A Little Bit Racist

One chink and six honkys.
(a photo of my seventh birthday party in North Vancouver, originally posted on my other blog, Sinkek)

We got back from Connecticut late last night, after Little Joe and I went up there after school on Friday, to see the completed mural that Big Joe did with an organization that helps people "recovering from prolonged mental illness." I've always thought of Connecticut as being really white, and as 99% of the people taking Metro North up with us on Friday evening were exactly that - I figured I was right. But Big Joe corrected me as soon as arrived. Plus, in town I did see several black people and a couple of Asian women with white men.

So today as I had missed two days of blogging, just I was wondering what to rant about, I discovered this review of my blog by someone named Trisha Lynn, who writes, "I find her reality to be a little different than mine. I can't help but feel that she's being just a little bit racist sometimes, though." Trisha Lynn, who is clearly not a racist, describes herself as "a cute Filipina who is moving away from Harlem." What the 'moving away from Harlem' part signifies I have no idea. But as she isn't black I have to say it sounds a little bit racist.

But before I go any further, let's go over the definition of 'racism.' From the Merriam Webster Dictionary:

rac·ism

Pronunciation:

\ˈrā-ˌsi-zəm also -ˌshi-\

Function:

noun

Date:

1933

1 : a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race

Going by this definition, would I define myself as racist? No. I do not believe that any race is 'superior' to another, nor that race determines anything except the skin colour and physical characteristics of one's child. But I do write about race, or actually more about the colour of people's skin that I see, constantly. Growing up yellow in an all white suburb, from a young age I was acutely aware of my colour, and everyone else's. And then I moved with my white partner to Bed-Stuy - a neighbourhood that identifies itself as mostly black, to a street that, five years ago, didn't have any white people living on it. The black kids who used to live in the house on the corner sometimes jokingly pretended to speak 'Chinese' to me as I walked past. Are they racist? Magnifico, a black man who lives a few doors down, became really angry, well, angrier than usual, when Big Joe's dad came to visit and was walking down the street admiring the brownstones, because he assumed that Big Joe's dad was a real estate developer. Is he racist? When my white friend attends AA meetings in our hood and is the only white person there - the others won't talk to him beyond the initial greetings even though he's been to their meetings several times, and he's tried to start conversations with them. Are they racist? The Chinese side of our street never interacts with what used to be the black side of the street and vice versa, while the newer white residents on our block largely seem to interact no one but their white friends. Is everyone a racist?

We moved to New York, and decided to stay and bring up a family here for a number of reasons. One main reason was the diversity of the city. We'd both grown up in largely white suburbs and didn't want our kid growing up surrounded by people of one colour, one background. We both love the fact that people on the street, on the train, and in our son's school, come from all corners of the world, speak a multitude of languages, have different colour skins, have varying customs and religions and accents. We revel in it. And I write about it. I just write about what I see and hear as objectively as possible. But I'm not a journalist. I prefer juicy memoirs to dry biographies. Am I irreverent and occasionally snarky? Yes. I enjoy a good story, whether I'm reading it or telling it. And I filter what I see through my own experience. Whether I'm writing about the paranoid white pothead or the angry spitting black woman on the train - I try to be as clear about what I heard and saw as possible and let the reader form their own conclusions. The only other option, as I see it, would be not to mention anyone's colour including my own. But that seems deceptive. Besides if readers thought I was black, with my subject matter, I'd get a different kind of hate mail.

In addition to my talking about the colour of people's skin, I discuss their clothes, their hair, their mannerisms, their style, their tattoos and piercings, the perfume they wear, their accents, their apparent age, their apparent economic backgrounds, their moods, what they talk about and how they say it. It all interests me. I'm fascinated by people in general, with all their flaws and brilliant points of light. I will admit that I do have some preconceptions of people, largely upon the way they dress. I'm working on that. So here it is, the good, the bad, the ugly, the beautiful, the black, white, brown, yellow of my experience in my corner of New York. Oh, and for more about the R word, here's oreo author, Malcolm Gladwell's, definition of a racist and the extended dialogue that results.