While the error of well-meaning conservatives is color-blindness (there is no racism), I believe the error of well-meaning progressives is making race everything.
Yes, racism is part of the ‘matrix’ of American society. You cannot know me without knowing my ethnicity and how I have experienced my race. But my race or even ethnicity is not the truest thing about me. Celebrating AAPI Heritage Month, for example, doesn’t do a lot to help me feel ‘seen.’ Honestly, I don’t know many Asians who even care about AAPI Heritage Month (or even know when it is…do you?). Most of us feel more at home when celebrating holidays like Lunar New Year, Diwali, or *gasp* Christmas!
This is what makes me cringe at times when progressives try to be ‘inclusive.’ What this usually means is including people like me simply because of my race. For Asians, this is deeply problematic since “Asian” (or its much worse “AAPI”) is a patchwork umbrella term for 60% of the world! How am I, a Toisanese American supposed to represent all Asians on this team, panel, or social media post?
Progressives thus end up reifying race, hardening the very racial categories that they purport to break down! Racial diversity thus becomes a convenient way for progressives to claim to be antiracist without really having done anything to challenge the construct of race itself. To put it another way, antiracism can become a way of perpetuating the logic of race!
What folks often forget about race is that it is not primarily about skin color or culture, but a logic that justifies inequality and oppression. What good does it do, for example, when Harvard boasts about its racially diverse class, when the “underserved races” included aren’t poor rural Black or Salvadoran DACA youths, but Nigerian royals or sons of Argentinian diplomats? Race, thus becomes a way for progressives to further burnish their elite credentials (think: diversity is the new Gucci bag), again, without doing anything meaningful about the inequality that race justifies.
This is why I’m with Jesus on this one, who came preaching “good news to the poor.” And the Apostle Paul who gave his life for this gospel: That Jesus’ death and resurrection broke down the dividing wall of hostility between Jew and Gentile (aka ‘race’), but also between slave and free (aka ‘class’). We cannot understand the power of race unless we center the concerns of the poor. To put it in antiracist terms, we must tend to the space where race intersects poverty, with greater emphasis on poverty. Because ultimately, race is how we justify poverty, violence, and oppression. This is why, while well-educated Asians like me have every reason to decry violence against our elders and sisters, because violence is oppression, that notwithstanding, we need to check ourselves when it comes to things that mostly concern the elite: Hollywood representation, bamboo ceilings, and Harvard admissions; there are plenty of Chinese and Koreans represented, but many less Cambodians, Fijians, or Hmong. On the other hand, it’s one thing to raise my fist for #BlackLivesMatter at an NBA game, rooting for some of the wealthiest and most celebrated Black men in the country, quite another thing to work with our community, local police department, and DA to do something about mass incarceration. We remember MLK Jr. for his fight against racism; but less well-known is that a year before he was assassinated, he was preparing for his next chapter against inequality: “The Poor People’s Campaign,” a 2,000 person march on DC of the poor walking peacefully for jobs, unemployment insurance, a fair minimum wage, and education.
I used to think that those who said, “It’s not about race; it’s about class!” were guilty of skirting the reality of race. And maybe that’s still true. But I now realize those who only focus on race are ignoring the evil that race enables: poverty.
To learn more about a multi-racial coalition against poverty, I suggest The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together. For a theological treatment of the same, I suggest Asian Americans and the Spirit of Racial Capitalism. For a tortured-soul critique of Asian progressives, I suggest The Loneliest Americans.
Brian Hui 