In Living Color

More on living in these Technicolor times

BY BILL WONG

Last week I began a riff on the dichotomy of how U.S. race relations are perceived by different Americans. Some think race matters are best couched in black-and-white terms. Others feel they should be thought of as multiracial, including yellow, brown, red, and shades in between.

You will recall that I traced my own intellectual and emotional history on the subject. Although of Chinese descent, I first embraced a black-white model for U.S. race relations. Then I became immersed in a Chinese American/Asian American identity. In many ways, I still am, but I haven't shed completely an appreciation for the black-white conundrum.

This exercise in exploring the interiors of American race relations is a recognition that the journey is continuous, that thoughtful Americans may wander along one path, then veer on over to another, learning something new or seeing something different along the way. At the moment, I am not prepared to settle on one perception (black-white) or the other (Technicolor) as the Holy Grail of U.S. race relations.

I count myself fortunate in my ambiguity. That may sound dumb, and I can understand why one might feel that way. But I like the flexibility, the room to mentally maneuver within the grays of the vastness between black-white vs. Technicolor. Why can't one have strong, definitive feelings that both models are pre-eminent in an analysis of U.S. race relations?

There are games that race analysts play. One is Ultimate Victim. That is, who is the Ultimate Victim of white racism in American history and culture? African Americans, such as the ones I cited last week, are very much entitled to feel their victimization rooted in the slave trade of the 17th century makes them the Ultimate Victim. That is one reason why the black-white model is the dominant one, according to this analysis.

Those of us who aren't black and who feel a keen pride in our ethnic and cultural history--such as Asian Pacific Americans--could very well argue that we are as much an Ultimate Victim as descendants of black slaves. (So could Mexican Americans and American Indians.)

The historical record of anti-Asian sentiments in America can be persuasive. All those laws passed by white men in San Francisco, the state of California, in Washington, D.C.--with the express purpose of excluding Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino immigrants from the 1850s through World War II (except as cheap labor)--might sway doubters that Asian Americans have as much right to claim the Ultimate Victim title as African Americans. Besides the laws, there was the ugly and deadly violence against people of Asian descent in this country that help make the case that Asian Americans were badly maligned by white Americans.

Fighting to get to the head of the racial victimization line is, however, an exercise in futility. For one thing, it is not practical from the standpoint of most non-black Americans. The political arbiters of our society generally see only in black-and-white. The rest of us are virtually irrelevant. That doesn't mean we non-black folks should remain silent. Many of us aren't. The trouble is, Who is listening?

I've long had a pet theory that puts this complicated matter into some perspective, but it may not really clarify things. The theory is this: black people in this society (and perhaps other ones that aren't black) are both the most reviled race and also the most sympathetic. I would agree with historian Roger Wilkins, whom I quoted last week as saying that "blacks remain the special object of disdain." Where there is racism against black people, it is virulent and irrational. Much of American social relations and social policies are measured in terms that directly affect black Americans.

At the same time, the plight of black Americans is taken more to heart by those white Americans who care to open their hearts to the common degradation experienced by so many black Americans, regardless of class. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a monument to this kind of heartfelt sympathy of white power brokers.

Yellow, brown, and red Americans aren't generally as hated, nor are our protests about racism against us as sympathetically received. The reasons for that are not clear to me.

This gap between black-white vs. Technicolor may demonstrate why the black-and-white model stubbornly remains the principal American racial battleground.

Bill Wong is a San Francisco Bay Area-based writer who contributes regularly to AsianWeek.

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