Celebrating Asianness, Blackness, Hispanicness and Whiteness
To bring America together and create positive action, we must create a comprehensive system to creates positive racial identity for all.
While the other articles covered reasoning to Positive Identity, this is the first article that focuses on the action based system of TPI. In this article, you will learn what TPI means when it says to celebrate Asianness, Blackness, Hispanicness and Whiteness.
Celebrating who you are is largely an agreed thing among many different philosophical and ideological systems. Even celebrating your group is a normal thing among many areas of life, whether it’s sports teams you root for, cities your from or even companies you work for. A positive self-approach and self-love are key elements of the growth, progress and perfection of the individual, the group and society at large.
On the other hand there is a history of identity, sectarian, racial and national destruction that can come from celebrating your identity or group. The appreciation of oneself then leads to the belief in a superiority over others and/or self-boosting at the expense of others. Competition even forms among groups to see who “is the best”. Before long division sets in and people turn on each other in increasing negative and destructive ways.
Racial identity unfortunately has a long and complex history when it comes to self-appreciation and the celebration of oneself. However much great work is being done for racial healing and helping people overcome negative self-image when it comes to race. While racial division is at extreme levels, the work people have done for positive self-image has been vital to inform what Positive Identity aims to do. TPI is inspired by the work and seeks to create a system where people celebrate their Asianness, Blackness, Hispanicness, Whiteness and so forth and then celebrate others as the same. Because our calling as a human race is to be one bonded together through positive unity, and to fight against this destructive division, this is needed more than ever. However each racial identity is different and thus why we celebrate them and the how will be unique to each. Also celebrating your own identity will require a nuanced approach. By the end of this article, you will have direction on this front.
So we have four obstacles to overcome in knowing how to celebrate your Racenesss. The first is how can you ever reach equality when each group is unique, and thus you have to treat them differently? The second problem is that if you treat everyone equally, you will be ignoring the fact that people are in different spots. The third is the question of what are we working towards. The forth one is the question of even how to treat people as people can heavily differ on the right ways to treat people.
Knowing this, our solutions to problem 1, 2, 3, 4 is encapsulated in one sentence. Positive Identity approaches everyone the same. That is how we answer Qs 1, 2, 3 and 4. We’ll explain.
Fundamentally, when you see how we treat race you’ll see that no one if the “default” race and no one is the “other” race. We look at every identity as a community, and then we propagate good universally agreed morals.
This is a radically different departure from current racial politics and culture. So much of racial politics works as being in response to what another race did or another cultural/political movement did. However for TPI to work, we need to work outside of these movements and approach them in the same way.
So now that we see each of the members of the Asian, Black, Hispanic and White communities in the same psychological and philosophical state, how do we address the differences. Asian Americans have a certain place in society, while people who are Black have a certain experience, Hispanic Americans and White Americans have their own.
Going back to our system, approaching each group the same way, we first aim to approach each group in a positive light. This helps to dull the sensitive nature of these topics, and develops trust. However, what are positive traits to boost and propagate?
Universal Values. When we find out what the universal values are among different races of people, we focus on that good people are doing within that universal value system. This builds trust, affinity and hope that we can find ways to work together. If you are are celebrating or loving your racial identity, it should be done through the universal values that you share among other groups. Thus the things TPI celebrates among each community are things that people by-in-large agree on and support among diverse populations.
To nail down some universal value specifics is a much larger topic, and there are many universal values. So what universal value does TPI focus on?
CHARITY
Seeing people actively help each other in charity, through issues of physical, emotional, economic, mental and psychological issues is the key universal value the drives content to be spread. Charity is something a person or group of every race can do. Even further, it’s a universal value that reframes the relationship we have with each other where the success of others means the success of us. If people like you and not like you are helping the world, that means our celebration is designed around a universal benefit. Thus the feeling of completion is muted and everyone can feel that they’re included.
A Black person helping an Asian person, or a Hispanic person helping a White person, or visa versa. While different groups are in different places with different experiences, helping those who struggle over a long period of time will cause each group to end up in the same place with the same experience. This prevents the “pity help” effect from happening in which one group takes pity and helps the poor suffering other group, thus dehumanizing them and turning charity into a virtue back patting endeavor. It also empowers any communities that feel powerless or weak, as showing them giving charity makes them seem strong, influential and benevolent. And as equals. So if there is a story of a rich White person helping a Black person who was hit with huge medical bills, or an Asian person in college helping a struggling Hispanic person struggling with immigration issues, we’ll post it. If there’s a Hispanic person helping a homeless White person or a Black entertainer giving a voice to a new Asian star, we’ll post it. Each community inhabits a different place in the US/World, and yet each community is diverse enough to have elements mirror the experiences of other communities.
And naturally, this will cover people helping groups of people that are struggling the most, as those groups will need the most help, and there will thus be more stories of people helping them. Of course this can lead to stereotypes if we keep showing the same stories over and over again which will of course be careful of. But if certain groups need help more, we expect to push their stories out more and show people of all stripes giving them a hand.
Another element we highlight is TRUTH. As in people who are working towards helping humanity understand our world better. Whether it’s a scientist who discovers something new, a religious figure who gives us greater understanding, an artist who causes us to expand our understanding, we like to highlight them all. The search for truth in a way to help society is a core goal that we should celebrate in our racial communities and as individuals.
Lastly, the biggest one is LOVE. As in people showing love to each other and themselves. Love is something that is a core universal value among every system of thinking and serves as the emotional and social bond to bring us together. And closer to ourselves. While some of the elements of love can be different, the old adage of “Love your neighbor as yourself” clarifies it. The way you would love yourself or have others love you is the way you do it for others.
Now to look at some complicated elements.
“Success” is one of them. At TPI, we like to boost success. If someone who is Black makes a major book deal, we boost it. If someone who is White makes a huge movie, we boost it. If someone who is Hispanic makes a great song, boost. If some who is Asian draws a terrific painting, boost it. This is for several reasons. We as a society should be happy about seeing people succeed. Also, people who succeed are happy when other see them succeed. This applies to politics, industry, religion, you name it. We want to reward people for doing good work. Because ideally, that good work will benefit everyone. We want the best person to run the power plant, as it will give us power. So if a Hispanic person gets that job, we boost it. If a White politician comes in and creates good policy to help out our electorate, then great. If an Asian person is elected to run a movie studio and entertains us and brings jobs, great. If a Black person is awarded a medal of valor for saving lives, they get their props. By doing this for everyone, it frames our reality into one where everyone is celebrated. Of course, society may have negative views on many of the people that succeed. We’re aware of this. TPI aims to celebrate those who follows the traits of Charity, Truth and Love. For what to celebrate in your community, consider following that guideline as well.
Lastly, celebrating one’s self. That can be complicated and might feel weird for many of you. This also feels like a self-serving thing. Our response is every major religion and moral system at some point talks about either God loving you or you loving yourself. So the question is, what should you love about yourself? We say that loving yourself as a human means to love the good things humans have done for the world. It’s easy to pick out the things people of different races have done to do good in the world. And thus these are positive things people of your community have done to help the world. And this is what you celebrate and love. And this is what you seek to emulate. So an Asian person who is happy of all the technological achievements the Japanese people have made in medical technology and science, be happy about that and believe you can do it too. For a White person who appreciates the advances in republicanism and democracy that White people have made, appreciate that. For the Black person who admires the toughness and perseverance in their community, love and appreciate that. And for the Hispanic person who loves how hard their people who and how dedicated they are to their family and the ones they love, celebrate that. And know, the traits mentioned exist more in some communities than in others, but are traits that exist in every community and are attainable by all communities. You can now celebrate the things that make you different and make you the same all together.
And this is how we at TPI and you should celebrate Asianness, Blackness, Hispanicness and Whiteness. And this is just the tip of the iceberg, as more thought, theory and action will occur and seeing how this forms. We’re each unique, and we’re each the same, but by approaching us all the same, we can work with both.
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