I have recently been criticized by somebody that was very important to me in my life. This particular individual said that I argue for argument's sake, even though the net effect will be nothing; and that I generalize groups of people so often, that there are no real serious claims that I'm actually making. In short, I'm a negative person that likes to bitch about things that aren't issues, and even if they were, I'm not doing anything productive about it.
I openly accept some of this judgment. I am an angry man, and I tend to over analyze everything. Also, the race/adoption issues that I discuss on this blog may well not be issues for anybody else on the planet except for myself. And if they are issues, this blog probably isn't helping change the world. But, just because my writings aren't going to purge the world of all race/adoption-related discrimination, that doesn't mean I'm going to stop writing it. With that logic, why would anybody write anything?
As far as being accused of generalizing people, I have already touched on this topic in previous posts. Growing up as a minority and adoptee in the United States, I am a strong supporter of individualism, and NOT generalizing, assuming, or grouping people together based on race, ethnicity, appearance, etc. But at the same time, for the sake of getting my message across, I may take the easy path and use labels for the larger group. There is no way I am going to interact or speak with every single Korean in the world. Does that change that my life has had its share of discrimination from Koreans because I was adopted? If I ever use larger, generalizing terms, I'm really referring to the bad people within that group. I find that people have become overly sensitive to this subject, and that it's a common cop-out to not have to discuss racism.
Here's a real example from my life. In the middle of college, the Korean Student Association (KSA) of the University of Illinois: Urbana-Champaign decided that they did not want non-Koreans playing in their semester-ly soccer tournament. A handful of non-Koreans and I were playing in this league for years. Upon hearing this new rule, I knew there would be issues. As a board member of various other student organizations on campus, I knew that the university had zero tolerance policy for any form of discrimination and denial of membership or participation. In the previous year, an organization was started that promoted Women in the Engineering department. They had initially tried to keep the club for only females. Bad move. They got busted. The club could only exist to promote the success of women in engineering. So if a male wants to help women and is well capable of doing so, it's his freedom on campus to join that club and promote the welfare of female engineers. It's the same with any club. The name denotes the cause, topic, or focus. Too many people assume a club's name denotes who's eligible to join. A club fighting AIDS in Africa, is not going to be limited to only African students. Anybody can help.
So of course, the university found out about KSA's decision and suspended their activity and the tournament. Now before all the reprimands and suspensions were even going on, I was in contact with the KSA representatives wondering where Korean-adoptees fall on the non-Korean to Korean spectrum? Are we welcome, or are you kicking us out too? I was asked to bring my Korean passport (before I became a US citizen) and the board would still not give me a direct answer. They stalled as much as possible, and I'm sure their plan was to not answer until it was too late, and the tournament took place, without any of us. It was bullshit. And I'm glad they all got in trouble (although in the end, it was my gracious testimony that prevented them from being shut down forever). Upon hearing that the tournament was postponed, and possibly canceled, I was suspect number 1 immediately. There was an army of pissed off soccer-playing Koreans, and the gossip around campus was, there were all going to jump me sometime.
There's a lot more detail to that story, but my point is, I was wronged, hardcore, by a whole school organization, made up of hundreds of Korean's brightest minds, sent here to study in my native country. Were there some Koreans who wanted me to play? I'm sure of it. But when I explain this story to people, for the sake of conversation, time and not being to anally detailed, I'm going to simplify by saying, KSA screwed me over. People just need to suck it up and understand that I don't mean every single individual in KSA is a bad person. But the group as a whole made a poor decision.
Let's take a look at history, Martin Luther King Jr. for example. I don't think he was sitting around his house thinking to himself, well I guess I shouldn't go preach about freedom and equal rights, because I might accidentally offend the white people that were supportive of the black civil rights movement. I don't think Gandhi was hesitant to battle the British colonial rule, because he didn't want to offend the few British soldiers that didn't treat the Indian natives like crap. Although I am not even a spec of the greatness these two men were, like them I want to change the perceptions and the ways in which adoptees are treated by our countries of birth. My motives are not to offend all Koreans, nor judge them for things they may not have done. My goal is to expose those that have done wrong, whether on purpose or out of ignorance, with education. It almost seems like it's become politically incorrect to express how you were wronged. People will say anything to denounce my claims, silence me, judge me, criticize me, just so they don't have to hear my stories.
I had an African-American friend at college. He would sometimes vent to our group of friends about how he gets pulled over by the cops all the time. Racial-profiling at its finest. Seriously, it does happen. In my 5 years in Champaign-Urbana, I never once saw a white guy getting pulled over by campus police. Anyways, this guy was one of the nicest, rule-following, hardworking people I knew. He never did anything illegal, yet got pulled over 1-2 times every year. Sometimes when he would get pissed about it, some of our other friends would say he's generalizing all cops and that's wrong. Does anybody else see the distorted logic in these conversations? Why is that where people on the defensive always have to go to? Claiming generalization is occurring is plaguing process everywhere.
black guy - "Hey man, today some KKK members tried to mess with me."
white guy - "Dude, are you saying all white people are racist? Cause that's wrong. You can't generalize like that."
black guy - "No, I'm saying some KKK members verbally abused me, and were possibly going to attack me."
white guy - "So now your making assumptions that all KKK are violent?"
Believe it or not, I hear conversations like this ALL the time. Whether it be between whites and blacks, Koreans and Korean-adotpees, Indians and Pakistanis, it's all crap. People just want to change the subject to focus on whether generalization is right or wrong, rather than the actual racism that occurred.
So to those who think I'm negative. I am. I'm negative in response to negative things. MLK Jr. was negative against the mistreatment of African-Americans. Sometimes you have to be negative to rid the world of worse things. For what I've been through, and seen other adoptees put through, I think I've earned the right to be negative about it.
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