Racism or Prejudice?

A high schooler from an Eastern U.S. state wrote recently to ask some clarification about race and whether people of color could be racist. Here is my response to Flora (not her real name).

Hello, Flora.

Thank you for your question about our segment Prejudice vs. Racism.  A much bigger thank-you for wrestling with issues that I was not even aware of at your age.  It gives me great optimism for our country to receive your note.  As a white anti-racist, I offer here my best understanding. 

Racism is the confluence of skin-based (racial) bias plus the ability to influence people’s lives in social, economic, political, judicial, and educational ways. Absent that influence, one can have racial animus (hatred/prejudice) but only be bigoted.  Happily, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary recently announced it would be modifying its definition to reflect this current social-political understanding. I note that my comments are made with reference to the United States.  I completely agree with you that in other nations, power resides with different (non-white) racial groups. Therefore, the discriminatory laws in place in Malaysia that create barriers in business and education for Chinese citizens (in favor of Malays) are also racist.  People of color can be colorist in their judgments of darker complected POC, but without the power to influence outcomes, they are simply prejudiced.  Of course, if you are an African American employee and your (Latinx, Asian, Native) supervisor promotes others ahead of you because of racial bias, this is racism.  It is a much more localized variety because, in fact, that same supervisor may get turned down for a bank loan or job interview based on his/her own non-white status.

Regarding your question about race and attributions (like being good at basketball), this is a stereotype.  See below the link to our video on this topic. What might be a more productive question to ask is why so many African Americans are drawn to basketball vs. swimming, tennis, equestrian, ice hockey, lacrosse, soccer, golf, etc.

I highly recommend two recent books: White Fragility by prominent white antiracist educator Robin DiAngelo and How to Be an Antiracist by African-American scholar Ibram Kendi. The latter actually gives arguments against my current understanding, so it’s an important contribution to this thorny conversation. Ultimately, it matters less about who is “right” on this definition and matters more about how we understand the history and current legal/social practices regarding race and privilege in the United States. You have begun this important journey, and encourage you to continue asking questions.

With warm regards,

Alan

Here are some related videos of ours:

• Levels of racism

• Microaggressions

• Race: Biological Myth, Social Reality

• Equality vs. Equity

• Cultural Appropriation

• Generalizations vs. Stereotypes

The Naked Pronunciation Lesson

(No More) Ole and Lena

Why I Stopped Telling Ole and Lena Jokes

There is a genre of jokes that I recently stopped telling. These are the Ole and Lena jokes told across the Upper Midwest of the United States. They are a tradition in the U.S. states that experienced heavy settlement by Scandinavian immigrants in the 1800s. My paternal grandfather emigrated from his native Sweden in 1920 and settled in Detroit, Michigan, where I was born. He was the first one I heard telling jokes about Ole and Lena, a simple immigrant couple living in the rural plains states.

The genre tells of the daily foibles of simple-minded farmer folks, usually told in Swedish- (or Norwegian-) accented English. And I remember my grandfather delighting in telling these jokes at parties, all in his unmistakable Swedish accent. As I grew into adulthood, I realized that I had the ability to mimic voices and learned to tell a growing array of jokes involving Ole and Lena or Ole and his good friend Sven. The jokes were clever, my accent was pretty realistic, and people always laughed at the punchlines. Since these were “ethnic jokes” told on my own people, I thought it was a permissible kind of humor. 

However, as I began to think about it, I became more and more uncomfortable with the jokes. They made fun of a certain ethnicity, and even though I can speak elementary Swedish, it is an increasingly distant heritage: I think and vote and behave like a mainstream American. My native dialect is Midwestern American English. My Swedish accent is manufactured, and not my natural way of speaking. When outsiders put on the identity, language, or culture of another ethnicity for temporary amusement, we call this cultural appropriation. When the stories are meant to make a group of people look foolish, they become disrespectful. 

When I started to question the validity of these jokes, I made up a list of pros and cons about telling them. The list of pros was twice as long, but I realized that the reasons were all minimizing the effect of telling the jokes: to make immigrants from a certain background look simple or foolish.

Of course, I will miss telling my old standards at parties because joke-telling is a delightful form of social engagement. As I shift towards new forms of humor, I will need your help. Please share some new, non-discriminatory, jokes with me so I can begin to build up a new and more respectful repertoire.

Stop Saying That: Columbus Discovered America

NOTE: “Stop Saying That” is a blog series written to make us think about phrases we say without giving them much thought. It is hoped that knowing the broader context behind these sayings will cause us to stop mindlessly repeating them.

Stop Saying That: Columbus Discovered America

The United States has a troublesome history with Christopher Columbus. It’s one that US-Americans need to understand more fully if we’re to live out our proclaimed ideals. 

For a quick review, Columbus was born in the Republic of Genoa (in what is present-day Italy) in 1451. His name in his native Ligurian was Cristoffa Corombo, in Italian Cristoforo Colombo, and in Spanish Cristóbal Colón. This last translation is important because it was Spanish monarchs who funded his 1492 expedition that landed him and his three ships in the Western Hemisphere.

In search of trade riches, Columbus sailed west from Europe toward what he thought was Asia. Because he believed that the world was round, he was sure that if he sailed westward long enough, he would come around the other side of the globe to Asia. What he didn’t know was that there was another whole continent in between: the Americas!

The first reason, then, to stop saying that Columbus “discovered” America is that he actually blundered upon it. His little flotilla was looking for India, and the Americas simply got in the way.

The second reason to stop saying this is because the “discovery” was only something new to him. Millions of indigenous peoples lived up and down the continent, hunting, farming, and living whole and complete lives without needing to be discovered.

The final reason to stop celebrating Columbus is that he was a really terrible person. Historians know, based on Columbus’ own diaries, that he committed numerous atrocities on the local peoples of the Caribbean. Members of the Taino and Arawak tribes were victims of slavery, dismemberment, torture, and killing. Dogs were used to hunt down natives who tried to flee. Columbus’ soldiers used captives for sword practice.

L: C. Columbus, R: adult Taino male

Despite this history, Columbus’ legacy is widely represented throughout North and South America. Spanish-speaking countries use his name on their currency, and there are locations across the U.S. and beyond that bear his name. Columbus Day was made a national holiday in 1934 after lobbying by Italian Americans.

For native peoples across the Americas, however, the arrival of Columbus was the first of a long line of European colonizers bent on extracting riches from the land and exploiting indigenous peoples in the process. With that unromanticized understanding, there is a growing movement afoot to stop celebrating Columbus Day, currently observed on the second Monday of October.

While the holiday was once seen as a day to celebrate Italian immigrant pride, it is increasingly becoming associated both with the personal cruelty of Columbus and the wider European assault on and exploitation of native peoples across the continent. In that light, many are proposing the national holiday be changed to a celebration of indigenous peoples. We at FLYB believe that that is a change worth considering.

Stop Saying That: All Lives Matter

NOTE: “Stop Saying That” is a blog series written to make us think about phrases we say without giving them much thought. It is hoped that knowing the broader context behind these sayings will cause us to stop mindlessly repeating them.

Stop Saying That: All Lives Matter

Today, the expression we’re looking to take out of mindless circulation is All Lives Matter. This is a slogan used pretty exclusively by white folks who don’t understand the Black Lives Matter movement. So, let’s take a moment to look at context of American history to get a firmer grasp. If you are squeamish about harsh truths about the racist roots of the United States, it might be wise to stop reading now.

Let’s be clear. Despite the platitudes of our founding fathers, this country has never believed that non-white lives mattered. Not from the earliest days when colonizing Europeans killed Native Americans in order to take their land. Not in 1619 – 400 hundred years ago now – when they imported the first African slaves. Not for the following two and half centuries when kidnapping and enslaving black people was the law of the land. 

This was not believed when the founding fathers wrote race privileges and exclusions into the Constitution. Not when African slaves were given 5/8 value of a person for purposes of southern states’ representation power in Congress, but less than the full value of a whole person.

For centuries, white Americans extolled the virtues of their own hard work, while ignoring the fact that its prolific economy was built on the backs of free labor – by peoples they considered genetically inferior. The very White House – a rather ironic name, which has housed all American presidents, was built by black slave labor.

When slavery ended in 1865, people of color were not suddenly “equal” across the country. Post-Civil War laws were enacted to suppress non-whites in multiple ways, including sundown statutes, anti-miscegenation laws, and segregation in housing and other living and work accommodations.

And then there were the extra-judicial, outside the law, ways of suppressing non-whites.  Following the Civil War, the KKK and other white supremacy groups formed to terrorize communities of color. From the 1800s until well into the 1900s, they conducted night-time raids and daytime marches. In my city of Grand Rapids, thousands of hooded klansmen marched in open daylight down the main streets in 1925, less than one hundred years ago.  

Then, there were the lynchings. Between 1880 and 1960, over 4,700 people were hung in rural obscurity and public squares. White townspeople gathered by the hundreds, or sometimes thousands, to gawk in festival-like atmosphere. White sheriffs, judges, and prosecutors frequently turned a blind eye.

In the 1800s, the majority-white U.S. Congress implemented the Chinese Exclusion Act, barring further immigration of Asians. Although Chinese workers had been brought in to help build the transcontinental railroad, when the work was finished, the presence of non-white Asians was seen as detrimental to the “white purity” of the nation, and racial discrimination was legalized. Anti-Asian discrimination reared its head prominently in the 1940s when hundreds of thousands of Japanese American citizens were rounded up and sent off to wartime concentration camps. 

To suppress voting, states introduced poll taxes which poor black voters could not afford to pay. Others were intimidated from entering polling places. Others were made to pass a literacy test in order to cast a vote. These “legalized” forms of voter suppression abated after the 1968 Voting Rights Act, but various means of quashing voter access continue today…through ID requirements and limiting the access of polling places in certain neighborhoods. Illegal forms of voter discrimination continue as well.

All of the above is a multi-century backdrop of the degrading treatment of non-whites in the United States. The Black Lives Matter movement began in 2013 on social media after the acquittal of vigiliante George Zimmerman who had shot and killed African-American teenager Trayvon Martin the year before.  BLM street demonstrations followed in 2014 with the killing of two African American males, Michael Brown in St. Louis and Eric Garner in New York City, both at the hands of white police.

What is clear to people who follow the numbers is that people of color are more frequently followed and stopped by white police, are more frequently frisked and arrested by police. They are shot and killed by police at 2.5 times the rate of whites. At FLYB, we acknowledge that policing is dangerous work, but if black and brown citizens commit crimes at roughly the same rates as white people, why are fewer white people tried, convicted, imprisoned, and executed in the U.S. criminal justice system than black folks? The answer lies in a continuation of centuries of viewing people of color as less human and less worthy of equal treatment.

Why do we say that Black Lives Matter? Because this country has demonstrated that it believes that white lives are more important.  Why won’t we say that white lives matter? Because the value of white lives has never been in dispute. In future conversations, we hope you will stay attuned to both what people say and what they mean. When all lives truly matter equally, then we can drop all the slogans.

Stop Saying That: Immigrants have to assimilate into American culture.

NOTE: “Stop Saying That” is a blog series written to make us think about phrases we say without giving them much thought. It is hoped that knowing the broader context behind these sayings will cause us to stop mindlessly repeating them.

Stop Saying That: Immigrants have to assimilate into American culture.

Assimilation is not a good thing. Saying that all newcomers must assimilate to their new place means they must become similar to everyone else, to blend in, to lose their distinctiveness. In my work, I advocate for Acculturation instead. 

Acculturation means newcomers can learn the operating rules of the new culture, all the while keeping their original values. They can learn the new language, but they will still speak and embrace their native tongue in the home because that is the language of their heart and soul, the representation of their homeland and heritage. No human being should be forced to give up who they are in order to live somewhere else. It is possible to accommodate new ways of talking and behaving without being forced to *be* someone they are not.

Assimilation in the U.S. is an archaic form of oppression inflicted on newcomers by white, Christian, Western European colonizers of North America. It was propped up by the racist ideology of Israel Zangwill in his 1909 play, The Melting Pot, which birthed the mindlessly repeated phrase of the same name. If we are to honor all newcomers as unique individuals with diverse skills to share, we must not demand a molten sameness. Homogeneity, to the extent that it’s helpful in a society, evolves with future generations. Unlike their immigrant forebears, second and third generations learn the dominant language fluently and become flexibly bicultural. If we let nature take its course, we become organically stronger and, at the same time, less fearful of difference. Assimilation, like xenophobic Official-English legislation, is bad policy and just plain wrong.

March Madness

One sign that it's spring in the U.S. is that the nation is turning its attention to basketball. In particular, the NCAA tournament starts this week for both men’s and women’s college teams.

The men’s tourney, the second-most popular sports event after the Super Bowl, recently jumped from 64 to 68 qualifying teams. Every year, a big controversy surrounds whether or not your favorite team is selected and then how high (or low) your favorite is ranked in the pairings.

The teams are paired against each other in brackets, which are printed out and shared among friends and family members. In the workplace, co-workers often bet money on the outcomes in office pools. Looking at the bracketed pairings above, you can see that the left and right margins are filled with specific team names, with the winners of each bracket advancing towards the championship slots in the middle of the chart.

The March Madness tournament seems “mad” because of the wild beginning to the competition. After a preliminary play-in round with the lowest 8 teams, the first full round begins with 32 games in two days. With lots of TV coverage and highlight reports, this is a basketball lover’s dream. After the first Thursday/Friday round, 32 teams are eliminated. After the second round (Saturday/Sunday), 16 more teams are eliminated. The goal is to finish the first weekend of play by advancing to the Sweet Sixteen. The second weekend eliminates eight teams in the third round and four more teams in the fourth round, taking the winners from the Elite Eight to the Final Four.

Reaching the hallowed ground of the Final Four gives prestige and national attention to those four universities. My team, the University of Michigan, received a #2 seed and will play #15 Montana on Thursday.

Culture tip: During this three-week period, it’s customary to ask your sports-minded friends and co-workers, “How are your brackets doing?” Lower-seeded teams that upset higher-ranked teams are called Bracket Busters. Happy madness, everyone!

New Vocabulary and Cultural Concepts
ranked pairings = The top 64 teams are separated into four regional competitions (with 16 teams in each region). The #1 ranked (or seeded) team plays the lowest team, #16 while the #2 team plays the #15 team, and so on.
mad = often used to mean “angry,” but here it means “wild or crazy”
hallowed = holy, sacred
favored (or favorite) teams = top-ranked teams, predicted to win
underdog teams = lower teams predicted to lose
to be upset = to lose to a lesser-ranked (non-favored) team

ZIP Codes and the U.S. Postal Service

Have you ever wondered about U.S. ZIP codes? Did you think they were named that because the system makes the mail extra zippy in its delivery? Well, you are partially correct. The system was an effort in 1963 to make U.S. mail delivery more efficient.

However, ZIP actually stands for something: Zone Improvement Plan! Before that year, there were postal assigned only within cities.  For example: Detroit 19, Michigan. The current United States Postal Service (USPS) organizes the entire country by regions, as you can see on the map below. In general, smaller numbers indicate eastern locations, getting larger as they move westward.

Twenty years after the introduction, the ZIP code system was expanded to ZIP+4. Adding four more numbers. Using all nine digits is not required, but it speeds up delivery to homes and businesses because it is more precise in identifying locations. This might be a city block or a large business.

February Cultural Events

Note: These events are recognized in different ways, but everyone still has to go to work or school on these days.

Three dates are marked in February in the United States: Groundhog Day, Valentine’s Day, and Presidents Day. Groundhog Day is a somewhat humorous day, with no serious significance. Valentine’s Day is celebrated widely across the country. Businesses are closed for neither day. Presidents Day is an observation of the birthdays of the nation’s two most respected Presidents: George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Banks and government offices are generally closed on this day; there is no postal service on Presidents Day.

Groundhog Day This day is celebrated on the second day of February. Focusing on a large rodent, the groundhog (also called “gopher” or “woodchuck” ), the day has a pseudo-scientific aspect about it, attempting to predict national weather patterns. The legend says that if a groundhog emerges from his burrow on that date and sees his shadow, there will be six more weeks of winter weather. If he does not see his shadow, there will be an early spring. This tradition is more than 100 years old in the northern United States. 

Many cities have an event where local dignitaries remove a semi-hibernating groundhog from its den and predict––based on the sunniness or shadiness of the day––how long winter will last. The most famous ceremony is in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, with a groundhog named Punxsutawney Phil. Most Americans do not place any belief in the accuracy of this weather prediction (spring comes to most U.S. states sometime in March anyway), but it is fun to talk about. Groundhog Day is the title of a famous 1993 comedy movie (starring Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell).

“Hey, can you see my shadow?”

Valentine’s Day On the 14th day of February, it is the custom to recognize people in your life who are sweet to you. Spouses and lovers exchange cards, gifts, flowers, chocolates, and other signs of affection. Parents give gifts to their children, and schoolchildren make and decorate cards to give to their parents. Children often give cards to their classmates and also cards or small gifts to their teachers. Red is the color that dominates the day, and most decorations include hearts or flowers. Florists are extremely busy at this time of year, with red roses being the most popular flower. Last-minute shoppers (often forgetful husbands and boyfriends) may not be able to find any suitable flowers to purchase on the 13th or 14th. Similarly, restaurants are typically booked up with romantic dinner reservations on this date. A husband or boyfriend who forgets to give his sweetheart an appropriate gift is often sent to the doghouse.

Unlike in Japan, both males and females exchange Valentine’s cards and gifts in the U.S.

In past years, my wife and I have mailed Valentine’s cards to our parents, children, and grandchildren. For breakfast, we have eaten on special red plates, had coffee in red mugs, and given each other romantic or funny cards. Sometimes we go out to restaurants, but some years we stay home and have a quiet home-cooked meal with wine and flowers on the table.

Because the topic of the day is Romance, the New York Times published a number of articles about online dating. We can share a copy with you if you write us.

Other events this month: February has been designated as African American History Month. Educators take efforts to share previously hidden aspects of the contributions of African Americans to the nation’s history and development. Special programs are presented in both community and school settings. The special observation of this month was begun in the 1920s as Negro History Week by historian Carter Woodson. Critics claim that Black History or African American History is really American History and should not be limited to one month per year.

VOCABULARY for E.S.L. Learners
rodent = animal group that includes rats, mice, and squirrels
burrow = animal home that is dug in the ground
dignitaries = famous or important people
hibernating = sleeping through the winter season
florist = person who sells flowers and floral decorations
in the doghouse = in trouble with a sweetheart (due to stupid actions or words)
online dating = the system where single people put pictures and descriptions of themselves on the internet to see who would like to date them

Thanksgiving in the USA

Thanksgiving in the U.S. is celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November. It commemorates the first successful harvest of the early European settlers in Massachusetts and was an opportunity for them to give thanks for good weather, cooperation with local Native Americans, and enough food to survive the oncoming winter.

Schools and businesses are closed for the day. Because the holiday is on Thursday, it gives most Americans a four-day weekend, so many people use this opportunity to travel back to their hometowns to celebrate with relatives. Nationally, it is the busiest travel week for airlines. College students go home to be with family. Homeless shelters serve turkey and other traditional food. In addition to eating and visiting, Americans watch morning parades and afternoon football games on TV.

The most traditional meat served that day is turkey (although some eat ham). Americans typically eat too much that day, and tables are full to overflowing with special casseroles, potatoes, yams, cranberry sauce, gravy, rolls or corn bread. The most common dessert is pumpkin pie, but apple and mincemeat pies are also common. 

The day after Thanksgiving marks the first day of the business year that retailers operate in the black, that is, begin to see profits. For this reason, merchants have come to call this day Black Friday. It is the busiest shopping day of the year, as early birds line up in pre-dawn hours to take advantage of limited-time sales. Black Friday is the first official shopping day for those getting ready for Christmastime giving.

DACA: An Unkind Cut

DACA: Behind the Letters of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals

The day after Labor Day, the U.S. Attorney General announced that the executive branch was canceling an Obama administration initiative called the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, DACA for short.  This change comes in the context of angry conversations around immigration to the United States, and at Feel Like You Belong, we needed to weigh in with some data and a calm voice.

Poster from Hartnell College

To first understand the context, this continent has a 500-year history of immigration, which started with western Europeans.  As more Europeans heard about the abundance of fertile land and great opportunity, they left their homes and extended families to try their luck as immigrants to North America.

Over the following centuries, word got out across the globe, and adventurous peoples from other countries took a gamble and journeyed to this new world as well. Very often, the newcomers were not well accepted. Workers from China were recruited only to build the great transcontinental railroad, but as soon as that work was done, Congress passed a law excluding more Chinese from coming because they didn’t want the country becoming less white and European looking.

The earliest settlers from England were Protestant Christians, so the Puritan culture was especially pronounced in the early years of European colonization. Later, then, when victims of the Great Irish Potato Famine started coming over, there were strident citizen voices against those “papists” as they were called, followers of the Catholic Pope. Signs went up in businesses, "No Irish Need Apply" for jobs there.

If you fast-forward to today, we have removed the anti-Chinese legislation—and thankfully so, given all that Chinese immigrants have contributed to American arts, business, and academic life.  Likewise, John F. Kennedy, a Roman Catholic, was elected president, and we no longer hear people being barred from jobs because they are Irish or Catholic. They are now mainstream Americans and a part of our everyday fabric.

Let’s see how this history applies today. 

The young children who came to the United States along with their undocumented parents were promised by President Obama that they could stay in the country to continue their education and their lives.  They were eligible for the DACA program if they arrived by age 15 and had lived in the country since 2007. DACA allowed them to get driver’s licenses, which allowed them to go to work or to school, like all other residents their age.  In short, it allowed them to come out of living in the shadows and to participate fully in their local communities.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg meets with DACA recipients in his home.

Under the new executive order, that protection will disappear in six months.  This means these young people could be deported to countries they hardly know.

What do we know about the DACA recipients, who are also called “Dreamers”?

• There are roughly 800,000 Dreamers who are affected.
• They serve in all facets of American life, working in the military, in schools, in nursing homes, and a myriad other places that benefit your neighbors and family and community.
• They often have part-time jobs to pay for school tuition and support their families.
• They pay taxes. And they contribute the national economy.
• They do not take away jobs from native-born Americans.
• According to Grand Rapids immigration attorney Susan Im, eliminating DACA could cost $433 billion in GDP over a decade and reduce Social Security and Medicare tax contributions by $24.6 billion over that same period.  
• Dreamers speak English as their most fluent language. 
• They have lived most of their lives in the United States.
• They love the U.S. as their homeland.
• They are not trying to change American culture.
• They are pursuing the American dream as your grandparents and great-grandparents did.

To educate yourself more about DACA, click here to visit the government website.

In summary, human beings have migrated globally for thousands of years. They moved for all kinds of reasons, including drought and fire, floods and wars and hurricanes.  Many moved for better opportunities.  And though the first generations did not speak the new local language well, their children, like little sponges, soaked up the nuances of conversation and culture as readily and eagerly as the offspring of families with multi-generation histories here.

This is the very nature of our humanity. To upset the continuity of these bright dreams, in our view, is both short-sighted and mean-spirited.  We urge our viewers to contact their national representatives today to put forward comprehensive immigration reform that will ensure access and the American Dream for anyone willing to work for it.

photo source: New York Times

Labo(u)r Day in North America

One of Alan's students noticed that Canadians are celebrating Labour Day on September 4 while Americans will celebrate Labor Day. There are two interesting notes here.

1. Culture: Both Canadians and Americans celebrate a Day of Labor on the first Monday of September to commemorate the contribution of workers to our societies.  Most other countries of the world celebrate workers on the first day of May, often referred to as May Day.

2. Spelling: Canadians spell the word Labour, while Americans drop the letter ‘u’ out of the spelling.  For the most part, Canadians tend to follow British spelling conventions.  Many American spelling differences came about in the 1800s with a movement to simplify the spellings or to make them more closely reflect their pronunciation. Below is a list showing the more common differences in the two systems. Note: differences in dialect are not “right” or “wrong”; they simply reflect standardized variations. As a student of English, you should adopt the system nearest to where you live and work.

How do you correctly spell the following five concepts in English?  It depends on where you live!

Microaggressions in the Workplace

Definition: Microaggressions are statements, actions, or incidents perceived as indirect, subtle, or unintentional discrimination against members of marginalized groups such as racial minorities, women, LGBT coworkers, immigrants, religious minorities, older workers, and others.

Trivializing Native Americans: “Good morning, Chief!”

Tech Ageism: “Young people are just smarter.” – Mark Zuckerberg (2007)

Co-workers with Disabilities: “How do you use the bathrooms here?”

Demeaning African Americans: “You don’t sound black over the phone.”

Male to Female: Calling her “Sweetie, Hon, Cutie”

Complimenting Foreign-born Co-workers: “But you speak English so well.”

With an LGBT Co-worker: “Bob, you’re not super-gay like those guys on TV.”

Microaggressions seem like “no big deal.” After all, they often come from well-intended co-workers. However, their effect is both othering and cumulative and should not be minimized. The analogy is to say that a little flick of someone’s finger against our shoulder is not really an assault. Although it can temporarily surprise and distract us, we eventually get back to work. However, imagine if that happens 20 times a day. At the end of the day, we go home with a small bruise on our shoulder. And the next day, the bruise isn’t healed, but the (unintended) flicks keep coming.  And then they begin to hurt. And affect our morale. And our performance.

How can we reduce microaggressions in the workplace?

       • By learning about the marginalization of co-workers not like us

       • By understanding that we all grew up with cultural blinders

       • By committing to making our workplaces safe and welcoming spaces

       • By practicing responses to microaggressive behaviors when we encounter them

If you have concerns about such behaviors at your place of work, contact us to learn about training programs that can help create a more welcoming and supportive environment for all.

The Emotional Reality of a Simple Flag

Guest blog by Phillip Nguyen

So, here the story goes.  The Caucasian owner of a local grocery has lots of Vietnamese-American customers.  To show his appreciation, he decides to put up a Vietnamese flag along with the other international flags on display in the store.  He googles the flag, orders one online, and puts it up upon delivery.  Instead of appreciation, however, he is confronted with a crowd of angry Vietnamese customers, mostly elders, demanding the flag be taken down immediately.  

Stories like this happen across the entire United States. Just last week, two Vietnamese-American parents showed up at their West Michigan elementary school, insisting the Red and Yellow star flag of Vietnam be removed from the school gym and replaced with the Yellow and Three Stripes.

The purpose of this article is to help Americans understand what is at issue and to prevent it from happening again.  The two stories mentioned above were peacefully resolved, but others, as highlighted in this article, were not.

So what is the problem?  As a Vietnamese American and as the elected president of a large Vietnamese American Community in West Michigan, I have dealt with this more than once.  

The Red and Yellow star flag below is the only flag of Vietnam recognized by the United Nations since the communist North took over the Republic of South Vietnam in April 1975. That month is recognized by exiled South Vietnamese citizens as “Black April.”

The vast majority of the 1.8 million ethnic Vietnamese living in the United States today are refugees from the South, who once fought under the Yellow flag alongside American forces against the invading communists from the North. Their resulting mistreatment, imprisonment, and torture by the government representing the Red flag is still vivid in their memories four decades later.  Under lobbying by Vietnamese-American groups, most U.S. states, including our State of Michigan, has recognized the Yellow and Three Stripes as the “Vietnamese Cultural and Heritage Flag” for Vietnamese Americans in the state.

For many Americans, it is difficult to grasp these historical issues since Vietnam and the United States of America have had full diplomatic relations since 1995 and are now significant trading partners, as well as forming a military alliance to counter Chinese territorial claims in the South China Sea.  Likewise, it’s hard for a university to tell its Vietnamese exchange students they cannot hang up the Red flag of Vietnam on International Student Celebration Days while other international students are hoisting theirs.  These same Vietnamese students (many of whom are sons and daughters communist party members in Vietnam) don’t understand the demands of local South Vietnamese activists that the Red flag be removed. Furthermore, how does a company with extensive business ties in Vietnam welcome Vietnamese visitors to its grand local hotel without flying the Red Star flag along with its other international flags?  It’s a very difficult issue to navigate, especially for someone who embraces the 1st Amendment as staunchly as I do.

With an issue that has conflicting legal and emotional sides, let me offer a perspective that may help you understand.  Despite its official status, most Vietnamese Americans will always oppose the communist Red flag of Vietnam, and here is my analogy.  If you are African American, would you be okay seeing a Confederate flag flying across your city “even though” the American Civil War lasted only 4 years and was concluded over 150 years ago?  If you were a Jewish American, would you be okay to see the swastika of the Nazi flag flying in your face?  

It may be for future generations of Vietnamese Americans that the communist Red flag of Vietnam represents nothing more to them than an abstract and distant governmental symbol. However, it will remain difficult for those who directly experienced imprisonment and torture by the government of the despised flag they had sworn to fight, the government that had stolen their property and created their exile. If this brings some understanding, this article will have served its purpose.

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Phillip Nguyen was orphaned as a child in Vietnam and came to the U.S. as a young refugee sponsored by Bethany Christian Services.  With only a second grade education, he persevered through language and culture barriers to graduate from high school, later earning a Bachelor’s of business (Western Michigan University) and a Master’s in computer software engineering (Grand Valley State University). He now serves as the elected president of the Vietnamese American Community of Grand Rapids and surrounding region, home to his IT firm, Digital Marketing Solutions, LLC. His life story is shared in this FLYB interview from 2015.

Personalized License Plates

Two things are well known about U.S. culture: 1) Americans are very individualistic, and 2) their love of freedom is expressed in their ownership of automobiles.  The United States has roughly 800 vehicles per 1,000 inhabitants, more than any major country in the world.*

One way that American motorists express their self-identities is by personalizing their license plates.  Nearly 10 million U.S. vehicles have plates with unique messages (roughly 4% of registered cars, trucks, and vans).

Because of its large population, California uses 8 characters (letters or numbers) on license plates to identify all its vehicles.  My state of Michigan uses 7 characters.

Because of limited space, drivers must be clever to fit their message onto their plates.  In English, the following abbreviations are sometimes used:

0 – oh, zero; can also look like letter “O”                 

1 – won; can also look like lower case “L”                 

2 – to

4 – for                                   

5 – can look like letter “S”                                   

8 – ate; can also look like letter “B”

B – be                                   

C – see                                                     

R – are                                                     

U – you                                                     

Y - why

My own personalized plate says UBELONG.  This is related to our TV show, Feel Like You Belong, which tells immigrant stories of struggle and belonging.  One nonconformist friend of mine has YBNRML (Why be normal?).  My artist wife’s license plate has this encouraging message: ARTS4U (Art is for you.).

Below you can see one California driver who loves listening to jazz music.

This next plate reminds us that personalized licenses are sometimes called “vanity” plates.  (The adjective “vain” refers to people who like to look good and have others pay attention to them.)

If you want to know whether your personal message has already been taken, you can check with your state’s Department of Motor Vehicles.  All 50 U.S. states allow vanity plates.  In Michigan, the Secretary of State’s website has this tool to check if your desired message is available.  (Note: you will have to pay an additional fee for this privilege.)

Can you guess the meaning of the following vanity plates?  (Some of them are connected to the kind of car that the driver owns.)

For a list of many clever vanity plates, visit this website.

Does your car have a personalized plate?  Send us a picture!  If you see a clever plate on the street, send us a photo or text us with the plate’s message (maybe noting the type of car and driver).

In the meantime, drive safely, everyone!

* The tiny nations of San Marino and Monaco have higher per-capita rates than the U.S.

Explanations to the five plates above:

A. This BMW driver owes a lot of money (due to expensive car payments).

B. This Californian hates to eat peas.

C. This Corvette driver loves (Cor)vettes.

D. This California driver only lives to go bowling.  (Note that the frame says that the bowler likes to finish a game with three final strikes.)

E. This grateful Virginian feels so fortunate.

Safety Pin, Safety Zone

You may have recently noticed Americans wearing safety pins on their jackets and sweaters. And you wondered what this was about.

Since the highly emotional U.S. election on November 8, there has been a sharp increase in the number of hate crimes across the United States.  In six days, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) tracked 437 incidents of harassment and intimidation across the country.  (To be balanced, the SPLC has recorded anti-Trump incidents; that number stands at 20.) 

The 437 incidents were dominated by anti-black and anti-immigrant sentiment, including:

·      white teens on a bus yelling “terrorist” at a woman in a hijab (Oregon)

·      white male motorist yelling “f•cking f•gg•ts” at two gay men holding hands on the street (N. Carolina)

·      white woman in pickup truck yelling “White Power!” at a Latina mom with her baby at the park (Texas)

·      Muslim teacher receiving note saying her headscarf “isn’t allowed anymore. Why don’t you tie it around your neck and hang yourself with it? [Signed,] America.” (Georgia)

·      white male telling Filipina middle-schooler at bus stop, “You’re Asian, right? When they see your eyes, you’re going to be deported.” (Texas)

Because of this upsurge in public hate activity, organizers are asking concerned citizens to show their solidarity for people who are being targeted.  This is especially important for white allies who do not normally face threats and discrimination.  A safety pin indicates you are a safe person in public spaces.  It indicates you will stand up against harassment.

One of my black colleagues pointed out that the wearing of the safety pin needs to go beyond the mere symbolism.  It means you are preparing yourself to act as a witness in cases of public hate and intimidation.  If you’re not scared away from this challenge, there are ways to get yourself ready, so you’ll know how to respond.  You might employ these acts of solidarity:

·      Step between the attacker and the victim.

·      Lead the victim to a safe place.

·      Spend time talking to the victim.  (They may be very shaken.)

·      Call 911.  Ethnic intimidation is against the law.

·      Take a cellphone video of the event, or ask bystanders to film it.

·      Take a photo of the attacker’s license plate.

·      Call your elected representative.

Finally, let me leave you with this well-known quote by Martin Niemöller. Niemöller was a Protestant pastor who survived eight years in Nazi concentration camps, narrowly escaping execution.

When the Nazis came for the communists, I remained silent because I was not a communist. When they locked up the social democrats, I remained silent because I was not a social democrat. When they came for the trade unionists, I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. When they came for the Jews, I remained silent because I wasn't a Jew. When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out. 

Please summon your courage.  Declare that hate will not stand in these United States.

A Refugee Child’s Courage to Dream

by Nirmala Dhakal

My parents are from Bhutan, a country not a lot of people know about. It is approximately 8,000 miles from the U.S. and is roughly 1/6th the size of Michigan. It is pretty much all mountains, and 70% of the land is covered with forest. The population is only a little over half a million.

My parents were the citizens of this tiny country. They were born and raised there just like their fore-mothers and fore-fathers.

In the early 1990s, my parents, who had barely set foot in school, who had never seen a newspaper or TV, who had never protested or attended any political rallies, whose ancestors had lived in the hills and had never worked anywhere but on farms, those parents were suddenly seen a threat by their own government.

The government of Bhutan started sending soldiers to my parents’ house. They gave my parents a deadline to leave the country. They threatened they’d kill or jail them if they were seen around after that date.

On July 22nd of 1992, my parents carried my brothers, who were 2 and 5 at the time, and silently left the country. They left every little thing they ever owned behind them. Everything that had been passed to them over generations like their house, their farm, the cattle which they had raised as their own children, their relatives, and their lifelong friends.

After days of struggle, my parents and my brothers arrived in the neighboring country of Nepal. They started sharing a roof with their new neighbors, who also had fled the country for their life. My father said, “It was like camping over there except it was with an empty stomach, a heart filled with sorrows, and hopeless, beaten-down buddies. There was no cheering or smiling, there was only hopelessness, despair, and uncertainty.”

1993 – My parents and siblings

Then, on a chilly February night in 1993, while my father was away and my brothers were asleep, my mother gave birth to a little girl. My mom was lying on the floor groaning with pain when my grandma and other neighbors heard her, came over, and washed the little girl up. That little girl was me, and that was the day I joined a tribe of refugees.

Basically, I was living a life with no hopes and no dreams. I was living my life like the thousands of people around me. I woke up every single day and repeated the same schedule, over and over again.

Over time, my parents gave up their hope of getting repatriated. In 2009, we were offered a third country resettlement option. That offer came to us as an unprecedented opportunity, and in a heartbeat we chose to resettle here in the USA.

My family and I came to Grand Rapids, Michigan, in November of 2009. I started attending Kentwood Public Schools. It was unusual for me to be around people who were hopeful and filled with dreams. I faced a challenge of abundance and the air around me was so clean that I nearly got sick.

Our hut in the refugee camp

My life back in the refugee camp and the one here in Michigan are incomparable. Listing every single way how my life has improved in the past six years would take too long. But, I would like to mention one thing. One thing that I have today which I did not have six years ago. And it has made so much difference in my life.

That thing is courage. The courage to dream. Never had I dreamed of anything big before. Never had I dreamed of anything outside the usual. Never had I thought I was important and capable of change. Today I am filled with hope and courage. I know the purpose of my life. I know exactly what I want to do. My path has never been clear like this before.

I want to be a nurse and help other human beings. I want to ease their pain. I want to join Nurses Without Borders and travel to places destroyed by natural disaster or torn by war. I want to educate people, help them, and fill their lives with hope.

Currently, I am attending Northern Michigan University. I completed my second semester in Nursing and will be going back for my third one in a couple of weeks. I am on this new journey, and my motivation is my past.

I am very grateful that I was given a second chance in life. I am very grateful to all those people who dared to trim their daily expenses and donate to people in need even though they live half-way across the world. You all are my inspirations. Let us all realize our capabilities and acknowledge responsibilities so we can work together to make this world a better place.

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This text is edited from a speech given in Kentwood, Michigan, at the 2016 World Refugee Day Commemoration by the Bhutanese Association of Michigan.

Stop Saying “Melting Pot”!

The United States is not a melting pot.  Although the expression got its official voice a century ago, it ignores an uglier side to our national history which we must acknowledge. We’ll come back to the actual expression in a moment.

First, what is true: over centuries of immigration, scores of ethnicities have moved to the U.S.  However, in the earliest years, colonizers predominantly came from northern and western Europe. That prevailing ethnic Whiteness set the tone for the nation’s future. Laws–the visible symbol of power–were constructed around race and ethnicity.

The following is a partial list of rules, made up by White (European-American) men:

1531 – Indian Reductions: appropriation of land, forced religious conversion of Native Americans

1619 – The first African slaves brought by Dutch ships to Virginia as “indentured servants”

1652 – Interracial relationships banned

1692 – Interracial marriage banned

1781 – 3/5 Rule: Slaves count partially for state representation, not equal to full personhood

1790 – Naturalization Act: Only free whites can become citizens, vote, own property

1802 – Jefferson signs Georgia Compact, extinguishing Cherokee land treaties

1830 – Indian Removal Act: forcible emigration of five native nations to the West

1838 – Trail of Tears: forced relocation kills 4,000 of 15,000 affected Cherokee

1854 – Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision that no African could be a U.S. citizen

1877 – Jim Crow laws mandating systematic segregation, inferior housing, education, etc.

1882 – Chinese Exclusion Act: 10-year moratorium on Chinese immigration

1896 – Plessy v. Ferguson: Supreme Court upholds separate-but-equal segregation

1917 – Immigration Act bans criminals, epileptics, alcoholics, anarchists, and Asians

1922 – Ozawa v. United States: Supreme Court denies citizenship to Japanese immigrant

1923 – Thind v. United States: Supreme Court denies citizenship to Indian Sikh immigrant

2010 – Arizona state legislature enacts SB-1070, so-called Show Me Your Papers Law

In short, membership in the “club” known as the USA was decided by males who looked like this: 

                    1776: founding fathers in Philadelphia                                              1923: U.S. Supreme Court

It has only been slowly and grudgingly that lawmakers of this land have given legal status to non-whites (and non-men, for that matter).  When Israel Zangwill wrote his now-famous 1909 play, The Melting Pot, the British writer used these words:

"America is God's Crucible, the great Melting-Pot where all the races of Europe are melting and reforming... Germans and Frenchmen, Irishmen and Englishmen, Jews and Russians – into the Crucible with you all! God is making the American."

Do you notice anyone missing? Native Americans maybe? Perhaps the Chinese? Or Arabs? What about Latinos? Or Africans?  Zangwill reflected the racism of his time by saying that various European groups of immigrants could enter the United States and “blend” into a harmonious White race.  But the generosity of welcome ended there. 

                         1916 playbill                                                author Israel Zangwill

Apart from the inherent racism of the melting pot metaphor lies the vanilla tragedy of sameness. What happens when we melt down our collection of beautiful rings and bracelets and necklaces? It becomes one indistinguishable molten slurry. Must immigrants from anywhere give up who they are to live in a new land?

On the other hand, what happens when we combine our many and diverse strengths while still maintaining our unique properties?  We become a tasty salad, where our individual assets stand out.  We work together to make a healthy meal, yet there you experience the crispy carrots, the juicy tomatoes, or the tender lettuce.  With a more artistic metaphor, we become an attractive mosaic, where our diversity works together to produce a striking thing of beauty.

In parallel fashion, we need to ditch the concept of assimilation, an overused word that represents an unquestioned blending into a system without acknowledging our innate human diversity.  Instead of assimilating (at its root, to make similar), let us take up the mantle of acculturation, where newcomers learn to work together, to lend our distinctive talents and viewpoints, as we contribute to the whole of this wonderful experiment in democracy called the United States of America.

At #119, Culturium Is Newest Addition

If you have a periodic table of elements on your wall, it's time to get it updated. Earlier this summer, chemists announced four new names, including Nihonium, which was discovered in Japan.  (Nihon is the Japanese word for "Japan"!)

The periodic table of elements. Note: This is before the new names were assigned to nos. 113, 115, 117, and 118.

In the spirit of expanding our global wisdom, we would like to humbly introduce an older element that is often misunderstood but critical to today's international business and travel. 

Announcing Element #119: Culturium!

U.S. Fourth of July Parade

Independence Day (aka the Fourth of July) is celebrated across the country in many ways. In my town of Allendale, MI (pop. 20,000+), there is a traditional parade. To summarize the experience: families lined the sidewalks with lawn chairs and picnic blankets. They wore red-white-blue clothing and even fancy hats, glasses, and buttons. 

On the parade route, there were musicians, service vehicles, politicians, military veterans, and lots of tractors. This may be because tractors are good at pulling floats. In the case of Allendale, it's because of agriculture. Ottawa County is Michigan's second biggest agricultural producer, so the folks around these parts have tractors: new ones, old ones, and antique ones.

Here are the morning's photos in a slideshow, along with some brief commentary.  I hope this gives a glimpse of small-town American culture for my international readers.

The entrance to Grand Valley State University, which hosts the annual Allendale Independence Day parade.

With lights flashing, this sheriff's vehicle leads the parade.

The high school marching band was one of several music groups to entertain the parade watchers.

This mom and daughter were glad to share their Independence Day spirit on camera. The headgear with a pair of spring-mounted decorations are called deeply-bobbers.

Tractors, old and new, drove the 45-minute-long parade route.

Some political candidates drove trucks. The elephant is a symbol for the Republican Party.

The Lions Club has chapters around the world. Among other efforts, they promote eye health.

Red, white, & blue spectator enjoys a snack.

Antique cars are also popular in American parades.

The Grand Marshall of the day's parade.

A really big cow! Oh, yes, and a tractor! Note volunteers handing out flyers.

The prominent colors of the day: red, white, and blue!

The area fire departments joined the parade. In addition, there were law enforcement vehicles and emergency medical services (EMS) vehicles.

Many floats had volunteers with buckets of candy to throw to the spectators.

The local Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) entered this vehicle in the parade. Wheelchair user Jim Troost (see below) preceded this truck telling spectators that this post was led by their first-ever female president (standing, in white).

Jim Troost took this selfie to show his Donald Trump friends that he was able to have a conversation with a Democrat. Troost is a member of the Grandville, MI, Sons of the American Legion (SAL). His father was a military veteran.

Military veterans both marched and rode in vehicles, receiving applause for their service from spectators.

The local library's reading bus was a colorful addition to the day's event.

Large or small, all parade entrants proudly featured the national colors.

Horses!

The Girl Scouts had a float. The local Cub Scouts were entered as well.

Spectators stood, sat on blankets, relaxed in lawn chairs, or slept in strollers along the parade route.

Every parade needs at least one clown!

Political candidates sat on floats, marched on foot, waved from trucks, or rode in cars--in this case, an old Buick convertible.

My friend, Ray Nadda, owns a pet-grooming salon as his day job. He is entered in the August Republican primary election for local office.

A local pizza company enters a walking slice of pizza in the parade.

More antique tractors. In mid-July, the area hosts a weekend-long festival to showcase antique farm equipment. Ottawa County is the second-largest agricultural county in Michigan.

Military veterans in an antique Corvette.

Stuff we all get is called SWAG. My free swag from the morning's event included a frisbee (representing a local political candidate), candy, and an American flag. Other items given away at the parade included balloons, stickers, political pamphlets, and bananas.