It led me to a reflection, doubtless fueled by my racist White Male Privilege, on how many Americans of the Black persuasion both demand to be treated like everybody else (Whites) while at the same time insisting on, intensifying, inventing and ramping up all the possible cultural markers of Otherness that they can. The similarity to the behavior of adolescents vis a vis their parents is too obvious not to mention, making too many Blacks the problem children of the Republic.
Reminds me of a dictum a Black classmate once pronounced for the conducting of relationships between Whites and Blacks: If you want to be my friend, forget that I am Black. And never forget that I am Black. Who wouldn't sign up for a win-lose walking-on-eggshells game like that?
By contrast, the enormously oversuccessful Asian immigrant population seems to specialize in being The Archetype of the Middle Class: ordinary first names, dressed by LL Bean and Barneys, and speaking perfectly normal Standard American English. It's obvious when you meet someone of Asian descent that they are as they appear, but what you don't get --outside a small circle of Left-infected victim-activist types like Margaret Cho-- is a constant message of challenge. Aside from the physical racial marker, they look and sound like ordinary (White) Americans.
Could this be a part of their success?
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