From Majority to Minority

From childhood to adolescence, I never peered through the spectacles of a minority—an African American, Native American, or Hispanic. It never really occurred to me to do so. After all, I wasn’t one. I’m a caucasian, American male: a majority member of the most powerful nation on Earth. Rarely did heads turn my way with penetrating, curious stares. Influential people that I never met instinctively trusted my clean-cut appearance and perfectly manicured, youthful face, which matched well my glistening smile and sparkling blue eyes.

In reality, I peered condescendingly through the spectacles in the opposite direction. I was white; they were black (or whatever their race they happened to be). To my defense, however, it was not intentional. Hideous and sinful, yes. Intentional, no. Sadly, it was the air I breathed. For my boyhood home was the heart of the Rural South where, in the late 70’s and early 80’s, the civil rights movement was fresher than spring roses. Desegregation was not something my adult mentors read from classroom textbooks; they lived it.

So when I saw on the playground black kids behaving “oddly”—not in immoral ways; just ways different from my own—I stared with curiosity. The same was true for Brian, the only Asian American in my school from kindergarten to graduation. Japan was his geographical ancestry, the country I’d heard about through the war stories of senior citizens, and home of the only people to whom I ever heard someone attach the pejorative appellative “Jap.”

Brian, naturally, got that name because my friends (both white and black) liked this moniker. So, it caught on; not (usually) to his face, of course. But only in casual conversations at the water fountain or in the cafeteria, (usually) well beyond his earshot. In class, I sometimes stared at Brian’s slanted eyes and yellowish skin. The way he walked was different. At school outings, I noticed that his mother looked similar: Dark hair, golden skin, and eyes of a different mold.

But she, Brian’s mom… now she, was really different. Asian of Asians! Brian was a second-generation Japanese-American. His mom (whose name long ago slipped through the fingers of my memory), conversely, was true blue. Straight from the country itself. She not only had the looks but also the accent. To my ignorantly monolingual mind, her English was laughable. High-pitched, awkward phrases slightly skewed from my norm. And the body language – now that struck strangely my untraveled eyes. Nothing grotesquely out of sorts, but just ever-so-slight differences that only locals could detect — an untimely wave of the hand or a slight invasion of culturally defined personal space.

Brian and his mom never came to my home. Steve and Charlie, however, did. Two of my older brother’s friends from down the dirt road opposite my home, Steve and Charlie were black. We waited for the school bus together, went fishing, and played the Atari. Looking back into the cultural context of the time, my family deserves kudos for welcoming them. But I peered through my spectacles at them differently. I tried not to. Charlie made me laugh, and Steve, in my mind, was a high school football-playing deity. But their ways were different; not like mine. It was their accent, looks, and even their fragrance. A few times I acted like I wasn’t staring when, in reality, I was. And they knew it.

The proverbial shoe recently switched feet. Two years ago I moved to China to be a professor at a local university. In a population of one billion people only a handful are white – and I’m one of them. I, who was once the majority, am now part and parcel of the minority. The stares now come from another direction: Not from me, but toward me! Subtle laughter arises when I, in infant fashion, bobble my chopsticks. Frequently, when my milk or water is served hot instead of cold, I encounter contorted faces of confusion for my more frigid liquid preferences. Sincere attempts to tell the cab driver my intended destination are sometimes met with bewilderment. People often stare at me. And I know it.

Recently, my place in Chinese society as a minority really hit home. Upon peeking over the edge of my book while relaxingly reading in a local park, I noticed a family of three staring a hole through me. I felt, as I often do, like a zoo animal that, although doing nothing out of the ordinary relative to itself, attracts interested onlookers. My staring audience failed to notice that I, in turn, had noticed them. So I clandestinely continued my observation of their observation. What were they thinking? Did my blue eyes strike them as odd? Perhaps the way I sat interested them? Did they catch of down-wind whiff of my strange fragrance? Maybe it was the weird paleness of my skin distinguished sharply in the bright sunlight? Were they just simply interested, or were they upset, perhaps warning their children about the risks of their country selling out to foreigners? I’ll never know. Perhaps Brian, Steve, and Charlie will never know.

From majority to minority; this now fittingly describes me. At first, I didn’t like it. And, truth be told, I still struggle with it on occasion. But I’m gradually accepting it and am even blessed by it.

More importantly, God is teaching me some things, especially how the fruit of my tree should sprout only from the harvest of Galatians 5:22–23. Love is now not as easy as it once was. Most of my stateside neighbors (at least those that I chose to hang around with) thought and behaved like me. Not now! Routine Chinese behaviors such as forcing one’s way to the front of the line or spitting on the sidewalk at a bus stop persistently tempt me to mental judgment; my flesh lures me into dark alleys of superior thoughts: I’m better than that. How uncouth and barbaric. God is teaching me to be careful not to hate the very people I’m called to love.

He’s also teaching me that I don’t have the right to pluck the fruit of impatience from my tree as if I deserve to do so. Mental justification for it surfaces quickly, especially on a crowded Asian subway. This is deception, of course. Impatience is never my right. That was surrendered at his cross, never again to be selfishly savored.

Kindness, gentleness, and self-control are, likewise, fruits that frequently fall too far from my tree. Actually, to be honest, I choose to throw them far from my tree. But, he’s patiently teaching me. By grace, I meekly smile when treated as the minority that I am. I’m simply trying (albeit imperfectly) to decrease while he increases.

Beyond fruit pruning, he’s also teaching me to relish this foretaste of glory divine. For, just subsequent to the final trumpet, Jesus’ bride, in all her wondrous diversity—from the South China Sea to the American Great Lakes; from Beijing to New York—will gather before his throne where no human majority will peer through condescending spectacles at a minority. Because we will all stand eye-to-eye, equally guilty but equally forgiven (and, I must add, equally triumphant), focusing not on the peculiarities of those next to us but on the audacious beauty of the One before us! There will be only one Majority—a Majority of One. A Majority who rightly deserves that title and the only One who adequately and competently knows how to use it!

Dr. Campbell is a Visiting Lecturer at a prominent university in China.

* Photo courtesy of GlobalCitizen01 (flickr.com Creative Commons)