Enough Is Enough
이제 그만~ 인종차별 이제 헤어질 시간이에요!
33. Enough Is Enough: Time to Part Ways with Racism
In the hills of the Philadelphia suburb of Glenside there stands a stately stone building where a major local landowner once resided. Today, that building is a dormitory for the Won Institute of Graduate Studies.
Every morning while I was staying there, we would sweep up our designated areas after our early morning seated meditation, while one person would make breakfast in the kitchen.
On one particular day, it was the director’s turn to cook. As the dining room filled up with the smell of fresh-cooked waffles and brewing coffee, the pre-ministers and ministers would arrive from their cleaning duties, take their portions, sit down, offer a prayer of thanks, and pick up their knives and forks.
Picking up the maple syrup from the table and pouring it over the toasty waffles, I took a bite. It was crisp on the outside, moist and soft on the inside. The sweetness of the syrup perfectly complimented the flavor.
But one of the practitioners Dathane, who was Black, had a sour expression on his face. He seemed very upset about the syrup, which was in a bottle shaped like a middle-aged Black maid. He explained the reason for his anger, and from then on, Aunt Jemima-brand maple syrup—with its historical roots in slavery and racism—was never again used on our table.
In America, Asians are minoritized and we will sometimes avoid eating kimchi or garlic at breakfast for fear that Americans will take offense. But we can also be quite unaware of the pain and suffering of Black people as another minoritized group in the US. I felt very bad about the lapse of thoughtfulness. But looking back, I see that the instance with the maple syrup was not simply a one-off.
One time, I was explaining about how the first ancestor of the Baek clan had arrived in the Silla Kingdom from Tang-era China 1,200 years ago, and how the genealogy of all the family relations were recorded.
Dathane, the pre-minister, frowned, explaining that it was difficult to trace the roots of Black Americans because their ancestors had been brought as slaves from Africa and bought and sold like livestock.
When a white professor talked in class about how the US was an “advanced country,” a Black classmate Lennell became livid and stormed out of the classroom, decrying severe discrimination.
I felt embarrassed: I had merely nodded along with the professor, thinking only of the advanced technology and educational system in the US while neglecting to consider the shadows that lurk in American society.
On my way to take the written test for my driver’s license, I had been struck by the way the asphalt road seemed cleaner and newer the farther I traveled from the white neighborhood and the closer I approached the Black neighborhood.
Even after it was explained to me that the local governments in the Black neighborhoods collected fewer taxes and had less money in their budget—which meant they could not afford to salt the roads when it snowed in the winter—I remained unmoved by their poverty because of the condition of the roads right in front of me.
As I got out in front of the local branch of the Department of Motor Vehicles to submit my test documents, I felt somehow unsettled by the fact that everyone except me and my companion was Black.
Even though nobody paid the two of us any mind, I viewed them with a jaundiced eye, fearing that we might be harassed the way I’d heard about from rumors or seen in movies.
One night when I was walking along, a tall young Black man had appeared from the darkness. I’d been startled and hurried out of the way, fearful that something might “happen.” And if I went to the park and saw a group of young Black people, I would simply turn around.
Koreans don’t all eat dog meat, nor are we all skinflints who care only about money. Likewise, I know that not all Black people are criminals. But the combination of the fear that comes from ignorance, apathy, and unfamiliarity toward Black society and the negative information that comes from the media merely adds to the preconceptions. Discrimination had taken root in me as a result, and I was unable to conceal it.
When grime is built up in layers within our mind, it is not something that can be washed away all at once. Indeed, it may not be possible to clear it all away. But we can start by eliminating language, symbols, and items that are imbued with racist ideas from our daily lives and committing ourselves firmly to noticing when prejudices arise, correcting them and fixing our attitude.
If we do so for a long time with strong commitment, I am optimistic that all people may become more mature, leaving behind the bloodstained path of hatred and discrimination toward one another that continues to prescribe different values to our different skin colors.
It is a course we cannot abandon if we are to follow the path of human beings.
As a Noble Man, to go according to the Way and abandon it half way—this I certainly cannot do.
—The Doctrine of the Mean, Chapter 11
