"Is yellow white or black?"
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In one of my readings, an API individual offered their perspective on the nature of how race and ethnicity are often approached in American culture. Often when folks discuss race, they are doing so in terms of "white" and "not white" on a seeming continuum of "white to black." Inherent in these discussions is often the idea that "white" is somehow better and "black" is somehow worse. Not only is this a terrible imagining of race, it also leaves People of Color to operate within this continuum wherein their value is seemingly determined by their "closeness" to whiteness. This is problematic for a plethora of reasons.
In one of my readings, an API individual offered their perspective on the nature of how race and ethnicity are often approached in American culture. Often when folks discuss race, they are doing so in terms of "white" and "not white" on a seeming continuum of "white to black." Inherent in these discussions is often the idea that "white" is somehow better and "black" is somehow worse. Not only is this a terrible imagining of race, it also leaves People of Color to operate within this continuum wherein their value is seemingly determined by their "closeness" to whiteness. This is problematic for a plethora of reasons.
When the author asked, "Is yellow (meaning Asian Pacific Islander) white or black?" they asked a question that illustrated the problem. Clearly, yellow is neither white nor black, but neither should "yellow" be valued by how white or black it seems. White and black should not have perceived "value" in such ways, either! Underlying the question was the reality that blackness is often unfavorably presented in our country in a way that posits race is somehow dichotomous with clear "goodness" being assigned to lighter, "whiter" people and "badness" being assigned to people of color according to just how dark they are. Unpacking these statements and values is dangerous work!
This question seems to imagine race as a continuum. It is a perspective that I find foreign. I tend to think of race as circles, overlapping or not, within a larger circle. Yellow isn’t any more white than it is black– it’s yellow (I feel strange saying “yellow,” but am doing so because it is the word used in the original context). I don’t mean to imply any meaningful separateness of racial identities (at least not any more meaningful than any particular individual claims such meaningfulness for themselves), but to suggest that my “whiteness” isn’t more black than brown or than yellow (or any other ordering). My Christianity isn’t somewhere on a continuum of “Hindu to Zoroastrian” because there is no linear progression between religions any more than there is between race… at least not in my imagining. I also find problematic the inherent suggestion that such a continuum is indicative of value (“whiteness” being good and “blackness” being bad). While I do not deny that this is a truth (society privileges whiteness), a linear imagining squarely places “blackness” in the position of “bad.” Not only is this imagining seemingly held by whites who consciously or unconsciously make these associations (white = good, black = bad), but that this paradigm is transferred to people who are neither white nor black, but feel the need to both adopt this paradigm and identify as having a place on the continuum. The dualism of this understanding seems to be a way we (as a society) effectively teach anti-black racism to communities that identify as neither black nor white. This is a sad and terrible reality. I have to wonder the ways this false dichotomy is taught to communities of color and how we can “unteach” it. I feel that this likely begins with media representation, since pop culture is a primary way that folks “absorb” ideas about race.
This question seems to imagine race as a continuum. It is a perspective that I find foreign. I tend to think of race as circles, overlapping or not, within a larger circle. Yellow isn’t any more white than it is black– it’s yellow (I feel strange saying “yellow,” but am doing so because it is the word used in the original context). I don’t mean to imply any meaningful separateness of racial identities (at least not any more meaningful than any particular individual claims such meaningfulness for themselves), but to suggest that my “whiteness” isn’t more black than brown or than yellow (or any other ordering). My Christianity isn’t somewhere on a continuum of “Hindu to Zoroastrian” because there is no linear progression between religions any more than there is between race… at least not in my imagining. I also find problematic the inherent suggestion that such a continuum is indicative of value (“whiteness” being good and “blackness” being bad). While I do not deny that this is a truth (society privileges whiteness), a linear imagining squarely places “blackness” in the position of “bad.” Not only is this imagining seemingly held by whites who consciously or unconsciously make these associations (white = good, black = bad), but that this paradigm is transferred to people who are neither white nor black, but feel the need to both adopt this paradigm and identify as having a place on the continuum. The dualism of this understanding seems to be a way we (as a society) effectively teach anti-black racism to communities that identify as neither black nor white. This is a sad and terrible reality. I have to wonder the ways this false dichotomy is taught to communities of color and how we can “unteach” it. I feel that this likely begins with media representation, since pop culture is a primary way that folks “absorb” ideas about race.
• Mary F. Foskett and Jeffrey Kah-Jin Kuan, eds., Ways of Being, Ways of Reading: Asian American Biblical Interpretation (Chalice, 2006). • Uriah Y.-H. Kim, “The Realpolitik of Liminality in Josiah’s Kingdom and Asian Americans.” Page 90.
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