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Talking Story  by Polo

From The Asian Reporter, V17, #38 (September 18, 2007), page 7.

The other evening, one of those achingly lovely August evenings — late summer sparrows and swallows and starlings lingering in our reluctant dusk — a kid asked me, "Hey Uncle, why’re you always kidding around about us: brown boys this, rice pickers that. But you don’t make fun of white people?"

And you know, I had to pause about that. Around that remark.

"Well, wha’ d’you t’ink, Yoh?" I said. I finally said. It’s what we say when we’ve got no good reply to a good question. You ask your asker.

The thing is: This thing we do, how we openly talk race, how we easily make light about ethnicity, is new to us.

Our immigrant parents’ generation couldn’t. Wouldn’t. Certainly not about white folks. And never negatively. Ver-ry uncivil. Only angry guys and reckless nationalists and wild-eyed religious radicals talked stink about totoks. Not us polite people, nor us nice and politique.

Our generation, my American ethnic minority generation, is likewise leery about it. Growing up in the Reverend Dr. King’s civil-rights era, we learned that race-talk is always lofty. Reserved for aspirational conversation, like: "Aren’t we all really the same?" or "Can’t we all just get along?" We were supposed to assume that color-blindness, that race blandness, is The Dream. Our American dream.

But then things changed. Demographics changed. With our change in raw numbers, our shared cultural context changed, particularly here on our chaotic continent’s western edge.

I cannot tell you exactly when it happened — the change — but I can tell you for sure that these days we happy hour with Khmer and Koreans; Mexicans, Malay, and Hmong; Thais, Arabs, and islanders; three kinds of Chinese; and aaall kinds of American Indians at Green Papaya, a Viet Kieu noodle shop. And not one of us is a bit embarrassed about our ethnicity. About our deep differences.

A lot of back-slapping happens. Laughter and some tears too. Humor restores our humanity. Ethnic humor is inevitable. And at the bruised end of another American work week, it may even be necessary.

And when I ask, quietly ask, why not kid around about white folks? — brown boys and girls always answer the same. We shouldn’t make white people nervous. When they get tense, we get trouble.

This is weird. It feels counter-intuitive. We conclude that our dominant culture, those folks with the might and money and politics to manage America’s mainstream, and control us — can’t take a joke.

But it may well be true. Never tease a bad dog, our elders always say. Anyway, it’s good ethnic minority policy to not scare white people.

But it may also be a good idea to help anxious mainstreamers move on. To get over it. To get over this race monster American history has made of all of us.

Ergo: this column: Oh please DSW (Don’t scare da white people).

Here’s a half-dozen funny examples of "Please DSW." We’ll look forward to your best. Send them to me at the addresses provided below.

1. Spanish speakers — just don’t. Not in public. Not even if you need to say something tender to your spouse. Talk English only. English speakers will assume you’re talkin’ stink about them. Don’t scare da white people.
2. Asians, islander, Arabs, Africans, Latin Americans (did I leave anyone out?): Take heads and arms and legs off chickens and fish and sheep before feeding them to white people. They don’t like it. They get upset tummies seeing that the life God made and the meal ma made has those body parts. American meat occurs skinless on Styrofoam pads. Please DSW.
3. Brown and black boys, never run into a bank. Indeed, make no agitated movements. Tellers’ eyes will snap up, security guys will close in, customers will move away. You will become agitated, completing a negative feedback loop. Ayoh, DSW.
4. Bearded Pakistanis, Indians, Bangladeshis, and Sri Lankans; Arabs with or without beards; Middle Easterners in traditional wear: Never appear in an American airport in crowds larger than two. In fact, three is a crowd, a scary one. Que mas: Never-ever pray on planes. DSW.
5. Asians, do not get uptight about white folks getting on an escalator, parking smack in the middle, and standing there, blocking all traffic until they get off. Forget that Asians think it’s childish to think only of yourself. Forget the rule the rest of our polite planet follows, the one about slow pokes standing considerately on the right. Say nothing in any Asian language, make no sudden moves, do not scare the white people.
6. My brothers, milk chocolate to dark cacao, do not go after a white man to redeem your self-respect. Don’t. Don’t even think about it. Just because every brown guy on our aching earth knows for sure that you will come for him if he’s disrespected you; just because everybody you know, knows that this bad man will not call the cops when you front him down for his wrong; all that does not add up the same way for white folks. Machismo scares white men. American jails are full of brown dopes believing a man’s dignity means anything to big blue cops, to eager prosecutors, to raven-robed judges. Silah’kan: DSW.