I write to my African-American friends to suggest three reasons for including Asian Americans in the civil rights movement for the benefit of the historic struggle for Black equality.
I am humbled by my time at Howard University, which made me who I am as a thinker, changing my attitudes as no amount of scholarly study could have done for the child of Asian immigrants raised in Detroit suburbs that were overwhelmingly White.
I am inspired by W.E.B. Du Bois, whose dedication as a race man to the uplift of African-Americans as a race could not be doubted, in his role among the founders of the NAACP and his advocacy of the Talented Tenth who had rights and responsibilities. His most famous proclamation, from the profound 1903 collection The Souls of Black Folk, is rarely fully quoted: he was prescient in predicting that the problem of the twentieth century would be the problem of the color line, but he then continued — as is not usually mentioned — by defining it as “the lighter to darker races of men in Asia and Africa, in America and the islands of the sea.”
Yet I realize that there is mutual suspicion. Asian Americans are perceived, rightly or wrongly, as well-to-do, self-interested, late-arriving bigots and, in the interests of reaching out, we can bracket for now any protest that these allegations are themselves based on stereotypes.
To be clear, my suggestion is that African-Americans ought to involve Asian Americans from time to time, since it helps African-Americans themselves. And I hasten to add, I am forceful in calling out Asian Americans on their need to appreciate how Asian Americans owe a debt of much more than mere gratitude and should be principled. Asian Americans, some no doubt, have their own prejudices and, whether they appreciate it, enjoy privileges, as well.
All of that is complex and deserves further discussion, but the prerequisite is generating interest. With the utmost respect, and without moral equivalence that tends to be facile but false, hear me out.
First, there are the facts. A picture of race that is literally Black and White does not correspond to reality. Asian Americans are now abundant rather an obscure oxymoron, the most sizable group on many college campuses and in some metropolitan areas, and increasing in numerical terms as well as in proportional terms.
