I just love kids.

On Leaving Portland: Thinking Like a Terrorist

2009-05-19T17:21:00.000-07:00

So let's just drop the disclaimer before I get started: by no means do I condone any "terrorist" actions.* Never will I believe that violence against anybody (including other people's military) is going to accomplish "good." Especially violence against people that have nothing to do with a perceived problem (or threat).

So why would I write that on my post? Allow me to explain:

I'm leaving Portland soon. It's official. My position is open at school, and we've brought a number of folks in to interview. I've started talking to my cousin about heading to China in the Fall, and I'm getting ready to renew my passport and do all the visa stuff. And, as school starts winding down towards the end, I find the reality of this life-change starting to hit me.

I'm really going. Leaving a steady teaching job (that I like) right in the middle of the worst time in the world for a teacher needing work. What am I thinking!? And what am I going to do when I come back to the States?

The answer right now is: I have no idea. I will certainly end up working with kids. But where or in what capacity, I know nothing.

Because this is my big opportunity to leave Portland for good. Lord knows I've fought the lack of sunlight and melanin in the people around me for long enough. I've been bitter, and frustrated, and have felt more isolated than ever should be necessary. I could move to a place where folks actually look like me, and where the "liberal" champions of "diversity" aren't all white, and they actually know people of color on a personal level. I've dreamed about it.

And yet.

And yet - I'm not 100% set on that. Because this is the thing: Portland is ripe for some heavy impact on a social front. Its appalling lack of people of color (and/or understanding of race) demands a presence and some acknowledgment. Because there are so few of us around to speak our minds and do some educating, each one of us is all the more important for that kind of work here. So when we bow out and leave - it's even more important that somebody else steps in to fill the void.

At school - our kids need conscious teachers of color so badly. There are so many bad teachers out there (not for lack of trying - but for lack of understanding) that it fatigues my mind. And I'm not saying I'm the greatest teacher in the world, but at least I'm aware of social dynamics and how race and culture play out in the classroom.

So when I think about that question of "what next," I find myself in a sort of "terrorist" frame of mind. Specifically - where can I do the most damage (and by "doing damage," I mean "have the most impact/effect")? It seems to me that I can have more of an impact here in Portland, simply because there are so few other people of color - especially those doing the kind of work I do. If I was in the Bay, I'd just be one more drop in the lake (it's definitely still not an ocean, even in relation to Portland).

For example - here I could chair the Asian Youth Conference and really guide the vision and direction. In the Bay? Maybe I could get involved in facilitating somebody else's workshop. At the organization I presently teach for, I have made my voice heard, and can very easily see myself being able to have a little clout in the not-so-distant future (perhaps guiding my superiors towards a more-diverse staff and culture). In the Bay? I'd be starting back from scratch, and with bigger organizations that would be less likely to listen.

When I speak as a male of color to my kids, I speak as one of a very few outside of their own families. In that capacity, I fill a gap that is needed more in Portland than in the Bay.

So - in my mission to disassemble (and then re-build) the current broken education system (especially in relation to racial inequality), where can I hit hardest? Where can I maximize the impact of my efforts?

Two questions that are likely high on a terrorist cell's list.

Because those who have to call upon terrorist actions are desperate. They are in a position of having dramatically less resources and power than those they are battling. They are pushed to extreme action because the fight is so uneven - they cannot win a "straightforward" battle, and so they turn to other means to try to overcome. Ultimately, most terrorists know they will never actually win the ideological war they are engaged in.

No surprise those labeled "terrorists" are usually people of color. They are fighting systems and ways of thought - and they are on the desperate side because the systems and ways of thought with the most dominance and power are the ones led by the white people of the world.

And so I find myself mirroring this thought-process. Where can I strike the strongest blow for systemic change? In an unwinnable, frustrating situation, where am I most able to find the symbolic victories that can keep me going? In most ways, the answer seems to be: in the whitest large city in the United States.

But there's another big question that desperation calls for, and that is: what am I willing to sacrifice? What am I willing to give up to try to make this bigger impact?

And that answer is less clear. Because I don't believe in martyrdom. When terrorists blow themselves up, they enact no lasting change (except hurting the wrong people), and then they can give no more to their cause. Similarly, sacrificing my own mental health and well-being is not worth it to me. That kind of sacrifice results in lowering the quality of work, and more or less prematurely taking yourself out of the game.

And so I don't feel like carrying the Portland burden. I'm done with being the "only one." I'm tired of trying to explain to white people what it's like to never be in the majority.

But there are ways around that. I have been - slowly but surely - building a community of color around me. I have plugged myself into situations that allow me to be surrounded by folks of color (the conference a prime example). I have been pulling folks of color into the organizations I work for, and have stumped hard for more recruitment and work on that end by my superiors. So there are ways to improve on that particular situation.

But, in the end, I don't really know how much difference I'm making, anyway. All of the reasons to stay in Portland are based on the assumption that I've actually been bringing about positive change, and - to be honest - I haven't really seen a lot of proof of that. The conference has been going strong the last 16 years before me. The high school counterpart to my own school still has an appalling lack of diversity of staff. I still have never had a person of color as my hierarchal superior in any work capacity here (and I'm talking many different organizations, and a lot of different levels of "hierarchal superiors" possible). The kids' lives are the kids' lives, and I certainly haven't eased any of their burdens.

And that's when I find myself empathizing most with the desperation of a "terrorist" - that thought that nothing I can do can be enough to fight back against the absolutely humongous powers working against my ideals. Of course, my reaction to that desperation is the difference here - because my "lashing out" is verbal or written (in this blog, in my lyrics) as opposed to physically violent in nature. And yet . . .

I remain undecided. Which is fine, since my trip to China is likely to drastically alter my mind-set and options, anyway. But I still find myself weighing and thinking about my real priorities and what I am really capable of accomplishing. Only time will tell.

Until then, I will continue to examine my options through the perspective of a non-violent, youth-working "freedom fighter;" with a healthy dose of self-doubt on the side. And maybe - just maybe - that will be enough to actually accomplish something.

*And yes, I am fully aware that I likely just submitted my application for my very own "Homeland Security" wiretap simply by writing this post.

Gentrification, Personified

2009-05-16T12:03:00.001-07:00

Look at the image above and play "Count the People of Color." I found two.

I found this little blurb about Alberta Street, here in Portland. This street is pretty much the living embodiment of gentrification in Portland, and a perfect example of the tension between the young incoming, middle-class white hipsters and those who lived here before (folks of color, with less money). If you don't see the irony and/or why this description fills me with disgust, you haven't been reading this blog very long:

What was once a deteriorating and crime-ridden part of the city is now an epicenter of diversity, art and culture* in the Rose City. Trendy little art galleries, novelty stores and unique restaurants have replaced the boarded-up windows. Portlanders of all kinds come to this event. Held in September, it's a lively celebration complete with live music and dancing, food, kids' stuff and a free trolley that rolls right through the middle of everything. Come and see why Northeast Portland is quickly becoming the capital for culture in this town.

* Okay, so I have to comment - apparently, "diversity" means a bunch of white people with intentionally-ugly fashion sense and the six people of color who haven't gotten fully pushed out yet. "Culture" is, of course, the white kind.

On Handshakes

2009-05-14T20:34:00.000-07:00

So I've got this hand coming at me. It's got white skin, attached to a man in a nice suit. This seems like a "professional" situation. I guess I should go for the "Firm-Grasp-and-Shake" with a smile and some eye contact. He responds in kind. Looks like I made the right choice - proceed to conversation.

I've been lax on the writing lately. The conference is past. My brother is married. Interview processes have progressed past my involvement. Time for some "me" time. I've been meaning to catch up on the posts - have a lot of topics in mind. But, instead, here I am - thinking about handshakes.

Why am I thinking about that? Because I just had an interesting day. It started at school, where I had a guest in one of my classes (a hip-hop/spoken word friendly acquaintance of mine). Then my friend who helps out in my Music Production class. Had my performance evaluation (the last one) with my boss, in which we talked about cultural competency issues at work. Then met some folks applying for the position I'm leaving behind. Ended with our big school Art Show (in conjunction with our high school) where I found myself mingling with my students, ex-students, parents, and colleagues from various other programs within my organization. And, in all of that, there were a lot of handshakes.

But - more importantly - there were a lot of different kinds of handshakes.

Now, for some people, there may be only a few kinds of handshakes - but not for me (and probably not for most people). Nope. For me, there are so many different handshakes in my repertoire, and they are all part of my code-switching toolkit.*

So let's run through them, in order:

So for my "friendly-acquaintance" (a black man), I went for the "Homie Hug." That's when you clasp hands for the pull-in into a sort of one-armed embrace (with your clasped hands between each other's chests). For me, it's a standard for when I run into men of color with whom I'm on good terms, but don't see consistently.

Next, for my co-teaching friend (also a black man, also a hip-hop man), we've got the "Loose-Slide-and-Snap." This is when we're reaching like a handshake, but basically just slap a light sideways "five," then slide hands free, ending with a snap. With most folks, I usually end this with a sort of "hand-grasp," but he always does the snap. Maybe it's an LA thing.

My boss is a white woman. No handshakes there. We're on too good terms for that (and see each other too much). But we don't hug, either. Just friendly smiles as I sit down in her office.

For the incoming applicants, it's formal "Firm-Grasp-and-Shake" all the way. Both men (one black, one white). That's the "professional" thing to do. Period.

With my students, if we bother hand-shaking, it's usually the "Loose-Slide-to-Grasp." Starts like the "Loose-Slide-and-Snap," but ends with a firm arm-wrestling-type grasp instead of the snap. That's for the guys, at least. With the girls, it's more awkward. Because you don't shake hands with the girls. But when they go for the hug, I'm always semi-uncomfortable, because I don't want to cross boundaries. But I don't want to push away, either. So I usually turn it into the "Quick-One-Armed-Side-Hug." Using that one arm to go around the shoulders, buddy-style, with little prolonged contact.**

With the parents, it's usually the "Firm-Grasp-and-Shake," especially with the men. With women, I'll do the "Loose-Grasp" without the shake and toning down the eye contact.

With colleagues, it's a smorgasbord. A lot of hugs with the women - the brotherly "Wide-Smile-and-Embrace" where I start with arms out wide with a smile in greeting, with a warm - but quick - around-the-shoulders embrace. A lot of "Loose-Slide-to-Grasps" for the gentlemen. But this is the category that's trickiest. Because sometimes I go for the "Loose-Slide-and-Grasp," but the other guy is going for the "Homie-Hug" or the "Firm-Grasp-and-Shake," and it just feels all wrong. Or the women aren't looking for a hug, so we do an awkward "Pull-Back-from-Hug-to-Wave" which always looks ridiculous. Sometimes the "Loose-Slide-and-Grasp" ends with a "Homie Hug" or maybe a fist-pound. Maybe we waive all the handshakes and just go for a fist-pound. Or maybe it gets even more elaborate with a bunch of different handshakes rolled into one with a top-to-bottom fist-pound and then a knuckle-to-knuckle fist-pound as a clincher. Or something else, entirely.

Generally, it's more the category of hand-shaker that determines which style I use, but race does factor in it. I'm definitely more likely to use the "Loose-Slide-to-Grasp" with other men of color. I don't know if I ever do the "Homie-Hug" with white guys. If I'm on a friendly level with men of color, I very seldom use the "Firm-Grasp-and-Shake," whereas I use it often with friendly-acquaintance white guys. Fist-pounds of all types are almost solely for men of color, except for a few hip-hop-related white acquaintances.

Regarding the women, it doesn't seem to vary as much. If I know them well, hugs all around. If we're more on acquaintance level, I'm a little more likely to "Wide-Smile-and-Embrace" with white women than women of color, but not by a lot (I'm careful with my hugs). Mostly, it's situational. But I just don't shake hands (almost never) with women I know already.

So - just like that - a whole post devoted to the different types of handshakes/greetings I used in one day of my life. And, obviously, the thought-processes behind it all are rarely so conscious - it usually all happens split-second - but it's interesting to break down. Seems kind of crazy, on the surface, but it really does make a difference on a relationship level. If I just stuck to the "Firm-Grasp-and-Shake" all the time, it would honestly change my relationships to certain people, especially the perceptions upon first meetings.

And that's kind of scary, when you really think about it. Because, if so much can go into a handshake, with no words spoken, how much goes into how we speak to each other, and what we say? How much can go wrong or be misinterpreted?

It puts into perspective how much of a miracle it is that things go as well as they generally do in this world. When so much can go into a handshake - a gesture of greeting and peace - what can go into a conversation?

Sometimes - too much. And that's where successful code-switching and cultural competency come to the fore. When you can have a whole repertoire of ways of interacting (conscious or otherwise) to put people at ease, and to keep yourself at ease around different people, it can make all the difference in the world.

In fact - it does.

* I've talked about "code-switching" in the past. But - in short - it's the ability to adapt to different cultural ways of being on the fly to be comfortable - and make others comfortable - socially.

** For a lot of reasons, I'm paranoid about wrong impressions and contact with students. A major reason is that many of them have had traumatic experiences in the past that make it difficult for them to know appropriate boundaries with adults (especially males), and I do all I can to help them learn and understand those boundaries (and to feel safe).

On Hiring Practices

2009-05-06T18:15:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure of the original intention of this photo, but it kind of hits the nail on the head.

I was going to write a post on the "Swine Flu" (about how much B.S. it is, and how it's a great excuse for racist media to blame "disease" on folks south of the border), but I'm in the midst of some other things and wanted to write on it before it left my mind.

**If you don't read this whole post in detail, please read the last couple sections prior to the endnotes**

I've been part of a few hiring committees of late. One is for the next Program Director of the non-profit educational organization I work for (I asked in on this one). Another is for a summer camp I work for (part of my job description for this one). The last is for my school (some involvement in hiring my own replacement).

And the first two have really hit me.

So let's do this in order.* The initial screening committee for the Program Director was myself and five white women. And I wasn't even asked to be involved in this process - I had to ask the higher-ups personally to be a part of it.

So I have to admit that every meeting weighed on my soul. It was so heavily culturally-biased, I felt like there was little I could do as the "token" minority with so little statistical pull.

And then there were the applicants. Almost zero candidates of color. Probably zero candidates outside of the middle or upper class. Part of it is that this is a non-profit job that doesn't have the money to pay people. So folks that represent our kids can't afford to waste a college education (and loans) on working this job. Not to mention that most of the staff looks like the hiring committee (except me, of course), so why would a person of color want to carry that burden, anyway?

So we're interviewing these folks, and I'm slipping into despair. How can we ever change these things when the odds are so stacked against that change? An interview with all these middle-class white ladies is only going to increase the chances of the success of another middle-class white female candidate. Because an interview is about confidence and comfort and communication. And if all the people around you have lived a totally different life experience than you - how can you feel confident that they'll give you a chance, or be comfortable in their midst, or communicate effectively?

The other committee members commenting on how awkward certain folks seemed, while I'm back in my seat, feeling outnumbered and equally-awkward.

So middle-class white ladies get hired and get more experience. They then apply more for the work. They are reflected in the staffing, so they are more drawn to working there . . . They get hired and get more experience. It's a deadly feedback-loop.

And I'm not saying people weren't qualified - they were (more or less). But it's so damn frustrating to try to figure out how somebody that doesn't fit that mold can break in without being so far above and beyond the rest. The amount of pressure and weight and frustration they would have to be willing to carry to even go through the process is unbelievable.

Because, being a person of color in an organization like this is an f-ing burden. We're the ones who always have to speak up and bring attention to the inherent biases in the systems. We're the ones who constantly have to try to educate people about experiences that they don't even care to think about. I had to ask onto a committee of all white women to try to make a small dent, and they hadn't even considered it until I asked (at least they agreed, though). Just being on the committee saps my strength and makes me want to quit on the whole ridiculous process.

But I'm not willing to give in. If I'm going to talk about it, I have too much pride not to then follow up. But it's so painful.

A little over a week ago, I met with the current executive director, associate director, and my program director (all white folks, of course) to talk about the cultural make-up of the staff.** And I wanted to cry.

I laid it all out: how hard it is to see so little representation; how uncomfortable it makes me, and then extrapolating that to how much harder that must be for the kids; acknowledging the difficulties to recruitment, etc. while demanding more.

But the problem is that it just ends up sounding like I'm asking for hires just because of race. Like I'm making the argument anti-affirmative action people always pretend we're making: that I want folks to hire less-qualified folks of color just because of their race.

And it's so hard to explain that - no - that's not what I'm asking. That it's about making it all fair. About doing the right things to attract the qualified folks of color to even apply in the first place, and then making the rest of the process actually level - like getting some color (the little we have in the first place) involved in the hiring process.

But nobody ever understands. It's a fruitless, unsatisfying endeavour. And it just makes me wonder if I really need to put myself through more of this crap.

But, of course, I do. And that brings me to my OTHER hiring committee. This one is me and two white women. And due to my busy schedule, I cannot be directly involved in the interview process. And that really worries me. Because now you've got the folks of color coming into an interview with no indication of representation in the organization. Folks that are confronting the same kind of mind-numbing sense of "other"-ness of the rest of their life as they interview for a job - without at least one browner person to help mitigate that.

And there's no real way around it. I'm trying to get myself some phone-time with these folks, but their impressions on the other two-thirds of the hiring committee will be happening separate from that. So they could very well flounder or not be able to connect in their person-to-person interviews, giving a negative taste (understandably) to my hiring counterparts. So even if I do connect with them on the phone and then make my appeal, it comes off as the token person of color trying to get another "unqualified" person of color hired as de facto "affirmative action."

Because the interview process is so inherently biased towards white folks, but the "white-as-norm" mentality makes the same white people doing the hiring unaware of it on any sort of intuitive level. And so they think the interview demonstrates "qualifications" to an objective degree. When, really, it's a test to see how well you can follow middle-class, white cultural norms.

Which, in some cases, is a necessary qualification for a job. But, in others - like working with and actually relating to kids of color and/or those in poverty - it's mostly irrelevant. And yet - it's probably the primary factor in most hires (past a certain level). Am I starting to get my point across?

It's one more hidden handicap for folks of color in this systemic game called white privilege. The hiring committee can say, "we interviewed a number of minority candidates, but they just didn't interview well," and then their hands (and consciences) are clean. When, really, it's not so different from interviewing some folks you don't know for a job, then saying they just didn't connect on the same level as that guy you went to high school with.

Nobody would hesitate to say that the latter situation is unfair and perhaps even unethical. And yet, nobody seems to say that the same thing happening with people of color interviewing with mostly-white staff or committees is anything but "equal."

Let me give you a stark example to finish off my point:

What if the middle-class white woman candidate had to interview with a room of five black males who grew up in the inner city? And she was competing with another black male who grew up in the inner city? The white woman doesn't get hired, and that's when the cries of "reverse-racism" would come flying - even if the woman had a horrible interview due to being uncomfortable, etc. while the black male connected and really seemed confident in his interview.

Now tell me that the odds aren't heavily stacked against the candidates of color in this business.

That's what I thought. And that's why my ability to hope is really taking a hit these days. Nothing's ever enough . . .

* I'm going to be purposely vague in a lot of this out of respect to the applicants and the organizations I work for.

** My focus was on racial background, but I talked about economics, as well.

*** And before anybody starts telling me I hate white women - in my line of work, it's heavily-weighted towards white females. It just is. And that was who was on my hiring committees. If it happened to be all white men, or only Latino females, or all anything else, all the same reasoning would apply.

Success!!!

2009-05-02T08:01:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted in two weeks. Because I've been busier than I've ever been at any other point in my life (I think I really mean that, too). But the biggest part of that came to a head yesterday: the Asian Youth Conference.** After all the stress and late nights, working on the weekends, waking up in the middle of the night remembering something to do or somebody to contact - it's over.

My part in the conference was as Program Coordinator***. What that entailed is that I was basically in charge of most of the things in full view during the actual conference (as opposed to the "behind-the-scenes" fundraising, food, t-shirts, things like that). So I developed most of the workshops and recruited and trained the facilitators to run them. I scripted and was responsible for the smooth running of the Opening and Closing programs. I brought in the midday entertainment (a mostly-Asian b-boy "breakdancing" crew). And I did all the scheduling for the day of (including assigning 500 students and their chaperones to workshop rotations, trying to give students their preferences while simultaneously mixing them with other schools but making sure they had their chaperones with them).

Now - I'm not listing all those things to brag about how impressive I am (although I am). But rather, I want to make my responsibilities clear, so you can imagine the level of stress that was on me going in and throughout the day. Because it basically went like this: if anything went wrong on the day and caused the conference to be a negative experience for anybody - it was my fault. A kid didn't like their workshop? My fault because I designed it, or didn't train the facilitators well enough. A kid didn't get the workshops they wanted? My fault because I assigned the rotations. The Opening Program was weak? My fault because I scripted it poorly, or didn't coach up the student emcees well enough, or didn't have the right music or video or PowerPoint queued up. Workshops run out of worksheets? The b-boy performance suck or go wrong? We get off the precise schedule and have workshops start backing up or kids not completing their activities? Co-facilitators not work well together?

You get the picture. As far as I was concerned, I was responsible for 500 Asian-American high school students maximizing their opportunity to be together in Portland (where that just can't ever happen), making sure they got to share a little bit, connect and feel a bit less alone, and to have a positive experience doing it. If that didn't happen? All my fault.

And so I happily report back: it was a success. A complete success. Sure - not everything went perfectly (usually due to technical difficulties, but kids always have something they're not full happy about), but the kids and adults had an overall positive experience, and those that can want to come back.

After all this theorizing in my head about what things could/would look like, it felt amazing to get some chances to stop for a second (most of the day I was running around like a headless chicken, in half-panic mode) and actually, physically see some cool things, like: a whole bunch of Asian kids in a room sharing their experiences, talking about stereotypes, clapping and cheering for each other, and laughing all at the same time; kids running full-steam around a block of classrooms as their new Asian teammates from other schools cheered them on; students sharing their surprise that none of the Asian kids in the room played a classical instrument, liked math or science, or even played tennis; 500 Asian youth crowded up near a stage bobbing their heads to hip-hop beats and screaming and cheering like crazy for other Asian youth doing back-spins and freezes and becoming heroes in the process. We gave out scholarships. Students got to talk to college reps about going to school. They learned about other scholarship and financial aid opportunities. They spoke up.

And I'm so proud to have been a part of all that. To have contributed to it. I get almost weepy thinking about it. In the Portland Metro Area, where it sometimes feels like the only Asian people are the ones working at the handful of Asian restaurants, 500 high school students of Asian backgrounds all spent a day together. Just looking at the packed bleachers full of Asian kids cheering for each other and their accomplishments . . . It was all just something special.****

So all the stress, all the work, the frustrations - most definitely worth it. Months and months of planning and meetings and work for one whirlwind day - worth it.

And, on top of all that, I got to have my own experience of having this little community of Asian adults all working together to plan this thing and make it happen. We all went out to dinner afterwards (got to eat Chinese food as it's supposed to be - in a large group, all sharing various dishes, talking loudly), and I couldn't help but grin as two members of the committee slipped into Thai for a minute, only to have our Chair threaten, "If you keep that up, I'm going to speak in Vietnamese about you for the rest of the dinner" (and he did, for a minute). I talked to a few of them who had spent time in China about my impending trip. When they asked about my language skills, they asked which dialect my mom spoke (knowing that there actually is no such language as just "Chinese").

So let's just say I definitely got my own non-monetary rewards for this work (I'll be the first to admit that nothing is truly altruistic - nothing).

The only negative? Once again, I'm hesitant about leaving for China (a decision I officially made clear to my school, so I will not be teaching there next year). I have so many ideas about next year's conference. I want to be involved. I suddenly have Asian community in Portland. I'm building things. And I'm going to leave. But - again - it's a hard choice. More bad timing for good things, as I don't want to leave this particular aspect of my life here.

The heaviest blow? Last night, the Chair announced his intention to step down (still being part of the Planning Team, but with less responsibilities) and asked me to take his place . . . It's an opportunity that's hard to pass up. One I'm ready for (and it seems like events have been heading towards this).

A lot to think about. But I'm going to let that sit for a while - no immediate hurry. Because - for right now - I just want a couple more days to revel in the positives and the here-and-now. And that is this: I was part of a special opportunity for Asian-American kids in my community, and it was a success.

And that's all I have left to say.

* Note - the image above is not actually from my conference.

** That's not the actual name of the conference, but I don't want folks looking it up and coming here, thinking that this blog is officially affiliated with the conference in any way. It isn't. This is my personal blog. The conference is part of my professional work, and doesn't necessarily reflect any of the opinions expressed on this site.

*** We haven't updated the website, so if you find it and think that the name listed as PC on the site is my real identity, you'd be wrong.

**** I should note here that - when a random slide of Obama went up - the crowd went CRAZY. Say what you will about his policies and the change he has/hasn't enacted - that man's election changed the world for youth of color in this country.

On "The Class (Entre les Murs)"

2009-04-19T08:05:00.000-07:00

So - you've got this white teacher, right? And he's teaching at an urban school with a diverse population of students. A lot of these students come from poverty and rough backgrounds, a number of them immigrants. He's teaching Language Arts, so they end up doing a self-portrait about themselves. Things are learned.

We've most definitely heard this story before, right? We've seen this movie - "Freedom Writers," "Dangerous Minds" (they're always Language Arts teachers, no?). White savior comes in and - in their first year of teaching - they "save" all these kids of color who aren't capable of saving themselves. We've seen it.

But what we have not seen is "The Class." It's set up so much like these other films, but it's so very different. The first "why"? Probably because it's not an American film. It's French. When Mr. Marin (the teacher in the film) teaches Language Arts, it's called "French." And when François Bégaudeau (the actor and writer and once-teacher) wrote this screenplay, he had no intention of following the b.s. American formula - and in so doing he created something so incredibly original simply because it was real.

This is not a movie for good-feelings. It won't uplift you in the end. There are no answered questions or pat morality tales. The movie ends as murky and frustrating and awkward as it begins - and that is its brilliance. Because - in that - it perfectly mirrors the actual teaching profession.

The movie starts on the first day of school with Mr. Marin (in his fourth year of teaching) and ends on the last day. There is not a single scene played out outside the walls of the school (hence the French name, "Entre les Murs," which means, "Between the Walls"). It's semi-documentary style let's us see exactly what the students and teachers see: a class full of kids from a variety of backgrounds, sometimes learning, often challenging. We get hints of what's going on in their lives, but we do not have the luxury of trite peeks into their home-lives, we are left only with hints - just as in real life.

And the teacher? We see him in staff meetings, as the teachers bicker with each other over how to "punish" the kids effectively. We watch one teacher melt down in frustration in the staff break room. We see Mr. Marin leave late at night, fatigued and worn-down. And then we see the next day of class. Even for Mr. Marin, there is no home-life, no romantic interest down the hall. Nothing to show us his outside world that the students wouldn't know about.

And that's the beauty. It perfectly captures the classroom experience. This strange world where people who don't know each other outside of a very artificial setting share their lives with looks, and shouts, and closing down. People who would never connect in the outside world, who don't understand each other's cultures or perspectives. Sometimes, beautiful things happen. Sometimes, tragedy. Both sides learn from each other (arguably, more so the teacher from the students in these types of situations than the other way around). Nobody leaves fully satisfied.

Mr. Marin screws up. A lot. But he also has strong moments. He cares, but he doesn't understand (even four years in - just like most teachers). He stereotypes his students. He picks on some of them (perhaps unknowingly - perhaps not). He tries his damnedest to do his job under ridiculous circumstances. And the kids? The same. They try. They question. They don't understand, either.

Finally, a film about teaching that doesn't try to glorify. That brings up all the questions and gives no answers. There is no "saving" kids. Teachers come from a different world and judge without understanding - and it frustrates everybody involved. There is so much opposition (from the top on down), that it's amazing that anything positive happens. It only makes sense that a movie like this could only have been written by - and acted by - a former teacher. And I don't know the background behind the actors that play the students - but they are absolutely brilliant. It seemed so real, even though I knew it wasn't a documentary, I often questioned that fact.

This movie is painful on a lot of levels. It brings up issues of class, and race, and sexism without carefully tying off any loose ends. It's raw. And that rawness is what makes it so worth seeing. You want to get a real glimpse into the world of public-school teaching in America? Watch this French film.

And that's the only problem with the movie. That people who do not know any better will watch this and take it as just that: a French film. Allowing the fact of its origin to keep them from understanding its absolute truth to an American education system. I can already imagine all those Freedom-Fry lovin' patriots dismissing the veracity of this film because - Americans wouldn't do that. Trying to think that the system and mentality is different (when it is - at least from what I saw in this film - exactly the same).

And then they'll go back to watching "Dangerous Minds" and think about teaching Language Arts.

When they should be taking this lesson - think twice about teaching. You're probably not going to be good at it. Because, in this system, so few people are.*

* I'll be following up on that statement in a post about "the Myth of Good Teaching" soon.

On Revolutionaries and Politicians

2009-04-14T17:43:00.000-07:00

I was just reading myself some Racialicious, and there was an article that referenced people's disappointment in Obama's lack of obvious measures to help African-Americans. Now, this is nothing new, but it again made me think on something I've been meaning to write about for a long time (but just never seemed to get to).

This is the difference between revolutionaries and politicians.

In brief, a revolutionary is somebody who - through passionate, radical action - sparks drastic change. Most often, we associate revolutionaries with war, of course (because they are generally catalysts for revolution, hence the word). But revolutionaries aren't always fighters. They can be present in times of martial peace. Because, to me - revolutionaries are folks who spark change through non-political means. Revolutionaries can be people like the American Civil Rights leaders of the 60s, who sparked change through non-compliance with racist laws. They can be folks who spark grassroots movements to change systems that governing bodies can't or won't change.

Politicians, on the other hand, work through government. These are literal politicians who run for elected office, but they can also be lobbyists and other folks who drive their desires through the hoops and bureaucracy that is the government machine. These people also bring about change, but more subtly. They work through compromise and diplomacy, and an attempt to establish a middle ground.

Both sides can bring about just change. Both sides can bring about destruction and injustice. They just have different mentalities and methods in doing so.

And the big problem people already disappointed by Obama have is that they mistook him for a revolutionary. His charisma and speaking ability conveyed passion to his listeners, and they mistook their own inspired passion as that of revolution. His historic rise to the White House was a symbol of change that people mistook for a step towards revolution. These folks got caught up in the wave and thought they had voted a revolutionary into the White House. And now - as they start to realize that sweeping reforms are not forthcoming, they are disappointed.

But the key here is that they voted Obama into office. Revolutionaries do not get voted in (until after their side of the revolution has prevailed, at least). Revolutionaries put themselves into power. Through acts of war or a passionate motivation of the people. Obama got the vote.

And, to do so, he had to be a politician. He didn't stomp and call out all the ills of this country. He didn't condemn its sick history. He didn't demand justice. He ran the middle ground. He noted this country's past, then said how great it had become. He called out his predecessor's mistakes, but never said he'd pull our armies out of foreign lands. He made use of his mixed heritage to say how white folks and black folks and everyone else walk the same road, more or less. He compromised. Because that's what you do, as a politician. That's how you get elected. That's how you bring about slow and steady change within our governmental system, and within the parameters of the law (just or otherwise).

And he's not going to stop being a politician now that he's in. He's part of the machine - there's no override switch once you're in. And so you will NOT see Obama suddenly call attention to race and disparities in this country - because a politician can't do that and survive.

Although, neither can a revolutionary.

The photo above is of Patrice Lumumba, the first elected Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo. He served that role for less than a year before he was murdered (with Belgian and US CIA complicity). His newly-independent country fell into chaos at around the same time (more or less as he got himself elected), and it has probably been one of the most war-torn, historically, nations in all the world since.

And the question is: how did that happen? Because it's widely accepted that Lumumba was an amazing man. Passionate, brilliant, and - most importantly for a revolutionary - charismatic. His fire and determination fueled his country's fight for independence from Belgian -and helped them prevail. He sparked drastic change. His vision for the future inspired other African nations to fight for their own independence and to try to work together to rebuild.

And yet - as his government tried to settle in, he already had his army mutinying, and multiple rivals tearing the people apart. The UN swept in, the CIA chose their best interests, and Lumumba was murdered. And the country hasn't seen real hope since.

And that's the problem with revolutionaries - they are not about compromise. And so, as they are inspiring people to their cause, they also end up burning bridges. They are also about passion and big ideas - and government has no time for big ideas when all the little things need taking care of. Revolutionaries are two-to-three steps ahead of reality, and they often pay for that. Because revolutionaries do not make good politicians. Once the drastic change has come, most revolutionaries are unable to settle into the nitty-gritty daily grind of simply running things.

And so? Both are necessary. We need the revolutionaries to challenge the status quo and kick people into tearing down accepted injustices. But we need the politicians to calm things down and keep people fed and employed. To keep the water running and the utilities covered. We need revolutionaries to think big and outside of the box. And we need the politicians to work within the box to steadily enlarge it.

It's hard to accept, sometimes. Because politicians often seem to end up so soulless in their roles of compromisers. Constantly pandering to their public and trying to keep the most powerful interests happy. We love the revolutionaries because they're so inspiring and make such a good story. So many of them end up dying at the height of their glory - making it easy to turn them into heroes. But, to put it in more day-to-day terms: it's the politicians that keep the family fed and the electricity running.

I often find myself wondering which side I tend towards. I definitely lean to the revolutionary in terms of my "big ideas" and demand for "justice." It's so easy for me to see all that's wrong with society and condemn it. And in doing so, I often jump right past realistic modes of change. However, I also find myself playing the slow-and-steady middle ground quite often. I try not to attack my opponents, try to slowly bring them over to my side. But I have no patience for the steady grind and day-to-day management of "the little things."

So which way do I turn? What will be my legacy when I look back on my small fight for change in the world? Am I going to be the bread-winner and take care of the kids' daily needs, or am I going to dream big and risk them going hungry (with the possibility of making it big and bringing back that huge paycheck)? The revolutionaries earn our acclaim (or hatred) while the politicians earn our contempt (or disappointment). Who do I want to be?

Obama? Or Lumumba? Or is there a somewhere-in-between?

Overwhelmed

2009-04-08T20:32:00.000-07:00

This month is going to be a LONG one. I have so many different aspects of my life coming to a head RIGHT NOW, and it's kind of kicking my ass. All things I - more or less - voluntarily signed on for; but some bad timing for the overall effect. And let me say on the front end that I know none of you give a sh-- about any of this, but I need to just drop it somewhere, so I can relax for a second.

First of all - my job is stressful. It takes a TON of energy to do right. Add to that one of our staff members being out for the last month, so we've had a sub in since, and everything is just THAT much harder for everyone else when a sub is in the building. A number of areas where the rest of us have to add just a bit more to our workload.

Add to that the fact that the budget situation has caused drastic changes to come down on our organization. People are losing jobs. Programs are being restructured. We're about to do some new hires at key positions in the organization.

And - yesterday - while the whole organizational staff came together to hear the full news, I saw that the hiring committees were 100% white. Not a drop of color. In an organization that serves around 50% kids of color. A relationship-based organization that's all about connecting to our kids and families. And I'm not going to say that white folks can't do that, but it's not so welcoming or comforting for the kids when only 13% of the entire staff have color (and 0% at the decision-maker level). So I got myself onto that hiring committee. I had to. Because I refuse to just let that happen and not have some say on that. And I've scheduled a meeting with the top to bluntly discuss this.

But that's not all I'm doing. At the end of the month is the Asian youth conference I'm running programs for. So that means I am desperately working to finalize facilitators, finish my workshop designs (three of them that I'm directly in charge of), schedule training times for the 20-plus facilitators. I'm reserving rooms. Trying to find donations for raffle prizes. Preparing an opening and closing, working with student volunteers to help out. Meeting with the management team every week. Writing things up. Re-writing. Re-scheduling. Contacting schools and staff and trying to get kids.

At the same time, we're starting to ramp up for the summer art camp I work for. So I'm trying to recruit new staff for that (specifically, folks of color - again to represent the kids - because that has never really happened unless I've pushed it). Trying to get kids signed up. Working with admin to design the training plan, re-vamp things that didn't work. Lock in things that did. All "voluntary," of course. All of this "voluntary."

But wait - my brother is getting married at the beginning of May. I'm the best man. My mother is organizing a Chinese tea ceremony that I am hosting. We're planning that out (because that's what I do - plan and facilitate things). On top of that, I'm getting his bachelor activities together (and we refuse to do the "traditional" go fly somewhere and get drunk and forget it all - so I've had to put real effort into that). I'm writing and recording a song to serve as my "best man speech" at the wedding (which I intend to memorize and perform, of course).

Not to mention some personal things falling out in my life right now.

And I haven't even done my taxes yet.

So I'm a bit tired. I have so much I want to do beyond this - creative endeavors, writing, recording, etc. But I just don't have the time or energy. And I've never experienced that before - literally not having the time to do the things I want/need to do for myself. It's kind of crazy.

And, in the end - I've brought it all upon myself. Every last bit (with the exception of taxes) is 100% voluntary. Nobody's forcing me to do it. It's not getting me paid (my job is, of course, but I could half-ass it if my pride would allow it). I took it on - I want to do all of it. So I don't really have the right to complain (and - on a general level - I'm not).

But - damn. I'm tired. My problem is that I think too highly of myself. I think I know too much. I think that - if I don't do some of these things, nobody will. And it's kind of true. No person of color was going to be on that hiring committee. Nobody at the camp is recruiting folks of color. But who's to say that I'm doing a very good job of it?

Beyond that, though - I took on the conference planning because I wanted to do it. I wanted to create something (the workshops) for kids that I never got as a kid. I thought I could do it better. I wanted my brother's stuff do go right (plus, I'm the best man), so I'm going all out - he's my freaking brother, right?

But my overlarge eyes are getting me into trouble right now. I just read a research article that said that exerting self-control in one situation makes it much less likely that you will be able to exert self-restraint in another situation that closely follows (no matter whether they are related at all). So wearing myself out on everything else makes it less likely that I'll make the best decisions in other matters. Being tactful and diplomatic with the conference management team and the facilitators and donors I'm working with makes it much less likely that I will do the same at my other job. Or with other folks in my life.

And - it's absolutely true. Maybe it's good, in some way. Maybe I wouldn't have been as likely to just schedule a meeting with the top to give them a piece of my mind. Maybe I would have let other things go without speaking up.

All that said - this is going to be a LONG month. And I'm looking forward to the end of it. But very interested in seeing how it all pans out.

I may write a little bit less, as a result, but I'm sure I'll have a lot of interesting insights and some new perspective on a lot when it's all over. Stick around, and I'll share a little with the rest of you (or not, if you'd rather I just shut up about my "real" life).

Big Trouble In Little China: Then and Now

2009-04-06T20:16:00.000-07:00

When I was 6 years old, I went to see a movie with my family: Big Trouble in Little China. This was a big deal for me on multiple levels - first, because my family hardly ever went to see movies in the theatre; and second, because this proved to be my newest favorite movie EVER!!!

And it kind of still is.

As a 6 year-old (and later years, when I kept watching over and over to the point of obsession*), the movie offered me all the exciting action I could ask for. There were cool martial arts stunts, explosions, guns, magic and an exciting adventure. There were monsters and gods. And there were a TON of Chinese main characters! Badguys, sure, but also the goodguys - and ALL of them were total badasses. Lightning (pictured above - one of the "Three Storms," who were god-like villains) was probably the coolest character ever created, and he didn't even speak English!**

Of course, Kurt Russell was the focal protagonist, but he was one of only three white people in the entire film. And - better yet - he was totally out of his element and needed massive help and support (or, really, leadership) from the Chinese guys all around him. Equally focal to the story was his best friend, Wang, who was all kinds of awesome. As a kid, when I was playing with my best friend (a white kid), he would be "Jack" (Kurt Russell's character), and I would be "Wang" - and I definitely thought I had gotten the better end of that exchange.***

I watched that movie so much that I can almost recite the whole thing word-for-word, even now. And I've found myself wondering - why that movie? There have been so many martial-arts-type movies since my childhood - why was that one so special to me?

And so I now turn my adult eye and mind to the film, and I think I get it. Because, considering it came out in 1986, that movie was revolutionary in its depiction of minorities. The Chinese people weren't the weirdos and extras in the movie. Instead, Jack - the muscle-bound white "hero" - is the stranger. He constantly "talks the talk" while being exposed for his cluelessness. He's totally out of his element, and it's the Chinese characters who have to bring him along for the day to be saved. Some of the plot-line is drawn from ancient Chinese mythology, and it is treated with relative respect. Again, Jack's questioning of the "myths" is depicted to show him as the unbelieving barbarian - while the Chinese folks who know their truth go about taking care of business.

Even better - the one strong white character in the movie? A woman (played by Kim Cattrall of Sex in the City fame). She's familiar with Chinatown and its subculture. She's strong. She mocks Jack's ridiculous attempts to hit on her. Granted, she ends up getting captured and "saved," but she takes a leading role in her own rescue (while Jack botches it up numerous times).

And then let's go to the one interracial romance - between a Chinese guy and a white woman. And the guy is hardly exotified in this one.

Shall we continue? Outside of the one Chinese guy who ends up with the white woman, every single other Chinese guy in the movie is a complete and total badass - and the dork even gets his badass moment. There are no dorky Chinese nerds running around. All the stereotypes depicted in so many movies before and since - absent.

And - yeah, yeah, yeah - there's a lot of martial arts, but still . . . "Forbidden Kingdom" is a mockery. "Big Trouble in Little China" says - those Chinese dudes can more than hold their own.

And, of course, I'm not trying to make this out to be the perfect movie - it's still a ridiculous action-adventure at the end of the day. The few Chinese women in the movie aren't exactly shining beacons of strength. But - for when it was made - it's kind of amazing. Hell - even compared to present-day movies, it still holds its own.

A movie about a ridiculous, macho white trucker. But a ridiculous, macho white trucker who just so happens to like to hang out in Chinatown after making his deliveries, playing fan-tan (a Chinese gambling game) with his Chinese buddies, and whose best friend happens to be a Chinese guy. In fact, they are such good friends that - without a thought - this macho white trucker gets himself involved in a deadly adventure to help his friend get back his girl.

You think that concept didn't grab a hold of me? You think - even as a 6 year-old - I didn't notice how his Chinese friend imparts wisdom and fights like a badass while trying to keep the confused white guy from getting himself killed? You think I didn't soak in all the various cool Chinese heroes (and even cooler villains) filling the screen at all times, even if I was too young to really digest it all on a conscious level?

Because there were no other movies like it. Not before. Arguably - not after. A big, crazy American action-adventure movie where the Asian guys completely stole the show and were meant to. And this was a movie starring Kurt Russell and directed by John Carpenter! A movie that just sunk its claws into my 6 year-old heart and never let go - even 23 years later.

Of course, it bombed in the theaters. Kurt Russell even noted going into it that it was going to struggle, "This is a difficult picture to sell because . . . It's a mixture of the real history of Chinatown in San Francisco blended with Chinese legend and lore . . . There are only a handful of non-Asian actors in the cast".****

But it has lived on. Even prevailed to become a huge cult classic. Kind of like a minority who doesn't let him/herself be silenced - if you stand up for yourself long enough, somebody's going to take notice.

So I suggest that all of you go check out the film. See if you can combine the joy of your six-year-old self with that of your conscious adult mind and rejoice that a movie with all this goodness was made two decades ago. And then ask yourself why so few like it have been made since . . .

* I remember watching the entire film all scrambled on tv when the pay-per-view channels were somewhat discernible at random times throughout a showing.

** He was the only Storm with no speaking lines, and - judging from Thunder's thick accent - it had to be because he didn't speak English at all . . .

*** When I was alone, I was "Lightning."

**** This particular quote ripped from Wikipedia (I swear I do real research on my own time . . .)

No Longer Brown?

2009-04-02T19:58:00.000-07:00

When I was in Hawaii a couple weeks back, I realized something: I'm not brown, anymore.

In fact, I haven't been brown for the last 10-plus years.

But I used to be.

See - I grew up in California (SF Bay Area). Through most of my years there, I wore shorts and a t-shirt (even when the weather should have prevented me from doing so). I was on a swim team in the summer. I was exposed to the sun on a very regular basis. And, as a result, I was brown.

And when I say "brown," I mean brown. Brown-skinned. Not tan or darker-than-pale. Brown like folks that refer to themselves as brown look.

Then I moved out of California (to Michigan, first; eventually to Portland), and my brown days came to an end. I remember my shock the first time I got flat sunburnt when I came back to California one summer. Since I had never been pale enough to burn as a kid, I didn't ever think about sunscreen. So when my pale-ass came out of a Michigan winter to hang out at the beach in California, I went up like a torch. And it absolutely shocked me.

I remember thinking, "but I don't sunburn." It took me forever to realize the obvious: that being bundled up and out of sunlight for many months had caused me to turn pale. And pale skin is not equipped to handle large quantities of sunlight naturally.

Now I've become used to it. I wear sunscreen during the summer or am very conscious about my exposure. In Hawaii, I was doubly-conscious. I do get tan during the summer now, but in Hawaii, I realized how far from brown I end up these days, even in the summer. And it was an interesting thought.

Because, in many ways, I am much more consciously brown, in terms of political orientation, identity, and lifestyle now than I was as a child. It's been more or less a perfect inverse correlation - as my skin-tone got lighter, my mentality got darker.

Seems strange, at first, but it makes perfect sense when given a bit of analysis: as a kid, when I was actually brown-skinned, I lived in a place where other people like me were (relatively) common. I didn't stand out so much. My friends spanned a number of shades, my mix wasn't particularly shocking - I didn't really have to worry about it to a large degree (obviously, I never fully fit in, either, but it wasn't so blatant in the Bay).

So - as I began to spend time (and formative, conscious-raising years) in climes and regions where the overall skin-tone was pale, I found myself standing out more. I was very regularly "the only one" that looked like me. I didn't know people with common experiences of identity. People's understanding of race and "otherness" was a little less sophisticated. And so, as the sunlight left me, so did my ability to just "let things go" and feel comfortable.

I became more and more dependent upon the media to find people that represented me (and we know how that all ended up) as real-life representations ceased to exist. I became more and more conscious of my real place in the world.

And so here I stand: no longer any darker than "tan" in skin-tone, but "brown" in mentality. Maybe it's some weird yin-yang balance thing for mixed folks like me: the white and the non-white side must be in balance, somehow. So my skin must be paler if my mind is going to get darker, or else my whole life-force will get too out of whack.

It's not completely crazy: because I was at my most unbalanced (mentally) during those first few years of transition; the years when my skin-tone lost its pigmentation, but I wasn't conscious enough to fully understand what was happening to me (and around me). As a kid - when my skin was darker - I was relatively happy and what-not with some folks like me around, while still taking little issue with the general white world around me. Now, I am relatively happy and what-not with my mind darker - but more focused - and my skin lighter.

Maybe I'm on to something here. Maybe if I moved to Hawaii, I would have to lose a little bit of my political edge to compensate for my darkening skin. Maybe if I moved to the Arctic, I would have to become militant to handle permanently-pale skin. Who knows?

You readers will have to tell me - do I chill out a little bit on the rage during the summer months? Are there other instances of skin-mind color-balancing for the other mixed folks out there?

And what would ever happen if I were to artificially tan?! Now there's a thought-experiment for the ages . . .

* No, I don't actually think it works like that, by the way.

On Perspective and Inspiration

2009-03-31T21:17:00.000-07:00

I have a very high opinion of myself. That probably goes without saying, being a blogger - thinking that "what I have to say" is important enough to justify a regular readership. But - sometimes - I just realize how not special I am. And it kind of feels good.

I just spend the last two hours reading over scholarship applications for the AAYLC (see sidebar for more information), and I've come away humbled. After poring over application after application by kids who've overcome difficulties that I never had to think about as a kid, I'm inspired.

These are first-generation kids that came to the States in their teens, not speaking a lick of English, living in poverty with parents that spoke no English (and thus could not help them navigate the education system), and were still somehow able to dominate, academically. On top of that, these are students who volunteered their time helping other students with similar backgrounds - giving back to their community for real (instead of the lip-service version that many other more-privileged students tend to do). All while working nearly full-time jobs to help support their families.

Not all of the applicants came from this type of background, of course, but very many did - and they all blew me away. Their level of maturity and strength at such young ages really gave me a perspective on my own privilege (my mother immigrated to the States, but I was American from birth, with parents that met in college).

My favorite? A young lady that mirrors the story cited above. What put her above and beyond in my heart (trying to choose who's 'more deserving' in this group is painful and unfair)* was her opening reference to our rich, white male-dominated society and the importance of underrepresented groups finding a voice as a community (I wish I could quote her, but I don't want to push her right to confidentiality). I imagine that - in some cases - that reference would come back to bite her (because who do you think runs the admissions process for most universities?), but it made me smile knowing that her bravery and raw honesty in addressing that found the right reader, in this case.

So I want to give a head-nod to these kids (all of them, really) for giving me a much-needed shot of inspiration and hope for the future this evening. I doubt somebody like me was their intended audience - or, certainly, who they thought they would be inspiring - but that makes it all the sweeter.

I shall sleep happily tonight - a much humbler CVT than when I woke up this morning. And that's very much a good thing.

* And I have to say that the fact that all of these kids don't get their college educations paid for is an f-ing injustice and a sad reflection on the state of "higher learning" and privilege in this country.

Hapa in Hawaii: Mixed Feelings

2009-03-29T10:49:00.000-07:00

So, in my previous post (Hapa in Hawaii: Kumu Kahua), I covered how incredible it felt to be in Honolulu, surrounded by folks that actually looked like me, for one of the first (and only) times in my life. And - due to that - I kind of think of Hawaii as my adopted homeland in a lot of ways.*

But - being me - I wasn't able to just stop there and bathe in the warm glow of blending in. No - I had to go deeper. I had to really examine why this place existed - an island where a majority of the people resemble me, phenotypically-speaking.

And, of course, it comes down to history. Due to its position 3,000 miles from any continent (Asia, Australia, or Americas), Hawaii was able to avoid the earliest rushes of colonial expansion and empire. It wasn't until 1778 when white colonizers arrived on Hawaiian shores with Captain Cook.** Shortly thereafter, King Kamehameha I was able to unify the islands under his rule through a relatively quick war of conquest. Ironically, evidence suggests that Kamehameha was able to defeat his opponents largely due to his use of European guns and weaponry (brought by American and European traders).

A united Hawaii, in theory, should have led to furthering Hawaiian strength. Sadly, it was all downhill from there.

Over the course of the next 100 years, foreign interests (mostly white American businessmen) steadily gained a firmer foothold on the islands. By the mid-1800s, there were basically two opposing sources of power in Hawaii - the Hawaiian-run government that held political power and legal authority, and the American businessmen, who controlled Hawaiian economic power. We've seen this sad story a million times - so what happened next, when American capitalism and greed was pitted against an indigenous government?

Right. In 1893 U.S. marines landed and helped the American business interests (led by Sanford B. Dole, founder of the Dole fruit empire) overthrow the Hawaiian government. In 1895, Queen Lili'uokalani was arrested for treason when she attempted to regain power. Can I repeat that? The Queen of a previously-independent state was arrested for treason by American business interests when she tried to rule her previously-independent state. In 1898, President McKinley (I'm glad he was shot, but I should note here that Grover Cleveland - McKinley's predecessor - was actually opposed to annexation) signed the resolution of annexation to make Hawaii a U.S. territory. Notably, native Hawaiians weren't allowed to vote on the decision to petition for annexation. Upon joining the union, Sanford Dole became the first governor.

- Brief interruption - Dole becoming governor is like if Lee Scott, Jr. (Walmart CEO) took over the Phillipines and then the U.S. made him governor.*** Put that way, though - would you really be surprised if it actually happened?

Anyway. So - Hawaii was colonized by the U.S., had its freedom curtailed, and was forced to become part of the Union (without native Hawaiian input). Deep down, somewhere, everybody understands this, but let's just make it clear: Hawaii is a colony, plain and simple. And, just like with the U.S. mainland, it has never won its independence. The only difference being native Hawaiians are actually still visible and harder to ignore on the islands.

Okay - so where do all the Asian folk come in? Well, unfortunately for Dole and his buddies, Hawaiian annexation came 30 years after slavery was made illegal, so free labor wasn't available. So they did what American business interests have been doing for centuries (and continue to this day) - they found cheap immigrant labor to work under slave-like conditions. It's no coincidence that in 1865 - only two years after the Emancipation Proclamation and the year of the end of the Civil War and realization that the North had won - ships from Hawaii arrived in China to bring back plantation laborers.

By the early 1880s, 22% of the islands' population was Chinese. Enter the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1884. The Chinese well dried up as Chinese laborers were no longer allowed to come to the States. Suddenly, an influx of Japanese workers appeared on the scene. Then, when the Japanese island population became too large (and deemed a "threat" by white Americans), the Filipinos began to roll in. The first large wave of Korean immigration began around that same time.

So, by the early 1900s, Hawaii's ethnic demographics fell out like this: 24% "colored" (which would include Filipinos and other Asians, as well as black and other ethnicities), 23% white, 22% Native, 21% Japanese, and 8% Chinese (that Exclusion Act sure was effective). As far as the hierarchy went, you had the Asian laborers at the bottom with indigenous Hawaiians, and the white folks running the show at the top. So - as usually occurs with such distinct class divisions - some racial mixing began with the "lower" levels. Various Asian ethnicities began to mix (a little, there is still a lot of intra-Asian cultural hostility) with each other, as well as some mixing with native Hawaiians.

So - 100 years of racial mixing led to the racially-ambiguous look of the people living in Hawaii presently. Few with native blood aren't mixed to some degree.

But we're not finished yet. Because we still haven't explained the explosion of "hapas" that hit the islands some decades back.

Interestingly, along with the Asian laborers coming in at the beginning of the 20th century was a large population of Portuguese immigrant laborers. At that point, Portuguese wasn't white, they were on the same class-level with the rest of the laborers, and a large numbers of mixed folks in Hawaii with white blood have Portuguese ancestry.

But wait - there's more. Starting in the 1980s, Asian economies (specifically Japanese) began to gain momentum. And, with the increase in economic power of these Asian peoples came with their increase in political power (and levels of acceptance) in Hawaii. So, as Japanese (and some other Asians) began to mix, politically and socially, at the highest class levels, they also began to mix their bloodstreams. Et voila! The birth of the modern "hapa" movement.

Whoo! So here we are - present-day. "Hapa pride" is a catch-phrase, and the majority of mainland Americans think "Hawaiian" folks look like me. If we're talking about people living in the state of Hawaii, then that's true, of course. But if we're talking about indigenous Hawaiians? Not at all.

And so, after putting all these pieces together, I realized that my "blending in" as a hapa-haole in Hawaii is actually a consequence of racial privilege. The majority of the hapas on the islands come from a relatively privileged background in comparison to the indigenous Hawaiians. The only reason folks of my mixture exist in such large amounts on the islands is due to American colonization and Asian economic dominance.

So, really - my "look" is a symbolic representation of American empire and the rule of capitalism. My "blending in" in Hawaii served as a bridge for further connection from myself to native Hawaiian issues, but, in a way, I am a cause of those same issues.

What do I do with this knowledge? How does this affect my excitement at the opportunity to see people like me all over the place?

I'm not really sure. My first step is open acknowledgement of it. I'm not going to hide from it. I will examine it, deeply, and accept whatever I find. And then I'll share it. Through my writing on this blog, as well as artistically (I already performed a piece that addresses this). The second step is to allow myself to still appreciate my opportunity to be "normal" - no matter the historical significance of that. Being any kind of racial mixture is a remnant of cultural expansion and empire, and there's no avoiding it. In spite of how people with my particular phenotype came into existence, I still have the right to feel a sense of normality.

And, finally - I will continue to look for ways to rectify past wrongs. It isn't my fault that things are the way they are, but nor is it my subsequent right to allow things to remain that way. As a direct recipient of benefits wrought by privilege (however small and fleeting, in this case), it is my responsibility to do something.

And so I will. Because I refuse to hide in ignorance, no matter how soothing - even when it comes disguised as something I've longed for for so long.

* China being the "motherland," literally, but obviously not really my place. The mainland U.S. more or less the "fatherland," but - again - not fully my place in a lot of ways. My "homeland," then, being where both sides meet.

** At this point, y'all don't need me to explain why I qualify "white" explorers . . .

*** I use the Phillipines as an example, because their current state of being a quasi-U.S. colony with heavy military presence mirrors that of Hawaii before the overthrow . . .

On Donors and Board Members

2009-03-27T08:50:00.000-07:00

I know, I know - more Honolulu posts promised, and I just haven't done it yet (haven't even gotten to the dark side, the real history). But my life is ridiculously busy right now, so I'm doing my best.

I'll take this moment to reference the sidebar - please read up on the AAYLC, any kind of help would be most appreciated.

In the meantime, I wanted to drop a quick post on an experience I had last night:

I don't know if I've mentioned it on this blog, but - on top of teaching - I work for a non-profit youth arts organization (primarily at the camp in the summer, but we run year-round programming in schools, mentoring kids and working with their families, etc.). So - last night - I found myself helping out at a fundraising event.

The event was - basically - a casual (but high-quality) hors d'ouvre-y kind of thing consisting of possible private donors (individuals with money, basically) and board members (also, coincidentally, individuals with money) shmoozing it up, watching a little video about the program, and listening to the founder (and one ex-camper) talk a bit. Relatively small (about 60 people).

So my job was managing the door. Since the event was held in a huge building (our offices are contained within a large advertising firm's building), we needed folks to help the donors and board members actually GET to the event upstairs. So my job was to greet folks as they came in, and send them to (and help them get on) the employee elevator (which needs an access key), where another staffer would be waiting, to accompany them to the event location.

Easy enough. Except the event, as I mentioned, was in a huge advertising agency building. At the tail end of work hours. So there was a constant flow of people coming and going - ad employees, visitors, etc. So I had to figure out which people were there for the fundraiser, and who weren't.

That should have made it difficult. Sadly, it wasn't.

I only asked one person who wasn't there for the event if they were there for the fundraiser. Every single other individual I was able to pinpoint the second they walked in the door, so I could go up to them and help them before they even asked for help. Every single one.

At this point, you may ask why (or you probably have it figured out)? Why was I able to do that? How? Do I have some incredible powers of intuition or ESP that others do not have?

Nope, I just leaned - heavily - on my own stereotypes of what a "private donor" or "board member" would look like and went with it. And it was 99% accurate, in this case. What was I looking for - more "fancily" dressed (perhaps "elegant" is more accurate - it wasn't a formal event at all, some people were in sweaters, but there was a particular price-threshold for what people were wearing, regardless of its formality, that I was able to see immediately). Then there was age - I assumed that they would be around 50 and older. I assumed race, as well - but that wasn't going to keep me from asking folks of color if they seemed to fit the other categories or looked lost.

But I didn't need to. Because not a single person at the event (with the exception of myself and a couple other staff members) wasn't white. Not one.

Not surprising, in the least, of course - but not exactly what I wanted to see. Considering the percentage (probably around half) of kids of color that are part of our program , it would have been nice to see a little bit of representation at the highest levels. It's harder to tell if anybody represented the kids' socioeconomic class (most from poverty) - I would assume no, but I can't say for sure that none of the folks that came hadn't "worked up from nothing." But knowing how often that actually happens, I have my guesses.

So - another stereotype that I didn't want reinforced held up to scientific rigour. 100% is pretty significant, statistically-speaking. It's a stereotype I know I hold - this one consciously - but I constantly hope to be proven an ass on this one; but it has yet to happen. It's the same with my school - the people that run things are white. Period. And so it's so hard for me to explain to any of them the importance of real diversity, as well as help them with some cultural competence in how they look at the program, and the changes they choose to make (or not).

Frustrating.

But I want to end on a positive note:

At first glance, the founder of the camp (and subsequent programming) would seem like the stereotype, as well. An older white guy with a TON of money (half the people that come to these events are just trying to get near him because he's so high on the social-status ladder). Further stereotypes would follow, regarding his intentions, what he thinks is important, how he uses his money, etc.

But I am happy to say that that is not the case. He has positive intentions, of course - but we all know how helpful intentions are when poorly carried out. No - importantly - he still has humility, in that, in spite of all these reasons he could feel like he's a god walking on dirt, he just treats people right. And, even more surprisingly - considering, he is constantly trying to learn and better himself. He's probably the only person of his status and position that could listen to me do some of my more race-and-class-conscious political poetry at camp (you should have seen some of the "lesser" board members cringe), and I know he's actually hearing it. He's come up and talked to me afterwards - not in the manner that uncomfortable white folks with money feel like they have to ("politically correct" and all that), but to delve deeper.

It's cool. He's let me and other staff push through changes and have conversations about working with our kids (about class or race) even while he admits that he doesn't fully understand/agree with it. And that's really an amazing thing - because, obviously, he has the power to veto everything (it also says a lot that he spends a large portion of the summer at camp with the kids, as opposed to being too "important" to mix it up a little). He's not perfect, of course - we have our points of contention - but he's actually trying; and that makes all the difference.

So. That kind of came off like an ass-kissing session there, but I just feel the need to point out the positive when I see it. The instances of hope. The breaking of a stereotype that all too often seems so true. It's not always about race. Or money. With a little humility and openness, people can transcend those boundaries.

I just wish it happened on a statistically-significant level.

Hapa in Hawaii: Kumu Kahua Theatre

2009-03-23T21:25:00.000-07:00

So here's the moment of truth - which guy in the above photo is the CVT? Maybe the one in the middle, getting held back - he is pretty fiery.* Or maybe he's the one grimacing as he tries to hold the main guy back - the CVT tries to quash conflict. The guy in the way back is too old to be the CVT. But it could be any of the other ones. From what you can see, any of these guys could be hapa (mixed Asian/white).

So which one is me?

None of them, actually. This is a PR photo for a theatre production in Honolulu. However, what is important is that, knowing what you all know about my physical appearance - any of these guys could be me.

Let's say that again - any of the actors in the play pictured could be me, in terms of phenotype. How often have I ever been able to say that about any live performance art (music, theatre, sport, or otherwise)? Never.

Until last Saturday night.

To kick off my little "Hapa in Honolulu" series, I'm going to start at the end. My last night. And my best night.

To end my trip to Oahu, I decided I wanted to soak up the "blending-in" good feelings as heavily as possible. So I found this local theatre company, Kumu Kahua Theatre (KKT), that focuses on plays about Hawaiian people, written by Hawaiians, casting Hawaiian actors. From my research, it became clear that this was not going to be like every other theatre experience from my past - watching a mostly-white cast confront mostly-white issues for a mostly-white audience - and me standing out alone in the middle. No - this time, I might actually blend in.

And the second I walked up to the theatre to get my ticket, I knew I wasn't going to be disappointed. The audience was waiting outside for the doors to open, and I couldn't help but get giddy as I looked at them. It was a collection of Asian, mixed-Asian, mixed-other, and Hawaiian folks waiting. I slid in and nobody really noticed, while a couple random theatre-goers stood out like sore thumbs, visually - the handful of white folks.

It was a complete 180 on any other audience experience I've had in the States (except maybe in the Bay, but even there, white is the noticeable majority). I wanted to run around hugging people. I couldn't stop smiling. All these people kind of looked like me! Amazing.

So the doors opened up, and I walked in. One of the troupe members was showing people the way, and he could have passed for my brother - very clearly hapa. A bit Asian, a little white, maybe something else. I greeted him enthusiastically (and probably freaked him out a bit - I might have been a bit too eager about it all) and entered the theatre.

I was one of the first people in, so there were plenty of seating options and - for the first time - I actually chose to be in the front row. This matters because - in a small local theatre like this - being in the front row would put me almost literally in the play, in full view. Since I usually feel out of place at things like this, I generally choose to hide in the back, in the darkness.

But not this time. This time - I was going to be right up there, making sure I had the maximum amount of similar faces surrounding me.

The rest of the crowd rolled in, and two older ladies chose to sit in the seat next to me. There were other seats available - they could have sat with a "buffer" seat between us like what always happens anywhere else I've been (literally - always - if there is an option to not sit next to me, that's what happens).** The family on my left was an Asian family (Japanese). The ladies on my right, probably Hawaiian. I wasn't isolated in my private little space with buffer seats around me, obviously alone. No - this time, I had people choosing to sit next to me. And even better - a random observer would never have known I was alone, because it was just as plausible that I was with either of the groups sitting around me - as I could have passed as a relative of either group without anybody questioning it.

I was home. I was comfortable. It was like being back in the f-ing womb. I honestly don't know if I've ever felt like that before. I was part of the audience on a level that I had never experienced before. I felt so welcome. Like I actually belonged. It very nearly brought tears to my eyes.

And then the show started - and it only got better. Because the staff was made up entirely of folks like the crowd around me - Asian, Hawaiian, or mixed. The lone exception was one white actor playing the secondary role as one of the main character's boyfriend - the butt of "family" jokes about how bad he stood out, how "different" he was. A complete role reversal - and I loved it.*** I got to laugh along with the crowd. I was part of the joke.

And the thing is - had it been the worst play in the world, I wouldn't really have cared. I was there for the company and the experience. The play and the acting was secondary to my motives.

But the play was good. I mean, really well done. There was some impressive acting, humor interspersed with more serious material that actually made you think, and the lighting and sound was professional and smooth. All far beyond what I have come to expect from most "local theatre" I've seen (not to say that I go often, for obvious reasons, but still). Maybe I thought the play was so good because it resonated with me in a way that no other play ever could. But, mostly, I think it was just because it was good. ****

The play was "Whatever happened to John Boy Kihano?" by Susan Soon He Stanton (not the one pictured, actually). In brief (because I don't want to ruin it), the story was about a Hawaiian family and how they deal with the disappearance of the youngest child. It deftly touched on race, class, abuse, tradition, and culture without feeling contrived. Without hammering any of them. In fact, it handled all those as aspects of family, with the focus remaining on family - raising questions without righteousness or a need to "tell" us what to think about it. Making a note of it all, honoring it all, without moral lessons or the trite overindulgence of mainstream art. Native Hawaiian spirituality and culture was part of the story without spite, theft, or noble savagery.

A white playwrite could never have written this. Could never have done it with such respect and raw reality. Neither could a white director have put it together. And neither should they - there is plenty of great art to be made without trampling non-white culture (if only more artists understood that). And there are plenty of great non-white artists to make this kind and more (if only the world understood that).

And so the play wrapped me up and took me along. It harmonized with my own experiences and sang with me. Watching a play written by somebody that looks like me, about a family that looks like me with experiences that echo mine (in certain ways), portrayed by actors that looked like me, while sitting in an audience that looked more like family than my actual family does.

So when the performance finally ended, I wasn't ready. I wanted to hold onto that feeling, knowing it wasn't one I was going to repeat for a very long time, maybe ever. But it was over. There was nothing I could do.

And so I walked out, enveloped in a bubble of personal silence. The warm night air wrapped me in comfort and an uncontrollable sense of rightness as I walked down the street. I walked for five or six blocks through a completely abandoned downtown Honolulu with the darkness resting on my shoulders like my childhood blanket. It was too perfect - that experience had been all for me, something I needed so badly, and I didn't see a single other soul in the street as I walked - nobody to distract me from my moment. Nothing to keep me from contemplating the feelings and thoughts rushing through me - things that no blog entry could ever explain sufficiently.

When I finally made it to my car, I realized I had parked almost directly in front of the old palace. It was lit up majestically from the outside - and completely dark inside. Because nobody lived there, anymore. And my thoughts returned to what had made that night's experience possible - the sad history that created modern-day Hawaii. And so I will write on that next.

But - until then - just like on that last night, I will shake that off for a bit and remain wrapped in the pure bliss of acceptance and belonging I was blessed with on my last night in Honolulu. Because that moment was all mine, and nothing can make me let it go. And - exactly because it's something that has happened so seldom in my life - I will always appreciate it on a level that so few others can attain.

* Actually, I'm totally serious when I say the dude in the middle kind of looks like my brother . . .

** Maybe it was because - for the first time - I was smiling and glowing with positive energy before the show, instead of silently counting the people of color in the room.

*** Not fully a role-reversal, because his character actually got fleshed out past being a stereotype, more than usually happens for the funny "foreign" roles played by PoC in mainstream theatre and film.

**** So to all those who claim that there just aren't enough high-caliber non-white actors, directors, playwrites, etc. out there - you're so full of sh--.

Hapa in Honolulu: Homecoming?

2009-03-22T22:42:00.000-07:00

This photo pretty much sums up my return to Portland this evening: blurry, empty, blue.

Coming home is supposed to feel like a relief. It's supposed to feel comfortable and welcome. Something like how it felt for me to arrive in Honolulu. Not like my return to Portland.

I walked through the terminal towards the exit, and I kept looking around, expecting the people around me to turn around and look like me. Or be Asian. Or at least not pale and white. But my expectations were not fulfilled.

Welcome home.

But I don't need to dwell on the negative right now. Instead, I shall give a little preview of what's to come in over the course of the next week on this blog:

The "Hapa in Honolulu" series (that's right - I'm doing a "series," and it even has a cheesy-yet-catchy name to it). Most people go to Hawaii for sun and beaches - I went to relax on a more spiritual level (the relaxation of finally letting my guard down a bit and "blending in," phenotypically-speaking).

In just one week on Oahu, I was filled with probably a couple weeks' worth of posts about identity, racial politics, American government, immigration, and my own place in it all. I received a blast of inspiration to write like I haven't felt in quite some time (essays as well as lyrics). I walked with my head held high, pondered things big and small and just thought and lived in a way that I haven't really been doing in recent months. So I'm going to let it out in a slow trickle (or maybe more like a couple downpours) over my next few posts.

So that's what you all have to look forward to. If you're mixed like me, I'm sure you'll enjoy it, but don't worry - I've got plenty of thoughts that should keep all you monoracial folks involved, as well.

Enjoy.

Going Home?

2009-03-17T21:48:00.000-07:00

I'm in Hawaii right now. Honolulu. It's my Spring Break, and I needed a break from Portland, big-time. Done with the weather. Tired from work. Needing some color (in my own skin and outside of it) badly.

So I'm here. Which precludes me writing a full-on post before I get back on Sunday, but let's just say I have a lot to write when I get back (about Native Hawaiians vs. others; blending in; and more). Just wanted to let you all know not to worry, I'm doing great.

When I went through security to fly out here, the Filipino attendant with Hawaiian airlines asked me, "You going home?" And I almost said, "yes." God it feels good to look like other people . . .

More to come soon.

Until then, I'm going to go eat me some real Korean food.

Why Civil Rights?

2009-03-12T20:47:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, we had a "Civil Rights" assembly at school. The whole school, in a circle, sharing short research papers about various civil rights leaders.

And the kids were antsy. They were bored. They complained. They didn't want to read. They hated the research. They didn't listen to anything.

And it killed me. While my co-worker tried to lead a short discussion on the "importance of Civil Rights," nobody had anything to say. They didn't care. They chatted amongst each other, cracking jokes. One kid answered her phone in the middle of it.

And I just watched it all. Tried to quiet kids. But it slowly suffocated my soul. Kids that are so directly affected by the fight for rights by race, or class, or gender in this country - so completely bored and disconnected from the topic.

And so I finally had to say something. Right when our principal was about to just cut the whole thing off to minimize the damage already done, I spoke out. I told them, flat out, "My mom had bricks thrown through her windows when she was your age because of her race. People thought she was Japanese, so they threw bricks through her windows at home. That didn't happen to me as a kid, because some people stood up. But I am still dealing with other racist actions, so now it is up to me to stand up, for my kids' sakes."

And, suddenly, the kids were with me. I went on - for a bit - about the present-tense of Civil Rights and how all the injustice and unfair things they suffer right now is only going to be improved by folks who stand up. Not just three or four token "Civil Rights Leaders," but en masse. And a discussion started. The kids engaged.

Now, I'm not going to say everything was "saved" and everybody learned a valuable lesson. But the whole mood shifted, and I could see the kids starting to see something. So much left unsaid. But it was a beginning. And I'm itching to continue it.

And so, tonight, I had to just sit down and write. I intend to share this with the kids tomorrow. It's not polished. I didn't edit it. No clever rhyme-schemes like I usually employ. But, sometimes, raw feels just fine.* So, some words by CVT:

The kids rolled their eyes and complained - 'Why Civil Rights?'
And I was shocked into silence
'Why do we have to learn about Civil Rights?'
Like it was a single set of facts that had to be painfully memorized
'Why Civil Rights?'

I almost cried with frustration
But - instead - I chose to REPLY:

"Why do we have to learn about Civil Rights?
Might as well ask why we have to learn how to breathe
Because without rights - like air - you'd live a short life on your knees
Wheezing, gasping, choking - letting your 'superiors' keep you there
Accepting injustice because 'that's just how it is.'

Why Civil Rights?
Because my mom had rocks thrown at her due to the slant of her eyes.
Why Civil Rights?
Because our grandparents were alive when mobs lynching black people 'just happened.'
Why Civil Rights?
Because without unions, poor trade workers were poisoned on the job.
Why Civil Rights?
Because our great-grandmothers - of any race - couldn't choose their president.

But that's past, right?
All those problems have been 'fixed' now
By those four Civil Rights leaders you've heard of - who happen to be dead
So stop living in the past

And so I will, and I do, and so I will tell you:
Why Civil Rights?
Because an unarmed black man, lying on the ground, submitting to arrest, was shot in the back by a police officer days before Obama's inauguration.
Why?
Because this country - built by colonizers and immigrants - patrols its borders with guns to keep Mexican immigrants from crossing 'illegally.'
Why?
Because being poor means you can't afford to sue your employer when you're fired for being too sick to work - from the cough the factory smoke put in your lungs.
Why?
Because we can call a U.S. citizen an 'enemy combatant' and lock them away without trial.
Why?
Because we can let the education system heap advantages on the already-rich
Letting a budget-crisis close schools in the less-wealthy part of town
While spending a trillion dollars on defense each year.
Why?
Because 25% of the homeless in this country are the same veterans that we 'support' - while they're abroad.
Why?
Because - in most states - you are not human enough to love and marry if you're not straight.

Why Civil Rights?
Because you have been marked
By your race, or gender, or religion

You have been marked
By your poverty, or sexuality, or disability

You have been marked
For unjust treatment throughout your life
For powerlessness at the hands of those deemed 'more capable'
For fear, and frustration, and anger when what you were born to limits your opportunities

You have been marked
For all of these things - and more
Until you understand that Civil Rights is not dead, perfect leaders from the past
That Civil Rights is not a few random dates and facts
It did not happen
It is happening
Always occurring
Ever-evolving
Sometimes progressing

But only for and by those who hear the question: 'Why Civil Rights?'

And respond -
Because they're mine."

*Mental note, this isn't "poetry," but meant to be performed, spoken-word and all that . . .

You're Not the Only One

2009-03-07T07:43:00.000-08:00

I don't know what's up with my new kick on getting "unusual phenomenon" images to tie to my posts, but that's how it is. Anyway.

"You're not the only one."

Those can be words of support and comfort during dark times. They can be the beginning of a threat or hint at hidden knowledge. They can also be chastisement, on par with "get over yourself."

I'm going to start with the latter.

So I teach at a middle school, right? And part of that is the discipline process. There are various ways that goes down in my school, but, invariably, I have kids who are convinced that they are the only ones who get in trouble for certain things, and they make sure I (and the other staff members) know that.

There are a few reasons they believe that. The first is that they come out of a public school system where that might have been true, to a certain degree. I work with the kids that got kicked out of public schools (or were on their way) and, unfortunately, quite often those are the kids that get nailed with the "bad kid" label. And, in public school, once you have that label, good luck in convincing people that what you just did was "just a joke" or anything like that. Of course, it's not like the kids didn't honestly bring down a lot of those consequences upon themselves, but - as I often try to explain to them - a reputation tends to create expectations, positive or negative, and we often pay repeatedly (and sometimes unfairly) for our negative reputations.

Another things is the parents. Oh my. How often have I talked to a parent who battles me about "what happened to the other kid(s)" or how "he/she is just a kid, it's ridiculous for them to get in trouble for (whatever they did)." That's when I dust off my explanation (the same one I give the kids): I teach a full CLASS of students. Not just one at a time. Therefore, there come times when I must choose - one kid who's struggling, behaviorally, or the rest of the class? It's an easy choice. The funny thing is, the students understand that, generally. So many times they accept the consequences and are fine with it (because they know me well enough to understand why it happened) only to have the parent battle it.

Again - the parents aren't always unjustified in their defense of their children. Because they are used to school systems, teachers, and administrations that are culturally clueless (I'm not just talking about race here, but class, as well). They're used to their kids being judged from on high by folks that don't know how to interact with kids that aren't middle-class (or white, or both) and so unfair consequences do come down.

And, finally, the biggest reason the kids are convinced of their "only one who gets in trouble" status is that they are middle school kids - they're totally self-absorbed. Therefore, they aren't going to notice what happens with anybody else, unless they think it's evidence of their own self-centered individuality (in terms of treatment). The kids aren't going to make a mental note of when other kids get in trouble for the same things they do (often, they don't know about it, either) because it's not about them. So they are convinced that they are the only ones experiencing negative consequences.

But, for good and ill - they aren't the only ones. The kids aren't the only students in my classes. They're not the only ones to get in trouble. They're not the only ones to succeed, either. And it's helping kids find that understanding - the broadening from "me, me, and me" to an awareness and understanding and empathy for other people that is probably the major responsibility of teaching middle school kids.

Problem being - even though, developmentally-speaking, kids should learn and "grow out of it," it doesn't seem to be just a middle-school phenomenon. Because adults don't get this one very often, either, especially when dealing with race.

Here's an example:

I was talking with my co-worker and good friend (we'll call her "W.") the other day. And, during this conversation, we came back to the fact that I'm the first real friend she's had outside of her own race (she happens to be black).* She was talking about how - before knowing me - she never would have believed that a mixed Asian/white person could understand race and racism. When she mentioned that to Professor Griff (yeah - my friends chat about race with folks like Professor Griff, and I'll name-drop it), he told her that OF COURSE that's how it is. He pointed it out as an indication that racism is alive and strong, that folks who should have such disparate experiences of race can understand it at the same, base level.

She told me how some of her other friends (who also don't know me) don't get it, though - thinking that we must be hooking up or something (it's not like that), not believing that she can have these real conversations with a "white boy" (only time I've ever been referenced as that, for sure) like me. When she has tried to explain that they'd get along with me, as well, they don't buy it.

And this is not the exception. I think this situation is the general rule of race here in the States. We all do such a good job of being absorbed by ourselves and our own experiences of race that we don't see what's happening to other races. We don't see that we walk the same path, on a general level. White folks can't see their own privilege, only seeing themselves, and so they don't see that racism is so damn prevalent. Black folks get caught up in their own fight and struggle, only to ignore the parallel struggles around them, often discounting other experiences of race. Asians examine Asian life, Arab think Arab, etc.

All the while, we're all digging deeper down into the morass of race and racism (not to mention other forms of oppression by gender, sexuality, religion), thinking we're the only ones who are struggling. The only ones fighting. The only ones dealing with it or knowledgeable enough to DO something.

But we're not. Not one of us is alone in this. We are not the only ones. There are millions of folks (literally) fighting against the same things. And they may not look like us, but they can understand where we are coming from, if we let them. If we can grow up enough out of the middle-school mentality to open our eyes and let them teach us.

But, all have to do is go to Racialicious for a second and read the comments, and it's often this battle of "who is it more acceptable to be racist towards these days?" Or "no - this thing isn't racist towards -blank- it's racist towards -other group." A bunch of smart, knowledgeable, open folks - battling over racial semantics and trying to prove that their lot is the hardest, instead of taking advantage of having all these smart, passionate people in one (digital) place and bringing it together.

I've said it in other ways before, but what if people did just get over themselves and realize that they weren't the only ones? That they can actually learn about race and racism from OTHER races and be stronger for it. That there's so much common ground, it would be easy to champion all the causes at one go. What if?

Let's look at the data: about 300 million people in the U.S. About 221 million white. 37 million black. Much less every other race.

So - if black folks fight alone, they make up a bit over 10% of the population. A decent number, but politically, relatively insignificant. Now, imagine if all the races got over themselves and stepped up? That would be over 25% of the population - much more significant. Now, add in all the white allies and other white minority groups (LGBT, religious minorities) and you'd easily have a third to a half of all the people in the States. And that is politically significant.

But as long as we all stay middle-school about it all? 10% is the best we can hope for.

So keep telling yourselves that you're not the only one. Remember that. And then make it count for something.

*Not calling "W" out here, just celebrating and marking it as a conversation of note.

**Not to mention all the space aliens secretly "passing" as human beings . . .

On Being the Bigger Person

2009-03-02T18:45:00.001-08:00

I know how this Giant died. I do. He just gave up. Got tired of walking around, always being the bigger person and dealing with other people's ish, until he just sat down and refused to get up ever again. Because it's so damn fatiguing having to be that much bigger than everybody all the time. If you ask me, that's why the whole race of Giants died out, when being so big should have given them an advantage.*

Most people in this world choose to be ignorant about some things. Conscious decisions - because they can't handle dealing with the reality of it all. We all do it. And, in and of itself, being ignorant isn't a bad thing at all. Certainly, there are now negative connotations attached to the concept of "ignorance," but if we stick to its true, dictionary definition, there's nothing wrong with it. In fact, by definition, all of us absolutely MUST be ignorant about a lot of things. That's just how it is.

However, when people use their conscious ignorance as a weapon, it ceases to be okay. When people fuel their own ignorance - and that of others - to try to bring others down, it's wrong. Especially when the means to ending their own ignorance is available to them, even offered to them - and they choose not to accept it.

Unfortunately, this is often how conversations about race often end - in ignorance-fueled, heated arguments. Name-calling, accusations, attempts to tell the other person what and how they think and are. Both sides end up walking away, angrier than before, and more convinced of their own righteousness than before they entered into the conversation.

And - oddly enough - I don't think that's the way it should be handled. I happen to believe that - in conversations such as these - it's so important to find each other's point. However, it is important to find their point, so you can find what you accept and agree on, as opposed to finding their point so you can shoot holes in it. It is important to give each other the benefit of the doubt.

Because, in the end - the vast majority of people in the world really do want to be good. They want to do the right thing. They want to treat others well, be treated well, themselves, and have us all get along. I honestly believe that.

And, with that belief in hand, I am able to work with youth. Because, no matter what horrible things they may say or do to me or another (I've been called some amazing things), if I come to them and show them my belief that they can do it right, they are much more likely to go there. That doesn't mean I don't call them on their actions. It doesn't mean they don't have consequences for making poor choices. But it does mean that I hold their goodness and ability to change in mind, so that they know that I'm always going to be willing to help them fix it.

And guess what? It generally works. Abused kids. Homeless kids. Drug-addicted kids. Gang-affected kids. Hell - even white-supremacist kids. They all take out their frustrations in negative ways, expecting me to spit on them for it. But when I don't? When I don't yell at them or hit them or knock them down further? When I just say, "that's not okay, you've got to leave, and we'll talk about it tomorrow"? **

Not only do they end up coming back and talking to me about it - generally apologizing and taking responsibility - but they work to change. Slowly, for sure. But they do change. And improve. And become more like those "good kids" that they have always heard about, but never been compared to in a positive way. At least in my classroom. And in our school (because that's how our system works). But that's something, and I never claimed to be Mohammed, Jesus, or Buddha - so I'm not foolish enough to think I have the power to change their outside lives.

But, holy sh--, does it take patience. There are days when I get run ragged. When kids cross the line so far that it's all I can do to calmly ask them to leave. Days when I just want to flip a table and yell.

But they're just kids. So I can forgive them. Because I know all the terrible things they've survived just to make it to school at all. That what they do and say are founded in insecurity, hurt, and fear. And - often - ignorance. "Teachable moments" arise all the time when ignorance spurs an action.

And it's no different with adults. Yelling at them, insulting them, mocking them - it doesn't help bring change. Getting on a soapbox and berating them when they do wrong doesn't, either. Especially when you're talking about race.

I'm a teacher. And I know that trying to make somebody feel small for their ignorance (remember - just plain ol' lack of knowledge, ignorance is) only shuts their minds further. To open somebody up enough for them to learn, you have to reach them. And to reach them, you have to connect - to find common ground.

And so I do my best not to just go off on people when they say something that is offensive. Call them out, yes - but not attack. I have had folks - on this blog - berate me for putting on the kid gloves instead of tearing some folks a new one when they crossed the line. I get that. But - as my true goal is education - I don't see a knock-out blow as particularly useful for my cause. I'll be the first to admit that it feels better - but it doesn't help, in the long run.

Do I always follow through with this open-handed way of dealing with folks? Hell no. Because it's tiring. Much harder with adults, for me - because it's harder for me to forgive them. But most adults - especially when ignorant - are just big kids, and their ignorance is, surprisingly, not often their direct fault. And I try to remember that. The vast majority of hostile actions are just misdirected frustrations. And those frustrations are often real and deserved. How they are handled are not. So I hold that in mind when somebody pushes me.

But I'm not strong enough to do that all the time. I'm not strong enough to always gently call people out on their ignorance. So I'm not always gentle about it. Or, other times, I just bite my lip and let it go because I don't have the energy to handle it right, and I know the other way is going to be worse than pointless. I fail - often - in making my point clear. I get misunderstood all the time. Even when I do it right, not everyone wants to hear it.

And that's what being a conscious person of color is. A constant, moment-by-moment battle to keep an even keel and try to be the bigger person while surrounded by unknowing offenders, ignorant insults, and sub-conscious dismissal of our importance and humanity. And - mostly - we handle it. Mostly - we forgive and forget. Mostly, we take a step back and see the lack of overt malice in people's ignorant actions. Mostly, we do these things. Day after day after day after day after day . . .

But - once in a while, our fatigue catches up to us. We don't have the energy to be the bigger person. Our frustration rises up. And. We. Let. It. Out. It comes out as fire. As vitriol. As semi-automatic rage. As uprooted trees in a hurricane.

And that's when somebody who doesn't know any better steps in. Somebody who hasn't been worn out with being big all the time. Somebody who thinks race is moments in isolation and not an entire life lived. Somebody who doesn't know that they are in a privileged position to get to treat this one situation as just, one, situation.

And what does that person say? "Relax - it was just a joke." Or "why does everything have to be about race?" Or "I'm sorry that you were offended, but that's not what I meant." Then they mention "reverse racism" and various forms of evidence to support their "color-blind" attitudes towards life and how much better it would be if everybody else lived the same way.

And they walk away, never knowing that their words and actions just added more weight to a Giant's overburdened shoulders. That their lack of perspective and active ignorance contribute so strongly to the dying-out of the Bigger People. That, while all they noticed was the Giant's raw power and size (and thus, deemed it "dangerous"), they forgot to take note of its gigantic heart and how hard said organ must work to keep its owner alive.

All they "know" is that they would never "overreact" like that. And stereotypes and sub-conscious beliefs are reinforced.

So that when they stumble upon the Giant's bones one day, the only explanation they can come up with is that the Giant must have been "inferior" or "too primitive" and thus unable to survive, never realizing their own contributions to its demise.

* Yes, I know that this photo isn't real, by the way. It's pretty cool, though.

** It's a testament to our school that having to leave is a bad thing to our kids (the same kids who never attended and constantly skipped classes at their other schools).

*** I am, indeed, aware of the strange turn towards allegory that this post took at the end. But I kind of like it. So there.

Me, a Role Model?

2009-02-27T18:47:00.000-08:00

When I think about what my future kids might be like - in terms of their racial identity - if I were to marry a white woman, I often think back to a student of mine:

Three years ago, this student joined my school as a 6th grader, we'll call him "S." From appearances alone, he seemed white - light skin, blue-grey eyes, general "white" features. He hung out with all white kids, and he identified as white when it came up (which was seldom, because it seemed so obvious). However, I was surprised to learn that he was a quarter Japanese when he mentioned that his mother was half-Japanese during a conversation when students were talking about my racial/ethnic background.

S. and I established a pretty good relationship over the year, one of mutual respect (as far as that goes in middle school), and he seemed to trust me. So, one day, he comes up to me at the beginning of the school day to ask me what a word meant. I didn't understand when he said it, but it was clearly a vaguely Asian-sounding word, so I asked him where he had heard it. He said, "some gook said it to me on my way to school."

I had a little record-scratch moment, and I said, "Do you know what you just said?" And I saw this look of confusion on his face, as he realized that I wasn't so happy about it. But he didn't understand - he thought I was referring to the "Chinese" word he had asked me to translate. And so I found myself explaining to a quarter-Asian kid why he shouldn't refer to other Asian folks as "gooks."

And I thought to myself: that's how disconnected from his Asian identity this kid is. And that is how it would be for my kid. I thought this story would end there.

But it didn't. It's three years later now. S. still goes to my school, but he's an 8th grader now, about to head on to high school. We've know each other for three years, and I have watched him grow, and we have established a really positive relationship (he recently said he's going to be a math teacher when he's older). He's often been in classes where I've talked about race, and my own background, etc.

So - the other day, he's sitting at a table playing dominoes with a bunch of kids in class (dominoes is probably one of the best games for having kids practice basic math skills without the kids realizing it), and he jokes with one of his friends, "Hey - are you lonely at this table because you're the only black kid?"

The other kid laughs it off and S. says, "I'm just kidding. Besides, I'm the only Asian kid at the table. But I'm not alone, because - insert the CVT's real name - is here."

I didn't say anything. I was caught too off guard. At this point, I always have something to say when race comes up in class, but this time - nothing. I just looked at S. And thought back to three years ago. And smiled.

Because S. claimed his identity so casually - yet clearly - right in front of my eyes. He claimed an identity that is an overwhelming minority at the school I teach (and in the area where these kids live). He claimed the identity of a race that is commonly ridiculed and mocked by the kids and adults that he is exposed to regularly. And he did it proudly.

And I can't help but feel an extreme sense of satisfaction about that. I definitely can't claim sole responsibility for this change (I'd hope his mom played a major part), but I don't really think it's a coincidence, either. I feel that my presence and way of being in the classroom and willingness to talk about my own identity must have had some influence on him. I'd like to think that the respect I've earned from the kids I teach - while simultaneously proclaiming my Asian-ness - has made "Asian" less foreign to them. A little bit less "other." More acceptable.

Maybe even something for those few with Asian blood to be proud of.

I've tried my best to be a positive, conscious racial (and otherwise) role model for the kids, and I think I mostly achieve that.

But I never saw this coming. I never expected to see S. identify himself as "Asian." And I never would have expected those around him to accept that so easily (not one kid said, "no you aren't" or "what are you talking about?").

Which makes me have to ask the question: if that's what happened with one of my students, what would it be like for my own kid?

Sometimes the world changes, and it starts like any other day.

Of course, this is by no means the end-all, be-all moment. He might change his mind in the future. He might never claim his Asian-ness outside of my classroom. My students probably think of me as "the exception" to the "Asian rules." Or maybe I reinforce them, somehow.

Be that as it may - I got to see a kid and his relationship to his own racial identity change (in what I believe to be a positive way). And I played a role in it. And no matter what else happens, that fact remains.

And it feels good.

And it gives me some hope for my kids (if they ever exist) - no matter the background of their mother.

And that's kind of reassuring.

On a Moment of Transition

2009-02-25T07:02:00.000-08:00

So, for a second there, I was re-posting "lighter" posts from my old blog, one I wrote mostly for entertainment purposes. Since I've been slow on the new posts lately, I thought I'd post another one. This one isn't one of my more entertaining ones, but it pretty much pinpoints the moment when I decided to stop blogging to "entertain," and decided it was time to just start sharing my real thoughts.

(The little gimmick here is that it's written as a letter, so you must substitute all the "yous" with the subject of the post to make it make sense . . . )

This was posted last January:

Dear What I Really Think,

Before I even start writing this letter to you, What I Really Think, I just want to warn you that it's not going to be particularly funny. Yeah sure, I'm a hilarious guy, so some of it might be accidentally hilarious - I just can't help it sometimes - but that won't be the over-arching theme of this letter. Just wanted to give you a heads-up on that one, What I Really Think. Although you should have probably already known that. And are probably pretty used to non-hilariousness.

Right. In my letters, I don't really censor myself (outside of keeping my language mostly clean). I choose something to write to, and then I let it know exactly you about it. I'll rip on it a little bit, or shamelessly worship it, and then thank it for some sort of life lesson at the end. That's how it usually goes. And it's all pretty much you about the whole matter. No making things up here. I'm not so into that.

However, in CHOOSING the concept or thing to write my letters to, I DO end up holding back a bit. I'm not really going to choose to write a letter to something that I get particularly angry about (in a real way). Or sad about. Or other such strong emotions. Why is that?

Well, first and foremost - I have a Readership to entertain. If I was to tell them you about every major issue in the world, I would likely lose them quite quickly. Because it's great to have strong feelings about things, but it's quite another thing altogether to make other people share in those strong feelings on a regular basis. I have seen far too many blogs in which the blog-runner writes all sorts of heart-felt, emotional tirades about injustice and world issues and the like - only for me to stop reading about halfway because I get tired of it. There's a REASON most people only have a few close friends with whom they share their intimate secrets - because only a few people really want to hear it. And I'd even argue that maybe even less than that (most times).

Second, most of that sort of writing ends up coming off as whiny, melodramatic, and/or pretentious when spit profusely on a regular basis. None of us listen to the "God Guy" who yells at people in public parks about how they're going to Hell. I, for one, think it's likely true for most of them, but I STILL ignore him. And that's because nobody really wants to listen to a man (or woman) on a soapbox for more than about five minutes uninterrupted. People are made to enjoy frivolous pursuits that keep our minds OFF all those serious issues out there, so the last thing we want to do with our free time is get reminded of it all. Too much of that kind of writing starts to feel like reading somebody's diary, and that just feels creepy and a little bit sad.

Third, it's not much of a writing challenge. It's easy to spit emotions into a vat and call it "writing." Anybody can write "Dear World Hunger" and come off feeling like a Poet Laureate because nobody is going to dare critique that with anything but an over-arching, "That's deep." Or - even worse - "I KNOW, Man!!! That just SUCKS!!!" It's more difficult to try to write something entertaining on a lighter level while still giving a little bit of insight into you, What I Really Think. Deep writing - if done right - is meant more for lyrics and novels, in my opinion.

Fourth, I don't feel up to it. Most of my Readership knows me. And therefore most know that I don't particularly like to share the innermost workings of the CVT on a large-scale level with people that matter. I want to say it face-to-face, so I can read the reaction in somebody's face. If I'm going to say something about you on a serious level, I am not about to give the person I'm sharing that with an opportunity to ignore it and pretend that it didn't happen. I'm obnoxious like that. If I'm going to spit fire, I want to be able to see the look on the face of the person I singed.

And finally - because it's scary to share you with people whose opinions that matter because they might not like it. And that is sucky.

So why did I feel the need to address you in this letter, What I Really Think? Because I've been distracted from writing letters recently because I've been busy doing other things in which I share you. Writing music. Having conversations with people. Doing my job and planning for it. And it seemed odd that that should keep me from writing in this. That it should make it hard for me to come up with a "good" addressee for my letters. Because it would seem natural that I should just write to whichever concept was occupying my mind at the time. But when that concept had something to do with you, What I Really Think, I would balk.

Odd, and yet not odd at all (due to the previously-stated five reasons). And writing this letter isn't going to really change all that. Just thought it was a good idea to address it. And that's you about that.

All that said, I still thank you, What I Really Think, for all the creative inspiration you give me and all the great conversations I've been having lately. It's been grand.

Really Thinking About Eating Some Dried Mango Slices,
CVT

On Sitting at the Same Table

2009-02-21T08:17:00.000-08:00

The photo above is the best I could do to illustrate this post. I spent about a half hour searching for an image that showed what I was going to talk about - with little luck. Because what I'm about to convey is - obviously - very uncommon.

The other day, I was hanging out with my kids at lunch, munching on a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (with apricot jelly - that's my lunch almost every day at school) and watching them interact. I looked around at the various clumps of kids talking and messing with each other, and something seemed strange.

They were laughing and playing with their food - nothing odd there. The girls and boys were insulting each other while simultaneously trying to find a reason to touch each other - perfectly natural.

So what was up?

OH! The groups weren't separated by race!

Seriously.

Now, a while back, I wrote a post (On Kids and Race) about the kids self-segregating themselves by race in the classroom and at lunch (when they had a choice of seats). Basically, I argued that that wasn't such a bad thing - inherently - and that it reflected true diversity in the fact that there were enough of each race for kids to actually do that. I said that it was all about being comfortable and finding security, and so it was good that the kids were able to find that (and that that's just how things fall out).

But, suddenly (probably not so suddenly, but that's how I noticed it), we're two-thirds through the school year, and the kids are sitting in groups that are all mixed up, racially.

So now, I have to ask - how did THAT happen?! After my post about how self-segregation is natural and happens everywhere, how can I explain how it stopped happening in our school?

The truth? It didn't.

That's right - even though all the kids are sitting in little photo-op racially-diverse groups at lunch, self-segregation has not stopped happening.

Instead, it's just the characteristics that the kids are self-segregating for have changed.

We're a small school (60 students total in our student body). We've kept our main group (probably about 40 kids) largely intact through the year (kids come and go all the time with us, but we've been able to retain more this year). We are a relationship-based program, so we are constantly talking about building our school community, kids sit down with each other and talk out their conflicts (it's hard to avoid connection when you're two middle school kids explaining why you're angry and sharing other feelings with each other). Our kids constantly talk about our school as a family (with the positives and negatives that come from that).

And so they know each other pretty well, now. They started by dividing themselves up by race for immediate comfort and security, but - due to the way we do things, combined with the small population - they couldn't avoid learning about each other. They couldn't avoid interacting with each other. And so they couldn't avoid finding common ground with each other. And, subsequently - they couldn't avoid making friends with folks outside of their respective races.

It's a beautiful little social experiment tied up in a neat little bow.

But does this all mean that there aren't cliques? Of course not. Does it mean that the kids "all just get along"? No. It just means that tensions and divisions drawn along racial lines are few and far between.

It's noticeable in behavior, as well. Earlier in the year, the kids of color who had trouble with our white teachers would often fall back on race as an issue and explanation for why they had trouble in those classes (to be honest, I think those were actually pretty accurate assessments); but now, the kids are more likely to find specific reasons and actions for the disconnect, without necessarily tying them to race.*

I don't hear the students lumping a bunch of students together by race in explanations of who they have problems with - race is no longer the unifier, and so they are much less likely to group or stereotype by race.

And these are all HUGE. Middle school kids are always going to have conflicts. They're always going to take out their frustrations on somebody else, at times (especially kids like the ones I work with, who have plenty of valid reasons to be frustrated). But if they have removed the lens of race as a means to focus on who to blame or who to be angry at, that's an incredibly important thing.

And it all goes to show that all it really takes is exposure. Science has proven this time and again, but nobody seems to follow through on acting on that. If kids (and adults) just had to work with large numbers of folks of another race (or many other races) on a regular basis over an extended period of time, their inherent prejudices and stereotypes would fade. Period.

The key being large numbers of another race. White folks like to talk about their (one or two) "black friends" as proof of their lack of prejudice - while living out a lie. The reason that is possible? Because those few black (or other raced) friends are only kept in mind as the exception. It takes much larger numbers - the true diversity I have mentioned before - to change rules (that's just how the human mind works).

Same thing for every other race or minority group. Enmity and anger and blame and misunderstanding attached to an entire group based on race cannot go away (or at least be handled reasonably) without full, consistent exposure to other groups.

Which makes me always think of my solution to the problems of race in this country: mandatory social service. At age 18, everybody enters a two-year social service program that entails moving to another state and living and working with a group of other young people of all different races and backgrounds. It would broaden folks' life experiences, improve our infrastructure (without using prisoners as slave-labor, but that's another story), and expose everybody in this f-ing country to people unlike themselves. Cause them to form bonds with people that don't look like them. And make it so much more likely that general empathy and understanding would start seeping into how people in this country dealt with each other on a regular basis.

And I know what a lot you are thinking - "like that would change anything - everybody would just self-segregate by race and background right off the bat, which would increase tensions." And you'd be right - at the beginning. But two years is a long time (in some ways). Enough to put folks in positions - time and again - to rely on the people from other backgrounds. To get to know those from other backgrounds. And, eventually (as with my school), to become friends with those from other backgrounds. And how beautiful would that be?

It won't ever happen, of course. But it would work. Maybe when I become the third mixed-race president . . .

*A quick note here - I really do think that race is a major reason for why the teachers weren't able to connect fully with those students (I think that's our biggest failure as a program, our lack of true diversity in experience and understanding by staff, in general). By no means were the kids playing the "race card." However, it's still very important that the kids are now able to specify exactly what things are happening that they have difficulty with, as opposed to extrapolating it out to simply a matter of race and leaving it at that.

On Bad Timing for a Good Thing

2009-02-17T18:11:00.000-08:00

So - if you've been reading this blog (somewhat) regularly, you know that I'm pretty frustrated with the education system these days. I find it misguided, often irrelevant, and completely unequal in the opportunities it offers kids based on class and race (and gender, I should add).

As a result, I've been pondering a break. With this frustration on me, with my seeming inability to do some inspired math teaching, it seemed like a good time to make a move. I've known for a long time that I need to spend some real time in China to finally figure out what that side of my blood all means to me, but things keep coming up. So I decided that - next Fall/Winter - no matter what, I was going to make that trip, and I wasn't about to let anything get in my way.

Which seemed perfect, since I was feeling a little burnt, anyway. So I gave word to my boss and my co-workers, and I started making plans. For the last few months, I've been slowly setting up my departure from this country, and it seemed like everything was falling into place to make that the best choice.

And then, today, something happened. I sat down with my boss (we have scheduled one-on-one meetings every two weeks or so) and started talking about improvements we could make to our school's structure and way of doing things to best meet our kids' (and our staffs', really) needs. I talked - again - about my frustration with the State math standards. How I felt they kept me from doing my best teaching. How my elective classes (Psychology and Music Production) have been so damn FUN and educational and positive for the kids (and me). How I wished there was a way I could do the same for my math classes.

And none of that was new, really. I've had this conversation before. And, basically, they ended up with me and my boss agreeing that I just wasn't as passionate about math, and so I didn't spend the time making it as dynamic and empowering as my elective classes. That's where it would have ended any other today.

But today . . . I don't know what happened. But right when I would have normally hit that wall I've hit so often this year (of "f-ing system sucks, no way around it, f--- math"), I kept right on going to a SOLUTION. Inspiration struck me right between the eyes, and I couldn't stop talking. I started talking about how I could totally restructure the math curriculum to stop even looking like a math class. How I could basically turn it all into faux-electives that just so happened to teach all the hard math skills I've been trying to teach - but in a more hands-on, relevant way to the kids.

My boss mentioned me not coming back, and I said, "yeah . . ."

But I couldn't stop. The meeting ended, and I ran to my room, sat down at my desk with a pencil and the state math standards, and I drew out an outline of my restructured math curriculum. Suddenly, "Math" had turned into a year-long project divided into three large pieces - from start to finish, the kids were going to come up with a new product to market, test "public interest" through surveys, design a corporate office building and product, budget and make projections on earnings and market shares . . . And I incorporated almost every damn state standard into the whole deal.

The kids were going to take control over their learning, be creative, while learning hard math skills and how to apply them to real problems. Holy sh--!!! It's the freaking Holy Grail of middle school math teachers. And it just came to me like a bolt from the blue . . .

A few months before I've decided to leave the teaching field for a while.

A few months before I've decided to leave the teaching field for a while. Not enough time to implement anything at all.

And, suddenly, I'm thinking about coming back for "one more year."

But I can't - because I promised myself I wouldn't let anything stop me from making this trip. Because I know there will always be some reason to delay it for another year. Every year will bring me closer to one commitment or another that will keep me from ever being able to go. So I have to go now.

But I just came up with something so beautiful . . . And what if I never end up implementing it? What if my trip to China changes the trajectory of my life and this inspiration and (possibly) brilliant idea never makes it out to the world? Because that's how things work - I know too well.

Why did this have to happen now!? Why not a year ago? Why not in two years?

So exciting and yet so disheartening at the same time. I'm going to have to do some serious soul-searching now, and I'd rather not.

I honestly believe "everything happens for a reason," so I'll find the reason in all of this, and it should all end up how it ought to - but that doesn't make it any less beautifully frustrating right now. Not at all.

Such bad timing for such a good thing to happen . . .

On Sports as Art

2009-02-10T19:00:00.000-08:00

Since my last post touched on the ugly side of competitive sports (giving folks all sorts of fodder for the "violence" of football, specifically), I figured it was long past due to finish this post on Sports as Art:

I know a lot of "artists." I'm friends with published poets and produced musicians. My roommate is a professional dance and drumming instructor. I work at a summer arts camp, and am subsequently friends with successful photographers, filmmakers, dance choreographers, and painters.

In my personal life, art plays a major (maybe the major) role: I write, I create original music, I draw and dabble with painting. I am interested in dance, and I try to learn about every genre of music. Art is very important.

And yet, somehow, in all of this, one major form of art remains unmentioned. In my many conversations with artist friends and the artistically-inclined, one huge section of artistic endeavor is not only unmentioned, but noted with contempt: athletics. Competitive sports.

At this point, my readers are probably feeling similar contempt - how are sports a part of the artistic family? Sports are overly-competitive, overly-macho, and violent. It is insulting to think of sports as the same as art -right?

Obviously, I disagree. So much so as to say that it's insulting and degrading for "artistic" people to so readily dismiss athletics, their value, and their aesthetic beauty.

For those who truly understand sports and immerse themselves in it, true grace on par with the most well-known dancer is seen every game. Athletes perfect their movements and body control just as much as dancers. In fact, athletes must be more perfect, due to the unpredictable nature of their art, and the need to constantly adjust and improvise based on the actions of the other artists on the field (or court, or rink, or whatever). Those who cannot see this are no different than folks who can't see anything more than a bunch of colored dots on a canvas by Matisse. It takes exposure and understanding to appreciate the subtle beauties that most people miss. Symmetry and synchronized movements can be derived from every play - just as with a dance troupe's performance.

On top of the physical beauty of the games is the mental aspect. Athletes hone their minds to be able to read the slight muscle twitches and movements of their opponents, so they can adjust accordingly. They must strategize and think steps ahead in the same way as a chess master. They do one thing at the beginning of a game to set up their opponent for a play or move not to be performed until an hour later. They see the way the person across from them orients their bodies, and they know what they are about to do next.

Participants in sports know that playing can put them in "the zone" (or a state of "flow" as eminent psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls it) - where focus is so perfect that time slows down, everything else disappears, and we achieve almost supernatural abilities to read other people. This is the exact same state achieved in the midst of intense artistic creation (I should know, as the only comparable state to how I feel when making music comes on the football field). Hunger, sadness, pain - all are swept aside during the minutes (or hours) of flow. It's a state of mental clarity that can only be equated with meditation - and its positive mental effects are the same.

And those who challenge the "overly-competitive" nature of sports are fooling themselves - do anybody but the most "competitive" artists succeed? Can anybody be a successful artist? Of course not. To reach mastery, you must be driven, and motivated, and work and practice all the time. And, in the end, the only way to achieve "greatness" is to be "better than" so many others. And art hardly teaches people to work well with others and recognize the inherent value of different skill sets and different levels of contribution to an overall goal.

Speaking of work, traditional art and sports echo each other in this way: innate artistic and athletic ability are often assumed of the most successful in either field. And yet, none of those people would ever claim that they didn't work their asses off, practicing constantly, to reach their goals. Those people know better than anybody else that you can always get better - they are the ones who didn't give up with recognition of that fact.

And violence? Have the sport-haters ever looked at, or listened to, the greatest works of art? Rembrandt's "Anatomical Lecture." Francisco de Goya's paintings ("Cronos Devouring his Children," for one). Symphonies based on battles and wars. East of Eden and a million other great literary works with violent depictions. The strongest emotions bring on the most beautiful art, and there is a definite beauty to the controlled physical aspects of many sports.

Folks will argue that the traditional arts use violent depictions to demonstrate their wrongness - but, as a football player, I was always taught proper technique so I didn't hurt myself or other people. When somebody gets hurt on the field, we take a knee out of respect, and we applaud their health when they get up. Never is it about hurting another person. People get physically hurt, of course, but it is just as accidental as the mental pain that graphic depictions in art can (and do) readily cause.

Creative expression? Ever know the feeling of pulling off the perfect play? Emotional expression? You should have been watching Bret Favre play the week his father died. Or teams dedicating a game to a teammate. Some of the most beautiful things I have ever witnessed.

So why do I feel this need to defend competitive sports in comparison to "art"? And why am I even writing about it on a race-focused blog?

Because the disparate opinions on "the arts" and "sports" are absolutely based on social constructions of race and class.

Who are the most famous painters in the world? Composers? Photographers? Authors?

People's personal opinions will differ, so let's adjust that question: what is the race of the most famous "artists" in the world?

Ooh . . . starting to see where I'm headed with this?

If not, here's another question: what is the race of the most famous professional athletes in the world?

I'll give you a hint - the majority of those answering the former question are very likely white. A large proportion of those answering the latter are probably African-American (or other minority races).

So I ask again - why do people have such differing opinions on "the arts" and "sports"? When people talk about the "savagery" or "violence" of a sport like football, what sub-conscious associations are going along with that? When they talk about the "beauty" and "perfection" of a master painter's work, what associations go along with that? When people consider art more "important" than sports, what social constructs are they upholding?

I work at an arts camp in the summer, and I don't know how long I've battled with the artists about having more physical activity at camp. Not just for the health of the campers, but for the messaging we give them if we denigrate physical competitions at the expense of sports. Because, for our kids of color, there are no (or very few) role models that reflect them in the art world. But there are many in the sports world. So when we tell them (flat-out or more subtly) that "art" is more important and that sports are frivolous or unimportant - what are we telling them about their role models? What are we telling them about the most successful people that look like them?

And I'm tired of it. Because, as an artist who loves sports, I see the value and importance in both. And I see how they are one and the same. And it fills me with frustration and anger when otherwise-well-meaning artists start downplaying sports when interacting with kids of color. Or when youth workers, who claim to value their kids' cultures and that they are "open-minded," do not even put in the slightest attempt to give sports respect or value in this world.

And I'll tell you - sports (football, specifically) gave me an outlet as a kid that did more for me than any art could at the time. Sports gave me confidence that art never could. And sports kept me out of trouble in a way that dabbling in art absolutely could not. It also gave me role models who worked hard and gave back to their community. My coaches were mentors and teachers. The artists I knew/heard of? They all did drugs, drank too much, womanized (or the female equivalent), and died at a young age.

So which is more valuable? These days, they have leveled out more. Now, I am as likely to immerse myself in expression through music and writing as on the playing field. And that's how it should be - equal. And important. Because, when it comes down to it - there is no difference.

Art. Sports. One and the same. And supremely important in this world.

On Escalation and Fear

2009-02-08T15:12:00.000-08:00

Today, I dipped a toe in the waters that my students swim in every day. And, luckily for me, I was able to quickly pull it back out.

I play football every Sunday in a competitive (but recreational) flag football league. No pads, but there is full contact outside of tackling (which is what the flags are for). The competition level is relatively high (a number of semi-pro football players, ex-college athletes, some lower-level pro), but it's a recreational league. For fun. And I usually have quite a lot of fun playing (a lot of exercise, get out a bit of aggression safely and legally, with guys I enjoy playing with).

Of course, due to the fact that it's competitive and there is contact, people get a little too serious, sometimes. Tempers flare, people run their mouths - there's an occasional (but brief) fight. Of course, it's never actually the best players that run their mouths - it's the players that aren't as good but get frustrated and compensate with their mouths.

So (yeah, I'm going to stroke my own ego a minute) I don't talk trash. I don't get into it with other players. I'm the first to call out a good play by my opponent, and apologize if I get overly-aggressive. And I'm a good player, so opponents respect my abilities. As a result, I never have problems with players on the teams we play against, even if some of my teammates end up getting into it (which always pisses me off). In fact, I generally end up being asked to play with a lot of different teams (and do so, occasionally) because of my abilities and tendency to get along with folks.

But not today.

I'll try to keep the football-speak brief, but we played a team today that had one star player. Really quick, good hands, he was tearing us up a bit. So I ended up playing up on him (when I was on defense) and getting physical (putting my hands on, bumping - all legit football technique) to limit his effectiveness. And it worked. Problem was, he wasn't so happy about it, so he started running his mouth. Complaining about me holding him (I wasn't, really - again, everything perfectly legit within real football technique; I hate cheaters and dirty players more than the ones that talk mess) and getting in my face about it.

I try to calm him down. I say that I'm just playing defense, not trying to play dirty, it's all good, so just chill the f--- out. But he's not having it. Suddenly, instead of playing his game, he's trying to cheap-shot me while telling me "it's on, now - all game long." I tell him, cool. Because, in all actuality, there's nothing sweeter as a defensive player than when you can get the best player on the team to totally lose his focus and be off his game like that (we ended up killing them, as a result).

So our offense gets the ball, and I head to the sideline. My new friend (we'll call him "Mouth") is waiting for me, and continues to run his mouth about how it's on and he's going to be all over me, etc. I'm done with being friendly about it, so I just say, "go ahead," and smile. I'm not too worried about it (it's pretty easy to spot the "all talk" guy and somebody who is going to follow through; not to mention the reason he's running his mouth is because I'm dominating him, physically).

That should be that, right?

Except one of my teammates (we'll call him "P") sidles up to me and, with his back to Mouth, says, "You want me to take care of this? I've got something in the trunk for him if you want . . ."

I look in P's eyes, and he's stone-cold serious. So I tell him, "No, we're good. We're just going to keep it on the field." P says okay, and that's that, for him.

But the Mouth heard. And he suddenly gets real quiet. For the rest of the game, he doesn't say a word to me, doesn't touch me or do anything else. He ends up pulling himself out of the game, being the only one who doesn't shake hands when it's over, and he leaves before we're off the field.

And I never thought I'd find myself in a situation like that. I got in a couple fights in high school, but they were the "slap at each other and end up rolling around on the ground" kind of fights that ended quick and led to nothing else. I never thought I'd end up (especially at my age) in a spot where that next-level kind of violence was so close by. I know some of the guys I play with mix it up a bit, but I didn't intend to be part of it.

And, luckily for all of us, I didn't want it to be bigger. But, still, as I walked out into the parking lot (alone, because I was rushing to my next game), I couldn't help but keep my eyes peeled to see if something more was going to happen.

Because the Mouth was straight scared (and with good reason). And you never know how fear is going to cause somebody to react - what kind of stupid decisions it can lead to.

And I started thinking of the kids I work with. And what if this had happened in their world? What if Mouth was somebody that lived around me? Somebody I knew I'd run into on a regular basis? What if he was so scared of the next time he ran into me (or P, more likely) that he decided he needed to do something? So he gets his homies, and next time we run into each other . . . ?

Or what if I felt the need to "take care of it" worrying about what he was going to do? What if my friends or family was telling me I couldn't just let it be? Constant pressure, constant fear, constant escalation from the little and stupid into the dead serious.

That's the world my kids live in. That's why a 16 year-old kid (who used to go to our school) was shot in the face about a month ago - by some 30 year-olds. That's why a 15 year-old kid (one I've known well for the last three years - a smart, charming, well-meaning kid) got locked up for the next 3 years on a weapons charge about a week later.

When fear and a general lack of safety are given, how are people going to react? How are kids going to react?

It's that same kind of escalation and fear that causes outsider kids to go shoot up their high schools (or colleges).

It's that same escalation and fear that leads to people blowing themselves up to kill our soldiers (or citizens).

It's that same escalation and fear that leads to our soldiers returning the favor to other countries' citizens a thousand-fold.

And I am so glad of my privilege in that I can mostly avoid the direct costs of that kind of fear and escalation. I don't walk down the street with the itchy feeling of a target painted on my back. I don't live in fear of the people around me. I don't feel the need to "prove myself" or "protect myself" - because I feel safe. And that kind of safety is something I take for granted all the time.

But, today, that little tiny taste of the other side is giving me some appreciation for that safety. It makes me appreciate the safety that let me grow up where and how I did. The safety that let me let a stupid conflict while playing a game remain just that - and not a permanent regret.

And it makes me wonder how things can change. Because, ultimately, putting people in jail doesn't do a damn thing (in the case of kids I know, it just guarantees they'll come out as criminals). Increasing the police presence and profiling doesn't help. Because none of that takes away the fear (most often, it just escalates it). And, as long as the fear remains - and the feeling of safety stays away - things are not going to get better.

So how can we take away the fear?

Give kids (and adults) alternatives. Jobs. Drastically improved education. Representation. True power. Make them believe that they don't need to be afraid all the time, that they do have some control, and the rest will take care of itself.

So easy to say . . .

On Hiatus

2009-02-04T14:00:00.000-08:00

February is a crazy month, teaching-wise, and just in general living here in Portland, so I'm going to be taking a short break from writing (gotta save my mental energy a bit). Sorry to my regular readers, but I'll be back at it (relatively) soon.

On a Mongrel's New Year

2009-01-26T17:33:00.000-08:00

I seem to have a new Chinese New Year tradition here in Portland - eating dinner alone and thinking about my lack of Chinese-ness.

Because the thing is, after all the ish I talk about being "Asian" and my Chinese roots and all that, I still don't have a single Chinese friend here in Portland. Seriously. In spite of my spoken-word odes to my Chinese ancestors, I only have my mom's generation left, and no Chinese family close enough to visit for dinner. Even though I'm on the planning committee for an Asian Youth Conference, I ate my noodles alone in a Chinese restaurant tonight.

I walked in the door, and the lady gave me a "Happy New Year," and it felt good. I sat down, and she came back to give me a fork (although all the rest of the place-settings were there: plate, teacup, napkin, and chopsticks), and that didn't feel so good. When she saw my red Chinese shirt (my mom got it for me when she returned my grandmother's ashes to China) under my jacket, she said, "Oh! You are celebrating the New Year! Thank you!" in the same way you would thank a little kid for trying to write you out a check with crayons on construction paper.

And, again, as with last year, I find myself quietly thinking about my Chinese-ness. How much I can claim - and how much I have no right to. Are my attempts to connect to aspects of Chinese traditions (our celebrations of Chinese New Year didn't go much past red envelopes and dinner with the grandparents when I was a kid) that I did not fully grow up with a matter of respect, or a bastardization and/or insult? I don't know. And each year I am faced with this same set of questions.

I ask myself why I don't have Chinese community or friends here. Certainly, Portland isn't the best place to find Chinese people (or any non-white people, in general), but that's not it because I have friends of other colors. So maybe it's that there are no Chinese folks where I work, which is a definite factor. Or that when I've tried to take part in what should be Chinese group activities, I've fallen short (I signed up for a Tai Chi class - my grandmother taught Tai Chi, and I wanted to honor her after she died - where I was the only Chinese-blooded participant, teacher included).*

But what I keep coming back to is the fact that I'm not really Chinese. Those Chinese "gangsta" youth I mentioned in my last post were calling me out as a "sell-out," remember ? I'm just a mongrel that doesn't look Chinese enough for people not to be confused when they see me wearing Chinese shirts. And that's what I'm always going to be.

And so I remind myself on this day that it's up to me to create my own traditions. I am the pooling together of many different cultures, and so there is nothing wrong in my personal "traditions" being as mixed and partial as the racial identifiers in my physical appearance. To me, Chinese New Year is as much about how I grew up and honoring my ancestors (which I do) as it is about figuring out what fits.

And so, for me, the CVT's Chinese New Year traditions look like this:

- I try to do some sort of house-cleaning (or self-cleaning) before the New Year for good luck and new beginnings (it's not the most thorough, though).
- The morning of, I wake up, go to my grandparents' (on both sides) little "altar" and bow three times to all four of them (they are all dead, now).
- I dress in as much red as possible (definitely wearing my red short-sleeve Chinese shirt), down to my red shoelaces.**
- I make a point of writing "Happy New Year!" (instead of "Happy Chinese New Year") on my board at school, so my kids ask me about it in every class, and I take some time to talk about it (which usually ends up with a short description of how I grew up, since, undoubtedly, a few are like "You're Chinese!?")
- I try to bring in some jellyfish and chicken's feet for the kids to try (chicken's feet because that's all my grandmother, aunts, and mother would eat when we went to Chinatown for dim sum; jellyfish because that was one of my favorites as a kid, and my students think it's so 'gross').
- I go by myself to the little Chinese restaurant near where I used to live (it's not the best, but it's hurting, financially, so I try to go there as frequently as I can) and eat some uncut noodles (for long life) and Chinese vegetables with rice, alone.
- I think about how this last year has gone, how far I've come, and where I need to get headed.
- And I spend serious time pondering my identity and all it means to me; and what I need to do to get a better grip on it.
- And, for the last two years, I've written a blog post about it.
- Finally, I'll light some red candles at night, bow to my grandparents some more, and enjoy flame-lit darkness.

Overall, I don't think it's such a bad set of traditions. I might add on a bit as I get older (I plan on going to live in China a while, maybe as soon as this coming Fall, so that should change my views a bit), but this is what works for me, right now. And that's all there is to it.

They say that what happens on the first day is a preview of the coming year, so if quiet reflection, good food, and some personal writing are what's in store for me, I won't complain. They also say that every dog has his day - and it's no different for this one. I may not do it up fully "Chinese," but that wouldn't be appropriate if I did, and so I'll just be content to do it up my own style during my Mongrel Chinese New Year.

And so I wish all my readers a Happy New Year (whenever yours began), and may you all have long lives, luck, and prosperity in the future.

And if any of y'all want to send me some hong bao full of cash, I'd have no problem adding that to my list of traditions above . . .

* Oddly enough, outside of Chinese restaurants, the most Asian folks (of any ethnicity) I've seen were at a b-boy battle I went to last Saturday night, but that's a conversation for another day.

** I made sure to explain the "good luck" of wearing red to my kids at school, since the majority are gang-affected.

*** And, just for clarity, I happen to be a monkey, not a dog, but the picture's about referencing my title . . .

On "Baby"

2009-01-24T08:00:00.000-08:00

On the box for the movie, "Baby" is compared to both "Boyz n the Hood" and "Scarface." And, since those movies are so completely different in style and general themes, that pretty much sums up how hard it is for movie critics to stay away from ridiculous generalizations and stereotypes.

They could have at least compared it to "Better Luck Tomorrow" (even though "Baby" isn't really like that, either) - except for the fact that nobody's ever heard of it (look it up).

So why did the critics have such a hard time having any legit movie comparisons for "Baby"? Because it's about Asian Americans. Gangsters. Asian American gangsters. Right. A lot of movies like that out there.

The movie is set in the early 90s (with flashbacks into the 80s), following the (brief - he's only 18 at his oldest in the film) life of Baby - a Cantonese American, son of a drunk, no mother - drawn into gang life for lack of other, healthier family. Let's just say it's not exactly an uplifting film.

And it's not a bad film. At all. The start is a bit rough, but by the middle of the movie, I was drawn in fully. It does a pretty solid job of depicting the quicksand-like fall into trouble that urban gang life represents - as well as the fact that juvenile justice facilities pretty much only guarantee that kids come out as criminals (whether or not that's how they went in) with no skills for living clean once out.

Of course, for me, I had other reasons to appreciate this film. First and foremost, obviously, was the fact that the majority of the characters (and all of the major roles) were portrayed by Asian Americans. How many American movies out there can say that? Better yet - different Asian ethnicities were portrayed by - sit down before you read this - different Asian ethnicities! Seriously. The Chinese folks spoke Chinese (Cantonese, actually), Vietnamese spoke Vietnamese, and there were Koreans, as well. Hell - there were multiple fight scenes where not one of the characters performed a spinning jump kick or any other form of martial art. I mean - damn. Is that even legal!?

And I'm not done yet. Being set in the 90s, the "Asian Gangster Chic" styles represented in the film were all too familiar (as I was a 90s teen, myself). Baby's hairstyle for the second half of the movie alone gave me a little bit of "back in the day" nostalgia for the days when all the Asian Gangstaz at my high school gave me shit for being an "Asian sell-out." It seriously made me miss them.

And, finally, it addressed something that gets absolutely NO attention in the media or otherwise - there are Asian American gangs. Lots of them. And I'm not talking about the freaking Triads or Yakuza, I'm talking Asian Americans. Kids who speak English just as well as (or better than) their ancestors' dialects. Kids who grow up in the same segregated poverty that the better-known, darker-skinned gangbangers come from. Different in a lot of ways, but so very much the same.

Of course, not so much the same that it's not insulting that the San Francisco Chronicle called it the "Asian American 'Boyz n the Hood,'" or that the SFist.com said that, "For Asian American movie watchers, 'Baby' is going to become their 'Scarface.'" Seriously?

We're not following the clean kid whose father is teaching him how to be a man. There is no glorification, no rise to power here. And why is it that this movie is obviously expected to be seen only by Asian Americans?

Oh, right - because it is. Trying to find an image to put on this post, I found the Korean baby singing "Hey Jude" instead about 8 out of 10 times. The only sites that reference it are Asian American film sites (or blogs).

Hell - the only reason I picked it up was because it had a picture of a bad-ass Asian dude, guns blazing on the cover. Probably the same reason most other folks will put it back down. It makes me wonder if non-Asian folks could even watch this movie without feeling like they had to totally suspend their disbelief the whole time ("yeah right - like Asian-Americans live like that - this isn't Thailand!").*

I don't know. This was a piss-poor movie review, but what else can I say? There's nothing to compare it to. Maybe it kind of was like "Boyz n the Hood" . . .

* I remember my brother telling me how, when she saw "Better Luck Tomorrow," my Chinese aunt said that she didn't like it because "Asian teens don't do that kind of thing." Ai yaa!!!

Positive for Just One More Day

2009-01-21T17:04:00.000-08:00

I get plenty of opportunities to complain about all that's wrong with this country and society, etc. on this blog, but I'd like to just keep the positive feelings going for one more day.

I started my morning watching all the clips of the Obamas' inaugural evening - all their balls and dances and mini-speeches. And I have to say, outside of all the other great things about this man (and his family) moving into the White House, is the fact that he and his wife actually seem to like each other. Maybe even - Heaven forbid - love each other. All the times she'd lean in and whisper something in his ear, him laughing softly about it - that's what couples are supposed to do.

And, really - when was the last time you saw a presidential couple act like that? When was the last time the President and his wife looked like anything other than a marriage of convenience? Seriously?

And then the man does the bump on the dance floor . . . Do I really have to say anything else about that?

So, full of these positive little feelings about the new first family and what it symbolizes, I headed to school to start a new term. Due to the nature of our school (and the transience of our population), we get new students every term, and this one was no different.

So we're in my third period math class, doing class introductions, going over my classroom expectations and what-not, and I look over to one of the new students (a Somalian girl) sitting off to my left. She's furiously scribbling something on a piece of paper with a big grin on her face, and I can't help but wonder what she's up to.

And then she holds up her sign, with the most blissful and proud look on her face. The sign? It reads, "My President is BLACK!"

She sees me read it, and I look at her. We catch eyes, she gives me a big grin, and I couldn't help but laugh and smile a big-ass goofy smile.

This is a student that I just met this morning. One who came to my school because things weren't working out in her previous public school. Who had regular problems with her teachers, has plenty of reason to be angry and sad and distrustful. And we got to share this on her first day.

You'll be damn sure I'll never forget it, either.

"I Barack Hussein Obama, do solemnly swear . . ."

2009-01-20T09:07:00.000-08:00

His name, his skin-color - that was too cool . . .

Although I've got to say all the cannon-fire right after his oath had me cringing.

On MLK on his Day

2009-01-19T09:32:00.000-08:00

Of all the images I saw to use for this post, this one seemed the most appropriate, for some reason. On the day before a black man takes over the White House, here's a photo of one of the first black men to get into the White House and have a little pull. And now, three decades later, the tables are about to turn a bit - I can't help but feel a little giddy as I imagine Obama in Lyndon Johnson's place, and an earnest white man swapped for MLK.

Now, as far as MLK goes, there is nothing I can write here that can honor him better than (or even as well as) the numerous events, articles, videos, etc. that are out there or happening today. And so I won't try to do that. Instead, I'll put in a few thoughts on his legacy, from my perspective, on this day.

In my head right now, this holiday is sandwiched between two extremes - the shooting death of unarmed Oscar Grant by a BART policeman in Oakland (for a quick-and-dirty description, go here) and its riotous aftermath (almost worse, read here), and the inauguration of our first black president tomorrow.

The former represents "business as usual" and the obvious neglect of MLK's famous "dream" and the means by which he wanted that dream achieved. The second represents an historic step towards the achievement of that "dream" decades sooner than most of us believed it could happen.

So which one is the true indicator? Obviously, the shooting and riots makes clear that we are a long ways away from the "post-racial" society that a lot of wannabe "color-blinders" would like to claim. However, Obama's election also shows that this country just isn't quite as racist as a lot of us (myself definitely included) thought it was.

If you've read this blog for a while, you know I'm a big Blue Scholars fan, and this quote from "Back Home" always seems to sum it up so perfectly:

"And they say progress but the fact is, Dr. Martin Luther King's legacy is lookin like the street we named after him
Permanently under construction, the people hustlin'
Despite the pain and sufferin'"

Now, Geologic is talking about the MLK Ave. in Seattle, but he could just as well be talking about Portland (or any number of other major cities in the U.S.). Here, MLK Ave. used to be tied to the predominantly-black area of town. It used to be lined with black-owned businesses, homes, etc. Now, as you proceed northward, the street progresses from mostly white-owned businesses, to fancier, gentrified white-owned businesses, to a bit of that "permanently under construction, people hustlin" stretch of blocks that still remains primarily a black neighborhood - then back to the rest. And, not unpredictably (but sadly), those few blocks I mentioned are where white folks try not to be after dark.

And I think it truly is in this street named after him that we can see a representation of MLK's legacy.

In that one street, we see how "things are getting better" in a very surface-level way. The street is getting "cleaned up," there are "nicer" businesses and restaurants popping up. It's "safer." Much like the election of Obama as president signifies the "progress" we've been making.

On the flip side, that street makes clear that segregation still very much exists (although not as a legal institution). It demonstrates the distinct economic gap between black and white that continues to this day. The schools in the north part of town are the city's worst, by far. The area is targeted by police and "gang-prevention" task forces (which has to happen, due to the current escalation in gang violence in the area, but it's still a sad reflection of Bull Connor's "police state").

And so - on a symbolic level - we've come a very long way from MLK's time. People of color have so many more rights and protections compared to the 60s in this country. People of color - men and women - have reached prominent positions in the government and society as a whole. A man of color is about to sit at the head of the table in the Oval Office.

But - damn - do we still have so much more work to do. Because the state of segregation in this country (by neighborhood, by quality of schools, by economic status, by police targeting) hasn't come as far - by half - as it should have, considering my previous paragraph. As long as "cleaning up" a street means moving the people of color out, MLK's dream remains only a wish in the wind. As long as police can murder an unarmed black man in front of a crowd of folks that share his skin-tone , MLK's ghost cannot rest. As long as large numbers of people of color still feel that violence and revolution are the only answer, we cannot allow ourselves to sit around patting ourselves on the backs.

So - today, I will think on the positive indicators of change and progress that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s courage (and that of the men and women who fought - and fight - the same fight) has allowed us to achieve.

Tomorrow, I will watch the inauguration with tears in my eyes, and smile with joy at all the voters around me.

After that? It's back to work, and I will continue to think on the fact that George Bush (Sr. or Jr.) never gave their speeches from behind bullet-proof glass and do what I can to spark some true, permanent change for the better in this country.

And I ask the rest of you to do the same.

On Engaged Learning

2009-01-15T18:00:00.000-08:00

I walked out of my class for a minute today to get some water, and none of my kids noticed.

Let me say that again - I walked out of my class for a minute today to get some water, and none of my kids noticed.

Yeah, I teach middle school (at the "middle school" of all middle schools, no less), and I walked out of my class for a minute, and none of my kids noticed.

There's something very wrong with that picture. Seriously.

For one - considering the particular kids I work with (so-called "at-risk youth;" the kids that other middle schools cast away) it's crazy that I left a room full of students completely unattended. The fact that I even thought about it is kind of crazy (considering what would normally happen if I did that).

The second part - even crazier than the first - is that they didn't even notice. Not a one. They didn't even know I slipped out.

Why was that? Well, considering how "bad" those kids must be, it's probably because they were fighting. Or playing violent video games. Or maybe they were so crazy and "out of control" that they didn't notice me leave because they never pay attention to me, anyway. Right?

Nope. They didn't notice because they were totally engaged in learning. Yeah - you heard me. A room full of middle school kids didn't even know that I left the area because they were too intent on learning to look up and see me gone. They were too happily discovering new things by themselves that they didn't even think to find me to ask for help.

I kid you not.

Now, this is not a post to talk about how great a teacher I am. Because, to be honest, this is the first time this has ever happened (could be the only time, too). No - instead, I write of it because it was so amazing to me. It is also a good representation of what's wrong with the education system today.

The class the kids were in was my elective Music Production class. In this class, I am teaching (along with another teacher) kids to write original music; use digital software to sample, loop and edit tracks; make their own beats using a digital drum machine; and to write and record lyrics to produce a complete song (that will be burned to a cd and given to them at the end of the trimester).

Today, the kids were so engrossed in putting together their music and playing with samples, that they didn't have time to "get into trouble." They weren't messing with each other. They weren't putting each other down. They weren't complaining about being bored or getting frustrated because it "didn't make sense." No - they were just creating something new, and learning how to do so through the experience of playing with sounds.

And it's easy to say - "Well of course they were into that, because it wasn't real learning."

But it was. In the last few weeks, they have been intently writing lyrics for their songs - expressing joy, pain, love, and other emotions they never share with each other (or anybody else). They have been learning to get comfortable with the computer software. They have learned about beats, bars, rhythm, and how to keep musical time. They have learned how to determine a song's tempo. They've created hip-hop music, rock songs, motown-esque ballads. They've had art, math, social skills, language arts, and a little bit of history all in one class.

And every single one of them has been in it from start to finish. And it's not like these are some special selection of kids. I have two classes of Music Production, with a very representative cross-section of our student population (almost half the school, really), they have been learning more - and actively so - than in any other class I've ever taught.

But there's one huge problem: this is the exception. It should not be such a huge f-ing deal that I left a class of kids to learn, and there was no problem. It should not be so amazing that the kids are happily learning through experience. It should not blow my mind that the majority of the time in class today (after 10 minutes of in-front-of-the-class "teaching"), I just sat and watched the kids create. That they called my name to share what they had made - not to ask for help or call out other students.

Because our schools in this country don't work like that. Our school system does not provide for this kind of learning to happen. There is too much B.S. "content" to teach in the "core" classes (math, science, reading) to slow down enough to really dive in and enjoy a particular topic. Budgets are too small to allow for anything even remotely "artsy" to get funding - even when hard academic skills are being learned. Teachers don't get paid enough nor have the time to put in to create truly engaging lesson plans. Training is a joke. Most teachers are doing it for the wrong reasons or are completely disconnected from the kids they teach. Those that do it right do so at the cost of sacrificing most of their outside life. So many things are wrong with the system - and they all combine to keep this from happening: kids so engaged in learning that they don't even really need the teacher, or feel like they're "learning."

But it's possible. So when our kids hate school and can't help but go a little crazy when they are there - it might just be the fault of the school, and not necessarily the kids. Or, more accurately, it might just be the fault of the school system, and not so much the kids. Because these students I'm talking about are the kids that society wants to forget. These are the ones that are "bad" and "disrespectful" and "lack discipline" and everything else folks like to throw at them. And yet - these are the same kids that created the "perfect learning environment" that teachers speak of in hushed whispers of impossibility.

What if somebody had enough and finally rebuilt - ground to ceiling - this depressing school system so that that was the norm? It could happen. My math classes could look like this, no matter the kids. If only the "system" would allow it to happen.

And I can't help but think that it's likely impossible. At least very improbable. But I won't let go of the surprisingly-wonderful gift this country gave me two months ago, and so I allow that it's worth it to hope. Hell - maybe I can even be an active part of that change.

And so I turn to you, dear readers - how best can I begin the Education Revolution?

On Race and Class Through Musical Culture

2009-01-12T16:41:00.000-08:00

Saturday night, I went to a classical guitar performance (Eliot Fiske with Angel Romero, for anybody interested). The show was held in an old church with two levels of seating - a perfect scene for two masters to play Spanish-influenced classical music on the guitar.

And it was one of the better musical performances I have seen in a long while. Not only were the two musicians playing at the highest level, but they also seemed to be honestly enjoying the experience of performing and playing together. My emotions constantly pinballed between amazement (what I call "holy sh--" uncontrollable awe) and a sense of fun, musical joy throughout the whole two-hour show, and I came out of it inspired and lighter on my feet.

In fact, I am currently searching for some Spanish-style classical guitar pieces to sample for some of my own creative expression.

Of course, I couldn't help but notice the make-up of the crowd at this particular performance: predominantly white, middle-to-upper class, 40s and older, dressed elegantly. There were a number of Asian folks, some possibly-mixed folks, but not a SINGLE black face in the crowd.

And there's nothing new there. Between the price of the ticket ($30 a pop), and the cultural associations of classical music, I wasn't really expecting a bunch of young folks of color to be there.

But, oddly enough, it wasn't really who was there (or not there) that struck me the most. Instead, I kept thinking about how the crowd behaved throughout the performance.

Basically, the performance alternated between complete silence (and stillness) of the audience while the music was being played, to controlled applause and murmuring in between. Again - exactly as expected.

But, for some reason, it felt really odd to me this time around. Because the thing is - the type of guitar they were playing was far from "traditionally" passive classical music. The Spanish flavor (specifically the Flamenco influences) infused their playing with a penchant for dramatic flourishes, a bit of showing-off, and emotion. Energy was interspersed with a catching rhythm and bursts of jaw-dropping feats of ridiculous guitar aptitude (I can't even begin to describe the crazy sh-- Angel Romero did with his guitar). Half the time, I had to catch myself to keep from yelling out loud or nudging my friend (A.) and saying, "Did you f-ing see that!??" It was sick. In the good way.

And that's the crazy thing. The overall feel of this show (in terms of the actual performance) reminded me more of watching a b-boy battle or hearing a ridiculously-talented emcee flow to an equally-talented dj's beat than a "typical" classical performance. There was just so much energy and bravado.

And yet - the crowd just sat still and silent, waiting until the end to applaud (loudly, but still seated - and just clapping). When the whole show was over, the crowd got a little livelier, but it blew my mind how strict cultural rules can be. These two men were blowing the lid off the place, and we were all just sitting there (myself included).

And it seemed such a perfect example of cultural norms in action: the generally white, (but more importantly) upper-class mentality of controlled emotions versus the generally PoC, (but more importantly) not-so-upper class mentality of let it out and be heard.

I mean, to sum it up - folks were just sitting around, getting excited, but holding it in and waiting their turn to show some appreciation through controlled clapping when - I felt - we all should have been screaming at the amazing parts and stomping our feet to the rhythmic parts - maybe even dancing a little bit.

And I know I wasn't the only one. I could see the physical reactions from the folks around me at the "oh-my-f-ing-G did he really do that!?" parts - and I wasn't the only one that wanted to say something. I heard the excited murmuring after each piece, and I knew I wasn't the only one who wanted to be a little bit louder. I saw bodies rocking a bit to the rhythms - not just mine.

But none of that happened - because of the cultural rules of watching "classical music." The same rules that say the ticket price must be exorbitant, and the dress code is formal. The same rules that implicitly make folks of less means (and of color) feel out of their element and keep them away.

Because it's not just hip-hop fans who let loose - any loud-ass rock show will be filled with screaming fans. In fact, I bet everybody in that church with me at the show has also screamed their heads off and moved their bodies at a different kind of musical performance in the past.

Just not there. And it makes me wonder - how did this come about? Did everybody used to respond to music emotionally and loudly (as seems most natural) until the upper-class tried to distance themselves from the "peasants" by acting differently? Did some group of Free-Mason-esque Illuminati sit down and draft the "rules of upper-class spectating"? Did some upper-crust Freud-disciple decide that "controlling one's emotions" was most "civilized" and then adapt that to every aspect of their world? Did white folks see how folks of color did it, and then change their own rules to make sure that they acted noticeably different - and make it easier to exclude the PoC?

It just makes me wonder. Because how we all behaved at that show was so unbelievably unnatural, and yet it was completely unsurprising at the same time.

Just like the ridiculous "rational" behaviors people demonstrate when confronted by race.

Expected. Normal. And so totally insane.

On Racial Misogyny

2009-01-07T20:20:00.000-08:00

I've written and re-written this post a few times now. Every time, I find myself filling it with disclaimers and clarifications that just bog it down and make it worthless reading.

Why? Because I'm an American male. This is my first real attempt at writing on a topic in which I am so out of my element. Or so I keep thinking.

But the fact is - I have written about injustices and ignorance regarding races not my own without so much hemming and hawing and deflection. I haven't felt the need to pepper my readers with disclaimers that tread lightly and reiterate my lack of expertise or direct understanding of these other issues. And I have ended up writing things that have struck a chord with readers, anyway.

So why has this one been so difficult for me? Perhaps the truth lies in the brutal reality that we get most defensive about the things that we fear are true about ourselves. And so it is not so much my lack of experience with the subject-matter that is my issue - but rather my possible experience of the issue from the wrong side.

Now, there are many forms of "racial misogyny." However, the focus of this particular post is on exotification: the tendency for men to sexualize and objectify women differently based on the woman's racial features.

A prime example (and the one that - for obvious reasons - hits most closely to home for me) is the infamous "Asian fetish." This is a whole pile of garbage around some (I would argue "many") men's tastes for Asian physical features. It also ties into stereotypes about submissiveness, sensuality, and the like. Whatever the reasons, there are tons of men (of many different races) that end up espousing the overall hotness of Asian women. Not specific Asian women, mind you, but Asian women, in general.

Now, where this becomes a bigger problem is when Asian women are not present in large numbers in these men's lives. If a man lives in Japan for a long time, for example, he is going to end up finding Japanese women (and features) attractive. Of course. However, if he lives in a predominantly white (or black or other non-Asian) community, his attraction to Asian women isn't likely to be due to experience. And, if it is, it is going to be based on one or just a few specific instances generalized to a whole (notice that the man in Japan would be into specifically Japanese features - and not simply "Asian" features). Because, of course, there is no such real thing as any particularly "Asian" features - considering "Asia" comprises ethnicities as varying as Eastern Russian to Pakistani.

And so I live in perpetual bitterness over Asian exotification - the whole concept that "Asian women are hot" based solely on their "other"ness or stereotypes about their sexuality. I had a friend with a very clear Asian fetish who - I kid you not - thought that every single waitress we ever had at any sushi bar, Chinese, Vietnamese, or Thai restaurant was hot. Every single one. The only explanation I could come up with? Well, that they "all looked the same" to him.

On top of the stereotyping that coincides with exotification of other races is the inherent oppression in the act. Not only is general objectification of women by men an act of domination and oppression; but add to that the connotations of subjugation and domination in the sexualizing of an entire race. The parallels to the uncountable instances of rape by colonizers, slave-owners, conquerors, etc. of their "subjects" is no coincidence. And so I can't help but cringe whenever I hear men (especially white men, but not just white men) talk about how they "like 'exotic' women."

My only response that seems to make an impact without sparking full-on defensiveness is "so am I 'exotic'?"

And the problem is that so few men associate this form of exotification as offensive or demeaning - because it's couched in seemingly-positive terms: they aren't saying they hate these women, they're saying that they prefer them. They think that these "other" women are "beautiful" - they're not bad-mouthing them. And so it is exceedingly difficult to point out that it's the underlying implications that prove wrong and distasteful.

So the question turns to - as a man of color, where do I fit in? Am I as equally-vocal a champion of anti-exotification as I am a champion of general racial understanding? Do I bristle with indignation every time I hear another male talk about a woman's desirability tied in with her race?

The sad answer? No. I don't. Often I do - but not every time. Should I? Absolutely. One reason I don't do those things is that I have always been a proponent of "picking one's battles" - only fighting when I think I could actually win. It's the same with matters of race a lot of the time.

But, unfortunately, the other reason I don't always speak up is because I'm a part of those conversations, sometimes.

Now, before I lose the majority of my readers and friends (who happen to be women of color), let me explain:

I think about interracial relationships quite often. Partly because I am the result of one, partly because (due to my mix) almost every relationship I could end up in would have to be one. And in thinking about interracial relationships as they pertain to me, I have come to this conclusion: all things being equal, I would prefer to have kids with a partner that is no whiter than myself. The main reason for that is simple - I don't want my children to be less colorful than myself, if I can help it. I want them to fully understand and identify with what being a person of color in this world means, and they couldn't fully do that if they passed as 100% white (or so I believe).

That's the logic of it.

However, that's not everything. Because, when it comes down to it, I am much more attracted - physically - to women of color. And, when attracted to white women (because that still happens - imagine that), it is generally to white women with less "normalized" features (i.e. I'm not going for the skinny blonde with blue eyes).

I like women with curves. I like darker skin. I like fuller lips and brown-to-black hair.

And that's right about when the record-scratch - SCRIIIIIIIIIIITCHHHHH!!!! - comes: that kind of sounds like those f-ing racial misogynists I was just talking about.

But I don't mean it the same way they do. And I understand all the power dynamics and the stereotypes and the . . .

It still sounds the same. Enough that - taken out of context - who would ever know that it's not the same? In fact, do I even know beyond a doubt that it isn't the same?

I mean - how much of my "preference" is due to my conscious thoughts on my unborn child? How much is due to my personal experience and exposure (am I attracted to black women more because I lived in Tanzania for a year and a half or because they're "different")? And how much is due to sub-conscious stereotypes or - oh God no - fetishes?

I honestly can't say for sure. And that bothers the Hell out of me. I think it's mostly experience and personal politics - but it can't all be.

And so I'm stuck on this shaky middle ground - is there any way for me not to stand here? I have always treated women with respect and taught the same to younger men and those around me. I have erased the word "b---h" from my vocabulary (in all contexts). I ask my female friends questions, I listen to their answers, and I have always done everything possible to make every woman (young and old) feel safe around me.

And yet I still stand here, a sometimes-perpetrator. Is it an inevitable result of growing up male in American society? I can't say. I fear that it may be - but I also believe that nothing is truly inevitable. So the real question is: what can I do about it? Is consciousness enough? Is there a way to deal with attraction to women without it becoming tied up in racial features to some level?

How do I separate passing, gut-level attraction to women of color from racial misogyny? Hell - how do I keep random physical attraction (that I don't actually act on in any way) being on a level with any form of misogyny?

I'm aware of it, and I think about it. But that doesn't change the fact that I still have my preferences, and if I heard my own preferences spoken out loud by somebody else (say, a white guy), I'd get more than a little annoyed by it. So where's the line? Am I immune from exotification because I happen to be "exotic," myself? Can I be a racial misogynist for preferring features of the "other" if I'm also an "other"? And could a white guy avoid any of that (or the accusations thereof), ever?

A lot of questions and not a whole lot of answers (yet), but that won't keep me from continuing to examine my own positions of power and privilege (as a male) - something that should probably be done even more often.

On "Pan-African" vs. "Pan-Asian"

2009-01-06T17:32:00.000-08:00

So I took myself a (relatively) long break from writing in this blog during my Winter Break from work. And I needed it. But it's time to get back to work, and here I go.

While I was taking my break (outside of my quick-hitter about "Shooter"), a couple holidays went by: Channukah, Christmas, and Kwanzaa. Now, I, myself, (half-assedly) celebrate Christmas. But I've tried to do my part in at least partially understanding those other Winter-time celebrations that I did not grow up a part of. At this point, I probably know quite a bit more about Channukah than Kwanzaa.

So, being aware of that fact, I decided to do myself a little bit of Kwanzaa research over the break. I already knew the very basics behind Kwanzaa (that it had been created as an "African-American" holiday, drawing from various "African" traditions as a means to give African-Americans a true holiday of their own during this time). As a result, I had a basic appreciation for the intentions behind Kwanzaa, and the symbolism of its celebration.

But, as I got deeper into my research, I had some issues. While reading about the "Seven Principles" and the Swahili names given to them, I had a little bit of an itch. The problem being that I lived in Tanzania for a year and a half, and I actually speak Swahili (nearly fluently) and am very familiar with (recent Tanzanian history). And so I noticed that most of the words were taken from President Nyerere's terms for the socialist experiment he engaged in with Tanzania's fledgling independence. The meanings had been slightly altered to pertain to ALL Africans, but the roots were clear. And that all made sense - the problem being, of course, that - having lived in Tanzania - I know too well what a dismal failure that grand (and well-intentioned) experiment proved to be. Tanzania is now one of the poorest countries in the world and similarly corrupt, and so it just struck a sad chord within me to see those hopeful (but ultimately failed) terms as the foundation of the Kwanzaa celebration.

So I went further in and read of some of the traditions associated with Kwanzaa . . . and something about it all just hit me in a strange way. So much of it seemed like a bastardization of various African cultures. I had spent so much time correcting folks when I came back to the States about the difference between "Tanzania" and "Africa" - it just seemed so wrong that this whole holiday derived from attempts to further such confusion.

It really bothered me. And I had trouble understanding why. None of it pertained to me, directly. It's not my culture, or racial background. I don't have the same history. I live in a different time (Kwanzaa being conceived in the midst of the Civil Rights era). Why should I really care one way or the other? In fact, I should be for it, considering my heavy involvement in issues of race and general support for all things that give some pride and power to folks of color.

And yet it still bothered me.

And then I figured it out - my problem was that I was associating the "Pan-African" movement and ideals with all things "Pan-Asian." And I am not a fan of Pan-Asian happenings.

Because, to me, "Pan-Asian" almost solely refers to the bastardization of Asian cultures. To me, "Pan-Asian" represents all those things that cause all the non-Asian folks out there to think we're "all the same." We all look the same. We all eat the same food. We all speak the same language. Etc. To me, that's what "Pan-Asian" represents.

I hate it when I walk into a "Chinese" or "Thai" or "Vietnamese" restaurant that actually serves "Pan-Asian" foods. That people don't automatically realize that "Pad Thai" is a Thai dish and doesn't belong in a Chinese restaurant kills me. When people reference interchangeable Asian nationalities that eat dogs, I want to cry. When people listen to somebody speak Japanese and ask me if I can understand. When people think that Korean and Japanese cultures are "basically the same" (ignoring the history of hatred between the two). When people have "Asian fetishes" without realizing that Asian features run the full range of human skin tones, body shapes, and facial appearances.

All of this pisses me off to no end. All of this frustrates me and drives me nuts because I know I can do nothing to educate people out of any of it.

And so, when I relate "Pan-African" to "Pan-Asian," I have so much inherent distaste bubbling to the surface that I can't get over it - and so I find myself projecting those feelings onto Pan-Africanism.

And I realize that that is unfair. African-Americans (mostly) don't have the privilege of knowing their actual ethnic roots. They can't say which nation their ancestors came from. They can't know which specific traditions their ancestors took part in. They can't know which language their ancestors spoke. The ultimate insult and degradation of slavery is that it stole the slaves' past and history and traditions. African-Americans who have come from slavery can never know where they truly, specifically, came from. All they can know is the continent. And so an equal embrace for all things "African" - whichever nation or ethnic group that stems from - makes sense in that light. Because what else is there?

"Pan-African" and "Pan-Asian" are not the same. Not even close. I came from immigrants whose ethnic and national origins I know. And that gives me the privilege of getting all hot and bothered when other folks don't honor that specific heritage and instead lump me in with "all those Asians." African-Americans can't say the same - and so they do not have a similar privilege (or reaction). And, as a result, I find myself wondering if that can partially explain why so many African-Americans I know (friends and otherwise) don't really care to differentiate between various forms of Asian-ness. And why Asian-Americans and African-Americans continue to have so much trouble connecting and finding common ground in this country.

Who knows? All I do know is that a little bit of research and self-reflection can go a long way - and that has allowed me to appreciate Pan-Africanism on a whole other level.

What do you all think?

On Freedom

2008-12-28T22:16:00.000-08:00

I swear my brain shuts down halfway while I'm home visiting the parents. At least halfway.

Did I mention I watch a lot of movies when I'm here?

Anyway, I just finished watching the movie "Shooter." In a really small nutshell, "Shooter" is an action/suspense movie about an American ex-military sniper fighting against corrupt government officials, including a U.S. senator, who do a lot of bad things to foreign countries in the name of oil and money. I have to admit, I kind of enjoyed it (I also happen to be a Mark Wahlberg fan - he will always be "Marky-Mark" to me).*

And by no means was this movie anything other than a big-budget Hollywood action movie. With themes on government corruption and the U.S. thirst for oil. In a big-budget Hollywood action movie.

And - sure - it wasn't done extraordinarily well. It didn't point the finger at any real-life folks. But it asked questions (and gave its own negative answers) about U.S. foreign policy. In a big-budget Hollywood action movie. Hell - it even mentioned Abu Ghraib (and a very direct condemnation of how that all played out). In a big-budget Hollywood action movie.

And that's kind of amazing. In spite of all that's wrong with this country, all the questionable actions of our government, and what we do to other countries and governments - this movie was made. Made, and put on the big-screen in every major city in America. Made available on DVD to any American citizen (as well as foreign citizens) who want to pay to watch it. And nobody was arrested for that. Nobody was threatened, the film wasn't stopped. Nobody labels the director, writer, or producer a "dissident." In fact, nothing was said in the movie that doesn't seem even somewhat cliche because it's been said so often publicly in recent years.

And that's something I am very thankful for. I can complain and call out "the System" for all that's wrong with it. I can have a publicly-read blog challenging the history lessons we are fed in the classroom (inspired by other books that touch on similar topics), and I am not harassed, arrested, or threatened by my government (maybe I'm on some sort of "watch list," but I'll take what I can get).

And there are so many places where that is not possible. Places where finding the information that I disseminate in my own rants would be virtually impossible. There are plenty of places (and, perhaps, one of those places is the past for this country), where doing what I would do would mark me as a "revolutionary" or a "national threat." But here? Now? I'm just one more random U.S. citizen with a blog talking about race and the institutional racism that's part of our current system. And that banality is something that I will do my best to never forget.

While I continue to point out the flaws in the system.

* "Can you feel it baby? I can, too . . . Vibrations good like Sunkist, makes me wanna know who done this?"

On "In the Name of the King" Being the Greatest Movie Ever

2008-12-26T15:24:00.000-08:00

I watch A LOT of tv when I'm home visiting my parents over the Winter. And so I was led to the movie pictured (and mentioned) above.

Taking into consideration my recent post (On Escaping Race) about how white-washed fantasy/sci-fi books and movies tend to be, the photo above is a breath of fresh air. It's an image taken from the film "In the Name of the King" - a fantasy film that actually has a large number of actors of color in it. And not just as token characters meant to die, but rather major characters (on the side of good, no less), as well as being sprinkled throughout to make a positively DIVERSE fantasy landscape. There are even Asian ninja-warriors who are the king's sort of elite guard. Wonderful.

The problem is, this is one of the most ridiculous movies ever made. Seriously. So much so that it feels almost insulting that this is one of the few sci-fi movies with major PoC representation (and with no Rock to make up for it, Sis). The effects are awful (about 10 years behind its release date in terms of technology), and the acting is even worse (with a storyline to match).

But then I let it percolate a little bit. And I soon began to appreciate this amazing film. From Burt Reynolds as a heroic king (the way he delivers commands is captivating) to the evil warlock played by freaking RAY LIOTTA (he wears a leather trenchcoat that I keep expecting him to pull a sawed-off shotgun from) the fun and hijinx are non-stop. In a medieval-type setting, I really can't explain how funny it is to see Ray Liotta wearing an outfit that would be perfectly natural in one of his contemporary roles as a crooked cop or a mobster (and delivering his lines in a similar manner).

And when we're talking about line delivery - half the cast are young actors and actresses (one such being the obnoxious friend -murderer from the original "Scream" movie) who deliver their lines in such a manner as to have me constantly expecting a "dude" or "man" to be uttered with every-other sentence. Unfortunately, that did not happen (or maybe it did, and it was so natural that I didn't even notice). And of course, half the characters have British accents, some have American "dude" accents, and the rest of generic mid-west American accents. All from the same country . . .

There are also a race of "wood-nymphs" who fly around on vines a la Cirque du Soleil acrobats - which is just so very breathtaking; jiggly rubber suits galore; awkward grunting and hopping by said jiggly rubber-suit-wearers; and a soundtrack that is to die for.

In a nutshell? Mind-blowingly hilarious, and subsequently quite enjoyable. I honestly can't do the movie justice with the written word, as so much of it must be heard (or at least mimicked). "Dude, your comportment doth be so below your dignity. Man."

If only you all could be here with me, watching this film, laughing uproariously - a diverse audience for a diverse film.

Because, in the end, what makes this movie so fun for me right now is the fact that my "race-radar" hasn't screamed out once the whole time, and so - in spite of the horrendous nature of the actual film-making - I can actually relax and just enjoy it for what it is - the unintentionally funniest movie ever made. And thus - the greatest.

Go forth and view it.

Dude.

Honestly . . .

2008-12-22T13:34:00.000-08:00

"Fat, lazy, bad-tempered pig voted China's favorite animal."

That's the headline that goes to the "news story" at the link below. When you read the story (if you even bother) - it tells how a pig that survived the Sichuan earthquake and "vividly illustrated the spirit of never giving up" was voted China's favorite animal, along with a loyal dog and a cat that almost died from grief when its partner was killed.

But let's go back to that little "headline" that is what most Americans are going to see when they see their MSN homepage after logging out of their hotmail account (which is how I saw it). Now what are the inferred implications of the headline versus why the people of China actually chose the pig as their favorite animal? Seriously. Is there any explanation for why the headline wasn't "Earthquake survivor pig voted as China's favorite animal" as opposed to the one they chose? Yes, they explain where the "fat and lazy" part came from, but that isn't the story, nor is it why the animal was chosen.

So why would an American online publication choose the headline emphasizing the fat, lazy and bad-tempered aspect of the pig in tandem with the nation that voted for it? No idea here . . .

And I know how many people out there are going to shake their head and say that - once again - I'm looking for a fight. But this is just such a perfect example of the little things. Those little bits that are completely deniable and may very well be coincidence. The stuff that I MAY be reading too much into, but may also just be exactly what I think it is - but, either way, done in such a manner that I only look like a "sensitive" jerk for saying anything about it. Because, again, those who wish for me to "get over" such a thing look at it in isolation - only notice it when I (or somebody else like me) says something - and then go on to ignore or miss the hundred other "little things" just like it that happen over the rest of the day - and every other day, as well.

One person staring at you in a restaurant one time is strange, and worrying about it is paranoia. Multiple people staring at you EVERY time you enter the restaurant is more than a coincidence. Your friend "slipping" and saying something disturbing once is funny. Them doing it on a regular basis is a problem. This is how race works. Little bits and pieces that - by themselves - are nothing remarkable; but when added up become enough to drive a person crazy.

At least, that's how this bad-tempered pig - I mean Chinese-American - sees it.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28349413/?GT1=43001

On Escaping Race

2008-12-21T08:39:00.000-08:00

Three of the last five weekdays I was off of work due to snow days. I had to ditch my car in another part of the city yesterday and take the bus home because the roads were too icy. I've been in my house A LOT this past week.

So you'd think that would have made it more likely for me to write a bunch of blog posts. You'd think that. But, instead, I wrote less than I have in any other week, even though I was LESS busy. Interesting.

So why was that? Mostly . . . because I've been trying to escape from race a little bit this week (or thoughts about race, more accurately). I put up my book on revisionist history, grabbed a fantasy novel (the one pictured on this post), curled up on the couch, under a blanket by the fire - and tried to ESCAPE.

Because all the drama of the preceding week had me a bit burnt. All this back-and-forth, all the comments basically implying (or saying flat-out) that I was just "looking" for something to get offended about, etc. It put a sour taste in my mouth and made me want to just escape it all for a while. And so I did my best.

I slipped into a fantasy novel. And that's always been my most effective means of escape through my whole life. The majority of my adult life, I have been thoroughly immersed in non-fiction - history, psychology, sociology-type stuff. But when push comes to shove, and I just want to hide out for a bit? I go back to my bookstore and find a thick-ass fantasy book to read.

Of course, when trying to avoid thoughts of race, fantasy isn't always the best place to go. Because most fantasy out there is clearly written for white folks. In all the descriptions of characters, it's always the attributes of white people - the pale skin, the golden hair, the piercing blue eyes . . . The "darkest" characters are generally the villains. Not exactly heart-warming and inspirational to a person of color.

As a result, I've found myself drawn to the edgier novels - ones in which there are no clear black/white goodguys and badguys. And ones that tend to fall on a more epic, global scope - and thus including characters of different racial backgrounds. The most successful on that level so far (as far as white authors) that I have found has been Steven Erikson's "Malazan Book of the Fallen" series. A number of characters of color, a lot of gray areas - well-written. It's definitely not perfect, but as far as these kinds of things go . . .

But no matter how "good" they get, I still have to put a part of myself aside when reading even these "escapist" novels to not allow race to sully my enjoyment. My mind still jumps at times when there are problematic descriptions, or when I still haven't heard dark skin described positively 400 pages in. Mostly, I am good at "getting over it" and enjoying for other reasons . . .

But it doesn't go away. Because I can't ever fully "turn off" my racial mind. I went and saw "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (have I mentioned Keanu Reeves is actually a quarter Chinese) expecting exactly what I got - not the greatest movie, a bit ridiculous, but relatively entertaining. And yet, my racial mind kept firing off "why do the middle-class white folks get to represent all of humanity - and subsequently save it?" "Why does the one character of color have to be a black kid with no parents who keeps wanting to "kill them all" like his father?" And then I'll be like, "Shut the f--- up, mind - just watch the freaking movie!"

It's like watching a stupid action film with an over-critical friend who keeps going, "Yeah RIGHT that could happen!" It's annoying. And obnoxious. But I can't make it stop. And that friend is good to me and helpful and necessary on so many other levels, so I can't just cut it off. Because I've learned that "ignoring" race does just as much good as "ignoring" the bully who steals my lunch money every day - maybe it doesn't get me as many black eyes, but it sure as Hell doesn't keep me from going without lunch, and it only sets me up to be a sucker for the next bully at my next school and so on for the rest of my life.*

And that's how escaping race goes. During a week of intentionally avoiding race-oriented blogs and discussion, mostly staying inside - it doesn't just go away. I'm not going out of my way to look for it. In fact, I was intentionally avoiding it, and yet I can't. It doesn't work like that for me. Or - likely - for anybody else that isn't white in this country. No matter what, race tracks me down and slaps me a few times a day. It's like a woman trying to stay in and avoid gender - she can't. Not totally. Because it's a fact of life that doesn't just go away because you want it to.

And that's what all these "color-blind," anti-Affirmative Action folks clearly don't understand - race doesn't exist because I see it. Problems of race don't exist because I'm looking for them and calling attention to them. If I shut my mouth and don't say anything, race and race problems will only go away for those few white people who have the privilege of ignoring it, while things get worse, overall.

If returning to my childhood, curling up in a ball by myself and hiding from the outside world while reading a fantasy novel can't make race disappear - then nothing can. So how 'bout we all just accept that fact, stop lying to ourselves and others, and do something about it?

* Hmmm . . . it's also a very white, middle-class cultural thing for adults to tell kids to "ignore" people they have problems with or who are messing with them, or to "ignore" insults because "sticks and stones will break my bones . . ." Could that have any relation to the tendency of that same demographic to want people to "ignore" race?

** I know I've come a long way when I'm writing a whole post around reading a fantasy book. My brother gave me so much shit about that when I was a kid, that I've been ashamed of my enjoyment of fantasy books for most of my life - hiding the fact that I read them. I've even been known to keep a back-up fake "book I'm reading" at my side, so if anybody came in, I could switch out and hide the fantasy novel and pretend I was reading something else. Sounds like a precursor to a post on social stigma.

On the Invention of Racism, Part II

2008-12-15T06:00:00.000-08:00

Oh, what a way to start the party I referred to a couple days back. From the very beginning. Note to the upstairs party - make sure you read the full post before you let the way it all begins get you, because it was very intentional, and NOT because I hate white people.

For the first installment, see "On the Invention of Racism, Part I."

So, where did I leave off? Oh, right - what history really looked like before it got re-written.

I was talking about the fact that white Europeans were simply NOT superior - AT ALL - for most of the period of time we like to call "written history." In fact, if we were talking about technological and social advances, we'd have to call them plain inferior. To - pretty much - everyone else. Seriously.

And me writing that probably blows people's minds. Because that's not how our textbooks tell it. And isn't that just racist to say in the first place?

My response? I don't know - is it? Is it racist to state the simple fact that white Europeans literally swam in their own sh-- during much of the second millennium while civilizations of color in Africa, Asia, and the "American" continent practiced good hygiene? Is it racist to say that white Europeans in the 1300s were illiterate savages, in contrast to the highly-educated, scientifically-advanced Moors, or Mayans, or Sudanese, or Chinese, or . . . (you get the picture)? Is it racist to speak of the barbarism of white European colonists in contrast to the settled, civilized natives that they butchered? Is that racist? Because it really seems to me that that's what every single American child learned in school . . .

Oh, wait. No. My bad. They learned the opposite. Right. They (we) learned that white Europeans were the advanced ones, while everybody else was backwards. But that wasn't racist because it was true.

Except it wasn't.

No - it was only true after racism was invented. And institutionalized.

Because there was a time (through all these years of primitive European backwardness) when different races of people didn't exist. The concept of race didn't really exist. There was the acknowledgement of different skin color, of course. And of different places of origin and civilizations. But it wasn't about race. The differently-colored civilizations of the world traded with each other, took advantage of the advancements (and weaknesses) of the others, and lived in a relative state of peace with each other (and I specify "with each other," because they were obviously fighting amongst themselves - but more within the same racial groups than without).

And nobody was "superior." Sure, the Chinese have always thought themselves superior to everybody else, but nobody was actually superior in terms of dominance or advancement or anything else like that. One culture had their way of doing things, the other culture had their own way, and that was how it was.

So what caused superiority to happen? It started with wars of subjugation and slavery.

But most wars of subjugation through the majority of historical time were not between different races. No - they were one tribe or group from one race* taking over land or control of another tribe or group of the same race. And, with that, came slavery. Africans enslaved Africans. Indigenous Americans enslaved other Americans. And white Europeans enslaved other white Europeans. And wasn't it all so hunky-dory? No. But it wasn't about race, either.

Wars that happened between different races weren't about race, either. The major ones were about religion - Christians and Muslims during the Crusades. And neither side thought the other was inferior - simply wrong about God. And so it went until the Inquisition. And, at that point, race starts to appear in the picture - because, although it was ostensibly about religion - it fell out to start eliminating people of the wrong "look" or opinions (I believe this is where true anti-semitism really made its first major stand, the dark-skinned Moors were pushed from Europe, "witches" were persecuted, etc.) . . .

And then Columbus' terrorist attacks on the Americas began. As white Europeans gained control of the Americas (again, through brutality and plague), they gained wealth. Wealth in terms of gold and trinkets, but also in terms of manpower - SLAVES. Because the most slaves in the original Americas were not actually Africans - they were Native Americans. So many that there certainly wasn't a need for white slaves, anymore. But then the plague started wiping out the Natives, so the white Europeans, used to all the extra slave help to do their work, had to ship in African slaves to take their place.

And that's about when the invention of racism really began to take full shape. Because Columbus' initial reports on the natives he met were highly positive. Commenting on their regal physical appearance, their kindness, and their civilized culture. That was until he decided he would kill them and take over their land for "God and country." Then, suddenly, he started talking about their "savagery" and their uncivilized nature, likening them to animals.

Because the problem was this: how could a God-fearing Christian man kill off a whole race of kind, regal, and civilized people? He couldn't. Which presented two options: either, a) don't kill them and leave their land and resources, or b) change how you look at them, so you can feel okay about killing them all.

Guess what option Columbus went with?

And the rest followed suit. There are hundreds of accounts of "explorers" and "statesmen" initially having positive things to say about native peoples, only to do a complete 180 in opinion once they started profiting by killing them.

It was simply a matter of propaganda. If you can convince your people that the "enemy" is less than, then they will have no problem killing them. This kind of dehumanization during wartime has always occurred (and still does).

But it stopped happening only during wartime. Because the majority of slaves became black slaves. And - again - no God-fearing man or woman could whip another man or woman, split up their family, rape them, murder them, etc. No. But they could do all these things if they changed their mind about who those people were. In fact, changed their mind to not even make them people.

And so history had to be re-written. Because if the conquerors acknowledged the previous power (and superiority) of these peoples' civilizations, then how could they adequately justify their current actions? Again - they couldn't. So they - very intentionally - changed history to put white folks on top, from beginning to end. Suddenly, Europeans conquering and colonizing the world wasn't an act of epic brutality and fascist Empire - it was inevitable. It was the ever-constant march of progress. Something that nobody could stop.

They took the morals right out of the equation. And never put them back in. Think back to your history lessons of your childhood - how often was this battle presented as "more advanced" versus "less advanced"?** Manifest Destiny. Exploration. Africa became the "Dark Continent" as slavery reached its peak. None of this was a coincidence.

Washington, Jefferson, Patrick Henry - they all owned slaves. They had them beat. They broke up their families. They acknowledged the wrong of it all (in a way), but they continued it. Because that was how it was. Because it was easier to let it continue than to function without it.

But slavery did end (at least in the most literal, legal sense). And, afterwards, Reconstruction occurred. Black Americans were given full rights, put into positions of authority, sat in government. But it fell through. Not because the black folks were unable to handle the new way of things, but because white racists (which was the majority of white folks) were murdering black officials. They attacked entire towns. Burned the homes of the most successful black folks.

And suddenly the rights were revoked by the government. But they couldn't admit that it was because the white racists had won - of course not. So it got re-written as the newly-freed slaves being unable to handle authority. Being too uneducated to be successful. Because that story felt better for the authors.

And that story was so effective and became so ingrained, that few people today even realize that black people actually served in government and had legal equality any time before the Civil Rights movements of the 60s. We're taught to believe that things have steadily been getting better. That the racist institution of segregation had to bow to the "inevitable" might of "progress." Uh-oh. Sound familiar?

That's the story we keep hearing. That things "are getting better." Which is often code (when said by people with power) to mean, "stop complaining - be thankful for what you're given;" a justification for those same people to do nothing active to change how things are.

But the problem is - things haven't "been getting better." Things are better now than they were during the 1800s and early 1900s, for sure. But, as far as race relations go, they aren't better than a few hundred years before that. So, if we're looking at the BIG PICTURE, things (racially speaking) have actually been getting WORSE over the course of history. But that kind of outlook doesn't really help the current straight*** white male power system keep us blind and apathetic. If we become too aware of all that, then we might actually start doing something about it, instead of passively talking about "progress" and waiting for the "inevitable" improvement.

In the meantime, racism prevails. We continue to think that welfare recipients are black, single parents that are waiting for handouts without working for it (when data proves to us that those black, single parents actually tend to work MORE than any other demographic). We talk about how our Irish immigrant forefathers "pulled themselves up by the bootstraps" in the face of adversity, while black Americans have not done the same (ignoring the fact that those black Americans who did exactly that were lynched, beaten, and threatened with no legal recourse up to a couple decades back****). We talk about McCain being a "true patriot" because he was tortured at the hands of Vietnamese savages (while we torture and hold "terrorists" without trial or direct evidence to this very day). We pillory black athletes who screw up, chiding them for not being role models (then go out to see another movie that only casts black males as thugs and convicts).

We tell our kids to value their educations - then pump lies down their throats.

Progress is NOT inevitable. It has to be fought for, tooth and nail. Because racism has been the most successful, enduring invention of the last thousand years, and I'm tired of paying for it.

* At least what we would now call "one race."

** Which implies "more intelligent" versus "less intelligent," of course.

*** I could do a very similar post about the invention of homophobia (and will at some point).

**** And it's arguable whether or not equivalents are truly a thing of the past.

On Walking in a Snow Storm - Literally

2008-12-14T09:31:00.000-08:00

I keep putting off that "Invention of Race" post I promised, but . . .

It's snowing outside. Real snow. Big, fluffy flakes of snow that are actually sticking to the ground. SNOW.

In Portland, Oregon.

That doesn't happen very often.

And I have this giddy-as-a-schoolboy feeling about it. I keep standing up on my chair (I live in a basement) to look out the window at the falling flakes, and the white sky beyond. I have a park across the street from me (I like to call it "my park"), and it's so exciting to see the grass replaced by a covering of snow. The white clumps sticking to the trees - the cars slowly disappearing under a fresh coat.

I'm planning out the rest of my day as I write this: DEFINITELY going to throw some wood on and have a nice, crackling fire. Going to snuggle up and do a whole lot of reading (George R.R. Martin, for those curious - this faux-radical wannabe emcee likes his fantasy) and - at some point - I'm going to go walk around a little bit.

I'm going to bundle up like crazy, throw on some boots (if I have any that can withstand the snow) and go run around in the park like I'm 5 years old. I'll probably throw a snowball or two (maybe even try to build a little snow-sculpture). And once I'm all tired-out from that (and soaking wet and freezing), I'm going to run back inside (right across the street - brilliant) throw off my wet clothes, and warm back up in front of the fire with a mug of hot tea (or maybe cocoa). And read some more. And not leave my house for the rest of the day.

And then, tomorrow morning, I'm going to cross my fingers and hope against hope for . . . a Snow Day. Again - I'm a teacher, so if I am lucky enough for the snow to stick and make travel difficult, I could get a free day off of work - and how could I use it at this point in the year.

So that's how I'm going to spend my day. Cheerful and cozy and light - because, somedays, there are other things to think about than race. And I'm going to take advantage when I can.

Have a great day.

On Blogging, Preaching to the Choir, and Throwing a Party

2008-12-11T18:01:00.000-08:00

I chose this image not because I'm going to write on the movie, but because it seemed to best convey all the topics to be covered in this particular post.

So who would have thought my last post would be so aptly named? "On Walking in a Wind Storm." We certainly got ourselves some wind - and quite the storm - from this one. More drama than I'm used to - for sure - and I teach at a middle school.

I keep thinking of the image of the Joker from the most recent Batman movie, as he says, "And . . . away . . . we . . . GO!"

BOOM!!! (imagine explosion sounds)

So here goes. I've been crazy frustrated for the last few days. To the point of not sleeping and all that. I have a feeling my counterpart in this particular blogosphere whirl of a storm probably has an idea of a similar kind of irritation and stress. Because - I mean - did either of us ever want this kind of ridiculous "battle"? I seriously doubt it.

And there are a number of frustrations to this - that I've already aired - but one that's got me is what happened when I tried to wander over to "the other side" and say my piece. In retrospect, I should have totally seen it coming, but it kind of surprised me the reactions I got over there. Nowhere (other than with the blogger herself) was there any sort of response to the gist of the matter - that something had offended, unintentionally, and should be addressed in some way. Instead, there were attacks, numerous references to my "sensitivity" and inability to take a joke, "PC" references . . . the usual.

And, really, why did that surprise me? Because that's what happens in the larger world - but it's also what happens when you step into somebody else's turf and call out the boss. At that point, whether or not you are making sense, the boss's people are going to step in and protect. That's normal human reaction. When the opportunity to draw a line in the sand and call out sides occurs, we all choose a side and defend those we know. "Our people" - whether that line is drawn by family ties, race, neighborhood, or who reads whose blog.

And that's exactly what happened. Those on "my side" jumped to tell me how right I was and how reasonable I was being, while "her side" jumped to say the exact same thing to her - while both of us were probably a little bit wrong. Et voila! Drama.

And that's what really bothers me here. Because this blog stopped being about my personal space to vent or "practice writing regularly." It's become an opportunity to educate and share experiences, as a means to spread the word and battle the institutionalized and media-led ignorance of those living in this country. And I don't say "ignorance" as the loaded term that so many see it to be, but the definition - lack of knowledge. Because, if you don't have the experience, and nobody takes the time to teach you, you're going to lack that knowledge.

And in my attempts to share experience and knowledge, I've developed a little following. Not a huge one, by any means, but a decent number. The problem is, this particular following sounds so much like a choir. Because people choose to come to this blog to read it. And most people are going to continually come to and read a blog that they agree with - because it's just too painful and frustrating to read something that you can't nod your head to on a regular basis.

The problem is, that process makes it difficult for true education and learning to occur. Because one-sided agreeing doesn't really change anybody's mind. I just get to hear - "Yeah! Say it again! I totally agree with you!!!" - which feels great, but am I really reaching anybody that wasn't already headed in that direction?

And then I found a venue (blog) FULL of EXACTLY who I want to reach - folks learning about race and dealing with it from the context of raising their children (of color) in a white-dominated society and world. Folks that seemed willing and excited to learn (I know this because I only found out about it when they linked to my post on Guess Who? as something to think about). And so I paid it a visit. And I saw something that bothered me, so I commented - thanking the writer for the link, and explaining my concern.

And then . . . away . . . we . . . went!

EXPLOSION!!!!

Because it turned out that that particular choir wasn't having it. We all went into "protection" mode. And here we are.

Want to know the saddest thing? Since the drama occurred, I have gotten hundreds of hits coming over from that site. When I was originally linked to, as a means to learn something and think about it? Three. It's one more microcosm of how people of color tend to get attention in this society - ignored until something BIG and negative goes down.

So where am I going with this? I'm not exactly sure. But I have always been proud of my ability to win anybody over - no matter their demographics. Race, gender, economic status - throw it all away when the CVT walks in, because he can find the common ground and walk there. The beauty of practice in "The Gray Area." But that's in person. In writing? I tend to chafe a little bit more . . .

And so I find myself thinking about a party that happened at my new house after Thanksgiving. My new roommate (a black man) can best be described to have stereotypical "hippie" tendencies from an outside viewpoint. His friends follow suit. The friends I brought to this party were a bit more colorful (still a few white folks), but from a hip-hop cultural grounding.

So, most of the party, there were sort of two parties happening - the upstairs: hand-drums, barefoot, and less-clad dancing with abandon( average age between 40 and 50); and the downstairs: chilling on a big couch, listening to hip-hop and giving each other a hard time (average age mid-twenties to mid-thirties). When folks from the upstairs wandered down, we would exchange cordial greetings and introductions, there would be an awkward pause, and then the newcomer would return to upstairs.

Except at the end. At the end, the straggling "upstairs folks" came on down and joined us all on the big couch. We made a mini-performance space, and folks took turns sharing their words. I shared some politicized spoken word about my relationship with race as it pertains to my father. An "upstairs woman" shared some of her own spoken word (also political) from back in the day. Two of the downstairs crew dropped lyrics over a generic beat I put on. And we all just shared a positive, creative, and intimate space for a short period of time. "Them" and "us" - sitting all lined up on a big-ass couch, appreciating each others' talents (and courage to share).

And THAT'S the kind of party I want to host again. A party where you can all have your different places to camp out and do whatever it is that brings you satisfaction, while also coming together to share and learn and connect at the end of it all.

I don't want to preach to just the choir. Sure, I need the choir to keep me fed and strong enough to battle on through the rough stuff, but I don't want only the choir. Because I want the opportunity to really reach some people who don't see my side. I want the opportunity to re-structure my own views based on somebody else's comments. And I want the opportunity to foster a respectful dialogue between different sides, so that they can edge a little bit closer towards common ground.

And so I make an offer to all those from the "upstairs party" that have been coming over here to see what I have to say: why don't you come back again, bob your head to my beat for a minute, appreciate the subtleties of a well-formed verse? And to those with me at the "downstairs" party - how 'bout we go upstairs for a bit and dance a little; see how a head-spin goes to a natural drum rhythm? And when we hit that point of being a bit too far past our respective comfort zones, we'll both head back to our little areas of the party - but we won't go home. Oh, no. We'll share the same house, and all the positive, good-natured fun emanating from upstairs and down, until we're relaxed enough to switch it up again and stretch.

And to the now-"infamous" blogger from the "upstairs party" - I offer you a space to post a little something. Share your thoughts and where you're at, honestly and respectfully (as you have been doing), so we can reach out a little bit. I offer my own services to the "upstairs," as well (but not pushing it).

And wouldn't that be quite the party!!?? I mean - seriously. Somewhere where we all don't just preach to choirs, but to the "other side." Somewhere where true, knock-the-breath-out learning happens. Dang.

I'm not a (specifically) religious man, but I've always felt that everything happens for a reason. I doubt you disagree. So wouldn't that be tight if this was the reason?

That's my little dream. Not likely, by any means, but something worth aspiring to (and daydreaming about).

And as far as my choir goes - thank you all for the support, don't stop reading, and please feel free to share a verse or two whenever the need strikes.

On Walking in a Wind Storm (and Dealing with Being Other)

2008-12-09T07:00:00.000-08:00

I shall continue my essay on the invention of race shortly, but something has come up, so I shall write on it while it's on my mind.

In my second part of my "relating topics of race via metaphor" series (see On Driving in the Rain), I bring you a new metaphor: walking in a wind storm.

Picture it: coat held tight, collar up, forward-leaning into the wind. Edges of your coat fluttering and flapping and slapping you as you just try to put one foot in front of another. Random objects (newspapers, garbage) are hitting you from the side. The rain is hitting you in the face. It's uncomfortable. Terribly unpleasant. Frustrating. But you push on, ignoring it as best you can, letting everything bounce off you as you just move forward.

And then one tiny bottle-cap gets flung into the air. A tiny little bottle-cap. Insignificant. Harmless. If it hits you, it's just going to bounce off your coat - you probably won't even realize it happened. But for some reason, that cap gets lifted off the ground, swirled once or twice, and then flies directly into your earlobe. And it STINGS!!! It hurts. It even drew a little bit of blood. You curse, grabbing your inflamed ear. And that's the one thing that just knocks you off your game, you start swearing, throw your useless umbrella to the ground, trying to stomp the offending bottle-cap into submission.

All the while, you're still in the middle of a windstorm.

I think about race all the time. I watch ten seconds of television, and I am guaranteed to see something that "otherizes" people of color and establishes white people as the norm. A white co-worker says something that displays their cultural incompetence. I read the news and see how it portrays people of color. I hear a joke about Asian men and the size of their ----. All the time. But it doesn't really phase me on any sort of noticeable level. I brush it off. I put up my collar and push on. That's how it is, crying about it isn't going to help me; so I take note when I have the energy, let it bounce away when I don't, and go on with my life, thinking on a way to make it a little more manageable.

But then something hits me in the gut. Something that shouldn't be that big of a deal. Just one more in a long line of things. It's not meant to be offensive. It's not meant to hurt. A tiny little bottle-cap that wouldn't have bothered me if it hit me anywhere other than my ear.

But it hit me in the ear.

Now, I'm not going to do a big public call-out here, but let's just say I saw something on a blog the other day that bothered me. It wasn't big. It wasn't meant to harm. By itself, I never would have even thought on it more than a few minutes. But, for whatever reason, it hit me in the ear. It threw me off my game. And I'm still thinking about it.

And I received an impassioned apology. One that I believe to be genuine. Almost immediately. And I appreciate that, but for some reason - it's not enough for me here. I don't know if I'm being rational, but I just got hit in the ear during a wind storm, you know? And so I want more.

Because an apology isn't active. It's reactive. It's the - "oops, I got caught" - reaction to guilt when it's brought to one's attention. I never thought the person meant harm to begin with. So an apology establishing that changes nothing. I want something active to happen. No defense, no justifications - I already know the person isn't bad or evil or racist or anything else like that at all. But I want something to happen.

Because, in the end, my mentioning of the matter changed nothing. I got the apology, but the post is still there. I got the apology, but I still got to see 30 other commenters completely ignore my own reference to the offensiveness of the post and talk about how "cute" it was. 30 (presumably white) folks ignoring the one person of color (and representative of the race mentioned) speaking out because they can. Because that's how it always goes. And what crushes me is that these are people that want to raise a Chinese kid!

Now, obviously, there's nothing the blogger can do about commenters choosing to ignore my comment. That's their personal preference, and we can't change other people's personal preferences . . . Or can we?

Because this is the second part where the apology isn't enough. Just like with all the more public apologies that come from institutions and radio stations when somebody does something wrong, nothing follows up to demonstrate the sincerity of the apology. Because, if it is so truly heartfelt (which, oddly enough, I still believe it to be), then shouldn't that person desire a change? To prevent similar things from happening?

And so the blogger CAN affect the readers' choices to ignore my comment: by drawing attention to it. By writing on it. By posting on the topic. Surely, by removing the post with an explanation. By asking for further education or help. By MAKING the other readers think about the one person of color in the room. By MAKING other readers (and those in a similar situation) open their eyes to their own cultural biases on "normality" and "otherization." By MAKING other readers think about the painful realities of race BEFORE they raise a kid that's going to have to suffer through them (with less help precisely because their "parents" haven't been MADE to think on it).

That's action. That's sincere regret. That's making change.

*And so here I must undo my own B.S. "apology" and take a next step. Because, in my comments to a previous post, an inappropriate comment came in regarding preferences of mixed female "looks" (more or less following the line of "exotifying" mixed people, by all races). In response, I gave a half-assed explanation for why I allowed it, but pretty much left it as a side-conversation. I eventually deleted the comment.

But here, I would like to follow up on my apology to Seitzk in the same way that I ask for in this post: first, I would like to put on my "posts-to-write" queue the topic of exotification (especially of females of color). Second, I invite Seitzk to write her (my assumption is female from previous comments, but I'm actually not certain) own breakdown of what personally offended in that situation, which I offer to post as clarification for ALL readers that may not have caught it, or understood. I also offer the opportunity for the commenter to respond - to create a dialogue. See if we can't clear up a possible misunderstanding, or simply educate to eliminate another instance.

Because the primary aim of this post is education. We're all going to mess up at some point. We all have our own stereotypes and biases and prejudices that we're not even aware of. We all will be misunderstood at times. So if we cannot address that and learn from it, then what's the point of me writing all that I do?

On the Invention of Racism, Part I

2008-12-07T13:40:00.000-08:00

So, before I get into this post, I want to note that uglyblackjohn secretly (not really, but the announcement was embedded in the comments of my first post, so I just found it) bestowed a blogging award on me last week. Just found it, so I shall let that marinate for a minute before I more competently address that. However, I wanted to thank uglyblackjohn for the acknowledgment and invite you all to click on his name above to check out his blog.

Now, on to the racism!!!

The above image is a depiction of a schematic drawing from one of Leonardo da Vinci's many inventions. Da Vinci, of course, is now (and was during his time) acknowledged as one of the foremost geniuses of his time - and maybe beyond. A true representative of a "Renaissance Man," he flourished as Europe came out of the throes of the Dark Ages.

But the question is: how did Europe come out of the Dark Ages? And what were other people doing during that time? Did the Dark Ages span the entire world?

To answer the last question first - of course not. While Europe was battling through plague and squalor and the lack of any semblance of what modern folks call "civilization" (i.e. literacy, academia, peaceful co-existence, medicine, hygiene, etc.) the rest of the world was - gasp - doing pretty much fine. China was pushing along, celebrating over two thousand years straight of scholastic aptitude and written language. In Western Africa, Timbuktu boasted a library of 1600 volumes, as well as a university rivaled only by another advanced university in the Sudan (Eastern Africa). Arab Muslims (the Moors) were in a period of scientific and academic achievement perhaps unrivaled in all of the world. Across the Pacific, the Mayan, Incan, and Aztec Empires were building cities of hundreds of thousands with irrigated farmlands and sewage systems.

In Europe, backwards tribes were fighting over nomadic lands and wallowing in their own filth.

So how did white Europeans stop acting like savages and get a little bit of civilization? By getting help from all the non-white civilizations, of course. Mostly, it was the Moors who were able to pass on their knowledge to the primitive Europeans. Their extensive academic and scientific knowledge - preserved in libraries - was the backbone of European "genius" as it blossomed during the Renaissance. But the Europeans were smart - they knew that they had much to learn from all the other more advanced civilizations, so they built on what they learned from interactions with the Chinese and Africans that they traded with. End result? Europe stopped being a cesspool.

Or did it? At the time of the white "discovery" of the Americas, London was still a city swarming with filth and excrement and disease (while the Mexican city of Tenochtitlan harbored hundreds of thousands - perhaps more - in perfectly-ordered streets). Scotland was a hinterland full of feuding tribes. The indigenous Americans commented on the incoming Europeans' filth (as it was against custom for white folks to bathe at the time, while the Natives upheld customs of cleanliness and hygiene).

So how did these backwards people take over the world? Was it because they were more "advanced"? Somewhat. They surely had more firepower in most cases. But it really came down to savagery. Because the conquering Europeans were more ruthless in their desire to kill all who stood in their way, they were able to succeed. Oh, and not to mention the fact that over 70% of the original inhabitants of the Americas died of disease before even having a chance to fight back.

Because the fact of the matter is that the indigenous Americans taught the Europeans how to farm, so they could survive in the "New World." Most of the original colonial towns were built on Native city-plans (complete with sectioned-off farm-plots) that had been abandoned as Natives died of plague (probably smallpox).

So where does the racism come in? Well, somewhere along the line, white Europeans became the "inevitable" conquerors of the world. Somewhere along the line, we stopped thinking of the different "races" (which didn't really exist in the way they do now) as equals. We stopped thinking of the various non-white civilizations of the world as on par with (or more advanced than) white European culture. Somewhere, somehow, we started ranking races against each other. Instead of where we had been - where different ethnicities were acknowledged to be different (because, even then, there was no "color-blind") and unusual, but NOT inferior - we came to a world where people started thinking of different "races" as more or less human than others.

So how did that happen? By design, pure and simple. Racism was intentionally constructed to serve very specific purposes. Racism is not - and has never been - a natural result of physical differences between people. I'm tired of hearing that claim. Noticing difference and grouping people IS natural. But those are two very different things - with very different possible results.

And so, if you tune in for my next installment, I will break down the true history of racism, why it was invented, the results, and (hopefully) what we can do about it.

The suspense must be killing you . . .

Wednesday Respite

2008-12-03T07:10:00.000-08:00

And now for my weekly "blast-from-the-past" quasi-cheekiness:

MONDAY, APRIL 16, 2007

Dear Pho,

This is a perfect letter to be writing after waking up from a nap. I'm all groggy and cloudy-headed, and the words "Dear Pho" kind of just fall out of my mouth like cotton balls after I was anesthetized by the dentist (for those of you who don't know, "pho" is pronounced like "fuh"). But I guess this probably isn't the first time somebody has been amused at the pronunciation of your name at your expense. Sorry about that.

Anyway, I'm sitting here at the computer with a steaming bowl of you right in front of me. It's leftover from dinner a few nights ago, but it still seems to be perfect for the moment: I look out the window directly in front of me to see one more overcast, rainy, cold Portland day, and my body is just trying to shake off a nap, making my slowed metabolism cause me to feel a little colder than normal. The steam from you is dancing right in front of my eyes as I write, and it seems very reassuring.

It's funny that I'm happy to have you in front of me right now because I used to talk so much ish about you, back in the day. When I first moved to Portland, I noticed all sorts of places that specialized in you around town, and it piqued my curiosity. So I did a little research to find out that you were basically just beef broth with noodles and some other crap thrown in. That's it. So when random Portlanders kept telling me about how a specific restaurant "had good pho," I couldn't help but scoff: stupid Portlanders.

It seemed so perfect for this town full of hippies and cultural appropriators (everyone being so proud in their proper pronunciation of your name) to talk about "good pho." I mean, how could there be anything but one version of you? Beef broth. With noodles. That was like saying that Safeway sold some "good Cup o' Noodles." As if one cup tasted different than another cup. Couldn't I just cut the top off a Swanson's beef broth container, throw some veggies and crap in it and call it "good pho?"

But in spite of my best contempt, people continued to talk about you and order you for dinner and talk about good places to get you. And so - about a year ago (and two years into my time in Portland) - I found myself on a crappy, overcast day at another Pan-Asian restaurant (that's another thing Portland specializes in, so-called "Chinese" or "Vietnamese" restaurants that actually serve dishes from all over the Continent, furthering white people's beliefs that we're "all the same"). I was hungry and feeling dark because of the weather, but I wasn't REAL hungry, and I was craving veggies. And - suddenly - you became the perfect option (this, of course, coming about a year after I finally relented and decided that soup was - indeed - food). And so I ordered you.

And when you were served to me, all steamy and hot in your bowl, I actually salivated. Diving in with my chopsticks first, I scooped large clump after large clump of soft noodles into my mouth to kill my initial hunger. Then, less desperate to fill my belly, I chose out some veggies to eat - and they still crunched. The basil gave you a nice, fresh taste and mouth-feel, and the chunks of meat gave you substance. Finally, I lifted the giant bowl to my lips and drank down your salty, oily broth, which coated my stomach like a warm, satisfying blanket. My body comfortably warm and my hunger and cravings thus satisfied, I declared, "That was some GOOD pho." And I haven't looked back. I get it now - you're not popular here because of Portland culture, but because of the crappy weather. Your warmth and perceived freshness in the midst of the Season of Seasonal Affective Disorder are a ray of hope in a sky of gray.

Now, I still sniff with a bit of contempt when somebody recommends a "good pho" place, but then I take note and try it the next time I have you for dinner. Because you really do hit a very specific spot a lot of the time. Not to mention that a lot of places that have you also serve avocado shakes or home-made lime-ade. That fact alone kind of makes you cool.

And so I acknowledge your special goodness. I thank you for the times we've had and how you opened my eyes, and I will definitely share you with any outsiders who come to visit me. But now, you're getting cold, and I need to eat you.

Be careful on the way down,
CVT

On True Education

2008-12-01T06:00:00.000-08:00

I could be a kick-ass teacher. I really could. Sometimes, I am a kick-ass teacher. But I could be one on a regular basis.

If our education system wasn't so f---ed.

I teach at a middle school. My particular designation is "Math," but I also teach elective classes twice a week (currently, Music Production and Psychology; I taught Public Speaking and a podcasting class last term). And guess when I'm more often a kick-ass teacher?

Yeah - not when I'm teaching math.

Some of the problem is my lack of passion for the subject-matter. I always hated math when I was in school, so my main motivation is to not have it be as painful as it was for me as a kid. When I teach my elective classes, I obviously pick subjects that I'm interested in or even passionate about, and that comes out in how I teach.

But the passion vs. lack thereof isn't actually the main problem. No - the main difference between how I teach (and plan curriculum for) my math classes versus my elective classes is simple: there's so much bullsh-- involved in teaching math, and little to none in my other classes.

So - why is that? Good question. It's because I have to teach math to the State Standards. Which really means that I have to teach to the annual State-administered tests for each grade level. And so exactly what I have to cover is pretty much laid out for me in advance by some hypothetical panel of "experts."

And my questions to these "experts" is: how do you decide what is important to "know"? Really? Because so much of the subject-matter I have to cover is complete and utter B.S. Complete. And utter. Really.

I mean - honestly - how many of you all have ever used a box-and-whisker plot in your real life? Or a stem-and-leaf plot? How often has the Pythagorean Theorem come in handy (and if it ever has, what was the chance that you couldn't easily look it up when you needed it)? Outside of basic math functions, how many specific math concepts have ever been necessary without being able to readily look it up or gain assistance?

Now, I believe in the value of mathematics. I think the problem-solving skills are handy. A basic knowledge of algebra is great for better solving real-life math problems. The various ways of thinking and pattern-recognition learned through practicing math skills are invaluable. But what difference does it really make if some kid knows how to make a freaking box-and-whisker plot as opposed to spending that time mastering more basic skills at a deeper level?

Because I could make math relevant to the kids. I could come up with some ridiculous, fun and hands-on games and activities that would hone kids' math skills. I could teach the Hell out of math. If I didn't have to waste so much time on B.S. that some imaginary board came up with as "important" enough to put on the standardized tests that my kids' academic standing and progress are measured by. If I didn't have to scrap deeper-level learning and comprehension and actual MASTERY because my quality as a math teacher is gauged by how much improvement my kids make on B.S. tests that put as much weight on being able to determine the measures of alternate interior angles as calculating averages - with almost NO emphasis on true comprehension and problem-solving skills.

And it kills me. When the kids ask "when are we ever going to use this?" and all I have is a lie because I can't just say "after the test, you won't."

So I constantly skim over subject-matter. Never getting deep enough into any of it for it to be relevant or stick or just be interesting because there's always something else they "need to know to do well on the test."

Because our society loves tests. We love to do surveys and quizzes that tell us what our personality type is. We try to come up with formulas that can match the "perfect mates" based on multiple-choice questionnaires. We talk about people's high IQs as if that has any bearing on common sense or people skills. And we measure academic skills based on how a student did on a test without ever really bothering to find out if the kid actually understands any of it.

And it's especially frustrating to me because I know just how little these kinds of tests demonstrate true knowledge or understanding. A conversation demonstrates understanding. Being able to teach somebody else demonstrates understanding. A multiple-choice test usually just demonstrates your socio-economic background mixed in with some rote learning.

And it's not like the other subjects I teach aren't broad topics. They're vast. But it's up to me to focus my curriculum and classroom activities based on relevance, the kids' interests, etc. I actually get to take into account who my kids are, what my particular strengths as a teacher are, and what the desired end result is. And trust me - in none of my non-math classes do the kids finish up with a test. They debate topics of their choice in Public Speaking. They design their own Psychology experiments and run them. They produce their own cd with their own music in Music Production (obviously). All demonstrating true understanding, all relevant, all self-directed, and all great learning opportunities even if they don't go perfectly (especially if they don't).

And that's true education. That's how learning should happen. And that's kick-ass teaching.

Too bad the current system doesn't allow my math students to experience that.

On Guess Who?

2008-11-29T17:34:00.000-08:00

Opponenet: "Is your mystery person black?"

Me: Shit!!! "Yes."

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I had Thanksgiving dinner at a friend's house, and while I was there, her daughter pulled out the classic game "Guess Who?" and challenged me to a round.*

The second I saw the box and the name, I was thinking to myself, "Holy sh--. Guess Who!! I remember that game! I used to play that all the time as a kid." The thoughts that quickly followed covered my memories of the ridiculously small number of people of color in the game (all black), and the fact that there had only been one woman of color in the whole game. I recalled the feeling of knowing I had all but lost when I drew that card with the black female face on it. And I was interested in seeing how the PC police had updated the game since my childhood.

The answer? NOT AT ALL. I mean - honestly- not one bit. Although the style of cartoon was a bit different, the numbers were the same: 24 faces; 5 faces of color (all black); 5 female; one black female. Sure, there were a couple black-haired folks that could possibly represent other races, but they certainly seem white. Either way, the messages remain the same: It is a negative thing (i.e. you're going to lose) if your person is black because - 1) White male people are the norm. 2) There are some black people, but they are rare. 3) Black women are extremely rare (and unacceptable). 4) Those are the only two races in the world that matter (even if one of those races hardly matters) - white and black. Forget Asian, Latin@, Arab, Native Indian, Pacific Islander, or any other such "abnormal" races. 80% white. 80% male. Nothing else matters.

It kind of blew my mind. And it hurt. Fresh from my "encounter" with the young Asian kid from the YouTube video I put up on Wednesday, I couldn't help but be reminded of one other arena in my youth where I wasn't "normal" enough to count or be counted. One more straw reminding me of my outsider stance in this country. A freaking kids' game!!! Just like all the other manufactured kids' games I played throughout my youth - not a single one had an Asian kid, that's for sure (most didn't even have a single non-white kid).

Otherization. Constant messaging throughout every mass-marketed second of my childhood. And from these two recent examples (Guess Who? and the YouTube kid) - none of it has changed. Sure, we elected a black president - that's beyond huge - but where the Hell will my kids go to feel like part of it all?

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Opponent: "Is your mystery person Asian (or Arab or Latin@ or Native Indian or Pacific Islander or mixed)?"

Me: "Yes."

Opponent: "That's not possible - you must be cheating."

* For those that missed the "Guess Who?" boat, the rules are simple: each player has a board filled up with a bunch of cartoon faces (the same for each player) on plastic tiles that can be lifted or put down. You each draw a card with one of those faces on it, and then you proceed to try to guess your opponent's face by taking turns asking 20-Questions-type questions, flipping face-down any face that doesn't fit the characteristics of your opponent ("Does your mystery person have a mustache?" No. Flip down all people with a mustache).

** When looking for images for this post, I actually found images of a current version of the game where EVERY face is white - only one slightly-tan face in sight. And people say we're "post-racial." How I'd like to cave their f-ing heads in . . .

Words are not Enough

2008-11-26T06:41:00.000-08:00

This post has nothing to do with Cho Seung-Hui, but it might give all you non-Asian folks a slight idea of what kind of frustrations could cause a Korean kid in this country to lash out in such a terrible way.

This video makes the point more strongly than anything an adult could ever write. I wanted to cry and take this kid under my wing, tell him what's up and show him something different . . . wondering if it really is any different, as an adult (because I definitely could have made a pretty similar video when I was a kid).

THIS is how this country teaches Asian kids to think of themselves:

http://www.slanteyefortheroundeye.com/2008/11/video-ups-and-downs-of-being-asian.html

Tuesday Levity

2008-11-25T07:06:00.000-08:00

In general, this blog can cover some pretty frustrating and depressing topics. Not a bad thing, really - because these things need to be mentioned and/or discussed, but I thought I should get some regular levity in here to show any readers that I'm not always "so serious."* So I've decided that I'll do some blast-from-the-past posting once a week, putting up a past post from my now-deceased "entertaining" blog. The concept is explained in this one, but in summary: they are letters to inanimate objects meant to express my appreciation for the "little things." See? I appreciate things . . .

* It probably also shows how "American" I really am.

Without further ado, the CVT's Past Presents:

SUNDAY, APRIL 1, 2007

Dear Coconut Cream Pie
So my friend, A, gave me a little critique on this crappy blog, and she had a great idea. She told me that it might be a little more interesting ("a little," mind you, she's smart enough not to make big promises for this blog) if I wrote my posts as letters to various people/things. I thought that was a pretty good idea, so I've thrown out the "Theme of the Week" idea (which, if you've been reading, I actually threw out the day after I started it), and I'm going to go with letters.

Today's letter: Dear Coconut Cream Pie,

I ate a lot of you today. A's dad gave her a big piece of you yesterday, and she decided that I should have it (not knowing that you are my favourite dessert in the world). I ate the whole chunk in one sitting as I watched the beginning of "the Scorpion King" on tv. Unfortunately, it turns out that "the Scorpion King" is one of the worst movies ever made (it reminded me of the Conan the Barbarian movies, but much worse for having been made in the modern era), and the piece of you I was eating wasn't so terrific, either.

You see, I'm spoiled. My mom happens to make a really kick-ass coconut cream pie, and I've never met another's pie that has ever come close. It all started with the crust: today's piece of you had an awful crust. I'm not sure if it was burnt, or if it was supposed to be that way, but it was dry and had a definite charcoal taste to it. Nothing like mom makes it.

Now, don't get me wrong - I enjoyed you today. I really did. It's just hard not to get my hopes up when somebody gives me a bakery-box with you in it. Something about that pink box makes me think of my youth when only exciting treats came in those cleverly-folded containers: cupcakes, birthday cake, donuts . . . All generally signifying some fun event (usually a birthday).

So when a pink bakery box is combined with coconut cream pie, I'm expecting something really special. Something that is going to make me forget all about how horribly bad "the Scorpion King" is. Something that will throw me straight into the land of Eating Bliss no matter what else is going on. But when I opened up that magical box and began eating you today . . . well, I was thinking about how bad that movie was.

I know this is pretty hurtful to you, Coconut Cream Pie. That's why I wanted to address it clearly and immediately. We've had some amazing times together. All those birthdays when my mom makes you for me, and I eat you (nice and cold out of the fridge - the best way to enjoy you) for breakfast . . . The moments of hesitation when G asks for a slice of you, and I have to be polite and say okay. Today's little incident will never erase those memories or make them less special for me. I just figured that - if I was thinking it - I should say it.

So here it is: I think I would have preferred a big chocolate chip cookie this afternoon.

I'm so sorry.

Sincerely,
CVT

On Code-Switching

2008-11-21T09:23:00.000-08:00

Yeah - that's right. That's a photo of some thuggish-ruggish, street-repping ASIAN youth. Kids like many I've worked with who balance the American street life with traditional "Asian" cultural systems at home with the dominant white cultural systems of the establishment. Think that's easy?

There's a term that I've heard off and on within educational circles called "Code-switching." Now, this term was initially coined in terms of bilingual people - whose brains adapted to switch linguistic coding depending on their situation: such as English at school, and a different language at home. In countries where people grow up speaking even more languages, this is even more evident as people can end up switching between three or four different languages in one social situation, depending on who is there and the circumstances.

When used by educators (and other social workers), however, "code-switching" is use more broadly as a term referring to adjusting to different cultural situations, in general (including language, but not only language). And this isn't just in terms of ethnically mixed folks (like me), but anybody that finds themselves regularly interacting with people of very different cultural backgrounds.

Specifically, this idea is used by educators to discuss the obstacles in the way of many students within the current public education system in the United States. Because, to be blunt, our schools are run within the parameters of the dominant white, middle-class culture. This means that the values being enforced are white, middle-class values - whether or not that reflects the students (or even staff) in the system. So anybody from a different demographic (whether it's by socio-economic status, race, sexual orientation, or otherwise) comes in at a distinct disadvantage; because they come in having to learn new rules of social interaction, new ways to handle situations, different ways to communicate - all on top of the academics they are also expected to learn.

The problem being, of course, that few teachers actually go about TEACHING any of these new rules or ways of communication. Since the education system is so biased towards this white middle-class cultural mindset (and usually hires those from within that demographic), it is often assumed that this mindset is "normal" - thus, kids who are not fluent in the ways of being and communicating in this system are "bad kids" or "trouble-makers," etc. Students are assumed to have an instinctual knowledge of these rules, and so nobody takes the time to TEACH it - and so the kids who come in from a background of poverty, or a different ethnic or racial culture often suffer disciplinary repercussions, as well as poor school performance.

And this is where the concept of "code-switching" comes in. Because it is not necessarily a bad thing that schools move through a white middle-class cultural framework. Nor is it necessarily a good thing. It just IS. And, realistically, most of the professional world in the United States operates from an identical framework, so it is important for kids to master an understanding of these "rules" in order to move up, economically. It's not exactly fair (since it puts kids from a different cultural viewpoint at a distinct disadvantage), but it's brutal reality.

So some educators have begun to try to actively teach students how to code-switch in order to be successful in school. What that entails is throwing out a lot of the judgments that usually come when a student isn't following implicit school rules (such as levels of volume that are "too loud," ways of interacting that are "disrespectful," or ways of communicating that are "violent" or "aggressive") and instead teaching the student how to adjust. For example, a teacher could tell a kid, "Hey - I know it's not so easy to just 'turn the other cheek' in real life, but you've got to be able to find other ways to handle it if you're going to be successful in school and/or keep a well-paying job" and then following up with some brain-storming of other ways to solve it in a way that works within the system, but also for the kid.

Because, for many kids that don't fall under the white middle-class umbrella (which, actually - are the majority) coming to school can be like playing football all their lives and then suddenly being thrown into a basketball game without ever having the rules explained to them. So when the coach tells them to keep the other team from scoring, there's one most likely outcome: the kid tackles the Hell out of the dribbler in the middle of the court, gets thrown out of the game, yelled at by coach and other players and fans, and hates the sport of basketball ever afterward. At least, that's what would happen if the coach ASSUMED the kid had seen/played basketball before. If the coach was working with a kid he knew was new to the sport - a very different outcome would result.

And that's what happens in our current education system. We have a bunch of teachers (coaches) who ASSUME that kids know all of the many implicit rules of the white middle-class cultural game because that's the framework within which those teachers have lived their entire life. And so the kids end up getting themselves in unwinnable situations that end up in tragedy.

Of course, some folks are better adapted to code-switching than others: for, instance, those who have been practicing it from infancy. Those people who learned from a very young age about the changing rules of the game. Those who implicitly comprehend the very fluid nature of cultural values and are able to read the subtle cues that can clue them in to ways to be in different cultural situations. One such group of people are mixed folks like me. And that's why I will forever be grateful for my mixed background - because it gave me this inherent code-switching ability that most people don't have.

Because I grew up knowing - when I visit my Chinese grandparents, I should act this certain way, and talk this certain way, eat this certain way, etc; when I'm with my white grandparents, I should do these other things; when I'm with my friends, I should be like this. When I lived in Tanzania, people were constantly commenting on how "Tanzanian" I became - in action, mannerisms, ways of thought. But it was natural for me, because I was born into an adaptive cultural world, so I sub-consciously adjusted to a "Tanzanian" way of living and speaking as a matter of course. I have lived my life with a given intuitive knowledge that there are a whole number of different cultural ways of being and acting, and they are not on a hierarchy of "good" or "bad" or "rude" or "acceptable" - but rather a spectrum of "how this group does things." And that will forever be the greatest gift my mixed background has given me.

The problem is, of course, that those without an inherent understanding of cultural fluidity so often peg folks like me (let's call us "Instinctual Code-Switchers" or ICS) as "sell-outs" or trying to "play both sides" because of our ability to interact at the cultural level of whomever we happen to be with. I am now able to start pegging the distinct ways I change my demeanor depending on who I'm talking to, and it's interesting to me. I completely change my body language depending on the demographic of the people around me, and it is completely automatic. I've even tried NOT to do it, at time, and it's an actual fight for me to do so. And I'll tell you this - it is NOT "fake." It is not "selling out." It's just being able to better communicate between cultures and to adapt to subtle cultural cues to get along better.

Because we all do this on a regular basis. We all talk differently to our friends in a relaxed atmosphere than with our co-workers at work (on rare occasions, we don't . . .). We act differently in a job interview. We speak differently to our elders (hopefully) than to our peers than to small children. When we go to a show, we take on the mannerisms and adjust to the expectations of the specific fan-base for the show we are watching, whether it's rock, hip-hop, or the symphony. We are constantly code-switching as we move from situation to situation.

But when we do the same thing between racial cultural situations, people get uncomfortable. POC tell other POC we're "acting white." White folks get upset when POC don't automatically adjust to a white cultural framework and wonder why "they act that way." We make jokes about how people do things in other countries, or in ethnic cultures different from our own. We make tv shows called "Bizarre Foods" and crack jokes about the people of the country we are visiting.

And why? Because we don't directly acknowledge code-switching and how it works in our society. White teachers are afraid to tell their students that, in essence, they actually ARE being asked to "act white" to do well in school.* POC are afraid to admit that we do, indeed, "act white" in order to get better jobs. We all tip-toe around it because it's so damn touchy - and, in the meantime, our education system fails the majority of our children. Were we able to simply say - "there are certain rules to every game you play, and the specific rules for the game called 'do well in school' or 'get a promotion' are like this . . ." Kids are all about rules and fairness, so when you explain it to them in these terms, it settles them. You're not telling them how they do things are wrong or bad or any other such judgement - simply that they've got to learn some different rules and adjust to them to play these particular games.

Because, again - these kids are no less skilled or intelligent than their white middle-class counterparts.** In fact, I would argue that they must be a little MORE skilled and intelligent to be able to adapt (something others don't have to do) and still be successful. And this is why I think white college kids so often struggle with all-black fraternities, or the existence of BET, or why an Asian students' coalition is NOT the same as a white supremacist group - because these are the very kids who NEVER had to learn to racially code-switch in order to survive. Because they never had to adjust their ways of thinking or being to make do. And so they are unable to wrap their heads around the concept of different cultural value systems, or how other people do things without judging it based on their own narrow views.

And, oddly enough - it's not really their fault. It's frustrating as Hell, and often makes me want to scream - but it's more a flaw in the system than anything specific to them, personally. Because nobody ever explicitly taught them about code-switching or how it works or its prevalence in our society. To them, that has never been shown to exist because we're all so scared to admit it, and so they are allowed to roll through their lives in ignorance. It's the backbone of white privilege. Tell people to "respect other cultures" by saying "that's a pretty dress" or "I really love your hair" without ever having to understand that it's just about different rules to a game, thus eliminating "normality" and replacing it with "how things are done in this particular situation/place."

And so right here represents the beginning of a movement. Whether you're white or a person of color - please start openly acknowledging how code-switching works in our society. Just be honest about it. Teach your kids about it. Talk to your friends about the different rules you all play by. And if you're an educator? Start changing the system by just being open and frank about what we're asking our kids to do to be successful - and stop assuming they "should know how to behave." Please.

* Specifically, "middle-class white."

** Again, I must stress the "middle-class" aspect of the educational culture here, because white kids coming from poverty struggle with the adjustment in the same way that their more colorful peers do.

*** Thinking about it, I should probably specify that the educational system runs from a STRAIGHT white middle-class cultural viewpoint, as I have no doubt that GBLT students must also do some heavy code-switching to have success in school.

On Interracial Math

2008-11-18T21:46:00.000-08:00

This is going to be a short post. Short, because there's not a whole lot to say about the matter - but that doesn't make it any less important.

Over the years, I've often heard people speak of interracial relationships and mixed children as a key to "changing the world" and making current racial designations obsolete within the next 50 years. I've already discussed - at length - why I disagree, but I just want to ask one simple question regarding these magical multi-racial babies and their interracial parents:

Who do mixed (specifically white-plus-another-race) folks end up dating or having kids with most often: white people, other mixed people, people sharing the race of their non-white parent, or another race entirely?

Now, really think before answering.

Guess what? Biracial kids are more likely to end up having white partners than any of the other groups.* And it's not too shocking really.

The reasons? First of all, there are more white people in this country than there are any other race, so if you're somebody that crosses different racial barriers, you're still more likely, statistically-speaking, to run into white people - therefore a higher chance of randomly ending up with a white person.

Of course, it's not just random. Because biracial kids with one white parent generally grow up more immersed in white culture than their other culture. Part of this is the fact that we live in the U.S., which is dominated by white culture. But it's also because white culture is more "acceptable" and "normal," and the white partners are less able to actively subdue their own "normality" to enable their child to have an even immersion in both racial cultures of their parents. So - if a kid is raised in white culture, white people are who they are going to be around more often, and have more in common with, culturally, than another race - thus making it more likely for them to date white people.

Also, biracial kids are seen as more "acceptable" partners for white people than mono-racial "others." We're "exotic" and all that, a more comfortable middle ground for white people that want to "date dangerously," but don't really want to cross the racial line. We're less-threatening and more user-friendly, and so white people are more likely to be attracted to (and be okay with dating) us than somebody "more ethnic."

The end result? Within three generations, the descendants of an interracial union are basically white (I don't believe in the "one-drop" rule when we're talking fourths or smaller), making them more likely to date other white people, etc. So that - really - the majority of interracial relationships between a white partner and another race are the first step in white-washing the non-white partners racial lineage. So, in spite of all these arguments to the contrary, many interracial relationships are actually reducing racial diversity and color in the long-run. Now ain't that a crazy concept?

And for those who don't buy my argument - do a bit of snooping around, and tell me what you find. Find families of bi-racial (white and non-white) couples and see what the grandchildren look like. Personally, my cousins have pretty much drained all the Chinese blood from our family line, already. My brother is marrying a white girl. A large number of the mixed kids I knew back in the Bay have married white people (in fact, all the ones that I am aware of that have gotten married).

One possible exception to this rule is biracial (white/black) women. Partly, this is due to the fact that biracial folks with black heritage are a lot more likely to be considered just "black" on a general level. More importantly, it involves various racial stereotypes about black women, etc. which makes this the one exception where my proposed trend may not fall out (although I'm not entirely sure about that).

So, look around. Read up on some statistics. Do the math. And please don't tell me that interracial dating is a cure for racism until you have some proof. Because I'm not buying.

* I had actual numbers on this at one point, but lost them - anybody?

On Un-doing Right

2008-11-13T06:37:00.000-08:00

I mentioned this briefly in another post, and other people have written more eloquently on the matter, but the fact of the matter is that voters in California undid the right thing last week: they took away the right for same-sex couples to get legally married. The key here is that they took it away.

In May of this year, the California Supreme Court overturned the ban on same-sex marriages. The Supreme Court. It went that high, and the powers-that-be found that it was unconstitutional to deprive same-sex couples of the right to marry. As a result, thousands of same-sex couples got legally married in the state in the following months. Married. As was their RIGHT, because they were in love with each other and wanted to make that level of commitment that so many straight couples consider a fact of life and a necessary stage of partnership.

Then, a mere 6 months later, that right was revoked, due to a slight majority (52%) of people voting for Proposition 8. The name of Prop 8? Eliminates Right of Same-Sex Couples to Marry Act. The freaking NAME of the proposition flat-out stated its intent to "eliminate a right." And it passed. Because barely more than half of the people in the state voted for it.

And that is horrifying. Because how can it be that it only takes a 52% majority to ELIMINATE A RIGHT!??? What if that proposition was to "eliminate the right of non-white Americans to vote in the general election"? By the same faulty logic that had same-sex marriages revoked, white voters ALONE could revoke the rights of non-white folks to vote - and it wouldn't even take ALL white voters. Of course, that is a ridiculous premise that could never happen . . .

And yet - Proposition 8 did happen.

And what about all those happy couples that had marriages planned for this coming year? Cancelled. Not only cancelled - but banned. Made illegal. And those that already got married!? Fear and uncertainty. It's unlikely that their marriages would be annulled - but it's possible. For all those straight folks out there that still aren't horrified about this - imagine if you were part of an interracial relationship last spring and then had your marriage deemed illegal six months later because 52% of the people in your state didn't approve of your marriage?

It makes no sense. It seems completely illogical. At the same time that we voted a black man into the Oval Office, we allowed voters to take away rights from other citizens. And that is a conceptual paradox that cannot be acceptable to anybody who felt pride in our country last Tuesday night.

Still, we fight on.