America is funny about race. When they bring it up, it always takes me a second to decide if I want to be honest or not. Usually the friends who bring it up are white because Northwestern is primarily white or Asian (I have no numbers to back this statement; I generalize), and Asians don't want to talk about it until white kids bring it up. Also interesting is when white friends bring up race in an especially careful manner, as if not to offend me, an Asian immigrant, who must surely hold an outside perspective. It's like a diplomacy test where I have a bunch of memorized answers ready, and I know others do too.
I spent half my life growing up in America, and half my life abroad--and I can say from personal experience that America is in a special position that resembles that of no other country in the world. It brings together people from everywhere who come to this chunk of land into all types of positions and circumstances, who would otherwise have never met nor had any reason to understand each other. This should have birthed an environment comfortable enough for people to discuss race, but weirdly enough, America suffers from an idealized vision of diversity. Like when I was taught early on that I shouldn't call black people black, but African-Americans, and then met an African cab driver that I mistakenly called African American. "I'm not African-American, I'm Black," he corrected me. It was very confusing for me at the time because that's what I'd been taught all my life. Now I understand.
America preoccupies itself with achieving what it thinks that a world capable of celebrating all kinds of people should be like. It's done such a good job of preoccupying itself with achieving that ideal that, rather counterproductively, too many Americans have become obsessed with being "politically correct" and scurrying from what makes us different. It shies away from stereotypes. It shies away from culture. Most importantly, and maybe even most effectively, it shies away from talking about it. In elementary school, my friends used to ask me if Buttercup from The Powerpuff Girls was Asian because she had black hair and pale skin. At the time, which was second grade, I cheerfully told them I had no idea but that I wished she were. Were my friends racist, or just inquisitive? Maybe observant? Should I have been offended?
People throw eggs at difference and throw race-themed parties and write about affirmative action and bam, viral response. But when things like that happen what catches me by surprise is how willing people are to simplify such complex matters. One person exclaims, oh hey, that's an act of racism! And sometimes that declaration as an act itself can make the action seem more racist than it innately is, because the next day news of an act of racism has already spread all over campus. Student groups, especially those that supposedly promote multiculturalism and diversity, feel an obligation to speak out about the event. So they do. Faculty feel an obligation to make some public statement. So they do.
As a result, students are reminded once again that racism is wrong--that to characterize someone by race is wrong, to identify someone by race is wrong, to differentiate someone by race is wrong. But it's only wrong because we think it is. A few weeks ago in one of my journalism classes, our professor explained that identifying a person by race is important for the reader to visualize events. Either I imagined it or I didn't, but there was an air of discomfort spreading throughout the room and I knew everyone was thinking the same thing: isn't that racist? It's really not. Can everyone remember what racism actually means? Is it just me?
I understand it is easy to be offended, especially when the events lead one to believe they were meant to be offensive, rather than to let it go or try to understand. But it's hard to hope for a world of open discussion about race when people keep upsetting themselves over matters that are perhaps insensitive, but not racist.
