My thoughts and experiences with Racism

This is a post to let go off my thoughts on race which kept me thinking about our future and racism after one of my modules at uni handled post-colonialism and racism and ended rather on a pessimistic note that it would be impossible to get rid of such notions.

Actually racism has been something that has been on my mind for a very long time and I encounter these ideas and the results of these ideas in so many corners and adventures of my life.

To begin with, as a Japanese growing up in Germany, I had the privilege to be in a position where I was less concerned about the negative sides of the idea of race. I wouldn’t say I wasn’t exposed to racism, as I have indeed experienced racism in a subtle but definitive way on a personal level. I still remember an old lady spitting at my feet, and other little incidents. However, I always had friends who would defend me, fight for me. I grew up in a surrounding where people were understanding and I would even argue very liberal towards different races and cultures. Thinking back, I was really lucky to grow up in such environment with transnational openness and understanding.

However, being in such a privileged position, I started nurturing my own racist thoughts on an unconscious level. I guess every Asian living in the Western spheres would find resonance in my experience that from time to time you encounter people who would point a finger at you and say you are Chinese or greet you with „Nihao“. As a Japanese, I found this very upsetting. The justification for this feeling would probably be that I found it upsetting because I wanted them to know that not every Asian is Chinese. Hence my role should have been the one of an educative actor, spreading this word. 

However, I admit, and I am embarrassed at my past self, this was not the reality. I was upset, because I connected the word „Chinese“ with cheap and low quality products. Sometimes health endangering, mass manufactured products and ethically lacking behaviors which lead to those products. I know this is a lame excuse, but this was the only "China" I knew back then, out of the German news which once broadcasted to be careful of the label "made in China". So when people labeled me as Chineses, I was simply upset, because in my belief, Japanese were much better than those assumptions that I had on the Chinese people. In short, the reason for my take was filled with negative prejudices. Looking back, it really makes me feel uncomfortable in my own skin how one information on one huge country with various people clouded my perception into seeing one monolithic society dominated with negative values.

Furthermore, I am more embarrassed to confess that it was just because of recent events that I could finally let go of these racist thoughts. Finding it very uncomfortable to call for cosmopolitanism and the beauty of pluralism while not being able to overcome my own racist thoughts, although these were all ideas that I had nurtured on an unconscious level, setting a foot outside into the world opened my eyes. During my undergraduate years, I travelled to South East Asia, East Asia including China and East Africa. Of course, each country had its social and political issues, hereby I include my experience in Japan, but the point that I want to make is that every country also had its own beauty in its specific culture. In each country, I have met wonderful people, and I have even made friends. I learned new languages and new cultures, and in the end, all I want to say is that race does not define people in the way negative prejudices sometimes do prior to actual contact to the opponent. If I still had my prejudices, for which I am very sorry now, I would have not been able to make friends with people who are very close to my heart now, which would have been such a shame. I know cultural differences can cause rejections at initial encounter, I myself have encountered it many times and I am probably still trying to overcome such reactions, but in the end we are all humans, we can all share stories and laugh.

I know it is always a lot of work, and often a never ending effort which people would rather not do due to disinterest or lack of time, however before people dismiss someone or look down on someone because of their ethnicity or race, the only thing I can stretch is to learn about their culture and try to see what their world values are. Trying to see the good sides of their culture, before dismissing all of them because of negative assumptions, may they be unconscious or not, will make one recognize that those people are not much different than you are on a personal level, and the difference of culture can be a part of the beauty of pluralism.

If you don’t want to do that effort, then in my opinion, you do not deserve the position of judging someone in accordance to his ethnicity or race. Of course, I am not arguing that we should overlook the bad sides of certain cultures if they undermine fundamental human rights, as everything in the world has space for improvement. My point is, don’t be blinded by a negative prejudice and think that such negative point is the sole element of that entity. What I have learned in the recent years that I spent at university is that it is a much more beautiful experience to connect a term, like the name of a country, with its good aspects than its bad ones. It is such a shame to miss a beautiful part of the world, just because of a negative prejudice.

Another note on racism that I want to make, especially in the narrative of post colonialism, is how volunteers are regarded and treated in developing countries. I am not implying that the notion of volunteering and sharing knowledge or technology is wrong. What I am trying to point out is how the difference of race between those who teach and those who perceive sometimes undermines the notion of universalism of humans, that we are all equal no matter what race, sex or other taxonomies that exist.

Having been a volunteer myself for three times, in Peru, Cambodia and Kenya, I always found myself struggling with the idea of what kind of skills or knowledges I have that would put me into a position where I can actually help out the local people. The answer was that I had nothing special to offer. Maybe I had a better education, however in face of what the people were experiencing in their life, my knowledge seemed only second of importance. The only thing I could do was to be a friend, which I actually really liked and enjoyed. Of course, there are volunteers who are actually helping advocating societies into a better direction in many fields professionally with credible authority to do so. But what I want to point out is that these ideals of educating actors seemed to have nurtured the idea that certain races are automatically qualified to educate.

In my personal experience, I found myself overwhelmed when I visited a primary school in rural Kenya and was asked to teach a lesson there by the school director. I was a complete stranger to the school, and to the teaching system, leaving alone the fact that I had never taught a class before, nor had I any qualifications or education to do so. Being left alone with the children, I started to realize how a notion on race on an unconscious level can constitute a misconception of a person. Of course, this experience should not be generalized but I feel like elements of this experience can also be found in the postcolonial legacy, not only on a small scale such as my experience, but also in the realm of politics.

This brings me back to my core module lecture and seminar this week and I will try to sum up what I wanted to tell in this note.

One should be careful not to judge a whole society, culture, race, ethnicity only by its negative side. Even though we define and draw lines by forming these entities based on similarities, none of these entities are monolithic. Hence, having only heard negative aspects of one community will probably mean that you have missed another dimension of that community to actually give it its real form in your mind. But then there might be people arguing that they can not stand certain people because of their culture, for example table manners of tourists. Such cultural dimensions are difficult to tackle. However, one should always consider that such cultural dimensions, although negatively perceived by outsiders, are not always negatively viewed in their culture. Hence we are talking about cultural relativism here, which would mean a difference in ethics calling for understanding and not degrading. With highlighting the term understanding, I would like to suggest the term "educating" as a set in the face of a cultural clash to build mutual understanding. 

Though, talking about relativism, I agree the undermining of human rights is something that should not be embraced under the title of cultural relativism. Anthony T. Chase makes a wonderful case on this point in his second book "Human Rights, Revolution, and Reform in the Muslim World", Chapter 5. 

In case anyone should have taken his or her precious time to go through these notes, I just want to emphasize that these are all just thoughts and ideas of my own, nothing definitive nor authoritative. They are not perfect, but I just wanted to leave these notes here, so that one day I can turn back on these words, and observe how my thoughts have developed.