Lin-sanity and Racial Juxtaposition
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| Jeremy Lin | Michelle T Johnson | Racial juxtaposition | |
People have excessively harped on Lin’s success in the NBA, in great part because Chinese is not the first ethnic group that comes to mind when thinking of professional basketball players. This takes us right to my theory of racial juxtaposition, which I would define as the American obsession with constantly defining and redefining racial “norms”— and finding it notable when someone is a success outside of the so-called norm.
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Contributor:
Michelle T. Johnson |
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“Racial juxtaposition” is an apt term. My wife and I had the same reaction to Kevin Costner’s remarks regarding the commonality he shared with Whitney Houston. We’re a mixed race couple (she has the beautiful skin), and are always dismayed whenever we hear these types of remarks. We’ve experienced it ourselves, or rather my wife has. She’s a professor at a Midwestern university who specializes in research and teaching in the field of microbial molecular pathogenesis, and the only woman of color in the department. You might say she’s the “token”, others certainly have. We’ve stopped being surprised (but not disappointed) when she’s introduced to someone and their response is, “Really?.” As in, “Really, a Black woman research scientist?”
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