Race

    The snow is gone, spring break has passed, and April is upon us. April typically generates thoughts of April fool’s day, showers, and the end of a semester. But that is not all April is associated with; perhaps more important than a day of jokes, April is also Asian Pacific American (APA) Awareness month. While April is a designated period intended to celebrate and promote awareness of APA history and issues, it is also a convenient moment to reflect upon an issue of which we are consistently mindful of, but are either too scared or too immature to discuss on a serious note: race.

    As an Asian American, I routinely cope with the stereotypes that follow individuals of my ethnicity. Others have asked why I struggle with Calculus, if I was a United States citizen, if English was my second language, and why I am terrible with chopsticks, just to name a few stereotypes that come my way. It is frustrating because I was born and raised in the U.S., and spent all but seven days on U.S. soil in my life. Yet, assumptions and labels seem to systematically take precedence over courtesy and common sense.

    In January, Kyle Descher was an alleged victim of a possible hate crime. Over three months later, a violent act that took place in a crowded bar continues to inconceivably bring forth no witnesses to assist detectives in bringing justice upon the offender. In late March, a collaborated effort from WSU organizations brought premier scholar Dinesh D’Souza to the campus to explore the topic of race in America. But instead of an intellectual discussion with one of America’s most influential thinkers, we were left with close minded, microphone hogging, blabber mouths of whom insisted that race must exist and that there was nothing we could do about it.

    In light of the lack of progress on the Descher case, the misguided central theme of D’Souza’s speech, and the repeated notion that WSU lacks intellectual diversity, WSU has placed itself in a defining moment of its institutional history. We can continue to hold fast to our narrow mindsets and develop offense on ideas which contradict our own; or we can say “not this time.” Now could be the time when we quit turning a blind eye towards obvious acts of needless and excessive hate. Now could be the moment where we respect and consider admitting that a bestselling published author might have something valuable to say. Now could be the occasion in which we permit new ideas to enter our minds and allow our cognitive reasoning independently evaluate the validity and strength to the new concept. Now could be the time.

    A few weeks ago, a gentleman of mixed color wrote and presented a speech that ranks among the greatest speeches of our generation. You may have heard of this man, Mr. Barack Obama. In his speech entitled “A More Perfect Union,” which you can find on YouTube, Obama essentially said that it is time for us to sit down and have a mature discussion regarding race in America. Obama insisted that if we were to continue on “our path of a more perfect union,” we would have to “move beyond race.” Obama presents us with two options, one is to continue to be distracted by race, and the other is to say, “Not this time.”

    Let us mature and begin eliminating race and racism from our daily lives. It won’t happen overnight, it may not even happen over a thousand nights; but we have to take it one day at a time. Abolishing the political distraction of race will enable us to handle the true crisis such as global climate change and our faltering economy. Uniting our nation under one country rather than several separate ethnic entities will allow the United States to remain the most prosperous in the world. We are the United States of America, not the divided states of America. Now could be the time, let’s make it happen.