All's Quiet on the Blogging Front

Michelle Obama wrote in her senior thesis for Princeton - "Princeton-Educated Blacks and the Black Community" - that "I have found that at Princeton, no matter how liberal and open-minded some of my white professors and classmates try to be toward me, I sometimes feel like a visitor on campus; as if I really don't belong. Regardless of the circumstances under which I interact with whites at Princeton, it often seems as if, to them, I will always be black first and a student second." The conservatives tried to spin this as horrible news: Michelle Obama is really a radical black, one who believes the racial divide cannot be closed! What a horrible racist she is!

Yet, ask any minority - 1st generation, 2nd generation or even 3rd or 4th generation with still predominantly non-white physical features - and they will attest to this fact with a warm understanding. To be a minority in America is to be singled out constantly, no matter what company you're with. It is the uncomfortable stance of embracing American culture and yet balancing between your ethnic heritage. This difficult and often heart breaking tightrope act is so everyday it becomes the norm for minorities. Like a man who loses an arm, he may become despondent or bitter to what life hands him, but most often merely works around it and moves on. Tell that man he's disadvantaged and though he will admit to the inability for various physical abilities, he can still do quite a bit and continues to live a full, enjoyable life. But to us with both arms, such a life is unimaginable.

Many Caucasians are confused, even threatened, when minorities talk about feeling left out in mainstream white American society. Is it the fear that the American Experiment somehow doesn't work properly, effectively, or even worse, has failed? More likely it is the fatigue of constant reminders for a bloody past they had nothing to do with. We are, after all, a more progressive, enlightened society than that of America's yesteryears. But the ugly truth remains that we are still plagued with undertones of racism, and it seems to make white people uncomfortable.

What white people don't understand is that constant feeling of loneliness becomes a very normal, manageable thing. Most minorities who spend enough time in America learn to minimize or ignore the after effect. It is a non-issue, for the most part. The catcalling of teenagers making fun of an Asian accent as I walk by? It sours the day to be sure, but is not lethal to the self esteem.

But more often than not, white people just simply cannot relate. They rarely feel so isolated from society. Everything around them affirms the American lifestyle, from commercials to news to magazines to television. So if the rare occurrence happens where they experience that acute subtle racial profiling for whatever reason, it is terrifying (as it always is the first time). It can be terribly traumatic. They are not used to it. And so they feel guilty when a minority mentions that it is an everyday thing they learn to deal with. After all, how do you live every day with such paralyzing trauma? White people either don't understand (as they never experienced wholesale and illogical pre-made assumptions based on physical appearance) or only understand one aspect - the fear, terror and severe discomfort - without also comprehending the other side - the acceptance and acquired resiliency of dealing with it every day. Like the apostles at the Last Supper told by Jesus that one of them will betray Him, white people, upon hearing the discomfort and sometimes raw fear from either everyday racial undercurrents or the rare explosion of racism, immediately begin to ask, "Is it I?"

The thing is, individuals rarely make up this feeling of isolation in a country you are born in. It is the cumulative stream of events that coalesce into the minority experience. Most Americans (in general) are rarely ever racist all the time, or even most of the time. But everybody (minorities included) have been racist at least once in their life - whether intentional or not. From the predetermined offensive joke to simple misunderstandings of vocabulary, it all contributes to that minority American experience. That first frightening encounter on the school playground that for some reason, having black hair, a darker complexion and skinnier eyes disqualifies me from kickball, to the playful ribbing from my wife explaining some of my quirks of personality through my Korean heritage and everything in between makes up the experience that most white Americans lack.

But do they lack it? Or have they just forgotten it? Thus far, I have described it as an "us versus them", minorities versus the predominant white society. But the minority experience is something all Americans experience, because it's what makes us American. It's the Catholic among a group of Evangelical Baptists or the Baptist hanging out with the group of Muslim kids at the mall. It's the Goth hanging out with trendy coffee junkies lounging in a local Starbucks, or the kid who loves Care Bears more than Ninja Turtles being teased by his peers, or the frat boy who watches Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings and thinks it's awesome despite punching someone in high school for quoting Gandalf. It's the white collar computer programmer riding the bus home with the blue collar workers from the local manufacturing plant and the crazy bag lady who roams the street with her personal belongings loaded up in a pilfered shopping cart. It's the Democrat and the Republican arguing passionately and sometimes heatedly about politics and policy - without pulling out their guns and shooting each other or blowing up a bus. The minority experience we often label as a "race thing," but rarely do we realize that it's a part of American life and living in an imperfect pluralist society. Would we transcend racism in all its facets when my friend realizes that telling someone he's not Asian simply because he doesn't act Asian is like someone telling him his depression is just "all in the head" and he could simply will it away? Or conversely, if my understanding that getting weird looks on the street because I'm Asian is akin to my wife being labeled as an ineffective worker in the office simply because she's a woman help us transcend sexism? Probably not. But rather, we would understand that race along with every other "minority" issue is just another component in our genome that makes us unique, and it's diversity is to be appreciated, not feared. And we would understand there should be no guilt for the occasional isolation, or defensiveness in how we view America and the countless factions that litter its political, religious, economic and social landscape - because if you take it away, you take away what makes America.

Racism, then, is just as American as apple pie, baseball and Uncle Sam. The minority experience is that of every single American, from the first settlers interacting with the Native Americans, to the Irish and Poles and Russians and Mexicans and Japanese and Chinese and Arabs and Jews. Some of us have simply forgotten it. We've all come to this country, for one reason or another, from one time period or another, to cajole and work and play and live and vote and teach and fight together. We all realized that there's something great in this country. America is not unified by nationality or region or tribalism or religion, but on ideals - something once only thought of as fantasy fit for political daydreaming such as Plato's Republic or More's Utopia. Those who lament for the more peaceful times when we all understood what the American Dream was about and all lived together as immigrants in harmony have forgotten about the Know-Nothing movement, "Freedom Cabbage" during World War I and other anti-immigrant hostilities in the past. Those who fear the immigrants pouring in, both legal and illegal, have forgotten that neither the Irish, the Poles, the Slavs, or even the Japanese during World War II have ever succeeded in "taking over" the country through immigration. And those who say that racism won't ever be stemmed have forgotten the progress we've made as a nation.

It is sometimes uncomfortable being a minority. Sometimes we wish the minority experience didn't exist. But that is what pluralism - and the American Dream - is all about, and that minority experience is what America is all about. Because we're the only country to offer the minority experience - not by the cruel hand of fate and the chance of being born in the wrong place at the wrong time to the wrong family, but by choice; we have all decided that ideals is greater than pessimism, that the minority experience is something worth living through because it's what gives us opportunities to grow and the chance for the next generation to be leaders and revolutionaries, radical thinkers and great teachers, and yes, even a minority, but still live in relative peace, and that's really what makes America great.