Acceptable Racism

The other day one of my employees came into my office laughing so hard she could hardly speak.  She related that a woman who was a student in the class I recently helped teach referred to me as "that little Chinese guy."  Why did she think that was so hilarious?  Because it was such a ludicrous thing to say that it made the speaker into a fool and that the woman was so oblivious to it?  And why did my co-worker think I would laugh with her?

"Little" is most often a pejorative qualifier.  "Still working on your little novel?"  "Heard you bought a little condo."  "How's your little analyst job?"  If one means small in size, one tends to use literal descriptors: short, thin, slender.  "She's somewhat short."  "The kitchen is rather small."  "He's a slender guy."  It's highly unlikely that "that little Chinese guy" was meant as a helpful description.

And what made it obvious in her mind that I was Chinese, just because I was Asian in appearance?  If she hadn't meant to assert that in her mind I was ethnically Chinese, why was it so inconsequential to her to use the term Chinese as a catch-all for any Asian?

Years ago, in a different job, I went to someone's office building to interview him for a newsletter article over lunch.  I'd brought mine in a paper bag.  When I told the receptionist who I'd come to see, she muttered something about "you delivery people."

And finally, the man coordinating speakers for Equal Employment Opportunity programs celebrating various ethnic heritage months came to me one day, excited that he had found a speaker for Asian American Heritage Month.  

 "Guess who it is," he said, eager to tell me.  I couldn't figure out who would get him so excited.  "Jhoon Rhee!"  

When I didn't react, he said, "The father of tae kwon do!"

Jhoon Rhee may have been a successful figure in his own right, but choosing someone in the martial arts to represent Asian American achievement, in my mind, only perpetuated stereotypes and communicated limitations for Asian Americans.  Why not choose Elaine Chao, Secretary of Labor?  General Eric Shinseiki, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff?  Any number of Asian American members of Congress or local broadcast journalists?

Stereotyping Asians has always been more acceptable than doing the same with other races.  Social change comes slowly, but it will come eventually.

What surprised me about each of these incidents, however, was that all the people involved were black.  How any African American person could be so careless and clueless throws me.  I would have expected each of them to be more, rather than less, sensitive than most people to the power of language and perception.  

Maybe that's expecting too much.  Maybe we are all the same, regardless of personal experience that one would expect might shape our subsequent behavior.  Maybe it simply points out the human nature of being guilty of the very things of which we find fault in others.