Race: The Power of Illusion

In life, you hear things and see things that are so different or new that it completely takes you off guard. Those moments often become turning points in people's lives because it resonates deep within the individual.

I went to class today just like any other day. I knew that we were going to learn about race. It does not feel like a completely new topic even though I have never studied it in a formal setting. That is because race is always part of my consciousness.  I think this is true to some extent for everyone else as well. The fact that I am an Asian is always at the back of my mind. Often it also affects me to see a situation differently as well ( I guess I am wearing my ethnic lens at the time).

But by the end of my class today, I had so many questions in my mind. I was startled by some of the things I saw and some of the things that I have taken for granted. I became aware of the many things I do not know. First of all, I was struck by the fact that Thomas Jefferson, the man who created the founding principles of America, the land of equality is the very man who had 225 slaves at one point. It turns out he was also the first person who gave a theory about race when in Notes on Virginia, he wrote about "a suspicion only" that among the inhabitants of this new land, the Africans seems to be inferior in body and mind". That makes me wonder, did Jefferson really meant it when he said, " All men are created equal" or does he not include certain race as human?

Secondly, Charles Darwin, the survival of the fittest guy also said, "with population influx of South, people will be darker, smaller in stature. Criminal acts will increase and will insanity". I really wonder what kind of science, what kind of logic could that possibly stem from?

Another observation I made that I didn't know about is in early times, social discrimination or status is not based on the color of a person's skin. Religion and economy decides class. But over the time through theories such as the one Jefferson made and the practice of law, this new concept of race and discrimination started to emerge.

 " It does not matter how you look. It matters how people assign meaning to how you look".

Despite my reservations about America's interfering and reckless wars all over the world, I have always associated the American society with a progressive nation. It is moving towards the future and growing up in a third-world country, America always dawned to me as the land of endless opportunities, if you work hard, you can be anyone you want. But it seems that America's newness is a cliche. This country had its own dark history; history of internally displacing people.

I thought it was only blacks who suffered the greatest discrimination. Hearing Ozawa and Thim's case, I really did wonder does America look at the color of your skin to decide allegiance or does it look at the values you uphold and practice? And who are people to blame for the habitants of Dudley street to be economically low when history has worked against them? When the system they live in was a system that discriminates one race over another?

With such more questions, I felt fortunate that I was able to correct many of  my own understanding about Race.