One World, One Race

The Black Lives Matter movement sweeping across the globe reminds us of today’s globalised environment, of the multi-racial/ethnic community we live in. 

It reminds me of my walks in the dark – most often I arrived at a new destination at night – across the fading Chinatown in Havana, in Panama City, and those still buzzing Chinatowns in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington. Being a Chinese alone in a place far from home, it’s intriguing to behold the familiar pai fong (the Chinese style decoration arch that marks the beginning of every Chinatown overseas) and so many red motifs, to see fellow Chinese people and smell Chinese food and all those odours. Once in a while, I could even pause to watch a Chinese musician playing the erhu right by a shop front. The Chinese music flew in American air, feeling so good, nostalgically charming. 

I remember how a Cuban told me that he’s a mulato of the 4th generation of a family of Chinese origin, when we chatted a little while in Habana Vieja (the old part of Havana) upon my asking directions. He even tried speaking with me in the Hakka dialect…I could see in his eyes the kind of longing for a remote connection. 

For millennia, foreigners came to live in China and Chinese went abroad in the hope of seeking a better life. 

The same for other peoples. Whites, blacks, Asians, indigenous Indians, Maoris, Amazonians… mingled with one another, in the course of history, willingly or reluctantly, for bad or for good, with bloodshed, tragedies happening and hence suffering, while also forging interchanges that shaped history and how the world is today. No one people could stay apart. 

We may all know the bloody black African slave trade from Africa to America and the slaughtering of indigenous Indians throughout America in history. Yet not many in Macau know that the city was once an African slave trade hub between the 16th and probably the 19th century. And from 1848 to about the early 1870s, Macau was the infamous transit port of the trade of coolies (slave labourers) from southern China to North and South America. 

History is a mirror and we have to look at it to trace back the roots and find answers. 

It’s disheartening to see that blacks and minorities are still being systematically mistreated or even abused and killed in some countries. George Floyd is but a high-profile name on the long list. Some others whose survival rights are threatened do not even get any attention, like those members of indigenous tribes dying in the Amazon rainforest or elsewhere. 

It’s disgusting to see some people spread political infodemic and manipulate hate to create racial/ethnic tension. Take for example, they fanned and smeared the situation of Africans in Guangzhou stemming from anti-virus measures. And in Zambia, three Chinese nationals were brutally murdered and dismembered, which could be attributed to some politicians’ brainwash using the racial card. 

Racial/ethnic interactions are even more acute in today’s world, everywhere. 

Go back to overseas Chinese communities: they are most of all modest ethnic groups who work hard and who are introverted, viewed by locals as ‘good at business and making money, being disconnected from the other groups and making little contribution to public benefits’, but they are ‘good, soft people’ nevertheless – These said characters could be the reason why bad guys like to rob Chinese stores, not Indian, Arab, black, or white ones. Chinese business owners usually would not resist and call the police unless they really had to. My foreign friends used to say, ‘Xu, you are not Chinese”, just because being open, communicative, enjoying mingling with people of all backgrounds I did not meet the Chinese stereotype as mentioned above.   

I remember that moment: dressed in full gear including wearing a heavy, fancy feather headdress I once joined a multi-racial Carnival parade on French Saint Martin, swinging, dancing like they did. “Chinoise (Chinese)! Chinoise (Chinese)!” I heard both black and white audience members exclaim. Well, just that they never saw a Chinese dancing in the fun-filled parade.    

So the way out, on an individual level, to break the ice, to maintain good rapport is to go one step forward, to communicate and embrace each other, embrace each other’s ideology, culture, way of living and more;

To interact more and more deeply with one another. 

To believe the Earth is shared by all; Humanity is One Race.   

To exert our strength and pass the message to those in power:

Systematic reform is needed to root out any kind of inequality – racial, ethnic, gender, class – and inequality between humans in general.