“Your attitude is wrong, it’s so negative. If you just tried harder, if you just stopped seeing yourself as a victimized minority, you’d do better. If you just saw yourself as an individual, and stopped clinging to your racial identity, you would be happier. Your worries are unfounded. Look, I don’t see your colour, you’re just like me! So why do you see yourself that way?”

If you’re a racial minority of any sort, you’re probably groaning right now. You might even be remembering a circumstance in the past when these things were said to you. You also probably remember a time you tried to explain yourself, why being “colour blind” isn’t a choice you have, and why it’s not a self-esteem problem you have as an individual.

And it probably didn’t work. Maybe you got in a fight. Maybe you just walked away. Maybe you just got exhausted and agreed with them because you didn’t know what else to do. I’ve done all three at some point or another.

On the other hand if you’re not a racial minority, you probably have no clue what I’m talking about. You might even think that those were sensible words – when in fact, they are hurtful, ignorant, and racist.

That’s the power of racism. You don’t have to be an actively racist individual to perpetuate it. Most racism comes from moral and decent people who go about their lives. It’s not the KKKs or the neo-nazi’s that I’m worried about. It’s the taxi driver who doesn’t want to pick me up, it’s the HR person looking at resumes who sees my non-English name, it’s the waitress who thinks I won’t tip because I’m Asian, it’s the way I know I get better service over the phone if I sound White, and it’s the way my White friends doubt and interrogate me when I say that certain things they do are racist and hurtful. It’s the fact that I have to be as White as possible in all circumstances, and to hide my own identity whenever I can.

To say that my lifetime of experience dealing with racism can be overcome by my attitude is insulting. To say that I should be “colour blind” is to say that I should completely deny my own identity, even more so than I already have to. To say that my worries are unfounded is hurtful and dismissive of my own lived experience.

Yet those who are not in the racial minority can say these things with ease, because we live in a world where they are allowed to ignore my concerns. I conform to them every day. They don’t ever have to conform to the way I experience the world. If all else fails they can always tell me to “leave the country”, which to me just shows how much my own country is tailored to people who aren’t like me.

Explaining these basic concepts of racism is tough, no matter how open-minded people might be. Which is why when I came across a documentary dealing with these issues, I was somewhat skeptical in about its effectiveness. It often feels like anti-racism films are preaching to the choir. However, this documentary, called “The Color of Fear” was a pleasant surprise. It can be viewed through this link (I’m not entirely sure if this link leads to an official content owner though…). It’s a series of conversations about racism held over a weekend between Asian, Latino, White, and Black American men (they are sadly lacking Indigenous and Middle Eastern people and women, but I’ll comment on that later).

What I found amazing was the breadth of the conversation – this film deals with so many aspects of racism, it took me by surprise. The initial half hour is mainly a conversation about the unique ways in which people of different ethnicities have experienced racism in America. What follows is an oft-repeated pattern: one of the white men begins to question the experiences of the POC in the group, suggesting that the POC should stop thinking in terms of race and that if they would only stop thinking of themselves as disadvantaged, they would be happier. While I won’t divulge more about how the response unfolds, I was surprised at how effectively it delves into the concept of power and privilege, and I think it could serve as a great learning tool. In particular, they explored prejudice amongst POC against POC, but were quick to show how this was vastly different from white racism because of power and privilege.

The film itself is now 20 years old, yet I honestly can’t say that it felt dated. Other than the obvious early 90’s fashion, the film felt just as relevant now as it was then.

My primary criticism of the film is that the conversations were male exclusive, and didn’t include a wider range of participants. Fortunately the director, Lee Mun Wah, has released a new film that focuses on the experience of oppression by college students. From what I can see in the trailer, the conversation includes many women and an expanded group of ethnicities. I think I’ll have to check it out when it comes out.

Color of Fear from Newton Green on Vimeo.