So today I was driving my Chinese host son home from school and he was reticent to bring up a trigger issue #Trump. But he was a little miffed. “Go on,” I said. No worries. #hukunamatata
He was triggered by the twitterverse. In particular he was riled by the Jayz versus Trump thing going on. As usual he was right to be reticent, as I took a little extra time to hear what he was actually saying.
[ wapost story ] (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2018/01/28/jay-z-thinks-trump-is-in-pain-the-president-responded-by-bragging-about-helping-black-people/?utm_term=.4894153db705)
(Durn it I haven’t figured out this forum’s links thing yet)
#thenamesoftheinnocenthavebeenchanged
What Michael (his fake American name) was really saying was that President Trump was doing that thing of taking a comment from a person and then responding by equating him as the representative of a group of people. As in, hey you black people should be happy now because unemployment is great for the blacks right now.
And I remembered my age induced epiphany about being a truly relational white person while walking in the maze of collective identities. While I could make my head spin in a disconnected way (more ways than one) as a white heterosexual suburban dad of a black daughter, a gay son, and a Chinese communist son, it would all be sound and fury representing my own ignorance.
To reference a great philosopher of the 20th century names Theodore Herzl, “People are people no matter how small.” To translate this further, a person is a person. I do not have a black daughter and a gay son and a son who is a racial and political product of the Chinese authoritarian system. I have people who I love who are unique individuals “named” Ariel, Alex, and Michael. They each have their own unique stories and those stories cannot be conflated with their collective identities. Ariel is a mixed race young lady who has been raised in a predominantly white suburb and who grew up as a wickedly independent young lady. She is very attractive but sometimes gets lost in the body image crap that permeates our society and impacts the self-assessment of many young women. She avoided relationships or boyfriends most of her life and fended off suitors. She prefers to date African American men and she has very recently found love for the first time. So inexperienced in relationships, she has struggled with the weight of her first love and has admirably and frighteningly lost herself in that relationship. I had a rare moment of being useful a few months ago when I reminded her that #thataintlove if it makes you feel smaller, if it (and I quote my text) feels like subtraction or division because real love is addition or multiplication.
My son Alex had the courage to come out in his school community when he was around 13. He goes to school that is a susburban ruburban school in the buckle of the Bible Belt in one of the most conservative counties in the country. He is a resident in Marsha Blackburn’s Congressional district. I had a conversation with Michael about why Alex will always have difficulties even in a much improved environment for homosexuals. Essentially my point was, a straight person walks into a bar in the unlikely pursuit of true love. 19 of 20 of the men she sees are heterosexual and her odds are still very low of achieving success. (I will defer to any numbers you would prefer here, kind reader) Alex walks into a bar and 1 of 20 of the men he sees are homosexual. In a world where love is so hard to find, the small numbers of homosexuals make true love that much more difficult. Alex is a product of generation Z, he is well liked by his friends. Many of them are startlingly beautiful young ladies. He is finding his place slowly in the world. He has had a not uncommonly difficult time in learning to truly like himself. But he is blessed with a clear sense of self-identity and as he matures I love watching him settle better into self-like.
Michael is a young man who grew up as a type of prodigy in a one-child world. He was a fantastically successful student aimed at the top universities in China. His parents saw flaws in the style of education in China, and despite being sincere Chinese Communist Party members, sent their son to the United States at the age of 14 for an American independent school college preparatory education. He arrived as a proud Chinese citizen and a champion student. He struggled with the cultural change in the United States, suffered from the change from being the fastest draw in answering a question to having to have a ten second delay as he tried to process information in a foreign language. He pushed himself to have American friends and not hang around in the corners speaking Mandarin with the other Chinese kids. Along the way he became more Americanized in my household and spent less time studying and more time playing video games. He became happy with the greater personal freedoms of American life, but frustrated at his lack of pursuit of excellence. He learned that his conversations with American kids and his relationships with them were not as deep as typical American friends. He became lost, confused, and frustrated.
And then it clicked. He began to embrace the less rote memorization style of education, and embraced the love of learning emphasis. At first he was a little too a la carte in how he applied himself. Then he began to push himself back toward higher level academic achievement. As a senior this year in high school he has completely embraced the experience. He ran cross country, he took four AP classes, he went to the homecoming dance, he attended football and basketball games, he pushed himself to achieve great results on the speech and debate team, and he went to more movies and parties with his schoolmates. I recently had the pleasure of sitting in on a meeting electing students to an honor society. I listened (but had to abstain from commenting) as his teachers reached down a list of grade point averages and pulled him above kids with a higher gpa because he exemplified the standards of this prestigious honors society. He had embraced learning for learning sake and had challenged himself in a pursuit of excellence. I beamed as one nomination turned into an enthusiastic second and additionally testimonial and then turned into a third. I could not have been more proud. Michael is now anxious about getting accepted into top universities and has to wait until May to hear from about ten schools at once. I know he will be fine without or without university acceptance. He does not.
Phew, that was a ramble.
My Point
I had help learning how to express this truth in a professional development session a few years ago. We do such a disservice when we see people as their collective identity. This mistake is still made by teachers and peers when a topic like slavery is brought up in a community that is predominantly white, and the teacher and students look to “the black kid” to be the voice for all black people.
Every person has an individual story. And in this world our the relational experience is only becoming more important. The way I suggest is to start with the understanding that every single person you meet has something uniquely amazing about them. When you start with this understanding you will be much more likely to find that or those amazing thing(s). When you see a type or a collective identity instead of a unique individual, you do a great disservice to yourself. More importantly you do harm to the other person.
There is such wonder in the world. Don’t forget to patiently see the amazing in every person you meet. I suspect many of you already know this and do this. It is you who will be the benificiery and your life will be exponentially improved when you use this mindset.
Michael, my host-son reminded me of this today as he complained that President Trump was failing to see the amazing in another person, and that he was stereotyping and lumping in collective identity instead. What amazing insight for someone who has not yet turned 18!