Skip to main content

Racism and Jeremy Lin: Being over-sensitive about being over-sensitive

Jeremy Lin, by most accounts, is having a an excellent season. After sub-par season in Houston last year, Lin is meeting the lofty expectations that followed him after he left New York. And he is no less important of a role model to Asian Americans.  This encapsulates the argument Jay Kaspian Kang puts forward in a recent article.

Kang acknowledges the difficulty of negotiating two extremes - on the one hand, Jeremy Lin is a really big deal and on the other, we should act as it's perfectly normal for Asian Americans to make the NBA. We don't have the luxury to pretend we don't need Jeremy Lin or act as if he's not that big of a deal. Kang writes:
It's discomforting to say, but the Asian American community still needs Jeremy Lin as a rallying point. The "Chink in the Armor" moment marked the first time in my life that we, as a unified people, voiced our outrage. Since then, Asian American outrage has become its own meme. Some video will come out from some awful band or some awful UCLA student or some awful record company invested in turning young kids into viral singing stars and the only reason this viral trash makes the rounds is because that awful entity said or sang something offensive about Asian people.
The media uproar and vocal Asian American response to these incidents makes Kang uncomfortable. Kang had a conversation Jeff Yang, a Wall Street Journal columnist, about the racist Asian Girlz song:
Yang acknowledged the offensiveness of the song, but wondered aloud if we [Asian Americans] had become too easy to troll. After all, "Asian Girlz" had almost no YouTube views and the song's notoriety came almost entirely from people who shame-linked it through social media. Why, Yang asked, were we paying so much attention to these sorts of easily shareable, mostly meaningless offenses?
I feel the same way. I emailed Kathy Khang, a prominent Asian American Christian leader who helped draft the open letter regarding evangelical discrimination against Asian Americans, about her thoughts on the Jeremy Lin article. I told her I hate being known, as many vocal Christians are, for being known more for what I stand against than what I stand for. 

She agreed that the loudest Christians are those who stand against issues - abortion, homosexuality, etc. But she disagreed on the second part. She did not understand how speaking up against systemic racism is being overly sensitive.  

I feel torn about this issue. I want to stand up for Asian American issues but I'm afraid of being perceived as whiny and complaining. I don't want to be the over-sensitive person that everyone avoids because they make a big deal over the smallest insult. 

If I were the average American white person, I would be thinking "What are these Asians complaining about? They're the model minority and they're whining about being portrayed as nerdy?"

But later it hit me. Kathy Khang isn't afraid to speak up for what she feels is important and certainly not afraid of being viewed as whiny and over-sensitive. People can call her whatever they want but it won't stop her from getting the message out. She fully appreciates that most people, including Asian Americans, will not appreciate nor understand the significance of systemic racism.

I, on the other hand, am the one who lives in fear. I'm afraid of turning into the guy people avoid because I'm one big hot button. I'm the one afraid of being viewed as a radical. I'm the one afraid of losing friends and not influencing people.  I'm extremely sensitive about being perceived as overly sensitive. 

And yet if systemic racism exists (and I believe it does) then it follows that many people will not be aware of it. It's entirely possible that discrimination is so embedded in our society that most people might not notice how even our language is biased against certain cultures. That means a certain amount of shame, humiliation, and rejection is necessary to get the message out. 

This Thursday, I'm thankful for thought leaders like Kang and Khang who highlight these types of issues and I pray they keep doing what they do. And you bet I'm thankful for Jeremy Lin. But most of all, I'm thankful that as a new creation in Christ, I'm no longer a prisoner to my own over-sensitivity.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

A Dad's Review of Passport 2 Purity

[3,100 words, 11 minute read] The sex talk is one of the most dreaded conversations parents anticipate having with their children. To make things easier, an entire industry exists to help parents with sex education. Dozens of books have been written to help parents navigate this treacherous topic with their progeny. One of the best known among evangelicals is called the Passport 2 Purity Getaway package . It is produced by FamilyLife, a division of Cru (former Campus Crusade for Christ) and consists of a five lecture CD package including a journal and exercises designed as a weekend retreat for a pre-pubescent child and his/her parent(s). Passport 2 Purity was not my initiative. Our trip came about because Judy had heard from several home-schooling mom friends how they had taken their daughters on a road trip to go through the CDs. She even heard how a mom took a trip with husband and two sons to through the curriculum. So a couple months ago, Judy suggested we take our two older boy

A Man's Review of How to Avoid Falling in Love with a Jerk

Van Epp’s RAM Model helps men set the pace in dating relationships When a man learns ballroom dance, he takes the lead and his partner follows. If he’s dancing the tango, he maintains a strong frame - right elbow up, straight posture, and a firm but gentle hand cupping his partner’s shoulder blade. Once the music starts, he moves in rhythm with the beat and takes decisive steps. He sets the pace. John Van Epp’s classic tome, How to Avoid Falling in Love with a Jerk is a ballroom dance guide for dating. It’s written to help men and women to determine the right tempo to pace their dating relationship. Though the book does not specifically address men, this Art of Manliness interview with Van Epp does. General relationship books are often addressed primarily to women, as evidenced by “jerk” in the title, which is a gendered term for men. In spite of the title, the book offers a road map for how men can lead in a dating relationship. There’s a strong case for affirming traditional

Why Asians Run Slower

My brother got me David Epstein's book The Sports Gene . It is a fascinating quick read. If you're interested in sports and science, it will enthrall you.  I finished it in three days. Epstein's point is that far more of an athlete's performance is due to genetics than due to the so-called "10,000 hour" rule promulgated by books such as Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell and Talent is Overrated by Geoff Colvin (both which are very good). The 10,000 hour rule states that any person can reach expert level of performance in a sport if they devote 10,000 hours of deliberate and intentional practice.  That's a lot of hours. Most people aren't capable of anywhere close. And that's precisely Epstein's point. Someone who devotes 10,000 hours of sport-specific practice is likely genetically gifted for the sport in extraordinary ways AND genetically gifted in their ability to persevere and benefit from practice. Therefore, a person who can pra