In the end, we’re all Americans

My wife is Filipino. Some of my best friends and co-workers are black. I have siblings (adopted) and in-laws from South America. I have in-laws who are Native American. You’d think race would be a hot topic in my life, yet it actually seems to come up far less for me than other people I know.

I guess we just focus on each other as family, friends and people. But every once in awhile it comes up and I’m forced to remember that yes, I’m a white man with family and friends of all racial, political, sexual preferences and other demographic designations.

Recently, I accompanied my wife to a visit to see a new doctor.

“You’re Asian-American?” he asked.

I jumped in ahead of my wife and quickly replied — much to her annoyance — “No, doc, she’s American, just like you and me.”

After a bit more back and forth, my wife jumped in with a firm “YES!” and a look that let me know I should be quiet.

But it’s hard for me to keep quiet when this sort of thing happens. I can’t stand the term “Asian-American” or any other similar term. For example, I have friends who are black and some of them use the term black while others prefer African American.

I think that terms like African American keep us, at some mental level, separate and segregated. Why do we whites get to call ourselves simply American while all others must have some hyphenated term to define their race? My wife was born here. My friends were born here. Aren’t we all simply Americans? Even Native American” people have to use a special term. When I’ve had this discussion with my friends of different backgrounds, they all say the same thing: “That’s just the way it is. White people get to be ‘Americans’ and the rest of us are something else.”

The line between race and nationality is just as fuzzy. When speaking of ourselves as fellow countrymen, we are all Americans. But when we speak of our ethnic heritage, I guess we have to have some way to identify ourselves.

It seems this country has a history of trying to improve race relations, but goes about it the wrong way. In the 1800s we thought it was important to improve things with Native Americans, but we did so by placing them on reservations that were often far from their original homelands. After the Civil War we thought abolishing slavery was enough and dragged our feet for 100 years before tackling Jim Crow and segregation. (My children are always amazed when I tell them that until the 1960s, it would have been illegal in many states for me to marry their mother.)

I grew up in the 1970s when we were told over and over again that “we’re all the same” as an effort to stamp out racism. This confused the heck out of me. I was a child looking around the classroom thinking “but we don’t seem the same,” and feeling terrible that I must be a racist. It took me years to realize that we’re not all the same and that’s pretty cool.

I once had a white friend say, “I understand” to a black friend after he’d encountered blatant racism and was obviously upset. While he was telling us about it, my white friend and I were in disbelief that this was still happening in today’s day and age. But the comment “I understand” bothered him a bit. After all, although we could sympathize and guess at what it must be like, how could we really understand? Because we’re white there’s no way we could ever really understand what it is like to be black and go to a predominantly white school in a predominantly white town. But I’ve also seen that cut the other way.

After delivering a speech recently about culture and the different ways it influences how we communicate, I unexpectedly became part of a conversation about race relations with some co-workers. I was taken aback when a good friend of mine, a black female, said she could imagine being raised white and taught that we “have the key to the kingdom and can get anything we want.” She said it honestly and innocently, but I was shocked. I replied that my experience has been quite the opposite; to be raised white (especially a white male) is to be reminded repeatedly that we are not allowed to be proud. I asked her if she’s ever seen bumper stickers, T-shirts, vinyl window decals and the like with such sayings as “Samoan Pride” and “Mexican Pride.” Then I asked her what her thoughts would be if those words were substituted with “White.”

Of course, the assumption would be that person is a skinhead, neo-Nazi or some other degenerate flaunting their overt racism. It had never occurred to her that to be raised white was to be raised guilty.

In the end, I approach race relations casually. Yes, it’s a serious issue, but after a lifetime of walking on eggshells I find it relaxing to just say the heck with it — while we’re all of different races we’re all Americans. When I’m with a group of friends or family of different races we crack jokes and tease each other over our differences because we know we can, because we know that — ribbing aside — we all love and respect each other. Sometimes I wish the whole country could do that.

Ben Compton is a Palmer resident and publishes his column under the tagline “Compton’s Corner,” the same title used by his grandmother, Phyllis Compton, a longtime Frontiersman columnist.