Reflection Questions for But I Don’t See You As Asian

So here’s the thing that I didn’t do when preparing for this little book club. I never checked how long the chapters were. Did you notice that? Did you notice that Chapter 2 was incredibly short? Welcome to White Young Clergy Reading Racism where your host really hasn’t planned as much as you might think.

We’re continuing to read Bruce Reyes-Chow’s But I Don’t See You as Asian: Curating Conversations about Race. We have only read the first chapter so never fear. So go ahead and order a copy now and join in these reflection questions. Though I’m not sure that this is the best format — and I’m actually quite convinced that it is not — I’m posting reflection questions here in the hopes that we can discuss these very reflection questions next week. Though I had said that I would post for just Chapter 2 this week, I lied. You’ll find questions here for both Chapter 2, 3 and 4. Slow readers, never fear. These are some really short chapters that lend toward some big questions for our personal reflection.

• To begin, this question comes from Maren who blogs at Gifts in Open Hands: which chapter … which phrase … touched or prodded or pinched you or reminded you of your experience with racism?
• When have the words spoken by another hurt you?  How might it it have helped to talk about how those words “caused tension and discomfort”? 
• In Chapter 3, Reyes-Chow owns his Asian identity as a central part of who he is as a person. What are the identities that you carry that you couldn’t be the same person without this particular identity?
• In Chapter 4, Reyes-Chow makes the claim that most of us know that the “history of the United States is made up of complex stories of migration.” How have you witnessed this truth in your congregation or even in your own family? 

If you haven’t already contacted me to let me know you’re reading along, please do so here. Knowing the limitations of this format, it seems that we might be introducing some other ways to dialogue together so we’ve decided to start a Facebook group. You can find that Facebook group here.

Before you go, here’s a little bit of history of where we have been in case you are totally confused. This is the first post where our book study began and these are the reflection questions for the first chapter of Bruce Reyes-Chow’s But I Don’t See You as Asian: Curating Conversations about Race. Here is where the discussion began last week. You’ve found yourself as we reflect on the next couple of chapters before we officially discuss our ideas on Sunday August 9 — but that shouldn’t stop you from sharing your thoughts in the comments below.