Fear will keep them in line; fear of this racism

Update: This same post was written as a note on Facebook, and a semi-interesting discussion evolved from it. If you have Facebook, it wouldn't hurt to take a jaunt over there and comment yourself. I'm interested in hearing other peoples' opinions.

I have a confession to make.

I'm afraid of anonymous white people.

It hasn't always been this way. In fact, I used to be pretty optimistic about white people in America. I mean, granted, I'm Asian, so it changes our relationship a bit, but I felt my parents did a good job preparing me for life as a minority in America. I was taught to identify myself as an American first, a Korean American second. One of my best friends from high school (and one of the few I keep in contact frequently) is white, along with my wife. I'm studying English, for crying out loud, in a university that's predominantly white, so I think I've done a good job integrating myself into the American mainstream lifestyle.

But lately, I can't help but feel threatened whenever I pass a white person on the street, whether he looks at me or not. I mentally flinch when I'm standing in line and a white person moves to stand close behind me. It hasn't always been this way; I've always considered myself happy-go-lucky when it came to race identity and minority life, and in fact, this recent fear has been so subconscious I've only recently noticed that I've begun to live in an uneasy state whenever I'm near white people I don't know very well.

It all started when Barack Obama ran as a serious presidential candidate.

Not the Obama campaign itself, mind you is at fault for this fear. No, I was inspired by the campaign, enamored with the idea that a minority would be able to assume the highest position in the United States government, that he would do it through skill and charisma and intelligence, and he would do so with the blessing of the United States people, since we all know there's no such thing as Affirmative Action for white people to blame on if he makes it to the top. Finally, I thought to myself, a candidate who understands a bit what it really is like to be me. Despite the difference in income bracket, education and ideas and backgrounds, we were both minorities, a powerful shared experience in America among those (un)lucky enough to be counted in such a position.

No, the first days were filled with optimism and - dare I say? - hope that America will transcend the ugly stories and narratives I learned in our history books throughout my formative years. Perhaps we will accomplish another monumental step in which minorities are no longer the problem, but just might be looked at as the solution.


But then the rumors began. The backlash happened. People started whispering to each other over emails and water cooler breaks in the office all over America about how Obama was just...different than them. Dark-skinned. Lived outside of the country for some of his childhood. Possibly even Muslim - a worse crime than being Roman Catholic for JFK or Mormon for Mitt Romney. The cult of fear and an overprotective sense of community and zealotry took over a lot of the constituents in the Republican Party that they self-fulfilled some of Obama's now infamous remarks - that rural Americans could be bitter.

Even more disturbing than peoples' willingness to buy into these lies so readily, however, was the implications thereof - that somehow, not being Christian, but being a Muslim, made you unfit for presidency; that somehow, not being white, but black, made you unfit for presidency; that somehow, not living on Main Street, Heartland, USA, but living outside the country in Indonesia for some of your childhood despite being an American citizen, made you unfit for presidency. What did this mean? That only white, Christian, never lived outside of the United States citizens could be good presidents? And if this is what someone believes in, then where does that leave us minorities, who grew up learning that the beauty of America was that you could become anything you wanted to be despite your race - as long as you worked hard and was a good citizen? What, exactly, about being non-white, or non-Christian, or living outside of the United States for some of your childhood made you unfit to do the job? And that's where the disturbing ideas begin to surface, the ideas we claimed we left behind to become a more enlightened society.

These feelings of discontent with Obama's "dubious" (and wholly untrue) background bubbled just beneath the surface but finally exploded into view in a series of McCain/Palin rallies, as the crowd would exclaim that Obama is a terrorist, that he needs to be stopped -at any costs. "Kill him!" the mob cries. "Off with his head!" one cheers, perhaps a grisly reminder of the beheadings that shocked and plagued the world only a couple years ago, perpetrated by real terrorists, not imaginary ones. McCain and Palin seem to do nothing about this sentiment until finally, a woman declares at a rally that she cannot simply trust him because he's, well, an Arab.

The tittering and snickering spread through the crowd at such a gross misunderstanding - despite they probably helped in perpetuating this theory - but I certainly wasn't snickering when I saw it on YouTube. I was flabergasted that finally, publicly, Americans are bold enough to declare, "I won't trust a man or vote for him because he's of a different race than us."

And soon, the fear set into my mind. How do other white people really see me? Do they see me as a person, that I have an individuality of my own, that I had purposefully took the time throughout my life to cultivate my own unique personality, picking some Korean traditions to stay with and bucking others to make room for my own ideas to be a real human being? Or has my worst fear realized and people really secretly see me as simply "Asian," my race so indelibly imprinted on my facial features and hair color that it's all they can see? Or even worse, had I been living in my own sunny bubble, that people had, for as long as I had lived, always seen me as Asian first, and a human being and American second?

Now, finally, McCain did contradict the woman, saying Obama wasn't an Arab, but a good family man whom he merely disagreed over with politics. But it was too little too late. The videos of McCain and Palin smiling (almost smugly to me, though my bias can taint easily what I see) as the crowd cries out for violence against a man - simply because he looks different - shocked me to my core and sent chills up my spine. This was not the America I knew, the America I trusted in, the America my parents described I would live in, the America I believed in. It was something different, something, to be honest, unfamiliar. Something I had only read about in history books and an occasional news story, far removed from where I lived. I had encountered rare instances of racism from time to time, but always dismissed them as anomalies, outliers in the overall American experience I lived. Racism, to me, was mostly dead and a shadow on the wall we are spooked by when we see, but still only a shadow. But that shadow suddenly became real when everyday Americans felt safe enough to express their opinions in public - that all they could see in a man was race, and that race different from them is something not to be trusted.

I still try to think that most white Americans can see past the fact I am Asian and identify me as they get to know me with something more than just race, though it has become an increasing struggle to maintain this optimistic view. And I still think Obama will win the presidency, and I will celebrate as a minority, but the fear will no longer be easily removed within my psyche. Whenever someone tells me racism isn't real, or that America is past that - that we don't need Affirmative Action or to care about racism anymore in America - I'll look at them warily and shake my head. Because it doesn't seem that way to me anymore. America, in an instant, changed for me. Suddenly, it seemed this race obstacle was insurmountable, that the ideals Americans express - that everyone deserves the right to life, liberty and happiness despite color of skin or gender or nationality - could be a big fat lie, that Americans expect us minorities to believe in it wholeheartedly, but really don't believe in this principle themselves. And all it took were a couple of careless words culminating into brief mob mentality - which any minority in America has come to fear, for good reason.

In the end, I'm hopeful that my positive side will win out, that this fear will pass, that I will catalog it in my mind as just another outlier, another anomaly. But I've become more suspicious of those who say they don't believe in racism. Perhaps I've finally come to realize what many minorities have already realized over and over again - that the American Dream is imperfect, that America herself can become brutal and ugly, that the ideals we were taught and so readily believed in are not necessarily held to the same standard and pedestal for other people. I will become more critical of peoples' professions of equality and supposed public attempts to transcend race. As an aftereffect, I will be more wary of what white people say about race, about what they say about me. I will question what people think of me when they first see me, or even after many years. Do they still see me as merely an Asian, and not for who I am?

Congratulations, some minorities will undoubtedly tell me (and some white people too). You've seen the ugly underbelly of America, and now you have become more practical, more pragmatic, more - in their eyes - wise. But, to tell you the truth, I never wanted to become someone like that. I always wanted, deep in my heart, for my naivete to be reality, to believe, constantly, in those unblemished American ideals, that I would always stay an idealist. And it breaks my heart that the fear seems stronger, and that I'm losing ground in my faith in America.

God, please bless America. She still really needs it.