You've got to admit it's getting better, Part 2

I met the Indian last night. His arms were nicely tatted up, and he told me a story about meeting his girlfriend's grandfather. The two men hit it off quite well, yet the grandfather later shared these words with the family: "He's nice, but don't let her go over to that side." He could have been referring to one of many things (marriage, India, tattoo parlors), but we all know it is every minority's wish to kidnap a white woman and take her to the country his parents were born, where he has never lived. We call it the American dream.

The Indian also mentioned saying "Merry Christmas" to his girlfriend's mother, who replied "Thanks for saying that," as if he had really put in the effort. Way to go, champ. You're one step closer to becoming America's Next Top American.

The conversation turned to comparing ignorance and racism, whether the grandfather's 87-year-old ideas would pass with his passing. Are we continuing to breed racism in America?

I'm unequipped to answer such a question, but it's not as if I haven't done the field work. Every human interaction I have could be viewed with a racial relations magnifying glass, but I try very hard not to do that. The best analogy I can make is of the recent hot button issue of athletes carrying guns. After the Plaxico Burress shooting, a former NFL player revealed that he carried a gun during his first two years in the league. He said that it only added to his problems because he started to see every person approaching him as a potential danger. Would he have to reach for his gun? What if he had to use it? After two years of going nuts, he tossed the gun over a bridge. In a matter of speaking, I try not to carry the gun.

My sister has a great story about an Asian girl who walked up to her in a bar. I believe the two of them were the only Asians in the bar, and the other girl said something to her about solidarity. She then said, "What's your authenticity?" I'm no statistician, but I'd have to go with 100%. My sister is a completely real human. Now I wouldn't deem her question racist or ignorant, but the girl was definitely of our generation. So the ball keeps rolling. The apples keep falling close to the tree.

I recently spent some time in San Francisco, a city that I was shocked to discover still boasts one of the highest percentages of race-related crimes in the country. Of course, this has a lot to do with the fact that every type of person lives in SF, so the chances are higher. An entirely homogenous community isn't having many race-related crimes in its boundaries.

I quite like San Francisco, though I get very introspective when I'm there. Chinatown, for one, is a real Chinatown. There are old men spitting tobacco in courtyards, and they're unlikely to know any English. Everything they need is within that community, and so the live the way they want. And though I like the vast number of cultures all living within the same space, I must admit that I lose a little of my identity in SF. I'm suddenly far from the only Asian in the room, the only one with square glasses and a mullet haircut. I'm suddenly in tune to the fact that maybe I'm not so unique. I'm terrified of talking to the other square glass mullets. In college I met a fourth generation Asian-American, and his existence blew my mind. His family has been here for a long time.

A friend recently went on a date with a guy with a French name. I asked if he was French, and the friend said no. His parents are from France, but he grew up here. So he's American. And how am I different from him? How is he more American than Mr. Fourth Generation? Why isn't he French-American? It sounds odd, I know.

I will never have the answers. I've come to accept this. As I mentioned in Part 1, the best I can do is keep learning. I try to keep the right people close, and I try to live up to my own principles. 100%, baby.

You've got to admit it's getting better

One of my many reasons for moving to Japan was to experience life as a racial majority. Hoping to get a glimpe of what it's like to be white in America, I actually got a glimpse of what it's like to be a mentally-challenged Japanese guy (due to my looks coupled with my difficulty with the language). But I've written enough about that. I'm still awaiting my Oscar.

For better or worse, race will always be an issue to me. A very prominent Asian-American scientist whose name doesn't come to mind (my point exactly) once said that America needs an Asian Al Sharpton. I agree. And I've gone through those soul-searching phases both long and short where I've wanted to be that person. I've taken the ASAM courses in college, written angry e-mails to NBC over Sarah Silverman's repeated usage of "chink" on national television, and boycotted Details for an extremely offensive article titled "Gay or Asian?" But regardless of how angry or not angry I get, I still have to live. I have to live every day.

Japan certainly helped. In that one year abroad, I learned more about my racial identity than I have the proper words to convey. I'm glad. And I will sheepishly admit that I had tears in my eyes during Obama's victory speech, but it later became a bittersweet moment. Would America ever elect an Asian-American president? Beyond that point, could I ever be considered a true American if that feat remains impossible?

I'm mentioning all this because of a conversation I had the other night at a bar. I often get upset with my father for a certain habit of his, a habit that I have sadly inherited. Basically, the scientist in him loves to analyze minute and pointless details way after the fact. He will also conjecture upon facts that can easily be found out with the click of a button. For instance, if he wanted to know all the movies that Jennifer Connelly starred in (this is doubly strange because it appears my father and I are both madly intrigued by the same actress), he wouldn't go to imdb. He would probably sit there and try to write all the movies down. That, or he'd ask me to name all the movies I'd seen with her in them and then try to recall if he'd also seen them. For the first problem, let's say he couldn't find a restaurant. When he actually got to the restaurant, he would ask the waiter why it was so hard to find the restaurant and offer suggestions as to how to avoid this situation in the future. Let's also throw in the detail that we are on a road trip. We will never come back to this restaurant, but he needs to know how to hypothetically find it in the future.

Now back to the bar and my point.

Because of this inherited trait coupled with my loose lip when drinking, I often find myself asking very straightforward and odd questions to people at bars. They aren't odd in the sense that no one wants to know, but they are odd in the sense that no one wants to ask. After "chatting up this bird" for a short while, I wanted to know if she was single. Instead of putting it that way, I said something along the lines of "You have a boyfriend, right? Because you're attractive. And if you were attractive and didn't have a boyfriend, that would be strange. Girls who are attractive tend to attract the affections of many gentleman suitors. Since you are attractive in my estimation, you more than likely routinely share the company of a person of my gender."

Her response? "This is funny because my boyfriend is Indian."

I paused to ponder her statement and then asked: "Why is that funny?"

The absolute worst part of this story is that I can't even remember her response. If I were writing this into a movie, I'd have to make something up. Or make the character playing me not drink so much. Did I just get up and walk away? Did my jaw drop and hit the table breaking my jaw so that I had to go to the hospital? Did her face melt? I have no idea.

Here's my father-inherited moot-point analysis:
1. It was funny to her because it meant another person with an ethnicity originating from the CONTINENT of Asia found her attractive.
2. It was funny to her because she found another person from the CONTINENT of Asia attractive.
3. How white is this Indian boyfriend of hers that she could even make a statement like that?
4. If a black guy talks to her, does she tell him it's funny because she has a Latino mailman?

The absolute best part of this story is that I wasn't even offended. I was interested. In fact, I mostly take her statement to mean #2 up there. So maybe I don't need an Al Sharpton. Maybe I just need to live and talk and share and exist. But I'd pay a lot to know what she said.