In Theory

If you think you are who you are no matter where you are, then I would suggest you've never been far enough out of context to know the difference. The meaning of everything is shaded by context - sometimes completely changed by context.

For example, if you have been a part of or associated with a majority of some kind (e.g. majority race, majority religion, economically powerful) and then find yourself as the minorty race, minority religion, or economically weak for an extended period of time, there will be stress. Although your character and personality may initially be in tact, you will find that the world around you no longer responds "like they are supposed to." Through a consistent strings of similar experiences you may find your jokes aren't funny anymore, that your assumptions about everyone apply pretty just to you, that certain language is forbidden, certain values scorned and other values lauded.

In this new and strange context, no one is going to tell you, "hey because your context changed, here are all the things that you are going to have to deal with." No, it is not that simple. And in general, no one really knows enough about it or you to be able to tell you much about what to expect. And frankly, if someone did tell you, you'd probably be offended. And because that is the case, you'll feel alone, isolated, and sometimes you'll feel insignificant.

It may take a long time to realize that this context you are in exists for real and is not going to change all that much because you are a part of it. Not only does it take way more strength to define yourself when you are out of context, but the very act of self-definition may incite the context to exert pressure on you to stop your act of self-definition. You will feel the extent to which your old and familiar context assisted your identity and how much this new context wears on it.

On the other hand, you may notice it right away, each assumption, each response, each custom - all different (wrong?). It may be obvious to you how impossible the task to single-handedly changing the context is. You may give in and change yourself, you may hole up in cloistered existence - who knows? Whatever the case, you cannot just be you in the way you were you when your context helped you be you. You are going to have to be a new kind of you.

And therein lies the rub. How can you be you differently than you were you? What about you must be marginalized in order for you to count in this new context? What must you lay down, hide, let wither in order to be found acceptable in this new place? What conversations can you never have again becasue you have arrived here? Which of your common expressions are now found obtuse or ecentric? What perfectly normal feelings make no sense to have here? How much of you can be lost while you remain yourself? Or ar you still you at all?

The power of context is immense. And, when you are in your context, that power is practically invisible. When you are out of context, its power is highlighted in blinding fashion - impossible to ignore. People whose lives are highly privileged live in their context always. If they recognize there is another context at all, they have the power not to be in it. People who are underprivileged live out of their context - inside someone else's power structure. They do not have the power to live in their own context. Or, they may not believe that they even have a context relevant to their identity.

If all there was to Heaven was that everyone genuinely treated each other like they belonged, that they mattered, that without them this place would be worse off, wouldn't that be enough?

When I tell people that I am part Mexican, there is little surprise. I have dark hair, brown eyes, and brown skin (I tan pretty easy).

And yet when I tell people that I am Norwegian, there is usually a snicker. It is the kind of snicker that one gets when they are intentionally saying something that is untrue for ironic effect. The truth is that I am not any more Mexican than I am Norwegian or German. Sure, I get it that my Danish and Czech is not so obvious as I have less Dane and Czech blood than the others. But because my name is Gonzalez and I have darker features than most really White people, it is humorous to many people when I say that I am more European than I am Mexican, even though to say anything else would be false.

I have learned how to blow off, roll with, or dodge just about any comment, snicker, or response (outside of that one violent response I may talk about in another post) that comes my way. I have been socialized through two generations on my fathers side of the family on how to be an attempted-White and from countless generations on my mother's side of the family on how to be White.

I am the Whitest Mexican there is. And yet there are these times when I feel like I am not afforded a category - White or Mexican. There is no Whitican or Mexiwhite. And furthermore, I do not want such words to be invented. They sound weird. The need for such words seems whiny and victimy to me. I guess there is a word called, Tex-Mex, but it refers to food and Texas. Anyway, I just want to say that I find it interesting how powerful the soical construction of cultural identity is.

My grandfather intentionally tried to eliminate all Mexican culture from his family. My father made no effect to bring any Mexican culture into my family of origin such that I thought I was White with an accidental Mexican surname. And still it is funny to people that I am Norgian.

Don' get me wrong, I laugh with them and don't let this cultural idenity thing act as the central operating princinple of my life. At the same time, even in the third generation of the Whitizination of the Gonzalez family, all it takes is one look at me and my name and all of the "effort" means nothing.

Can anyone relate? I would love to hear what you are thinking.

*******************UPDATE***********************
Apparently race is the story in both stories. The VT killer was racially disciminated against when he was in high school, mocked for his Korean accent, among other things.

Oh, he's still responsible for his actions, but he is not responsible for the world around him that he was required to respond to.

Here is a little something from Langston Hughes:

Apparently there are times when it does explode.
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The two main stories (unless you are mourning the downfall of Sanjaya) have to do with violence against college students.

The first story is the Imus story. The second is Virginia Tech. Both involve violence against college students.

I think it would appropriate to say that the phsyical violence at Virginia Tech is worse. I really think that few people would argue with that. However, setting the kinds of violence done in each situation into a hierarchy would tempt people to dismiss the importance of the Imus story.

At Tech, the killer is dead and will not kill again. No one debates what he did as being wrong. It's a terrible story with no advocates for the killer. People are united.

The problem with the Imus story is that the person who did the violence is still on the loose. People are not united against him. There are actually people going to bat for this guy. The extent to which he is seen as getting away with the kinds of things he says is the extent to which dehumanizing behavior is acceptable.

The difference between the violence Imus did against the Rutgers women's basketball team and the violence done against Virginia Tech students, faculty, and staff is only in degree.

This might sound overly dramatic, but I am afraid the VT story will drown out the attention given to the the racism problem in America. I fear that we will start to believe that the main problem in America and college campuses is people gunning other people down. It's not.

Although the VT story is more intense, it is extremely isolated and rare. Imus kinds of stuff happens every single day.

We should mourn and grieve the deaths at VT and we should take our time doing it. But we should have some tears for the state of race and rhetoric in America as well.

Until a Korean friend of mine pointed this out to me, I was not aware of the hideous war brothels of Japan back in WWII. This kind of sex slavery is sickening and there is no reason for it to ever happen.

Japan will not formally apologize for this past sex slavery.

Read about it here and then go ahead and vote on the question in the lower left hand corner of the article.

As an American, this one really does hit close to home when you think of the worst of American history. Maybe there needs to more political and national apologies.

***Update***
Click here for a video on race after reading this post.
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I remember running a race in 3rd grade. It was the 100 yard dash. I had to run against Rob, a boy who was considered very fast. At the same time, I had shown that I was pretty fast myself.

As he and I were getting ready to run, stretching out our legs and all, he looked at me and said, "I'm going to pace you."

"Huh?"

"Yeah, I am going to pace you."

"What does that mean?"

"I'm not telling you, but you can't win when I do it."

"Tell me what it means."

"I'll tell you after I win."

I didn't have a chance in the race. All I could think about during the race was "what is pacing? Is he doing it now? Can I do it to someone else once I learn how to do it?" And so on.

He beat me by a couple of steps.

Pacing, as it turns out didn't really mean anything. What happened was that I was placed into a situation in which I didn't understand the rules. Yes, I knew where the start and finish lines were and to run when the gym teacher blew the whistle, but those are not the rules that made the difference. There were interpersonal rules that I was not aware of. The "psyche the other guy out" rule was not within my realm of understanding.

OK, take this example and change it a little. Now let's say I had to begin running this race from 30 yards behind the starting line giving Rob a 30 yard advantage. The 100 yards are the only ones that count, but I have to run 30 yards in order to get to the first yard that counts.

Now image that everyone in my family had gone to that school for as far back as I knew (great great granparents) and they always had the same set of circumstances, and always lost. The only real difference is that I get to start at 30 yeards back while they had to start 50, 70, or 100 yards back. Before that, they didn't even get to run in the race at all. Imagine I had heard these stories about racing and losing races my whole life. I knew I was going to lose. My best hope was to lose by less than my family had lost. But really, I felt like a loser. I hated myself for being a loser (even before I ran the race) and I had hatred for my oppoent, for the people who made the rules and for the people who had done this to my family and my ancestors.

Now imagine, in a twist of events, that I won the race against Rob, even though he had a 30 yard lead. Would that be any proof that the race was equal? Was equality achieved? Of course not. It only proves that I am not only faster than Rob, but that I am incredibly faster than Rob. To make up 30 yards is an almost superhuman feat.

But then think of how insulted I am when people see me win and say that I am only faster than Rob. "Faster than Rob? Are you kidding? I'm Superman!!!"

Think of how insulted I am when my superhuman efforts only make people arrive at the conclusion that things are equal. "Equal? That's what my think of my superhuman speed? That things are equal?"

Think about it. That is theft. Credit is paid to the people organizing the race that things were equal when they were not while credit is not given to the person who made the incredible achievement. The message is "Look how equal we made things," and not "WOW! That runner overcome the injustice and won anyway. That is incredible."

Claiming proof of equality when, in some cases, the oppressed find a way to win over the unjust system is a further layer of oppression. Claiming eqality when you don't do the work, sacrifice, and pain it requires to actually achieve it is merely advancing the oppression and making it even more nuanced, more confusing for the oppressed, and more powerful for the oppressor.

We are not even close to having equality in America. The fact that things are better than they were is not good enough. The fact that there are other countries who don't even try is not good enough. The fact that there are powerful people of color in the political arena (conservative and liberal), on the athletic field, and in the art galleries is not good enough.

Neutralizing the legacy of American Indian genocide and slavery takes more than a few generations. It will take another century to really feel the impact of civil rights in more than a token manner. And perhaps another century after that for these inequalities to wash out.

And that will only happen if:

1. American demographics keep changing toward a non-white majority. (Not that there is inherent badness is whiteness, but rather there is blindness in power).
2. American apartheid does not reassert itself in law.
3. Backlash from oppressed people does not "justify" further oppression.
4. Inequalities are more recognized by the people in power and these people are responsive.
5. Counrty music is more influenced by the Dixie Chicks and less by Toby Keith.
6. Patriotism is defined in terms more open to unique and diverse cultures unifying on a few important things than everyone becomes like the dominant culture.
7. Several people of color impact Nascar in the same way Tiger Woods impacted golf.
8. Americans find something of value we can all unify on. "All [people] are created equal" is something we already have and is a good one to go on.
9. We realize that we cannot exist forever on exploitation.
10. We love our neighbors as ourselves.

When race is a race against each other, many lose, few win, and the winnings are hollow.

When race is a race against hatred, oppression, fear, poverty, hopelessness, and shame, then every single person has a chance to win. When we define the enemy in these terms, then no person has to lose in order for another one to win.

If you were to place 10 people who didn't know each other in a room together, what you would find is that in abot 10 minutes, the ranking would begin. People would rank each other on attractivenss, or height, or skin color, or sense of humor. Most likely it would be some combination of these an other factors.

So, let's suppose we placed ten difference people in a room. This time these people were as similar as possible on gender, race, attractivness, height, skin color, hair color, eye color - as many similarities as possible. Guess what, they still begin ranking each other about as quickly as the other group - only they find other things to rank each other on.

Ranking is the basis of racism. The thing is, everyone does it. I do it. You do it. Whit epeople do it. Black people do it. Asian people do it. Ranking isn't only a white problem, it is a hman problem.

There are several responses people have to solve this social ranking problem.

1. Color-blind. Try hard not to notice differences. Let's just all be (American, Christian, Texan, whatever). The problem with this is that it is not only impossible, it requires certsin types of people to give up someof what makes them special or unique. In the united States it means anything non-white must give up more. This is problematic because non white groups ahve already had to give much just to exists and function in the United States. Color blind policy only exacerbates the problem.

2. Pluralism. Distinct groups seek to remain distinct. Each culture is intentionally preserved and promoted within its own groupings. No requirement is made for anyone or any group to relinquish any part of itself. This is certainly more respectful than colorblind, but is likely to be just as impossible.

3. Denial. This is the most common response, but the least effective for making positive change. All this does is keep people ranked withot anyone having to take responsibility for it. The people in power remain in power and the people without power continue to have less or find someone to oppress.

4. Guilt. When people with more privilege than others recognize the gaps and the injustice, they feel bad. Then they start being do-gooders out of guilt. Thing is, when they realize that their guilt offerings don't change the world immediately (or are unappreciated), they become discouraged or resentful that their good works don't "work." Their guilt is not relieved. In fact, the real problem is that their guilt is an expression of their exaggerated sense of privilege. It's still all about that person. Guilt doesn't work, isn't sustainable adn is not genuine.

5. Investing privilege. OK, so everyone is ranked. Each of us is placed (and places people) in a social category based on ridiculous criteria (skin color, height, etc). Our rank denotes the level of privilege each of us has in our social context. So, out of generosity, kindness, compassion, hope, (maybe benevolent anger at all the injustice), you are motivated to invest your time, money, relationship space into people who have lower rank. You invest into learning their culture, art, traditions, and ways. You find ways to privilege their position. You invest into providing something of value for them.

You do it without any expectation of response, appreciation, or affirmation. It's not about doing good to feel good, it's not about propping up your ego by helping "those poor people," because of how good you. It is about the intentional redistrbution of wealth and privilege.

Thoughts? Additions? Challenges?

If you are a white American, then you probably are not aware of what comes easy to you that does not come easy to ethnic minorities. In fact, you might even bristle a little at the idea that you have some kind of advantage. Things are hard, money is tight, perhaps antidepressants help you navigate anxiety - it sure doesn't feel like any sort of privilege.

Well, race is an issue, a social reality, and a personal identity that no one can afford to not care about.

Here is a link to a blog (whitePrivilege.com) that might be of interest to you or maybe of challenge to you. Check it out.

Latino baby boom next twist in redistribution of demography in New Orleans.

Click here for NY Times article.