Her pain, my shame

As a European American or, as my African American neighbors referred to me, a white woman, I know about guilt and shame. It's a feeling that comes with awakening into racism, realizing you were born into privilege.

It is not an easy awakening. Few people want to see racism in themselves. My students in China were very proud that there was no racism in China. I was stunned that they actually believed this. They often reminded me of Minnesotans in the early 1960s. What do you mean there's racism? We've done so much for those people. The 1960s was a time of civil rights marches, rallies, lunch counter sit-ins. It was hard work convincing whites that separation was not equality.

We still have a long way to go in America, but our huge step was in acknowledging there is racism in America.

I don't see that China has awakened yet. Tibet is considered a political problem. Charging foreigners more for the same service or product is considered clever business.

Below are excerpts of an essay written by Tang Danhong, a poet and documentary filmmaker from Chengdu, Sichuan province in China. In 2005, she moved to Israel and currently teaches Chinese language at Tel Aviv University. Her essay was published in her blog and translated into English by China Digital Times.
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2008/03/tibet-her-pain-my-shame/

She is a Han Chinese and has visited Tibet many times. She writes sympathetically about Tibetans and berates her fellow Han:

"Why can’t you understand that people have different values? While you believe in brainwashing, the power of a gun and of money, there is a spiritual belief that has been in their minds for thousands of years and cannot be washed away. When you claim yourselves as “saviors of Tibetans from slavery society,” I am ashamed for your arrogance and your delusions. When military police with their guns pass by me in the streets of Lhasa, and each time I am there I can see row upon row of military bases… yes, I, a Han Chinese, feel ashamed.……
What makes me feel most ashamed is the “patriotic majority”: You people are the decedents of Qinshi Huangdi who knows only conquering by killing; you are the chauvinists who rule the weak by force; you are those cowards who hide behind guns and call for shooting the victims; you suffer from Stockholm Syndrome; you are the blood-thirsty crazies of an “advanced” culture of Slow slicing and Castration. You are the sick minds waving the “patriotic” flag. I look down on you. If you are Han Chinese, I am ashamed to be one of you."

Dear Teacher Tang, I know this feeling. I also know shame is a useless feelings. As we awaken to racism, we must do something. We must ask ourselves, what shall I do about this bit of suffering? As poet Mary Oliver asks, What are you going to do with your one wild and precious life?

I feel heartened to read Tang Danhong's essay. Her writing will awaken others.