Me, the Marauding Easter Bunny

As the saga of me trying to negotiate the strange territory of my daughter's school continues, the latest development is this: a friend smartly noticed that the principal had indicated in an email that she planned to speak to my daughter and given that her last email had basically honed in on the question of my daughter's honesty, my friend thought it would be wise to make sure that Benin had a parent present if the Principal decided to talk with her so that the incident could not be reduced to "you're a girl who told a lie and you should learn not to do that." So I sent a brief note saying that under no circumstances was the principal to speak to my child without a parent present. She responded by saying she did not understand the tone or the content of my note. One is tempted to say, "What part of you may not speak to my child without me present" do you not understand?

I think at this point I could safely be described as "hopping mad," and with Easter approaching, that might be a seasonally appropriate image. Only this easter bunny is on the warpath, so to speak, and I use that term rather purposefully because not only am I so mad I could spit, but I'm mad about being treated like bringing up issues of race and diversity is pretty much like speaking gibberish. So this Easter Bunny is not above thinking that a scorched earth approach might be the way to go.

One reason I'm so mad is that I seem to have turned into the Asian version of an uppity nigger. I don't know if there is a term for that, but whatever it is, I'm it. The other reason I'm mad is that being on a treadmill of denial is debilitating. "What racism?" It's like a big elephant in the room, and to add to it, the elephant has taken an enormous shit, and the nice manners required in our society breed a conspiracy of blindness that claims that those people who see the elephant are in fact the ones who have a problem.

The truth is, most racism is wonderfully well-mannered and polite -- its even loving. This is something that my father and his friend Jeff Chan noted in an essay they wrote way back in 1973. That essay was called "Racist Love" and I have to say that in the main, the essay still reads as totally fresh. Which is scary. They talk about how the good minorities (like Asians) are the ones that are useful for white supremacy, and the bad minorities are the ones who challenge white supremacy. Now, since in nice schools, the bargain is that we all agree that white supremacy is to be called -- nothing at all (it's the invisible elephant) -- saying something like "I see an elephant," or "I think I smell elephant shit" is cause for alarm because it upsets the status quo. One response is misdirection -- turn it into another issue, preferably in which the elephant-sighter or elephant shit smeller becomes the problem: someone who needs to be put in their place, shut up or shut out. Another response is honest confusion. Get used to NOT seen elephants for long enough and you really do lose the ability to see them. When I'm feeling compassionate, and not like a marauding easter bunny, I might be inclined to view this as a disability that needs to be dealt with like any other.

So here I am, a hopping mad marauding uppity chink Easter Bunny, ready to hit the warpath just like General Sherman on his march to Atlanta.

What could be more American than that?