My Dual Identity

In most of the movies based on superheroes, part of the entertainment is the superhero trying to live his separate lives -- no, I did not forget to type 'his/her' for political correctness...the last girl superhero movie I heard of (important note: I did not see it) was 'Catwoman,' and good luck building any argument that you want to win around that movie. He has a dual identity: Trying to fit in with the normal world doing a normal job, while also trying to do some good using his powers AND keeping it all a secret on top of it. Sound stressful?

I've got a little dual identity of myself going on. I'm half-white, half-Japanese; a hapa. Except in my case, unlike those pansy superheroes that get stressed out so easily, I use it to my advantage. It's all in my choice of words when identifying myself, and it boils down to using in-group ('our,' 'we,' 'my own,' etc) or out-group ('their,' 'you,' 'those people' etc) words.

Huh??

My explanations suck, I know. Let me give some examples to illustrate.

Last week some friends and I went to an open mic poetry reading in downtown DC. It was fairly entertaining, but racially charged at times-- the audience/poets were probably 80-90% black, and some of them had unkind things to say about oppression and thievery taking place at the hands of white people. I can't speak for my six white friends sitting at the table with me, but the white half of me started to slouch in my booth seat. If anyone had asked at that time, I would have identified myself with "my people" (the Asians) and if anyone mentioned white people I would have said "...I know, the nerve of those people..."

The flip side to that is, if I'm watching TV and a Japanese game show like "Most Extreme Elimination Challenge" or "Human Tetris" comes on, I always say something like "They are ridiculous! What are those people thinking?!"

Thus I am able to detach myself from my Asian connections and conveniently become white-- at least until whiteness does something to embarrass me or make me uncomfortable. Which it inevitably does. It's a relentless, volatile cycle, and requires quick adaptation on my part.

The list goes on: "What is wrong with you white people? We Asians would never do that" "Oh man, those Asians and their picture-taking. I'm glad we don't embarrass ourselves like that." So on and so forth.

People have called me out on this before. Is it spineless? I don't like to look at it that way. I prefer to call myself a "racial chameleon" who is practicing "racial opportunism" and "selective self-identification."