racism, homophobia, all that shit.

i'm sick and tired of being the kind of person people befriend to prove to themselves that they aren't racist. i hate it, but i am the whitest black person you'll ever know, just another product western culture - the future. the globalised future. it's sad.

the reason why i'm frustrated is that i keep seeing so much racism, very subtle racism, and i guess i'm white to the people that tell me these things because they do. they tell me black people are always so angry, black people are dangerous, are lazy, black people could be so great if they would just get with the program, what's the problem with them anyway? i would never marry a black person. you should go talk to him, he is part of your species. why do black people have inferiority complexes? and always i laugh it off because if i say anything then i'm angry & i have an inferiority complex. it's sad that people think like this. i feel so sorry for anyone who thinks that the average black man is a gun-toting thief, that people commit crimes because they are black.

possibly because i grew up in hong kong, i associate many of these xenophobic misconceptions with chinese culture. to me, and i could be wrong though i know not entirely, chinese culture is very very xenophobic. no, not afraid of the foreign, but hateful of the foreign. hateful is too strong, it's not america putting up the "tortilla" wall along it's southern but not its northern borders. the chinese want to keep the foreign foreign. it seems the only foreigners that the chinese want to let assimilate into their culture is the anglo-saxons, the westerners. there is obsessive anglophilia in hong kong. infatuation with the blonde hair and blue eyes. a colleague of my mother's (she's an english teacher) was hired on a ferry. he is a bicyclist. a professional bicyclist. he barely finished secondary school. he was hired by a principal on a ferry because he was white and this opinion comes from him. then my mother, with an M.Phil in English and Education, was turned away so many times before she got a job. at one school the employer took her aside and was very honest. he said, you see, you have the highest education of all our applicants but when parents come in they want to see a white person. i'm digressing a little from my point, but i want to ask, why the hypocrisy? why let one kind of foreigner into your culture and keep out the rest? most of my chinese friends (or let's pin this on their parents and families like they usually do), most of my friend's parents would gladly see their children marry a white person but never ever hear of them marrying a black person, or even worse to them, an indian person. it's so hypocritical to let in one foreigner and shut out the rest.

and this translates weirdly because, as products of an anglo-obsessive culture, many of my chinese friends will tell you that they would never marry a chinese person, only white. they hate their eyes, they'll cry about how a boy will never tell them how pretty they are. they hate the colour of their hair. it's a culture, dare i say brainwashed culture, that puts white over self and everything else under self. of course, not every chinese person is like this. i'd be lying if i said that, i'm just voicing some of the thoughts i've kept sealed up.

now back to my point, i can understand these people, i can understand the struggle of these kids. they grow up in an international school and make friends with black and south asian and hispanic, then they go home and hear their parents' (i struggle to say racism. it's not racism per se, it's more of a hateful xenophobia) racism. and it's a struggle. they feel guilty for harbouring their parents' ignorance but at the same time they realize that they do. i come from an african culture and i'm possibly open to all races because of the sad fact that the brainwashed african believes he is the lowest of all races. it's all colonialism. white men come with guns and medicines and religion and the promise of a new world so we run to them, we abandon our own medicines and customs and ideologies.

but i inherently believe that western culture is not the sole answer. and i wish that globalisation meant all cultures could merge and be equally respected. but the world will not be better after globalisation when every culture has more than assimilated western culture into its own. hell no. the chinese have an amazing history (and this history often fuels the stuck-up pride & reluctance to include foreigners that usually crumbles at the sight of western culture), the egyptians, the indians, the incans (is that a word?) among many others have amazing principles, amazing things to teach a western culture that brings guns out at the least disturbance. of course, no culture is perfect.

it just hurts me that many of my friends are being brought up in households that think that black people (among others) are lazy, angry, incompetent, and dirty.

a friend recently told me that black people have to stop thinking the world is against them. honestly. because all black people think this, right? i've been accosted and told that i have an inferiority complex which i completely resent and find ironic because my friends once asked me if i'd experienced racism and i said no and they bombarded me with instances when they thought i had. a friend who speaks cantonese once told me that people were making fun of me, and i said, how do you even know? i speak the language, he said.

my usual response is to keep quiet when people say these subtly racist things. i know they don't hate black people, i know they don't want them as slaves, educated in a separate school. we've come a long way, we have. but it's a new kind of racism that's coming in from older generations, a racism that makes younger people still see the non-white foreigner as inferior, dirty, not worthy of being a true part of our culture, the butt of certain dinnertime jokes like, how does a black person give birth? she goes to the toilet. which reminds me of avenue q, a great play, that i feel people misunderstand at times. 

in everyone's a little bit racist, i don't feel many of the instances are really racist. thinking the mexican busboy should learn to speak english is not really racist (if he really can't speak english). what then happens is that people brandish that song, tell me truly racist things like "indian people are smelly" and say, well everyone's a little bit racist!

i don't pretend like i come from a perfect family, but i'm stubborn and understanding enough know that parents can change, or rather, parents aren't always right in their thinking. my dad is somewhat homophobic. he works with gay people and has gay friends (and he'll tell me this when i challenge him), but he's still homophobic because he doesn't like gay people assimilating into the culture. he'll get this angry expression on his face when we're watching the news and hear about the newest gay rights activism or the gay pride parade, but i've challenged him into conversation and he said, "i just don't understand it, how can a man love another man?" and we talk. he's much less homophobic now, but at the end of these conversations he still says, "anyway, as long as one of my daughters isn't a lesbian". thankfully, that sort of thinking ends at his generation. my sisters and i all think differently & my dad's just lucky that we're all straight.

there's so much that's been bothering me on this topic! and i really hope someone gets to read this. i don't believe racism can ever end, just like i don't believe in world peace. because i see now that the end of racism or the beginning of world peace both signal that everyone will be homogenic, the same. we'll all be white. in richard rodriguez's essay, "the third man" (worth reading), he writes a little about how white is the blank slate, the non-race, free of a conscience. so in a racism-less world full of peace, we will all be white (and it will have nothing to do with out skin colour), we will have to lose our own cultures, our own customs and beliefs and philosophies and take in, and be, a western culture.

however, i think what can happen is that we can be different and still get along. if we could understand that just because the media shows black gangsters on tv shows, in the news, etc doesn't mean a black person will always hurt you. my dad was mugged by a chinese person. you can't pin certain attributes like smelly, angry, dangerous (even smart) onto an entire race! even if you do get mugged by a black person, it says nothing about black people. every person is different. you get mugged by a person, not an entire race! to group millions of people into one category is just ignorance.

i wish i could say i had immense hope for the future, but if we let our parents' generation douse us in their frame of mind, then homophobia, then racism, then sexism, then genderism, will only be exacerbated.

but i do have hope fore the future. people (like me) just need to talk.