Intercultural Scenario

The subject of racism immediately pops into my mind, when one talks about intercultural communication. How do we perceive people of other race? Race and ethnicity is often our identity. Our culture communicates our identity. Race and ethnicity is then a fundamental part in communication of our existence. In this blog post, I would like to explore how different cultures view racism and race itself.   

Living in Hong Kong, where the population is mostly mono-ethnic, racism always seems far from home. That is, until I went to the United States. The thing that struck me most was not that racism is still rampant in certain part of United States, but how different cultures view racism and how society may have over compensated for past history or become oversensitive to the subject of racism.

I took anthropology when I was in the U.S, and one of the topics that were discussed was “Race”. We were a fairly culturally diverse class: there were Chinese (me), Native Americans (the tutor), African Americans and U.S Caucasians. In the lab, the tutor spoke of race as a social-political concept He claimed that Race is not a biological concept, albeit it may look like it is. To illustrate, given a skin colour, given a skull structure, give hip size, brow breadth, the most one can conclude is that there is XX% probability that this individual comes from XX lineage. The XX% signifies nothing, however. Race is not a discrete category. To illustrate further, it is like how in Ancient Egypt, instead of paying attention to different skin colour, people paid attention to the various nose size because foreigners and locals differ in nose size. Nose size and skin colour, is biological and ought to have no meaning, unless attribute meaning to it. Ironically, the fact that it is biological, and seemingly irrefutable, lends credence to the meaning that we attribute to it: i.e because we look different, race does exist.

Race was never discussed in United States. When stories pertinent on race appear on the media, all there was, was anger. The Trayvon Maritn case in this year’s May was one of such example. The balck teenager Martin was reported to be shot by a white neighbor watchman George Zimmerman, when he was found “loitering” in a rich neighborhood (when in fact, his father lives there). The public was furious that the police did not arrest him until 6 weeks later and accused the police of racism. They argue that if it were a Caucasian boy that was shot, the suspect would immediately be apprehended.

One interesting fact about this story is that, the suspect was not white. He was the son of a Caucasian man and Hispanic woman. The media oversimplified the story to fuel emotion. Often, American media make it appear as if there’s only black and white, when there are really Hispanics, Chinese, and so on in addition to African-Americans and Caucasian Americans. Secondly, the tutor claimed that when reviewed, the police do have grounds for not apprehending him immediately. The tutor asked whether we are over-compensating for past history?

To further his point, there is another case where a Caucasian from a low-income family was denied a place in university because the university has quota for minorities. Instead of admitting the Caucasian, a minority individual, with lower score was admitted. The Caucasian who also worked very hard on the SAT sued the school for its reverse-discrimination policies. This again begs the question, is reverser discrimination really just then?

These two case studies and the fact no one dared to comment during the tutorial for fear of offending people hit very close to my home because I was twice accused of being a racist when I was around 10.

In summer, ten years ago, it was really common to bring a spray bottle and spray water on your face to cool yourselves down. One of the boys standing behind me while queuing for the bus, accused me of spraying him on purpose. The argument escalated and we took it to the teacher on duty, who was an African American. Next week, the principal approached me one on one and asked whether I was making trouble for the teacher on duty because of her skin colour. I was shocked at that time, as the concept of race barely register. I cried vehemently, thinking how absurd it is that I went from “bullying a fellow student” to “bullying a teacher”. I was forced to apologize, which I did, but when I tried to clear my name, I couldn’t continue beyond “Sorry, but...”

In the same year, I told a Chinese- New Zealand mixed girl about how I disliked my classmate Sarah, who happens to be African American, because she cuts line and once said to me condescendingly  “only babies expect people to queue properly” when I confronted her. Her immediate response was "Are you being a racist?" To be fair, I must say that I used the word “hut yun chung” which means “begs people to hate you” as a phrase Cantonese, but is also homophones with the individual words “black-people-hate”. Still, the question hurt, and still hurts.

The two personal experiences kind of made me wanted to say yes to both of the questions that he asks. But the fact is, I don't know. I really don't know. Still, even if I believe so, I wouldn't have dared say yes, for fear of being labeled as a racist. Do you think the American society is being too sensitive on the subject of race? Do you think Singaporeans are too sensitive on race? Update: What are your thoughts on the NTUC director being sacked for her racist comment?***

***As a disclaimer, I must say that racism is a real thing (in fact, I was very much a victim of it in New Zealand, if your interested, please continue to read***

In New Zealand, our family's car was vandalized. Someone damaged our car and wrote "Fucking Chinese" on our window. I expected racism to a certain extent so this did not surprised me, though it did scared me. What surprised me is that when we reported this to the police, the police asked us to fake an insurance claim in order to get compensation. They seem to believe that all we care about is money, and care not how we get the money. Whether this is an impression that we gave them (which I doubt, since my mom was mostly worried about our personal safety and was furious when they suggested us breaking the law) or whether it was their perception of Chinese being a Scrooge, I guess we will never know.