Jessica Wang<\/p>\n
In this blog post, I would like to extend on our discussion in class about the gun from Diamond Grill<\/em> by Fred Wah. In class, we concluded that the gun symbolizes racial privilege: people of white race are the \u201cgun\u201d, and has power and domination; people of coloured race are the \u201ctarget\u201d, who are passive and are vulnerable to racial discrimination. I argue that, in this biotext, the gun is significant in two ways. While it reflects the nature of inheritance, it also reveals the disconnection between the father and the son. In addition, it also reflects one of the major causes for this disconnection, which is the different experience of racial identity for the father and the son. I will derive evidences from the book to justify this argument. In this blog post, I refer Fred Wah Jr. as \u201cFreddy\u201d, and Fred Wah Sr. as \u201cFred\u201d.<\/p>\n Freddy\u2019s ignorance and feeling of disconnection about his father can be observed from multiple places in this book. On page 132, after Fred passed away, Freddy was ordered by his mother to \u201cdo something\u201d about his father\u2019s gun (Wah 132). This action demonstrates the nature of inheritance, that Freddy is expected to inherit his father\u2019s belongings, characteristics, and probably even identity. However, Freddy expressed right after, that he has \u201cnever seen [the gun] before, never knew [Fred] owned one\u201d (Wah 132), which creates a contrast with the previous text. Although Freddy\u2019s family may expect him to have unique connections with his father, for Freddy, there is something about his father that is unknown. When Freddy brought the gun to the police station, he discovered that it has never been registered, then he imagined and wondered about his Father\u2019s past relating to this gun (Wah 132). This further highlights the gap in their relationship, and adds a sense of mystery for readers. Freddy\u2019s ignorance about his father provides readers an insight to further investigate the possible causes for this disconnection. In the end of page 132, Mother said, \u201c[Fred] probably just needed a gun\u2026 for protection and, being a Chinaman\u201d (Wah 132). Which is a hint for a possible cause of this disconnection – the insecurity felt by Fred but not Freddy, in other words, the varying experience because of racial identity.<\/p>\n Since Freddy looks predominantly white, he easily blends into the privileged groups. He does not share the same insecurity with his Father, Fred, who talks and acts Chinese, and is subjected to racial discrimination. When the gun is in Freddy’s hands, it doesn\u2019t have bullets (Wah 144) because he doesn\u2019t need it for protection. He is not a target for racism like his father because he is \u201cwhite enough to get away with it\u201d (Wah 136). However, the gun also has an implicit meaning in the book. On page 138, Freddy uses the gun as a metaphor for the privileged white group, the people that exercise power and domination in society (Wah 138). Freddy is a \u201cgun\u201d (Wah 138), a \u201cbulletless\u201d one, that appears intimidating but actually has no threat. Just as he physically appears to be white, but he couldn\u2019t exercise power because of his Chinese heritage. He admits that when the Chinese kids he knew at school are being called \u201cchinks\u201d, he blends in with the white group, performs his whiteness (Wah 136), and \u201cfakes\u201d his dominating position (Wah). He is also a \u201cgun\u201d in a sense that the Chinese perceive him as an outsider, a threat, and distant him because he looks white. He is aware that the Chinese people would think of him as a privileged white person, so he \u201ccamouflage\u201d and becomes \u201cinvisible\u201d in Chinese cafes (Wah 136).<\/p>\n Fred, the father, experienced his identity as being a target for racism. Yet Freddy suffered the feeling of not belonging to either the White and Chinese groups. In the white groups, he fakes and performs; in the Chinese group, he camouflages and becomes invisible. The different experience of racial identity creates a sense of disconnection between the father and the son. Fred’s racial experience was made unknown for Freddy. While his father is simply a \u201ctarget\u201d, Freddy is \u201ca gun without bullet\u201d.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Works Cited<\/p>\n Wah, Fred. Diamond Grill<\/em>. New ed., NeWest Press, 2006.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Jessica Wang In this blog post, I would like to extend on our discussion in class about the gun from Diamond Grill by Fred Wah. In class, we concluded that the gun symbolizes racial privilege: people of white race are the \u201cgun\u201d, and has power and domination; people of coloured race are the \u201ctarget\u201d, who …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54335,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/orcaspirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/orcaspirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/orcaspirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/orcaspirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/54335"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/orcaspirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/orcaspirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":74,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/orcaspirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64\/revisions\/74"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/orcaspirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/orcaspirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/orcaspirit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}