A rant. Separately: a conversation about Asian kids raised in white families.

[randomness]

Well-meaning white people genuinely irritate me.

Yes, the country you live in is racist. How nice of you to notice. I have been living here all of my life. Where have you been?

Oh, that's right. In your white bubble you don't see race. Because we don't exist there in your nice, upper-middle class suburban life.

This isn't the only time race has been a problem in this country. It won't be the last. But I'm sure next time I'll hear the same shock and dismay from well-meaning white people who will, after a decent interval, go back to living their lives, not seeing race. That's what's happened every other time, and it won't be the last time, either.

Meanwhile, I'll go on living in the same place I've been living all my life.

---

Background: There was an acquaintance at the annual quasi-reunion I go to after Thanksgiving. I was talking with a group of friends when the subject of race and kids growing up came up. I started to mention how I was really glad I started school in New Jersey when he butted into the group I was talking with and cracked a joke about that, to which I said, "No, really, and I'll tell you why: The school I went to in New Jersey was mixed-race, and I basically never got crap about race when I was there. When I got to the all-white school system in Connecticut I spent from 3rd to 9th grade getting crap all the time. But what that New Jersey school taught me was that all the racists in my school in Connecticut were crazy, not me."

At that, he winced, turned away, and didn't talk to me for the rest of the party.

I have no doubt he was well-meaning. He tends to be, but he also tends not to deal well with unwelcome news, particularly that which tweaks his white straight male privilege. I imagine he feels like I was unfairly hostile or something.

One of the other people in the conversation then asked me what kinds of things happened to me at school. So I told her. She went to the same school I did when I was being harassed, but apparently managed not to see any of it when it was happening.

She didn't seem very happy she'd asked, either.

---

All that said, I did have a good conversation with one of my other classmates who I hadn't seen in ages. She'd come out (which I'd heard about from her brother some years ago) started a partnership with her then SO over a decade ago and adopted two Chinese daughters (one from Kunming, and one from a small town in Anhui province). The relationship had broken up a few years later, leaving her a single mother with two kids and a pediatrics practice.

Making the best of things she encouraged her daughters to learn about their country of origin, and took them on a trip to China organized by other Asian adoptees. We talked about China, learning Mandarin, and identity for Asian kids raised in white families. Her daughters were really encouraged to learn Mandarin by the trip, as they were unable to speak to people who had been in their lives before their adoption unless they had an interpreter.

One point she observed is that Asian children raised in a white family have one identity when everyone knows them as part of their family; they are treated in a particular way by people who know who they are and that they're part of a white family. Once they leave that context, however, they get treated like any other Asian person, and this can require adjustment.

This is obviously not an adjustment I have ever had to make, so it was intriguing to hear about.

That conversation also reminded me just how many friends I have who are either raising children of a different race or are children who are of a different race from the rest of their families.

Comments

[achinhibitor.livejournal.com]

I'd expect there to be a noticeable class change going from New Jersey to Connecticut also.

We talked about China, learning Mandarin, and identity for Asian kids raised in white families.

How does that work? Or maybe I mean, how does that work for kids who are adopted very young, so they have a genetic heritage that is unconnected to their social heritage? What is their "identity" in that situation?

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

I'd expect there to be a noticeable class change going from New Jersey to Connecticut also.

I don't think there was as much as you'd expect. The neighborhood in New Jersey was a newly-built development for upwardly-mobile young families.

In Connecticut, my neighborhood was a transition zone between a more working-class suburb and an upper-middle class one. While the distribution curve was wider the nose of the curve was pretty much in the same place.

The real difference was ethnicity. My neighborhood in New Jersey was ethnically mixed: much more Jewish, black, and Asian. The one in Connecticut wasn't just white, it was solidly Catholic and heavily Italian with a plurality of the rest Irish. My school was so solidly Catholic that the day all the Catholic kids went for some event--it may have been confirmation, I'm not sure--I was left in my 6th grade class alone with one other kid and the teacher. I remember the other kid turning to me in some surprise and saying, "You're not Catholic either?"

Or maybe I mean, how does that work for kids who are adopted very young, so they have a genetic heritage that is unconnected to their social heritage?

I think you're making unwarranted assumptions in this case. I'm told that they went back to visit foster families that they were old enough when they left to remember. Key point was that they were not, however, old enough to have retained enough language to converse with.

[achinhibitor.livejournal.com]

As seen by an outsider, the status totem pole appears to be: New Jersey, Long Island, Westchester County, Connecticut. But you weren't in that part of Connecticut.

it was solidly Catholic and heavily Italian with a plurality of the rest Irish

Yikes, like much of Boston when I got here. Working-class people who had finally clawed their way out of being in the underclass of Catholicism (vide JFK in 1960) by circling the wagons against their oppressors since some time in the mid 1800s. I'm hardly surprised that the culture was hostile to a wide spectrum of "others". I'm kinda surprised your parents moved there, really.

I think you're making unwarranted assumptions in this case.

I more or less understood the case you described. But I was curious what happens to "identity" when one looks to be in one category of people, but actually has nothing in common with them. It's something that I know nothing about but you might have some information on.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

I more or less understood the case you described. But I was curious what happens to "identity" when one looks to be in one category of people, but actually has nothing in common with them.

Actually, no.

If they'd been adopted as babies and left without any memories of their country of origin that would be more like what you're describing. But given that they remember something of their country of origin they do actually have something in common with the people they left.

[achinhibitor.livejournal.com]

I understand that the case I'm curious about is not the case you described. I'm curious if you have any information about the case I'm curious about.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

I'm kinda surprised your parents moved there, really.

Short answer: there was a job. A tenure-track equivalent position at an Ivy League university.

There really isn't that much to choose from in the other towns in that area, either. At least one of them had a race riot in their high school during the time I would have been a student.

[karakara98.livejournal.com]

Being from the next town over from r_ness, I have to say I always find the association of Connecticut with Privilege fascinating. I guess it makes sense to me that people do have that impression, but it's really one dimensional.

I wonder how much of the relative perceptions of the status of Connecticut and New Jersey have to do with which parts get seen when driving through on I-95.

[digitalemur.livejournal.com]

One of my library school friends has a theory that Connecticut is less racially segregated but far more social class segregated than NJ, at least the parts of NJ around Rutgers. Which... I dunno, maybe the more well traveled parts of NJ are like that. (The rich white towns out in the western counties sure aren't though, they're both racially and class segregated.)

I don't know if that was true then, and I don't know if it's that true now. Might not even be remembering it properly so I'm offering it only as a sorta food for thought. I think maybe people travel I95 and see all the nice houses in the towns along the way, or along the train tracks, and get a certain impression about class in CT that matches their ideas of affluence or something.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

I wonder how much of the relative perceptions of the status of Connecticut and New Jersey have to do with which parts get seen when driving through on I-95.

That's got to be a big part of it. Westport and Darien have a lot to answer for.

Not to mention Greenwich. :)

[digitalemur.livejournal.com]

Can I blame Martha Stewart? I know she's kind of just the symbol of a lifestyle that is popular there, but I also like to blame Martha Stewart personally. Also while I know that Stewart was her married name for a while and she just kept it, something about the way she markets a very sleek neo-colonial decor style and Fairfield County wealthy vibe while erasing her Polish roots except when her mother comes on her show kind of grates on me.

[achinhibitor.livejournal.com]

I always find the association of Connecticut with Privilege fascinating.

My outsider's view is probably affected by the sort of people who I'm comparing, who are likely to be well-educated and in the upper half of the middle class. People from the grotty bits of Connecticut likely don't leave them to be in the circles I'm in; what I'm seeing is a sampling of the upper end of the distribution. And the upper end of Connecticut is a lot higher up than the upper end of northern New Jersey.

[karakara98.livejournal.com]

Wow. I can't believe you actually wrote that.

[(Anonymous)]

Well, foo. Didn't realize that was anonymous. You can feel free to delete it. This is agrimony, btw. :)

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

S'all good. I do that a lot myself. *hug*

[allyphoe.livejournal.com]

Looking at overnight campus for this upcoming summer, two of the options were a nationally-recognizable university camp full of white people (as in, my first thought on skimming the brochure was, "wow, there are a lot of white people at this camp," and then I read the "what my camp experience was like" essay by a camper of color who said her first thought on arrival was, "wow, there are a lot of white people at this camp,") and a small-state third-tier public university whose campers were predominantly but not exclusively black. "Send her to the one with black kids," said Allyson. "I started at a school that was almost all white, then went to one that was about half white and half black. There weren't many Asian kids at either one, but the black kids didn't care if I was Chinese; they cared if I was fun to be around."

[allyphoe.livejournal.com]

I imagine that's person-specific, as with any other adoptee issue. I've read some transracial adoptee blogs in which the Asian kids said things like, "every time I looked in the mirror, I was surprised anew that my hair wasn't blond."

[rmd.livejournal.com]

Nothing gets white guys talking about class differences like talking about racism.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

:)

[rmd.livejournal.com]

Sort of like how discussion of any kind of white-on-black crime brings out all the white folks saying "but what about black on black crime??"

[achinhibitor.livejournal.com]

Nothing gets white guys talking about class differences like talking about racism.

It doesn't seem surprising to me, given the large preponderance of white people. If you're a top-end black guy, going from complete Jim Crow to complete integration can raise your status by 80 percentile (from 20th to 100th percentile), and even a middling black guy would go up by 40 percentile (from 10th to 50th). But if you're a white guy, the effect of integration is far less. Even a bottom-end white guy will go down only 20 percentile, a middling one by 10 percentile, and one near the top less than that. (Not to mention that even if all racism was erased in an instant, it's gonna take even the most gifted black guys a good while to build up a competitive stock of social capital, so the change will be felt at the top rather slowly.)

So if you're a black guy, understanding and avoiding the effects of racism on your life is the Big Question when it comes to improving your status in life. If you're a white guy, racism is going to have a fairly small effect (unless you're in one of those small slices where affirmative action bites you particularly hard), but climbing the class system is the Big Question affecting your status in life. Hence a reflexive interest in class issues.

[rmd.livejournal.com]

If you're a white guy, racism is going to have a fairly small effect

Racism has a huge effect. It's just that it's pretty much all positive.

[achinhibitor.livejournal.com]

Well, I've explained my reasoning that due to the preponderance of white people, eliminating (or imposing) racism isn't going to make a large difference to me. I don't see what your reasoning is. Would you care to explain in more detail?

[rmd.livejournal.com]

Eliminating racism would remove a lot of the benefits we get as white folks like reduced competition for jobs. If I suddenly have to compete against 100% of the people instead of 70% of the people, well, odds are that I won't make out as well.

[achinhibitor.livejournal.com]

There is one complication which I find very disturbing, which is that in the job market, my position wouldn't be affected much at all due to a remarkable lack of black people in the software industry. Historically, technical fields have been a route to prosperity for outsiders. E.g., it seems that the Scottish provided most of the engineers for the British Empire (which was governed by English toffs who followed the rule "Don't trust a man in the top half of his class."). And the (Asian) Indians, both in India and the US, have used technical fields to get well-paying jobs. I attribute this to technical jobs having a lower requirement for social capital, you don't have to schmooze the customers or executives so much if you can make the machinery work. That is, ethnic discrimination isn't as effective at stopping people from making money in those fields.

So based on that history, I expect STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) to provide a lower-resistance path for blacks into well-paid jobs. And yet, blacks seem to be very scarce in the software industry. That may be partly due to where I've been for the last decade (which were shrinking companies with ageing workforces). But it seems to me that there's more than that going on.

[rmd.livejournal.com]

And yet, blacks seem to be very scarce in the software industry.

Yes. That would be the racism showing.

While some parts of STEM are comparatively welcoming for (some) immigrant populations, most of the 'outsider' immigrant stuff doesn't apply to Black folks, both practically - since you don't have, eg, immigrants who came over already being well-trained and well-educated in their own country - and in terms of how they're treated by American society. (see also, microaggressions)