Strictly speaking, I should have titled this homily “Hyphens, Acronyms, and Compounds,” because one of the quandaries I regularly encounter as an editor is whether terms such as “African American” and “Asian American” should be hyphenated. As with so many other things, my standard answer is “It depends.” To quote the venerable Chicago Manual of Style,

Whether terms such as African American, Italian American, Chinese American, and the like should be spelled open or hyphenated has been the subject of considerable controversy, the hyphen being regarded by some as suggestive of bias. Chicago doubts that hyphenation represents bias, but since the hyphen does not aid comprehension in such terms as those mentioned above, it may be omitted unless the writer prefers it.

Another quandary that frequently shows up is whether to use the term “African American” or “Black,” and whether “Black” ought to be capitalized or not. One recent study canvassed “a national sample of Americans of African descent” and found its respondents to be “nearly equally divided in their preference for the label ‘black’ versus ‘African-American.’” Earlier this year, I wrote some articles for the African American National Biography project, which is being edited by leading scholars in African American studies. At the same time, I know people of African descent who prefer to label themselves “black,” some because they find it less pretentious and others because they find it more honest. One of my friends has written,

Growing up, many of my friends justified hanging out with me because I “wasn’t really black,” or at least “not like those other black people” (whom they had never met). It’s a meaningless label, in my opinion, but damn it, if you like me but also happen to have some notion that there’s something wrong with black people, well it’s up to you to reconcile that idea with the fact that I am black.

My husband and I have discussions every now and then about the ethnic-hyphenation boondoggle -- that is, do I call myself "American," "Asian American," "Taiwanese American," or some other entity entirely? On the one hand, I would prefer that anyone describing me opt for "American" as the default (which is what my husband argues for across the board); my online monikers do not let on that I’m Asian, and neither does my married name, and that’s on purpose: I'd rather it not color people's perceptions of me right off the bat.

But, that said, do I find such identity labels useful at times? Yes. Part of the issue seems to be whether it's being used as a form of connection or as a definition, there being things that drive me up the wall that many other Asian Americans (but not all!) are likely to get -- such as my sometimes feeling the need to assert that my experience as an "American" is in fact different than that of someone who is white. My husband doesn't get asked on a regular basis what his ancestry is even though he is the one who was born in a foreign country, nor is he asked by his colleagues to translate from French or Gaelic, whereas it’s somehow seen as unnatural that I know French but not Mandarin or Japanese. (What is even more interesting, at least to me, is how people who don't have to field such queries on a regular basis do not comprehend what a pain in the neck they are.) It does not mean I'm going to get along with someone who is Asian American just because they identify as such -- and that's something we complain about amongst ourselves, as it happens, because many of us have encountered the assumption that we’re acquainted with every other Asian the person has ever met, or worse yet, that we’re somehow related to them, even if they happen to be from a totally different country.

There are times, however, when some well-intentioned Caucasian individual has started to lecture me on what “people of color” think about issue x or controversy y, and I’ve wanted to holler back, "Will you please shut up? I am a person of color and I actively resent the fact that it's even remotely relevant." There are occasions when some well-intentioned person of color tries to speak for all “people of color” on a particular issue, and I sometimes find that just as upsetting, especially if I feel that they’re playing the Oppression card too freely. I don’t speak for all people of color on this matter, or on any other that I’ll touch upon today, but the word “oppression” makes me crazy. For what it’s worth, so do the terms “racist” and “anti-racist,” at least as labels. I find them wildly imprecise and overly charged, and the terms “politically correct” and “politically incorrect” have become downright misused more often than not, to the extent that “politically incorrect” is now really a shorthand term for “deliberately annoying overly earnest liberals” or “being obnoxious and insensitive on purpose,” depending on one’s general stance on inclusive speech.

The word “oppression” makes me somewhat nuts because, while I’ve certainly felt disregarded and dismissed at times, I don’t like characterizing myself as a “victim” and I don’t feel it’s particularly effective for me to do so -- not when I’m comfortably middle-class and a willing, able participant in corporate, capitalist America. To call myself “oppressed” in any capacity just sounds like I’m channeling a Monty Python joke. I don’t necessarily want to eliminate the word from discourse -- I think it’s an appropriate term for certain interracial dynamics, particularly when someone’s skills and abilities are being stifled or underestimated -- but it’s not an across-the-board adjective, and I don’t tend to identify with minority advocacy groups who use the term freely, or who paint all other well-intentioned individuals as “oppressors” simply because they belong to a majority race, class, or gender. The terms “racist” and “anti-racist” bother me because I find them similarly unsubtle and unproductive: in my experience, calling someone “racist” has seldom convinced them that they are. They may be ignorant. They may be thoughtless. They may be naïve. But telling people they’re the equivalent of Adolph Hitler and Strom Thurmond generally throws them on the defensive, and they start talking about all the ways they aren’t like those jerks and therefore aren’t “racist,” and it too often degenerates into a debate about who’s being pre-emptively hostile and/or overly reactionary.

So how should people talk about race, and strive for diversity? I wish I could offer you a more satisfying, easy-to-comply-with answer than “it depends,” but it really is the only one I can live with. I know many people find that frustrating: I’ve seen them rant about it in their blogs and heard them vent about it in real life, and the issue even shows up in advice columns now and then. It’s become an increasingly visible topic in the arts, where cultural appropriation is a recurring concern -- to what extent is borrowing another culture’s symbols respectful and viable, and how the heck do you tell if and when you’re treading upon other people’s beliefs and traditions? A couple of years ago, an Indian American UU seminarian talked about his partner complaining that “you want people appreciate your culture, but only in certain ill-defined ways that only you can understand!”

The problem is, it depends. When I attended General Assembly in 2003, I greatly enjoyed meeting with members of the Asian/Pacific Islander Caucus, but I’ve never formally joined the group, in part because my time is limited and I’m leery of affiliating myself with groups defined primarily by ancestry or ethnic identifiers. Do I sometimes feel guilty about that? Yes. Do I sometimes feel drawn to such groups? Sure. Do I get excited when I read about Asian American actors, astronauts, athletes, politicians, and other celebrities? You bet. Part of me realizes that I’m allowed -- just as my Irish American friends get happy about Irish people making good, and my Italian American friends went more than a little nuts over some soccer tournament last month. But part of me can’t help feeling weird and inconsistent about it, seeing that I want to be loved for who I am and what I do, not for the fact that I happen to be Taiwanese -Texan-Tennessean. Part of me can’t help feeling annoyed that there’s a certain degree of expectation -- that, because Asians are a minority, I’m supposed to be interested and involved in such groups.

I have a friend who’s suspicious of almost all of the UUA special interest groups, whether they focus on race or religious preference: he gets very twitchy when he hears about the UU Christian Fellowship or about CUUPS, the Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans, in part because he worries about UU unity: he’s a strong believer in the “Universalist” component of our denomination, and it makes him jittery when he perceives fellow congregants identifying more strongly with a subset of the church rather than working to connect with the whole. I have heard both our current Religious Education Director and her predecessor confess that they share a pet peeve: both of them internally cringe whenever they hear people say “Unitarian” only, instead of “Unitarian Universalist.”

It frustrates me as well, although I’ve knowingly committed that very error and will probably continue finding excuses to do so. I do call it an error, because I suspect the percentage of Universalists in our denomination is far higher than those who explicitly believe in a single non-Trinitarian God, so saying only “Unitarian” is not only inadequate but a misrepresentation. That said, my love-hate relationship with the term “Unitarian Universalist” began before I ever signed a membership book: it’s too darn long, it’s wicked bland, and too many people think they know what it means based on the jokes they’ve heard on the Simpsons or on the Prairie Home Companion.

Even so, I do appreciate how hard Unitarian Universalists collectively try to do right by each other, even if I don’t always agree with the assumptions in play or the approaches in use. This past year, a Special Review Commission was appointed by the UUA to follow up on a series of racially charged incidents that took place at General Assembly 2005. When I read their [March 2006] report, I was extremely pleased at the pains they took to emphasize the complexity of their task, and how impossible it is to arrive at a version of “the truth” that will satisfy everyone involved. To quote:

Human beings have human needs, faults, and frailties. We act or react depending on our particular state of mind at the time, which is often compounded by other events. Additionally, we all act out of our own experiences and, given how diverse we are, our challenge is to affirm the life experiences that each of us brings. Everyone has their own interpretations and often those interpretations are contradictory. That does not mean that one is right and another wrong. * * *

As we engaged in our task, it became evident that the goal given the SRC "to identify learnings about the structures of racism and ageism both within and outside our faith community" was both too large -- given our limits of time and expertise -- and in the larger picture, too small. The essence of what challenges us all is "other-ism," ingrained in ancient ancestors confronting limited resources in the drive to survive. We homo sapiens learned millennia ago to co- labor with our tribe and compete against others who are not us. "Isms" are categorical exclusions of broad swaths of people from a circle of privilege and belonging.

There are two faithful options in the face of such exclusion: to expand and increase our resources, so that more beings may survive, share, and thrive, and/or to expand and enlarge our embrace to include more life and lives and liveliness in our circle of belonging. In so doing, we embody the enduring vision of beloved community that we are called to create.

If there's a single point I want you to remember from today, it's that there will never be a one-size-fits-all solution to racism within and outside of Unitarian Universalism. There will not be a magic set of rules, no matter how many assemblies labor over liturgies of healing and workshops “beyond categorical thinking.” But I think even merely acknowledging this in itself constitutes a kind of progress -- if there's one thing I am confident about stating regarding most people of color, it is that we want to be seen and loved for who we actually are, rather than some idealized or demonized version of how "people like us" behave and what we believe. That, I think, is a universal desire -- most of us have experienced someone making false assumptions based on our looks. Even people of European descent get judged on their hair, their weight, their gender, who they know, what kind of car they can afford, and so forth. Most of us have experienced someone wanting us to conform to their vision of an individual we were not -- whether it was a parent urging us to go into a profession for which we weren't suited, or a friend who didn't approve of our sexual or spiritual choices. Most of us have scars from such conflicts; many of us know what it’s like to trip over someone else’s emotional landmines, and have them blow up on us. It’s not easy and it isn’t fun and it isn't fair, but people don’t stop being inconsiderate or thoughtless or naive unless they’re given information, and it’s critical that they also be given the benefit of the doubt whenever feasible. It means getting past their assumptions and defensiveness, if we can, so that we can show them where we truly come from and where we want to go. I’m not talking just about race; I’m talking also about Unitarian Universalism. Articulating who we are -- especially to people who don’t get why their religious vocabularies don’t work for everyone else -- can be frustrating and exhausting and not always productive. But it’s important that we exist, it’s important that we're here, and it's absolutely vital that we keep informing and reminding people that this world is to be shared and its complexity to be celebrated. Amen and alleluia.

Special thanks to my friend Nigita, both for granting me permission to quote her above and for the stimulating discussion that prompted me to schedule this topic.