Being of blonde haired, blue-eyed, Norwegian descent, I have very non-descript features which seems to get me attention only for the simple reason of looking "just like" every one else of blonde-haired, blue-eyed Scandinavian descent whether I really do or not. I've never thought of that as "racist" though since we ALL are of different races. You have to admit that each race carries certain characteristics &/or features that do make people of that race similiar--just as certain features in siblings are carried even though they may not look "exactly" alike.
Would I call someone a racist because they confused a person of one race with another person of that same race? No...It's the thought of inequalities against these features that make a person "racist"...
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I’m Not Who You Think I Am
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She sort of nodded but did not say anything, and that instant was all it took for me to realize she was a different Asian-American woman. One who did not have a baby. I also realized that she looked nothing like the woman I had mistaken her for. I believe I muttered something under my breath, so that maybe she would think I was just crazy, as bosses' wives often are. Or drunk, perhaps. Mostly I thought: thank God I'm Asian. Whatever else she may think of me, at least she can't accuse me of being racist.
A few months after that I was with my 10-year-old daughter at a horse show. Her hair, like all the other young riders' hair, was in two braids, as dictated by horse-show convention. We were waiting in a very slow line to buy soft drinks. Bored, I left the line to pick up a magazine from a nearby table. I leafed through it and walked back, looking down at a picture I had found. I nudged my daughter to show her the picture. She didn't respond, so I nudged her again, and that was when I saw it was not my daughter I was nudging, but a different Asian child.
Even though I knew that this could not mean I was a racist—racist toward my own daughter?— I was mortified nonetheless.
"Oh, I'm sorry! You all look the same from the top!" I said.
By which I meant, all little girls with dark pigtails look similar to a taller person who is not really paying attention. The girl's mother smiled pleasantly enough. To further complicate the matter, at least in my roiling brain, the mother was Caucasian. I wondered, confusedly, whether this changed the situation. If she and I were not from the same ethnic group, did this mean I really was a racist?
A plea, then, for all of us to take the time to look more carefully. For those who see the race and not the individual: look harder. And for those who, like me, may be hypersensitive after years of not being properly seen, keep in mind that while there are people who are racist, many others are merely distracted, overeager, careless, tired, old. We, the thin-skinned, also need to avoid applying the easy label.
Paik lives in New York City.
© 2008
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