The mob erupted, clanged, and pealed under #BlackLivesMatter and #StopAsianHate in a cacophonous harmony. There I was, letting out a breathless squeak. My voice didn’t blend, and so I silenced it so I might not be scorned. After all, I am sensible and mildly self-aware. I witnessed the injustice, and I heard the whimpering cry, but I could only dwell on them for a moment. I asked myself why I don’t feel the hate and why I do not sing in the same choir. I tried to muster up anger, but I can only recollect acts of kindness by people, you know, white people.

This is the longest post I’ve ever written. It’s my breathless squeak that got loud when I am free to think my own thoughts. Stay with me and listen to my stories. Maybe it will just slightly shift your perspective on race.

The Darn Immigrants Who Don’t Speak English

An acquaintance of German descent once explained to me why the German language was lost. When they first arrived in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, the German children were told to speak English – American English, only. They were to blend in with the light-skinned people who had arrived decades and centuries before them. Indeed, a grandson of a German barber did succeed. In two generations, he rose up quickly, and for four years, he ruled the most powerful nation of the free world.

Meanwhile, the immigrants that camped on the nearby streets of Lower Manhattan could never blend in. It matters not how much English, albeit American English, they speak. Their unique facial features, skin tone, and hair color would make them stick out like a sore thumb. There was no incentive to hide their identities through language suppression. Therefore, the Chinese are unapologetically loud when they speak in public places – no one knows a word they are saying. The language comes in handy when you want to bad-mouth a non-Chinese in the open.

I have heard workers in nail salons openly gossiping about their customers and made fun of the hands and feet they scrub and rub. The Chinese have non-flattering nicknames for every race, and they would never use those descriptions on themselves.

The Origin of Race

Race, as it pertains to the way we look, makes a fascinating study. Red, blue, and yellow are the three primary colors from which all the colors of the rainbow form. We can’t help but wonder if there are three primary races and that through mixing, matching, and mating, humans of all skin tones and hair colors filled the earth.

Children who grew up in a Sunday school are familiar with the song “Jesus Loves the Little Children.”

 Jesus Loves the Little Children
 All the children of the world
 Red & yellow, black & white
 They are precious in his sight
 Jesus loves the little children of the world 

Then there is a controversy over the color “brown” as it was not initially included in C. H. Woolston’s (1856-1927) lyrics of this hit Christian single. So the color “brown” was added later on. More recently, this song has drawn the ire of the progressives who fear such racial distinction would scar our little darlings.

A recent study in 2019 shows that there are only three major human groups: Negroid (Black), Mongoloid (Yellow), and Caucasoid (White). So, where do the RED people come from? The study then shows that the Native Americans came from Mongoloid (Asian) and Caucasoid (White), and Polynesian is the mix of Negroid (Black) and Mongoloid (Asian).

Then I got stuck trying to figure out the Jews. The Jews are God’s chosen people, but they are not God’s chosen “race.” Biologically and historically, the Jews as a whole are not a race because they have married non-Jews from the very beginning. There is no genetic code for Jewishness. To be a Jew implied he or she is an adherent of Judaism. A college grad I once hired through my job in an asset management firm introduced himself as a “Holiday Jew.”

The Peculiar Chinese People

You might dismiss the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11 as a myth. However, very curiously, this story does not contradict the rationale of human migration in the history of mankind. It is reasonable to assume everyone spoke the same language at one time. Why wouldn’t they? As humans are by nature communicative, having a common language was necessary for survival. As they set out to build a skyscraper to “make a name for themselves,” God was displeased and probably thought to Himself, “Humans…what did I create? When I give them life and liberty, they only want to compete with…me.”

The Bible says that God confused their languages so they could not understand each other to work together. The word “confusion” and “chaos” in simplified Chinese is 乱. It has a radical of 舌(tongue). Confusion and chaos indeed are rooted in words!

The confused Babel builders dispersed and moved north, west, and south, intermarrying, cross-breeding, and giving birth to a whole population. They took on many shades of skin and hair colors. On the other hand, the gang that trudged eastward across the tundra and forest into the vast land of Siberia would settle on the other side of the Himalayas and never be seen again.

The traditional Chinese character for “migration” is 遷 (qian). Taking the radicals apart, we have a story of a move from the west 西 due to “a big division.” It is likely that the ancient Chinese moved east and settled into this great plain that had a vast ocean on the east and the tallest mountains on the west. The brainy Asians would then decide to create the most complicated written language in the world.

Their first order of business was to preserve their oral traditions. Hidden in their pictographic characters were stories found in Genesis, such as the Garden of Eden with its forbidden fruit (困), Noah’s Flood with its boat carrying eight (船) and a most recent account that led to their big move from the Tower of Babel (塔) – a tower that was built when they were once together and united (合). The first emperor recorded in the history of China worshipped a monolithic God, which is not too different from the God known as Yahweh, the God of the Jews. With the tallest mountain peak to the left and a vast ocean to the right, the Han Chinese who settled into the central plain would be undisturbed for more than five thousand years until the invasion of Genghis Khan and his Mongol nation in the 1200 AD.  

“Exotic” as Euphemism for Ugly

Cursed with an implicit bias against our own “exotic” features, many Asians, mostly females, would loathe the way we look. Envious of the eyes and nose of our Caucasian counterparts, we subject ourselves to surgical knives. Single lids become double lids; a buttony nose augmented with the grafted issue; the jawbones are shaved down. For hundreds of years, Chinese women bound their feet. Now they bind their mandibles with the face-slimming straps made popular in Japan so they can reshape their round faces to have the coveted V-line – a hallmark of western beauty. Even if we will not look right as a blonde, some would still bleach our black hair. At least from behind us or to the side of us, we can power pose to command some respect.

Colorblind

It used to be noble to say we are colorblind and don’t see skin colors. Now it’s outright offensive. I am slightly colorblind according to a vision test – I have a hard time differentiating between shades of blue and green. But I surely can tell a white man from a black man and an Asian from non-Asian. However, I didn’t see it in myself.

In 1987, my one-way ticket landed me in the heart of Brooklyn. Brooklyn in the 80s was nothing like the hip town that hosts the Brooklyn Nets today. As an “unaccompanied” teen migrant, I anticipated a new life in America depicted in Hollywood movies, such as E.T. and Back to the Future. I dreamed of big houses, green manicured lawns with white fences, and clean and broad streets. As I stood at a street corner in Flatbush, I was baffled. I did not see any cars without dents and dings. My mother and I shared a one-bedroom apartment with a stranger. My life would be confined to a small room with a 13” box TV. There were no Asians in my building and on our block, except the couple that ran a Chinese takeout on Nostrand Avenue.

Then came the wonder of religious faith. You can find your countrymen — decent ones — everywhere in the world if you call yourself a Christian or pretend to be one. I met Chinese kids my age in a Chinese Baptist church. They showed me the ropes and the mall. Finally, I was able to go out without my mom.

In the Mall

We spotted a few teenage boys sitting on one of those mall benches. “Ch*@ks!” They hollered as they saw us walking by. “They must think we are hot,” a frumpy 15-year-old thought to herself. Fast forward thirty years, I came across the word “chink” in my child’s fourth-grade reader. Here is an example.

“Not only is it unusual for him to wake in the middle of the night, but he rarely opens his eyes before daybreak when light begins to filter through the chink in the door.”

Through the chink in the door. Chink means a narrow opening. The English language had just lost another word to the people obsessed with race. The word “chink” had lost all of its intended meaning. Sadly, it has become a word that is offensive to the Chinese.

In High School

I was driven to study hard since I was young. I was able to zip through my ESL classes in the first semester as a 10th grader. Within a year, the new kid on the block became an academic force to be reckoned with. By the time I submitted my college application, I was ranked at the top of my class. I would then suffer a “setback” in my senior year as a rumor swirled. “The school never had an Asian as a valedictorian, so they are going to do a switch.” A teacher that had taken me under her wing later told me. “But they will let the Salutatorian give a speech also.” More flattered than angry, I felt honored to address my class.

The chosen Valedictorian was a popular white girl in our school. On the graduation day, the gleeful senior took center stage. We were not friends, and we didn’t have any pictures together. I don’t remember a word in my speech, and how I wish I had saved my note or have a video of it. I wanted to know if I hurt anyone’s ears with the grating sound of my heavy accent.

I had no ill feelings. This bizarre incident would always stay with me as an odd thing that happened to me in America. I didn’t know what to call it, and the word “racism” never crossed my mind.

In College

I am happy to report there was no “racial” incident during the four years of college. I blended in among the many Asian faces and socialized in small circles of friends and a happy bunch of well-to-do American-born Chinese. My only non-Asian friend was my freshman roommate. Sonja and I were randomly assigned to share a dorm room. She had long, curly, and red hair with freckles on her cheek. Her easy demeanor showed she was comfortable being Sonja. We did nearly everything together in the first month because we did not know anyone else. As the semester progressed, we sorted ourselves out. She found lunch buddies who were tall, cute, and blond; they donned tie-dye shirts and wore expensive Birkenstocks. I met a few Asian girls in my engineering classes, cool-Asian dance parties, and a Chinese Christian group (where no one spoke a word of Chinese). I would spend the next four years in an Asian bubble nestled in a peaceful sanctuary of wooded gorges and Cayuga Lake. There were no protests of any kind and no diversity training. It was an a-political world where not getting a “C” was at the forefront of everyone’s mind.

At Work

As a newbie in corporate America, I would continue to be colorblind until that day in London. I was on my first business trip with my colleagues, who were all tall, blond, and young.

I followed the guys into our corporate office. After they passed through security, a man behind the front desk signaled for me to stop. I signaled back with a gesture and mouthed the words, “I am with them.” A frazzled look flashed across his face. Recognizing his error as there was no one behind me, he quickly waved me in.

As I picked up the pace to catch up with the guys, I said with a chuckle, “He thought I was not with you all!” They didn’t know how to respond, and I really thought it was funny.

But it’s on that day the blindfold came off. For the first time, after living in America for nearly a decade, I realized I don’t look Caucasian, and I stand out in a sea of white people. And much of what happens in my life would probably have to do with my skin color – and it is not yellow.

The American Dream on Trial

Nevertheless, it will take a lot more evidence to convince me there is inequality against Asian-Americans. I was never denied a job or opportunity because of my race. When we moved to Long Island two decades ago, our neighbors warmly greeted us. They did not make us feel we were second-class citizens or we didn’t belong. I have come to see myself as an American and made a home in a country that embraces my culture, esp. the food culture.

My optimism and love for this country would suddenly come to be questioned recently. We are deceived into seeing America as a land of opportunities. The history taught in the classrooms is the erroneous, egregious history of evil, white colonialists. This nation danced to the beat of the fifty-six white men that signed the Declaration of Independence. Immigrants and people of color are pawns for white supremacists.

It is a very dark and twisted narrative. I don’t doubt there are bad apples. But for the many good people, it is defamation and slander and a kick in their stomach.

And suddenly, I felt lost. As #StopAsianHate beats its drum louder and louder, I wonder if I am in a no man’s land and have no home to call my own. As a naturalized citizen, I am neither Chinese nor American. I tried to be a Taiwanese, but I would be an imposter as I can barely speak the Taiwanese dialect.

But who truly belongs? And does it even matter? When I see people as God’s creation and that I treat everyone with kindness and respect, I can get along with nearly everyone. It’s never about the color of our skin. Our character is what determines our standing in the world as eloquently stated in Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s iconic “I Have a Dream” speech.

I recently took an Implicit Association Test (IAT). The result pinned me down, along with many others, as a person with an inherent bias because I could sort Asian faces faster than Caucasian faces. When meeting someone who looks different from us, most reasonable adults would take a moment to assess who they are dealing with – regardless of race. Then all presumptions and fears would dissipate the minute we connect as two unique yet similar individuals of the human race.

The U.S. is the world’s most prosperous and harmonious multiracial society.

Robert L. Woodson Sr.

Race Relations Are…Complicated

When fewer minorities live in a majority culture, the minority almost always conforms. There would not be a discussion about segregation since it would be silly to have a class for one indigenous, one black, and one Asian kid while keeping a different class for thirty white kids. In the late 19th century, there were relatively fewer blacks. They lived among the whites peacefully in the North and were assimilated to the dominant culture. After the Proclamation of Emancipation, the once enslaved black men and women en masse moved from the southern plantations to establish their independence. A sub-culture emerged in cities. The line between the dominant white culture and a black sub-culture would divide the nation the moment politicians step in.

The private bus companies did not want to separate the black riders from the white. It would cost them too much not to have every seat taken on the bus. Heavy-handed political maneuvering would pass Jim Crow (segregation) laws, and a knife was driven into the heart of the nation. America would bleed every day from 1861 into the 21st century. The Civil Rights movement that started in the 60s had just seen its resurgence after the tragic death of George Floyd. White, Hispanic, Black, Asian cops now walk on thin ice, fearing another misstep that will get them prosecuted.

The narrative among the racial groups has been hijacked by the politicians. The racial tension will continue to be played in the hands of the powerful. As far as I can see, America will never achieve equality. By law, equality was already given the day the slaves were declared free. However, the politicians would keep them on welfare, assuming the blacks don’t have what it takes to hold their own. Consider the nobility of the Ethiopian eunuch and his Queen in biblical history – they were not endowed with less, and they were not inferior. It may take decades for the American blacks to achieve the same level of equity as the White Americans. Still, they do not need our pity and government handouts.

But I’d better not comment much about the plight of my black brothers and sisters. We Asians have our own predicaments. Children born to first-generation immigrants are now grown. Harnessed with the English language, they do not want to be silenced. They are sick and tired of being seen as meek and docile; being called the “model citizens” is more insult than praise. In another fifty years, we will not see Asian faces only in computer labs. The vocal, outspoken, the Type 8 of the Enneagram will soon walk the national stage of the greatest country in the world.

Meanwhile, we will also find more Asians take on menial or blue-colored jobs. The study shows that the disparity between the top 10% and bottom 10% of Chinese-Americans is widening. Very soon, the stereotypical image of Asians being meek and docile will be a thing of the past. Case in point – NYC might end up electing a Chinese-American as mayor!

Race Relations in the Ancient World

We see people of the ancient world as another breed. We laugh at the ignorance of flat-earthers, and we shake our heads at their ruthless brutality. We say they are not sophisticated and that they are backward and primitive. We pride ourselves on our scientific and technological advancement. So high on our horses, we have lost the ability to learn from history. Humans have not evolved all that much. Our advances today sit on top of layers of the foundation laid by the ingenuity of our ancestors. In a caveman’s jungle, the arsonist that started the first forest fire and the stonemason who made the first wheelbarrow was probably their version of Nobel Prize winners.

Israelites & Their Oppressors

If you want to know how humans thought thousands of years ago, read the Bible as a reliable historical document. I have canvassed the entire volume and have yet to find one incident of racially motivated conflict. Before you challenge me on this point, hear me out.  

The Jewish history, as depicted in the Old Testament, was all about injustice! Specifically, injustice against Yahweh, the God of Israel. All crimes and atrocities against the Jews were the results of their violation of the Covenant. The oppressors identified as Assyrians, Babylonians and Persians were merely God’s minions to discipline His very own. It was a divine relationship that fell apart. It was a heartbreaking love story that went awry. It’s all because God is just.

The Israelites did not presume their innocence. They recognized their suffering was a direct result of a broken Covenant. In a nutshell, obedience brings blessings, and disobedience brings curses. Whenever the Jews were in trouble, they pleaded with their God for forgiveness and then for deliverance. For centuries they would continue to beseech their God for relief and rescue. Their enemies were many, but the enemy was only the backdrop and never the protagonist of their ill-fated stories.  

The First African Christian Convert

There was a prominent Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8. Although the author did not describe the color of his skin, we can be sure of his race from the Jewish and Greco-Roman literature. The author of Acts only mentioned the position he held and the country that sent him. He was a nobleman from a Nubian kingdom located south of Egypt. It was a powerful nation that Rome did not want to conquer. Instead, the Roman Empire chose to coexist through peace treaties and trades. While most people walked or rode on their animals, this official traveled in an expensive chariot. This eunuch’s conversion to Christianity was detailed in the Scripture. It is widely believed that he was responsible for spreading the Gospel message to Africa.

An African Founder of the Early Church

Simeon was listed as one of the leaders in an early church at Antioch. (Acts 13:1) Along with Paul and Barnabas, this group of men blazed the gospel trail from Jerusalem into the heart of the Greco-Roman world. While “Simeon” was a Jewish name, his family name Niger implies that he was dark-skinned. Therefore he might be descended from the coast of North Africa. Luke listed this group of men not by the color of their skin but by their lineage and relationships. It is evident that Luke noticed their race, yet he would not draw attention to it. All the conflicts described in the New Testament were not racially motivated. We can therefore deduce race was not an inherent ailment of society. The division would come from differences in opinions and socioeconomic factors.

Racism Is Taught and Modeled

The Bible is colorblind. Biblical writers did not think it was necessary to describe any physical attributes of its many characters, except for the 9-foot Goliath and the left-handed Ehud. One’s nationality and birthplace were more frequently used to describe a character’s origin, while race and ethnicity were rarely mentioned. In fact, I can’t seem to find any hints of racial bias and injustice in the Ancient Near East. Therefore, racism was taught and modeled from a sinful heart. And sin loves to hate.

There are no inferior genes, only destructive behaviors. Human behaviors have nothing to do with the color of our skin. A foul-mouthed, selfish Chinese is as contemptible as any foul-mouthed, selfish black, white, or brown man and woman. On the other hand, a polite, kind, and generous Chinese is as admirable as any polite, kind, and generous black, white, or brown man and woman.

Race Relations Today

“Mom, how do you feel about segregation?” My younger daughter recently asked.

Careful not to give an opinion, I responded, “We sort ourselves out.”

Go to any college campus, and you will see students scattered around in groups, big or small. Just like birds of the same feathers flock together, people of the same color stick together. This phenomenon, if you can even call it a “phenomenon,” is neither segregation nor racial discrimination – it is a natural social behavior. It does not mean we don’t want to be with people from a different race. We are simply drawn, subconsciously, to people that look like us. Have you seen a fleet of birds made up of eagles, crows, sparrows, and seagulls fly together in perfect formation? Just the thought of it is absurd!

Therefore, the narratives about racism and social injustice are most likely politically driven. And the media that relies on views and clicks is stoking the flames to create tension and division. Let’s look at a recent headline on mainstream media:

FROM 2019 TO 2020, THE OVERALL HATE CRIME RATE DECLINED, WHILE HATE CRIMES TARGETING ASIANS INCREASED, FROM THREE TO 28 IN NEW YORK AND SEVEN TO 15 IN LOS ANGELES.

According to this report, the total hate crime reported is forty-three in two metropolitan areas. Around 1.7 million Asian-Americans live in NYC and LA. Therefore, the chance for any Asian-American to experience verbal or physical attacks is 0.003% in these two cities. However, it’s been reported that 30% of Chinese-Americans are fearful of racial attacks in public places. Some would not even step out of the house. The chance of being struck by a car, according to the CDC, is 0.02%. In other words, the possibility of being hit by a car is 7 times more likely than being a victim of a hate crime against Asians.

My husband often points out my skewed math when estimating the chance of an unlikely event, such as getting hit by lightning, having birds’ poop on our head, and getting Covid. He audits my math as well as my logic. And I can’t say he fully agrees with me.

Why would anyone look at the small number of cases and conclude that the world is against Asian-Americans? The few idiots who equate coronavirus to the Asian race – who have suffered just as much – would lead to an epidemic of pity parties as we cry victimhood? A single racial incident and an angry mob quickly form as the country falls apart? Are we that frail?

After asking a series of WHY, I realized something. People are looking for a purpose. They want to identify with a worthy cause to fight for. Depending on personalities, some would become diehard zealots behind one or more of these slogans:

 This is Our Shot
 Stop Asian Hate
 Black Lives Matter
 Make America Great Again
 Build Back Better
 No Justice No Peace
 Save the Turtles 

It is easier to rally behind a common cause to “right” a “wrong” than rally behind simple acts of kindness and not-so-simple grace of forgiveness. Teaching a society to hate is like drinking artificially sweetened fruit punch; it gets you the rush of sugar with empty and toxic calories.

Men or women who can’t think for themselves are easy prey for the manipulative mastermind. There are very few fans of Marxism and socialism. However, they spread like wildfire in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. No one sings Hitler’s praises now. However, his insane rhetoric could get past a whole nation’s conscience and lead to the atrocities in Auschwitz concentration camp. We condemn such crimes against humanity, yet I am not so sure if anyone of us could have seen through the deception – if we were one of the youths in Mao’s China or Hitler’s Germany.

A Closure With No Conclusion

A few weeks ago, my husband texted me a video that had gone viral. A dashcam captured a black man walking towards a car near an intersection. The woman that encountered this man went on local television to report what took place. “He spat on me when I had my door down.” She was supposedly pregnant, and therefore the incident was further sensationalized with this headline:

PREGNANT ASIAN WOMAN SPIT ON AT OAKLAND STOPLIGHT

How convenient it is to use a passive voice. My kids will have difficulty identifying the subject if this is a sentence example in their English class.

My husband later told me a hooded young man fake-sneezed in front of him right outside Forever21 when I was shopping with my daughter. He wanted to convince me the hate against Asians is real.

People say it’s not until you or a loved one suffer from the worst case of Covid-19 would you stop being the Covid denier. Same for racial attacks. Is hate and discrimination against Asians real? I experienced such racism when my brood of kids and I were denied service in a high-end dining establishment in SoHo. It was apparent the young hostess just wanted to get rid of us even when I insisted that we were willing to wait for a table. But I would not go on social media to rant and rat out this restaurant.

This restraint is not a sign of weakness.

Someone once said, “Don’t try to get even with a person who has done something to you. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles.”

This someone indeed has made a name for himself. People even curse using his name.

Only a lost and demented person would take out on someone without provocation. Only a broken and sick mind would commit an act of aggression & indecency. I feel sorry for these people.

Jesus Christ, who had experienced all forms of depravity, would endure thick and frothy spits and maybe fake sneezes, with a sponge soaked in sour wine shoved in his mouth.

Call me weak or meek. Take a pick. I just cannot muster up enough hate to hate. In my life, I’ve been overcome by compassion and unconditional love. I’d rather forgive. I’d rather turn the other cheek. I’d rather hand over my coat. But I am not so sure about walking the extra mile. That mile in Matthew 5:41 was not a walk in the park but backbreaking labor.

I don’t do backbreaking labor because the Nanny State of America will make sure it coddles and spoils me from the cradle to the grave.