Mixed: Race cannot be invisiblePosted in Articles, Asian Diaspora, Autobiography, Media Archive, United States on 2014-12-26 01:27Z by Steven |
Mixed: Race cannot be invisible
The Daily of the University of Washington
2012-10-27
For most of my life, I was opposed to the concept of “diversity.” Half-Japanese, half-Syrian, I was the definition of racially diverse, but I also loathed being labeled.
I thought diversity was difficult to define. I thought race alone was never a good indication of someone’s personal experiences.
I was afraid of what my race meant. And of all the superpowers that I could wish for, invisibility was always my choice — not just for me, but for the world. Colorblindness seemed like the opposite of racism to me: Ignore race and move beyond seeing race as essential. To be completely free from judging eyes is something I would have wished on everyone growing up. To be both colorblind and color-free…
…We don’t live in a post-racial world. Luckily, we live in a world after Martin Luther King Jr. We live in a country in which “diversity” is no longer used as slander and is actually seen as a positive attribute. But even in Brazil — arguably the most diverse country in the world — where there are up to 500 racial categorizations, there is still discrimination. There is still historical oppression…
Read the article here.