I’m a minority in the United States but in Korea I’m a majority. Although I’m a minority I’m one of the “good” minorities here, unlike some of my other minority friends; but I remember a time when I wasn’t a “good” minority. People mistook South Koreans for North Koreans all the time, and that was IF they knew what Korea even was.
But even at that time I wasn’t a “bad” minority, I need to recognize my privilege. I never had to worry about the police randomly stopping my parents’ car, had a shop owner give me the side eye when I’m just looking, or felt like I didn’t belong in a neighborhood for better or for worse.
There is no one thing that defines our humanhood. We’re a composite of many different elements bound together into this experience called now. For the purposes of this writing, this means that even though we may be a majority in one aspect we can be a minority in another.
So many of society’s progress over time has been marked by great moments of equality. Not just talking about the United States; throughout history there have been liberation of people, acceptance of minorities as proper citizens, voting rights for all, education for all, healthcare for all, and such. Because of such efforts our world is currently the best state it’s been in, taking into account the entire human history of tens of thousands of years.
But as your gut reaction wants to say, this doesn’t mean that things are perfect.
As we go about doing work that benefits society, makes things more equitable it’s important to keep sustainability in mind. When we get burnt out by the lack of change in the world, the maximum effort we can apply is like… Some years. But when we try to keep going, the status quo seems so cruelly static. The middle way we’re treading is between:
- Caring so much and being so passionate, but angry and stressed all the time
- Not trying at all because things feel pointless, but dissatisfied with status quo
This CAN be so difficult because the middle way, from the minority perspective, is partly giving in to the oppressive perspective. The middle way is also, from the majority perspective, partly giving in to the invading minority’s perspective. I’m prefacing with this now because I’m trying to give you the most important point first.
As long as that perspective stands, there is no peaceful resolution; when there is no peaceful resolution, we’re headed towards the next iteration of the inevitable repeating fight.
Suppose the majority violently stomps down on the minorities. Unless there is total annihilation, there is bound to be remaining minorities with even more resistance towards the majority. Even in the case of total annihilation, violent killings throughout history have always resulted in some of the majorities changing their position because they see the inhumane act of suppressing another human being firsthand and come to a reckoning.
If the minority starts a great revolt and executes the majority, this also results in spite in the remaining majority members and now that they are minorities they will want to revolt against thew new majority. Read more about the Rohingya situation in Myanmar that focuses on the colonial roots of the problem and you will understand how deadly the majority-minority struggle can be, if it does not resolve in peace.
Both parties can insist on total victory, but my hope is that you will understand in the grand scheme of things that insistence is nothing but a see-sawing of power that results in bloodshed.
Today I’m speaking from the perspective of a minority. What do I need to keep in mind as a minority, if I want to go the peaceful middle way? I have to start out by understanding that I also am a majority in some other way in life.
What about being a majority is so important to recognize? The goal is to understand just how unconscious privilege is, and how discrimination / oppression can happen regardless of your best intentions. Behavior is driven by belief systems, and belief systems are responsible for majority/minority dynamics.
You think about things that challenge your mind, things to do, new information and upcoming information. How much of your day do you spend thinking about the belief systems that you already have as a part of your identity? Not very much, because those things are already set in stone. If you have to think about all of those all the time, your brain won’t be able to do much.
When I’m in Korea, I’m surprised by white people in certain parts of the country. Why? Because I’m unconsciously thinking that this is a land for Koreans. When I’m in California, it feels natural to be within white communities. But when I go to upstate New York, suddenly I feel out of place as a Korean. But nothing fundamentally changed but the location, and there’s nothing about the location itself that makes me think differently.
What to notice as I go to these different places is, I’m always thinking of the world from my perspective. It’s all about me, me, me. This isn’t inherently problematic, but what happens when you have multiple parties that constantly think me, me, me?
In order to advocate for minorities like me, it greatly benefits me to put myself in the shoes of the majority first to see what part of me they would find alarming, new, or weirdly different. Doenjang, the Korean bean paste, looks like poop. But I eat it fine, so I want to insist that my coworker take a spoon full of doenjang soup.
Of course that won’t always go well, but blaming the other party is silly because I remember a time when I couldn’t try frogs at the Chinese restaurant when my colleague suggested it to me. The colleague who ate frog legs couldn’t eat another colleague’s suggestion of Balut, or fertilized egg embryos.
From MY pov, you eating doenjang should be natural and you need to appreciate it like me. But that pov is bogus when your pov insists that I need to eat frog legs.
Many of the ways of life of the minority are repulsive and yucky to the majority. It’s not because the ways are actually repulsive and yucky; that is just how humans react to new influences that feel so foreign compared to the influences they’re used to.
I can demand for change, but the majority does not owe it to me. I don’t owe it to my colleague to eat frogs. If I really, really, really can’t stand the discrimination then I always have the option of going back to where I’m the majority. Does this scream, “go back to your own country”? Yes, it does — but not every return to the motherland is done with wistful tears, and just because the majority is gravely upset with me to the point of telling me to go back to where I’m from doesn’t always mean I’m asking for something so ridiculous. This is the middle way.
We have more power of choice than we give ourselves, we can always change our situation. But unfortunately there will be no way to be completely free from the woes of being a minority, because majority/minority comes as a side effect of any quality’s existence.
With this dharma, you see things from a more lenient perspective and therefore do not get stressed. You can sense how foreign your invitations for equality can feel to the other party. Help them see the perspective they are not seeing. Because right now, I’m not seeing the merit of eating frogs and I’m sure if I know, I can think differently.
I can’t blame my nephew for pooping in his diaper, because he doesn’t even know how to use a training potty. When he knows and still goes, that’s a different conversation; but even then, there is something he still doesn’t know about the wonderful joys of pooping outside of your pants.
P.S. This may lead you to think, “what about the enslaved people of America who don’t have a home country as they knew it? What about the indigenous people in our continental U.S. and Hawaii whose land was forcibly taken?”. Yes, they do not have anywhere to go back to; if you can truly see this matter from their perspective, it is time to be a proponent for their causes.