Asian Parenting.....

....Is It Wicked?

In the wake of  Mother's Day, I thought it would be appropriate to write in praise of Asian parents since most of the time Asian parents are written about as though they are monsters (just like asians in general). It should come as little surprise that even on the subject of Asian parents, mainstream America has its own set of ideas and beliefs that seem to emerge from the peristalsis fed by a diet of ignorance, misinformation, and sometimes even, bad will.

There's little doubt that ideas about Asian parents are a subset of stereotypes about Asian people in general. Of course, it doesn't help that some Asians themselves bottom-feed opportunistically off of the phenomenon, scoring brownie points, perhaps, amongst the mainstream intelligentsia for throwing off the illusory shackles of oppressive Asian cultures. The mainstream, in turn, is grateful that its widely held racial stereotypes are seemingly justifiably absolved of charges of racism because how can a stereotype be racist when it is true?!

Ideas about Asian parents seem to be based on the notion that they are emotionally distant, cold, and extremely harsh. An unhelpful tendency amongst some Asian-Americans (cynical and deliberate or not) to racialize personal choices must contribute to normalizing such stereotypes. For example, Amy Chua's uneducated guesstimation that asserted her personal preference of harsh dragon-lady type mothering as typical of Asian cultures has subsequently been shown to be a puff of magical dragon smoke in light of actual studies showing that claims that her methods are representative of Asian mothers to be false. According to that study, Asian parents are generally more loving and sensitive to the specific needs of their children than any stereotype of an emotionally remote Sheol of Asian humanity would want us to believe.

The ramifications are disturbing for those who thrive off of propagating stereotypes about pervasive Asian emotional handicaps. If Asian parents as a group, generally turn out to be as supportive and emotionally warm with their kids as the white-parenting Gold Standard, then where does that leave all of those commentators who assert that harsh Asian parenting is responsible for the dearth of Asians in positions of authority in industry, or the lack of iconic Asian-American cultural figures, or any other dearth of Asians where it might be expected? As the study suggested, harsh parenting does produce emotionally and socially stunted offspring, but Asian parents apparently aren't particularly harsh as a general rule, so, of course, that puts the ball right back into the court of mainstream attitudes as, perhaps, a significant factor for this state of affairs.

On the subject of cultural "icons", it is probably not entirely accurate to say that we don't have any of Asian descent, but who are the Asians that we can say are iconic in the sense that they are greatly admired or emulated, the appreciation of whom transcends racial and cultural boundaries? Several come to mind off the top of my head; PSY, Manny Pacquiao, and Bruce Lee, to name but three, but few (if any) Americans of Asian descent meet the criteria to be labeled "culturally iconic". It could be persuasively argued that the fact that there are (albeit limited) cultural icons of Asian descent strongly indicates that mainstream prejudices are insignificant.

But my sense is that since Asians growing up in the US, are likely be exposed to racially inflected negative and hostile attitudes and behaviours starting the moment they step foot into the first-grade classroom (or turn on the television) - behaviours that are culturally normalized in politics and the media - there may be pressures not accounted for in this narrative that discourages outspokenness and social confidence. It could be that mainstream America simply doesn't want American icons with Asian faces because they cannot accept that Americans can or should have Asian faces. In any case, it seems to be becoming increasingly unreasonable to blame Asian parenting for Asians not making to the "top" in the numbers one would expect for such a highly educated group.

I think that amongst Asian-Americans there is something of a "grass is greener" syndrome at work when comparing their upbringings with that of their white peers - it is not uncommon to hear Asians assert that white kids are more "well-rounded" and "happier. This may be especially acute for those who may find social integration or interaction to be a challenge - for example, those Asian men who fault the way that their parents raised them as the cause of their lack of success with women. The narrative goes like this; Asian parents are harsh and don't let their kids socialize (the way that white parents do) and so Asians don't get the opportunities to learn how to socialize appropriately, or in the case of Asian men don't learn how to "get good with the chicks". Well, this doesn't appear to be true. As the study shows, Asian parents are usually quite happy to let their kids socialize, so if Asian men are experiencing social awkwardness it has to be a more holistic issue and not just the result of Asian parents teaching awkwardness. It should be said, that Asian kids might also be "happier" and "well-rounded" if they didn't have to deal with pervasive and culturally normalized anti-Asian racism in the school environment.

I do have to say at this point that I laugh at the suggestion that white parents somehow "teach" their kids how to socialize with others their age (or that white kids are "well-rounded"), simply because if you are a thirty-five-plus parent and you know how to interact with early-pubescent kids, then you are probably extremely creepy. It's called the generation gap, and it is a very real phenomenon; once past a certain age, it becomes increasingly difficult to understand how younger generations interact, and you find that you have less and less in common, and less and less to talk about with younger people. This means that almost all parents have little to offer when it comes to the all-important details of socialization amongst their offspring, because that is the nature of human socialization; older generations find it increasingly difficult to relate to younger generations. Certainly, there are core values that parents should teach, and basic manners, but parents have absolutely no way to know how successive generations are interacting with each other, and there is no reason to believe that Asian parents don't teach these core values to their kıds.When it comes to teaching how to "interact with girls" I find it hard to believe that white parents take their sons out and show them how pick up chicks!

No, people learn socialization skills (including interaction with the opposite sex) basically on their own amongst a group of similarly aged and minded people. And this is where the problems arise because in truth,  it is not the Asians who are awkward but America that is awkward with us. Look at it this way; American culture normalizes behaviour towards Asians that is demeaning and dehumanizing. Some of the ways this manifests are through mockery of our racial characteristics (e.g. the "chink-eye"), mockery of "Asian" languages (e.g. "ching-chong"), propagation of stereotypes that promote harassment of Asians, and a culture of normalization of images of sadistic violence towards Asians. So think about how difficult it is to learn culturally appropriate socialization when the culture that you belong to promotes casual racist behaviour towards you.

We know that this is pervasive and normalized because it happens in every strata of American society and across generations - from children in the playground targeting Asian kids with racial slurs and racial mockery, to beloved mainstream celebs doing the same thing on television or in the media, and from common movie images of justified violence against some Asian foe, to justifications of violence against Asian shopkeepers in America's ghettos. Wherever one looks, one can see that mainstream American culture models behaviour that makes it normal to target Asians with demeaning behaviour at best or harassment and violence at worst.

But Asians want to believe that it is we who have the problem of social awkwardness when, in fact, America has a problem of malign social awkwardness with us (just think back to how awkward America was with Jeremy Lin last year and how second-nature and normal it was to post comment about him in racialized stereotyped ways). So, if Asians are somehow finding it difficult to integrate socially, yes, perhaps some of our parents could do with some updates on how to better socialize their kids, but the elephant in the room here is that American culture itself is a major culprit in normalizing behaviour towards Asians that would be considered unsociable and appalling if enacted with any other non-Asian individual or group.

Given that so much of the life experiences of Asian-Americans are determined by skewed mainstream cultural norms, it seems unfair to expect Asian parents to know how deal with this. It would be nice to think that we could turn to our mothers and fathers and they would have a solution to this problem, but that is unrealistic - after all, how would they know how to fix that problem. The truth is that no matter how well-rounded Asian parents raise their children to be, they will always come up against this normalization of racial awkwardness towards them fostered by American culture.

In no way does this discount the experiences of those who have indeed suffered from extremely harsh or abusive parenting - Asians are as prone to this as any group, no more, no less - but even for these people my sense is that it is better to clarify that it is likely that they would come up against mainstream attitudes and behaviours that promote social difficulties for Asians, even if their parents had not been harsh. Having supportive parents doesn't make these problems go away, and there is little reason to believe that having a well-rounded upbringing will make you better able to deal with the casual prejudices that Asians are almost certain to encounter.

European And Australian Immigrants.....

......Are They Bad For America?

The 8Asians blog published a post recently discussing an article on CNN's website in which a religion scholar, Stephen Prothero, notes the potential effects of increased Asian immigration on America's religiosity. According to Prothero, because a lower percentage of Asian immigrants report that religion is "very important in their lives", an increase in Asian immigration may thus lead to a less religious America.

The first issue with the article is its vagueness. What exactly does it mean to say that a person or group is less religious? How is religiosity defined? I think that most American Christians attend only church once a week and maybe a mid-week church function and the number of people who pray at least once-a-day varies from around five out of ten, to ninety out of ten depending on denomination. But even this may not accurately or completely reflect religiosity in daily life. For example, the spiritual concept of "mindfulness" is very much grounded in religious concepts and an individual who gives a few bucks to the homeless guy on the corner every morning may well be considered to be acting in a mindful way as derived from whatever religious doctrine they follow, yet may not consider themselves to be following a religious life.

Furthermore, "mindfulness" is a more difficult concept to quantify because throughout the day, individuals may well be carrying out "mindful" acts but may not necessarily view this as being an act of religious practice although they may understand that it is a reflection of their religious belief. Plus, because self-reporting is by definition subjective, what constitutes religiosity will mean vastly different things to different people. For some, praying five-times a day may not be religious enough and for others praying once-a-week might seem devotional. So, the premise of the article is so overly vague to lack any real meaning and would really seem to amount to little more than a musing that seems to take some random statistics and extrapolate, to an almost far-fetched degree, a potentially momentous social shift, based on a vague premise. But, Asians should, by now, be used to hearing white men making dramatic generalized suggestions about our community based on vague premises and dubious reasoning.

Yet, what is revealing about the article is the way that it reflects an unfair, and perhaps biased, attitude towards immigration from non-white countries, whilst no consideration is given to the effects of immigration from white countries. For instance, in the past twenty years, around 4.5 million immigrants have settled in the US from predominantly "white" countries of Europe and Australia. Although, relatively low compared to immigration from Asia and Latin America, it is not an insignificant number. Significantly for this discussion is the fact that Europe (both Western and Eastern) are reported to have some of the highest rates of unbelief in the world, ranging from 20%-35% of populations in some Western European countries up to almost 50% of populations in some Eastern European countries reporting no religion.

Coincidentally (or not) in the passed two decades the dialogue on religious belief has developed into a culture war as more and more atheists have become outspoken about their disbelief and push for a less religious America (a result of European immigration perhaps?). At the forefront of this "movement" have been Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins two British-born, high-profile atheists, one of whom (Hitchens) is a naturalized American citizen, the other (Dawkins) lived and worked at the University of California, and is a regular visitor to the US and, for all I know, may well be a permanent resident. Between them they have sold almost three million books in which they suggest that religious believers may be stupid, wicked hypocrites, and that religion is the most corrupting thing ever to afflict the human race. From Australia another atheist, Peter Singer, has lived and worked since 1999 at Princeton University. Singer is less well-known, but still an influential philosopher, whose materialism-derived utilitarian ethics has caused controversy amongst the religious and non-religious alike.

These three highly influential public figures whose work has greatly influenced American thought in the past decade or so, and made atheism and materialistic ethics a major part of the dialogue on belief, have encouraged Americans to abandon religion and embrace atheism. Yet, no Americans have come forward to suggest that European immigrants might be making America less religious, even though that would seem to be a reasonable and logical conclusion. There just doesn't seem to be the same concern about the societal effects on American religious practice of an influx of Europeans into America.

One could argue that the numbers aren't sufficient enough to make such a major impact on general society. But I would submit that higher "social capital" of white people more than makes up for the low numbers. What I mean by this, is that white people (especially men) as a group and individuals are given more value, authority, and credibility in American society than other ethnicities, such that it may be easier for them to attain positions of influence and authority within the culture. The case of Hitchens, Dawkins, and Singer are clear examples of this; these three men have undoubtedly had more influence over America's attitudes towards religion than all of the Asian immigrant 711 owners and Asians in academia and finance put together, yet,
 it doesn't cross anybody's mind that European immigrants might contribute significantly making America less religious.

But the concerns about the effects of immigration from white countries do not stop with the religious question. In recent years, the rising influence of extreme right-wing thinking in Western and Eastern Europe has caused some considerable concern amongst rights groups across the continent. Recent elections in France and Greece show that far-right parties have gained almost 20% and 7% of the vote respectively. Even more problematic are the declarations of mainstream leaders of France, Britain, and Germany that multiculturalism has failed which reflects a shift away from tolerant attitudes towards ethnic minorities.

Given these facts, it would be reasonable to conclude that of the millions of European immigrants that have settled in the US over the passed two decades, a sizeable number of them would carry with them attitudes that may be, at best, opposed to a multicultural society, and at worst, harbour extreme right-wing sympathies. Either way, white people are given the benefit of the doubt most times, and (as Hitchens and Dawkins illustrate) we can expect that their ethnic origin will not be considered with regards to the effect their presence or ideas will have on society, it is reasonable to presume that any European immigrants who harbour these attitudes will have their ideas easily and seamlessly absorbed and adopted by mainstream America. Because white immigrants are a true unknown - after all, who is studying white immigrants and the attitudes that they bring with them? - they truly represent a potentially grave threat to America's multicultural existence.

For many immigrants, Asian or otherwise, the US has come to represent an ideal in which regardless of the circumstances of one's birth and origin, one can come to America and find personal success and dream that one day your own child could become President, with nothing to hold you back but your own demons. America's ideals of liberty, justice, religious and political freedom, fairness, and the belief that you can control your own destiny, are what attracts the millions of Asian immigrants to America. The growing shift in Europe towards intolerance of minorities, multiculturalism, and (ever more increasingly) religious practice stand in stark contrast to very core values that have made America the beacon of freedom that it has come to represent. Yet, the idea that European immigration could have a major negative influence on these American ideals is never examined.

Instead, America notes the impact on religious belief from Asian immigrants who have no substantial voice in the political arena or, more significantly, have no influence or voice in America's cultural dialogue (the one exception to this is the Dalai Lama who hangs out religiously with Hollywood celebs as they meditate to the tune of Kumbaya). Most absurd is the lack of meaningful evidence for making this kind of projection. There's little evidence that Asian immigration up until now has had any impact on religious belief, even though in some states and cities Asians account for up to a third of the population. In an brazen display of double-speak Prothero's article points out the religiosity of Asian immigrants, as well as the tendency for immigrants to become more religious once they arrive in the US. He then makes a vague reference to the high rate of the "unaffiliated", and then suggests that this may reflect a possible trend to less religiosity. For Prothero, 2 plus 2 equals 5.

Most disturbing is the character and tone of the article which follows a common pattern that I alluded to here, and is the routine way in which mainstream America discusses its "Asian problem". White commentators can make just about any allegation or statement about Asian people and be given the platform to say it even though the evidence for it may be tenuous at best. Even worse in this case is the fact that it is white European immigrants - up to 50% of whom may have no belief in God - and in the case of many (like Hitchens) actively seek an end to religious practice, who would most logically present the biggest threat to America's religious practice and even freedoms. Yet, no white social or religious expert worries that European immigration will strengthen these attitudes, even though that would seem to be the most logical conclusion.

The issue of ethnic Caucasian immigrants from Europe and Australia bringing extreme right-wing attitudes and opposition to multiculturalism (which in reality means non-white multiculturalism) with them is an even bigger concern. An America that fails at multiculturalism, is a failed America that no longer stands for freedom and equality.

Hell Hath No Fury........

...Like An Entitled White Man.

One of the unavoidable hazards in the world of the thespian is the disappointment of being rejected for a coveted role in a potentially career boosting production. This is tragic at the best of times, but especially more so when the victim of this injustice is a white guy. Worst of all is the shame of losing out to an Asian actor. Angry Asian Man just posted this news (also here) about actor Thomas Jane who has apparently been fired from a new Sylvester Stallone movie and has been replaced with Asian-American actor, Sung Kang and is throwing a bitch storm about the injustice of it. LOL!!

According to this article Jane explains how the producer of the movie opted to move the film in a new direction by giving the movie a "racial makeover" and bringing in an "ethnic actor" to replace the blandly Caucasian Jane, and in so doing is following a tried and tested formula of having a white main actor with a non-white side-kick. This only made me wonder which hallucinogens Jane has been imbibing for much of his life since most of the time movies will have few ethnic actors and almost always absolutely no Asian-American male actors. Furthermore, if a movie does include an Asian male actor he is less of a "side-kick" and more of a "kicked-to-the-side" type of character. That is, of course, when an Asian actor isn't literally being kicked to the side as is the case with the Asian male actors  who have been kicked to the side to make way for Mickey Rourke to play the role of Ghengis Kahn. So, if there is such a formula it exists only in the minds of white men who view minor successes of ethnic actors as a mortal threat to the certainty of their entitlement.

Some bloggers have called racism on some of Jane's comments and they may well have been intended as a snide allusion to racist stereotypes. It is actually difficult to know if Jane did have such an intent. But, I don't doubt for a minute that if Jane had been replaced by another white actor that he probably wouldn't be so threatened and ego-whipped by it. So, yes, I believe that the fact that it was an Asian actor who replaced Jane is the reason he seems so particularly devastated by it. It is also interesting to note how much media and bullshit time Jane has apparently been given to speak out about the injustice he has suffered, when few in the media raise an single eyebrow hair at the complete invisibility of Asian men in popular culture. This goes to show just how much more serious it is when a white man suffers - even though he was compensated for being dumped.

Overall, I think that I'm less offended by any possible racist intent in Jane's comments or anger, but more offended that Jane's rabid entitlement is given so many opportunities to be exhibited. Maybe I should feel sorry for him since if he had a single good friend they would surely tell him to stop embarrassing himself. But, alas, the right to humiliate yourself in public and still stand tall is just another benefit of white privilege. As the Playlist article sagely reminds us......

As for the whole race thing, we’re always up for racial diversity but unceremoniously dumping an actor in order to make that happen is pretty shitty.

......I think they're saying that it is wrong to do to white actors what the industry has been doing to minorities for years - that is unceremoniously dumping ethnic actors to avoid racial diversity in the industry. Please laugh out loud with me.

As for Sung Kang, I hope the movie works out for him. As many of us will know from experience, being stuck between a good opportunity and the rage of an entitled white dude is a precarious position to be in. So, I wish him success and luck.

Groupon - Tibet - 2011 Super Bowl Commercial Ad

LOL!!!



Apparently many people (Asian and non-Asian alike) are indignant about this ad, so I know I'm not supposed to find it funny, but I did. Why? Because it was possibly some of the most honest advertising I've seen, particularly with regards to Asians.

As we all might agree, Asian representation in the media is largely derogatory or mocking of Asian people and their cultures. If there is one thing that I would say with certainty, it is that the dignity and humanity of East and Southeast Asian peoples are routinely mocked and demeaned by American culture. Racial harassment of Asians through television, film, and radio is commonplace and propagates a culture that sees harassment of Asians as a normal and acceptable activity.

This is why I've always been skeptical about this claim that people in the west are concerned about upholding the humanity, dignity, and rights of any Asian people. American culture promotes harassment and racist behaviour towards its Asian minority, and does so without concern for the dignity and well-being of those people. So, it's extremely dfficult for me to believe that there is some magical process by which a people who are culturally inculcated with dehumanizing images of Asians can have genuine attitudes of compassion for those people.

One of the main criticisms of this advert was that it trivializes the suffering of the Tibetans. Yet, that is actually no different than demanding human rights for the Chinese or Burmese who suffer under totalitarianism, whilst at the same time embracing a culture that demeans and dehumanizes those very people. How can the west claim to be concerned about the suffering of various peoples in Asia, when their cultures trivializes this suffering by demeaning Asian peoples' humanity with mockery?

Why does Tibet garner such indignation when its peoples' suffering is trivialized? Part of the answer might be that some high-profile "Free Tibet" spokespeople happen to be well-known celebrities who are apparently seeking enlightenment by supporting this cause. The irony, of course, is that these celebs are influential in an industry that routinely discriminates against Asians (particularly Asian men) and propagates the culture of dehumanization of Asian people, and they haven't once spoken out against it.

Karma is a bitch.

Understanding The Rise Of China

The Sophist's Choice.

This interesting TED talk was posted up at the Alpha Asian and bigWOWO blogs, and offers some insights into some of the western world's attitudes regarding Asia. I will admit, though, that I felt somewhat none-the-wiser by the end of the talk.....





As you can see, the gist of the talk seems to be that China is so different that it can never be expected to "become like the West" and that in order to understand China's rise to prominence one must take into account specific qualities that make it atypical. Jacques presents three main points that he calls "building blocks" to help us understand the rise of China.

To be honest I was really underwhelmed by Jacques' talk and found his ideas to be overly simplistic. Much of what he concluded didn't follow from his arguments and at certain points his arguments were actually evidence against the conclusions that he drew - all founded upon some sweeping generalizations and an inept grasp of historical nuance. Jacques simply seems to be making mountains out of molehills, and perceiving differences where they don't actually exist.

His first point attempts to point out how China doesn't think, act or have the characteristics of a nation state and is therefore distinct from the west. Yet, all of the characteristics that he presents that are supposed to show that China is not a nation state (common ethnicity, common cultural values) are actually the very qualities that define a nation state. Here is a good definition of what a nation state is....

'country in which a nation of principally the same type of people exists, organized by either race or cultural background. In the nation-state, generally, everyone would speak the same language, probably practice the same or similar types of religion, and share a set of cultural, “national,” values'.

....somehow because China has different cultural characteristics it is disqualified from the calling itself a nation state. He goes on to insist that China's use of more than one system within its sovereign territory is further evidence that it is not a nation state. Yet, this is simply false. There is no reason why a nation state can't have multiple systems and conditions existing within its borders. Ironically, the UK is an example of this. As part of the terms that turned the British Isles into the "United Kingdom", the constituent kingdoms that comprised it were permitted to maintain many of their own cultural, ethnic, religious, and even legal identities, so according to Jacques definition, the UK cannot be a nation state. Of course, this is nonsense, and only highlights the fact that Jacques has re-defined terms and applied them selectively in order to create this idea of a gulf of distinction.

Jacques' second point actually has no point and is really a pejoritive dressed up as a sophisticated observation. Here, Jacques waxes poetic about the inherent racism of the Chinese and how their attitudes set them apart from the enlightened west. The most obscene aspect of this part of the video is the ease with which Jacques presumes to know the attitudes of 1 billion people, and makes casual generalizations about them. Such is the power of white privilege and the white sense of superiority. Of  course, the biggest irony is that the more Jacques describes this ethnic chauvinism of the Chinese, the more they seem to sound exactly like Europeans.

In the third and final point of Jacques' talk he highlights the subservient nature of the Chinese. He begins by using a fuzzy application of terms. He says.....

...the relationship between the state and society [in China] is very different from that in the west......in the west we see the authority and legitimacy of the state as a function of democracy....the Chinese state enjoys more legitimacy and more authority amongst the Chinese than is true with any western state....

The first problem with this is that nowhere is the legitimacy and authority of the state a function of democracy - not even in the west. This is because the nation state gets its legitimacy and authority from those factors that define it as a nation state. It is a government that gets its legitimacy from the democratic process, no-one votes (except in cases of separatist referendums) on whether or not their state should exist - it is simply taken for granted that it should exist and no-one votes for their state to cease to exist. Of course, when a government's authority comes from itself then what you have is an authoritarian entity, and in the case of China, this is a totalitarian entity. But, so what? Didn't we already know this? Even worse is Jacques' suggestion that totalitarianism is somehow embraced by the Chinese psyche. The reason that the Chinese state (and I think Jacques actually means "government" here) enjoys so much legitimacy amongst the Chinese is because they have the power and will to run a two thousand volt electrical charge through your testicles if you show dissent. Yet, this hugely important fact doesn't figure into Jacques lesson on how to understand China, in fact, it's looking more and more like he actually doesn't really understand China at all.

The biggest question mark over Jacques' actual understanding of China can be found in what he omitted from his talk. Jacques and most other China pundits like to conveniently forget that the west tried to destroy China economically, politically and culturally during the colonial period. Even the though the west has forgotten this, China hasn't. Resistance to colonialism was one of the factors that drove the communist revolution, explains China's distrust of the west, and was a significant factor in much of its internal and foreign policy in the past half century.

In short, Jacques' contentions seem to be based on historical illiteracy and some questionable logical contortions. For instance, he talks about the "Holy Roman Empire splitting up 2000 years ago", which is strange because the Holy Roman Empire didn't come into existence until 1100 years ago and only dissolved in the 18th century - 300 years ago. Maybe he was talking about the division of the Roman Empire proper into East and Western portions, but that was a purely poltical endeavour which wasn't based on any civilizational or cultural divisions. If Jacques doesn't grasp the nuances of his own history, then why should I believe that he is capable of grasping the nuances of the history and culture of China? Jacques has used cultural and historical factors extremely selectively in his talk in a way that suggests a confirmation bias on his part. In fact, the more Jacques describes China, the more they appear to be motivated by many of the same factors that motivate the west.

Overall, Jacques is following a pattern of over-simplification which I alluded to in a previous post. Basically, this type of knowledge dissemination is based upon the fact that it is possible to make all kinds of over-generalized claims about Asia and its peoples and have them accepted by mainstream consumers without question as accurate- even when they are obviously a-historical and logically incoherent.

Asians Eat White Kids For Breakfast

With Chopsticks, Of Course.

In the furor created by the recent "Tiger Mom" article in the Wall Street Journal, it would have been easy to miss out on the fact that few, if any, mainstream commentators displayed any kind of skepticism that Amy Chua may have been guilty of over-generalization in her assertions that her periodically vituperative parenting exuberance was somehow representative of the wider parenting philosophy of the Asian community. In the news dissemination industry where journalists are traditionally taught to dig deeper into a story in order to better determine its efficacy, it is especially surprising that this generalization fallacy was so easily overlooked, and perhaps even embraced.

It brought home for me how willingly society seems to accept the idea that Asians can be conceived of as a single unit, where the qualities exhibited by one Asian can be rapidly generalized as the truth for the entire group and applied accordingly. Even worse is the realization that you can make just about any claim about Asians and it's veracity won't be challenged in the mainstream. The reason for this, I believe, is that Asians have become so de-individuated in mainstream culture, and consequently in the general social consciousness, that it has become normative - and simply less troublesome - to dismiss Asians as a collective entity and not see them as individuals with unique qualities and perspectives. This sociological truth enables the mainstream to feel secure in its own superiority, and transforms anti-Asian discrimination into some kind of natural outcome of Asian cultural deficiencies and not mainstream bigotry.

What this all suggests is that when Easterly Asiatic peoples or their cultures are discussed by the mainstream, reason and logic seem to fly out the window, and are replaced by a gullible inability (or lack of desire) to sort through fact from farce, all with the proclivity toward low-key hysteria. In essence what this means is that the mainstream engages with the Asian minority from an irrational position, from which any and all suggestions that reinforce their pre-conceived (usually negative) notions about us are generally accepted without question, and any evidence to the contrary is dismissed as aberrative.

Naturally, this is a prodigious issue for the Asian minority. Here we are trying to engage in dialogue through literature, art, music, politics and so on, but the mainstream we are trying to reach aren't often engaging with us from a place of logic and reason. The mainstream consciousness is so inculcated with the notion of the uniform indistinguishability of Asians that they literally don't see us as individuals and it is because of this cultural pre-disposition to think of Asian people in derogatory ways, that negative beliefs about us are so easily disseminated as truths.

For the Asian minority, this manifests as a challenge to reassess our ways of perceiving the manner of our interactions with the mainstream (and with ourselves). Because our reception by the mainstream is founded upon irrational gut-reactions to de-personalized pejorative stereotypes of its own creation, any challenge to it requires a staunch re-assertion of Asians as individual entities. This approach leaves no room for the kind of backpedaling defense into cultural relativity as exhibited by Chua in her Wall Street Journal article and in her subsequent interviews. Those in the Asian minority who seek to present an honest understanding of their community simply do not have the privilege of using the over-generalizing language employed by Chua (and many others) - this simply undermines their own endeavours.