My Personal Lesson on Race vs. Color
I’m on the East side of Austin one evening while on a date. A cute restaurant a bit on the fancy side. It was a typical evening in that we asked each other about our upbringings, aspirations and the typical things you’d want to know about a person. It wasn’t until midway through that things got a bit more awkward. The police officer in the back was a very large man and he timidly approached my date to try to tell him something. It was such a strange dance going on that I didn’t seem to understand what transpired in front of me. Apparently the police officer’s earplug had fallen out and landed under my my date’s seat and the officer was trying to tell him that he was going to reach under to grab it. Lots of niceties and cautious movement throughout the whole ordeal. What I didn’t realize until it was explained to me right after, was that as an African American police officer approaching another African American man, both understood the tension that comes along with being black. This is something I’ve been completely blind to.
Why Asian Americans Don’t Get More Representation
I always argue that it didn’t make sense that Asian Americans weren’t considered underrepresented. In my eyes, my parents escaped from a communist country by boat and battled racism as the US recovered from the Vietnam war, the most hated conflict in US history. To me, I grew up in low income schools and thoroughly understood how poverty affects access. It is quite evident that I didn’t grow up with the network and resources as other groups that don’t fall into the “underrepresented minorities” group.
It doesn’t make sense to group everyone under Asian as it’s a massive continent. Ali Wong jokes about the differences in “jungle Asians” and “fancy Asians.” The differences in culture and social class are vastly different. Although, statistically, you start to understand why grouping people this way can give off this impression. A recent article from Josh Baer about Capital Factory’s diversity states,
“I’ve heard some people question whether or not Asians should be included — in our case Asian includes Indian and Chinese. In most cases they are immigrants.”
According to stats by Richard Kerby’s Where Did you Go to School?, it shows that Asian Americans represent 26% of VCs in 2018. I was personally offended that someone could suggest that I may have had it easy. And that is where my ignorance comes in.
You Can Hide with Your Color
I was having lunch with a friend one day and talking about how we grew up. She undoubtedly had a harder childhood and went through a lot of hardships to get where she was. I found myself trying to make a point that even though her upbringing was harder than others, it doesn’t change the fact that when people look at her, they categorize her as White and with that comes privilege. It was only at that time that I realized my own suggestions applied to me as well.
Sometimes it’s easier to see another person’s ignorance rather than your own.
Baer is right in saying “Words are powerful. Words are important.” It took me time to understand that there is a difference between one’s race and one’s color. Race and ethnicity is what you’ll put down on the census but color is what people see when they look at you. How people treat you is very dependent on how society feels about people with the same color of your skin. Although I may have more struggles growing up than the average person, my color allows me to hide this. I get lumped into the “Asian American” group which is predominately known as the “model minority” and statistically known as performing at the same level or exceeding Whites in terms of household income. If you were to take a closer look at ethnicity, you’ll know that refugee groups like Vietnamese, Laos, Hmongs, Burmese etc fall below the poverty line. The difference here is that even though I may have started with little, my color greatly affects my ability for upward mobility.
Why This Matters
The reason I care to point this out is that if we believe we can move the needle in terms of diversity and inclusion, it makes sense for us to understand what this actually means. I consider myself a minority, first as a woman and second as Vietnamese American. If it took me this long to understand the difference in race vs. color, it makes sense that we should be more deliberate to try to understand life from another person’s perspective. Stats can only get you so far as we’re restricted by grouping people into terms. Listening to another person’s life or stepping into their shoes for a moment can get you so much further.
