Every time that I’ve talked about feeling white guilt and in general being seen as a white person, people have said things like, “But… aren’t you Asian?”
And they’re right to say that, to be clear! It’s really shitty to reduce Asians to Basically-White if they disagree with you, and I appreciate everyone who pointed the gross unfairness of this action out.
But at the same time I feel like they’re missing the point. For all intents and purposes, as someone who’s been adopted across racial lines, I am white. I am white-cultured. I am Western-cultured. I’m American in my individualism and my perspectives.
And that feels wrong to ignore as well.
When kyriarchy tries to cleave reality at inexact and ill-defined fault lines, people rightly object. Categories don’t cut neatly; there are always people who queer binaries by their very existence. Forcing them to Choose a Side rarely works out well.
The same applies to sj. I’m racially Chinese and ethnically white-American; you can’t discredit the white part of me without also ignoring and erasing the Chinese part, and you can’t pedestalize the Chinese part without ignoring and erasing the white part.
Under white supremacy, either my white-American ethnicity is celebrated and my Chinese race is “excused” (and erased), or my white-American ethnicity is erased and my Chinese race is denounced. Under the reverse discourse, either my Chinese race is celebrated while my white-American ethnicity is “excused” (and erased), or my Chinese race is erased and my white-American ethnicity is denounced.
Sj must not forget intersectionality. It must not forget that identities lead to complicated intersections that are inseparable from each other. It must deconstruct and replace kyriarchal categories rather than enforcing them.
I’m not American+Chinese. I’m Chinese American.
