A wide-ranging discussion, plus some music by Chyi Yu
UPDATED! I’ve always been moved by these scenes from an early Wayne Wang film called Dim Sum: A Little Bit of Heart — not least for the musical score, which combines the Chinese zheng with the Western saxophone in a beautiful example of musical freedom. (Other Chinese and Western instruments are also used.)
America is truly a land of freedom and opportunity — a great melting pot where people have the potential to build happy lives, regardless of their race, religion, or country of origin. America is also a land of hatred, bigotry, violence, and discrimination against minorities. Both things are true, but I continue to believe that it is the former, eminently positive view of America which is the most significant and enduring one.
Our founding fathers were bound to some extent by the society into which they were born, in which they moved, and by the customs of the day; yet they created a blueprint for America which was flexible enough to allow for change as change became both necessary and inevitable.
When a flower blooms, it does not bloom all at once. It may begin to blossom, but be turned back by a sudden cold snap, drought, or torrential rain. Yet, if it is not uprooted entirely, it weathers these vicissitudes, and in time reveals outwardly its inner beauty. Its full blossom represents the fruition of its inherent potential and cosmic purpose.
As nature is cyclical, so the soul of a nation is cyclical. I would be so bold as to say that the soul of America is slowly blossoming, and that the cycles through which it moves include both freedom and repression — an enlightened longing for harmony with all peoples, and an ignorant return to nativist expressions of violence.
I am deeply saddened by the increase in violence against Asian-Americans, punctuated by the Atlanta shooting spree which left six Asian-American women dead. Many people have written about this tragedy and outrage, including Jiayang Fan in The New Yorker:
A senseless massacre can be painfully clarifying about the state of a country. As the killing of George Floyd and countless other African-Americans have made clear, structural racism has become simultaneously mundane and pathological. The incendiary rhetoric of a racist former President combined with the desperation stoked by an unprecedented pandemic has underscored the precariousness of a minority’s provisional existence in the U.S. To live through this period as an Asian-American is to feel defenseless against a virus as well as a virulent strain of scapegoating. It is to feel trapped in an American tragedy while being denied the legitimacy of being an American.
Shortly after Donald Trump referred to COVID-19 as the “China virus” and the “kung flu,” I tweeted about the experience of being called “a Chinese bitch” outside my apartment while taking out the trash. These kinds of racialized incidents — of men mocking me while I spoke Chinese on the phone, of strangers making bets about my ethnicity on the subway — began occurring with such regularity that I no longer wanted to record them.
…
Misogyny and racism have never lived neatly in their separate categories; they ravage by mutually reinforcing a narrative of a dehumanized “other.”
Those who’ve read my posts about harassment of spiritual minorities would recognize a common theme here: that of the dehumanized other. One of the long-term solutions I recommend is cultural and spiritual literacy — something which does not seem to be taught in our schools, and cannot be assumed to emerge naturally from our dumbed-down populist culture. Yet, as America becomes an increasingly multicultural and multireligious society, cultural and spiritual literacy is the glue we need to build a harmonious society which fulfills America’s inherent potential, and its cosmic destiny. Cultural and spiritual literacy is both a building block toward a tolerant society, and an antidote to the scapegoating of minorities. Cultural and spiritual literacy means putting faces on people who are faceless, and discovering the humanity in people who have been dehumanized by bigots and hatemongers.
While Donald Trump’s frequent references to the “China virus” and the “kung flu” are problematic, they’re also symptomatic of his cultural and spiritual illiteracy, and the manner in which Trumpists pander to America’s dark side — the latter often emerging cyclically. COVID-19 is merely an excuse for nativism to rear its ugly head. Indeed, during the Trump rally on the morning of 1/6 which preceded the Capitol riots, Trump loyalist Amy Kremer said:
Hello deplorables! … We are not gonna back down, are we? Keep up the fight. Keep fighting for America — it’s worth saving. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to learn to speak Chinese, and I don’t want that White House to turn red.
To state the obvious: The technique of propaganda being employed here is to conflate a family of languages spoken by over a billion people around the world (including America’s staunch ally Taiwan, as well as roughly 3 million Americans) with the communist government of Mainland China. But the language is innocent, as are most of the people who speak it. It is spoken by artists and poets, mothers and daughters, and by those demonstrating on behalf of democratic reforms. Hitler spoke German, but so did Bach, Beethoven, and Goethe.
Rather hypocritically, red is a bad color for the White House, but a good color for Amy Kremer’s big red bus emblazoned with the slogan “March For Trump.”
But perhaps consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds…
As Jiayang Fan discussed, there’s a connection between racist statements made by Trumpists, and the targeting of Asian-Americans with harassment and violence. As an authoritarian leader, Trump essentially gave permission for people to openly vent their prejudices. Trump rallies became social venues for doing so.
The type of nativist cant spouted by Kremer is ginned up during periods of turmoil, sending the message that speaking a different language is un-American and characteristic of the Other whom we should hate and fear (and therefore persecute). As for the Chinese language, I suppose it is not beautiful when spoken by fishmongers, but quite beautiful when spoken by poets, or sung:
I would much rather hear Chinese sung by Chyi Yu (above) than hear English gabbled by barbarians. As a white American, I’ve discussed my own journey toward cultural literacy in these two posts (and elsewhere):
Chyi Yu, Voice of Innocence 1
Chyi Yu, Voice of Innocence 2
Chyi Yu was born and raised in Taiwan, and I believe currently resides in Beijing (in Mainland China), but travels widely. She studied in America, and holds a Master’s degree in cultural anthropology from UCLA. One of her early triumphs (in the late 1970s) was winning a high school folk-singing competition for her rendition of the Joan Baez song “Diamonds and Rust.” This is a later studio arrangement:
To indulge in an ancient Johnny Carsonism: Chyi Yu would sound good singing the phone book! Hearing her do “Diamonds and Rust” reminds me of a time in the mid-1980s when I was learning more about Chinese music in its varied forms, and made friends with some Chinese students at Columbia University who hosted the Sounds of China show on WKCR. I was talking with one girl about the burgeoning “campus folk” scene at National Taiwan University when much to my surprise, she grabbed a guitar and began singing “Diamonds and Rust.” It was a kind of aha moment when I realized that the search for freedom and authenticity which had characterized the American youth movement of the 1960s was just now being discovered (and embraced) in parts of Asia.
The “China Spring” movement of 1989 was another aha moment when I realized that American ideals of freedom inspired many young people in China. It also drove home the lesson that people are sometimes forced to live under repressive regimes which they find quite difficult to change; but if you met with the artists, musicians and intellectuals from that country, you would say they are good people. I wrote a couple of poems at the time, extolling the bravery and longing for freedom of those involved in the China Spring movement.
There is always the danger of replacing a negative stereotype with a positive one, and thus failing to see the reality in all its fine shades. There is no one image which can represent the varied history and qualities of any particular nation or people, but there is some value in combating hateful images with beautiful ones. In troubled times, this can help restore a sense of balance.
In my long-winded way, I’m making a plea which is a little different than some of the political rhetoric floating around: Make an effort to see the beauty in something or someone from a different culture, race, or religion. It will help you so much in your life to see that beauty, and it will help you become a good person who reflects the ideals of what America can be, should be, and ultimately will become!
As for nativism in America: “Well I’ll be damned, here comes your ghost again…” In periods of senseless violence, it’s easy to become discouraged and see only America’s dark side. In his 1968 autobiography Vibrations, composer, musician, and all-round good egg David Amram wrote about another act of senseless violence in terms that seem eerily familiar 50 years later:
On November 22, 1963, I was at Arnold Arnstein’s having a part of my opera copied. He was on the phone, instructing his small army of copyists about details for the five different scores he was able to remember in his head. Suddenly he turned white and hung up the phone.
“The President has just been shot in Texas,” he said. We all got up and walked out in the hall to try and find a radio. Everyone was in a daze. Anybody in music or in the arts knew that a President like Kennedy came along once in a century. Perhaps it had all been too good to be true. I couldn’t say anything so I just left. By the time I got to the street I saw people crying. I got in the subway and went back to the Village. I saw the look on people’s faces in the subway. They all knew as I did that the terrible sickness of America — the repressed violence and hate that were commercialized in so many forms of entertainment, in presentation of news and in people’s actions toward one another from the time they were children — had taken its toll.
I had promised Joe Papp to go to Baltimore that day and see the production of a Handel opera at the Peabody Institute which he had directed. I called up Joe’s wife to tell him that I didn’t want to go, but he had already left. I knew how terrible he must feel. I decided I would go down and stop in Washington to see my family, because I knew it would affect them as much as if a relative of ours had died. I went down, borrowed my family’s sedan and drove to Baltimore to find Joe. I was in kind of a daze and I kept listening to the radio reports of the assassination.
“Thank God it wasn’t a Jew that killed the President, my mother said just before I left. I thought about this all the time I was driving to Baltimore. Someone who was a third-generation American still had this ancient fear and yet I understood it and know somehow that she was right. There was no doubt in my mind on that terrible night that sickness, violence, prejudice, and hate were the assassins and that we were all guilty in some small way. In music all the people that I’d admired had spent their lives trying to live together on a higher spiritual level. Obviously we all had a long way to go.
Joe was completely shaken. “I don’t know what to do,” he said. “I can’t call off the performance. What the hell does it all mean? I guess all we can do is go on. I feel like they killed a part of me.”
I stayed with my family the next day in Washington and watched the proceedings on television. I wanted to go to some of the ceremonies in Washington, but when I saw Jack Ruby shoot Oswald for the fourth re-run within two hours, I was too sickened and ashamed to do anything.
This is only one side of the reality, but in times of senseless violence, speaking about it and feeling it deeply is sometimes the beginning of healing. Comparing stories told by different people in different centuries, it can feel like sightings of the same monster — one whose ravages make us feel powerless and dazed with sorrow. Certainly there is a need for healing.
An added dimension to Chyi Yu is her deep commitment to Buddhist practice. Some of her late period music is explicitly Buddhist, such as beautiful vocal arrangements of Buddhist sutras. Others of her songs (like the one above) impart a Buddhist sentiment more subtly. Below she sings what is known as “Auspicious Mantra for Eradicating Misfortune”:
I’m happy to report that listening to this elevated me beyond discussion of politics. Suffering is, after all, a universal problem, and one of the many ways of working to alleviate suffering is to cultivate one’s nature, and share with others the view that through love, compassion, insight and understanding, we can impact the problems of hatred and senseless violence. We can also realize that those who engage in hatred and senseless violence are troubled in mind, and do not truly understand the nature of reality. The root causes of hatred and violence are in the mind. This knowledge is valuable because, even if it doesn’t provide an instant solution, it offers solid assurance that human beings can gradually rise above the lower impulses which sometimes make our lives a living hell. To come full circle: We all need “a little bit of heart.”
I’m not advocating the abandonment of politics. But we have to know how much politics can achieve. Ultimately, human happiness depends on the transformation of human nature. Politics is often about power, and when those presently being victimized have a little more political power, this may help protect them. So here I can end with something good about politics!
DEDICATION
This post is dedicated to Dr. Leana Wen, a voice of compassion, sanity, and good medical advice during a year when America seemed to have gone crazy.
Michael Howard
The views expressed are my own, and do not represent any other person or organization.
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Ethics and Spirituality 