Message from discussion Truth and beauty Re: inter-racial dating

Path: gmdzi!unido!mcvax!uunet!husc6!frooz!cfa250!oey
From: o...@cfa250.harvard.edu (Sally Oey)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american
Subject: Re: Truth and beauty  Re: inter-racial dating
Message-ID: <1624@cfa261.cfa250.harvard.edu>
Date: 28 Jul 89 19:23:18 GMT
References: <33520@apple.Apple.COM>
Organization: Harvard/Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Lines: 51
Posted: Fri Jul 28 20:23:18 1989

From article <33...@apple.Apple.COM>, by jor...@Apple.COM (Jordan Mattson):
> Dear Sally -
> 	What is it about your experience that someone who is Cacusian cannot
> understand?
> 	Does the fact that a person is fully Cacusian cannot fully understand
> your experience, mean that someone who is happa (half and half) can only 
> paritally understand your experience?
...
> articles is the sense of, "Don't pretend to understand my experience, for
> you obviously cannot possibly understand it or me."  That attitude is going
> to put people on the defensive from the moment the words leave the ends of
> your fingers.


First of all, I want to make it clear that I agree with you
completely that saying "You can't understand me" is alienating--
please see latest response to Tim.  However, I've been defending
this statement because I think it's important for everyone to
recognize that to some degree, we can never understand each other--
and I mean ANYBODY, no matter what color.  So I find it disturbing 
that many people are jumping up with accusations of racism flying, when
they don't really understand the basis for why a person is saying
something.  Furthermore, it doesn't appear to me that many people are 
really TRYING.  It looks like people are so ready to disagree with 
anyone, that they automatically *think* they know what someone is talking 
about when they really don't.  This applied often to white people
trying to discredit Asians' claims that certain aspects of society
are racist.


To be more specific, I think a white person wouldn't be able
to understand how deeply racism is ingrained in this society,
and how deeply it affects a person of color.  I think perhaps
on an intellectual level, they may know--for example, I know
that the Sun is 93,000,000 miles away.  But I don't  have a real
understanding of how far away that really is.
However, I think that a white person could understand most of
the specifics of my experience.  And I'd LIKE for everyone to
understand my experience.

As far as a hapa person sharing my experience, of course there
are going to be some things that we both understand, and
some that only one of us understands.  For example, I couldn't
understand the extent to which a hapa person might experience
an identity crisis in terms of having parents of 2 different colors.
But that doesn't keep me trying to understand, and listening
to whatever they have to say.

I hope this makes my point a bit clearer.

Sally Oey