I met this one Korean guy named Josh at my church on Sunday, and after having a conversation with him, I was really surprised by what he'd told me. Josh was born and raised in America, so he was pretty Americanized. He can not speak Korean and he does not like Korean. Because he is Asian, people usaully ask him where he was from (ethnicity) when first meeting him, and he told me that he often felt offended by this kind of question. He said he grew up in American and therefore he considered himself not only an American citizen, but also a "white" man. I found this really interesting. When I was in high school, I did see a lot of Asians who are born and raised in the states and they do not "act Asian" at all; however, I have never heard from any of them saying that they themselves are "white." Therefore I went on and asked Josh what he thinks about "white privileges" (I just simply thought that it would be interesting to hear from a non-white person his point of view regarding to white privileges). Not surprisingly, he denied the existence of such thing as white privileges and said no one in America holds unearned privileges or advantages.
Josh told me that some people think whites are being treated better than any other ethnic groups, and he said this kind of thinking is just simple wrong and should be discarded. He stated that if one examine carefully, one can see that some people (not necessarily whites, but any other races) are being treating better only because they work hard and they "earned" and "deserved" it. I remembered one of the privileges stated in the reading, which was "If I should need to move, I can be pretty sure of renting or purchasing housing in an area which I can afford and in which I would want to live." I told Josh about this one particular privilege, and he strongly denied it by saying anyone who works hard enough and saves enough money will be able to purchase housing at a place desired. He considered such thing as white privileges as ridicules and insisted that they do not even exist.
Josh is an Asian himself, so I am not quite sure if he has ever experienced white privileges before. However, the "whiteness" he expressed through the way he talked and through his point of view on white privileges truely suprised me. I did not know people other than whites can also reflect such a strong sense of whiteness. Josh also showed to me that whiteness is not just about white people, it can also be how one thinks of himself or herself. It kind of sounds like your skin does not have to be white for you to be a white person. This relates to an interesting term for very Americanized Asians--Banana, which means some Asians are really just "yellow" on the outside, and white in the inside.
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Interesting discussion! Sounds like you brought a lot of course concepts to the conversation, which often happens in this class. Nice job. Josh's perspective is not unique, but may just reinforce the concept of white privilege. If white privilege does not exist, then why does Josh feel the desire to label himself as white? Why does it even cross his mind to identify as white, if the racial category "white" has no consequences? I think what he's expressing is a conflation of the category "white" with the category "American," which is of course another form of white privilege. Since white people with American accents are never asked "where do you come from," and he is annoyed by that question asked of him as an Asian American, he actually is aware of one form of white privilege but still wishes to deny it. He wants to deny white privilege, but define himself as white so that he will benefit from white privilege. How fascinating!
ReplyDeleteI don't see any media reference in this blog entry. Remember to include both media and issues of gender/race/class/etc. in your blogs.