The Asianization Of Donald trump

The Media Is Still Not Our Friend......

I came across an interesting article on the fact-checking site, Snopes, that examined various claims made in the media about Donald Trump's actions/behaviour since he began his run for Presidential office. Despite stating numerous disclaimers of its author's opposition to Trump (Snopes does have a someone leftist lean), the piece is nevertheless mostly exemplary as a model for unbiased reporting. What's interesting is that the article describes biased and hostile media reports and portrayals of President Trump that are based caricatures. Caricature are often used to establish and propagate stereotypes.

The article says this....

This article is intended as a neutral, reliable analysis of the lies, false allegations and misleading claims made about and against Donald Trump since his inauguration in January 2017. We’ve attempted to strip away the hyperbole, name-calling and generalizations, and examine the patterns and trends at work: what characterizes these lies and exaggerations, the effect they have, what might explain them. 

We pay particular attention to selected examples — claims that have gained prominence among the mainstream opposition to Trump, revealing much about the methods, priorities, and tone of that opposition, and illustrating how this movement both cultivates and plays off a number of caricatures of the 45th President and at times falls prey to a handful of identifiable and repeated errors of thought.

The highlighted part of the second paragraph, above, is noteworthy: the hostile media plays off and cultivates caricatures of Trump to publish untruths or half-truths that cast a negative light on his presidency, morality, and character.

The piece goes on to outline the caricatures utilized by the mainstream media to shape, foster, and propagate negative attitudes towards Trump.....

Broadly speaking, most of the falsehoods levelled against Trump fall into one or more of four categories, each of them drawing from and feeding into four public personas inhabited by the President.  They are: 

• Donald Trump: International Embarrassment
• Trump the Tyrant
• Donald Trump: Bully baby
• Trump the Buffoon. 

Some of these claims are downright fake, entirely fabricated by unreliable or dubious web sites and presented as satire, or otherwise blatantly false. But the rest — some of which have gained significant traction and credibility from otherwise serious people and organizations — provide a fascinating insight into the tactics and preoccupations of the broad anti-Trump movement known as “the Resistance,” whether they were created by critics of the President or merely shared by them.

....there's something eerily familiar about about all of this. With each bullet point above, we could substitute the word "Asians" for the word "Trump" and the article would be unintentionally providing an uncannily accurate description of how Asians (particularly Asian men) are portrayed in the media.

It is routine to see Asian men portrayed as misogynistic tyrants who bully helpless Asian women (as popularized by the Joy Luck Club) and whose masculinities are lampooned as buffoonery. From internationally embarrassing Chinese ghost cities to mockery of Chinese and Japanese tourists, and from supposedly poor quality products to Asia's sometimes imitative engagement with western culture, Asia and its people are generally portrayed as an embarrassing imitation of western sophistication and rational comportment.

All of these Asian portrayals play off caricatures cultivated or propagated across the spectrum of America's media from comedy, light entertainment, movies, literature, and television, to current events programming and news reporting. The media has even ridiculed Trump about the size of his penis. They really hate this guy almost as much as they seem to hate Asian guys!

The key difference here is that Trump's race is not the motivating factor in how the media portrays him. The media is responding to Trump as an individual whose actions and words have rubbed many people the wrong way. Consequently, reporting on Trump is often emotional (i.e. irrational), hostile, suspicious, often paranoid, and uncompromisingly one-sided in its misrepresentations of him. Yet, this is precisely the way the media - including, and, perhaps, particularly, the liberal media - misrepresents Asia and Asian men.

This phenomenon further cements my belief that liberals and the liberal media are unreliable allies, fickle and dishonest, but most problematic of all, politically biased such that it cannot be trusted to report objective news about Asians, nor can entertainment media be trusted to divest itself from propagating racist stereotypes of them. My conclusion here is that Asian commentary at this time - if it is to be taken seriously - needs to highlight the implicit dishonesty of the liberal media regardless of whether it is talking about Trump or Asian men. At least we know where we stand with Trump, the media on the other hand, claims to be "liberal" on one side of its mouth whilst giving platforms and credence to those who spout casual anti-Asian racism on the other.

This uncomfortable truth is a huge slap in the face for those in Asian-American reactivism who suggest that our concerns about media representation and portrayals are somehow overblown. The fact that the media has successfully - so far - managed to galvanize widespread opposition, overlook and "re-frame" leftist violence, and successfully propagate admitted lies to disrupt the world's most powerful politician, shows just how significant the issue of media representation is for Asian-Americans. Obviously, some of our self-righteous friends in Asian progressive fantasy land can't imagine just how significant a role the media can play in the democratic process. More on that in an upcoming post.

We have to remember that an unbiased media is hugely significant for any democratic society. If it makes things up and becomes politicized and biased, the effect of this misinformation is that democracy becomes dysfunctional. When media reporting and representation strategies are based on caricaturing and stereotyping of Trump that is designed to foster abuse and hostility towards him rather than honestly inform people of his statements and actions, that takes away our ability to make informed decisions about our democracy.

If media reporting and representation strategies - that are based on caricaturing and stereotyping -  targets an ethnic minority with few means or opportunities of responding, that becomes a repression. Sadly, Asian men are the prime targets for liberal media racism - of course, Asian re-activism has no thoughts on that.

The article continues...

Generally speaking, we discovered that they are characterized and driven by four types of errors of thought: 

• Alarmism
• A lack of historical context or awareness
• Cherry-picking of evidence (especially visual evidence)
• A failure to adhere to Occam’s Razor — the common-sense understanding that the simplest explanation for an event or behavior is the most likely. 

Infused throughout almost all these claims, behind their successful dissemination, is confirmation bias: the fuel that drives the spread of all propaganda and false or misleading claims among otherwise sensible and skeptical people. Confirmation bias is the tendency to look for, find, remember and share information that confirms the beliefs we already have, and the tendency to dismiss, ignore and forget information that contradicts those beliefs. It is one of the keys to why clever people, on all sides of every disagreement, sometimes believe stupid things that aren’t true.

And there you have it - an accurate description of the nature of media representation of Asian men. I don't support Trump, but in all consciousness, I cannot give my acquiescence to media strategies that are casually turned on Asian men. The enemy of my enemy, is definitely not my friend in this case.

The Dalai Lama And The Cult Of The Emasculated Asian Mystic.

A Halo Slips.

Since being forced into exile by communist China in 1959, the Dalai Lama has become probably the most beloved - and accepted - Asian man in western history. His position as the leader of the Tibetan government in exile that opposes Chinese occupation has also endeared him to political elites who oppose and fear China's rise to economic prominence. Most notably, almost alone out of all the world's religious leaders, the Dalai Lama has been publicly embraced by America's celebrity caste whose endorsement of his stated pacifism has been - in my opinion - the driving force behind his elevation to a celebrity himself.

Yet, His Highness's halo seemed to take a knock last month when during a BBC interview he was asked about the potential for a female Dalai Lama in the future and he replied that such a woman.....

"...must be very attractive.."

...otherwise she would....

"...not be much use..."

Naturally, the response from women's rights activists has been one of disbelief and disappointment. For me, it merely confirmed the adage that expectation leads to disappointment - particularly when it is applied to those proclaiming unique religious knowledge. Even though I have no issue with men who wear dresses or with the religious, men who wear dresses whilst simultaneously proclaiming religious piety and spiritual expertise tend to set off my skepticism alert. Thus, the Dalai Lama displaying a distinctly backward and a spiritually archaic attitude towards women merely confirms my suspicions that religious types wearing flowing robes and dresses should not necessarily be placed on pedestals.

What is most interesting here, though, is that the Dalai Lama fulfills the fantasies of America's apparently spiritually bankrupt celebrity elites who seem willing to buy into the stereotype - created by none other than the apparently spiritually bankrupt celebrity elites - of the slightly more than human Asian mystic whose lack of sexual prowess and possession of arcane spiritual knowledge renders void the seeming normative distaste for Asian men that our American culture routinely exhibits.

I have long maintained that the stereotypes of Asian men in American culture reflects a deep-rooted xenophobia that limits acceptable western conceptualizations of us to the harmless mystic who fulfills a spiritual void in the western elites who accept them, and the harmless buffoon type whose antics and fundamental childishness allows them to serve as examples of how men should not be but who Asian men cannot help but be.

Yet, just like all fantasies, these dehumanizing stereotypes distort reality and reflect the depths to which people will go to hold on to their prejudices. In the case of the Dalai Lama, the fantasy of the advanced spiritual Asian mystic has obscured some very uncomfortable concerns about the nature of Tibetan society prior to the Chinese take over. Worse - but strangely unsurprisingly - these distasteful aspects of a society long upheld by western Orientalist fantasists as a utopian paradise on earth, only seem to warrant criticism when westerners (western feminists in this case) have their feelings hurt.

The problem is, that for several decades there has been significant evidence that Tibet prior to the Chinese take over was a theocratic hell that oversaw horrific human rights abuses committed by the religious elite against the extremely poor majority. Don't get me wrong here, I do not accuse the Dalai Lama of committing atrocities against his own people, but merely say that the fantasy stereotypes created by the west of the spiritually advanced mystic which has been applied to him has helped to obscure discussion of a brutal history that is at odds with both the stereotypes of morally advanced Tibetan monks as well as the stated claim of advancing democratic principles for the benefit of the Tibetan people.

Viewing the Dalai Lama through the filter of the racial stereotype of the harmless Asian mystic who will lead his people back to some utopian nirvana only obscures the fact that Tibet was never a utopia but was to many accounts a hellish society ruled by wealthy aristocrats and buddhist monks who kept the vast majority of the population in a condition tantamount to slavery.

An article written way back in 1992 by a man named Michael Parenti outlines the extremely harsh conditions under which the majority of Tibetans were forced to live. Bonded servitude from which there was no chance of escape meant that the majority of Tibetans lived as slaves whose lives and bodies were subject to the whims of their owners. According to Parenti, runaways were treated with extreme cruelty sometimes resulting in death, and thieves and criminals were subject to brutal reprisals that included cutting off of limbs and mutilation. Religious beliefs taught by the monasteries reinforced this social system....

The theocracy’s religious teachings buttressed its class order. The poor and afflicted were taught that they had brought their troubles upon themselves because of their wicked ways in previous lives. Hence they had to accept the misery of their present existence as a karmic atonement and in anticipation that their lot would improve in their next lifetime. The rich and powerful treated their good fortune as a reward for, and tangible evidence of, virtue in past and present lives.

It says a lot about the status of Asian people in the west that it is only when the representative of this cruelty "offends" white feminism that the halo of spiritual superiority comes under question - forget the thousands of Tibetans who lived as slaves, that is easily overlooked in a society that normalizes dehumanizing conceptualizations of Asian people. What is important is the fantasy of spiritual advancement that the Dalai Lama purports to offer that can give meaning to privileged western lives.

In some ways the Dalai Lama is the ultimate representative of the model minority; the stereotypes that place him on a pedestal allows those who support him to cloak their virulent xenophobia towards the Chinese just like the model minority stereotype allows the denial of racism in American society. Furthermore, the uncritical acceptance of what the Dalai Lama represents - a peaceful, harmless spiritually advanced society where everyone (every Asian that is) is complacently and unquestioningly contented with their lot in life - seems to act as a counterfoil to the other stereotype about Asian men; wicked, grasping, inhumane and de-individuated hordes who consume everything in their path.

What is often termed as harmless and "playful" dehumanizing stereotypes has manifested in a very concrete way - both as the unquestioning embrace of  spiritual figure whose pre-1950 society seemed as brutally repressive as the communist regime that replaced it and the equally unquestioned acceptance of the Chinese as brutal savages destroying the western fantasy of Shangri-la. Put another way, this juxtaposition of un-nuanced attitudes can be viewed as a reflection of the two most powerful and largely unchallenged stereotypes that have been applied to Asian men. On the one hand we have the stereotype of the harmless, desexualized mystic who is unthreatening and beneficial to white people by virtue of his harmlessness and lack of libido, being played off against the bestial, grasping Asian man whose inadequacies manifest as angry oppressiveness.

As I have suggested, this inability - or lack of desire - to formulate a more nuanced understanding of the facts simply means that the spiritual aspirations of white America, founded as they are on a flawed and delusional historical narrative, supersedes the experiences of Asian men and women who suffered brutal conditions in Tibet's feudal society. This in no way denies that Chinese communism has itself acted with brutality both towards the Tibetans and their own people, it merely acknowledges that the western narrative of the simple dichotomy of good, passive Asian man pitted against wicked, inhumane Asian man is founded on racist thinking that reduces Asian peoples' experiences to figments of the western imagination and in the process obscures justice and truth.

The absurdity of this situation can be summed up thusly; it is through dehumanization of Asian people - since the neutered mystic and the angry aggressor stereotypes are both dehumanizing - that the west seems to somehow believe it can foster freedom and justice.

A more nuanced - and truthful approach - would be to, well, acknowledge the truth; while communist China has acted with brutality in Tibet (just as it has done so with its own people), there is compelling evidence that pre-1950 Tibetan society was as bad if not worse. Furthermore, there is also evidence that Chinese rule has brought benefits to Tibet that are simply too embarrassing for western ears to apprehend, and that the rhetoric of Chinese attempts at genocide are exaggerated if not completely false.

What seems clear to me is that so long as the issue of Tibet continues to be viewed and understood through the implicit framework of racial stereotypes, the only people who will benefit are western spiritual mysticism junkies who seem to think that nirvana can be attained via the practice of ignoring history and the suffering of Asian people under the Tibetan theocracy, but also creating more suffering by upholding racial stereotypes that inhibit any possibility of approaching the subject objectively and with the understanding that all parties involved are human rather than dehumanizing stereotypes.

What has to happen is that our society has to become aware that racial stereotypes are damaging - extremely damaging - by virtue of their very nature and are not only damaging when they backfire and offend white people's sensibilities.