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21 ◆ chapter 2 ◆ Wanting to Be Like White Dancing with a White Cultural Identity Charlotte: White washed! Well, because it’s true. But when I talk about it there’s no shame attached to it for me because it’s a very natural process one goes through. Brenda: All these adoptees are White. I mean, they’re Asian, but they’re White. It’s a sense of not resolving and being comfortable about the fact that you are totally White inside but you’re Asian outside and those two haven’t quite come together yet. I just say I am Korean by race but I am not Korean any other way. Charlotte and Brenda, like several of the other adoptees, were challenged with offhand remarks about being bananas and more serious taunts of being sellouts. Most participants held fast to the belief that assimilation into the White middle-class culture of their adoptive parents was a natural, nearly unavoidable aspect of most Korean adoptees’ life. The adoptees pointed out several contributing factors, namely cultural racism and the promotion of colorblind philosophy, that contribute to this natural process of assimilation (Rosaldo 1993). They also reflected on how assimilation was not their fault and that they should not be blamed (which they often were) for surrendering their Korean identities in favor of a White cultural identity, because they were not given any sustained and engaged opportunity to embrace their racial identity. Most adoptees discovered that embracing a White cultural identity led them to develop a negative self-perception of their racial and transracial identities. Cultural Racism, Colorblind Philosophy, and Assimilation While the attacks on September 11, 2001, the ongoing affirmative action debates in the U.S. Supreme Court, and the 2005 Hurricane Katrina disaster garnered some attention for the larger structures of racism that continue to haunt society, these forms of institutional and cultural racism are quickly labeled anomalies and can be solved in the court of public opinion. For 22 ◆ chapter 2 example, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, newspapers were reprimanded for their insensitivity when they depicted Black people caught on camera taking food and other supplies out of stores as “looting,” whereas Whites, who were doing almost exactly the same thing, were seen as “finding supplies” (Kinney 2005). Public apologies were accepted as the media pointed the finger at individual editors and writers. Cover-ups steered the dialogue away from racial issues, and soon enough all was forgotten (Wise 2006). The questioners were silenced and the status quo continued to make others racially invisible. Discussions about race and racism have also been silenced in schools and society through a colorblind approach centered on the logic that in order to treat people equally one should refuse to recognize race because doing so means admitting racial differences, and admitting racial differences leads one to act in discriminatory ways (Fine 1997, 2003; Lewis 2001; Tatum 1999). If everybody is colorblind, then the majority are led to believe that racists are those who act on prejudicial racial beliefs and that their actions are usually violent and destructive. Individual acts of racism are then portrayed in the media as carried out by individual racists who are often highlighted as members of an extremist White supremacy group. White supremacists certainly are not to be confused as representatives of the entire White race; rather, they are considered individuals with certain social and psychological problems. Those who commit such heinous acts are considered ignorant and not at all similar to the ordinary, colorblind White person. Cultural racism then allows people to believe that racism exists at the individual level; if one does not commit such crimes, then one is not a racist (Fine 1997, Derman-Sparks and Phillips 1997, Scheurich and Young 1997). Some believe that racism is no longer evident in the United States—that we now live in a post-racial United States—due to the election of President Barack Obama. Millions watched Super Bowl XLI in 2007, where Lovie Smith, head coach of the Chicago Bears, and Tony Dungy, head coach of the Indianapolis Colts, were heralded as the first African American head coaches to make it to the Super Bowl. Coach Dungy will also be remembered as the first African American head coach to win the Super Bowl. People are bombarded with numerous examples that racism is “dead.” hooks contends that the belief that racism no longer exists is an attempt to “mask reality” and to further silence critical dialogues on cultural racism...

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