When racism dictates what to name your kids.

I want to have children someday. They’ll be mixed Jewish-Chinese. Carolyn and I wanted to name our kids something really Jewish to go with their Chinese last names. We were thinking “Anoch” and “Esther”. Reading about the Kaifeng Jews in China, I thought it would be really neat to give our first child the gender neutral (?) middle name “Kaifeng” as a tribute to both of our roots and the synthesis thereof.

However, in Trump’s America, with the rising anger against China, it might be advisable to name them something Anglo as hell, and give them her last name – “John Light” “Andrea Light” – to avoid bureaucratic scrutiny. The alt-right is anti-Semitic as hell and the Republican hatred of China is well documented.

My normal stance on these issues are “Fuck racists, I do what I want.” but this is not a choice I’m making for myself. This is a choice I’m making for my children, for people who will have to deal with that choice for the rest of their lives.

This is the kind of shit I have to fucking think about – how racism will impact what I name my kids. This is a awful violation. Small in the grand scheme of things, but disgusting nonetheless. Think about that in the voting booth this November.

Guns

Every time a mass shooting happens, I am infuriated that we let another asshole get his hands on a gun and I instinctively want more gun control. Then I remember what a godawful job the state does of protecting racial, sexual, and gender minorities. Indeed, they’re often the ones handing out the violence, in giant heaping portions. And then I become that much more conflicted. With Trump perhaps about to become president, with Americans visiting Japanese internment camps excited about the prospect of Muslim internment, how can we possibly willingly disarm ourselves? This cannot be the only line of defense, but will the state be interested in any other argument?

The counter argument (one that I’ve posed myself repeatedly) is that our massive proliferation of guns has done NOTHING to protect our civil rights from eroding since 9/11.

But then the counter argument to that is that minorities have purposefully disarmed themselves and put ourselves at the mercy of the state – the guns, and the thought of armed struggle, is generally the province of racist, sexist, awful assholes.

And then the counter argument to that is that minorities (any type) can’t survive a shooting war with privileged people and the state.

But then the counter argument to that is that Iraqis and Afghanis just pantsed us in the Middle East.

Then the counter argument to that is that they only pantsed us because our military made an active decision to not butcher every man woman and child – they made an attempt to win hearts and minds.

And then the counter argument to that is that, well wouldn’t the military show the same restraint here if it came down to that?

And then I look and history and the answer is “nah, not really.”

And then we ask ourselves “Shouldn’t we try to be better?”

And then we ask ourselves “At what cost? Can we even survive being ‘better’ when so much is at stake??”

How much is pacifism a privilege of the cis and white?

How much is armed struggle a fantasy of the cis and white?

How much is relying on the state for protection a privilege of the cis and white?

And can we, as a society, continue to pay the awful cost of being armed to the teeth when in fact, our liberty erodes daily?

But with how badly our state handles the rights and freedoms of oppressed people (Brock Turner, anyone?) can we ask those populations to wait for the state to come to their senses?

But will provoking the state by arming yourself lead to a positive outcome?

Counterargument: no provocation was required for the violence currently taking place.

Summation? None.

Two thoughts on gun control

Thought 1

Do you want to know how to get rid of the Second Amendment? Start up the Black Panthers again. Create a Muslim Panthers. A Chinese Panthers. A Latino Panthers. Arm all the racial minorities. Arm the women. Arm the Planned Parenthood employees. Arm queer people. Arm trans* prostitutes, particularly trans* youth sex workers engaging in survival sex work. Make it legal to shoot rapists with impunity. Teach radical self-defense in American high schools, but only to people who belong to oppressed groups, because those are the groups that have been historically exposed to government tyranny and the viciousness of their fellow citizens. Start up AIM again, and give real sovereignty to the tribal leaders, so anyone who steps on their land without permission can be gunned down without trial. Anyone who tries to sell their mineral, water, and oil rights who isn’t a tribe member can be shot as a violation of their sovereignty.

You will see the Second Amendment evaporate faster than you can says “bipartisanship.”

Thought 2

The mighty US military just got pantsed by a bunch of guys with technicals, AK-47s, and roadside bombs. In a grinding, awful ten year war in Iraq. An American guerrilla army *definitely* has the potential to cause all manner of intense grief to the actual standing US army. Unless you are willing to do something like ride through a neighborhood and kill every man, woman, and child absolutely indiscriminately, conventional military force means less and less these days. We weren’t willing to do that in Iraq / Afghanistan, and the troops who did pull shit like this were put on trial (and rightfully so). I’d imagine that American troops would be even less inclined to commit war crimes this if they were rolling through, say, St. Louis, Brooklyn, or Tulsa.

That being said, we’ve seen concrete erosion of our freedom since 2001, all in the name of protecting it from terrifying brown people. All the guns in the world didn’t stop that.

In terms of protecting freedom with force, these supposed “real Americans” are cowardly and pathetic. They lack the intellect to realize that we’re frogs in a slowly boiling pot of water and the willpower to do anything about it. They see violations of our Constitutional freedoms as necessary protections against terrorism.

Guns don’t protect freedom. People protect freedom.

And our people have utterly, profoundly failed.

The flag is still there.

“Oh, say can you see by the dawn’s early light

What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming?”

This is not an easy holiday for me, and I don’t think it’s an easy holiday for any person of color. Trayvon Martin’s been moldering in his grave for years, black professors are still getting slammed on the hoods of police cars for no reason, and the anniversary of Vincent Chin’s murder arrives every June to remind me exactly what my life is worth in America (an unpaid fine of $3,000, to be exact).

But, I’m not here to talk about that today. I’m here to talk about music. When I was a teenager, we sung the Star Spangled Banner every day in chorus class at the end of our warm up. It’s actually a pretty difficult song, and my extremely demanding chorus teacher, Mr. Tracy Murray, had put together a challenging arrangement. The bass harmony was particularly difficult. I could never get it quite right. I couldn’t find the harmony, having heard the melody at every sporting event, television show, and movie I’d ever seen.

Looking back, I could never quite get the story of America to sit right. A bunch of slave owning white men conspired to rebel against a tyrannical foreign crown because they didn’t want to pay their taxes? After which, we proceeded to keep black folks enslaved, deny women the vote, and ethnically cleanse North America of First Nations people? All the while promoting freedom, equality, and justice for all? That’s our great origin story? I’m supposed to feel patriotic about that? I hear the melody, and I’m supposed to provide the harmony.

Sorry. I promised I wasn’t going to talk about that today. After three years of singing the Star Spangled Banner every day (and cocking up the singing test on it every year) while simultaneously learning American history from two proud patriots and one Catholic almost-socialist (we had an interesting history department in my high school), the song had lost most of its luster and all of its emotional impact. I was glad to go to college, a place where I had greater autonomy to express what utter bullshit I found this country to be.

“Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,

O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?”

A week into the fall of my freshman year in 2001, I was singing the national anthem five days after 9/11, while loading supplies into a truck in the Jacob Javits Center.

Remember this?

I got to see this with my own eyes, at the tender age of eighteen. Not something I like remembering. When I first heard about 9/11, the first thing I remember thinking was that a lot of people were going to get hurt for no reason. And sadly, I was right. I continue to be right. (Sometimes I like being right, but I can’t say I’m happy that things turned out the way I predicted.)

But I also remember loading supplies into that truck, handing them to a smiling white man who handed them to a Latina woman wearing a particle mask as we loaded them into a dump truck. We were a nation that was pulling together. An outside enemy does that. But so does tragedy. So does the human reality of death, of loss. Singing that song, on that day, meant something to me. But it lost its power again when it, and its patriotic context, was was so ruthlessly exploited during the run up to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

Today, after a string of vicious, disappointing Supreme Court decisions regarding unions and a woman’s right to reproductive freedom and a few really aggravating discussions on Facebook, I got to listen to my wife and her friends work on an arrangement of the Star Spangled Banner.

My wife often talks about leaving America. She rightfully found the Republican rape culture rhetoric (Akin, Ryan, Mourdock, et al) during the election of 2012 to be terrifying and awful. I don’t know how to assuage her fears that these beliefs aren’t a clear and present danger to her personal freedom. I probably shouldn’t – these are the kinds of men you ought to be terrified of.

At times like this, I think that this can’t be why my grandparents and great grandparents came to this country – to have their grandson live in fear of racially motivated violence, for their granddaughter in law to live in fear of the rape culture.

“And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,

Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;”

Sorry. I’m doing it again.

Music. The Star Spangled Banner was written by Francis Scott Key during the war of 1812, during the British bombardment of Baltimore. There are four verses, but only the first one is commonly sung today. It was originally a poem, not a song, and was set to a British drinking song called “To Anacreon in Heaven” – this is me summarizing the wiki article for you. The point is this: our national anthem is about endurance. Racists and demagogues often use it to vilify the boogeyman of the week, whether it’s Muslims or Latinos or black folks or Chinese labor or Indian tech workers or whatever.

But the truth is, it’s a song about endurance. It’s about surviving a shelling, battered but unbroken. Do you know what artillery is? It’s an indirect fire weapon that blows up targets by shooting over their static defenses. Working folks, women, people of color, sexual minorities, trans* folks, differently abled people – we are the ones surviving. We are the ones enduring. We are the ones getting shelled every day and every night. When we turn on the TV, the radio, go to the movies, fire up the internet, while going out to buy Skittles and iced tea, while trying to drive home, while just trying to live our lives. We are the duck and cover. We are the ones with our heads down, but our chins up.

It’s not their song. It’s our song. And these days, I can’t help but be moved when I hear it.

So while in the past, it has belonged to murderous ultrapatriots, to the exploitative businessmen, to the panicked working class folks who have embraced racial scapegoating, it doesn’t have to be that way.

The story of America is also the story of Geronimo, of MLK, of Harriet Tubman, of Malcolm X, of rioting Chinese coolies who refused to be used as slave labor, of the Heart Mountain resisters, of Cesar Chavez, of Stonewall, of all those Americans who refused to swallow the lie and instead fought for the truth. For their simple right to be here, to be seen as Americans, as people. The flag is still there.

Defense is a demand. It’s standing your ground, not as a terrified coward with a gun, but as an immovable stone mountain. We keep demanding. We keep defending.

The American struggle has always been the battle to bridge the gap between reality and our ideals. It’s a battle that I willingly fight, that must be fought for my future children and for the world. The America I love is not the America that is, but the America that can yet be. The America that we have the temerity to dream about, to write about, to fight for, that generations before me have fought for. The flag is still there.

Today, I’m not demanding obedience. I’m not asking you to die for anything. I’m asking you to remain, as you have, stalwart. And when the shells whistle toward you, remember whose country this is. Whose country it will always be.

“O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave,

O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?”

The flag is still there.

Happy Fourth of July everybody.

9/11 and emotional manipulation

So here’s whassup. It’s 2014. It’s been thirteen years since 9/11. Kids born in 2001 are in middle school. Invoking that clear, beautiful day in September isn’t politically in vogue these days, but screaming “terrorism!” is still a pretty good way to pass repressive legislation and justify spying and international interventions of all kinds. 

I was speaking to one of my Facebook friends about rap, and he was trying to explain how certain rap lyrics don’t make sense unless you understand the Rodney King riots. He was trying to explain this to someone born in 1991 (who would now be 23… shudder… I’m so old!). He realized that all of these cultural landmarks are completely meaningless to this generation of adults. Now he knows how his parents feel, he said. 

Now, I know the slogan is “Never forget!” but let’s be real for a second. Here’s how we’ve commemorated those killed in 9/11 – Project PRISM. Guantanamo Bay. Extraordinary rendition. Torture, from waterboarding to beatings to solitary isolation. Warrantless wiretapping. Drone strikes on American citizens. Extrajudicial assassination. Two wars that have accomplished very little other than get a bunch of American soldiers and innocent civilians killed. Basically, we’ve chosen to remember American civilian deaths by destroying everything America claims to stand for. So before you come at me with some “UNAMERICAN!” bullshit, check your history and get some fucking perspective. 

My point is this: it might be better when this generation of voters can’t forget 9/11 – because they weren’t even alive to remember it. The 13 years have been rife with atrocious legislation passed using emotional manipulation. And the main instrument, the prime example, the touchstone, was 9/11. And this worn out old battleaxe has started to finally blunt and weaken. In ten or fifteen years, maybe it won’t be a usable weapon at all. I’d like to believe that. 

But it’s probably unlikely. The response to the Rodney King riots was pretty similar to the response to 9/11 – fear, and the stupidity that fear causes. In a lot of ways, the fear of rioters was similar to the fear of terrorists – brown people are coming to kill you and take your shit. Maybe these tools keep getting used because they’re the same tools that have worked on Americans since its foundation – xenophobia, specifically of racial minorities. The irony is that the Arabic population of the Middle East and the black population of America are both minorities that are actually oppressed by the white, economically elite establishment – powerful organizations exploiting Middle Eastern oil and black labor. Maybe American xenophobia isn’t just fear of the other, but subconscious fear that the other will do unto you what has been done unto them. 

That mindset isn’t going away any time soon, sadly. It’s older than 9/11, older than slavery. It’s about as old as colonialism itself. 

My thoughts on Belle Knox

First, read this.

Okay so here goes. I don’t care that she’s a porn star. Good for her, if it’s what she wants to do. People shouldn’t give her shit about it, and certainly shouldn’t slut shame her. I’m willing to entertain critiques of the porn industry as a whole, (there are many valid ones) but no critique of the porn industry justifies cyberbullying this girl. That being said, what she doesn’t get to do is be a porn star and also roll with the Republicans, even if it’s because the Libertarian Party “isn’t strong enough to get anything done without the backing of the Republican Party.” (her words, not mine) You can’t have your cake and eat it too. You cannot chill with the most regressive, homophobic, anti-woman, anti-abortion, anti-sex, racist cryptofascist motherfuckers around and also talk about sexual liberation with a straight face. I don’t care that the Duke College Republicans are pro-gay. It doesn’t change what the Republican Party stands for, has stood for, and uses to garner votes.

When I was first thinking about this, it really pissed me off that she was talking all about her own sexual liberation but also talking about libertarianism and Republicanism. So you want your sexual freedom, but you are okay with denying other people (of color, but also white) their economic freedom? You’re totally okay with leaving the banks and markets unregulated? You’re okay with maintaining structural economic inequality that disenfranchises and disadvantages minority groups? You’re down with cyclical poverty and coded racism? Why? Because Ron Paul thinks its cool if you smoke weed in your dorm room? Come the fuck on, man. He also desperately wants control over your vagina and your uterus. These people are not your friends.

This disappoints me for the same reason that racist or homophobic people of color disappoint me – because we ought to goddamn know better because we’re on the outside of the power structure, so we shouldn’t be wielding said power structure as a weapon against other people to advance ourselves.

Then I thought again, and realized that she’s also 18, and I believed some truly stupid and abominable things when I was 18 too. These things happen. There’s room to grow. I didn’t know what the shit intersectionality was when I was 18. It’s certainly not a topic taught in high school. I’d even argue that most high schools actively discourage you from discovering and assembling a coherent understanding of oppression. Maybe this trip outside of the club of “normal” will teach her things about other people’s struggle. Intersectional anti-racism / anti-classism and intersectional feminism have to go hand in hand. You cannot, cannot, cannot separate the two and maintain a cogent and coherent analysis of oppression.

Update: Upon reading this, I wanted to add this final point – I don’t give a fuck what this girl is doing, the amount of personal threat and harassment she’s currently dealing with is total bullshit. Do I think that her overall worldview and assessment of oppression might be incomplete based on her willingness to roll with the GOP? Yes. Do I think people should harass her or her family and friends because of it? Absolutely not. Threatening her with physical violence, slut shaming her, or cyberbullying her online is absolutely unacceptable, and I agree with all the points she makes in her article. I can disagree with some of her political stances and still admire her guts on the issue of standing up for her right to control her own sexuality.

She is particularly insightful when she mentions the hypocrisy of persecuting porn creators while letting porn consumers (which is, let’s face it, goddamn near everyone in the US) off scot-free. So porn consumers can jerk off to whatever we want in the comfort of our own homes, but the people who create said jerk off material are some kind of bane on society? Fuck that shit. I believe I may not have hammered on this issue quite enough, partially because of my own male privilege – honestly, I did not realize quite how bad she had it in terms of cyber harassment. No excuse though. Hence this update.

PS: I added her porn name to the title of this post after she outed herself. Previously, I only referred to her as The Duke Freshman Porn Star, in an effort to protect what meager privacy the internet was allowing her to have.

It Happened To Me: A White Boy Came To My Chinese Restaurant And I’m Uncomfortable With It

Okay, first read this ludicrous piece of well-meaning but ultimately terrible horseshit. Then read my little satire.

So after a long day of playing mah-jong with my grandmother’s ancient ivory tile set and doing math homework for fun, my rumbling stomach told me that I needed to head into the most sacred of all places to Chinese-Americans – Chinatown, NYC. Would I be thrifty and get a simple plate of chow fun? Could I splurge on Cantonese lobster without angering my ancestors with my frivolous finances? Luckily, I had a whole J train ride to make my decision.

I walked into my favorite hole-in-the-wall basement Chinese restaurant, Wo Hop, on Mott Street, the same place where my family had been getting char siu baos and curry buns for almost three decades. The host pointed at a table and mumbled something (probably rude) in Cantonese and I sat down. The waiter slammed a glass of water on the table and threw down two menus without a single greeting. Ah, the ambience!! This had been my sanctuary through many dark times in my life, from break ups to family deaths.

I decided on the thrifty plate of chow fun with bok choy because, after all, my people are a model of economical living and fiscal responsibility. It arrived piping hot and I eagerly dug in, my agile chopsticks digging through the slippery noodles without fear.

Normally, hearing the entrance bell isn’t a big deal. I don’t even turn around, especially after the chowfun with bok choy shows up. But this time was different. This time, a white boy had entered my beloved restaurant. He looked scared and confused, like he had stepped into the wrong basement. He was wearing a pair of well pressed khakis and a button down polo shirt – he looked equally ready for the golf course or after work drinks with his biz caz office buddies. This, I thought, was a man who was used to fitting in.

And yet he seemed perturbed at how rude the host was, and didn’t seem to understand why the waiter brought him a pot of tea without asking. He demanded to know whether he was going to be charged for it. The waiter just stared at him for a second and shook his head, shocked that anyone could be ignorant enough to ask that question. Poor guy. He has probably been conditioned by years of Starbucks and artisanal coffee shops that any tea worth drinking has to be at least $7 for a small. I’m sorry, a tall.

He asked the waiter why General Tso’s chicken wasn’t on the menu. When he settled on beef and broccoli, I had to resist the urge to put my head in my hands. He asked the waiter to repeat himself four times, and then generally asked the room, “Doesn’t anyone here speak English?!” I considered speaking up and informing him that not only did I speak English, I was a writer. But I didn’t want to bring too much attention to his confused plight.

Unfortunately, this disaster area of a customer was seated in the booth directly in front of me, so I couldn’t help but watch him fumble helplessly with his chopsticks. They fell out of his hands once, twice, three times. The fork was right there! RIGHT THERE! Why didn’t he just use it? Eventually he settled for stabbing his beef with the chopstick and lifting it into his mouth like he was eating a barbecue skewer. Should I have encouraged him to order something different? Should I explain to him how to use chopsticks, a skill I mastered at three years old? Would that come off as condescending? So what if almost two billion people can eat with chopsticks? One of the best things about being white is that people never blame your race when you’re bad at stuff.  If I were him, I’d want as little attention brought to my incompetence as possible.

I tried my best to not to stare while I deftly lifted noodles into my mouth, but his bright blue eyes glared deeply into mine. I thought that he might feel some racially charged hatred for me and my chopstick-competence. Did his investments tank because Samsung or Sony or another totally-unrelated-to-China company is excelling? Was his dad an out of work auto assembly line repairman? Should I make a point of explaining to him how members of the Chinese diaspora don’t benefit from the actions of profitable East Asian companies? I thought back to the murder of Vincent Chin, and thought maybe now wasn’t the best time.

Eventually, he stopped looking at me, dropped his chopsticks, and stared despondently at his food, which wasn’t even half eaten. He had even given up on his stab-and-lift chopstick routine. He just sat there as the host glared at him, clearly wanting to give the table to a Chinese family from down the block. After twenty five agonizing minutes, he threw a twenty dollar bill on the table, wiped down his chopsticks and started to stick them in his pocket.

“You can’t just steal chopsticks,” I said, finally moved to say something. He flinched, probably surprised that I spoke English, and even more surprised that I tried to speak to him.

“No, it’s cool, man. These are for my girlfriend. She’s going to wear them in her hair.” And before I could respond, he walked out.

Should I have stopped him? Was his girlfriend going to wear these in her blonde, blonde hair and go to a theme party at her sorority? Or worse, was she going to wear them to Chinatown, complete with chi pao, expecting Chinese people to compliment her on her chopstick bun? I could’ve saved them from looking like total and complete assholes! How could I call myself an activist – a socially aware and compassionate person, after letting that happen?

And that white boy didn’t even ask the waiter to give him a box! He wasted an entire plate of food! Surely, his ancestors would disapprove! The Pilgrims starved for a whole winter when they got off the Mayflower, didn’t they? How could he waste food now?

I wish I could tell you that his passing made an impact, that just by being here, Wo Hop, and maybe even Chinatown, is a very different place than it was before he got here. But the truth is, I don’t think anyone noticed him but me. You can’t fuck with Chinese people when we’re eating. We don’t really give a fuck. No matter how white you are, you aren’t more delicious than a good plate of walnut shrimp.

But the more I thought about it, the more worried I got. What if this white boy, no matter how bad his experience is, comes back with friends? What if he decides this neighborhood is hip, and finds out how cheap the rents are? What if the fish stench on Canal Street isn’t enough to drive him off? God, what if my neighborhood becomes hip? The Lower East Side and SoHo are so close – it wouldn’t be a stretch for real estate developers to buy up a block of affordable Chinatown green grocers and replace them with a Whole Foods! The tea wouldn’t be free anymore! The service wouldn’t be rude! You wouldn’t be able to choose from a wide selection of dim sum restaurants! It would be an apocalypse as I knew it. I went home to my sparse, but elegantly decorated house (wall scrolls, natch) and wept my tiny, tiny eyes out.

You’re embarrassing yourself, and your cause. Stop that shit.

http://jezebel.com/hipster-bar-to-throw-old-timey-asian-racism-themed-part-1467654052

While liberal / leftist organizations do not embrace / exploit explicitly racist or cryptoracist political talking points, that does not mean that they cannot commit racist deeds, say racist things, or throw racist parties. It’s come to my attention that Rubalad, the organization throwing this insanely racist Orientalist party, is actually a group of corporate resisters / Occupiers.

Let me be all-caps clear: FIGHTING CORPORATE GREED DOES NOT EXCUSE THIS SORT OF BEHAVIOR. In fact, it only exacerbates the egregiousness of the offense. You are, by your own estimation, fighting for a better world. But that better world includes cultural appropriation, racist stereotypes, and silencing people of color who speak up against it. You are against corporate exploitation, but are more than willing to exploit harmful stereotypes for profit, in the name of a good time. In short, you have a giant fucking blind spot called white privilege, and if you truly want to make the world a better place, you need to start listening to (instead of silencing!) people of color and other marginalized people, educating yourself about your privilege, and learning about this country’s history of racist violence and exploitation. Also, stop throwing bullshit ass parties like this.

Trayvon

Here’s what I think (and what my experience has been, at least talking to people about this on social media) – many white folks don’t understand why this trial and this verdict meant so much to people of color and similar progressive communities. They see it as an isolated incident of uncertain evidence (because the racist media spin machine is in full effect) or as an example of justufiable self-defense (because they’re fucking racists) or an unfortunate series of events – and this last one actually bothers me the most. The first two are almost expected on my part. I want to talk about that last one.

It’s not JUST a series of unfortunate events. From the day Zimmerman took it upon himself to protect his neighborhood, to him profiling Trayvon, to him getting out of his car, to Trayvon’s death, to the jury selection (five white women, one black woman), to the verdict itself, to people’s reactions to it – all of these events are products and symptoms of racism.

And you can’t see that if you can’t acknowledge the existence of systemic racism and white privilege. And so much of the Protestant work ethic, meritocracy, and economic conservatism is built around the idea that racism doesn’t exist, or was beaten back long ago. If you subscribe to any of those beliefs, or hell, you just don’t want to believe that the world is a stinking cesspool of inequality (because if you believe racism exists, you’ve got to start investigating sexism, homophobia, ableism, etc.), you CANNOT allow yourself to believe that racism was a motivating factor in Zimmerman’s actions.

I cannot emphasize enough how the existence of systemic racism gnaws at the roots of many of the things that Americans like to believe about social mobility and equality of opportunity. And the worst part, the most insidious part of it all, is that the more we ignore this festering cancer, the more social mobility and equality erodes. The more we ignore these issues in favor of believing in the promise of America, the more elusive that promise becomes.

This is a vicious cycle that’s continued since the end of Jim Crow and legislated, in-your-face racism. Racism never went ended. It just went underground. It disappeared (at least to white folks) into coded language, spoken by politicians and pundits. It’s not “negroes” or “chinamen” – it’s “welfare addicts” and “foreign powers”. It’s not “fuck the poor,” it’s “rewarding a work ethic.” But the truth is obvious to the people who live with racism every day. And absolutely invisible to those who don’t.

Now, more than ever, we live in two worlds.

Racism

Racism is smaller than a law or an attitude, smaller than a Walgreens lunch counter or a “whites only” sign. It’s viral, pervasive; it alters our DNA via commercials. It’s in our movies, our TV, our assumptions about people based on race, our assumptions about beauty that we forget to question. This kind of racism isn’t a law; it’s the kneejerk nerves, the way we twist our syllables when we do impressions of the “other.” It’s a poison, but we have the strength to refuse it, to fight it every day, to acknowledge that we are affected by it, that we cause it, that we make mistakes. Sometimes, the best thing about a mistake is that we can take it back, that we can hurt and be hurt and become better people as a result. That these scars are beautiful. That we are not broken boats as long as we have enough naval glue, two by fours, and a willingness to admit when we were wrong. That someday, we will be light enough to float.