tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-85663177617931853932024-03-05T05:08:05.340-08:00Ben Efsaneyim..experiencing America as an Asian man.Ben Efsaneyimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16001682865274251483noreply@blogger.comBlogger206125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8566317761793185393.post-46208906049741035272019-03-02T00:11:00.001-08:002019-03-02T00:11:48.592-08:00Macguffined!<b><i>How Anti-Anti-Blackness Failed Asian-America.</i></b><br />
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In the hours and days following the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11th 2001, P<a href="https://qz.com/1074258/911-video-and-text-of-george-w-bushs-islam-and-peace-speech/">resident Bush was quick to separate Islamic belief</a> from the actions of Muslim terrorists. Perpetrators of terrorist acts carried out in the name of Islam were, it was, and is, suggested, not acting in accordance with the true tenets of the faith. Additionally, the mainstream media largely supported this sentiment. The aim here was to guide society away from reprisals against Muslims and stave off anti-Muslim sentiment. Given America's history of racism, this political and media approach was quite remarkable.</div>
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It might be naive to think that our political/ruling classes simply and suddenly developed a conscience about racial and religious minorities that prompted this response. More likely, a combination of successful activism/lobbying by Muslim-American activists along with the need to avoid offending our oil-rich, Muslim allies around the world, led to this progressive-seeming reaction.<br />
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From an Asian-American perspective, these responses reveal what is possible for minorities to achieve politically. At the same time, it lays bare just how far Asian-Americans have yet to go to be considered an integral part of America. It is at times when America's other phobia - Sinophobia - rears its casual and normalized head that this contrast in attitudes becomes most starkly apparent.<br />
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Sinophobic sentiment is an issue that all Asian-Americans of East and South-East Asian descent need to be concerned about since casts a shadow of suspicion and hostility on Asians of all backgrounds and not just those of Chinese descent. Although politicians and the media scramble to assert the "American-ness" of Muslims in the aftermath of terrorist attacks, few, if any, take the time to reassure the Asian minority or the American majority of <i>our </i>Americaness during times of <a href="https://www.inkstonenews.com/society/united-states-and-china-war-over-trade-chinese-americans-feel-caught-cross-fire/article/2166162">Sinophobic </a>sentiment that is typically focused on alleged unscrupulous <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/americans-know-nothing-about-the-chinese-but-fear-their-government-2018-12?r=US&IR=T">Chinese trade practices</a>, claims of sneaky spying, sly intentions of conquest, as well as theft of technology.<br />
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So, how can we account for this disparity in the relative political and social empathy displayed by politicians and the media towards Muslims that is largely absent in its dialogue on Asians? The clear answer is that Muslim advocacy has embraced and pushed the interests of the Muslim community, succeeding in a relatively short period of time in positively changing how politicians and the media engage with, and describes them. By comparison, Asian-American advocacy has embraced a different strategy that leaves our community as a largely invisible non-entity who are given scant political consideration, and practically zero media empathy.<br />
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During the radical sixties, Asian-American activist groups were roundly criticized by Asian feminist factions for ignoring sexism within Asian organizations themselves. Many such feminists felt aggrieved at, apparently, being told that these issues should be placed on the back-burner and that feminists should "wait their turn" in the interests of the greater Asian-American good. Fast forward fifty years, and the Asian-American community faces a similar problem today: the "greater good" for Asians, we are informed, is in supporting the strategy of "centering anti-blackness" whilst placing Asian interests on the back-burner.<br />
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Centering anti-blackness is a somewhat nebulous and - deliberately, perhaps - intangible notion. Not really comprised of many concrete, measurable goals, it seems to me to be more of an allusion to a kind of virtue ethics consisting simplistic, ad-hoc acts of "virtuous" centering anti-blackness behaviour, emphasizing the development of virtuous thought to this end.<br />
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This strategy places Asian interests on the back-burner by essentially denying the significance or severity of anti-Asian racism with the implicit reminder that "African-Americans have it worse!" Asian "advocacy", thus, pushes Asian-Americans into a falsely dichotomous position of either shutting up about Asian interests or be labeled as an unvirtuous anti-black racist. In other words Asian-American advocacy attempts to uphold the long defunct and never accurate notion of a black/white narrative to explain America's race woes.<br />
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Awkwardly, America has beaten Asian-American progressive racial trailblazers to the punch by several decades since the "righting" of anti-black wrongs has been central to much of American social policy since the nineteen-sixties. Securing the black vote is the priority of politicians at every election cycle, ensuring a commensurate black presence in all aspects of our society is considered a moral goal, and shooting of unarmed black men by the police is roundly centered in the media. That short list is indicative of a good degree of centering of black needs and the obstacles faced by black people.<br />
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This essentially means that Asian progressivism has been flogging a dead horse - the idea that we are achieving something that has already gone a very long way to being achieved (by black people themselves) and that to push Asian interests will, by definition, be an unvirtuous act of anti-blackness. Unfortunately for our virtuous friends, the success of Muslim activism in bringing Islamophobia to the social and cultural fore has obliterated the very premises of Asian progressive moral grandstanding.<br />
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Muslim advocates' success in bringing the concept of Islamophobia to the forefront of our political discussions, such that politicians are careful to clearly separate terrorist acts from Islam and Muslims, has expanded the scope of America's race dialogue beyond the archaic black/white narrative that Asian-American progressives insist upon. Even though "Muslim" is not a race, to all intents and purposes it is discussed in our society as though it is a race. This defining of Islamophobia in terms of race, itself, shows further evidence of how successful Muslim advocates have been in making the issue as relevant and significant as the issue of anti-blackness. I would even go so far as to say that America's race dialogue now, effectively, consists of a black/white/Muslim/Hispanic polychotomy with Asians silenced by their own activists.<br />
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Asian progressives have shaped our contribution to the race dialogue so that Asian voices are largely irrelevant except as mouth pieces screaming support safely from behind the dynamic activism of these other groups. Asian-American progressivism has largely undone the good work of previous generations of Asian-American activists by pushing an agenda of Asian submission to the black/white narrative that no other minority group seems to act in accordance with. Evidently, these other minority groups accept that the reality of America's race issues is that it has never - <i>ever </i>- been a black/white issue.<br />
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Even worse for our grandstanding friends on Asian-America's progressive left is that there is no indication that the success of Muslim advocacy has, or does, in any way detract from the interests of the black community - as has been suggested by the "centering anti-blackness" Asian activists who castigate other Asians for daring to speak for Asian interests. Surely, expanding the scope of America's race dialogue only weakens the power of white supremacy because it leaves less room for <i>any </i>outsider groups that can be harmed by it? Isn't the weakening of white supremacist power and thought a success for all people of colour?<br />
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Yet, it seems to me that this is exactly the place where Asian progressivism has led Asian-Americans. After, all, who would argue that anti-Asian stereotypes and mockery are still largely normalized in American culture, and that anti-Asian/China rhetoric is a significant detrimental factor in our society's conception of us as potentially treacherous permanent outsiders and foreigners? This represents an abject failure on the part of Asian progressivism.<br />
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Even as Presidents defend, propagate, <i>and </i>represent positive attitudes towards Islam and American-Muslims, at every opportunity, there are few, if any, equally glowing defenses of Asian-Americans in general, and Chinese-Americans in particular coming from any US politicians, at any level during times of high tension between the US and any Asian power. Just think about that for a minute: US Presidents are contributing to positive attitudes and media representation towards the Muslim minority - something that they don't even do for African-Americans. This is a clear indication that Muslim advocacy has succeeded in ways that Asian-American progressivism has not begun to conceive of as even a possibility.<br />
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Asian-Americans and Muslim-Americans share many similar experiences, such as originating from countries that have been on the receiving end of US military aggression, being subject to xenophobic ignorance, poor media representation, and being seen as potential fifth-columnists for foreign powers. Yet whilst Asian "advocacy" utilizes liberal media platforms to attack other Asians for being <a href="https://benefsanem.blogspot.com/2016/02/when-unarmed-black-people-get-shot.html">anti-black</a>, <a href="https://benefsanem.blogspot.com/2016/04/echo-chambers.html">privileged</a>, misogynistic, and <a href="https://benefsanem.blogspot.com/2015/07/asian-american-complicity-in-anti.html">generally "in the way" of black advancement,</a> Muslim advocacy seems to have actually striven to advocate for the interests of Muslims.<br />
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The result is that a Muslim minority of under 4 million are being positively represented in the media <i>by US Presidents, </i>in a surprising number of culturally popular TV shows, as well as a number of high-profile films featuring complex characters who challenge stereotypes. By contrast, Asian-Americans number nearly 20 million, and only two years ago, <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/12195107/Asians-suffered-racial-stereotyping-at-Oscars-Hollywood-figures-say.html">Hollywood racially mocked Asians live at the Oscars</a>. An article from the <a href="https://thewhisp.mommyish.com/entertainment/muslim-characters-movies-tv-flipped-stereotypes/8/">"The Whisp"</a> describes <b style="font-style: italic;">sixteen </b>Muslim characters from film and TV who have been represented positively. I can barely think of a handful of positive, complex, representations of Asian characters in American film and television.<br />
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Asian progressivism's hegemonic appropriation of Asian-America's voice in order to push an anti-anti-blackness agenda - which black activists have already been in doing, successfully, <i>without </i>our help - has failed our community. It has been replaced with a delusional Asian progressive narrative that asserts that <a href="https://benefsanem.blogspot.com/2015/01/the-first-rule-of-asian-american.html">Asians are willing and sneaky beneficiaries</a> of white anti-blackness, and those who speak up for Asian interests are labeled as implicitly anti-black. Thus, Asian progressivism has set our community back decades, and been successful only in marginalizing Asian interests from the mainstream.<br />
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The success of Muslim advocacy has exposed the absurdity of these Asian progressive claims. It has shown that America's race dialogue has changed forever beyond the archaic confines of the black/white narrative. Furthermore, the success of Muslim advocacy has shown that moving beyond the black/white narrative and pushing the interests of any group that is not black, does no harm, whatsoever, to black interests. This means that the entire dialectic of Asian progressivism of the past few years has been based on rhetoric alone with no meaningful epistemology to support its claims.<br />
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Asian-America has been <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacGuffin">Macguffined</a>.</div>
Ben Efsaneyimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16001682865274251483noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8566317761793185393.post-47190910930981669852018-12-23T00:16:00.000-08:002018-12-23T00:16:21.895-08:00Celeste Ng And Trumping The System <div style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i>Asian Women's Get Out Of Jail Free Card.....</i></b><br />
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In the years following the end of the Second World War, thousands of Japanese War Brides were admitted to the United States as the spouses of American GIs returning from the Pacific War. Most of these women were married to Caucasian GIs - a phenomenon which spawned an unusual racial dynamic that saw many of these Japanese War Brides slot into a unique ethnic category that set them apart from other racial minorities but also from other Asian-Americans.<br />
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A <a href="http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.922.5811&rep=rep1&type=pdf">dissertation by Masura Nakamura</a> of the University of Minnesota explores how these women integrated into their new husbands' lives, society and culture, and reveals some intriguing insights into our present-day, Asian-American gendered racial experiences. Most significantly for this post, is the relationship between these War Bride newcomers to America and the existing Japanese-American community.<br />
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For the most part, this relationship was a fraught one - either largely non-existent due to War Brides being geographically isolated from other Japanese-Americans, or due to simple lack of commonality between the experiences of the two demographics if, or when they were living in proximity. According to Nakamura's dissertation, Japanese War Brides lived unique "de-racialized" lives when married to white GIs which saw them idealized as "proto-model minorities" for their acquiescence to unquestioning integration into white society. So thorough was this process, that many even adopted racist attitudes towards African-Americans and the Japanese women married to black GIs, often having nothing to do with them because of the race of their partner.<br />
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Prominent amongst these War Brides was an attitude of disdain for Japanese-Americans, whom they derided for not being more "Americanized".....<br />
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<i>Some war brides, such as Mrs. F-19, criticized the Japanese Americans in Hawaii for more than their use of Japanese over English and generally condemned them for not being more American. She was in favor of Americanization, and like Mrs. F-17 thought Japanese Americans were backwards for not Americanizing more fully. (p.229)......</i><i>As Mrs. F-19 succinctly </i><i>stated, “I am married to an American and I want to become Americanized. When I</i><i>was married to my husband, I made up my mind that I was going to be an American. </i><i>I am willing to give up my Japanese background.” </i></blockquote>
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The severe <a href="https://benefsanem.blogspot.com/2015/08/the-interracial-dating-disparity-and.html">racial discrimination</a> experienced by earlier waves of Japanese immigrants that saw them racially segregated, blocked from integrating into mainstream American society, and marginalized them as second class citizens seems to have gone unnoticed by some of these War Brides. Even the internment of thousands of Japanese-Americans seems not to have given pause to consider the possibility that Japanese-Americans were not more Americanized due to America's efforts to keep them in a state of separateness. In short, Japanese-Americans, unlike "Mrs. F-19" were not given the opportunity to choose to achieve "Americanization" through their personal partnering with whiteness. </div>
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This "privilege" of being able to choose American whiteness was only available to Asian women married to white men. Nakamura calls this process "racial coverture" - a reference to old English Common Law in which the rights and identity of a wife are subsumed by those of the husband. In this case, the Asiatic race of Japanese War Brides was subsumed by the whiteness of their white spouse, granting them rights and opportunities not available to any other racial minority group.</div>
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Thus, at a time when racial minorities were still criminalized under draconian Jim Crow era anti-miscegenation laws, thousands of Asian women were enjoying the privilege of full integration by "choosing Americanization" due to their marriages to white men. Even prior to this post-war mass migration of Asian War Brides, <a href="https://benefsanem.blogspot.com/2015/08/the-interracial-dating-disparity-and.html">Asian women enjoyed privileges </a>if they partnered white men.<br />
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Celeste Ng's recent article in "<a href="https://www.thecut.com/2018/10/when-asian-women-are-harassed-for-marrying-non-asian-men.html">The Cut</a>" echoed this same privilege induced tone deafness. While I share Ng's condemnation of the harassment she has experienced, her miscomprehension of a racial minority's experience other than her own - in this case Asian men - comes through loud and clear. Unlike other minority demographics, Asian women have historically had the option to "overcome" racial disadvantages through partnering with white men, so it seems natural that some Asian women may struggle to truly understand the nature of the "no-win" situation that some Asian men might feel. This would be especially true when it might directly challenge the implicit privileges their choices in life and love may offer them.<br />
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When Ng writes....<br />
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<i>Asian men face long-standing stereotypes that they’re socially awkward, unmasculine, or sexually unattractive, and these perceptions often put them at a disadvantage, from academics to work to dating apps. From their posts, it’s clear that Asian men like those on AZNidentity believe they’re fighting a constant battle against a culture that’s out to get them.</i></blockquote>
.....she has revealed her lack of familiarity with Asian men's experiences. Some of Asian-America's most successful men have written about experiencing this feeling of unremitting cultural hostility that Ng casually dismisses as the domain of "Asian men like those on AZNIdentity". Here are some examples.....<br />
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.......<a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/fresh-boat-author-eddie-huang-responds-steve-harveys-joke-asian-men-964463" style="font-style: italic;">there </a><i>were times I thoroughly believed that no one wanted anything to do with me. I told myself that it was all a lie, but the structural emasculation of Asian men in all forms of media became a self-fulfilling prophecy that produced an actual abhorrence to Asian men in the real world. (Eddie Huang.).....</i></blockquote>
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<i><a href="https://medium.com/@rickyyean/asian-americans-are-cultural-orphans-aka-i-hope-crazy-rich-asians-isnt-a-flop-f01ecc0f9b1">We’re simply interested</a> in finding our identity, but when we look out to the world, <b>all </b>we can find is the lazy portrayal of the uni-dimensional, kung-fu fighting, smart, obedient, emasculated man or hyper-sexualized woman. The Model Minority. That sucks. (Ricky Yean - CEO)....</i> </blockquote>
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<i>N<a href="https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/kzkv8w/becoming-my-own-half-asian-man">o, I was a “chink”:</a> A trope of an Asian man, a character I knew little about but had internalized, like many other Americans, as an emasculated nerd. I remember sitting in the back of my dad’s car one night crying and shaking as I told him that “no girl will ever like me because I’m Chinese.”.......In a place where Asian manhood had been obliterated, what I needed was someone to look up to. Someone who could understand my struggle and set an example. And my dad was not that person.......</i><i>A white man couldn’t teach an Asian man about masculinity. Nor could the media, with its tokens and stereotypes.....(Zachary Schwartz, Journalist)</i></blockquote>
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<i><a href="https://www.gq.com/story/john-cho-asian-american-actor-stereotypes">Last year, I read a book by Alex Tizon</a> called Big Little Man: In Search of My Asian Self..... In the book, Tizon laments the representation of Asian men in popular media—or really, the lack thereof. He writes of Sex and the City: “Something like 2 million Asians live in the New York metropolitan area, but Asians hardly appear in the show at all—symbolic annihilation at its best.” Symbolic annihilation: the under-representation of a group of people, usually in media. Asian men rarely show up in TV or film. And when they do, they often are at best sexless nerds, and at worst offensive stereotypes.(Kevin Nguyen, journalist)</i></blockquote>
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<i><a href="https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/how-the-rules-of-racism-are-different-for-asian-americans/">We realized that for all of Jeremy Lin’</a>s accomplishments, we as Asians are still different, are still seen differently than other races by the vast majority of Americans................The truth is, racism toward Asians is treated differently in America than racism toward other ethnic groups. This is a truth all Asian Americans know. While the same racist may hold back terms he sees as off-limits toward other minorities, he will often not hesitate to call an Asian person a chink, as Jeremy Lin was referred to, or talk about that Asian person as if he must know karate, or call him Bruce Lee, or consider him weak or effeminate, or so on....(Matthew Salesses, author)</i></blockquote>
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There are many more such testimonies in which successful Asian men describe this sense of being under siege by a hostile and racist culture. Surely, men such as CEO, Ricky Yean and well-regarded authors, like Matthew Salesses are not "bullies" like those "Asian men on AZNIdentity"? Clearly, Celeste Ng is wrong in her insinuation that these notions of a hostile culture are the delusions of unhinged Asian men.<br />
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Despite Ng's acknowledgement of the discrimination and dehumanizing stereotypes that Asian men face, it seems like mere dismissive lip-service. She writes...<br />
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<i>These harassers frequently brand me “self-hating” and accuse me of “hating Asian men” — because I have a white husband, and because of a <a href="https://twitter.com/pronounced_ing/status/605922260298264576">tweet </a>I posted years ago in which I acknowledged I wasn’t always attracted to Asian men......They have a valid complaint here: My tweet fed into those stereotypes that Asian men are unsexy, and when people pointed this out, I rethought my own biases. </i></blockquote>
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Ah, <i><b>that </b></i>tweet! The problem from my perspective is not that Ng's tweet revealed her lack of attraction to Asian men, or that she bought into stereotypes about them. The issue is the casual, off-the-cuff expression of racism. Ng finds that all Asian men look the same and that their "look" negates any curiosity about their personal qualities.<br />
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This sentiment plays into more sinister stereotypes - Asians as droll automatons, lacking any significant quality of character to differentiate any one individual from another. Ng seems unconscious of her unconscious propagation of a foundational dehumanizing stereotype that has existed in American culture as a by-product of the need in times of war to dehumanize your Asian enemy. Her lack of attraction for men like me is not a problem for me. Her clueless propagation of racist sentiment is.<br />
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Like some Japanese war Brides before her, Ng can't seem to understand why there is such a fuss about interracial marriage. Nor can she seem to gauge why it is such an issue for some racial minorities. The reason, I submit, could be that interracial partnering is something that Asian women have never really had to struggle to achieve. Despite the fact that modern-day Asian women fancy themselves as martyrs for the cause of interracial love, in truth (as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herstory">herstory </a>shows), Asian women have long been afforded the privilege of crossing the racial barrier to partner white men, while other minorities (including Asian men) have been criminalized for their interracial love choices. Anti-miscegenation laws have been ignored, and immigration laws perforated and changed to enable this to happen.<br />
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Far from being the heroic struggle for interracial love against all the odds that modern-day Asian feminists would like us all to believe, Asian women partnering white men is, in fact, one of the most glaring examples of the power of white male supremacist privilege. How else can we explain the ease with which harsh laws devised to inhibit racial mixing could so easily be ignored? The answer of course is that the racist white men in power at the time decided that they could ignore their own laws to their own benefit. Such is the power of white supremacy.<br />
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<i>Of course</i> some Asian women can't understand the anger that some Asian men might feel about interracial out-marriage - they have never really had to fight for the right to it and have had any obstacles to it waved away by those in power. This lies at the root of Asian-American inter-gender issues when it comes to out-marriage.<br />
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We are living in a kind of residual culture, an aftermath of a period in American history of cultural and legal white racial supremacy. Asian-Americans seem not to have explored how the effects of gendered historical racism affect our community for one very good reason. As partners for white men, Asian female cultural leaders have effectively become the voice of the Asian-American narrative. From <i>that </i>perspective, not much has changed for Asian women. Jim Crow and immigration laws were changed and bypassed to permit Asian women to marry into whiteness. This is why "Asian narratives" are largely dominated by depictions of Asian women and white men whilst Asian men are marginalized. This is also why the "Asian narratives" often seem more sympathetic to historical white power structures than to the Asian experience.<br />
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Our present-day culture reflects this history. The <i>naturalness </i>of Asian women with white men is the social and cultural by-product of this history. By the same token, the normalcy of casual dehumanization, emasculation, and marginalization of Asian men derives, ultimately from the draconian anti-miscegenation legislation and sentiment strictly applied to Asian men who have always been conceived of as irredeemably foreign threats. No surprise that some Asian women are left scratching their heads trying to comprehend what it is like to be marginalized culturally, socially, and sexually. They have always been afforded an avenue out of that. Asian men still live under the shadow of residual cultural anti-miscegenation sentiment.<br />
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The existences of Ng's article is itself an expression of this privilege. <a href="http://i.imgur.com/APvlgea.jpg">Asian men</a> are long accustomed to <a href="https://benefsanem.blogspot.com/2018/10/racism-with-benefits.html">Asian women spouting racist sentiment towards </a>us, yet, how often do we see a mainstream publication giving Asian male writers the opportunity to call it out?<br />
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In summary, the root of the gender conflict in Asian-America derives from the vastly disparate histories and racial experiences each has faced, particularly on the subject of miscegenation. Whilst Asian men were strictly held to account for anti-miscegenation, Asian women were exempted in tens of thousands of cases. The repeal of draconian immigration and anti-miscegenation laws merely meant business as usual for Asian women who had long been allowed to circumvent them due to their white partners. White supremacy itself has been a get out of jail free card for Asian women.<br />
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Sadly, Ng's experiences of online bullying, are a reflection of this historical chasm in experiences, and probably explains why awareness of it seems lacking in her piece. Quite simply, the "Asian narratives" of the post anti-miscegenation/exclusionary immigration period ignores this disparity of historical experience and instead focuses on the happiness of Asian women and their saviour white partners. Asian men are invisible in their own historical narratives, and the discrimination they experienced erased. This is why Asian women seemed to have been able to more easily "move on" past the history of racism that affected Asian-Americans in the past. The groundwork for this was already laid for them, thanks to the power of white supremacy to define race according to its own needs and desires.<br />
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The question is, how do Asian men "move on" from this history and its continuing cultural aftereffects without an honest acknowledgement of it?</div>
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Ben Efsaneyimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16001682865274251483noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8566317761793185393.post-4515204905885080192018-10-12T05:21:00.000-07:002018-10-12T05:21:31.167-07:00Asian Progressives Shooting Themselves In The Foot.....<b><i>...Again!.</i></b><br />
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As readers will know, I have come to view our recent crop of Asian progressives as tragically comedic bumblers who stumble through political and social issues with tired and worn rhetoric that achieves little for the cause of progressivism in general, and absolutely nothing for Asian-Americans in particular. Asian progressives are the model minority for liberal racism, given over to attacking other Asians (typically Asian immigrants) in "liberal" publications whenever white racism rears its ugly head in our communities. They also strive to promote policies of institutional racism that target Asians only.<br />
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One of the main areas where Asian progressives are most virulently anti-Asian is on the issue of affirmative action. More specifically, Asian progressivism has taken the stance that there are simply too many Asians in American colleges and that it is morally <a href="https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=doubleplusgood">doubleplusgood </a> to use any means necessary to get them replaced by African-Americans. Strangely, many of these champions of college diversity seem to have received Ivy League educations themselves, but conveniently didn't realize that it was racist for them to do so until after they graduated. It's only racist for other Asian-Americans to attend the Ivy League after Asian progressives have reaped the benefits of these institutions.<br />
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A recent article written in "<a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/3/28/17031460/affirmative-action-asian-discrimination-admissions">Vox</a>" magazine by Alvin Chang investigates Asian-American migrants' attitudes to affirmative action, and how hapless Asians - gormless Chinese migrants specifically - are being "used" to limit black enrollment in America's colleges. The spirit of the article is that Asian immigrant outsiders are having their gullibility and Asiatic, self-serving single-mindedness taken advantage of by white supremacists in order to keep blacks out of America's universities.<br />
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I say "white supremacists", but I'm at a loss when it comes to understanding why white supremacists in higher education would strive to maintain a college admissions system that doesn't seem to particularly ensure that whites remain supreme within the system. Rather, Asian-Americans have become a dominant presence in America's colleges, making this generation of white supremacists some of the most inept extremists the world has ever seen.<br />
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Chang tries - and fails - to disprove the charge that there appears to be anti-Asian bias in the college admissions process. Whilst - insidiously - downplaying anti-Asian racism in general, he makes an assertion that seems to put him at odds with other Asian progressives who are pushing for greater limits on Asian-American advancement. In support of his feeling that anti-Asian bias should be permitted in the admissions process, he says this...<br />
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<i>This story, of racial bonuses and penalties due to affirmative action, has created an internal tension for Asian Americans: Many of us know race-conscious policies are necessary to remedy systemic racism. </i></blockquote>
Here, Chang asserts that getting Asians out, and Latinos and African-Americans into elite colleges is necessary to remedy systemic racism. It goes without saying that as an Asian progressive, Chang avoids substantiating his claim. Yet, worse still, a new study by progressive Asians, Jennifer Lee and Karthik Ramakrishnan, as explained in this <a href="http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-lee-ramakrishnan-asian-american-prestige-20180327-story.html">LA Times article,</a> destroys Chang's assertion. Citing their own research, the progressive duo reveal their findings.....<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Our research has shown that Asian Americans often define success as being the high school valedictorian, attending an elite university and pursuing a career in medicine, law, science or engineering. And there is at least one clear reason for the emphasis on prestige: Elite credentials are seen as a safeguard against discrimination in the labor market.</i></blockquote>
So, just like progressives, Asian-American immigrants view a college education - particularly from an elite college - as necessary to remedy systemic racism and discrimination. Yet, both progressive Asians and their Asian immigrant nemeses are wrong since according to Lee and Ramakrishnan....<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>.....there is also growing evidence that this faith in elite credentials may be misplaced.</i></blockquote>
Sounds bad for blacks and Asians. Maybe both groups should abandon higher education altogether since a college degree - apparently - doesn't actually remedy systemic racism? It gets worse for Chang whose downplaying of anti-Asian racism get destroyed by facts....<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>A recent report on leadership diversity at top technology companies found that Asian Americans are the racial group least likely to be promoted into managerial and executive ranks. White men and women are twice as likely as Asians to hold executive positions. And while white women are breaking through the glass ceiling, Asian women are not.......Asian Americans also fall behind in earnings. College-educated, U.S.-born Asian men earn 8% less than white men. Although Asian American women are likely to earn as much as white women, they are less likely to be in a management role.</i></blockquote>
Seems as though Asian immigrants aren't being as shrilly irrational about anti-Asian discrimination as Chang would have us believe. Yet, even though an elite college education should predict certain life outcomes (but doesn't if you are Asian) Asian progressives - as should be completely expected - see this as the fault of Asians themselves.....<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>But our research also indicates that Asian Americans are less likely than white and black Americans to engage in civic activity, which is strongly correlated with corporate leadership........</i><i>According to the Current Population Survey, 17.9% of Asian Americans engage in volunteerism, compared to 26.4% of whites and 19.3% of blacks. Our analysis of the 2016 National Asian American Survey shows that only 59% of Asian Americans make charitable contributions, compared to 68% of whites and 65% of blacks. This lack of engagement outside of work is handicapping Asian Americans in their careers.</i></blockquote>
As you can see, what we have here is Asian progressive "framing" at work. Although, the nine percentage points difference between white and Asian charitable contributions is not really that significant, our Asian progressive researchers "frame" the findings as a "lack" of engagement on the part of Asian-Americans. No, really, a difference of nine percentage points in charitable contributions does not explain the significant discrimination Lee and Ramakrishnan acknowledge Asians face in the workplace.<br />
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More problematic is that there is no reason to believe that this statistic is connected to issues of discrimination in pay and leadership disparities described by the LA Times piece. How do we know that those who face discrimination are those who are the ones who are also not engaging in civic volunteering? Despite the juxtaposition of findings with the facts of anti-Asian bias in the workplace, Lee and Ramakrishnan have "framed" the article to insinuate Asian civic inertia as causation. But that's how Asian progressives roll.<br />
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Funnily enough, the difference between Asian and black/Latino volunteer rates is negligible, but of course, our researchers do not seem to conclude that college enrollment of these two groups is affected by this as it supposedly affects Asian enrollment. This is because blaming minorities for their own apparent inability to get ahead is racist...except when you are talking about Asians.<br />
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Of course, Lee and Ramakrishnan ignore the most significant ramification of their study: if an elite education does not remedy systemic racism, then affirmative action is a pointless and meaningless policy goal that merely discriminates against Asians, and offers no discernible institutional benefit to Latinos and blacks.</div>
Ben Efsaneyimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16001682865274251483noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8566317761793185393.post-74398104197630925642018-10-05T00:26:00.001-07:002018-10-05T00:26:44.830-07:00Racism With Benefits.....<b><i>Chloe Bennet And Logan Paul.</i></b><br />
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Recent revelations that one of Asian-America's high-profile critics of Hollywood anti-Asian racism is in a relationship with a media figure whose work has been criticized for its anti-Asian racist content have come as no surprise to me. It's hard to ever be surprised by Asian-American progressive ludicrousness. Of course, I'm talking about <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chloe_Bennet">Chloe Bennet</a> and her dreamy, blonde bombshell beau, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan_Paul">Logan Paul</a>.<br />
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Having gained some publicity for decrying anti-Asian racism in Hollywood, it came as a bolt from the blue when Bennet rekindled her relationship with Paul, whose YouTube content has been criticized for being racially insensitive, and, sometimes outright racist, towards Asians. There is some mystery around why Bennet would date someone whose work exemplifies the kind of casual media depictions of Asians that propagate popular racist stereotypes which contribute to the limited scope of Asian roles and representation that she has publicly decried. When people inquired - via Twitter - why she was dating Paul, <a href="https://nextshark.com/chloe-bennet-reveals-shes-dating-logan-paul-single-tweet/">Bennet's respons</a>e was......<br />
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<i>“Cause he’s kind, creative, funny, vibrantly curious about life, weird as fuck in all the best ways, a big dork, and he’s one of my best friends. It doesn’t make sense to a lot of people, but it doesn’t have too. He’s changed my life for the better and I’ve done the same for him.”</i></blockquote>
....also known as...."he's dreamy!!"<br />
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If only the purveyors of racist content looked more like Hitler and less like Hitler's <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/search?rlz=1C1GGRV_enGB751GB751&biw=1280&bih=658&tbm=isch&sa=1&ei=Mw-3W4eKNoGRgAbl9ZqgAg&q=Aryan+blonde+hitler+youth&oq=Aryan+blonde+hitler+youth&gs_l=img.12...0.0.0.32449.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0..0.0....0...1c..64.img..0.0.0....0.JF-SwiDoA90">Ubermensch</a>. That being said, the way things seems to be heading, I'm not <a href="https://www.thelily.com/the-alt-right-likes-asian-american-women-we-shouldnt-be-surprised/">entirely sure</a> some <a href="https://benefsanem.blogspot.com/2018/01/white-racists-asian-women.html">Asian women</a> would not be able to find the good qualities in a Hitler look/act-alike and d<a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/339097444/Why-Are-White-Supremacists-Marrying-Asian-Women">ate him anyway.</a> Maybe the phenomenon is an Asian feminist version of the Christian sentiment of "hating the sin, NOT the sinner!" in which Bennet hates the racism but not the racist, although I haven't seen much evidence of Bennet actually hating on the racism.<br />
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All of this aside, Bennet's dating choice brings to the fore the decades-old Asian-American gender conflict - specifically the matter of disparate high out-marriage/dating rates of Asian-American women, and how that plays into gender-specific anti-Asian racism in America.<br />
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In <a href="https://benefsanem.blogspot.com/2015/08/the-interracial-dating-disparity-and.html">previous</a> posts I have <a href="https://benefsanem.blogspot.com/2010/11/asian-american-gender-gap.html">illustrated</a> the <a href="https://benefsanem.blogspot.com/2012/06/are-asians-becoming-whiter.html">gender-specific</a> nature of anti-Asian racism in America, highlighting the unique place of privilege that Asian women seem to have been given in white society. History tells us that even as US immigration laws severely restricted - to a mere handful - general Asian migration into the country, tens of thousands of Asian women were allowed to by-pass these restrictions by virtue of being "war brides" of, largely, white G.Is. During the early part of the 20th Century, white women who married Asian men were forced to forego their citizenship status whilst white men who married Asian women were not similarly disenfranchised.<br />
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During the internment of the Japanese during WWII, white women with Japanese spouses were forced to enter the camps with their husbands or be separated from their children and face the break-up of their families. Japanese women with white husbands were not required to leave their homes, or families and were permitted to remain outside the camps. Finally, famed African-American activist for the repeal of anti-miscegenation laws, <a href="https://www.washingtonian.com/2016/11/02/virginia-case-legalized-interracial-marriage-the-loving-story/">Mildred Loving</a>, was dragged from her bed by the Virginia police in the middle of the night and jailed because she broke the law by being married to a white man. Yet, Asian war-brides in Virginia were free to live openly with their white husbands.<br />
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As these examples suggest, Asian women have been afforded a unique place of racial privilege throughout Asian-America's history. The magnitude of this privileging is such that we could reasonably say that they had been afforded their own racial category separate from, and above, other Asians and minorities. Laws and racist social norms had been put aside to permit the existence of this privileged racial position in which your race is basically altered to circumvent racial restrictions. That is, as long as you are partnered with a white man.<br />
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Like these many thousands of white-partnered Asian women before her, Chloe Bennet has the opportunity to ignore racialization and racism by partnering with a purveyor of it. Even her own stated principles of decrying media racism that limits roles for Asian actors seem to have gone out the window since she is dating someone who propagates the very popular racist stereotypes that the media wants to disseminate.<br />
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This is why the gendered racism that characterizes the Asian-Americans experience needs to be at the centre of our dialogue on race. This unique racial category afforded to Asian women precludes any attempts to forge an Asian-American political identity since it seems impossible to do so when large segments of your community choose partners who promote, or who are sympathetic to racist Asian stereotypes. <a href="https://i.redd.it/1o3l8gap3ig11.jpg">Some </a>of these <a href="https://woozoonyc.com/news/cassandra-lam-founder-of-organization-for-asian-women-called-out-for-anti-asian-male-tweets/">women </a>are even open about their own <a href="http://www.asiaone.com/asia/filipina-aussie-model-blasted-resurfaced-anti-asian-tweets">racist </a>attitudes towards Asian men and seem to view us as a <a href="http://i.imgur.com/APvlgea.jpg">different species</a>, let alone a different race.<br />
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Interestingly, Logan Paul's racist content seems to mainly target Asian men which may be why Chloe Bennet is able to be more forgiving of it. Regardless, Bennet's dating choice is merely more evidence of the chasm in racial identity between Asian men and women, but also of the privileged status enjoyed by Asian women who seem to see no conflict between the racist beliefs of their white male partners and their own racial minority status.</div>
Ben Efsaneyimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16001682865274251483noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8566317761793185393.post-85888028267060457692018-03-30T23:28:00.001-07:002018-04-01T21:29:49.696-07:00When Racists Love You More Than The Liberals.<b>The SPLC And Eliot Roger.</b><br />
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It's been a good few years since white/Asian mixed-race mass-murderer, Eliot Roger, went on a killing spree that resulted in the deaths of six people. Known as the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Isla_Vista_killings">Isla Vista</a> killings, the tragedy exposed some of the deep-rooted schisms that have long divided Asian-Americans. Despite the fact that Roger had disdain for Asian men, the incident was co-opted by some Asian feminists who pushed the assertion of an implicit sickness with "Asian masculinity" as one of the causative factors for his actions</div>
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In the real world, Roger's primary role model for masculinity was his Caucasian father, and his thoughts on Asian masculinity were derisive. How these factors turned Roger into an example of Asian male misogyny is a mystery. </div>
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What became clear in the aftermath of the case is that Roger's racist attitudes towards Asian men were downplayed by both the mainstream, and our own largely, useless, twitter/blogger Asian "activists". This is unsurprising as I have always maintained that Asian progressive activism seeks to stifle Asian progress, limit race dialogue to a black/white binary, and stigmatize Asian men as implicitly racist upholders of white supremacy. No wonder mainstream America is empowered to maintain its racist representations of Asian men since even our own activists obfuscate the facts to push an agenda.<br />
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It came as no surprise to me, then, when an article recently appeared in the journal of the <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/20180205/alt-right-killing-people">Southern Poverty Law Center</a> (SPLC) that defined Eliot Roger as the first "Alt-Right" killer whose actions were driven by an adherence to white nationalist ideology. The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Poverty_Law_Center">SPLC </a> is a legal organization, started in the early nineteen-seventies, that advocates for victims of racial prejudice. One of its tasks is the monitoring of hate groups and extremists. Despite its credentials as a bulwark against hate crimes, the SPLC's report on Roger's "Alt-Right" leanings is, ironically, itself an example how liberals and leftists incubate anti-Asian attitudes.<br />
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Of course, I did not personally know Eliot Roger. I never met him, and I have no idea what it feels like to have the kind of embarrassment and shame about being Asian that he apparently had. I have no comprehension of Roger's hatred for other Asian men, nor have I had difficulty interacting with the opposite sex as Roger is reported to have experienced. Despite all of this, I know Roger very well because I know what it is like to be an Asian man whose cultural identity is erased from the society you live in.<br />
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Roger would have grown up in an American cultural setting in which Asian men are depicted as pathetic losers who fail at romance due to our physical repulsiveness, and fail as men because of mental and physical weaknesses. Asian men almost always lose - because we are the bad guys - and if we win, it is mostly as peripheral characters in a team of much stronger white men. At every turn, Roger would have been met with negative portrayals of Asian men. Television, film, literature, news media and even children's books would have shown Asian men in extremely negative ways. If not as absurd caricatures, then as the subject of xenophobic white fantasies of brutal beatings or mass killings of Asian enemies.<br />
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Roger, like all Asian men, lived in a culture in which he was taught through casual media racism that being an Asian man made you worthy entirely of violent aggression or relentless mockery. It is, largely, the left-leaning liberal media that propagates this dehumanizing anti-Asian male racism, although some of these negative portrayals would have originated with other Asian-Americans whose creative output marginalizes Asian men or offhandedly demeans them.<br />
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The liberal SPLC's report takes none of this into account. In fact, it completely erases this experience by, literally, white-washing Roger so that his motivations can be neatly shoehorned into the umbrella of the black/white race dichotomy, and the left/right narrative. It says this about Roger...<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>But Atchison wasn’t the first to fit the profile of alt-right killer—that morbid milestone belongs to Elliot Rodger, the 22-year-old who in 2014 killed seven in Isla Vista, California, after uploading a sprawling manifesto filled with hatred of young women and interracial couples...Including Rodger’s murderous rampage there have been at least 13 alt-right related fatal episodes...</i></blockquote>
It goes on....<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Rodger left behind a sprawling 107,000-word manifesto titled, “My Twisted World: The Story of Elliot Rodger,” which contained passages lamenting his inability to find a girlfriend, expressing extreme misogyny and various racist positions including disgust for interracial couples (despite the fact that he was multi-racial himself).....“How could an inferior, ugly black boy be able to get a white girl and not me? I am beautiful, and I am half white myself,” Rodger wrote. “I am descended from British aristocracy. He is descended from slaves.”</i></blockquote>
We should recall that Roger stabbed his three Asian male roommates to death and mutilated their bodies in an act of savage hatred, railed against "ugly" Asian men being with white girls, and saw himself as superior to full-blooded Asian men. Yet, the SPLC report saw fit to view Roger's racism solely from the perspective of his anti-black tirades. What the SPLC has done is to whitewash the anti-Asian racism Roger would have been subject to, and blackwash his racism so that his actions can be neatly defined in terms of the black/white dichotomy. The experiences of anti-Asian media racism that may have informed Roger's alienation and fueled his hatred of Asian men have been erased by the SPLC.<br />
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In its zeal to paint Roger as just another killer driven by white nationalist fervour, the SPLC has absolved liberal racism of its culpability in creating the monster that Roger became. In fact, I would suggest that Roger found himself pushed to the fringes of society - and into the sphere of white nationalism - precisely because casual liberal media racism denies Asian men a positive American cultural identity. There was no celebrated and beloved cultural Asian-American figure that Roger could look to and say to himself, "<i>that is the Asian-American who best represents my aspirations, inspiration, and character"</i>. Asian men don't fit into America's cultural narratives except, largely, in the most demeaning and dehumanizing ways. Perhaps the casual violence that the liberal media likes to depict being inflicted on Asian men fueled Roger's violent fantasies - his mutilation of his three Asian roommates merely mirrors pervasive film and television images of Asian men being brutally killed en masse by white heroes.<br />
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Roger's case raises some difficult questions about how media representation of Asian men affects our community. Some <a href="https://twitter.com/tsengputterman/status/887541942673969154">Asian-American anti-blackness reactivists</a> chide their own community for over-inflating the issue of poor media representation. Yet, the Isla Vista killings raises the intriguing possibility of a line of causation between racist stereotypes of Asian men, and an act of violence in society. If media racism is creating a sociocultural environment in which Asian men are marginalized and alienated to the point of murderous nihilism, then that is surely a major social issue?<br />
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By ignoring Roger's hatred of Asians the SPLC renders it invisible, diminishes its significance, and, in the process, is complicit in the propagation of a dismissive attitude towards casual anti-Asian racism. Yet, the organization defines a <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/20171004/frequently-asked-questions-about-hate-groups#hate%20group">hate group as follows</a>....<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>The Southern Poverty Law Center defines a hate group as an organization that – based on its official statements or principles, the statements of its leaders, or its activities – has beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics.</i></blockquote>
This definition describes the liberal media - particularly the liberal "creative"media - that routinely, and casually produces depictions of Asian men that dehumanize, and malign us for our supposed immutable characteristics. If Eliot Roger hated Asian men to the point of murder, it is because our society and culture fosters such attitudes. <span style="text-align: start;">Roger shows that cultural emasculation of Asian men can have tragic real world consequences.</span><br />
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There is an important distinction that has to be made here. Roger's actions were not the product of his Asian-ness, they were the product of our racist culture's representations of his Asian-ness. His alienation and murderous rage should be viewed as the outcome of casual anti-Asian racism that has become the normative manner of conceptualizing Asian men. I would agree that participating in white nationalist ideology was a factor in Roger's actions, the question is, how and why did he end up there?<br />
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The SPLC suggests that he was merely seduced by white nationalism. Asian progressive activists and feminists suggest that he was the product of a toxic masculinity unique to Asian-American men. Both groups ignore the likelihood that gendered, Asian male targeted media racism alienated him to such a point that he grew to hate being part Asian and chose to adopt the most extreme white nationalist culture. There was simply no cultural narrative that he would have found sympathetic to his racial background, so he chose one that would. Ironically, he seemed to have found more acceptance for his Asian-ness amongst a bunch of racist losers that would have done from mainstream culture. That, to me, is indicative of a major social ill.</div>
Ben Efsaneyimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16001682865274251483noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8566317761793185393.post-75679155797591031892018-02-03T10:09:00.001-08:002018-02-03T10:09:10.918-08:00Whoops They Did It Again!<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i>Same Ole Same Ole.</i></b><br />
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Yes, it has happened again! Asian-America has experienced yet another Groundhog Day moment in which we are once again treated to what amounts to an Asian-American progressive deflection of attention away from white supremacist violence onto an imagined culpability of Asian immigrants.<br />
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Following the events in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unite_the_Right_rally#Vehicular_attack_and_homicide">Charlottesville </a>last year, in which a white-supremacist rammed his car into a crowd of left wing protesters, killing one of them, I knew that it would only be a matter of days before an Asian progressive supporter of white supremacy would show up, making the world safe for white nationalism.<br />
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Of course, a mainstream liberal publication provides the platform for this transparent deflection of attention away from white racism. Writing in the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/how-asian-americans-can-stop-contributing-to-anti-blackness_us_599f0757e4b0cb7715bfd3d4">Huffington Post</a>, apparently progressive, and possible useful idiot, <i>Jezzika </i>Chung penned <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/how-asian-americans-can-stop-contributing-to-anti-blackness_us_599f0757e4b0cb7715bfd3d4">this </a> remarkable piece that seems to play on xenophobic suspicions of incomprehensible Asian languages spreading malign ideas to the detriment of white liberalism.<br />
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The piece starts as follows...<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Anti-blackness in the Asian American community is not a discreet, whispered sentiment. It’s a blatant belief that’s been engrained into many immigrant minds — something force fed to us as children of immigrants as we attempt to integrate into American culture, where anti-blackness and white supremacy ideals are also rampant.</i></blockquote>
This is news to me. But, maybe the piece will provide substantial evidence for this dramatic claim? Let's see....<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>When Asian immigrants leave their home countries to come to America, often to escape poverty or tyrannical regimes, they’re often faced with the concept of race for the first time. </i></blockquote>
Really? During the pro-Peter Liang protests by <a href="https://benefsanem.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/what-is-wrong-with-people.html">Chinese immigrants</a>, they seemed to <a href="https://benefsanem.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/asian-american-cops.html">show a far more</a> nuanced comprehension of America's racial issues than the "woke" progressives who maligned them. Well, maybe the piece will provide substantial evidence for this dramatic claim? Let's see....<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Growing up, I often attributed my mom’s erratic behaviors to her being naive and gullible. She treated articles she read as holy scripture, shunning anything that was forbidden by the obscure newspapers she got at the Korean market. Many times, the literature she read perpetuated problematic ideas of other minorities, especially black people. As I became older, I realized that this impressionable mindset comes from an intense desire to survive in a country that functions on rules and customs unfamiliar to the ones in their former cultures.</i></blockquote>
Well, no, no evidence so far. Maybe I need to read some more? Hmmmm....<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>As Asian immigrants work toward building successes in a foreign environment, they begin taking cues from the people they see as most successful. Because America’s historical oppression of people of color, these people are usually white. To many Asian Americans, whiteness often becomes equated to success, and all the elements that have been conditioned to come with the paradigms of whiteness. </i></blockquote>
Was that a bait and switch? Did <i>Jezzika </i>just set me up for an avalanche of new, never before seen evidence proving these dramatic claims, but then change the subject? I think, yes, that is exactly what happened.<br />
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Maybe it's obvious that taking "cues from people they see as most successful" in order to work towards success is implicitly anti-black? Not to me. There happen to be quite a few successful liberals that Asian immigrants could be taking cues from, yet <i>Jezzika's </i>article suggests that it is apparently primarily successful white racists that Asian immigrants choose to learn from. If this is true, it is a point that raises all kinds of awkward questions that require investigation. Of primary interest is, why are "anti-black" sentiments from successful, and apparently, racist, white Americans filtering through to Asian immigrants with poor English, rather than those values of successful white liberals that are so beloved of Asian progressives?<br />
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One clue to this dilemma might be gleaned from an industry that is one of the most unashamedly liberal bastions of whiteness: the film and television industry. Now since the entertainment industry seems to have one of the highest saturations of white liberals espousing white liberal values who are pervasively visible and accessible in propagating their views, one might expect that <i>RACIST(!!!)</i> and gullible Asian immigrants would to some large degree adopt these liberal values in their own lives. According to <i>Jezzika </i>and several other Asian progressives, this isn't the case. The question is why?<br />
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To me, the answer seems pretty straight forward. Asian immigrants are the minority that liberals - particularly Asian liberals - love to hate. Asian immigrants are the minority whom liberals have decided it is okay to hate, mock, ridicule, and deride in any number of ways. Accents, food, mannerisms, and racial characteristics are all fair game for the extremely influential - and largely liberal - media machine that is the film and television industry. What is it about these racist, anti-Asian attitudes that would inspire new Asian immigrants to adopt them? Thankfully, Asian immigrants don't seem to carry the same self-denigrating shame about themselves that Asian progressives exhibit.<br />
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Furthermore, <i>Jezzika </i>implies a lack of liberal reading material available to Asian immigrants in their native languages that could, perhaps, sway their thinking to a more liberal persuasion. The problem here is that, contrary to the apparent sentiments of Asian progressives, Asian immigrants are not stupid, and do not lack agency. Most likely, they, like most human beings (they are human after all, aren't they?) have the capacity to recognize when they are being held in low esteem by the people they are being urged to learn moral lessons from about racial tolerance.<br />
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After all, why would anyone waste their time reading materials from people whose most high profile, and self-righteous, representatives are complicit in a culture of anti-Asianism? It could well be that Asian immigrants are gravitating to the side of the political spectrum that appears slightly less hypocritical about race and tolerance. Of course, if there is a lack of liberal reading materials available to Asian immigrants in their own language, it could simply mean that liberals have no interest in reaching out to Asian immigrants. If the Right is reaching out to Asians, but the Left is ignoring them, even as the liberal media machine mocks them, is it any surprise that Asian immigrants might choose the options that appears to be the friendlier face?<br />
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Of course, this all presumes that there actually is a significant pattern of behaviour amongst Asian immigrants that veers towards "anti-blackness". These claims are never reasonably substantiated by grandstanding Asian progressives.<br />
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In short, <i>Jezzika </i>has written a hit piece in which she targets Asian immigrants who will probably never be given a chance in a liberal publication to answer any accusations leveled at them. She has made completely unsubstantiated claims about racist attitudes within an entire immigrant community, has implied a studied knowledge of deep psychological states of Asian immigrants, most of whom she cannot possibly know, and has asserted a knowledge of a common pattern of behvaviour and motivation amongst a diverse number of individuals. All of this based on the alleged actions of her mother and not on any reasonable study carried out under customary standards of academic rigour.<br />
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In effect, <i>Jezzika </i>has dehumanized Asian immigrants, and represented them as unthinking followers of a powerful outside stimulus, incapable of reasoning to the contrary, or learning directly from their environment, and who are all driven by exactly the same goals.<br />
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It doesn't take a genius to notice the pattern and timing that is going on here. As I have written before, every single time there have been high-profile incidences of anti-black racism perpetrated by white Americans, the liberal media always produces an Asian progressive who will deflect the conversation away from white racism and onto alleged racism in Asian-American communities. It is one of the few opportunities that Asians are afforded for mainstream media exposure, and most often, it is used to attack Asian immigrants.<br />
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Perhaps Asian progressives need to take note of this and stop providing the escape route for American racism in the popular media? This is by and far a more potent assistance for the perpetuation of white supremacy than any anonymous, broken English Asian immigrant could ever provide. </div>
Ben Efsaneyimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16001682865274251483noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8566317761793185393.post-48012621354557280422018-01-15T21:01:00.000-08:002018-01-15T21:01:13.461-08:00White Racists, Asian Women.<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i>Asian Women's Complicity In Anti-Blackness</i></b><br />
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The human psyche is an amazing thing - the more reality slaps you in the face with facts that challenge your worldview, the more intellectual back-flips you perform to avoid recognizing it. A great example of this can be found in an article that appeared in the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/06/opinion/sunday/alt-right-asian-fetish.html">New York Times</a> a few days ago. Written by freelance journalist, <a href="https://twitter.com/Audromatic3000">Audrea Lim</a>, the piece seems to explore every angle of its subject, except for the actual crux of the issue.</div>
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Titled "The Alt-Right’s Asian Fetish", the article explores the explosive and bizarre niche subject of white supremacist men and their fetish for Asian women. The rambling piece demonstrates the chimeric nature of Asian progressive thought and perfectly illustrates how Asian progressives talk a lot but say very little.<br />
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Describing alt-right, white nationalists as "confused", Lim goes on to explain away their attraction for Asian women by citing the two catch-all phenomena that progressives use to define the Asian experience: the model minority myth and the subservience and hypersexualization of Asian women. With the former, Lim suggests - without evidence - that model minority assimilation has made Asians acceptable to white racial purists, even though there is little evidence of a pattern in which white people who embrace the model minority stereotype are also likely to be racist towards other minorities.<br />
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What Lim is trying to say with the latter argument is unclear - she never really shows how stereotypes of Asian women's subservience and hypersexualization relates to the issue at all. Most likely, Lim is merely trying to suggest that Asian women who choose complicity in white nationalism are actually victims. More on that later.<br />
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The main issue here is that if Lim has to dredge up and regurgitate the model minority myth myth and hypersexualization of Asian women to explain white supremacist thought and action, then she has most likely not understood the meaning of "white supremacy". At its most simple, white supremacy is the belief that white people are superior such that they have the right to dominance over other races. That in itself explains why there is no confusion in white supremacists having an Asian fetish - it is right because white is right. Thus, white supremacists' Asian fetish can most appropriately be explained by the ideology of white supremacy itself, not by some fanciful allusion to Asian racial stereotypes. No racial myths about Asian need apply here.<br />
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Where Lim goes even more horribly awry is that she fails to ask the most important question of all: why are Asian women choosing to partner with racists? Why are they choosing complicity in white nationalism and anti-blackness?<br />
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Lim deals with this awkward fact by ignoring it. Rather, she implies that Asian women who support white supremacists are somehow victims who just can't make the right choices for all the confusing things that society believes about them. Implying a lack of agency on the part of Asian women, Lim infantilizes them - they simply can't act right because it's just too hard to make a decent moral choice about a dreamy white supremacist and their oh, so forceful racial theories. Lim seems to view Asian women as confused bimbos who can't distinguish a racist from a white Silicon valley tech nerd.<br />
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Oddly enough, infantilization of non-whites was one of the core concepts of white supremacist thought that justified slavery and colonialism. It's hard to argue against white supremacy when you seem to be reinforcing their core beliefs.<br />
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At least Lim did not try to blame Asian men and their patriarchal cultures for producing women too dumb - or morally bankrupt - to understand the ramifications of racist thought. But, maybe the problem is that Asian women that partner white supremacists are seldom held accountable for their choices by other Asian women. Lim certainly doesn't seem to think they are accountable, and I'm yet to see any of the usual Asian twitter progressives issuing even perfunctory condemnation of said women. What we are witnessing here is Asian female privilege in action in which, just like white men, they are afforded every possible excuse to justify racist behaviour.<br />
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No other minority demographic is afforded this privilege. The uncomfortable truth here is that white nationalists pursue and attain Asian female partners simply because they know they can, and that there are some Asian women who are very willing to partner white racists. There's no mystery about it.</div>
Ben Efsaneyimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16001682865274251483noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8566317761793185393.post-53363051780865086392017-12-18T21:05:00.000-08:002017-12-18T21:06:07.683-08:00YouTube Creators for Change: Natalie Tran | White Male Asian Female<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i>A Missed Opportunity.</i></b><br />
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There is a YouTube video by Australian YouTube star, Natalie Tran, that has been making the rounds in Asian cyberspace recently in which she exposed the cyber hate that she receives due to her being in a relationship with a white man.</div>
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Here's the video.....</div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/chFKDaZns6w" width="480"></iframe><br />
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Although Tran's documentary is certainly well-intentioned, and has received some considerable praise, I can't help but feel disappointed.<br />
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At the beginning of the documentary Tran shows us some examples of the abusive comments she receives, and declares that ...<br />
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<i>...just to add salt to the wound, a lot of these comments come from fellow Asians.....these comments are pretty common. A lot of other Asian women who date Caucasian men, and have some kind of presence online, also receive a lot of these comments as well.....</i></blockquote>
Neither of these points sit well. The second point is problematic because the implication is that Asian women are somehow uniquely afflicted by this kind of cyber bullying. In fact, there is ample documented evidence that all but proves that any woman of any race with an online presence who dates interracially will be targeted because of it. Plus, because the internet can be anonymous, it is almost impossible to actually identify anyone who posts comments on any site, so we generally have no way of knowing if the people leaving hate comments are actually Asian.<br />
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Tran's first point is more intriguing.<br />
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According to Tran "a lot" - but not all - of these hate comments are from "fellow" Asians, which makes me wonder why she chose to focus <i>only </i>on seeking answers to why Asians would be attacking her in this way? Is Asian opposition to her personal dating choices somehow a greater crime than, let's say, white opposition? If so, why? Sure, she feels that it is "adding insult to injury" when Asians attack her in this way, but why she feels this isn't clear. If she is suggesting that Asian hate comments are more hurtful because they are a betrayal of some kind of solidarity amongst Asians, then this merely exposes a huge irony that I will expound upon a little later.<br />
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During Tran's interview of Asian-American dating coach, JT Tran, he stated that Asian men leave hate comments because of their life-experiences. Although, overall, JT did a great job of describing some of the issues faced by Asian men, I would argue that there is more nuance to the relationship between Asian men's experiences and online vitriol - which I will discuss later. For most Asian men, the racism we experience, and the anger it fosters, motivates us to strive for success and accomplishment in many different areas of life and in no way drives us to become cyber-bullies. The point was overly simplistic, and merely reinforced the the stereotype of loser Asian guys leaving bitter comments on Asian websites.<br />
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More significantly, juxtaposing Tran's dating issues with the racism Asian men face creates an implicit relegation of Asian men's experiences to a mere sub-context of Asian female dating choices. The gender-specific racism that Asian men experience deserves to be a significant part of Asian-American thought and dialogue in its own right and not as something that gets spoken about only when it negatively affects Asian women's dating choices. Sadly, we just don't see many investigative documentaries that focus solely on anti-Asian male racism in America. This is the irony of Tran's apparent sense of betrayal that Asians are leaving hate comments: our "community" is a mere apparition when it comes to Asian men's experiences that only appears as part of an apologetic for interracial dating.<br />
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There is another irony that is worth noting: Asian men's complaints about culturally induced difficulties in dating are routinely dismissed - mostly by Asian progressives - yet, when an Asian woman experiences opposition to her dating choices, we get a documentary about it. This, perhaps, is another example of how "community" is a poor choice of word.<br />
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Furthermore, there is an implicit (although, perhaps, unintentional) shifting of the burden of responsibility to explain the actions of a few Asian commenters onto the entire community of Asian men. It does not logically follow that Asian men would be able to explain the online anti-social behaviour of other Asian men just because they are Asian men. It is the job and expertise of psychologists and behaviourists to explain behaviour and psychological states - particularly when it comes to anti-social behaviour on the internet. It was certainly appropriate to ask Asian men to describe Asian men's anger and experiences, but not to explain the behaviour of online trolls.<br />
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There are a number of factors that <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/better-living-technology/201408/why-the-online-trolls-troll">researchers </a>have discovered contribute to online trolling. These include, a sense of no accountability due to anonymity, desensitization due to a general toxic internet environment, and a lack of consequences. Interestingly, <a href="https://news.stanford.edu/2017/02/06/stanford-research-shows-anyone-can-become-internet-troll/">other</a> <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/online-trolls-why-people-become-cyber-bullies-social-media-twitter-facebook-study-cornell-stanford-a7616126.html">studies</a> suggest that the general tone of other comments on an issue contributes to trolling behaviour. The ramifications of this highlights the most glaring problem with Tran's investigation: there is a cycle of vicious online commentary between Asian men and women that mutually demeans each other that Tran did not address.<br />
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The nature of the sometimes vitriolic dialogue between Asian men and women could be driving hate comments and might not necessarily be the result of anti-Asian male racism Asian men experience in their daily lives. It is mere presumption that those who leave hate comments are actually responding from a place personal pain - they could merely be responding to anti-Asian male comments left by Asian women on an existing or previous thread .<br />
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Instead of an un-nuanced assertion that Asian men's anger about their experiences leads to trolling, it would be more accurate for Tran to have noticed that the hate comments she receives are merely part of an ongoing online dialogue between some Asian men and women that is mutually hateful. In other words, based on research, Asian men who troll Tran, are likely to be embroiled in the cycle of hate comments to which some Asian women seem happy to contribute. This means that the hate directed at Tran is merely a by-product of an online situation created by both Asian men <i>and </i>Asian women. It would have been nice for Tran to have investigated this - significant - aspect of the story. I would have liked to have seen Tran cornering Asian women and asking them why <i>other</i> Asian women leave hate comments about Asian men that contribute to the toxic environment of mutual distrust that is a major causative factor in the hate comments Tran receives about her relationship.<br />
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To summarize, Tran's documentary missed the point by not addressing the online environment of mutual disdain and hostility that has been created by some Asian women and men. The hate comments she receives seem to me to be most likely a reflection of this environment than an outcome of how Asian men are likely to react to anti-Asian male racism. By failing to seek answers to why some Asian women post anti-Asian male tweets, write demeaning news articles about Asian men, or generally show disdain for Asian men's humanity, Tran's documentary shed scant light on the issue she was investigating. </div>
Ben Efsaneyimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16001682865274251483noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8566317761793185393.post-48868939794753419722017-10-26T00:36:00.001-07:002017-10-26T00:36:27.461-07:00Worse In Asia...Because Asians.<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i>The "Us Too" Affliction.....</i></b></div>
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It has come as no surprise to me that the recent revelations coming out of ultra-liberal, yet, unapologetically, anti-Asian Hollywood exposes a culture of abuse and sexual exploitation of both vulnerable women, and even men, over a period of decades. The man at the center of these revelations, producer, Harvey Weinstein, has been exposed as an <i>alleged </i>serial molester/rapist, who <i>allegedly </i>used his power and influence to make or break the careers of women in the industry to <i>allegedly </i>satisfy his <i>allegedly </i>perverse sexual appetite.</div>
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Yet, as I have come to expect, almost as soon as this story broke, up steps an Asian-American focused article that seemed to exist merely to imply that the West isn't that bad since - <i>as we all know</i> - Asia is always much worse. The article appears in an Asian-American online magazine called "Resonate" <a href="http://www.weareresonate.com/about-us/">which purports to be a.</a>..</div>
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<i>.....news, entertainment and blogging website that provides writers with a platform to discuss topics that strongly resonate amongst East Asian communities in the West. </i></div>
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Hmmm.</div>
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Also on the "About" page, you can find the following statements....</div>
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<i>The representation of East Asians is unreasonably disproportionate within politics, the film industry, music industry and the media in general. For example, when East Asians are represented in the film, they are often represented through takeaway owners or martial artists.</i></div>
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<i>‘Resonate’ actively encourages positive representation in the media by making your voice heard by delivering interesting articles from your own perspectives to actively engage wider audiences.</i></div>
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Instead of a piece that conforms to the stated aims of the publication to represent Asians more roundly, the article actually does the opposite and relies on old tropes of backward Asian deference to authority to racially stereotype Asians as passive. </div>
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The Resonate article reports that.....<br />
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<i>Asia’s “conservative attitude towards sex” and “fear of consequences” prevent abuse victims in the Asian entertainment business from coming forward.</i></blockquote>
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<i>it was “highly unlikely” that Asian actresses “will come forward in the way that their Western counterparts have” like the Harvey Weinstein scandal.</i></blockquote>
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To be fair, the piece is quoting an article from <a href="http://variety.com/2017/film/asia/asian-film-biz-to-keep-sex-violence-problems-under-wraps-1202588104/">Variety, written by Hong Kong journalist, Vivienne Chow</a>, which actually makes the melodramatic (but unsubstantiated) claim that Asian actresses don't come forward [like their western counterparts] for fear of jeopardizing the lives of their families. As if that was not enough, yet another article appeared, this time on the <a href="https://www.yomyomf.com/asian-actresses-unlikely-to-openly-speak-about-sexual-violence-issues/">YOMYOMF</a> site that also cited the same Variety piece. YOMYOMF is another Asian-American interest site that also wants to improve representation of Asians in the media<br />
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Whilst I don't challenge the claim that there may be some alleged abuses going on in the "Asian" film industry, the problem here is the Variety piece's assertion that western culture has somehow displayed a more open or healthy response to allegations against Harvey Weinstein, and the abuses he is alleged to have inflicted on several women. The truth seems to be a little more complicated.<br />
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As we have now learned, Wienstein's actions seem to have been <a href="http://www.vulture.com/2017/10/writer-scott-rosenberg-everyone-knew-about-weinstein.html">well known throughout the industry</a>, amid allegations that some of Hollywood's <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/matt-damon-russell-crowe-harvey-weinstein-sexual-allegations-fired-killed-story-a7991981.html">A-list actors</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/oct/19/quentin-tarantino-on-weinstein-i-knew-enough-to-do-more-than-i-did">directors</a>, and producers had knowledge of the issue but chose to do nothing about the alleged abuses, or even actively worked to prevent Weinstein from being exposed. Sadly, <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/10/11/16460164/harvey-weinstein-sexual-harassment-assault-accusations">dozens of female</a> and <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2017/10/11/entertainment/terry-crews-sexual-harassment/index.html">male</a> victims were ignored, or, for reasons of not wanting to hurt their careers, remained largely silent.<br />
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Ironically, this fear of, and deference to, authority displayed by both victims of Weinstein and those around him who lied on his behalf, or those who simply knew what was going on but refused to speak up, runs counter to the image portrayed by Hollywood - and tightly interwoven into the fabric of western cultures - of the western maverick individual who lives to swim against the current and push against the grain. To be clear, I am not blaming the victims here in any way, and my point will become clearer later in the piece. Yet, it is a pity that the Variety "exposé" on the Asian film industry seems to do just that - imply fault on the part of Asian victims of sexual violence.<br />
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The point is that Asians have been stereotyped - by the media, especially Hollywood - for years as naturally subservient to authority. We are supposedly from cultures that produce weak individuals with hive mentalities who are unwilling to stand up to injustice, or authority, and who definitely would not speak up for themselves, or others, as individuals. Oh, we're money driven, too.<br />
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Sadly, the Variety article seems to play upon these tropes, implying a different cultural mentality that restricts the ability of Asians to speak out against injustice whilst also implying that a greater courage exists amongst westerners to do just that. It doesn't take an epic feat of observation to notice that this simply did not happen in Hollywood, and that there was clear deference to authority amongst those who were not victims but who knew, but also amongst the victims who, for whatever reason, chose to stay in line and not come forward.<br />
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The Variety article was written by a Hong Kong journalist who may not know, or care, about the nuances of racist stereotypes in the western media. The YOMYOMF and Resonate platforms that both carried the story should know better. With the stated aim of improving representation of Asians in our culture, it seems oddly cursory that there would be an uncritical re-posting of an article that plays upon racial stereotypes that form the basis for poor representation of Asians in the media. Surely, the first step in improving representation for Asians would be to be capable of recognizing the stereotypes that lie at the root of it?<br />
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A deeper issue here is that not only does the Variety piece play into negative stereotypes of Asians, it seems to uphold the positive, overbearing stereotype of Caucasians as dynamic, fearless, individuals who brazenly speak out against injustice. Staying silent for decades is not dynamic individualism, nor is it brazenly anti-authority. Again, YOMYOMF and Resonate should recognize this principle at work here as part of their stated aim to improve representation for Asians - racist stereotypes of Asians are merely the worst traits of Caucasians projected onto others. So far, I've seen few examples of brazen Hollywood individuals having made a stand against Weinstein - or the <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/all-the-other-harveys">numerous others</a> of his ilk. In fact, <i style="font-weight: bold;">no one </i>that knew<i style="font-weight: bold;"> </i>came forward on behalf of the victims for decades even though it is alleged that his actions were well known throughout the industry. Hardly a shining example of maverick individualism pushing hard against authority.</div>
Ben Efsaneyimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16001682865274251483noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8566317761793185393.post-91309695345791018522017-10-19T22:45:00.003-07:002017-10-19T22:45:33.797-07:00Hair Is Anti-Black..... <b><i>Jerry's Dreads.....</i></b><br />
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<span style="text-align: justify;">Just when I thought that Asian-American progressivism couldn't get more mundanely absurd, a new source of angst has arisen over Jeremy Lin's racial offense of Donning Dreadlocks While Asian. The kerfuffle started when former NBA player, </span><a href="http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2737141-kenyon-martin-says-jeremy-lins-dreadlocks-show-he-wants-to-be-black" style="text-align: justify;">Kenyon Martin, voiced racially insensitive criticism of Lin's dreadlocks</a><span style="text-align: justify;">, seeming to take offense that Lin had a "black" hairstyle.</span><br />
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Lin's response was <a href="http://larrybrownsports.com/basketball/jeremy-lin-classy-response-kenyon-martin-critical-hair/400128">classy</a>....</div>
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<i>Hey man, it’s all good. You definitely don’t have to like my hair and [are] definitely entitled to your opinion.......Actually I [am] legit grateful [for] you sharin it [to be honest]. At the end of the day, I appreciate that I have dreads and you have Chinese tattoos [because] I think its a sign of respect......And I think as minorities, the more that we appreciate each other’s cultures, the more we influence mainstream society. Thanks for everything you did for the Nets and hoops…had your poster up on my wall growin up.</i></blockquote>
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Martin subsequently did some backtracking - <a href="https://www.netsdaily.com/2017/10/7/16441304/kenyon-martin-apologizes-to-jeremy-lin-still-finds-his-dreads-hilarious">of sorts</a> - but true to form, and as predictable as an Asian anti-white supremacy, anti-anti-blackness crusader who only dates white dudes, a grandstanding Asian progressive gets pulled from the anus of the white liberal media to spout meaningless rhetoric that lacks any logical cohesion or consistent train of thought.</div>
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Published in the ever more seemingly <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/jeremy-lin-kenyon-martin_us_59dce0d9e4b0208970d00545">anti-Asian, xenophobic, liberal news site, the Huffington Post,</a> Asian, Jessica Prois, and a black colleague, Lily Workneh join forces to enlighten us on the wrongness of Lin's hair and his response to Martin's attack.</div>
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The article's gist can be summed up by the following excerpts...</div>
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<i>Neither of their actions ― culturally appropriating tattoos or dreads ― were signs of “respect.".......Yet there’s a certain reality that belies the accord the two reached: There’s a false equivalency in saying Chinese tattoos on a black man and dreadlocks on a Chinese-American man are the same type of offense...........................But borrowing a cultural marker like dreadlocks, which embody both joy and struggle unique to the black community, is not the same as having a Chinese tattoo, a symbol that doesn’t carry the same weight of oppression. Yes, appropriating Chinese culture through a tattoo is exoticizing and insensitive. But the the act of putting on and taking off dreadlocks ― which are related to the systematic economic and social oppression of a racial group ― demonstrates a greater level of disregard. </i></blockquote>
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What we have here is a failure to present any logically reasoned points in an article that makes sweeping assertions without offering any meaningful supporting argument. There are a couple of points forming the premise of the piece, which I have read as follows.....</div>
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<li style="text-align: justify;"><i>The use of dreadlocks by a non-black person is more heinous than Chinese letter tattoos on a non-Chinese.</i></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><i>Dreadlocks are an embodiment of a political and social struggle unique to the African-American community.</i></li>
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The first point reflects the paucity of critical thinking exhibited by modern-day progressives in general and Asian-American progressives in particular. The assertion that wearing dreadlocks or sporting Chinese character tattoos are "offenses" is itself problematic, but the claim of a qualitative hierarchy in the severity of these supposed offenses is merely a subjective opinion elevated to an objective fact by virtue of mere assertion. The second point is a textbook example of irony.</div>
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The claim that dreadlocks somehow "belong" to black culture is simply untrue and ignorant. This is what the article says....</div>
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<i>Dreadlocks, which are essentially twisted locks of hair, are more than just a hairstyle. They have become symbolic of blackness and black culture and while some wear them for aesthetic reasons, others can have a deep cultural and spiritual connection to them. The style itself is widely worn by many Rastafarians, a religious movement bred in Jamaica, and, for some among them, it can represent a resistance to Western or Euro-centric hairstyles while honoring their roots. </i></blockquote>
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Although it is true that dreadlocks have "become symbolic of blackness and black culture", how this argument supports the notions that Lin committed some kind of offense is not clear, since the article doesn't explain its claim. A key word here is "become". A simple google search of the term "dreadlocks" would have revealed that members of human societies have been dreading their hair for millennia and that this style has never been exclusive to black people.</div>
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Statues, hundreds of years old, exist of <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/search?rlz=1C1GGRV_enGB751GB751&biw=1280&bih=669&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=buddha+statue+braids&oq=buddha+statue+braids&gs_l=psy-ab.3...29899.30876.0.30918.7.7.0.0.0.0.84.420.6.6.0....0...1.1.64.psy-ab..1.4.292...0.0.8zYKGvlOCTg">Buddha sporting </a>what look like cornrows and dreadlocks, and an easy to find <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreadlocks">Wikipedia </a>entry provides a brief overview of the use, and significance of, dreadlocks across <a href="http://www.ebony.com/style/history-dreadlocks#axzz4vYWJ0fRo">diverse cultures throughout the ages</a>. Of course, African cultures have used dreadlocks for thousands of years and for longer than there has even been such concepts as "Africa" or "Europe".</div>
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The irony here is that to give ownership of this practice to one specific group, existing at one particular time in history to symbolize their specific and unique experience dispossesses these other groups of their history and experience and excludes them from their own cultural rights. This process is only possible because of an attitude of Euro/western-centric primacy, made possible by an overbearing western media and culture whose influence is a residual outcome of colonialism.</div>
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<i>This is a classic case of colonial appropriation that attempts to artificially give one group hegemonic ownership of a cultural practice that has diverse origins and arose independently across different cultures. </i>While the use of dreadlocks has pre-dated the idea of the west, Europe, and Jamaica, it is merely by virtue of the fact that the use of dreads amongst Caribbean blacks in the west in modern times that makes it possible to claim ownership of this practice. It is because of the power of the western media and an overbearing culture that this idea of dreads rightfully belonging uniquely to black westerners exists. </div>
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I can almost see the funny side to all of this - Western media power is utilized to dispossess numerous cultures of their historical cultural practice and give hegemonic ownership of said practice, all to promote the narrative of an oppressed group using a hairstyle as a symbol to resist hegemonic cultural ownership of their bodies and culture. You can't make this stuff up.</div>
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The HuffPo article exemplifies the reasons I can't get behind Asian progressivism, even though I consider myself liberal. There are simply major flaws in Asian progressive thinking due to an intellectually lazy reductionist pursuit of a black/white narrative to explain America's racial issues. Poor reasoning, flouting of logical thinking to avoid addressing facts that conflict with the narrative, all characterize progressive commentary, and I just have a general sense that Asian progressivism is driven by a fear of stepping outside the black/white dichotomy of the race dialogue, to the detriment of an autonomous Asian voice.<br />
<br />
Pois and Workneh could so easily have conducted a simple internet search to learn that dreadlocks are a hairstyle that have spiritual, political, and stylistic significance for numerous cultures throughout history. Instead, they opted to stoke the flames of racial tension by claiming that Jeremy Lin had committed a racial offense because he chose to style his hair a certain way.<br />
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The article's authors, perhaps, did not notice that the interaction between Martin and Lin was, actually, of a mundane tone that <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4953986/Nets-guard-Lin-good-Martin-dreadlocks-rebuke.html">ended</a> with what seemed to be an acknowledgement of mutual respect, and an <a href="http://www.espn.co.uk/nba/story/_/id/20962920/jeremy-lin-brooklyn-nets-says-kenyon-martin-reached-was-extremely-apologetic-dreadlocks-comments">agreement of respect for each other's space</a> and right to have an opinion that the other disagrees with. But, the article merely reinforces my observation that when it comes to promoting an Asian identity or point of view, Asian progressivism has little to say of value, and is, thus, largely irrelevant - even when it comes to a subject as mundane as a hairstyle.<br />
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Aside from the article's lack of basic research about the subject, the piece exhibits the same, tired, droning, lecturing, poorly reasoned style that is common to the vast majority of Asian progressive commentaries in the mainstream liberal media. Worse still, the article illustrates the most significant problem of the Asian progressive movement: an unwillingness, or inability, to uphold the voice of Americans of Asian descent. <i>Asian progressivism can't even muster the courage, or intellectual nous, to make a stand for an Asian-American even concerning the mundane act of choosing a hairstyle.</i></div>
Ben Efsaneyimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16001682865274251483noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8566317761793185393.post-56075665187335220352017-08-27T22:00:00.000-07:002017-08-27T22:00:35.376-07:00The Asianization Of Donald trump<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i>The Media Is Still Not Our Friend......</i></b></div>
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I came across an interesting article on the fact-checking site, <a href="http://www.snopes.com/2017/07/12/trump-lies/">Snopes</a>, 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.<br />
<i><br /></i>
The article says this....<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>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.</i> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>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<b> 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.</b></i></blockquote>
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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.<br />
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The piece goes on to outline the caricatures utilized by the mainstream media to shape, foster, and propagate negative attitudes towards Trump.....</div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>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.</i> <i>They are:</i> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<ul>
<li><i>Donald Trump: International Embarrassment</i></li>
<li><i>Trump the Tyrant</i></li>
<li><i>Donald Trump: Bully baby</i></li>
<li><i>Trump the Buffoon.</i> </li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>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.</i></blockquote>
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....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.<br />
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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.<br />
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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!<br />
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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.<br />
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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.<br />
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This uncomfortable truth is a huge slap in the face for those <a href="https://twitter.com/tsengputterman/status/887541942673969154">in Asian-American reactivism</a> 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.<br />
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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.<br />
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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.<br />
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The article continues...<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Generally speaking, we discovered that they are characterized and driven by four types of errors of thought:</i> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<ul>
<li><i>Alarmism</i></li>
<li><i>A lack of historical context or awareness</i></li>
<li><i>Cherry-picking of evidence (especially visual evidence)</i></li>
<li><i>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.</i> </li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>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.</i></blockquote>
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.</div>
Ben Efsaneyimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16001682865274251483noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8566317761793185393.post-17700823185266436642017-07-14T22:51:00.000-07:002017-07-14T22:52:38.287-07:00Exposing Posing.<b><i>The Road Less Travelled.</i></b><br />
<span style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span>
<span style="text-align: justify;">Well, it's been a few months since I last posted - life is keeping me busy! I hope to get back to regular blogging soon. Something caught my attention in recent weeks that I had to write about.</span><br />
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It seems that these days our cultural consciousness is driven by narratives - stories, and even myths that create, shape, and reinforce societal beliefs, opinions, and attitudes. Taken together, these narratives form the basis for our "commonly held beliefs" as a nation, society, or community, and often provide the framework through which policy is formed, actions are taken, and laws are made.<br />
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In America's race dialogue, narratives are a significant weapon in the arsenals of activists seeking justice for racial wrongdoings of both present and past. None are more verbally empowered by narratives than progressive Asian "activists" who have appropriated existing race narratives that define a racial dialogue almost exclusively along black/white lines with an occasional mention of Mexicans and Muslims thrown in for the sake of "diversity". Sadly, when it comes to an Asian-American narrative, Asian activism seems to be at a loss, particularly where Asian men are concerned.<br />
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The recent shooting of a 60-year-old grandfather, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Jiansheng_Chen">Jiangshen Chen</a>, is a case in point. Chen was shot by a white security guard in the parking lot of an apartment complex, where his family owned a home, after he came under suspicion whilst playing Pokemon Go in his parked vehicle. According to <a href="https://asamnews.com/2017/02/01/security-guard-shoots-and-kills-chinese-grandfather-playing-pokemon-go/">reports</a>, the white security guard fired through the window of Chen's vehicle, leaving the grandfather dead at the scene. Tragic, no doubt, yet, this incident lays bare the paucity of substance of Asian-American progressive activism.<br />
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If we cast our minds back several months to the shooting of Akai Gurley by Chinese-American police officer, Peter Liang, we might notice a radically different Asian activist reaction to that case than to the Chen shooting. Gurley's shooting was met with a prolonged effort of re-activism; in-depth social commentary that seemed to engage in long-distance, mass psychoanalysis of Liang and the immigrant Chinese community that supported him, condemning all as anti-black racists whose actions render them complicit in the preceding centuries of white supremacist racism that led to a killing that was supposedly anti-black in intent and scope. Every stage of the Gurley case seemed to be accompanied by Asian activism's commentary cheerleading for a guilty verdict of murder to be given to Liang.<br />
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For months, Asian commentary seemed to be dominated by the supposedly rampant (yet unsubstantiated) anti-blackness of Asia and its people that somehow (it was asserted) had a bearing on Liang's actions and the support he was receiving from his community. Liang was tried and convicted of guilt by Asian progressives who had no apparent first-hand information about the case, and whose knowledge of events came entirely from media reports - that is, the same media about whom we often complain is biased against Asian-Americans.<br />
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In short, Asian activists exhibited some of the most passionate, aggressive, and enduring acts of protest and commentary in their condemnation of Liang and his allegedly racist supporters. By comparison, Chen's shooting has been largely met with what seems like an awkwardly mute Asian liberal punditry. You will struggle to find significant commentary on Chen's shooting, and at best, you might find twitter rage. But that's about it with not a narrative in sight trying to explain the meaning of such a pointless killing.<br />
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In fact, I found one, and only one, in-depth blog commentary on the case over at the <a href="http://reappropriate.co/2017/02/security-guard-who-killed-pokemon-go-playing-grandfather-faces-murder-charges/">Reappropriate</a> blog - a dispassionate piece in which one point stood out; the notion that Chen's killer may have been poorly trained, and that this had a bearing on the fatal outcome of the encounter. According to the piece, the security guard's poor training is a question being raised by those who are concerned about.<br />
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What piques my interest here is that in the Liang case, several NYPD officers testified that the firearms <a href="http://nypost.com/2016/01/29/stairwell-shooting-cop-trained-to-have-gun-drawn-fellow-officers/">training that was given to Liang</a> was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/05/nyregion/officer-liangs-partner-testifies-he-got-little-cpr-training.html?_r=1">extremely p the killingoor</a>, implying that as a rookie cop with such poor training, he should not have been given the task of patrolling the notoriously crime-ridden and dangerous tower block where Gurley's killing took place. Strangely, but not surprisingly, this aspect of Liang's case was completely ignored by Asian progressive commentary.<br />
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<a href="http://benefsanem.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/what-is-wrong-with-people.html">As</a> I <a href="http://benefsanem.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/asian-american-cops.html">wrote</a> in <a href="http://benefsanem.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=peter+liang">previous</a> posts, <a href="http://benefsanem.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/echo-chambers.html">progressive condemnation</a> of Liang and his supporters was high on self-righteousness and had already convicted Liang of anti-black racism as the motive for his actions. Recall that Liang claims that, with pistol in hand, he entered the stairwell through a door that swung back and struck his hand as he became startled by a noise, setting off his firearm. The bullet from the firearm ricocheted of a wall and struck Gurley - who was standing in his doorway two stories above Liang and completely unsighted by him - in the heart. Liang did not even realize that he had killed someone with his "shot".<br />
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Simply, put, no progressive gave Liang the benefit of the doubt that Gurley's death was the result of an accidental, freakishly unfortunate shooting, all stemming from inexperience and poor training. By contrast, the only progressive who can be bothered to write in-depth about Chen's shooting, affords his killer the benefit of the possibility of "poor training" as an explanation for his actions. The problem is that Chen's killer fired multiple rounds into the driver's front and side windows in broad daylight and must have known exactly what he was doing. Liang fired one shot....that ricocheted off a wall.....that killed a man who was unsighted two stories above.....and this is racist intent? Surely, if Liang's intent was to kill, he, like Chen's killer, would have fired several rounds blindly into the dark stairwell above, instead of a solitary bullet?<br />
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The ease and aggressiveness with which Asian activism jumped on the bandwagon of condemnation of Liang in a campaign of misrepresentation all but convicting him of racially biased killing was disturbing to say the least. It is reasonable to expect that a primary purpose of Asian activism would be to provide nuance for all members of our community - in Liang's case, the opposite held true. Asian progressive activism merely asserted a racist motive for Liang and his supporters, and implied - against all reasonable evidence - that there was intent to kill Gurley....because he was black. Even worse, the only nuance that Asian progressive activism brings to the table in Chen's shooting actually favours his killer.<br />
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The Caucasian killer of Jiangshen Chen has not come anywhere near to being vilified as a racist by Asian progressives in the same way they tried to convince us Liang was an anti-black one. Even the <a href="http://reappropriate.co/2017/02/security-guard-who-killed-pokemon-go-playing-grandfather-faces-murder-charges/">Reappropriate</a> article merely "wonders" if there might have been a racist motive. It would be tragic if it wasn't so hilarious. The implication is that the racist narrative of wicked Asian men (like Liang) is readily adopted and propagated by Asian progressivism whilst the issue of <a href="http://benefsanem.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/hollywoods-anti-asian-tourettes.html">culturally normalized </a>violence towards Asian men is far from the agenda. This highlights the ambivalence that Asian progressives exhibit towards Asian men.<br />
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According to our "activists", Asian men are complicit in social injustices that disadvantage blacks, and are regularly the subject of scathing articles that condemn them and equate their career and educational choices with acts of white supremacy. Laughable as this is, this posture has become the prevailing Asian progressive narrative concerning Asian men; according to them, we are the problem, and sometimes, it seems, we are accorded a vicious condemnation that seems rarely aimed at the mainstream white establishment.<br />
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It's no surprise, then, that in two cases of unarmed, innocent men being shot, the Asian man who unintentionally and accidentally kills a black man receives more hate and condemnation than the white man who intentionally kills an elderly Asian man. The responses to the victims was even more disparate. For Gurley, a narrative kicked in that provided clueless Asian progressives with the means to grandstand on his behalf. For Chen..........we're still waiting. What is the progressive narrative for Asian men? </div>
Ben Efsaneyimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16001682865274251483noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8566317761793185393.post-13001356800173762212017-03-02T23:21:00.001-08:002017-03-02T23:24:09.029-08:00Surprised? Not Me!<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><b>Reaping the Harvest of Progressive Racism.</b></i><br />
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As readers might have noticed, I have been somewhat less busy on my blog in recent weeks and months. There is a reason for this that I will talk about in future posts, but for today, I want to talk about Steve Harvey.</div>
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<a href="http://www.vulture.com/2017/01/steve-harvey-makes-fun-of-asian-men.html">Harvey got into hot water</a> a while back for making racially charged comments about Asian men, joking that no one finds Asian men attractive, and seguing his bigotry into a joke about Chinese food (of course). While discussing a book called "<a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Date-White-Woman-Practical/dp/0919637264">How to Date a White Woman: A Practical Guide for Asian Men</a>", Harvey chose to use the book's existence as a reason to be racist, and said the following....</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
<i>"That's one page too!....'Excuse me, do you like Asian men?' No. 'Thank you.' How to Date a Black Woman: A Practical Guide [for] Asian Men. Same thing. 'You like Asian men?' I don't even like Chinese food. It don't stay with you no time... I don't eat what I can't pronounce." </i></blockquote>
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Unsurprisingly, it turns out that Harvey votes liberal and <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2016/03/01/politics/steve-harvey-hillary-clinton/">endorsed</a> Hilary Clinton in the election, and even went so far as to compromise journalistic integrity by<a href="http://www.mediaite.com/tv/leaked-memo-shows-steve-harvey-provided-clinton-every-question-before-interview/"> providing Clinton with a "cheat sheet" of questions</a> (which included "suggested responses) before a live interview with her, so that, one presumes, she wouldn't be faced with uncomfortable questions that she might have difficulty answering. As a racist liberal, h<a href="http://benefsanem.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/president-trumpan-asian-american.html">e is in good company.</a><br />
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In his endorsement of <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2016/03/01/politics/steve-harvey-hillary-clinton/">Clinton</a>, he grovelled thusly....</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
<i>"She has fought for social justice, equality and policies that expand civil rights and economic opportunity out there........And I'm endorsing you as my candidate for President of the United States and I just think that you're going to just do the right thing for the majority of the people in this country."</i></blockquote>
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Is it just me, or does there seem to be a culture of anti-Asianism amongst liberal African-American celebs who spout rhetoric about racial justice and equality, whilst simultaneously spouting off the cuff, throw-away, casual anti-Asian racism?<br />
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I'm also reminded of last year's Oscar's ceremony when we were treated to another racist joke aimed at Asian men in the form of a penis joke by <a href="http://www.salon.com/2016/03/03/sacha_baron_cohen_explains_his_racist_oscars_bit_chris_rock_gave_me_the_thumbs_up_so_i_went_for_it/">Sacha Baron Cohen.</a> We're accustomed to demeaning sit-coms, tweets, and films that denigrate Asian men, but liberal, live-broadcast, hit-and-run racial harassment of Asian men is something unusual. The question is, why the sudden boldness?</div>
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Disturbingly, this unapologetic, casual anti-Asian male racism expressed by liberals so happens to correlate with the emergence of the mainstreaming of Asian progressive/feminist antagonism towards Asian men. It's too early to assert that there is a pattern emerging here, but the correlation between bold and brazen mainstream anti-Asian male racism and ever more shrill Asian progressive attacks on Asian men in recent years is too coincidental to ignore. </div>
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I have pointed out in previous posts that Asian progressive rhetoric that has <a href="http://benefsanem.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/echo-chambers.html">targeted other Asians</a> (notably elderly Asians and Asian immigrants) seems to have been <a href="http://benefsanem.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/when-unarmed-black-people-get-shot.html">adopted by conservatives</a> as a means to <a href="http://benefsanem.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/rebels-without-clue.html">argue against</a> <a href="http://benefsanem.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/dylann-roof-and-asian-racists.html">white racism</a> (laughably ironic!), but also by liberals like Bill Maher to explain away liberal racism in the film industry. Asian progressive rage has also targeted<a href="http://benefsanem.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/asian-american-complicity-in-anti.html"> Asian men </a>in the tech industry (who are accused of racism <i>because </i>they work in tech), but also Asian men (like <a href="http://benefsanem.blogspot.com/2016/08/john-cho.html">John Cho</a> and <a href="http://benefsanem.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/eddie-huang-and-orange-chicken-in-hood.html">Eddie Huang</a>) who have actually managed to get a fingernail hold in industries that have traditionally excluded or marginalized them.</div>
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You don't have to look too hard or too far to find racist, Asian progressive rhetoric that demonizes and dehumanizes Asian men. In December of last year, anti-anti-blackness hero, <a href="https://medium.com/message/the-tech-diversity-story-thats-not-being-told-9a36fb40530f#.h4o6r3q4q">Anil Dash, said the following</a> during a panel discussion on "diversity" in tech....<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>The biggest inhibitor to increasing the number of black and Latino creators, Dash said, is Asian-Americans, “who turned our backs” on black and Latino communities after those communities welcomed Asian-Americans into their neighborhoods.</i></blockquote>
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That's right, according to Dash, Asian men are interlopers who took advantage of <a href="http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/perspectives/after-the-baltimore-riots-a-korean-storeowner-picks-up-the/article_c499c474-7f6d-5e25-a1a3-563df3633cb5.html">inner-city hospitality</a> and are now shitting on blacks and Latinos by working in tech. It doesn't get much more inflammatory than that. Dash's assertions are far more racist than Steve Harvey's and Sacha Baron Cohen's, yet, his words reflect the standard rhetoric of Asian progressivism. There <a href="http://benefsanem.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/are-white-guys-are-too-dreamy-to-be.html">is a</a> long <a href="http://benefsanem.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/john-cho.html">list of </a>such rhetoric that targets Asian men with unsubstantiated accusations of complicity in white supremacy or anti-blackness merely because of the career they have chosen.<br />
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<a href="http://benefsanem.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/is-donald-trump-asian-american.html">Asian progressive rhetoric</a> has become a significant source that informs anti-Asian racism amongst both mainstream conservatives and liberals. Worse still, progressive attacks on Asians has enabled anti-Asian racism and helped to make it acceptable - how can you logically argue against stereotyping, demonization, and dehumanization of Asians in general, and Asian men in particular, when the most widely disseminated views issuing from Asian-America are "progressive" ones that do these very things? </div>
Ben Efsaneyimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16001682865274251483noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8566317761793185393.post-49577552196570937602016-12-22T23:49:00.000-08:002016-12-22T23:50:07.670-08:00President Trump...An Asian-American Nightmare.<b><i>The Demagogue Arises</i></b><br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
Back in February of this year, I wrote a post about<a href="http://benefsanem.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/is-donald-trump-asian-american.html"> Donald Trump</a> in which I noted a similarity in his proposal to end the H-1B program and the anti-Asian rhetoric of Asian-American progressives who advocate against high Asian representation in the tech industry. I have also pointed out in <a href="http://benefsanem.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/loose-lips-sink-ships.html">several</a> <a href="http://benefsanem.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/when-unarmed-black-people-get-shot.html">previous </a>posts how this same anti-Asian progressive rhetoric has apparently been adopted by several right-wing conservative (and the occasional liberal) media commentators to defend white society against the charge of racism. </div>
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Now that Donald Trump has been elected to the presidency, I have the niggling feeling that the chickens are about to come home to roost on this anti-Asian sentiment propagated by Asian progressives in the liberal media.</div>
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It is worth remembering that in the early days of the election - as I pointed out <a href="http://benefsanem.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/is-donald-trump-asian-american.html">here</a> - sinophobia-tinged economic tough-talk gave rise to a number of xenophobic comments by politicians from all sides of the political spectrum. <a href="http://hollywoodlife.com/2015/08/28/donald-trump-mocks-asians-racist-broken-english/">Trump even racially caricatured Asians</a> with a mock "Asian" accent to the full enjoyment and applause of his gathered supporters and barely a head shake of disapproval from our "allies" on the left.</div>
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Noticeable about the election campaigning was that even though there was so much eye-winking and nudge-nudging anti-Asian rhetoric, this apparent widely-held xenophobia and the casual anti-Asian racism it reveals never became an election issue in the way that anti-Muslim, and anti-Hispanic immigration rhetoric became a significant talking point for those opposed to Trump. Our liberal allies seemed not too invested in championing anti-Asian racism as a political cause. The reason is that anti-Asian racism is so casually expressed and normative in our society that, likely, few in mainstream America thought that there was any issue at all.</div>
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I abstained from voting - and I wish that all vote-eligible Asian-Americans had expressly boycotted the election. The reason I did so is that as an Asian, I was visible only as a potential threat and fifth column to the right, and only as a joke, a threat, and possible fifth column by the left. While, the anti-Asian racism of the right needs little examination since, at least, they're open and honest about it, the left on the other hand is more slippery. All you have to do is consider some of Hilary Clinton's most celebrated supporters and you will see what I'm talking about.<br />
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When it comes to culturally influential and prominent supporters, she had people like <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/mar/15/ang-lee-oscars-chris-rock-racist-joke-east-asians-academy-awards-2016">Chris Rock</a>, <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1135507/Pictured-Miley-Cyrus-pulling-slant-eye-pose-upset-Asian-fans-Hannah-Montana.html">Miley Cyrus</a>, <a href="https://stupidcelebrities.net/2012/03/rihanna-karrueche-tran-in-twitter-catfight/rihannaslant/">Rihanna</a> (and<a href="http://disgrasian.com/2012/03/lamest-bitchfight-ever-rihanna-tweets-offensive-pic-at-chris-browns-gf/"> here</a>), <a href="https://www.chicagomaroon.com/2003/01/17/is-shaq-a-racist-or-just-ignorant-anti-chinese-slur-sparks-widespread-debate/">Shaq</a>,and <a href="http://www.eonline.com/news/53974/rosie-really-sorry-for-ching-chong-crack">Rosie O'Donnell</a>, to name a few. It would not be too much of an exaggeration to say that individually and collectively, even this limited sample of liberal/leftist wields significant influence in our culture and society. Merely by virtue of the platforms made available to these celebs, their statements on any issue have the potential to reach huge swathes of people and influence these viewers' attitudes. This is why electioneering politicians seek the support of such celebrities - they can reach hundreds of thousands of followers and spread political messages via already-established media platforms.<br />
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Chris Rock's racial stereotyping of Asians at the Oscars was viewed by tens of millions of people - <i>worldwide - </i>and was presented at an event held by a notoriously liberal and "progressive" Hollywood establishment in an atmosphere of casual acceptance of its racist content, followed up by non-committal, sniggering media reporting on the subject. All of these celebs have significant followings and at various times in their careers have served as role models and leaders for thousands of fans, which means that they role-modeled casual anti-Asian racism to untold numbers of people.<br />
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The liberal left's tolerance of anti-Asian racism and its unqualified acceptance of high-profile liberal supporters who casually voice such sentiment showed America that progressive Democrats' self-righteous moral posturing on race was a farce. It all boils down to simple logic. If the pursuit of racial equality and upholding of the dignity of minorities are universal principles, then, by definition, these principles must be applied to all minorities. As I have shown, high-profile supporters of the liberal left routinely propagate stereotypes of Asians and spout anti-Asian racism, but are still proudly paraded by liberal politicians as upholders of universal principles of racial justice and equality.<br />
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That means that as an Asian-American, I am being asked by Asian progressive activists to support a party that seeks out the vote-winning power of celebs who unapologetically expressed racial bigotry towards me, and who represent an industry that routinely excludes Asians from participating in it. Donald Trump and his ilk are the devils we know. Liberal leftists are the devil in disguise, pretending to uphold universal principles while at the same time welcoming supporters who role-model and promote anti-Asian racism.<br />
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It is disturbing to realize that our society's indifference to Donald Trump racial mockery of Asians is fostered by the liberal media and some of the celebs who utilize its platforms. Indeed, the liberal media - through whitewashing dramatic roles, stereotyping, and discrimination against Asian actors - is the primary culprit in normalizing anti-Asian racism. Trump's racial mockery did not become a major election issue because our society is conditioned to view racist stereotypes as the normal way of conceiving of Asians, and the left could not mobilize behind an opposition to anti-Asian prejudice because it is supporters of the left that have done so much to normalize it. The liberal media created the social conditions that made Trump's anti-Asian racism a non-issue.<br />
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From an Asian-American point of view, there really is no good choice in American politics - liberals, the team that champions racial justice - propagate racist stereotypes of Asians, whilst Trump and many of his supporters simply don't like Asians and are honest about it. We know what to expect from them. The liberals, on the other hand, don't seem to like Asians much either, but they are <i>not </i>honest about it.<br />
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The repercussions of this liberal normalization of anti-Asianism under a Trump presidency remains to be seen. But, what is clear is that if Trump decides to go full on with a belligerent anti-China policy, then thanks to liberals - especially Asian progressives with their smearing of their own community - we can expect to continue to see any acts of anti-Asian racism met with an indifferent shrug, regardless of its severity. </div>
Ben Efsaneyimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16001682865274251483noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8566317761793185393.post-6099919955734218752016-10-07T23:17:00.002-07:002016-10-07T23:17:37.918-07:00Much Wu Wu About Nothing....<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i>Constance Keeps It Constant....</i></b></div>
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There was a <a href="http://www.yomyomf.com/yes-constance-wu-can-have-a-white-boyfriend-still-advocate-for-asian-americans/" target="_blank">YOMYOMF </a>post recently that sought to defend Constance Wu from accusations of hypocrisy after she tweeted criticism of the casting of Matt Damon in a historical film set in ancient China. As readers might know, Damon is Caucasian and very much un-Chinese - making his starring role in a film set in this period of ancient Chinese history somewhat anachronistic. So, Wu's comments are on point.</div>
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The criticism of Wu came from - according to the YOMYOMF article - Asian men who, apparently, consider her a hypocrite because she criticizes white racism yet, she is dating a white man.</div>
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This is the significant piece of what she said, but you can read the full tweet <a href="https://twitter.com/ConstanceWu/status/759086955816554496/photo/1" target="_blank">here</a>.....</div>
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<i>We have to stop perpetuating the racist myth that [only a] white man can save the world.........Our heroes don't look like Matt Damon. They look like Malala. Ghandi. Mandela. Your big sister when she stood up for you to those bullies that one time.</i></div>
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The YOMYOMF article links to this <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/hapas/comments/4nlt58/constance_wu_and_her_average_white_boyfriend/?st=is3jbb8o&sh=f55f0dd4" target="_blank">Hapa Reddit thread</a> as its primary example of Asian men shitting on Wu. I have a couple of things to say about this whole shitfest.</div>
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Firstly, to cite a Hapa reddit thread and then throw out the accusation that it is "Asian men" who constitute most of the critics is one conflating bridge too far. If you read through the Hapa Reddit site, you will notice that a good amount of it is devoted to criticism of Asian female and white male relationships. As the offspring of mixed marriages/relationships who most likely are drawing from personal (often painful, apparently) experiences in their criticisms of their own backgrounds, to dismiss them as "Asian male trolls", is insulting to their life experiences as mixed-race people who have a unique perspective on the racial dynamics of mixed-race partnerships. At the very least, they are owed - as human beings - the decency of having their experiences not dismissed out of hand merely because it makes progressives uncomfortable.</div>
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It doesn't help that the Hapa Reddit thread criticizing Wu dates from 11th June 2016, whilst Wu's tweet was published on 29th of July - so the Reddit thread is not actually criticizing her specifically for her tweet.</div>
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The second issue relates to what Constance Wu actually said in her tweet and whether it warrants the kind of orgasmic excitement displayed by many in the Asian-American activist blogosphere. Firstly, I don't agree that Wu is being a hypocrite or inconsistent by having a white boyfriend. And neither do I think she deserves to be insulted because of this.</div>
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At the same time, her words...</div>
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<i>We have to stop perpetuating the racist myth that [only a] white man can save the world....</i></div>
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...weakened her case and left her open to criticism. Let's be honest, the high rate of out-marriage amongst Asian women (particularly to white men) also, in its own way, perpetuates a racist myth of Asian men made undesirable by their misogyny. There's no getting away from this fact. But this is not why I'm not particularly inspired by Wu's tweet.</div>
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In essence, Wu's comment follows the worn and weary path of recent fashionable Asian-American activism. She takes an issue of specific anti-Asian bias and uses it as a springboard to wax poetic about a general issue of bias in which the specificity and unique issue of Asian cultural invisibility becomes secondary. She doesn't even use the word "Asian", <i>and </i>the word "Chinese" crops up only in relation to the film's investors. In effect, Wu has herself rendered Asians - that is, East and South-East Asians - somewhat invisible.</div>
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Even the people that Wu puts forward as our heroes - Malala, Ghandi, and Mandela - don't actually look like me or my ilk. Doesn't she have heroes who look East or South East Asian? If she can't think of any such people, then that in and of itself speaks to a need for activism that focuses on us, and not some wild, pompous, big tit in the sky approach that is inclusive of everyone but satisfies no one and renders me invisible. The content of Wu's tweet is not even particularly unique or original - these sentiments have been, and continue to be, voiced by anonymous Asians on countless forums and blogs.</div>
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So, while it is good that these ideas are being voiced by a high profile figure in the public arena, there's nothing new being said, and the way it is being said actually renders me invisible. The crux of the problem is that Asian-American activist thinking has become so one-dimensionally focused on "coalition" building that it has become one of the major forces marginalizing Asians - Constance Wu's tweet illustrates this as clear as day.</div>
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While there is grandstanding about "building coalition" with other minorities, the all-important foundation of an Asian-American coalition seems largely neglected. There seems to be a lack of cohesiveness and understanding between the various ethnic Asian groups, between generations, genders, sexualities and social classes. The dis-unity of Asian-America is even exacerbated by the anti-Asian racist rhetoric of Asian progressivism that characterizes <a href="http://benefsanem.blogspot.com/2016/08/john-cho.html" target="_blank">Asian men</a> as toxic, <a href="http://benefsanem.blogspot.com/2016/04/echo-chambers.html" target="_blank">Chinese FOBs </a>as rampant anti-black racists, and any Asian man who works in the <a href="http://benefsanem.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/asian-american-complicity-in-anti.html" target="_blank">tech industry</a> as an implicit supporter of white supremacy.</div>
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Constance Wu, in a subsequent moment of activist zealotry was kind enough to illustrate this division for us in <a href="https://www.follownews.com/constance-wu-roots-for-nbcs-controversial-mail-order-family-gets-blasted-on-reddit-1xslc" target="_blank">another tweet</a> where she seemed to voice support for a mail-order bride "sitcom" that was being considered by media racists. As a privileged woman of North-East Asian descent, living in the wealthiest country in the world, Wu seems to be out of touch with Asian women in the less prosperous countries of Asia who, perhaps, are more vulnerable to exploitation.</div>
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In short, there really is not much to see here. Constance Wu's sentiments meet the required standards of present-day Asian activism in that it utilizes an instance of specific anti-Asian bias to promote an agenda that results in more invisibility for Asians. There's nothing inspirational about that, regardless of who Wu is dating.</div>
Ben Efsaneyimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16001682865274251483noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8566317761793185393.post-28468955264637411782016-09-28T14:03:00.002-07:002016-09-28T14:03:57.944-07:00Are White Guys Are Too Dreamy To Be Held Accountable?<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i>Xin Xin Liu Who?!</i></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It's a funny old world.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In my <a href="http://benefsanem.blogspot.com/2016/08/john-cho.html" target="_blank">previous post,</a> I wrote about the twitter, attention-seeking "townhall" in which Asian progressive feminists used actor, John Cho's, concerns about the mental and emotional welfare of his child as an excuse to cast sexist and racist aspersions on Asian men in general and to demean - like any good white racist would do - the masculinity of Asian men who happen to not conform to the limits placed on them by society or wannabe Asian progressives with Napolean complexes.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">An article posted to the <a href="https://www.yomyomf.com/lecturer-stabs-his-wife-to-death-76-times-and-it-has-nothing-to-do-with-him-being-a-white-man/" target="_blank">YOMYOMF </a>website recently by Erin Chew highlights why some Asian men find it hard to take these progressives seriously. The post recounted the story of the brutal murder over in Scotland of a Chinese woman, Xin Xin Liu, by her white Scottish husband, Rob Kerr. The victim was stabbed seventy-six times as the couple's children slept nearby. Interestingly, the article's focus was not on the crime and the issue of domestic violence faced by Asian women, but rather it focused on the poor taste of internet comment(s) made by a handful of Asian men.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">As the title of the post suggests, Chew wanted to make it clear that she feels that the race of the murderer had nothing to do with the killing and that to make that association is absolutely despicable! Strangely enough, I would agree that we should not associate the race of criminals with their crimes, nor should we try to blame a person's race for any behaviours whether criminal in nature or not. To do so is racist by any definition.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Strange then, that this is exactly what Asian progressives and Asian progressive feminists did in their recent hatchet job on John Cho and the subsequent <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Minutes_Hate" target="_blank">two-minutes hate</a>-type screeds in their twitter "townhall." But even before that most recent embarrassing display of stupidity, Asian progressive feminists have been routinely associating the behaviour of some Asian men who have committed crimes, or whom they simply do not like, with their race.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Most notably, Eliot Roger, Daniel Holztclaw, and Eddie Huang have all been held up as examples of some kind of toxic "Asian" masculinity, even though no one ever has the presence of mind to define what they mean by "Asian." Of course, readers will remember that Roger was a mass murderer, and Holztclaw was a serial rapist. Huang is a celebrity chef and successful (very successful!) author and television personality. How these two extremes of men could ever be seen as having a common unhealthy masculinity is beyond me. How their "Asian-ness" plays into the equation is also never explained by progressives.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">As I've <a href="http://benefsanem.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/is-donald-trump-asian-american.html" target="_blank">written </a>in <a href="http://benefsanem.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/asian-american-complicity-in-anti.html" target="_blank">several </a>previous <a href="http://benefsanem.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/loose-lips-sink-ships.html" target="_blank">posts</a>, Asian progressive activism seems to function primarily as a defender of white supremacy. In almost every case of police killings of unarmed black men, or other instances of anti-black racism perpetrated by white institutions or people, Asian progressives will step up without fail to divert the conversation away from white racism and "reframe" the issues by attacking other Asians with vague accusations of rampant racism, privilege and "complicity" in anti-blackness.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">White America seems to have taken notice of this strategy and actually seems to be utilizing this same method of deflection to defend white racism. "Asian privilege" is used to diminish accusations of anti-black racism in white America, and ideas of alleged Asian complicity and rampant anti-blackness have been used to shift responsibility for America's racial problems onto Asians. With this in mind, the stark contrast between the twitter townhall's racialization of toxic masculinity and Erin Chew's heartfelt defense of the whiteness of a brutal murderer are quite stunning.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">When Eliot Roger committed his crimes, some Asian feminists tried to force his actions into a convenient narrative of it being an example of a mentality of "Asian" masculinity gone awry, despite the fact that Roger reserved his most vicious attacks for his Asian male victims. As for Holztclaw, I've seen no evidence or even the slightest indication that his race, or his feelings about his race had any bearing on his actions. Yet, Asian feminism wants to hold him up as the poster boy for the threat that Asian masculinity presents to American society. This thinking comes straight out of the Yellow Peril xenophobia playbook and has its roots deep in America's anxiety about mass immigration of Asian men into the country and the threat of miscegenation that accompanied it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">By comparison, Erin Chew's piece on YOMYOMF seems to go out if its way to avoid the kind of racist thinking commonly utilized by Asian progressives when speaking about Asian men. Her piece could be a great example of how not to racialize issues of domestic, or male on female, violence if it did not contrast so sharply with the general racist attitudes exhibited by the rest of the movement. Sadly, her piece reads like an apology for white violence against Asians, a defence of domestic violence, and a double standard in how violence against Asian women is viewed.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">First of all, what is most noticeable is that the Scottish guy's mental health is used to defend his actions. Eliot Roger was possibly even more mentally ill than this Scottish guy - at least his mental illness was almost certainly more long-term - yet his mental state was largely played down by Asian progressive feminists who chose to focus on only the Asian part of his identity just so that they could use his actions to push their narrative of Asian misogyny as if genetics plays a part in cultural concepts of masculine behaviour.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Anyone who values the lives of women would be appalled by how the victim described in Chew's piece is rendered invisible by her focus on defending the whiteness of the Scottish dude. In fact, her worst condemnation is reserved for the Asian men who made insensitive comments on the web.</span><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">These Asian men sadly, are brainwashed, angry and have their own insecurities to deal with. Instead of acknowledging that this was a horrific case of domestic violence ending in death and sympathising for the deceased and the children, they have gone to victim blaming and calling Xin Xin “self hating” to marry a white guy. I wish that these type of Asian men look at the actual issue at hand that this is a fatal murder of a wife in a frenzied attack by her husband instead of blaming Xin Xin just because she married a white guy. </span></i></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">If Chew had done a little more research, she would have found that in recent years, a series of incidences, including violent murders of Asian men and women in Scotland has been met with an often apathetic response by police investigators, and that the framing of the murder by the British media as a case of a "good (white) man acting in opposition of his normally good character" is a classic means to refocus attention away from the victim - particularly in cases where the victim is a minority. The judge in the Vincent Chin murder case made similar statements about the good character of his killers before ultimately showing leniency towards them. Furthermore, both Kerr's legal defence and the media have run with this same story of a "good" man acting out of character, whilst almost ignoring the Asian victim.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">A <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-10950997" target="_blank">violent murder of Simon San, a Chinese restaurant delivery driver</a>, several years ago is a good example of how some murders of Asian people in Scotland are treated. Although the assailants <a href="http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/taunted-for-being-a-chinky-and-killed-by-a-baying-1110222" target="_blank">screamed racial abuse</a> at the victim as they beat him to death, police refused to investigate the murder as a hate crime. Even though the murderer was convicted, he was due to be released a mere three years into his sentence despite posting <a href="http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/427690/Killer-of-Chinese-driver-to-be-freed-after-three-years" target="_blank">anti-Chinese comments</a> on a Facebook page while still in prison. Police did acknowledge their <a href="http://www.obv.org.uk/news-blogs/police-apologise-over-racist-murder-chinese-man" target="_blank">failures with an apology</a>, but that did not prevent the officer who made the decision not to charge the murderer with a hate crime from <a href="http://officer_who_failed_to_treat_killing_of_chinese_driver_as_racist_crime_becomes_top_murder_detective_in_scotland/" target="_blank">being promoted</a>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Other instances of racism hint at the existence of a culture of anti-Asian prejudice that informs police complicity in seeking lenient charges for murderers,and affects Asians in every strata of Scottish society. Last year, a <a href="http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/local-news/dumfries-councillor-yen-hongmei-jin-6210455" target="_blank">Chinese origin politician</a> in the <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/uk/stephen-ashe/has-scottish-national-party-become-establishment-anti-racist-perspective" target="_blank">Scottish National Party</a> resigned amidst allegations of racial abuse and bullying. Even main opposition British Labour Party (which has huge support in Scotland) leader Jeremy Corbyn has been alleged to have<a href="http://sonsofmalcolm.blogspot.com.tr/2015/10/corbyn-fuelling-anti-chinese-racism.html" target="_blank"> utilized anti-Chinese sentiment</a>. A report by Min Quan from <a href="http://www.sociology.leeds.ac.uk/assets/files/research/cers/Min%20Quan%20Finished%20Report.pdf" target="_blank">2009 exploring widespread anti-Chinese racism</a> in the UK, details prolonged racial harassment and abuse of Chinese-Brits, violent attacks and verbal abuse (even on children).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Although some victims report good experiences with police responses to anti-Chinese crimes, many others report apathy, indifference, and an unwillingness of police to pursue any in-depth investigation. Even worse, there is an implication of police obstruction of justice in cases where police advice to victims resulted in cases being dropped.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This background gives the savage stabbing of <a href="https://www.yomyomf.com/lecturer-stabs-his-wife-to-death-76-times-and-it-has-nothing-to-do-with-him-being-a-white-man/" target="_blank">Xin Xin Liu</a> by her white Scottish husband a whole different context that makes Erin Chew's defence of his whiteness seem even more hollow, particularly when we consider how justice for his Chinese victim might be administered. Already, the media, like Chew, is upholding the integrity of the savage killer. His whiteness remains unsullied by his actions, even though counted amongst the benefits of "whiteness" in the UK is the strong possibility - as shown by the Min Quan report - of not being held fully accountable for crimes against Chinese citizens. Even if Rob Kerr's race has nothing to do with his crime, his whiteness may certainly play a huge role in how police, prosecutors and the law deals with his punishment and whether or not Xin Xin Liu receives appropriate justice. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">But those kinds of nuances might get in the way of the narrative. Besides, white guys are just too dreamy to allow their whiteness to be held accountable.</span></div>
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Ben Efsaneyimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16001682865274251483noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8566317761793185393.post-20324705038169650062016-08-24T03:27:00.001-07:002016-08-24T03:27:54.553-07:00John Cho....<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i>....bastard extraordinaire?</i></b></div>
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There was a recent <a href="http://www.dailydot.com/irl/hypermasculazns-18-million-rising/">online "action"</a> carried out by a hardy band of Asian progressives and feminists whose aim was to bring attention to <strike>themselves </strike> the phenomenon of toxic masculinity amongst Asian-American men. As reported in the Daily Dot a "twitter chat" was arranged on the subjects of toxic masculinity, patriarchy, and ....wait for it.......wait for it......our old friend <i>Asian male misogyny</i>. You can read the actual twitter thread in its full glory, <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/HyperMasculAZNs?src=hash">here</a>.</div>
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The first thing I noticed was how childish and immature the whole dialogue was - they came across like thirteen year-olds gossiping about the unpopular students in their geography class. Although several tweets used the word "discussion" to describe the event, the word "gossip" is the more appropriate word to use here for what amounts to little more than a gossipy venting session for a movement that is so irrelevant that it is only afforded a voice in the wider political arena when it attacks other Asians.</div>
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Having utilized their powers to attack and marginalize the already highly marginalized low-English proficiency, and isolated Asian FOBs, the empowered-by-their-appropriation-of-mainstream-racist-anti-Asian-strategies Asian progressive has now turned his/her attention to another Asian group long deemed embarrassing to their lifestyles; the successful Asian-American man.</div>
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In keeping with their strategy of simply <a href="http://benefsanem.blogspot.com/2016/04/echo-chambers.html">making things up about Asians</a> - which is eerily similar to the way white racism creates Asian stereotypes - the gossipy venting "townhall" simply cast aspersions on Asian men using in-group language references to spew out half-baked slogans with little of substance to actually carry meaningful dialogue.</div>
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Hilariously, the inspiration for this latest outburst of Asian progressive anti-Asian racism came about because of a casual comment made by John Cho during an interview with <a href="http://www.vulture.com/2016/07/john-cho-star-trek-beyond-c-v-r.html">Vulture magazine.</a><br />
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As the <a href="http://www.dailydot.com/irl/hypermasculazns-18-million-rising/">Daily Dot</a> reports.......</div>
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<i>According to organizer Mark Tseng Putterman, the inspiration from the hashtag came from an interview with actor John Cho in Vulture last month, in which he said, "Asian men...suffer more than Asian women,” to which the organization responded with some tongue-in-cheek memes about Asian masculinity. </i></blockquote>
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Putterman is an <a href="https://www.google.com.tr/search?q=organizer&rlz=1C1RNPN_enTR407&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjs36ClsMrOAhVLEiwKHWIpCbgQsAQIQA&biw=1024&bih=485">organizer</a>? Incredible. But....this is the full context of what Cho said....</div>
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<i>My wife and I were worried when we had our firstborn, about how he was going to think of himself in a mostly white neighborhood. Particularly Asian men, I feel, we suffer more than Asian women, because we're told we're not worth anything in general. We thought casually about moving to an Asian-heavy neighborhood. And I'm glad we didn't, because there are a lot of drawbacks to that too.</i></blockquote>
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So, what John Cho relates here is a very personal and profound concern for his son's future sense of identity and well-being - in a culture that denigrates Asian males - that may even, perhaps, reflect some painful personal experience in his own past. </div>
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The response from our self-righteous, moral teachers in Asian progressivism? </div>
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Mockery.</div>
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Yes, they mocked a guy with derogatory, racist memes about Asian masculinity for expressing a concern that he has for the well-being of his own kid. Need I say more? This is what Asian progressivism has come to represent; a movement whose activism works to silence the full diversity of the Asian-American experience. What a missed opportunity to open a meaningful dialogue.<br />
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The Daily Dot article posts some gems of Asian progressive stupidity. Kim Tran claims....<br />
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<i><a href="https://twitter.com/but_im_kim_tran/status/761622016289931264">We need to claim Daniel Holtzclaw as evidence mysogynoir is a part of Asian America</a></i></blockquote>
This is stupid for a couple of reasons. Firstly, how John Cho's words relate to Daniel Holtzclaw is a mystery. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Holtzclaw">Holtzclaw</a> was a half-Japanese police officer convicted of a series of sexual assaults on black women, John Cho is an actor who has committed no crimes as far as I know. Apparently, Kim Tran feels there is a connection somewhere - maybe the fact that they both have Asian genetic material? Which leads nicely to the second point of stupidity.<br />
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Why is Holtzclaw "Asian"? Is it his genetics? Is it his cultural upbringing? Is it his epicanthic folds? Is it a preference for raw seafood? This question is never answered in this (according to organizer Putterman) "<i>critical conversation about the ways that Asian-American men perpetuate misogyny." </i><i> </i><br />
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Race - according to consensus - is merely a social construction, and (also according to consensus), to assert race based on genetics is racist, whilst racially defining people according to social construction is also racist. No matter how you slice it, Tran has utilized white supremacist racial thinking to assert her claims.<br />
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It gets funnier. "Wu" says...<br />
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<i><a href="https://twitter.com/j_dubblewuu/status/761628160706252800">can we talk about how antiblackness is embedded in the "misogylinity" of cis asian men</a></i></blockquote>
Excuse me? John Cho is worried about his kid - how did the conversation go from that to the above? Without knowing it, John Cho's concern about his kid makes him a racist, sexist bastard.<br />
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Thankfully, we have organizer Mark Tseng Putterman to <a href="https://www.google.com.tr/search?q=organizer&rlz=1C1RNPN_enTR407&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjs36ClsMrOAhVLEiwKHWIpCbgQsAQIQA&biw=1024&bih=485">organize </a>our thoughts....<br />
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<i><a href="https://twitter.com/tsengputterman/status/761612099046912000">Also so much anti-blackness amongst #HyperMasculAZNs, coopting stereotypes of Black male aggression and masculinity (e.g. Eddie Huang)</a></i></blockquote>
...with a (somewhat cowardly) passive-aggressive attack on black hip-hop culture through criticism of the much less dangerous Asian celeb. I say less dangerous, but Eddie Huang looks like the kinda crazy that you don't want to get messed up in. I'm also at a loss for why Huang is so hated by Asian progressives. Must be jealousy.<br />
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Here's another by Juliet Shen...<br />
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<i><a href="https://twitter.com/Juliet_Shen/status/761620476141662208">Violence and abuse becomes normalized as "That's just how Korean/Chinese/Vietnamese/etc guys are". But WHY?</a></i></blockquote>
That's why Asian men - like John Cho - agonize over the mental well-being of their sons. His comment plays directly into the question of what makes men (or women, if we are to be honest) into hyper-aggressive tools. How about addressing his point, instead of changing the subject and making random attacks on random Asian men?<br />
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But irony can be ironic sometimes. According to Julie Ae Kim....<br />
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<i><a href="https://twitter.com/julieaekim/status/761618514948059136">toxic masculinity & misogyny is also much about the silencing of and dismissal of AAPI women, even in Asian am spaces </a></i></blockquote>
That's ironic! John Cho made a point about the mental well-being of Asian boys who live in a culture that devalues their achievements and this should have led to an inclusive discussion since the apparent crisis of identity that Cho alludes to is, surely, a fundamental aspect of unhealthy identity formation? Instead, his concern has been silenced and dismissed, even in Asian-American spaces. These Asian progressives are, apparently, too self-involved to actually parse Cho's words.<br />
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As I read more of these wannabes' snide gripes, I came to realize that what we have here are a bunch of nobodies shitting on Asians who have achieved far more success than they could ever hope to attain. Just who are these people? Just how exactly have they advanced the Asian-American cause? If they have accomplished anything for Asian-American empowerment, it has to be the best kept secret in all of Asian-America.<br />
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Mark Tseng Putterman has accomplished "organizing", and how such characters as Kim Tran, Julie Sheng, Julie Ae Kim, and "wu", have accomplished any kind of advancement for Asian-America is not immediately clear. Bitching about people who have accomplished more than you does not advance Asians, nor is it in and of itself, an accomplishment. And this is the crux of the problem here.<br />
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By comparison, John Cho and Eddie Huang, by virtue of their achievements, have advanced Asian-Americans in the culture of America by light-years. Huang has written best-selling books that have inspired a television series - which in turn provided opportunities for more Asian-Americans to get a high-profile toehold in the acting profession where they are still largely discriminated against. Even before that, Huang was a cutting-edge chef and a media celebrity, whose extroverted personality probably encouraged more Asians to push the boundaries of limiting stereotypes than snide progressives ever could.<br />
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John Cho is a talented actor whose abilities are horribly underrated. But his performances even in canceled television shows and bit parts in movies have given hope not only to other Asian actors who sense a dramatic shift about to take place in the industry, but to many Asian-Americans who see his success as an indication that the days of dehumanizing stereotypes may be waning. He has demonstrated that Asians can have a career in entertainment without taking racially demeaning roles, and it's simply a matter of staying true to your integrity.<br />
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In short, these two Asian men who have come to be the focus of much hatred and hostility from Asian progressives have probably done more to advance Asian-America than all that twitter whining could ever hope to achieve. Most frightening of all is that these wannabes so easily conceive of Huang and Cho as being similar in kind to murderers like Elliot Roger and serial rapists like Daniel Holtzclaw. Asian progressives are either very stupid or simply spiteful and envious of Asian men who have achieved more than they.<br />
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What this twitter town hall has confirmed for me is that Asian progressivism is far more reactionary than even I thought. In their attempts to outdo each other's snideness and self-righteousness, they completely missed the opportunity to address the most important point raised by John Cho.<br />
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Here's what they avoided talking about.....<br />
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<i>I've seen many instances where we’re seen as a little less than human, or maybe a little more than human — like ultrahuman, rather than subhuman. What is wrong with film representation? Some of it is mechanical, surprisingly. I've thought about why Asian stars — from Asia, I mean — look so much better in their Asian films than they do in their American films, and now I can answer that to some extent. There's an eye, and it's not a malicious eye, which is a way that the people working the camera and behind the scenes view us. And then they process it and they put it on film. And it's not quite human. Whereas Asian films, they are considered fully human. Fully heroic, fully comic, fully lovely, fully sad, whatever it is. And it's this combination of lighting, makeup, and costume.</i></blockquote>
Cho is referencing an idea that anyone who is truly awake in Asian-America is aware of, and is an idea that I have alluded to several times; a deeply ingrained mainstream racialized cultural conditioning that colours perceptions by fostering a, perhaps unconscious, imposition of racialized preconceptions on mainstream interactions with Asians. In other words, mainstream interactions with Asians occur through an unconscious filter that retards normal human responses towards, and understanding of, them. Maybe it is a kind of deep-rooted skepticism, or disbelief that Asians can and do possess human qualities - a skepticism that may result in anything from media portrayals that lack conviction or believability, to a lack of trust in an Asian man's ability to be a leader in industry or any other field.<br />
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Unsurprisingly, Asian progressives exhibited the same tone-deaf reactions in their twitter town hall. The skeptical snideness that diminishes the achievements of successful Asian men, the conditioning that presumes Asian misogyny to explain away Asian men's behaviour, and the shrill, almost xenophobic inability to see nuance and humanity in Asian men's drives, all point to a "way of seeing" Asian men that is largely informed and empowered by mainstream racist conditioning.<br />
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Once again, Asian progressives show their commitment to upholding white supremacy by adopting its precepts and attitude.</div>
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Ben Efsaneyimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16001682865274251483noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8566317761793185393.post-22841174299059884672016-07-25T23:26:00.000-07:002016-07-25T23:26:02.201-07:00Amazon Reviews<b><i>And They're Very Positive Reviews...</i></b><br />
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I was happy to discover that there have been three very positive reviews of my novel posted to Amazon.....<br />
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<i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R3A9NONS4BC3O1/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=153307674X">I purchased this book to take on vacation but I ended up reading it from cover to cover before I even left. I couldn't put it down. The Legend of Fu transports you to another place and time, I felt I was observing the characters from my bedroom window. This book is full of action, intrigue but is also a tragic story that needs to be told. Smooth writing and twists in the plot will keep you glued to the book and have you trying to solve the mystery. This is a must read not only for Asia-Americans but all Americans.</a></i></blockquote>
..and secondly...<br />
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<i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R1I5JTFDVM1NMW/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=153307674X">This book’s a real rarity: both exciting and thought-provoking. Just an excellent book! Couldn’t put it down! The action carries you along and the message makes you pause and think. Very well-written, with well-developed characters who really stay with you. I recommend it highly.</a></i></blockquote>
..and third....<br />
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<i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/RBMDBAWA3O60Z/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=153307674X">This is a page turner with a very interesting plot. The characters are well developed and thought out. It is set in a historical perspective that most people don't know about.</a></i></blockquote>
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This is a nice bright spot after several days of ongoing stress in the aftermath of the recent troubles we've had here.</div>
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Visit my Createspace page to order a copy.......</div>
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<a href="https://www.createspace.com/6250114">https://www.createspace.com/6250114</a></div>
Ben Efsaneyimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16001682865274251483noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8566317761793185393.post-14153731362528296472016-07-18T12:32:00.000-07:002016-07-18T12:32:04.139-07:00LOOK!! A Squirrel!<b><i>Progressive Subject-Changers Gone Wild.</i></b><br />
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<span style="text-align: justify;">There's a scene in the sci-fi movie "</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Legend_(film)" style="text-align: justify;">I Am Legend</a><span style="text-align: justify;">", starring Will Smith in which his character encounters a group of diseased zombie-like humans huddled together in the dark recesses of a dilapidated building of post-apocalyptic New York. The image of the zombies is brief - </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWEvLBzMpYE" style="text-align: justify;">see it here</a><span style="text-align: justify;">, first twenty seconds or so - but they gather in an extremely disturbing, bestial manner, their bodies twitching uncontrollably, and positioned in a circle with their backs to the outside world as if to emphasize their separateness from, and obliviousness to, the uninfected human world of Smith's character. </span><br />
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Sadly, my ability to suspend belief was itself suspended when I realized that the zombies looked like they were in the finishing stages of shooting a bukakke scene, or like a gaggle of macho males at the club, standing around the edge of the dance floor, heads bobbing uncontrollably from excessive testosterone and the struggle to control roid rage, to such an extent that you can't tell if they are trying to dance or are in the beginning stages of a group epileptic fit. </div>
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Most interestingly of all, the zombies in the scene reminded me of early twenty-first century Asian-American progressives. Similar to the infected feral humans in the movie, our progressive friends seem to have a singular, inward turning focus that ignores and mythologizes those members of their community not like them, seem to be engaged in a circle-jerk of self-involvement, and, most hilariously of all, they act like poseurs at the club. Childlike moral reasoning, and internet-only militant posturing complete the picture of the modern-day Asian progressive as a gaggle of macho poseurs trying too hard to impress. </div>
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I've written previously about <a href="http://benefsanem.blogspot.com/2015/01/the-first-rule-of-asian-american.html">Asian-progressive</a> <a href="http://benefsanem.blogspot.com.tr/2015/02/this-town-aint-big-enough.html">activism </a>and its abandonment of any pretense of being an Asian focused movement. While our zombie friends in the movie respond most ferociously to the scent of human blood, our Asian progressive friends seem to lie dormant until spurred into action by anti-black racism - usually the shooting of innocent black people. The difference is, that zombies smell blood and attack the source of it, but when black people get shot by the police, Asian progressives smell only the opportunity to draw attention to themselves, usually by attacking other Asians and refocusing attention away from the issues of judicial collusion in enabling police excesses. So, while the disgust at police excess is worthy, the response of turning their rage inward at their own community is bizarre.<br />
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The recent shootings of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Alton_Sterling">Alton Sterling</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Philando_Castile">Philando Castile</a> have unleashed a never before seen level of Asian progressive impotent fervor, and of course, the attention has been deflected away from the issue of police excess and refocused on the <i>real </i>issue: Asian immigrants and their supposedly rampant - but so far unproven - anti-black racism that causes them to be complicit in anti-blackness by not supporting Black Lives Matter. In particular, the killing of Castile was of grave concern as initial reports claimed that he was shot by a "<i>Chinese" </i>(Chinese-<i>American</i>, thank you very much) officer, although subsequently the officer was revealed to be a four-year veteran of Hispanic origin. The subsequent sighs of relief are believed by Norwegian scientists to have increased the greenhouse effect for at least half a day.<br />
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I think that when it comes to fobby Asian "anti-blackness", the truth is far more mundane than our progressive friends might have us believe: our ignorant-seeming, broken-English speaking antecessors, and recent immigrants are simply not reactionary. This is probably why they don't jump up and down, pointing accusatory, self-promoting fingers at those around them - they might want to base their beliefs on evidence, not wishful thinking, or made-up narratives that assert guilt by association, or some kind of racism by default of circumstances.<br />
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In the wake of the Castile killing, progressive reaction was swift and an open <a href="http://blog.angryasianman.com/2016/07/an-open-letter-to-our-asian-american.html#more">letter </a>composed that really was quite an epic effort of backflipping out of their Asian-ness, moral grandstanding, pompous lecturing, and an embarrassing inability to actually express what exactly Asian "parents" and other Fobby immigrants are doing that warrants such scrutiny. It's not as though Asian immigrants are going around shooting black people - although guns may have helped resolve issues where our vile, racist Asian parents deservedly got themselves <a href="http://www.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2010/03/22/elderly-beating-victim-huan-chen-dies">beaten</a>, <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/S-F-man-beaten-in-Oakland-dies-suspects-held-3266940.php">killed</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_h8LoC_Kwc">thrown</a> onto <a href="http://nypost.com/2014/11/17/at-least-4-people-pushed-in-front-of-subways-in-less-than-two-years/">train tracks </a>several years back. And they deserved every <a href="http://benefsanem.blogspot.com/2015/08/the-wrong-kind-of-victims.html">burned out product</a> in their illegal and implicitly racist corner stores in black urban areas. But, yeah, this letter should go a long way in helping to eradicate unwarranted police violence towards the black community.<br />
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What seems to lie at the root of this letter, is the fear that Chinese "parents" will once again embarrass their mind-numbingly progressive kids by protesting in favour of someone who they thought was the Chinese cop who killed Castile like they did with Peter Liang. The letter says this.....<br />
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<i>When someone is walking home and gets shot by a sworn protector of the peace -- even if that officer's last name is Liang -- that is an assault on all of us, and on all of our hopes for equality and fairness under the law. </i></blockquote>
Thoughts like these are what prompts my disillusionment with our latest crop of <a href="http://benefsanem.blogspot.com.tr/2016/04/echo-chambers.html">Asian progressive</a>s. <a href="http://benefsanem.blogspot.com.tr/2015/05/what-is-wrong-with-people.html">Liang </a>was an inept rookie cop, whose <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/05/nyregion/officer-liangs-partner-testifies-he-got-little-cpr-training.html?_r=1">poor</a> <a href="http://nypost.com/2016/01/29/stairwell-shooting-cop-trained-to-have-gun-drawn-fellow-officers/">training </a>and lack of aptitude for the job resulted in a tragic accident that warranted both the trial and the proportionate sentence that he received. Liang never intended to fire his weapon and thus never intended to kill Akai Gurley, he neither knew, at first, that he had actually shot anyone, and there is no evidence whatsoever that he deliberately targeted a black man - even the prosecutor agreed with this. The Asian progressive viewpoint insists on labeling Liang a murderer - against all the evidence - and someone whose racist heart (stemming from his racist immigrant parents, no doubt) was so full of anti-blackness that even an accidental shooting must, by definition, be an act of racist violence.<br />
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The embarrassing thing for Asian progressivism is that it is our fobby generation of, perhaps, older immigrants whose English language skills may be poor or non-existent, that have actually grasped the nuance of American racism with far more clarity than the self-promoting American-born progressive wannabes. I have greater faith in <i>their </i>ability to reason that the killing of Castile - even if it had been perpetrated by a Chinese cop - is not anything like the accidental shooting of Akai Gurley and they would, thus, not jump to his defence with the same passion. It is the progressives who are incapable of discerning these kinds of differences as evidenced by their bizarre insistent delusion that Liang committed murder.<br />
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Almost as bad, yet unsurprisingly, the letter plays the oppression Olympics and diminishes the extent of the Asian racial experience as well as shows a disturbing lack of comprehension for what Asians report experiencing on a day to day basis....<br />
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<i>It's true that we face discrimination for being Asian in this country. Sometimes people are rude to us about our accents, or withhold promotions because they don't think of us as “leadership material.” Some of us are told we're terrorists. But for the most part, nobody thinks “dangerous criminal” when we are walking down the street. The police do not gun down our children and parents for simply existing.</i></blockquote>
Not getting promotions because of your race is a pretty serious act of discrimination despite the attempts to play it down. It is such a serious act of discrimination that nations have felt compelled to change their constitutions to address the problem. But in a typical moment of short-sighted reactivism, Asian progressivism undoes the work and efforts of previous generations of activists by diminishing the seriousness of the problem and creates a problem for the generations that come after us: logically, if we can reason that discrimination against one group can be hand-waved away, then there are no reasons to apply this to all minorities. If workplace discrimination is not that bad (and <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/CERD.aspx">even</a> the <a href="https://www.unglobalcompact.org/what-is-gc/mission/principles/principle-6">UN and</a> other <a href="http://www.ilo.org/global/topics/equality-and-discrimination/lang--en/index.htm">international organizations </a>say it is), then it is not that bad for anyone.<br />
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That is where Asian progressive grandstanding leads us and I'm sure feminists who have struggled for decades to win equality in the workplace will be horrified by the stupidity in this poorly thought out diminution of one of the major struggles of civil rights movements throughout the world.<br />
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Additionally, the letter's diminishing of racial rudeness effectively denies Asians the racial experience that is, perhaps the most common to all of us. Even something as normal as walking down the street for Asian-Americans can often be a terrible experience. For us, racial harassment in the form of random people calling out to us with mockery seems to be a universally and regularly experienced thing that many of us, at times, find quite threatening. Asian women, in particular report routine racialized sexual harassment that I would suggest they find problematic too. Asian progressives, however, think these women should stop whining.<br />
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Consider, also, that often this street level harassment is also expressed <a href="http://benefsanem.blogspot.com.tr/2012/06/hollywoods-anti-asian-tourettes.html">openly in the media</a> - notably this years <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anthony-berteaux/dear-chris-rock-your-asia_b_9346654.html">Oscars ceremony</a> - such that it has become normalized to harass Asians to the extent that the prevailing mainstream wisdom seems to be that it isn't racist at all. We have to wonder if the sentiments expressed in the letter were written by some modern-day, stealth version of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asiatic_Exclusion_League">Asian Exclusion League</a>.<br />
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You don't convince people by attacking or lecturing them, and this is why I view these pompous tactics of open letter-writing, trashy attempts at public shaming, and transparent self-promotion as doing more harm to the cause of BLM than the supposed racism of the Asian fobs they're targeting. It speaks of an overwhelming failure of ideas when your movement's most prominent activities for the mattering of black lives involve lecturing and attacking Asian immigrants with poor English, and elevating some vague minor act of racial insensitivity to the same level of significance as violent police excesses.</div>
Ben Efsaneyimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16001682865274251483noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8566317761793185393.post-23536635351226279042016-07-16T00:29:00.000-07:002016-07-16T03:11:14.684-07:00That Was Scary.<b><i>Coup Attempt In Turkey.</i></b><br />
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Well this has been an eventful twelve hours or so. Late last night there was an attempted military take-over of the country, which has now been put down, with, thankfully and sadly, relatively few casualties. As one might imagine, last night was largely sleepless which we spent preparing back-packs filled with two days worth of clothing, passports, and our most prized possessions, in the event that we would have to flee (yes, I used the word "flee") to safety in one of the foreign consulates here.<br />
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Strangely, even though we live a mere ten minutes from Istanbul's central square where there was, apparently, a confrontation taking place between military and protesters, the coup-attempt was for us a largely quiet affair. Throughout most of the night, however, the sonic boom of low-flying jets flying over the city reminded us that there was a conflict taking place around us. At a couple of points in the night, we could hear what sounded like explosions in the distance.<br />
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Helicopters - presumably, military - with their lights turned off, flew patrols over the area, and an occasional chant carried to our apartment from some undefined place in the distance. At some point in the night, a crowd passed nearby our house, chanting, "Allehu Akabar", presumably on their way to confront the army in the main square.<br />
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It's now, ten in the morning, the uprising seems to have been quelled, and all is quiet. We're staying indoors today, and probably for the whole weekend.Ben Efsaneyimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16001682865274251483noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8566317761793185393.post-57793968031332495362016-06-28T12:21:00.003-07:002016-06-28T12:37:00.243-07:00Announcements.<div style="text-align: justify;">
Just up.....</div>
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Please visit the Facebook page for my recently published novel........</div>
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<a href="https://www.facebook.com/TheLegendofFu/">https://www.facebook.com/TheLegendofFu/</a></div>
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There's also a permanent link in the side bar of this blog. Feel free to leave a message, or a question, and don't forget to like, and if you really like, buy!</div>
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Also, I have post a short preview from the novel here.....</div>
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<a href="https://www.createspace.com/Preview/1194278">https://www.createspace.com/Preview/1194278</a></div>
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Please rate - feedback and reviews are welcome.</div>
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For any questions contact me via e-mail.....</div>
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benefsanem@aol.com</div>
Ben Efsaneyimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16001682865274251483noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8566317761793185393.post-7779889710364723082016-06-15T23:58:00.002-07:002016-06-15T23:58:45.340-07:00The Chinese Detergent Commercial<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i>When Coalitions Break Down And No One Notices.</i></b></div>
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There's been an internet year's worth of controversy in recent days over a <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/28/china-racist-detergent-advert-outrage">Chinese-made detergent ad </a>that shows a black man being put into a washing machine and coming out as a light-skinned Chinese man. Naturally, the media has taken the incident and run with it - although, surprisingly, Asian progressives haven't yet latched onto the incident to spout their anti-Asian rhetoric and use it as a reason to launch an anti-Asian exclusion movement from higher education. That may still come - I'm sure.</div>
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Completely shocked (shocked I tell you!) that racism can exist in the media, some news sites have even suggested that the ad could be the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/racist-laundry-commercial-china-qiaobi_us_5747ef13e4b055bb1171cc5d">most racist ad ever</a>. America's ethnic minorities long used to being casually demeaned in the media, may not agree, however, but this post is not about obvious media racism per se. </div>
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I first read about the detergent ad in a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/05/27/china-and-india-have-a-huge-problem-with-racism-toward-black-people/">Washington Post article</a> that describes incidents from <a href="http://indianexpress.com/article/cities/delhi/minutes-before-birthday-man-from-congo-beaten-to-death-in-vasant-kunj-delhi-2813079/">India </a>and China that actually happened on the same day, from which the article's author deduces that China and India "<i>have a huge problem with racism toward black people.</i>" Yet, the two incidents described are worlds apart in nature, severity, and consequence.</div>
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Firstly, the article's author, Ishaan Tharoor, describes the incident that happened in India....</div>
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<i>Just minutes before his birthday, Masonda Ketanda Olivier was beaten to death. The Congolese national was confronted by a mob of men late at night last Friday in New Delhi and killed. Police said the incident was a dispute over the hiring of an autorickshaw; Olivier's friend, an Ivorian national, said it was a clear hate crime, with racial epithets repeatedly invoked.</i></blockquote>
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There you have it - an African student was beaten to death by a mob shouting racial epithets in what one witness believes was a racially motivated attack. In terms of severity, dying from a racially motivated beating is pretty severe. </div>
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The consequences of the beating are huge....</div>
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<i>This week, irate African diplomats in the Indian capital pointed to Olivier's murder as evidence of wider discrimination and bigotry against black people who visit and live in India......"The Indian government is strongly enjoined to take urgent steps to guarantee the safety of Africans in India including appropriate programmes of public awareness that will address the problem of racism and Afro-phobia in India," Alem Tsehage, the Eritrean ambassador and the diplomat representing other African envoys in New Delhi, said in a statement. They also warned against new batches of African students enrolling in Indian universities.</i></blockquote>
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Hmm...serious stuff. And then.....</div>
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<i>A number of African diplomats chose to boycott a planned event celebrating the history of India-Africa ties on Thursday.</i></blockquote>
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African envoys are so concerned about a wider societal antipathy towards black people living and working in India, that the incident has prompted a diplomatic crisis in which African diplomatic representatives are discouraging African students from enrolling in Indian universities.<br />
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The latter part of Ishaan Tharoor's piece addresses the issue of anti-black racism in China - in this case, as evidenced by the racist detergent ad. As I read this section of the article, I couldn't help but notice that there was no mention of murderous mobs attacking Africans and beating them to death, nor did I read of any notion of a diplomatic crisis caused by the belief that the ad reflects a deeper violent anti-black prejudice in China.<br />
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In fact, in my opinion, the two incidents should not have been placed in the same article since the latter story of a racist ad somewhat diminished and detracted from the far more serious issue of a violent expression of anti-black sentiment in the former story which should have been explored in more detail.<br />
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Don't get me wrong here, I agree that media portrayals shape attitudes and can dehumanize groups of people to the extent that it has the potential to lead to violent behaviours and in and of itself, the ad certainly has the potential to do that. But from an Asian-American perspective, the idea of placing a negative media portrayal on the same level of severity as a racist murder seems to go against everything that both white America and our very own Asian progressive friends tell us about the Asian-American experience of race.<br />
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White America informs us that we need to lighten up in the face of anti-Asian media portrayals, and Asian progressives downplay anti-Asian racism as insignificant compared to the violent racism faced by black Americans. Yet, somehow an American media outlet suddenly elevates a racist ad to the same level as a racist murder. Bearing in mind that only weeks ago, Chris Rock paraded three Asian children in a live broadcast of the Oscars and proceeded to racially mock them in front of millions of viewers, the media's response to this Chinese detergent ad seems arbitrary and certainly biased.<br />
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Few, if any, commentaries in the mainstream media called Rock's skit an outright racist performance even though it was similar in scope and kind to the detergent ad - worse, perhaps, since it exploited kids. It is not controversial to say that anti-Asian racism is not taken seriously, and it is rare that the issue even makes the agenda of many politicians. Even <a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/06/obama-appears-to-reach-peace-deal-with-sanders.html#">ultra-liberal Bernie Sanders in his June 9th </a>speech after meeting Obama, failed to mention Donald Trump's anti-Asian rhetoric and mockery of Asians in the early stages of his campaign for the presidency during his condemnations of Trump's anti-Muslim and Hispanic speeches.<br />
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In fact, the mainstream media at the time of Trump's anti-Asian rhetoric seemed largely apathetic to his racist speeches towards Asians, failing, in my view, to come out strongly enough to condemn him. There was certainly no one in the GOP nor the conservative media who called him out on his racism, and the liberal media's reaction was muted to say the least. It was only after Trump expanded his rhetoric to target Muslims and Hispanics that his racism was considered a problem.<br />
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<i>Yet many Africans who have come in the tens of thousands to China and India as students and businessmen, petty merchants and backpackers, complain of persistent racism.</i></blockquote>
And how does that manifest in the two countries? Well in India........<br />
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<i>In February, a Tanzanian woman was stripped and beaten by a mob in Bangalore after a Sudanese man, in an entirely separate incident, was believed to have hit a local with his car.</i><i><br /></i><i>Last year, an Indian publication put together a moving, sad video, below, of testimony from African students and professionals about their experience of daily discrimination. It also includes 2014 footage of a mob in a Delhi metro station attacking three black men with sticks, while chanting nationalist slogans.</i></blockquote>
Now that's bad. It seems that time and again, there are bouts of spontaneous mob violence targeting Africans in India. But what about China? How does the racism there manifest?<br />
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According to Tharoor, it is a "similar" picture.....<br />
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<i>In China, it's a similar picture. In a 2013 account, an African American English teacher recounted his students complaining about their instructor: "I don’t want to look at his black face all night," one said.</i><i><br /></i><i>Africans across the country, whether on university campuses or elsewhere, have also been subject to attack and abuse. Growing merchant communities in certain cities, such as in the southern metropolis of Guangzhou, rub up against a wider population that is ethnically homogenous and largely unfamiliar with the diversity and history of black populations elsewhere.</i><i><br /></i><i>The African community in Guangzhou has taken to the streets to protest unfair treatment on a number of occasions, including in 2009 after the death of a Nigerian man fleeing a police raid and in 2012 after another man died mysteriously in police custody.</i></blockquote>
Sorry, but that is not a similar picture at all, not by any reasonable stretch of the imagination. On the one hand, you have <a href="http://thewire.in/2016/02/24/africa-and-racism-with-indian-characteristics-22531/">disturbing incidents </a>of spontaneous mob violence resulting in the <a href="http://thewire.in/2016/05/26/racism-in-india-african-envoys-threaten-to-stop-sending-students-indians-in-congo-face-backlash-38718/">murder of Africans</a>. On the other hand, you have a case of racist students - kids - and cases of police brutality. Now racist students and police brutality are bad things, but is it reasonable to say that issues of spontaneous mob violence that <i>must </i>arise out of a mutual, widespread negative attitude towards blacks, can compare to racist kids or even police brutality?<br />
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This is not to say that police brutality towards blacks in China is not a terrible thing, but can it be implied that this reflects a larger, society-wide attitude of racist feeling? After all, we are not hearing of any cases of spontaneous mob violence in China, and police brutality is a <a href="http://www.hrichina.org/en/topic/police-brutality">problem faced even by the Chinese themselves</a>, not just minorities and should be viewed as a part of a general democratic deficit and lack of political accountability. So police brutality cannot be used as a reliable means to gauge wider racial attitudes within China.<br />
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A little online research into Chinese attitudes towards blacks who live in, or visit the country reveals some interesting things. The reports of <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3476184/What-happens-black-people-visit-China-Group-tourists-pestered-photos-attention-Brits-think-famous.html">people crowding</a> black people to <a href="http://intelligenttravel.nationalgeographic.com/2013/04/18/being-black-in-china/">touch their hair and skin,</a> stories of how <a href="https://www.quora.com/What-is-it-like-to-be-black-in-China">whites are favoured</a> over blacks and other non-Chinese Asians and Asian-Americans, as well as reports of vicious online racism are cringe-worthy and terrible. Despite these <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/china/archive/2013/08/on-being-african-in-china/279136/">somewhat uncouth attitudes</a> and behaviours, what we don't find are any reports of mob violence against black people in which there is a spontaneous eruption of anti-black violence involving the apparently random assembly of racist mobs.<br />
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In short, it's beyond unreasonable for Tharoor to conclude that there is similarity in racist attitudes in the two countries, and it is completely unrealistic to imply that these attitudes manifest in a similar way in both countries. Even more telling is the way that the media has almost completely ignored the lynching of a black man in India, and become hysterical about a Chinese detergent ad. There is a great irony in this that suggests Indian attitudes towards blacks more closely resemble, in unexpected ways, American attitudes towards East and SE Asians - as this incident of <a href="https://voicesofny.org/2016/06/chinese-woman-mistreated-by-queens-dunkin-donuts-for-her-accent/">two random strangers joining forces</a> to harass a Chinese woman suggests.<br />
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Even the way that the media responds and covers Asian subjects resembles a mob mentality. Take for example, the case of student <a href="http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/crime/cleared-after-stabbing-ex-uw-student-wants-his-life-back/">Jarrod Ha</a>. Last year, Ha was set upon by a mob of white female rugby players at his college, where he was beaten, kicked, and then attacked by a male student, Graham Harper, who beat Ha, whilst repeatedly slamming his head into a car. This sounds like an attempted murder that was only prevented because Ha defended himself by stabbing Harper several times. In the aftermath of the attempted murder, it was Ha who actually was arrested and stood trial while Harper and the women who started the fight, have to date not been charged with a single crime.<br />
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The media reaction to the case had all the hallmarks of a <a href="http://heavy.com/news/2015/02/graham-harper-stabbing-university-of-washington-uw-student-hero-jarred-ha/">mob mentality</a> - <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2938837/UW-student-19-National-Guard-reservist-stabbed-six-times-protecting-woman-punched-face-man-stole-parking-space.html">almost all</a> outlets that <a href="http://q13fox.com/2015/02/03/you-dont-hit-girls-uw-student-hospitalized-stabbed-while-protecting-women-during-parking-spot-dispute/">covered </a>the case, <a href="http://www.kiro7.com/news/uw-student-stabbed-6-times-defending-woman/43372839">painted Harper as a hero</a>, and Ha as a villain, ignoring the facts of the case and all but asserting his guilt. Almost all early reports took Harper's version of the story as the truth and all but ignored Ha's version of events. The reasons are difficult to discern, but perhaps these outlets were responding more to their own bigoted concepts about Asian men's supposed misogynistic behaviours and attitudes, and that this clouded their capacity to report fairly on the subject. Just like spontaneous mobs in India who, perhaps, also congregate based on their ideas about black people, the American media spontaneously spurts biased reports based entirely on their racist conceptions of Asian people.<br />
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The point here is not to detract from the violence faced by Africans living in India, nor to throw South Asians under the bus since, in my opinion, the point of these kinds of media hysterics when describing racism perpetrated by non-whites is a kind of deflection away from America's own race problem. The point is to make us cognizant of how the media will manipulate tragedy to push an anti-Asian (specifically an anti-Chinese/East Asian) agenda. It is often lost on us that the media can use incidences of racism to promote racism and racialized thinking about Asians and their cultures. It's like giving with one hand and taking with the other and if we don't call it out, no on will.</div>
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Ben Efsaneyimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16001682865274251483noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8566317761793185393.post-2781097251537713442016-06-12T08:13:00.007-07:002016-06-12T08:13:49.873-07:00My Novel Has Been Published!!!<div style="text-align: justify;">
Just a notice that my novel has finally been published. After three years or so, it is now available for purchase through Amazon under the title,<i><b> "<a href="https://www.createspace.com/6250114">The Legend Of Fu.</a>"</b></i></div>
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I self-published through the Amazon Create Space platform and is available only in paperback at the moment. </div>
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You can buy the book directly at the following webpage.......</div>
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<a href="https://www.createspace.com/6250114">https://www.createspace.com/6250114</a></div>
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I have reprinted the novel's preface below......</div>
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History often surprises, with even the most casual study revealing unknowns about the past that, once learned – or re-learned – add a significant layer of context to the present. Without the past, we lose a significant portion of our identity, since our historical experience – both personal and societal – defines who we are, and frames the context of our experience. </div>
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Identities are defined through our day-to-day interactions with those around us in an exchange of ideas and attitudes which can be thought of as our personal historical experience. All of this is set against a backdrop of engagement with the wider social, political, and historical context that has perhaps determined our social status and capacity to move across social strata, the opportunities that are available, and our level of engagement with, and inclusion in mainstream society.</div>
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It should follow, therefore, that the more knowledge we have of our history, the greater our ability to define who we are on our own terms. For those belonging to mainstream communities, this capacity for self-definition is a given - a natural by-product of being part of a mainstream whose identities are informed by saturation in a national historical biography and dominant culture.</div>
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For those whose lives are lived outside of the mainstream - such as racial minorities - this opportunity for self-definition is limited. Worse, as has often been the case in American history, racial minorities have been denied the opportunity to define themselves – both as individuals and communities - since access to their own historical experience has often been overwhelmed by mainstream narratives that have rendered them invisible, or have sought to outright marginalize and dehumanize them.</div>
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Either by design or disinterest, there are episodes of racial minority history that have been lost, forgotten, or even deliberately expunged from the historical memory. One such episode involves the history of the earliest mass immigration of Chinese people to North America in the mid-to-late nineteenth century. Coming from the old Chinese empire, these (mostly) male migrants were lured to America by stories of great fortunes to be made on the gold rich West Coast, or were brought as cheap sources of labor and recruited to drive America’s burgeoning industrial might. Many were enlisted as laborers used to lay down the Pacific railway that opened up the West for industry and settlement.</div>
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Even though as a nation we acknowledge this influx of Chinese migrants, our knowledge of their experiences once they arrived has largely been forgotten. There is certainly almost no cultural record of their considerable contribution to the settlement and development of the West Coast in the same way that the culture embraces Wild West cowboys and hardy settler families having given rise to that part of America’s identity which includes fearless pioneers and hard-living, rugged individuals who overcome any challenge thrown at them.</div>
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A study of these early Chinese migrants may reveal one very good reason why our culture has avoided mention of their experiences: they were on the receiving end of some of the harshest anti-immigrant violence ever witnessed on our shores. Between the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth-centuries - a period spanning three to four generations - in dozens of west coast towns, Chinese communities were targeted by mob violence fostered by anti-Chinese labor agitation and antagonistic political rhetoric.</div>
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They suffered beatings, arson, murder, and expulsion from their homes and communities during episodes of violence that echo the anti-Jewish pogroms and expulsions carried out during the nineteenth-century in Tsarist Russia. This novel is set in the period of American history which lacks a voice for the long silent and silenced victims of anti-Chinese pogroms.</div>
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Taking place in late-nineteenth century San Francisco, this story borrows heavily from actual historical events. Set against a backdrop of the constant threat of mob violence, the story is woven together by harvesting actual incidents of anti-Chinese violence spanning several decades and dramatizing them to form the core of the novel. These incidents are deeply troubling and difficult to read, but this is the case because the actual events that inspired them were disturbing - all the more so because there was a subsequent and equally disturbing historical silence that effectively pardoned perpetrators of the crimes committed against the first Chinese-Americans.</div>
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The novel also explores the power of racist narratives and the stereotypes that are both spawned and driven by them. One such stereotype to emerge in this period was that of the Asian arch-villain - a dehumanizing caricature that embodied all of the base qualities of human nature into the form of a scheming and rapacious Asian man whose innate wickedness manifested in his “misshapen” East-Asian racial characteristics.</div>
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Sly, steely-eyed and forever engaged in devious efforts to undermine and overwhelm Western civilization and its values, the Asian arch-villain became the symbol of the implicit and insurmountable difference between the incomprehensible Eastern and the rational Western mind. The notion of Asiatic incomprehensibility formed the foundation of anti-Chinese sentiment that still clouds modern day attitudes towards East Asia and its people. In the nineteenth-century, this idea of mutual incompatibility drove and justified anti-Chinese racism and led to violent expulsions from dozens of American west coast towns.</div>
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Other aspects of the arch-villain stereotype evolved over time, and more dastardly qualities were afforded it. By the nineteen-forties, the Asian arch-villain with all of his wickedness and deviousness had become a full-scale cultural phenomenon and was perhaps the most influential and visible representation of Asian men of the time. By this period, the Asian arch-villain had become, in his most extreme incarnation, a semi-supernatural creature, whose devilish plots were aided by ungodly mystical power and a threatening hyper-intelligence geared towards the destruction of the American way of life.</div>
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Given America’s past commitment to Caucasian racial purity and the consequent imposition of anti-miscegenation laws, it should come as no surprise that the Asian arch-villain was also imbued by his creators with an obsession for undermining racial purity. A rapacious craving for white women to be used as sexual objects and slaves became a major motivation ascribed to the Asian arch-villain. In real-life, the unfounded accusation that nineteenth-century Chinese communities were kidnapping white women for sexual slavery became a rallying cry that preceded many a mob rampage.</div>
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All of these factors have been incorporated into the story - particularly the supernatural aspect of the stereotype. Seeking to turn these racist fables on their heads, the stereotypes have been referenced to highlight the rabid prejudices that beset Chinese migrants of the time. This novel attempts to demonstrate the idea that significant swathes of American society engaged with, and reacted to, Chinese migrant communities based almost entirely on manufactured and false testimonies about them.</div>
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This is the power of the dehumanizing racial stereotype when coupled with a lack of opportunities for racial minorities to define themselves within the mainstream culture. The attitudes that drove Americans to violently expel and murder Chinese migrants in the nineteenth century became the framework through which subsequent Asian immigrant groups were marginalized, and which contributed to, and culminated in the large-scale incarceration of Japanese-Americans during World War II. With this novel, I hope to bring to our cultural consciousness the immense price paid - in the blood of pioneer Asian-Americans - for their right to call themselves Americans. </div>
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It must be mentioned that even though Chinese migrants are the subject of the story, I am not an Asian of Chinese descent. As an author, I struggled with the idea that a lack of personal acquaintance with Chinese culture(s) might hinder my ability to describe a “Chinese experience”. This is a legitimate consideration, but misses the point of the project in a number of ways.</div>
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Firstly, when living under circumstances that are life-threatening, the most basic human instincts for survival supersede cultural conditioning. Thus, I developed the characters via their human natures, acting in accordance with universal survival instincts rather than through their cultural sensibilities.</div>
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Secondly, there is a danger that when people not of a particular culture attempt to write about it, they will utilize clichés that detract from the narrative. This story relates dramatized actual historical events without being cluttered by cultural peculiarities that might detract from the primary intent of the novel. Thus, it is the hope of this author that readers will not become unnecessarily distracted by assessing the authenticity of cultural nuance, and thereby miss the larger historical overview.</div>
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Thirdly, although this is an Asian-American story based on a history that has affected, to varying degrees, all Asian-Americans, it is ultimately an American story. This is an important point, since it records long-forgotten American history that recalls the actions of both white Americans and those of the Chinese they victimized.</div>
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Some readers might find it difficult to believe the extremely cruel and violent nature of the events described in this novel. The historicity, however, of the anti-Chinese violence portrayed in the novel has been thoroughly explored in a very harrowing investigation of the subject made by Jean Pfaelzer in her book “Driven Out”, and to a lesser degree, in John Kuo Wei Tchen’s book, “New York before Chinatown”. I would like to direct readers to these two thoroughly researched historical books for further investigation into the experiences of Chinese immigrants of the period. </div>
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Ben Efsaneyimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16001682865274251483noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8566317761793185393.post-92097013108038559322016-06-01T00:11:00.001-07:002016-06-01T00:16:00.668-07:00I Saw It Coming <div style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i>A Slippery Slope Of Slanty Silliness.</i></b></div>
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I saw it coming, I really did. The attempt by Asian-American band, the Slants, to get their name trademarked has seemingly <a href="http://www.nationallawjournal.com/id=1202745514539/Ruling-for-The-Slants-Bolsters-Redskins-Trademark-Case?slreturn=20160501023509">empowered and encouraged others </a>to increase their efforts to trademark racially demeaning terms.</div>
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Since my <a href="http://benefsanem.blogspot.com.tr/2011/04/chinkies-and-gooks-and-slants-oh-my.html">exchange</a> with <a href="http://benefsanem.blogspot.com.tr/2011/05/dialogue-with-simon-tam.html">Simon Tam</a> of the Slants that was published in "<a href="http://benefsanem.blogspot.com/2013/03/where-are-you-from.html">Where are you from</a>", I've stayed largely out of the debacle of the Slants attempts to have the US government trademark their band's name. But recent events have caused me to sit up and take notice.</div>
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In the wake of the band's attempts to trademark their name, and following an important legal ruling, none other than the representatives of the <a href="http://darlingdork.com/aclu-cato-institute-pro-football-inc-other-unexpected-allies-join-the-slants-in-pending-trademark-case-before-federal-circuit-court/">Washington Redskins</a> have stepped forward to voice support for the right of cultural and business entities to trademark racially demeaning titles. For those who don't know, the Washington football team has been embroiled in an ongoing battle with the trademark office to keep their team's name - redskins - which Native Americans find extremely derogatory and dehumanizing. I agree with the Native Americans - any name applied as a descriptor for an entire group of people is inherently dehumanizing even if its intent is not to be so or it is not ostensibly negative.</div>
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In a recent article, <a href="https://simonstam.wordpress.com/2014/06/18/the-difference-between-redskins-and-the-slants/">posted to his blog,</a> bassist Simon Tam rejects the claim that his case can be reasonably used to support the Washington bid. He outlines three points that show, he feels, the differences between the two cases.</div>
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The first point follows...</div>
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<i>Unlike REDSKINS, THE SLANTS is not an inherent racial slur. “SLANT” means a number of different things and the racial connotations are so obscure, nearly every major dictionary publisher removed the racial slur from its list of possible definitions. REDSKINS always has been used as a racial slur and has a long history of demeaning Native Americans. “SLANT” has not. It has been and is a commonly used “neutral” term (according to <a href="http://aslantedview.tumblr.com/post/64651752263/excerpts-from-dr-ronald-butters-one-of-the-most">dictionary experts</a>, it was obscure even during the height of its racial use in 1920-1940).</i></div>
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The problem here, is that there seems to be great degree of <a href="http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/jun/04/pete-hegseth/pundit-claims-redskins-historically-used-term-resp/">uncertainty </a>about the origin of the word "redskins", and that it is not at all certain that the term was coined to be <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/lexicon_valley/2013/12/18/redskins_the_debate_over_the_washington_football_team_s_name_incorrectly.html">derogatory, </a>or even that it was not used - in the past - by the <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/09/09/220654611/are-you-ready-for-some-controversy-the-history-of-redskin">First Americans to describe themselves</a>. Some argue that the term was itself a "neutral" term that simply described the cultural habit of some tribes who painted their skin red. According to a study by Smithsonian historian, <a href="http://anthropology.si.edu/goddard/redskin.pdf">Ives Goddard, </a>the term's origins were both benign and used by Native peoples to describe themselves.</div>
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If you peruse some of those links, you will notice that some supporters of the Washington football team are using some familiar arguments to bolster their case. <a href="http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/jun/04/pete-hegseth/pundit-claims-redskins-historically-used-term-resp/">In this article</a>, a guest panelist for Fox news, argues this....</div>
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<i>"When’s the last time you heard someone use that as a racial slur?" asked Pete Hegseth, a guest panelist on the Fox News show Outnumbered. "It’s not used commonly at all as a racial slur. It’s used historically to refer to — a term of respect to people."</i></div>
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This is remarkably similar to what Tam has argued in his quest to enlist support for his case - the term "redskins", like "slant" is <a href="http://www.redskinsfacts.com/facts">no longer used to demean or dehumanize,</a> but rather, these terms are being used in a positive way (somehow!).</div>
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On a final note on this point, the argument that the term "slants" was obscure even at the height of its usage seems to somewhat ignore the fact that Asians themselves were "obscure" during the same period of history. Decades of strict immigration controls that all but halted Asian migration, coupled with the fact that Asians were largely herded into segregated ghettos, meant that the vast majority of non-Asian Americans were unlikely to have encountered many Asians on a regular basis and so the prevalence of usage for the term compared to the population size of non-Asian Americans would likely be small.</div>
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Furthermore, this reasoning further damages Asian-Americans, since it relegates the Asian experience of racism relative to the term "slant" to a secondary significance to that of the racists who abused them. Tam is effectively saying that we can determine the significance of a racial slur based on how it is utilized by the racists who use it, and not how it affects those being targeted. This becomes clearer when we consider the relative population sizes of Asians to non-Asians at the time.</div>
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Between <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_racial_and_ethnic_demographics_of_the_United_States#Historical_data_for_all_races_and_for_Hispanic_origin_.281610.E2.80.932010.29">1930 and 1940</a>, the Asian-American population fell by around ten-thousand from 264,766, to 254,918. The general population rose by roughly <b style="font-style: italic;">ten-million </b>during the same time period from around 122 million to 132 million. This means that during the period when the term was most common, at no time did the Asian-American population ever reach even half of 1% of the total population. If we grant that the vast majority of this 132 million people had no contact on any regular basis with Asians who were largely concentrated in small enclaves on the west coast, then it becomes clear that any racial slur directed at them would have been an "obscure" occurrence within the society at large.</div>
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Tam does a disservice to our Asian pioneers by ignoring <i>their </i>experience - it's absolutely irrelevant how often this slur was used by non-Asians when spread across the wider population who had little to no contact with Asians. What is important is how frequently this term of dehumanization was experienced by the Asians themselves. If all 264,766 Asian at the time were abused with the slur every day, it could still be considered an "obscure" term because set against the larger population it might never find widespread usage even though the Asian targets were experiencing it regularly. To ignore this possibility simply deprives Asian -Americans of that era their voice and their history.</div>
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Tam continues with point two.....</div>
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<i>REDSKINS has a substantial composite of Native Americans demonstrating serious concerns over the name. THE SLANTS has not garnered wide protest from Asian Americans; in fact, quite the opposite. Our band has been supported by lifelong activists, organizations, academics, and other experts who understand the sentiment of our community.</i></div>
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This is a bit of a double-edged sword. We can again refer to demographics to illustrate how spurious this argument is. The Washington football team is a national franchise with an international following whose players, and those otherwise associated with the team, receive far more media and societal attention in one game day than the Slants might receive over a period of weeks or even months. By contrast, not only are the Slants less visible due to their comparative anonymity, they are possibly not known to most Asian-Americans <a href="http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2012/06/19/the-rise-of-asian-americans/">75% of whom are foreign born and average forty-four years in age</a> and who, therefore might not be into popular music or culture of this kind, may not be familiar with the history and significance of racial slurs and how they represent the popular simplified expression of <a href="http://benefsanem.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-fulcrum-of-white-supremacy.html">millenia of western racist philosophy and science.</a></div>
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The point is that it is possible that the Slants' support derives from a mere fraction of the actual population of Asian-Americans and does not represent the attitudes of the majority at all. In fact, I might suggest that it is more likely that Tam's support comes from a demographic of Asian-America that is in the minority (even, perhaps, of the American-born), but which has greater engagement with social media, America's and Asian-America's cultural milieu, and which is more vocal and visible within it.</div>
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As for Asian activists supporting the right of Asian-Americans to demean themselves - I'm not surprised nor impressed. My observations of Asian activists is that they are not even <a href="http://benefsanem.blogspot.com/2015/01/the-first-rule-of-asian-american.html">remotely close to understanding</a> our community's sentiment and quite <a href="http://benefsanem.blogspot.com/2016/02/when-unarmed-black-people-get-shot.html">often seem</a> <a href="http://benefsanem.blogspot.com/2016/02/is-donald-trump-asian-american.html">engaged</a> in <a href="http://benefsanem.blogspot.com/2016/04/echo-chambers.html">attacking their own communities</a>. If these activists who support Tam's case are anything like these guys, then all the more reason to oppose!</div>
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Where Tam's argument becomes a double-edged sword is in his appeal to popular support for how his case is different to the redskins' case. According to this <a href="http://www.forbes.com/teams/washington-redskins/">Forbes report from last year,</a> Washington revenues amounted to roughly $440 million dollars, working out to around $40 "per fan". This means that the Washington support probably runs into the millions - possibly more people support Washington than there are Native-Americans who number roughly 3 million people, <a href="http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/sports/Just-How-Many-Indians-Think-Redskins-Is-a-Slur-226953791.html">not all of whom may actually find the term "redskins" problematic</a>. Thus, we have a situation where there may be vastly more Americans who believe that they have "reappropriated" the term and are using it positively, than there are who oppose the word. If the majority of people using the term "redskins" positively outnumbers those who find it offensive, then the demographic numbers argument fails to support Tam but supports the case of the Washington football team.</div>
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You might argue - as Tam does in his third and final point - that the "referenced" group's attitude should be taken into account, but this has no logic or reason to support it as I'll explain next.</div>
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Tam's third point is as follows....</div>
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<i>The owners of “REDSKINS” are not members of the “referenced group,” unlike THE SLANTS. It’s important to remember that of the 800+ trademark applications for variations of the term “slant,” only one was denied for being a “racial slur.” In other words, the Trademark Office never considered it to be a slur against Asians until an Asian applied. The Trademark Office clearly expressed that the only reason why they associated our trademark application with a racial slur was because of my race. They wrote, “it is uncontested that applicant is a founding member of a band…composed of members of Asian descent…thus, the association.” In other words, if I were white, like every other applicant in the history of the country, it would have not been questioned to begin with.</i></div>
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This is where the whole house of cards falls apart. Tam complains that the association of his race with the term "slants" is why it has been viewed as a slur by the trademark office. Yet, elsewhere, he has argued that <a href="http://benefsanem.blogspot.com.tr/2011/04/chinkies-and-gooks-and-slants-oh-my.html?showComment=1304659555391#c2819953020388759809">he is not referencing the Asian race</a> by his use of the term, although in his article he clearly states that his band <i>does </i>use the word as a means of referencing his race. I'm confused too.</div>
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Worse, there is nothing implicit in this argument that excludes people who are not the group referenced by slurs from deciding to use them positively - to say that white people cannot be allowed to reclaim a slur and change its meaning is racist. This means that although there may be some cause for concern that non-Asians could trademark the term slant, whilst Asians are prevented from doing so, there is no reason why non-Asians should be forbidden reference to racial slurs in their trademark as long as they can show that they have used these terms in a positive way. And Washington wins.</div>
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This is exactly what the Washington football team is arguing - they have reclaimed the word "redskins" and are using it in a positive way. Given Tam's argument, and the fact that the trademark office seems set on granting his band the trademark, it should follow logically - and perhaps legally - that Washington will be granted the same rights. After all, isn't it racist to deny trademarks based on race?</div>
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Finished with his three main points, Tam writes....</div>
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<i>Also, while I personally believe in the power of reappropriation as a tool to create social change (as I explain at YOMYOMF <a href="http://youoffendmeyouoffendmyfamily.com/a-slanted-view/">here</a> and <a href="http://youoffendmeyouoffendmyfamily.com/how-appropriate-is-re-appropriation/">here</a>, TEDxUofW <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLmNLWqSl8Y">here</a>, at <a href="http://www.racefiles.com/2013/10/23/a-new-slant-on-old-fashioned-racism/">RaceFiles</a>, and to <a href="http://entertainment.time.com/2013/10/23/the-slants-suit-asian-american-band-goes-to-court-over-name/">TIME</a>), our legal argument isn’t constructed on this point. You can read our entire brief and all of our arguments, via <a href="http://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/brief-on-behalf-of-appellant-appeal-fr-92884/">JDSupra</a>.</i></div>
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This is a somewhat disturbing point. As the links in his own article indicate, much of Tam's writings that I have read have argued that his band has used their name as a way to reappropriate a formerly derogatory term. In and of itself, this contradicts claims that their name is not<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/04/27/the-washington-redskins-are-using-an-asian-american-rock-band-to-save-the-teams-trademark-the-band-doesnt-like-it-one-bit/"> a racial reference</a>, even though the band has garnered support from the community precisely by pushing the idea of empowerment through reclaiming a slur. Of course, one has to wonder how you can reclaim a slur that has apparently fallen out of common usage without first re-acquainting society with its derogatory meaning.</div>
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That aside, it seems as though there has been a bait and switch used on Asian-Americans - on the one hand, arguments have been made, articles written, and seminars given that seem to put forward the idea that the band is fighting to appropriate a racial slur, then we find out that this has absolutely nothing to do with their legal challenge at all! Call this what you will, but to me it throws doubt on the alleged outpouring of support that the band has received - do people actually know <i>why </i>they are supporting the band? I'm not so sure any more.</div>
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What the Slants' case highlights is that the Asian-American experience of race is often hidden behind a thin veneer of racial double-entendres and vagueness. The fact that the racial slurs that dehumanize us are so deeply ingrained in the language that we can hear and experience terms of racial abuse even when these terms are not being used racially, is a testament to the throw-away and off-handed nature of anti-Asian racism in America. </div>
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Racial slurs sometimes used to describe Asians also have benign, alternative definitions which means that they can be, and are, often used in a way that permits plausible deniability on the part of the user. I often argue for greater nuance in the Asian-American conversation on race, but in the case of ambiguous, double entendre racial slurs directed at Asians, I think that more nuance is the last thing we need.</div>
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Instead of adding definitions to dehumanizing racist language, we should be striving to reduce definitions so that all ambiguity is removed from them. This is especially pertinent in the case of ambiguous anti-Asian racial slurs which enables a kind of verbal racist hit and run that strikes, then disappears into the safe ambiguity of the language. </div>
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The <a href="http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/oxford-dictionary-says-marriage-definition-will-change-include-gay-people240713/#gs.pYafnZE">Oxford Dictionary </a>recently made moves to change its definition of the word "marriage" so that it includes same-sex unions as opposed to solely male/female unions. Although they are not the first dictionary to do this, it highlights the significance of words and labels to help establish social and cultural norms and practices. If it is that easy to redefine words, then vague, racial double-entendres that characterize anti-Asian racism can and should be redefined to help to establish social and cultural norms and practices that diminish opportunities for racism to propagate behind the ambiguity of the language.</div>
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The word "marriage" is not implicitly demeaning towards homosexuals just like the terms "chink" and "slant" are not implicitly derogatory towards Asians, yet, unlike the latter two terms, it is hard to use the word "marriage" to actively demean homosexuals. If word definitions can be changed to avert the "passive" negative ramifications of their meaning, how much stronger an argument we have to redefine ambiguous words that are co-opted to actively demean Asians so that their most racially negative, dehumanizing meaning becomes the predominant or, perhaps, only one.</div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">In this light, it is difficult for me to see how the Slants' case would benefit Asian-Americans in any meaningful way. Other than to add more confusion to the mix in a situation where confusion and ambiguity already empowers anti-Asian racism, the Slants case would make it even easier for such racism to exist. There are absolutely no benefits to Asian-America, nor are there benefits to the causes of other minorities. If anything - and this has become obvious given the support offered by Washington - a win for the Slants would set all minorities back.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">In summary, while I can appreciate that the Slants are one of the only bands of their kind, and that we should support them with our fandom, nothing has happened since my previous engagements with Simon Tam to convince me that his cause has any benefits either for Asian-Americans or minorities in general. As I - and circumstances - have shown the Slants' case has merely given impetus to entities whose cause is harmful to ethnic minorities. In this case, fears of a slippery slope are not fallacious - by supporting the Slants, Asian-Americans "activists" have empowered white racism, again.</span><br />
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Of course, being the rational and fair-minded guy that I am, if someone can explain how and why the Slants' case benefits, empowers, or advances Asian-Americans or their issues in any way, I would be quite willing to change my view. </div>
Ben Efsaneyimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16001682865274251483noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8566317761793185393.post-88110665519309125982016-04-11T23:21:00.002-07:002016-04-11T23:24:19.702-07:00Echo Chambers<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i>And The Perils Of Self-Importance.</i></b><br />
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It would be something of an understatement to say that the Peter Liang trial has heavily divided the Asian-American community - particularly Chinese-Americans. On the one hand stand those who offer unequivocal support for his conviction, and on the other are those who argue that Liang is being scapegoated for political expediency.</div>
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Liang's supporters have caused some <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2016/02/20/us/nypd-officer-protests/">significant</a> <a href="http://www.asamnews.com/2016/02/21/brooklyn-rally-for-peter-liang-2016/">surprise </a>having <a href="http://www.asamnews.com/2016/02/22/tensions-erupt-between-peter-liang-and-black-lives-matter-supporters/">turned</a> out by the thousands in several cities around the country to voice their concerns that Liang has been hit with disproportionate charges for what every legal entity involved with the case agrees was an accidental shooting. They also note the unequal application of the law - white officers who have committed observably intentional killings have escaped prosecution entirely.</div>
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It is worthwhile to note that even amongst Liang's supporters, there is a marked diversity of opinion. The underlying sentiment is that Liang has run afoul of political maneuvering and is being offered as a morsel of reprise to stave off black rage at the lack of accountability for mainly white officers who kill unarmed people in suspicious circumstances. Although some of Liang's support decries the manslaughter charges as excessive and merely the result of political expedience, others are focusing on the sentencing and calling for the judge to show leniency.</div>
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Noticeably, the idea that Liang <i>should not on any level </i>be held accountable seems to not be a prominent sentiment amongst his supporters. Their concerns are that he is being disproportionately charged for what everyone agrees was a tragic accident, that this incident would not have been afforded the same legal significance if previous cases of police excess had been brought to account, and not only that his race makes him a convenient scapegoat, but that prosecutors would not have gone after him with such perceived disproportionate harshness if he had been of any race other than Chinese. I think they raise points that demand our attention but, as you might have guessed, our new money progressive friends within the community disagree.</div>
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Following the widespread demonstrations, a council of the righteous high and mighty was convened on<a href="http://www.asamnews.com/2016/02/20/why-many-asian-americans-support-conviction-of-peter-liang/"> Google hangouts in which four of Asian-America's moral superiors and a credibility-providing African-American friend </a>(and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=487TGdRSqtI">here</a>) expounded on the "problem" of this surge of support for Liang. All participants introduced themselves as <i>very important</i> activists for all kinds of causes except Asian- American ones. The stated aim of the council was to "reframe" and "re-center" the conversation via an "open and honest dialogue about <i>true </i>racial solidarity."<br />
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No, that isn't canned laughter you are hearing.</div>
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Far from engaging in an open and honest dialogue, the participants simply repeated each other's biased and uninformed views with several of them coming close to slapping themselves across the head in frustration at the lack of compliance coming from the Chinese FOBs who, apparently, have made our progressives look bad - which seems to be the primary cause of angst for these guys. Coming across very much like a council of some religious inquisitor, the participants took turns at self-righteous condemnation of Liang's supporters, utilizing such tactics as name-calling and racial stereotyping. I could not help but feel as though there was an ironic element of fobby face-saving going on stemming from a kind of horrific realization that Asian progressives are not only out of touch with Asian immigrants, they have grossly underestimated their own understanding of America's racial quagmire.</div>
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Against all progressive proclamations, it is the Chinese FOBs - not the American-born progressives - who have shown a deeper and far more nuanced understanding of the complexities of a multi-racial society in which racial thinking and racist injustices do not flow in a solitary direction from white to black, but do, in fact, encompass a multi-directional experience in which racist attitudes and behaviours manifest amongst all groups.</div>
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Maybe it would have helped their case if the panel has exhibited some small degree of charisma, yet I couldn't help but wonder if they had shot up with a downer like heroin, or gotten deeply stoned and watched the movie Magnolia in preparation for the podcast. Suffice it to say, the proceedings were so mind-numbingly dull that I had to slap myself on the head with an old insole to keep myself awake and remind my brain that I wasn't watching an hour-long slow-motion replay of a kettle boiling.</div>
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A hugely significant issue that I had with the panel was that there were no representatives present from Liang's supporters to give a balanced and fair representation of their side in their own words. Of course, when podcast host, Diane Wong of 18 Million rising, proclaimed at the very beginning that the aim was to "reframe and recenter...honest dialogue", I should have guessed that I would be in for a treat of misrepresentation, inflammatory stereotyping and outright self-delusional lies.</div>
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For example, at around the 5:20 mark, Wong accuses the Chinese media of pushing a polarizing and anti-black narrative, yet she fails to provide any evidence for this. That must be what "re-framing" means; to make inflammatory assertions without evidence. With Wong having set the tone of the podcast, Oi Yan Poon (who, apparently, is a respected academic) continues with a lengthy name-calling screed in which she asserts - again without a shred of evidence - that privilege and anti-black racism is motivating Liang's supporters.</div>
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Poon goes on to reinforce the extremely racist stereotype that these Chinese FOBs are overly deferential to authority and, somehow, their political activism is an act of subservience. The double-think is strong with this one. She continues with the accusation that Liang's supporters are driven by a desire to enter whiteness - again, a claim asserted without evidence. Yet, rather than show a moral failure on the part of Liang's supporters, it is the intellectual limitations of the panel that comes through most clearly here; Liang's supporters genuinely think that he has been scapegoated by the white judicial system in order to further protect and deflect attention away from white officers who murder. The progressive panel seem to lack the wherewithal to present a coherent argument that counters this simple belief.</div>
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Poon's claim, therefore, makes no sense and can only be an emotional outburst to make herself feel better. This is a huge logical error on her part that could have been avoided if only the panel had bothered to actually engage with their opponents in a constructive way that fostered the flow of ideas. Instead, they opted for a kind of primal scream therapy in which they unleash their ignorant self-induced resentments without reference to facts.</div>
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Unbelievably, it gets worse - much worse. Poon ends her screed by trying to explain the actions of these 21st century Chinese FOBs by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozawa_v._United_States">citing </a>a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Bhagat_Singh_Thind">couple </a>of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lum_v._Rice">civil-rights</a> cases from almost a century ago that involved Asian plaintiffs. Poon never bothers to illustrate how these cases have influenced Liang's supporters, nor does she offer any evidence that they have even heard of these cases. All this seems to actually show is that Poon and the panel have no idea what they are talking about when it comes to the motivations of Liang's supporters and are relying on made-up narratives to slander them. </div>
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The other Asians on the panel merely echoed Poon's distasteful and racially inflammatory comments, not really adding anything different and only repeating the buzzword "anti-blackness" and their dehumanization of Chinese immigrants, never once offering any evidence to justify their claims nor bothering to hide their blatant bigotry.</div>
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The only interesting moment during the whole podcast came from the black panellist - "Fresco" - which was priceless and worth enduring the horrific dullness of the the rest of the show. Having listened to the "reframed and re-centered " narrative of the Asians on the panel, she quietly asserts a bizarre narrative of her own which seems to stun the Asians. The seconds of awkward silence were awesome after she claims that Asian anti-blackness derives from a history of global chattel slavery that Asians apparently participated in and not from an appropriation of whiteness as had been claimed. The Asian panellists looked like they had been slapped with a wet sock and I loved it.</div>
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Although her claims were largely nonsensical, Fresco exposed the flimsy foundational premise of making anti-blackness the focus of Asian-America's race conversation. Asian progressivism agitates to force the Asian racial experience into the limited confines of the black/white narrative. This means that we have to abandon our history in order to contextualize our experience relative to African-America's and implicitly accepting any black historical narrative even though it is clearly false on occasion. It is clearly false that chattel slavery of Africans was a significant phenomenon in East or SouthEast Asia, yet our panellists could not challenge the untrue claims of the black panellist without abandoning their primary principle - centering anti-blackness.</div>
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The Asian racial experience has to be examined relative not only to our position to whites but also to other ethnic groups, and the simplistic - to the point of being dumb - premise that our past can only be understood through the filter of the relationship between blacks and whites is merely a way of giving up our identity and avoiding the heavy lifting of establishing Asians as a concept within our nation's cultural, social, and political milieu.</div>
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To emphasize just how out of touch with reality the panel was, at around the twenty-eight minute mark Wong describes Gurley's killing as a murder - a charge that not even prosecutors tried to make. Either through dishonesty or self-delusion, the panel could not even get the basic facts of the case right, choosing, instead, to increase potential tension between Asians and African-Americans by "re-framing" the facts of the case. If we do find ourselves in a situation where Asian immigrants come under increased violent attacks from African-Americans, then we can thank our progressive friends for contributing to this state of affairs.</div>
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The most telling part of the podcast came at around the forty-seven minute mark, again from Doc Poon. Describing her response to e-mails from those who disagree with her worldview, she proudly admits that she simply dismisses and deletes their e-mails. It takes a huge amount of self-involvement to openly admit to dismissing other people's points of view in the midst a podcast in which she asserts with certainty that she knows what is motivating Liang's supporters.</div>
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Poon's sentiment was repeated in a blog post she wrote, titled "<a href="http://blog.angryasianman.com/2016/02/what-are-we-fighting-for-white.html">What are we fighting for?</a>" published on the AngryAsianMan website in which she - with a kind of hysterical melodrama - ponders the apparently difficult question of why these Chinese FOBs have risen up in support of Liang. These happen to be stupid questions since in order to find out why Liang has so much support, all she would have to do is ask his supporters why they support him. Yet, she dismisses and deletes any communication from his supporters and wonders why she cannot understand their point of view. Go figure!</div>
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Thus, Poon should understand that there is no "we" per se, because creating a "we" would entail not dismissing people who have a different way of approaching issues. There is no "we" because Asian progressives have chosen to dehumanize Asian-America with blanket accusations of rabid anti-black racism, and reinforce inflammatory stereotypes that can only lead to more black/Asian tensions and anti-Asian violence. </div>
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Sadly, many Asian-Americans will be swayed and impressed by the self-righteous moral grandstanding exhibited by the panel on this podcast, which only means that we can expect a steady increase in anti-Asian attitudes from our fellow Americans who might cite the "proof" of Asian progressive rantings to justify their prejudices.</div>
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On the bright side, the prosecutor in the Liang case recently revealed that he will be<a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/brooklyn-da-recommends-no-jail-time-ex-cop-peter-liang-article-1.2575264"> recommending leniency</a> in Liang's sentencing - a smidgen of sanity amidst the frenzy to scapegoat someone who killed a man accidentally due to <a href="http://nypost.com/2016/01/29/stairwell-shooting-cop-trained-to-have-gun-drawn-fellow-officers/">poor</a> <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/05/nyregion/officer-liangs-partner-testifies-he-got-little-cpr-training.html?_r=0">training </a>and <a href="http://nypost.com/2016/03/08/peter-liangs-cpr-instructor-stripped-of-her-badge-and-gun/">not hatred</a> for black people as our progressive friends have deluded themselves into believing. Liang's training was so poor and shoddy that he barely received any <a href="http://gothamist.com/2016/03/09/nypd_officer_who_taught_cpr_class_f.php">practical training with handling his weapon</a>. </div>
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None of these significant facts resonate with our progressive panel - they choose, instead, to simply makes things up, ignore facts, and elevate their uninformed opinions to the status of objective truth. Oblivious to their own failures to utilize reasonable epistemological inquiry, the Asian panel is simply incapable of understanding why the FOBs aren't doing what they want them to do. Laughably, they draw the conclusion that the language barrier is the significant problem and that there needs to be more proselytizing via language-appropriate technology.<br />
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Not once do these guys consider that dialogue is a two-way street, a give and take of opinions, ideas, and attitudes. That means not just inundating people with your unsubstantiated opinions that you "re-frame" as truth, nor does it mean sitting around in a podcast, boring everybody with your racist diatribes against people you are almost certainly ignorant of. <br />
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There are two main prerequisites to changing other people's point of view: firstly, you have to stop talking and trying to brainwash people with <a href="http://benefsanem.blogspot.com/2016/02/when-unarmed-black-people-get-shot.html">mindless repetition</a> of the tenets of your faith and instead, listen to what they have to say and what concerns them. The arrogance of early 21st-century Asian progressives is matched only by their ignorance - according to them, FOBs are mindless automatons (just like the white racists say they are) who need to be brow-beaten into doing what our authoritarian progressive friends want them to do. I disagree with this attitude - I think FOBs are free of the racial experiences that have scarred many American-born Asians and thus, have none of the conditioning that might influence the behaviour and attitudes of the American born. Perhaps they see things with far more clarity than we do.<br />
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Secondly, you need something compelling to say and a compelling way to say it. So far, all I've seen Asian progressives do is deflect attention away from pervasive white racial habits and proclaim Asian racism to be its equal. Not only is this silly, it is not particularly inspiring. Lying to and about people and their beliefs that Asian progressives haven't even bothered to study only helps white racism by <a href="http://benefsanem.blogspot.com/2016/02/when-unarmed-black-people-get-shot.html">changing the subject</a>. This means that not only are Asian progressives contributing to anti-Asian racism, their absurd rantings serve as an obstacle to addressing the very real needs of black America.<br />
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In short, if you want to convince people of your ideas, then come up with good, realistic ideas that are based on reasonable inquiry and not on subjective opinions and feelings which you frame as truth. So far, Asian progressivism has failed to either formulate an inspiring philosophy or even properly identify the attitudes of the majority of their own community - but other people are at fault for "not getting" the progressive agenda.</div>
Ben Efsaneyimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16001682865274251483noreply@blogger.com12