“Even people who are sympathetic to civil rights in general, including other people of color, sometimes resist mentioning civil rights and Asian Americans together in the same sentence.”
As implied in the title Wu attempts to express that racial construct and issues go beyond the black and white cultures. He asserts that the modern climate has focused on tackling racism against black people that other people of color have been sidelined. Wu does not intend to undermine the struggles of other marginalized groups but to highlight the Asian-American experience in detail. In other words racism against any ethnic group despite the mainstream perception is wrong, unjust, and evil. Therefore he illustrates that the racial issues Asian-American have undergone through history have been relegated over time.
“The anxieties about Asian conquest of the planet are not limited to the pages of fiction and movie screens.”
Wu focuses on the current attitude on race and racism in regard to the Asian-American experience. He acknowledges that majority of Americans have subscribed to most stereotypes about people of Asian descent that persist today. He affirms the racial discrimination against Asian people has been rooted in perceptions that have been fostered by generalized stereotypes. Therefore, he argues that these labels are not only constricted in the entertainment media but still in the day to day lives of Asian-Americans. Relocating to California Wu held the attitude that due to the open-mindedness in the culture there he would be spared the racial prejudice. However, it was quite the opposite thus emphasizing that the racist issue is something that is widespread and not restricted to a particular place only. Accordingly, the discourse towards reveling diversity should be nurtured even more now.
“None of them realize that a playful system of assessing racial identity from physical features shares a family resemblance with much more sinister measurements.”
Wu points out the different types of racist attitudes either overt, subtle, or ignorant in how they are projected. He argues that there are Asian stereotypes that have been popularized even in popular culture deeming them ‘acceptable’. Therefore, Asian people suffer from comments and bullying that seem harmless to others but stem from ingrained racist attitudes. The quotation highlights the tendency of people taking pride in differentiating the ethnic backgrounds of Asian people by facial features. However, Wu affirms that such behavior share a resemblance to racist conducts in history that fostered practices such as ethnic cleansing.
