Panelists: from left to right: Manish Mishra, Leslie Takahashi Morris, Rev. Bill Sinkford and Prof. Frank Wu. (Not shown: Rev. José Ballester)

General Assembly 2003
Thinking More Expansively About Racial Diversity
Sunday, July 6, 2003
Manish K. Mishra

The Boston General Assembly was the best GA I've ever attended, and part of the reason for this was the in-depth, honest, and meaningful dialogue on racial diversity. I'd like to share some important snap-shots of this from a panel on which I participated.

I served on a panel, along side Bill Sinkford and other prominent UUs of color, where we were asked to address racial diversity in the UU movement beyond the already clearly defined discourse between the white and African-American communities. Bill talked about how, as our first African-American President, he at times struggles with other people's projections onto him of what it means to be African-American. Frequently "white guilt" over slavery and segregation characterizes the projections that African Americans must deal with and address.

I responded to Bill's comments by further elaborating that Asian-American UUs face similar but different projections. We Asian UUs have to deal with the projection of "permanent otherness." Even if we were born and raised in the United States we continue to be viewed as "other," as somehow permanently foreign. This reality comes to life most readily in the oft asked question, "Where are you from?" Professor Frank Wu, from Howard University, who also served on this panel, noted that his answer of "Cleveland," frequently doesn't satisfy people. His response is followed up by the question of, "No, where are you really from?" I similarly had to deal with such attitudes while I was in the U.S. Foreign Service -- white American colleagues at times questioned my loyalty to our country and questioned how truly American I was, despite the fact that I was born and raised here. We Asians struggle with the projection that we don't really belong, that we are permanently and immutably from some other culture, some other world, and therefore, to varying degrees, also open to suspicion and doubt.

The second projection Asians have to contend with is the exact opposite of the first in terms of its mood and tenor: we are foreign, but we're COOL because we're foreign. Asians are exoticized: we are from the lands of interesting and spicy curries, lands that spawned Hinduism and Buddhism, religions that lend to UU'ism a deep sense of connection to the natural world and offer us the spiritual practices of meditation and mindfulness. The "other" is idealized with an eye towards appropriation, and we Asian UUs become the symbol for all that is good about the East. The first projection is harmful in its negative otherizing; this second projection is harmful in its positive otherizing: its idealization at the expense of a more wholistic and realistic understanding, and the desire for ownership represented by such idealization.

These are some of the projections that Asian UUs face, and we had good, initial discussions around all this at GA.

I'd like to share one final thought from this panel. As the discussion closed, one audience member asked Bill Sinkford what our congregations could and should be doing in order to be more racially diverse. Bill responded that we should not reach out to minorities simply as a way of increasing the number of non-white faces in our congregations. Such numbers-based outreach is rooted in selfishness, a desire to make ourselves feel better about diversity. True outreach to racial minorities, he offered, needs to be grounded in a spiritual understanding of what we UUs have to offer people from other cultures and races. Our outreach should be rooted in the "good news" that we have to offer, not in a desire to feel less guilty about the whiteness of our congregations.

I found Bill's words both inspiring and true.

As we look towards our own work at creating more diverse and inclusive congregations, I'd invite you to be aware of your own projected hopes and assumptions when you enter into dialogue with those who are different. Next, as Bill urged, I'd invite you to think about what it is that we can spiritually offer those from a different culture or race. What might be our pitch, or our stump speech? How would we explain and characterize our unique "good news?" Questions worth pondering as we look forward to our new church year.

Thank you.