Yellow Race in America: Beyond Black and White Frank Wu, Professor of Law Book TV, 2-11-02 2:08:10 - 3:05:00

When you talk about Black and White, you leave out millions of people--yellow, brown, etc. Sometimes we talk about villains and victims and sometimes we have a responsibility. Sometimes we are all to blame and sometimes none of us are to blame.

What does yellow mean? It comes from a pejorative term. But he is going to claim it for himself. Race is an inadequate concept. We may have grown past the formal tables of race.

Where are you from? Where are you really from? As an instructive question, when strangers meet, where are you from implies that I am really not an American. When they say you speak English really well, they have attached a stereotype to me.

They don't like who I am. It was not what I said that they disagreed with. He received one email that said "If you don't like it here, why don't you got back to where you came from."

There are 10,000,000 Asian Americans. What would you classify as an Asian American? It is a coalition identity--Thai, Japanese, Chinese, etc. Our forefathers hated each other, but here we have a common cause.

He has been called a chink, gook, jap, etc. He has been treated as a perpetual foreigner. He was the first Asian American to teach at Howard University. He is tremendously privileged to teach at Howard. Yellow Race in America isn't about Asian Americans. It is about race. He has learned so much at Howard. He has to stand up when it is"driving while Black." His classrooms are full of Blacks. He has chosen to work in civil rights. Howard is incredibly diverse. It has first generation Howard students and fourth generation Howard students. Howard is safe for African Americans. If a Black is ignored at a White University, he wonders if it is because he is Black. But at Howard they know they are not ignored because of race. Students at Howard share a common experience, driving while Black.

Wu is on the Board of Gallaudet College. It has introduced him to a whole new culture. His goal is to work on these causes and he is learning as way to prepare for his work. Wu is coauthor of Race, Rights, and Reparations: The Japanese American Internment.

Asian Americans need to stand up for themselves. When Asian Americans smile and take it, they are invisible and others don't realize the problem.

It is all too easy to rationalize our stereotypes. When you see a Black man at night, think of what it is to be that Black man and have people avoid you. Even when stereotypes seem reasonable we must say "no" to them.

What does it mean when someone says "Jap" bike? When Wu stands next to an Asian looking person, Whites assume they are related. These issues of diversity take constant effort. We must continue to work on it. It is hard to do. Wu is Chairman of the D. C. Human Rights Commission.