January/February 2001
Beyond Racial Identity
by Mark Kramer
| I was a minority. But I never expected to feel quite the freak that I felt that day. |
As a minority, I'm acutely aware of my race and ethnicity. When one is distinctive from others, he or she cannot help but reflect upon such distinctions with a probe of curiosity. And even more than in daily life, I'm shown my racial identity when I visit new crannies of the world and contemplate how spectators within these places respond to me. I experienced this recently on a seven-hour meander through a city of several million. Heads turned, conversations stopped, children ogled and pointed, nuzzled into the protection of their mothers' sides. Men my age smirked and tracked my progress down the street with the turning of their heads. Women watched me, but if we made eye contact, they found sudden interest in the passing traffic. You'd think I had a scarlet "A" emblazoned upon my chest or tentacles growing out of my cranium. One man took multiple, quick glances over his right shoulder, then abruptly stopped and allowed me to walk ahead of him before proceeding. In at least two stores, customer service people hung closely by me, at a distance much shorter than what I'd yet witnessed that day. I'm undecided as to whether I was mocked or feared. Maybe they were simply curious. Though I'd expected this in a smaller dosage, I still felt freakish, isolated and alone among throngs of people. I was strange and therefore, to be feared. For seven hours the people I encountered sent me the message, through body language and other subtleties, that I am an abnormal fright to behold. The city in which I received this reception was Guangzhou, otherwise known as Canton, in the People's Republic of China, in the Guangdong Province.
I'm a six-foot-one, bearded white guy with spectacles and little hair atop my angular head. I have a bounce in my loping step and a penchant for wearing flannel. My Chinese language skills are limited to "hello," "thank you," "cheers" and the numbers one through ten. Upon arriving in Hong Kong, I held no delusions about my place in China. Unarguably, I was a bit odd and out of place. I was a minority. But I never expected to feel quite the freak that I felt that day, nor gain such vivid revelation into my own identity.
My racial identity is the meaning I have constructed about what it means to be a white person. Much of my definition of self is grounded in distinctives, how I differ from the Korean man next to me in the subway, from the African-American woman from whom I receive legal advice. Just as in painting or photography where contrast sharpens an image, so too is my sense of identity more finely attuned when I encounter others who contrast from myself. Racial identity is formed, therefore, in the context of other people.
My seven hours of discomfort in Guangzhou highlight my daily experience of comfort in America. I'm as privileged as they come, favored in most every category of potential distinctives: white, thin, male, tall, young, educated, heterosexual, Christian and financially secure. I rarely have to think about my identity; I can easily slip into thinking I'm that which is mythically perceived as "normal" simply because my attributes are often most prevalent and revered by the media.
Beverly Daniel Tatum, a psychologist and educator who leads workshops on racial identity and racism, recounts the following anecdote in her book, Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?:
"The first question I pose is one that most people of color answer without hesitation: 'What is your class and ethnic background?' White participants, however, often pause before responding. On one such occasion a young white woman quickly described herself as middle-class but seemed stumped as to how to describe herself ethnically. Finally, she said, 'I'm normal!'"
Such is the American white plight of identity ignorance.
In Guangzhou, I received the message that I am peculiar and apart, on display, to be feared. Were I to take the same walk in my hometown of Madison, Wisconsin, passers-by would convey very different ideas. For the most part, I would go unnoticed. The clear message would be that I am acceptable and ordinary.
I might receive a smile from the woman for whom I step aside to let pass, an acknowledging nod from the white man whom I recognize from the grocery. I readily blend in among sidewalk masses. At the least, I would be ignored.
In department stores I would find the clothes I like, the shampoo I need, the music I thrive on. I'd read about whites, see whites, hear whites singing, telling me to buy their products, giving speeches. In Wisconsin, I may be tempted to wrongfully declare, "I'm normal!" as I am comfortable and fit the majority billing in most every way. Still, this contradicts what I experienced in Guangzhou. Which of these commentaries about me is true?
I could allow either of these walks to inform my identity. Meanwhile, other sources feed my identity development: television newscasts, curriculum, magazines, movies, upbringing, friends, advertising, professors, coworkers, law codes.
But none of this -- the ads, the media, the wander through China, the stroll through Wisconsin -- is true. Circumstances, opinions, fears and marketing strategies do not define me. Rather, as a Christian, the self-scrutinizing lens through which I view my identity, racial and otherwise, must be calibrated to God's view of who I am, or else I risk a myopia of untruthful and harmful ideas of identity. Delving to the very core of how God views me in Christ -- beloved, broken and sinful, but forgiven and restored -- is my only hope, and this goes beyond race.
In a 1967 speech crying out against racial injustices perpetuated by the United States, Martin Luther King Jr. himself noted the centrality of a common, human identity that transcends race. "I must be true to my conviction," he declared, "that I share with all men the calling to be a son of the living God. Beyond the calling of race or nation or creed is this vocation of sonship and brotherhood." King's convictions and agenda cannot be divorced from his sonship in God.
Reflecting upon my Guangzhou experience is important; recalling a parallel stateside scenario is enlightening. But any sense of being complacently "normal" is fleeting, for as a Christian, I do not have the privilege of favored status; only Jesus is able to confer this gift and through him I find my true identity.
I labor to journey with God. My walk of racial and spiritual identity development are one and the same. I work against the system that affords me unjust privilege while I revel in God's healing and in his liberty.
Mark Kramer's articles have appeared in Social Justice Review and The War Cry.