"Reverse Racism at Princeton" or "White People Can't Read This"

Catherine A Traywick
March 19, 2009

Perhaps more puzzling
than Balsam's initial reaction to the seemingly benign message is the
clear subtext of Wang's account: the shared perception of unfairness
underlying the students' certainty that the English version of such a
message would generate a lot more (unjustifiable) outrage. The
implication, of course, is that ethnic minorities enjoy a certain
amount of joke-privilege that not only excludes white people, but is
often exercised at their expense. After all, if Miley Cyrus is shunned for referencing a particular race while innocently "goofing around," why should anyone be able to reference any race in any way ever?

While
I often have the pleasure of hearing white folks around me decry
"reverse racism" when confronted with their own prejudices, this case
is particularly close to heart because it so clearly illustrates a
major flaw of the "reverse racism" myth: That it fails to take into
account the inherently asymmetrical connotations of different
prejudicial acts.

The students were concerned that a message written in Chinese which said "White
people can't see this / White people can't read this / White
people can't understand this" would not be taken as seriously as a
similar message written in English. To be clear, a similar message in
English would be "Chinese people can't see this / Chinese people can't
read this / Chinese people can't understand this." Obviously these two
"similar" statements, similarly written on a chalkboard at Princeton,
have disparate implications.

The
first -- written in Chinese in a place where Chinese is not widely
visibly recognized, read, or understood by whites -- could very well be
a statement of fact. Would I expect cleverer graffiti from Princeton
students? Yes. Does that mean it's racist? No. On the other hand, the
second message -- written in English in a place where English is widely visibly recognized, read, and understood by Chinese -- implies that Chinese students at Princeton don't know English. See the difference, there?

Now,
I know the second message is only hypothetical but -- well, actually,
wait a second... doesn't it kind of remind you of that time when the
Princetonian published a joke article lampooning a particular Asian American student who had been denied admission? It went something like this: 

“Hi Princeton! Remember me? I so good at math and science. Perfect 2400
SAT score. Ring Bells? Just in case, let me
refresh your memories. I the super smart Asian. Princeton the super
dumb college, not accept me.”

That's almost... straightforwardly racist. Nevertheless, the Princetonian's Managing Board justified the article, saying:

“Using hyperbole and an unbelievable string of stereotypes, we hoped to
lampoon racism by showing it at its most outrageous... We embraced racist language in order to strangle it."

Kind
of makes the whole Bloomberg Hall chalkboard incident seem rather
trivial, doesn't it? Perhaps those leading the investigation which it
sparked will come to think so too.

On a side note: They
"embraced racist language in order to strangle it?" Really? Don't these
kids go to Princeton, for crying out loud??

Categories: 
Race
Contributor: 

Catherine A Traywick

Managing Editor

Catherine is the managing editor at Hyphen. Her work has appeared in TIME, the Bay Citizen, Ms. magazine, he Huffington Post, as well as broadcasted on CBS radio. She is a master's student at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.

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Comments

Comments

SergeyNikolaev wrote on Thu, 07/30/2009 - 12:45am
Good to see you’re doing some research to fill in the ???
52 Faces wrote on Fri, 05/15/2009 - 12:19am
Yeah, the "reverse racism" myth is definitely my favorite form of subtle racism.Lxy - word.It's as condescending as boys crashing Take Your Daughter to Work Day - oh wait, that did happen.The "reverse racism" cry is possibly the clearest demonstration of the insularity of the white perspective. It says, "What? I'm not the center of attention? I'm not the purveyor of the joke this time? Unacceptable!"Signing off before I go from annoyed to rageful over this constant, ridiculous attempt to legitimize the "reverse racism" myth.
VitalikGromovss wrote on Sat, 08/08/2009 - 4:36am
Hi, good post. I have been woondering about this issue,so thanks for posting. I’ll definitely be coming back to your site.
Tim Wise's Article wrote on Thu, 03/19/2009 - 8:47am
Related read: A Look at the Myth of Reverse Racism by Tim Wise
dex digi wrote on Fri, 03/20/2009 - 5:51pm
"He was surprised to learn that the writing translated to..."
= homeboy, in fact, couldn't read it.
Tim wrote on Tue, 05/19/2009 - 3:19pm
I went to a Meeting sponsored by the Diversity Council at my Corporation. The guy who runs it is from China. And in an audience filled with many white people, blacks, Asians, and Hispanics he made very two off-color jokes about Koreans and Hindus and everyone shared a good laugh. If I said that, as a white guy, the room would be filled with righteous indignation. You can bank on it. The utter hypocrisy is so thick.
Lxy wrote on Sun, 03/22/2009 - 11:42am
Reverse racism is reverse White logic.It's a cynical political cover that Whites are manipulating to *reassert* White majority power and dominance.The most obvious example of this political agenda is found in the anti-Affirmative Action campaigns in which complaints about "reverse racism" are used to justify the de facto denial of Black, Latino, and other minority students access to college.In the Princeton case above and the braoder "reverse racism" campaigns, these issues of White institutional power and dominance are always swept under the rug.
Richard wrote on Mon, 06/01/2009 - 6:29am
"The students were concerned that a message written in Chinese which said "White people can't see this / White people can't read this / White people can't understand this" would not be taken as seriously as a similar message written in English. To be clear, a similar message in English would be "Chinese people can't see this / Chinese people can't read this / Chinese people can't understand this." Obviously these two "similar" statements, similarly written on a chalkboard at Princeton, have disparate implications.The first -- written in Chinese in a place where Chinese is not widely visibly recognized, read, or understood by whites -- could very well be a statement of fact. Would I expect cleverer graffiti from Princeton students? Yes. Does that mean it's racist? No. On the other hand, the second message -- written in English in a place where English is widely visibly recognized, read, and understood by Chinese -- implies that Chinese students at Princeton don't know English. See the difference, there? "The fact that most people can't read it does not excuse this.There are certainly some east-asian studies students at Princeton who would feel offended by this. Speaking as a causcasian with a pretty fluent written and oral manarin, I am still annoyed by the facebook group '白人看不懂 - We're Chinese Envy Us'(white people can't read this - we're chinese envy us'.)How about 'Asians can't read this - We're americans, envy us'? the fact is that chinese nationals, and regrettably some chinese americans/europeans (now referred to as 'overseas chinese' by the PRC) see china and the chinese language as purely han chinese and not for blacks/whites etc. This will not change for tens, if not hundreds of years.good luck to them! let's hope they don't pull a 1939 on us.there's my rant over..