Rugged Individuals?

The Fear Driving Racism Against Asian Men.

I came across yet another interesting blog run by an American female ex-pat in South Korea. She has written a series of posts outlining the evolution of her attitudes and beliefs over a period of a year regarding the romantic involvement of Asian men and western women. In a series of four posts she describes how before she moved to Korea she was exposed to the belief that Asian men were just too comical to be considered serious mate material (by herself, her friends, and people in her social networks) and how by the end of the series she has completely reversed this attitude within herself. Along the way she describes her realization that it is a form of white patriarchal racism (although she never actually uses the term racism, that is what it amounts to) that empowers itself by controlling the choices of white (but also, as we all know but many are reluctant to admit, Asian) women by using negative racial stereotypes to discourage western women from involving themselves with Asian men.

This is from the first post in the series, for ease of reading bear in mind that the blogger writes about herself in the 3rd person, and calls herself "INP" (I'm No Picasso) .........

[She]... has just had the crushing realization that her life actually belongs to her, and she can take it and put it wherever on this globe she has a mind to. At the moment, the most prominent option seems to be Korea. ...one resounding question for her about her new plans, other than, "What the hell are you doing?" That question is...."What are you going to do about the men?"........several people in INP's inner circle surprised her in their reactions. INP was not an idiot -- she was aware of the stereotypes surrounding Asian men in American culture. She was probably, if she was completely honest, a holder of one or two in her own mind at times. But INP at no point believed that the mere thought of her in bed with an Asian man should send anyone she knew and called one of her own into fits of hysterical laughter.

In the next couple of paragraphs she goes on to describe how despite self-evidently hyper-masculine Korean men known to her via their celeb status as well-known actors, even this was not sufficient to disavow her personal and internet friends of the idea that dating Asian men was absolutely not a serious option as their preconceived notions always trumped any reality check. She goes on.....

Then INP started to frequent a little place called Dave's ESL Cafe [a website]. As most people end up doing at one point or another in their time preparing to come to Korea to teach English. Suddenly, INP was bombarded with one overarching message. The message was this: Western women do not find Korean men attractive. Korean men do not find Western women attractive. As Western men in Korea are all completely consumed with Korean women (given how unattractive Western women are in comparison), and all that leaves Western women with are girly pansy-assed Korean men (who none of them find attractive, and who, mutually, don't find Western women attractive), then Western women in Korea can expect to spend their year with their sexual congress 'out of session'.

But it gets much better........

INP may have been a lot of things, but stupid definitely wasn't one. It didn't take her long to realize that, oddly enough, all of these posts were coming from Western men. INP tried to find some input from Western women, but there was none to be found. Anytime a Western woman tried to say anything at all on this site, in fact, it seemed she was immediately shouted down for being, oddly enough, 'fat'. Which seemed to be an applicable comment no matter what information the woman had or hadn't provided about herself, and in nearly every situation, no matter what was being discussed.......INP started to feel very worried about her impending time in the ROK. She had read dozens of warnings (from Western men) about how horribly sexist Korean men were. And yet, INP was getting the sinking feeling that the Western men in Korea may not be much better.

On to part two. Writing about her initial contact with western female ex-pats in Korea INP she laments their reinforcement of the negative attitudes towards Korean men......

I was often forced to sit and listen to a monologue-cum-tirade about how sexist Korean men were, how impossible the cultural differences were, how feminine and unattractive and gay Korean men were. I had only been in Korea for a very short time, and I thought it was possible these women had experienced something that I hadn't yet, but I had suspicions that there was something else at play.......As I looked around me, I found it hard to see what the other foreign women saw, on the surface level. Sure, I'd noticed the flower boys. But I had also noticed the other men. I was in Incheon, after all -- an area renowned the country over for its rough-and-tumble locals. As far as I could tell, Incheon seemed to be the source from which the entire Korean mafia issued forth. And that suited me just fine. I wasn't having any trouble at all spotting Korean men who weren't feminine, unattractive or gay.

This is very interesting because negative perceptions of Asian men's attractiveness were maintained even when blatant evidence to the contrary existed. But then INP starts to see the light. Noting that many of these western women were frustrated by the fact that the western men in Korea were only interested in Korean women....

I also looked around at the groups of Western men that surrounded these Western women. I began to put two and two together........I would hear endless echoes of everything I had seen written on Dave's -- how Western men only wanted to date Korean women, how their time there had been entirely sexless and dateless......But fuck sake. Where were the women? I couldn't be the only one in the entire country who would even consider a Korean man. 

Finally, having endured this negativity from western ex-pats, INP decides (in part because no western man would approach her) that she is going to taste the local flavours for herself regardless of what the other ex-pats thought. In part three of the series she describes her first date with a Korean man.....

I will never, as long as I live, forget my first date with a Korean guy. Because of the date? No. Because of the guy? No. Because of the absolute classicness of what ensued when I had the balls to walk into the local foreigner bar with a Korean guy for the first time. And how many realizations I had on that night alone about the nature of what had been confusing the fuck out of me for literally months.

Describing her Korean date thus....

The guy was not run-of-the-mill by anyone's standards. But he was, physically, absolutely stunning by my own. About six feet tall, with a thin build -- covered in tattoos and sporting a bit of facial hair. Dressed in all black with worn jeans and a leather jacket. Big black combat boots. Sharp eyes.....He was a tough looking guy, by anyone's standards, including a Westerner's.

The reaction of the western men in the bar is swift and bitchy......

We had been there for about fifteen minutes when, suddenly, out of fucking nowhere, some Western man I had never even seen before came reeling in my direction. He literally wedged himself directly between me and my date, with his back to my date........"Oh look at this.... like.... cool rocker chick. Sitting back here alone and sipping on a beer and being cool and shit!".......This continued all. night. long. One after another of the foreign men who had never bothered to even look me in the eye before that night suddenly felt the need to make their way over and say something fucking asinine while completely ignoring the fact that there was another human being sitting next to me, with whom I was trying to have a conversation.

The harassment continued.....

A date would go to the bathroom, and a Western man I was completely unacquainted with would sidle over from the other side of the room and inform me that my date's outfit was "gay" (t shirt and jeans?), his hair was "stupid" (combed and washed?), and that I would obviously have a better time that night if I were to go home with him instead....Was it ALL of this EVERY time I was out with a Korean guy? No....Was it at least some of this most of the times I was out with a Korean guy? Yes. Making it home for the evening without encountering at least one patronizing comment was the rare exception.

And here is where it gets even more interesting.....

I realized what was behind it. A community of men who had previously viewed me as a kind of annoying buzzing sound in the room....were now striding up to me in bars to offer me a 'chance' to be with them. Or were finding smaller, more cowardly ways to make passive aggressive comments and generally interrupt my business, which they had previously had literally no interest in whatsoever.....And it wasn't just about me being with a guy....It was that I was with a Korean guy. ......I had had enough of watching women joke and laugh and jeer right along their Western male counterparts, condemning themselves to a 'miserable' experience, all to be sure they weren't outcast from what little community they had.....I had had enough of listening to men tell me what my experience in Korea was and would be, and why. And then, when I turned around and proved them wrong -- not even for the sake of proving them wrong, but just as incidence in the conducting of my own personal pursuit of happiness -- having them jump all over that shit as well. Even the nice guys I knew from around would occasionally manage to be patronizing, with comments like, "Good for you!" and, "Oh, really? You like Korean guys? Well... that's cool." As though them sitting around and endlessly discussing how much they wanted to date Korean girls happened on a completely different planet from me dating Korean guys.

Then INP notices the dramatic goal-post shift.........

Popular opinion among this pack of scumbags, in the face of direct contradiction, had suddenly shifted from "Western women have to be celibate in Korea because no one will touch them har har!" to "Oh, that? Over there? Yeah. Korean men just like to use Western women for sex." Funny, that. I had gone from being completely un-sexable to only useful for my sexuality.

But her refusal to be bullied out of her own autonomy leads to her being labelled.....

 Their attempts to badger me into backing down and being ashamed of myself weren't working -- in fact, they were backfiring.......I just wasn't going to cooperate, the way other women had been, by assuming a martyred role and going along with their myth. And so I started to get a bit of a reputation.....So suddenly, I had become That Girl Who Dates Korean Guys.......It wasn't what I set out to be. I never put a cap on my interest in Western men. I never had "yellow fever". But it couldn't just be what it was, which was that I was dating men who happened to be Korean. It had to be categorizedNo, no -- Western women still don't like Korean men, and Korean men still don't like Western women. INP is just into them, and they're just into her.

By part four of the series INP begins to notice other women like her were beginning to come to Korea who weren't so easily bullied into accepting the "rules" of acceptance into their own communities which required that they adopt these racist stereotypes about Asian men that led to their own personal unhappiness and loneliness. 

Even stranger, I had begun to have very different first encounters with Western women. Standing outside a local university one day, smoking a cigarette, one made her way toward me. After a few minutes discussing all the usual details, she looked up at me out of the corner of her eyes, squinted and said, "So, have you got it?", "Got what?""The fever.""The I'm sorry?"

 LOL! Nice!

These were small, but noticeable changes......That would mean we didn't have to deal with all kinds of side-eye and rude, childish, unacceptable behavior when we were seen out with Korean men.....Women were blogging in Korea. Women were blogging in Korea about dating. Women were blogging in Korea about dating Korean men. And other women around the world were eating it up.......These women weren't sad and lonely. They most certainly were not sexless. And, most importantly, anonymity for the sake of sexual content aside, they were not embarrassed. They had no reason to be. And the men they were with were attractive to them, and the men they were with were not sexually impotent.

And there you have it. A thoroughly enjoyable read, and I advise readers to read all four posts all the way through, it is a very insightful series and talks about attitudes towards Asian men that few - even in the Asian community - are willing to acknowledge. 

Commentary.

It is nice to see that someone other than an Asian man has noticed, and is writing about, our experiences - Asian men who write about this are labelled "angry Asian losers" and are dismissed (often by their own community). Although INP suggests that the prejudices that she describes were limited to a few loser individuals and that her story should not be used to taint the reputations of the majority of "good" ex-pats in Korea, the experience of INP is a microcosm of the type of attitudes that America purveys about Asian men on a culture wide level. The difference for her, perhaps, is that in the US she may not encounter this type of prejudice very often because the question of dating Asian guys is less likely to come up as frequently (if at all). For Asian men, these demeaning attitudes are a common aspect of our experience and are routinely expressed through America's cultural endeavours. So even though INP may be correct that it was a minority pedaling these ideas, the fact remains that this denigration of Asian men is an established and pervasive practice of American culture which was simply reflected in the microcosm of her Korean ex-pat community.

It should also be said that this idea of a few "bad apples" bullying and cajoling the rest of the group into adopting these attitudes and behaviours mirrors the character of America's general, at best, dismissive attitude towards Asian men. Because America's culture has made it normal to only think negative and dehumanizing  ideas about Asian men - that few are willing or able to challenge - it is possible for a small group of assholes to be empowered to be openly and casually racist without social censure. Whereas, for other minority groups the most fervent racists are on the margins, for Asian men, the most fervent racists are the ones directing social attitudes and behaviours first through stereotyping and misinformation, and when that doesn't work, through scorn, peer pressure, or even ostracism.

The most recent example of this is, of course, the racialized and often outright racist commentaries on Jeremy Lin's time with the Knicks. At first, the coverage of Lin tended to focus on his skills which (just like the perceptual blindness of female ex-pats in Korea) no-one seemed to notice before. After a couple of days the racialization began. I remember watching a couple of games in which the commentators were (for no good reason and contrary to what was actually happening on the court) somehow noticing that Lin seemed "tired" or lacking in stamina - as you would expect (of course!) of an Asian man. Then came the "chink in the armour" commentaries, the "Lin has a small dick" twitters, and the various ways in which Lin's success was sullied by racial insensitivity and outright spite.

What was actually happening was that the goalposts were being moved - when Lin proved that the certainty of Asian athletic inferiority to be premature, the goalposts were realigned so that it didn't matter that the stereotypes were wrong because let's remember that Lin is still merely a chink with a small dick. Thus, society's assumptions can remain in place, and America could feel safe in the certainty of its superiority. This is what INP relates in her third post when she talks about the goalpost shift that allowed the prejudice to remain but be expressed through a reversal of stereotype - instead of Korean men being sexless and impotent, the warning now became that Korean men were only interested in western women for the sex.

The phenomenon of the high Asian representation in America's universities offers us another example of this continual shifting of goalposts. When the first Asian migrants came to America, they were considered intellectually inferior. Subsequent events have made a mockery of this belief, and as Asians have come to increase their presence in education, the criticism has shifted and has now become "yes, they are intelligent but they are not creative". Or, Asians are intelligent but they are merely good test-takers who fail in the real world. Or, Asians are intelligent but are poor leaders. Or, Asians are smart but are not independent thinkers. American culture is so conditioned to conceive of Asians in negative ways that "it just doesn't feel right" to not include negative caveats about Asians. Thus, it goes unnoticed when the prevailing racism contradicts previous assumptions and shows it to be irrational. This why it is possible for America's attitudes towards Asians to be directed by so few and accepted by so many.

INP's description of the western men in her ex-pat group reinforced my sense that much of the prejudice directed at Asian men is fear-based. There is an air of tragedy in this idea of western men (most of whom I would presume are white) who have the opportunity to experience a foreign culture and somewhat escape the conditioning of their own society, but who instead huddle together for safety in their group - fearing to venture out to glimpse the world from a different perspective. What a waste. Even worse is the pathos of this gaggle of western guys, maintaining the illusion of their own primacy, whilst simultaneously hiding their timidity, through gossip, manipulation, and by controlling women with scary stories. And when that doesn't work, sullying the reputations of those who refuse to be manipulated by gossiping about them like hags. So much for this non-conformist "rugged individualism" we hear so much about.

It has to be noted that these timid ex-pats are gender specific about their prejudices - as INP noted, these men would spread racist gossip about Korean men, but in the same breath speak about how they only date Korean women. What for many might seem like a paradox is actually a common notion in the Asian-American dialogue which, unfortunately, Asians themselves generally refuse to acknowledge. Gender specific racism is what has defined the Asian-American experience. Although racism is experienced by both Asian men and women, racism against Asian men is exclusionary, whereas for Asian women the racism is implicitly inclusive - which may be why some Asian women appear confused about it. And that is why some white dudes who express racist attitudes about Asians are married to Asian women. This is a point that needs to be emphasized in any discussion on the Asian-American experience of racism; the anti-Asian racism that persists in America is built on a foundation of dehumanization of Asian men. This is why it may be the out-marriage rates of Asian-American men, the degree of their visibility in popular culture, and their prominence in leadership roles, that serves as the gauge of improved attitudes towards Asians.

The implications of this are disturbing to say the least. As INP noted, her initial unbiased impression of Korean men was that they were not all wimpy girly-boys, but included amongst them were guys whom she found to be extremely attractive. Yet, the social control of gossipy ex-pat men had so clouded the perceptions of ex-pat women that they weren't able to see beyond what their conditioning dictated they should see. A combination of persistent manipulative racist gossip, the threat of being kicked out of the group and theirself becoming the target of gossip, culturally conditioned assumptions about Asian men, as well as an inability to notice the sexism implicit in these ex-pat men's efforts to control them, all contributed to this phenomenon of not being able to make an autonomous decision based on the evidence of their own eyes.

Some Asian men might read this and despair, but that would be silly. What INP's posts (which reinforced my own dating experiences) show is that the type of woman that chooses to partner an Asian man in the west, has to be independent, an autonomous thinker, not afraid to swim against the current of social fads, be willing to question racist assumptions, and not be swayed by gossip or social and peer pressure. This I think is a positive thing because there are plenty of women like this in America. Asian dudes just need to do more to notice them instead of seeing just the automatons who follow the attitudes of the herd.

In summary, the events and experiences that INP describes, although in the context of a small ex-pat community do, in fact, reflect and mirror the culture-wide nature of America's negative attitudes towards Asian men. INP describes the way that attitudes and behaviours of her ex-pat colleagues were directed and controlled by timid and frightened white men, whose racism was propagated through vicious gossip, social pressure, name-calling, racial stereotyping, and the exploitation of people's fears and ignorance. Yet, this is precisely the way that American culture propagates anti-Asian racism through the media. Gossip, innuendo, regurgitation of stereotypes, name-calling, and xenophobia, are all ways that American culture engages society, and defines the dialogue on Asians.

Here are the links again....

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

The Free Lunch For Racists

 When Is a Hate Crime Not A Hate Crime?

In a predictable follow-up video to an incident at a comedy club in which an Asian audience member reacted to comic Brett Eidman's racial baiting, Eidman is given the opportunity to exclaim "Me? Racist caricatures? No!" to an uncritical interviewer............



Of course, it is commonplace for America's celebs, and wannabe celebs alike, to racially bait Asians, and is the clearest indication of the pervasiveness of attitudes of casual anti-Asian prejudice. The dichotomy created between America's self-image as a society that opposes prejudice, and the fact of America's acceptance and normalization of racism towards Asians provides sufficient ambiguity to enable a plausible deniability allowing perpetrators to back-pedal with flimsy apologies and genuinely ambiguous remorse, all the while hinting at misunderstood satire or an ungenerous interpretation by an overly sensitive minority.

Thus, apologies serve a couple of purposes none of which benefit Asian-America; they allow America to reaffirm its identity as a society that has largely overcome racism, perpetuates the myth that racism against Asians only exists mainly as the mis-perception of an overly-sensitive minority, which in turn, enables racial baiting and harassment of Asian-Americans to remain the normal mode of interaction between mainstream America and its Asian minority.

Insanity has been described as doing the same thing over and over again whilst expecting a different result. If this is true then the response from Asian-America to this type of prejudice has become insane - we always demand apologies which we know are going to be disingenuous and which never seem to change the culture of casual racism against Asians that exists in media and entertainment. Because anti-Asian prejudice in society is normalized by an popular culture that makes light of violent race-crimes and equates racial baiting with fun activities as normal as a day on the beach, the effects of an apology are far outweighed by the negative outcomes and do little to balance them.

This why we need to re-think the way we approach our dialogue on anti-Asian racism in the entertainment industry by, perhaps, focusing less on our tendency to express our offence as the basis for an industry response.

Demeaning depictions of Asians in the media and individual acts of racial-baiting by celebs or writers are really no different than the casual day-to-day harassment that Asian-Americans experience in their daily lives. The only difference is that the media targets the group whereas in daily life it is typically an individual that is targeted. The latter act is a criminal offence, yet the former, though potentially more damaging, continues as an acceptable way of representing Asian people in the entertainment industry. For example, if someone came up to you on the street and mocked your racial characteristics, and verbally harassed you by imitating an "Asian" accent, then this could be ruled a hate-crime. Yet, the entertainment industry routinely does this exact thing but these ubiquitous demeaning and dehumanizing representations are not viewed as hate-crimes even though the difference is vague.

The question is; can a legal case be made that individuals and companies in entertainment and media are committing hate crimes when they knowingly and deliberately racially bait, and mock Asians? If there is no one individual victim of media racism and the target is generalized and dispersed can a case be made that a crime is being committed that causes harm to Asians both as individuals and as a group?

Hate Crimes can encompass several things....

"Hate crime" generally refers to criminal acts that are seen to have been motivated by bias against one or more of the types above, or of their derivatives. Incidents may involve physical assault, damage to property, bullying, harassment, verbal abuse or insults, or offensive graffiti or letters (hate mail).

Of the above definition, bullying, harassment, verbal abuse, and insults, are all qualities that characterize media racism (be it demeaning stereotypes or one individual being racist). Bullying includes verbal harassment (celebs "ching-chonging", for example), but significantly it is a phenomenon that can exist between....

......social groups, social classes, and even between countries (see jingoism).

Bullying is the use of force or coercion to abuse or intimidate others. This media bullying through cultural expression can also easily be shown to bear characteristics of harassment.....

Harassment.......covers a wide range of behaviors of an offensive nature. It is commonly understood as behaviour intended to disturb or upset, and it is characteristically repetitive. In the legal sense, it is intentional behaviour which is found threatening or disturbing. 

For example, repeated depictions of "Asian" characters whose main role in the dialogue of the production is to serve as the target of racialized jokes, or joke scenarios, that regurgitate racist stereotypes, as well as celebs or cultural figures mocking Asian accents, physical characteristics, mannerisms, or using known racial slurs, are all aspects of America's culture that resemble harassment. If an individual were to do these things in the real world (for example assuming the "character" of an Asian by imitating an accent, and using gestures to mimic racial characteristics) they could easily be charged with racial harassment. Demeaning characters in film and television that are used as a means to propagate demeaning stereotypes are simply elaborate forms of racial harassment.

Of course, the issue of verbal abuse and insults targeting Asians in the media are the most self-evident aspects of America's normalization of anti-Asian racism. For a society that is prone to deny the very existence of racism against Asians, the prevalence of racially based verbal abuse and insults from the media directed at Asian people is quite remarkable. Whether it be obvious abuse (like this), abuse disguised as a comedy routine, or craftily ambiguous, like the "chink in the armour" headlines used in association with Jeremy Lin, the verbal abuse of Asians by media figures betrays the depth of casual anti-Asian attitudes in American society.

Clearly, the way that Asians are represented in film and television, in the print media, spoken about by media figures, and in most areas of American cultural expression, exhibits many of the most heinous characteristics of racially biased hate crimes. In this light, to put forward the response of being "offended" seems a somewhat insufficient response to a profound culture of racial baiting. Simply being "offended" in some ways allows the magnitude of America's media hate to be diminished and enables perpetrators to avoid addressing the issues that propagates the culture of casual anti-Asian racism. For instance, if you are simply offended, then the response is to apologize  - and this is what tends to happen. End of story. And the next week, another celeb, television show, or movie depiction, commits another hate-crime under the guise of creative freedom, free speech, or simply "jest". Proclaiming offence and demanding an apology has failed to change the culture of media prejudice against Asians - that is why we have just got to stop framing our concerns about media racism in this way. Instead, let's call it what it is - a hate crime and let's, furthermore, expect a more genuine response from the media than faux apologies.

Some might argue that defining casual media racism as "hate-crimes" is somehow going too far and at the very least is overly sensitive and at worst is an unjustified censorship of free speech or the creative process. This is a poor argument for a couple of reasons. Firstly, to describe the dehumanizing portrayal of Asians in the media and the casual race-baiting by some media figures as "creative" is a stretch to say the least. Regurgitating decades-old stereotypes is not creative and race-baiting of Asians is not cutting edge culture. The media fosters attitudes towards Asians that promote demeaning behaviours, and hostility, and thus normalizes such negative attitudes which is far from creative. Furthermore, if it can be shown that media depictions amount to little more than sophisticated hate-crimes, then ending them becomes a matter of common decency, and legal necessity.

Changing the way that we conceive of media dehumanization of Asians changes the scope of what we can achieve through activism. Instead of demanding meaningless apologies we can target more meaningful engagement between the corporate media and the individuals who comprise it that will yield more tangible results. I see no reason why an industry that fosters racial prejudice both within its own enterprise and in general society, should not be required to tangibly rectify their infringements. I see no reason why a studio that discriminates against Asian actors should not be required to sponsor Asian actors and ease them into more prominent lead roles. I see no reason why a television show that writes a demeaning Asian character into their script, who is racially baited and whose presence serves as the inducement for regurgitating racist stereotypes which are repeated by schoolkids all over the country, can not be required to financially support groups fighting against bullying of Asian children in America's schools. And I especially see no reason why individual celebs who are smug in their race-baiting of Asians should not be legally held accountable for their hate-crimes.

Some may see this as an over-reaction to petty racism, yet although individually these incidences of race-baiting seem minor, it is the accumulation of stereotypes, dehumanization, and race-baiting from the media and entertainment industry that paints a disturbing picture of a culture of normalized anti-Asian prejudice that is pervasive throughout society. Our proclamations of offence have done little to create a shift in the media's hostile depictions of Asian people, nor have they succeeded in dis-empowering the casual race-baiting by individual celebs. This is why we must target a more genuine response from the media that provides us with a more tangible  outcome that benefits our community. The way to go about this is to recognize that media race representations are actually little more than racial harassment for which the media must be held accountable.

After all, what is the difference between the mockery of Asian racial characteristics by Miley and the daily racial harassment of Asian kids in America's schools whose tormentors also use the same racial mockery? Likewise mocking of Asian accents or the use of racial slurs is racial harassment whether it happens in the workplace, randomly on the street, in a restaurant, or is broadcast through the television, radio, or over the internet compliments of a media figure. As I mention elsewhere in my writing, media racism not only promotes and normalizes negative attitudes and behaviours towards Asians, the process by which it does this is often a hate crime in an of itself.

Konishiwa Bitches.

The Upside Of Racial Exclusion.

As some readers may remember from a couple of previous posts, living in a Muslim country has highlighted some interesting commonalities between the experience of being an Asian in the US and being an ex-pat in the  Muslim world. Although I live in a city that is considered to be something of a European cultural centre, in a Muslim country that has for the past nine decades been ferociously secular, the past several years have seen an increasing identification with the Muslim identity and with it a subtle, but significant, shift towards a more conservative social order with an increasing emphasis on Islamic sensibilities that blends secular principles with social mores informed by religion.

One factor that has remained constant throughout this process is the country's fiercely independent sense of self and sense of identity. Although technology has opened the country up to cultural influences from the west, so far the influence seems relatively superficial and there is a tension concerning the degree to which western culture should be incorporated. As an individual who has grown up in a society that insists on racializing every aspect of the Asian experience, it  is not surprising that one result of this independent mindedness is that many of the racial stereotypes and prejudices against East Asian people that are casual in the West don't seem to have deeply affected the worldview of the people here. What I mean by this is that although my race and ethnicity are obvious this fact, unlike in the US, there seems to be little or no presumptions (or certainties) about my character based on my racial characteristics.

The recent outbreak of anti-American protests throughout the Muslim world (including peaceful protests here - so far!) have served to highlight this experience. Even though an American, I can walk through a hundreds-strong anti-American protest (as I did two Fridays back on my home from a evening out) and feel relatively safe knowing with great irony that the deliberate exclusion of Asians from America's cultural identity also means that the world also cannot view me as an American. It should be noted that in this culture, even if I had been obviously American the threat of violence against me would likely have been much less than it would be for an Asian-American getting caught up in an anti-immigrant protest in the US.

What has been amazing to notice is how American ex-pats seem to respond to this culture which has a general disregard for white America's cultural self-worship as well as an undercurrent of distaste for the footprint that the US has left in the Muslim world. As a general observation, there is a distinct lack of swagger amongst American ex-pats here, many of whom seem intimidated, or even hurt, by the reality of living in a culture that is indifferent or has negative feelings towards their country of origin. I have never seen so much self-doubt (or even self-criticism) being shown by Americans about themselves or their culture. Of course, the degree of negativity towards America over here comes nowhere close to the degree of hostility that American culture routinely expresses towards its Asian minority, but even more notable is how the hostility towards America over here very rarely becomes personal. Whereas America's cultural anti-Asian prejudices becomes personal and often manifests as violence and individual acts of spiteful prejudice, over here, any negativity very, very, rarely (if at all) manifests into acts of personal hostility.

What is happening here is that due to cultural pressure some ex-pats here are exhibiting a form of internalized "hostility" towards themselves - or what America's ethnic minorities refer to as "self-hatred" or internalized racism". It is startling to realize how easy it is for a group or individual to develope this quality in their worldview - and disturbing to realize that even adults can so easily adopt a mindset that is self-effacing at best, but self-denigrating at worst even though they have the full experience of growing up in their own culture which nurtures their positive self-image. How much more intense this process must be, then, for the Asian child growing up in an American culture that propagates anti-Asian hostility by saturating society with extremely demeaning images and dehumanizing notions about their race.What Asian children see from the time they can sit up is a steady stream of negative images and stereotypes that normalize hostile attitudes within American society.

This is especially significant when considering a stereotype that is especially demoralizing for Asian men in America - the notion that we have some kind of innate or culture specific characteristic that makes us timid or mentally weak, and often our masculinity is diminished by comparing us negatively to the innately more confident American male. Often, it is Asian-American men themselves who will talk about their own racially specific diffidence. Yet, this quality of American confidence that is claimed to be innate disappears rather rapidly in a culture that is skeptical of it. If Asian-American men are timid (which is only true because many of us believe it to be true) it is because American culture has conditioned Asians to think of themselves in demeaning ways - that is the only real way that Asians are accepted into mainstream America, through self-denigration and abdication of our masculinity.

All of this tells me that if a group of people who have grown up with extremely positive feelings about themselves can be so easily dissuaded from their self-belief, then the reverse must be true too - changing our attitudes towards our own masculinity must be as easy as making a personal choice to do so.

A Lesser Racism?

Choosing Your Poison.

I came across an article on a website called "Jade Luck Club" written by a Chinese-American woman named Ying Ma. Ma has written a book called "Chinese Girl In The Ghetto" (which I haven't read), in which she describes her experiences growing up as an immigrant in the pre-dominantly black neighbourhood of Oakland, California. In the book Ma describes how she and other Asians were (and are) targeted for racially motivated violence and harassment by some members of the black community, and how this often violent anti-Asian racism seems almost universally present where Asian and black minorities find themselves living in close proximity to each other in America's inner-cities. Ma is also an economist and runs a blog (here) in which she writes on the ideologies behind the economic systems of China and the US as well as expounding further on black/Asian racial disharmony and racism.

Although I find plenty of points on her website where I disagree with her - her overzealous (and apparently xenophobic) anti-China commentary, and her economic and social conservatism, - her article on Jade Luck is a straight-forward account of what seems to be an increasingly pervasive phenomenon of black on Asian violence, as well as honestly highlighting the apparent evasion and indifference from Asian-American activists and community leaders when it comes to speaking out about this problem. It is this aspect of the issue - the lack of  an assertive Asian-American voice in addressing the problem - that I will focus on because of the many things it reveals about the experience of being Asian in America.

To begin, here are some excerpts describing Ma's experiences and accounts of African-American anti-Asian racism......

At age ten, I immigrated from China to Oakland , California , a city filled with crime, poverty, and racial tension. In elementary school, I didn’t wear name-brand clothing or speak English. My name soon became “Ching Chong,” “Chinagirl,” and “Chow Mein.” Other children laughed at my language, my culture, my ethnicity, and my race. ......... 

........But even when I sat in the front, fire crackers, paper balls, small rocks, and profanity were thrown at me and the other “stupid Chinamen.” The label “Chinamen” was dished out indiscriminately to Vietnamese, Koreans, and other Asians...... 

.......My English was by now more fluent than that of those who insulted me, but most of the time I still said nothing to avoid being beaten up. In addition to everything else thrown at me, a few times a week I was the target of sexual remarks vulgar enough to make Howard Stern blush. When I did respond to the insults, I immediately faced physical threats or attacks....... 

........The racial harassment wasn’t limited to bus rides. It surfaced in my high school cafeteria, where a middle-aged Chinese vendor who spoke broken English was told by rowdy students each day at lunch time to “Hurry up, you dumb Ching!” On the sidewalks, black teenagers and adults would creep up behind 80-year-old Asians and frighten them with sing-song nonsense: “Yee-ya, Ching-chong, ah-ee, un-yahhh!” At markets and in the streets of poor black neighborhoods, Asians would be told, “Why the hell don’t you just go back to where you came from!”....... 

......In poor neighborhoods across this country Asians endure daily racial hatred just as I did. Because of their language deficiencies, their small size, their fear of violent confrontations, they endure in silence.......

Harrowing, yet experiences of this kind have come to almost define the character of black/Asian relations in recent years, with stories of anti-Asian violence against children and adults alike becoming an ever more frequent phenomenon. The accepted (and acceptable) narratives - as Ma notes - cite economic disparities as the motivation for the violence, yet as Ma points out.....

In any case, the economic disparities rationale falls apart in the many instances where racism flourishes in the absence of class differences. At San Francisco’s Hunters Point public housing complex, for instance, low-income Southeast Asian residents, who are in the minority, have consistently encountered racial harassment from their black neighbors. Racial slurs, physical threats, violence, and destruction of property have festered for years. Philip Nguyen of the Southeast Asian Community Center, who has worked on the case for years, notes that there are no economic differences between the Asian and black families in the complex. The Asians, he says, are very quiet and have made every effort to befriend the black residents, yet serious friction has persisted for ten years. 

Even worse (and this is an argument put forward by many Asians themselves) is the accusation that Asians are racist and therefore bring the prejudice and racial violence upon themselves. I have to give kudos to Ma for having the courage to write on this subject when so many of us in the Asian-American community simply avoid the issue altogether or deflect legitimate dialogue on the subject by making Asians responsible for anti-Asian prejudice. 

What I think Ma misses is the larger context of anti-Asian racism in the US (and the western world in general)  within which black on Asian violence thrives. In fact, looking at some of the content of Ma's blog I would say that  she has actually followed the lead of those Asian activists whom she criticizes by downplaying (or not even mentioning) the anti-Asian attitudes that pervade mainstream American culture and society. So although Ma should be praised for speaking out about the reality of the black/Asian conflict, the failure to place black anti-Asian prejudice in its proper social context dilutes her effectiveness.

There is no difference between an American politician (blue or red, and most usually white) goading American society into boycotting the products of an Asian economy by stoking xenophobic attitudes that create resentment and hostility for political gain, and an on-the-make black community leader goading a black community to boycott the local Asian-owned 711 for the same reason - all based on largely unfounded and never proven claims that Asians (both in the US and in Asia) are somehow cheating Americans out of their economic prosperity, or exploiting Americans in some way, or simply taking wealth that rightfully belongs to Americans. Likewise, there is no difference between a popular and well-loved American celeb pulling his or her eyes into slits and ching-chonging their heart away, and an African-American doing the same to an Asian on the school bus, Asian restaurant, or on the street. 

Furthermore, it is almost impossible not to consider a likely connection between America's acceptance and depiction of casual violence towards Asians (men in particular) in the media and the increasingly casual and seeming normalization of anti-Asian violence in society. This cultural depiction of gratuitous violence against Asians is typically sadistic in nature, and is portrayed as the almost preferred mode of dealing with conflict with Asian people. Sometimes - as was the case in Men In Black III which re-enacted and made the racial murder of Vincent Chin into a cartoon to be enjoyed by America's children- the sadistic violence is presented as something that is funny and comical. Yet, always this violence is shown to be something that is deserved and therefore justified - just like in American society in general and mirrored in black on Asian violence in particular - anti-Asian prejudice is somehow legitimized by the assertion that it is various qualities in the Asian character itself that causes the violence against them.

What is even more perplexing is that Ma herself engages in demonization of China and Chinese people and this is where she shoots herself in the foot and defeats her own crusade against anti-Asian violence in the black community. A peculiar feature of anti-Asian prejudice is that it is heavily driven by a "bleedover" of resentment stemming from the combative and xenophobic political or economic nature of America's foreign policy agenda with various Asian economic powers. By making such simplistic, jingoistic, and inflammatory, observations on China and its people, Ma mimics those who propagate and legitimize that aspect of American culture that demonizes Asians and leads to casual prejudice (and violence) towards them. 

The screaming irony is deafening. Ma criticizes Asian activists for their reticence on (and blindness to) black on Asian violence - and rightfully so! - yet she is guilty of blinding herself to the larger picture of white America's incessant cultural expressions of xenophobia that legitimizes and normalizes the very casual anti-Asian violence that exists in black America. Anti-Asian racism in the black community is simply a subset of the general culture of anti-Asian prejudice that characterizes America's attitudes towards Asia and its peoples.   American culture models behaviour towards Asians that makes mockery and harassment the cultural norm - why should we expect African-Americans to have different values than the general culture? It makes no sense to complain about the black racism coming from the back of the bus, but ignore the white racists who are seemingly free to broadcast their racial harassment into your living room on a regular basis.

Now one might argue that we don't see white people going around violently attacking Asians for no reason (I don't necessarily believe this is true) and thus American culture plays no role in how people behave towards Asians. But this is where the unique experiences that divide the races plays a role in how America's culturally promoted anti-Asian racism manifests in society. If you are live in an environment that is violent, hopeless, and offers you little opportunity, then your anti-Asian racism will manifest as violence. If you have the privileges of opportunity that being white offers then your anti-Asian racism might be likely to manifest non-violently - but it does manifest. The racism of the tenured college professor who limits Asian enrollment because he doesn't like Asians causes as much damage as a black thug in the hood.

This doesn't justify black on Asian violence by citing poverty as a cause, it simply means that because American culture nurtures and promotes a culture in which demeaning behaviours and ways of conceiving of Asians through mockery, celeb harassment through the mass media, and ubiquitous fantasies of sadistic violence in film and television, society sees this as the acceptable mode of interaction. This is why there is little outcry against anti-Asian racism from mainstream America - it is simply considered normal to mock, harass, and, if necessary (or desired), violently attack Asian people. Clearly, there is no way that black on Asian racism can be divorced from the phenomenon of mainstream American anti-Asian prejudice and addressing one without acknowledging the other is a self-defeating exercise.

What all of this highlights is the lack of an autonomous Asian-American narrative or point of view that stands separate from the black minority narrative of social oppression, as well as separate from the white narrative of  opportunity and privilege. The truth is, that the Asian experience has and does traverse both these narratives in a way that makes it impossible to make sweeping generalizations about Asian-Americans and their experience. As illustrated by Ma in her essays and her own experiences of dealing with apathetic and seemingly indifferent Asian "leaders", Asians seem to polarize between the black and white extremes and take sides accordingly - victims of black racism seek white allies, victims of white racism seek black allies. In either case (and as followed by Ma), the price is that each side downplays the anti-Asian racism of the ally with whom they have chosen to align. This approach offers refuge - somewhat - but cannot possibly address the underlying issues that lead to anti-Asian prejudice.

Choosing between two different types of racism is not really a choice but it is a feature of the Asian-American struggle against prejudice that we have to seemingly accept racism in one form or another because we have not successfully forged an all important "third option" that recognizes the specific narratives of anti-Asianism as a unique historical phenomenon that lies at the root of much of the inequalities and conflicts we see not only in the US but across the world. It is fundamentally the same as a choice between poisons.

Black racism can only disappear simultaneously as white racism - we can't pretend that because white anti-Asian racism isn't violent (is that even true?) that it is less damaging - the framework of anti-Asian racism as it manifests in the US is a construction of white power without which black racism could not propagate. Overall, Ma must be praised for her willingness to speak out on a subject that many Asian-Americans find taboo - black on Asian violence - but at the same time her seeming blindness to ingrained white cultural anti-Asian prejudice contributes little to a meaningful solution to the problem.

A Role Model At Last - Take Notes.

And Follow In This Guys Footsteps.

Some comedian picking on the wrong Asian.....



This sensitive-looking Asian dude with sensitive-looking ponytail shows us how to deal with racism and those who disrespect Asians and that sensitive-looking guys aren't always wimps!. Granted the guy was being a comedian, but I won't fault the Asian for reacting to the insult the way he did - that's what any normal man would do.

H/T Angry Asian Man

Dumb And Dumber

Dating White Guy Activism.

It's almost impossible to believe that only half-a-century ago dating and marrying outside of one's race was illegal in many states and could lead to imprisonment, social stigmatization, or even death. It has been a long and hard-earned struggle of individuals and civil rights groups that has slowly brought about legal changes and shifts in social attitudes such that the choice to marry outside one's race is no longer controlled by despotic legislation, although it must be said that social stigmas, though less apparent, still remain. For some demographics, society still maintains reservations about the desirability of miscegenation and thus although it is legal, dating and marrying someone of a different race is still a serious life-choice that is not discussed casually, or taken lightly. With one exception.

A recent article in the Huffington Post, written by Princeton student Vivienne Chen explores the nuanced bigotry involved in the increasingly common practice of Asian women who exclusively date white men. As Chen explains, the practice is a minefield of prejudice and racial stereotyping - which she casually accepts with a flighty shrug and a petulant sigh. Chen's article was written in response to these two articles which also bemoan the pitfalls involved when some Asian women exhibit biased thinking against all men of colour (including and sometimes, particularly Asian men) and choose to exclusively date white men. 

We prefer Western men because we grew up in a culture that prefers Western men......Asian cultures can be remarkably xenophobic, and white people are sometimes given a "light-skinned pass." Long before the White Man set foot in China, having light skin was a sign of wealth and status, as it meant you didn't spend long hours toiling in the sun....But by constantly projecting this idea that men who specifically like Asian women are creepers, we risk making otherwise decent, respectable guys avoid dating Asian girls for fear of being labeled a creeper -- until we have nothing but creepers left.

This is a strange thing to say, and a little bit silly - African-American and Hispanic-American women grow up with the same conditions yet don't appear to exhibit the same bias towards white men. Furthermore, both these groups value lighter skin, but haven't developed the same type of culture which discriminates against men from their own community and shows preference for white men. Even more remarkable about Chen's piece is that it is discussing cultural stereotypes within the context of inter-racial relationships in which the creation of negative stereotypes about men of colour was, and remains, one of the fundamental ways that American culture maintains social stigmas about marrying outside your race. Negative stereotypes about minority men have and continue to serve the purpose of discouraging white women from marrying outside their race. Yet, Chen ignores this social phenomenon and addresses the least damaging of stereotypes - that of white men as "Asiaphiles".

The results of these stereotypes have even more far-reaching effects than simply discouraging inter-racial dating. Stereotypes about Asian timidity embolden anti-Asian racism and have created a culture of casual, nonchalant, throw-away, prejudice that is expressed with little expectation of repercussion. Even more disturbing, perhaps, is the way this stereotype of Asian people may affect America's foreign policy actions in its sometimes delicate relations with Asian countries. Negative stereotypes of black men - violent and hyper-aggressive - drive police brutality and even contribute to the death of innocent black children.

Yet, despite this, Chen's choice is to focus on the "hardship" faced by a small minority of white men who are "unfairly" stereotyped as Asia-philes. And right there in a nutshell illustrates the second most important reason (the first is; I just don't care) for why I don't concern myself with the so-called "IR disparity debate" - in order to hold dialogue on the subject one has to often be able to actually comprehend the thought process of a muddled mind, which means that you have to understand the logic of stupidity. I'm glad to say that, so far, I have been unable to do this.

It takes a unique kind of privilege to be able to be so casual about a subject with as bloody a history as miscegenation, so much so that the author is able to acknowledge her own and other Asian women's biased thinking when it comes to stereotypes and prejudices about minority men (who in passed years bore the brunt of anti-miscegenation violence) yet can wave it away by citing reasons beyond their control - it's not their fault! Of course, it is also speaks volumes that Asian women are routinely given mainstream platforms to wax poetic about their prejudices and biases (most often against their own people and culture) in a way that other minority women are not. You will be hard pressed to find African-American or Hispanic-American women being given the platform in mainstream media outlets to casually express and wave away their prejudices towards men of their own race.

There are a couple reasons for this that I can think of. The first is that it is culturally unacceptable to express prejudice towards Black or Hispanic-Americans - regardless of who is expressing it, and the fact that this phenomenon exists illustrates the degree to which anti-Asian racism is tolerated. The second reason is that the dialogue and narrative of Asian-American inter-racial dating choices is conducted in one of two ways; it is either vulgar and hyper-sexualized by the women writing about it, or it is childlike and juvenile, often exhibiting the thinking and reasoning of a pubescent. Chen's piece is an example of the latter.

In my experience - limited as it might be - black and Hispanic women of college age and beyond, simply don't present or show themselves in their writing to have juvenile mentalities because they have to try so hard (especially black women) to overcome prejudice - childish flightiness won't work for other women of color. Juvenile mentalities in non-Asian women are just not tolerated and those who posses them are certainly not given many opportunities by mainstream America to display it, nor are they taken as seriously as Asian women seem to be. The irony here is that this childishness is an implicit aspect of the so-called "Asiaphile" phenomenon to which such Asiaphiles are attracted and one can only wonder if this also plays a role in the accessibility of some Asian women to the white male dominated media. That's is definitely food for thought.

And here is another reason for Asian men to avoid debating the IR debate - it gives voice and attention to people whose thinking is so simplistic that it allows the propagation of an Asian-American voice that lacks nuance and intelligence - that is the last thing we need. For instance.....

Those of us who come from more traditional Asian families know our parents would faint if we brought home an African American boyfriend; I've seen my friend's mother scream at her for having a Berkeley-educated Brazilian beau.

People change - yes, even traditional Asian people - where's the stories of the traditional family who overcomes their prejudice and finally accepts their black son-in-law? What about those who are traditional but accept their children's decision to date or marry an African-American? These types of people actually exist and the main issue with Chen's point here is that her use of the word "traditional" itself has no basis for reference. What exactly does it mean to be a "traditional Asian family" - Chen suggests that it means an entity that is implicitly racist but this is simply ignorant. The  term "traditional" has many possible meanings most of which don't assert racist attitudes. And there's more that shows the flawed thinking. Here she quotes Stephen Eliot of The Rumpus.....

To be desired is to be fetishized... this idea that I want someone to desire me but not objectify me with their desires is absurd. It's like saying I only want to date someone who is not attracted to people that look like me.Here's the thing, you already are a fetish. You are your lover's kink, exist within their circle of desire, starting with gender, and getting more specific from there." .........."In fact," he says, "there's no bad reason to love a person. A person is not less enlightened if they're only attracted to their own gender, or Asian women, or skinny people, or latex, or feet. You can objectify someone without treating them like an object."

Overall, a thought-inducing quote yet is it true that there are "no bad reasons to love a person"? I'm not sure who Stephen Eliot is, but I'm sure that there are psychologists out there who would disagree with his conclusion. Pedophiles love and fetishize children (and, perhaps, are able to convince themselves that their abuse of children is an act of love), women who have extremely low self-esteem love men who continue to beat the crap out of them because they think that is the best that they can do and some even feel that the beating they receive somehow "proves" their partner's love. There are plenty of examples where one's reasons for loving someone are extremely bad and destructive, yet Chen seems to accept this piece of pop-psych unquestioningly and wants you to do the same. Mothers and Fathers, please don't teach this principle to your daughters - it will make them ripe for abuse. Here's more.....

Long before the White Man set foot in China, having light skin was a sign of wealth and status, as it meant you didn't spend long hours toiling in the sun. Remember, Asian cultures are the ones that mass market skin-lightening creams, where people often get eyelid surgery to make their eyes bigger, i.e. less Asian. 

So what? This doesn't justify one's decision wave away biased attitudes, acceptance of racial stereotypes, and prejudice. All it shows is that Chen (and women like her) haven't, don't, or perhaps aren't capable of, thinking logically and deeply about the choices they make, the attitudes they express, or the prejudices they casually accept and dismiss as being beyond their control.

And this, perhaps is the most problematic aspect of Chen's piece. If we accept Chen's logic, Asian women and the choices they make are dependent on circumstances outside of their power to control; they are attracted to white men because of some television show they used to watch as a child that had a white hero, or they can't be blamed for their biases because they come from cultures that are biased (hey, so did I but I'm equal opportunity in my private life). In short, Chen has comically and unwittingly shown Asian women to be so dis-empowered that they have no control and choice over what they are able to think or do - their "choices" are actually pre-programmed responses to stimuli instilled from childhood. This is a remarkable claim and one that has some far-reaching philosophical and neuro-scientific implications - funnily enough, none of which Chen seemed to be consciously aware of.

So, in conclusion, by debating this undebatable subject, Asian men are helping to set the stage that gives voice and attention to a subject that is fundamentally irrelevant, and gives voice to people who have nothing significant to say at the expense of a nuanced and intelligent discussion of the Asian-American experience.

Don't let the dumb rule.

Another Day That Should Live In Infamy

But Won't......Justifying Nuclear Holocaust.

I stumbled across this blogpost over on the Secret Asian Man blog from last year discussing the perennially topical issue that arises around the beginning of every December on the various justifications for America's use of the atomic bomb on Japan at the end of the Pacific War. As the cartoon strip suggests there is some sentiment that Japan deserved the bomb because of their sneak attack on Pearl Harbor whilst many others credit the use of the bomb as necessary to end the war quickly and painlessly and cite ending Japan's aggression and war crimes as providing a solid moral justification for the bombs. Underscoring most discussions on the subject is an understanding, implied or explicit, that Japan committed an immoral act when it carried out the attack, and that the use of the A-bomb on this day sixty-seven years ago was justified both militarily and morally.

The whole episode of Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor has become an event that is etched into the identity of American culture. The bravery and resolve exhibited by the US and its armed forces during the war has come to symbolically represent the character and identity of the American nation and its people, that is, the defenders of freedom and upholders of moral justice. As countless movies, books, and historical commentaries suggest, the war in the Pacific is seen by America as a morally righteous war of liberation against a violent aggressor whose goal was to subjugate the peoples of Asia. Although the US has always had this sense of itself as the bastion of freedom and moral vigor, the Second World War cemented this notion within the identity of America and its culture.

Thus, by definition, the accepted historical accounts remind us that the Pacific war was fought in the name of freedom and liberty, and that using the atomic bombs, by implication, can be justified on these grounds. To my mind, this account ranks as one of the most epic historical frauds ever perpetrated, yet, remarkably, it is accepted uncritically by Western and, even worse, by Asian commentators alike. For mainstream America, this is understandable - the account is a significant reinforcement of American identity, but for Asian-Americans this historical account and its uncritical acceptance (of this and other dubious historical claims) is fundamental to understanding why (despite having such significant intellectual potential) Asian-America up to now, has largely failed to develop a potent cultural voice that is autonomous, original, oppositional, and unique to its own experience. At the same time, if this historical account is false (as I believe it is) then the moral basis justifying the use of the atom bombs fails.

The first thing to remember is that the war in the Pacific was not fought by the allies to liberate Asia, nor was it fought to allow democracy and political freedom to flourish. In fact, this idea is absurd because, with few exceptions, almost every nation in Asia was subjugated by the imperial powers of Europe, America and Japan. Liberty in Asia prior to WWII was a concept that threatened the colonial privilege and thus, any attempts to gain liberty was brutally suppressed by colonial armies. According to the accepted narrative, Japan invaded their Asian neighbours, defeating the armies of Europe and America who were "defending" these nations against tyranny, but the reality is that these armies of Europe and America were occupying forces whose job it was to suppress freedom movements of Asia's native peoples. History focuses on the terrible atrocities these western troops experienced in Japan's concentration camps, whilst ignoring the probability that  some or many of these troops had themselves participated in brutal suppression of native people both prior to and after the war.

The war in Asia was fought by competing colonial powers to assert (in Japan's case) or re-assert (in the West's case) imperial rule over people who were already subjugated. This is an objective fact. The post-war actions of several of these imperial powers is a testament to this fact. After Japan's surrender, with America's financial and military backing, France, Britain, and the Netherlands, all returned to their former Asian colonies and began a war against the native peoples living there - committing atrocities in the process. To add insult to injury, these powers re-armed the Japanese troops who had recently surrendered in order to help them police and suppress independence movements in Indonesia and Indo-China. France even tried to overturn a wartime agreement that they had made with China in the hope of regaining their Chinese territories that they had lost in the war. More Asians in South-East Asia were killed struggling for their independence against their western "liberators" post-war than were killed in the Pacific war itself. That certainly doesn't sound like these nations were fighting the Japanese for my freedom or that of my ancestors.In this light, all moral arguments justifying the use of the atom bomb fail because at the end of the day, both Japan and the western allies were ultimately fighting over who would have the right to deny liberty to Asia.

So, winning the war against Japan simply meant that the US and Europe had one less imperial competitor for land and resources in Asia. What this means is that the atomic bombs simply enabled France, Britain, and the Netherlands to attempt to re-assert their suppression of Asian peoples and allowed them to kill millions of Asians in the process. The use of atomic bombs against Japan can only be morally defended if one does backflips to change history to suit one's narrative needs. Because all sides in the Pacific War were fighting to maintain an imperial system that suppressed Asian freedoms - by brutal means if needed - then no participants have the moral upper hand. Because the war in the Pacific was fought not to free but further subjugate Asian people, the moral premise for using the atomic bombs has no foundation. This shows the absurdity of trying to defend America's use of atom bombs on moral grounds.

The use of the bombs did not end any wars in Asia, but served as the impetus for the West's colonial powers to start more wars against Asian people. It is convenient to re-create history as a way to support the moral argument in favour of the bombs, but the cold hard fact is that America's nuclear prowess was the umbrella under which the old imperial powers of Europe were empowered to wage war against Asia. The war in Asia did not end with the defeat of Japan but continued for decades afterwards as Asian countries fought to win their independence.

Some Olympic Musings

Asian Men Walking Tall.

Although often billed as a gathering of the world's athletes coming together to compete in the name of goodwill and international understanding, the Olympics are just as often a proxy for nations to vent their political frustrations on one another through winning on the field of sport. In some ways and to some minds, winning at competition reflects the superiority of a political, social, or even moral, system of a given country. With this in mind I fully expected these London Olympics to provide us with some tense competition and commentary that reflected the present-day economic and political reality of our times. I wasn't disappointed.

Unsurprisingly, the nail-biting anxiety (and the accompanying xenophobic hostility) felt in the West about China's economic rise and its increasing influence in the developing world has been reflected in reactions to China's Olympic successes. Various outraged (and unfounded) insinuations of doping made against victorious Chinese competitors were a simple reflection of Western society's resentful attitudes towards Asians - it is a given that any success or excellence has to be the result of some kind of cheating or underhandedness. Even worse is the fact that stereotypically weak Asians are proving to be just as physically capable as their non-Asian competitors. It is said that when the human mind is presented with evidence that contradicts what it has believed for its entire existence, it will respond rage against the new information and attempt to find any ad-hoc rationalization (regardless of how irrational or unreasonable it may be) to will enable it to maintain its false belief against all the evidence - then the mind will resent you for making it see a truth it didn't want to see.

This is what has been so clearly displayed at London 2012 - stereotypes about Asians have crumbled in plain sight of everyone and the resulting outrage and resentment in some quarters indicates the degree to which the Western mind that has created a xenophobic fantasy about Asian inferiority that it is unwilling to let go of.

The most charming thing about the Chinese athletes is that they seem oblivious to this negative racialization of their success as they speed past their competitors. They simply don't know that their ethnicity is supposed to be an obstacle to athletic excellence. One way that I have noticed this is in the swagger of the Chinese men's gymnastics team.....

 

These guys range in height from between 5'3 to 5'6, but they don't seem to have heard that being short and Asian means that they aren't masculine. Their confidence and self-assurance was so jarring because American culture insists that Asian men have no reason to possess these qualities of confidence and self-assurance. Of course, the reason that they may seem so confident is that they haven't been raised in a culture that mocks their masculinity and racializes their achievements and potential - the world has been presented to them in a way that it might not have been presented to Asian men raised in the US, a world in which their race need not influence their opportunities, ambitions, or what is expected of them. The Japanese men's gymnastics team has also performed extremely well, taking the silver in the team event - even though they could have done without the Boy Band feminine hairstyles....



Having said that, the guy on the right is 18-year-old Ryohei Kato whose looks have apparently caught the attention of thousands of Chinese female fans who have overcome decades of mutual Sino-Japanese distrust to register their lust for him. Women like pretty boys sometimes!

In other good news for Asian men - and for Asian soccer fans - Japan and South Korea have both reached the semi-finals of Olympic soccer tournament. Japan will play Mexico, and Korea will play Brazil in the next round. Although not considered anywhere as important as the World Cup - mainly because most of the players making the teams must be under 23 - the Olympic soccer tournament is still a good indication of a country's pool of talent. Japan have played some really nice football, whilst S. Korea apparently outperformed and outplayed their more highly-regarded British opponents. It is also interesting to note the reaction of a Swiss player to discovering that Asians aren't racially weaker after his side was beaten by the Koreans. People don't like having their strongly held beliefs challenged.

On a final note, it has been interesting to note the success of China's female athletes. For a culture that gave us footbinding - a practice that was ended decades ago, but for which China is still being irrationally castigated - and is held by many as a hell on earth for women, the Chinese seem to hold women's athletics in high esteem, and also seem to be heavily invested in promoting sporting excellence for their women athletes. In this regard, it might even be suggested that Chinese women have greater opportunities in sport participation and success than their Western counterparts. Who knows, maybe China isn't still culturally stuck in the 9th Century like many commentators would have us believe.