Pray For Our Pastors

ASIAN STEREOTYPES

The tail end of my bike ride this morning took me through a pretty rough section of West Philadelphia. As I was pushing myself up a steep hill, I heard someone across the street yell out to me. I couldn’t make out what he said, but it had something to do with me eating or cooking fried rice. The comment was too stupid to merit a response, but I couldn’t resist an icy glare. He responded with “oh I see, no speakee English.” By then, I was way past him and even a little thankful to him for providing my body with some anger that I could convert into adrenalin to get me to the finish line.

But as I finished up my ride and got on with the rest of my day, I couldn’t help but stew on the man’s comments. I was offended by the man’s stereotyping. I tried to laugh it off – an articulate, Ivy League educated person who was born in America being mistaken for someone who can’t speak any English – but laughing didn’t seem to make the insult go away.

Whether or not this man was trying to be mean or just inappropriately funny, he was demonstrating an ignorance that worried me. In fact, I have met many young inner-city blacks whose only interactions with Asians are the immigrant shopkeepers in their neighborhood and the kung-fu actors on the big-screen. Every time I visit the local high schools to publicize our youth program, I am inevitably asked if I know the sweet little couple who runs the corner store on their block. I brace myself for the shouts of “Jackie Chan!” and “Bruce Lee!” And no matter how many times I hear it, their attempts to “speak Chinese” clang in my ears and weigh heavy on my heart.

This is why I get upset with things like the LeBron James “Chamber of Fear” commercials or the movie “Kung Fu Shuffle.” Of course mass media folks don’t mean to demean, but they need to understand that for many young inner-city blacks, this is their only mass-media image of Asians. It is not helpful to reinforce an existing stereotype if it is wrong, racist, and damaging. It needs to be said that the Asian experience in America is much more multi-layered, that Asians span many languages and socio-economic levels and professions.

Most of all, it needs to be said that Asians in America are American. I once had a middle-aged black man tell me to my face that I was not American and could never be American. I asked him where his ancestors came from, and he replied, “North Carolina.” I tried to correct him – “no, your ancestors came from Africa and then found their way to North Carolina, just like my ancestors came from Asia and then found their way to California” – but he would hear nothing of it. Even people who I would consider educated and worldly have given me the ever-popular “where are you really from” or the “where did you learn to speak English so well” when we meet.

I do not speak from on high, for I too have had stereotypes of black people, and have over time relinquished them even in the face of steady media reinforcement. It helps to have authentic relationships, to study black history, and to read stirring stories by and about prominent black leaders. Again, I know many people who I consider quite educated and worldly who have not had these inputs as I have had, and, left to the continuing onslaught of media reinforcement, have only further entrenched themselves in stereotypes that are wrong, racist, and damaging.

I understand that for media folks, it’s easier to sell what’s selling, and financial survival takes precedent over social justice and racial correctness. Still, if the media did a better job portraying the complexities of all people to all people, I’m pretty sure there would be less bike rides I go on where I get mocked and insulted.