Interrupting the Violence of Racial Identities: Lessons from Asian American Experience, the Parable of the Good Samaritan, and "Truth Force"

abstract:Sustained reflection on multiple expressions of Asian American experience directs us to the coercive logic of racial identities. Noticing this logic is critical to identifying the limitations of several strategies to resist and transcend racial injustice, including the demand for racial recognition. Rereading the Parable of the Good Samaritan as one about the perils of racial identity and then taking cues from the nonviolent practice of truth force provide a blueprint for reimagining the liberative role racial identities can play.