Is Donald Trump An Asian-American Progressive?

Asian Progressive Complicity With White Racism.

As the Republican presidential candidate race heated up, Donald Trump's electioneering veered ever nearer to the kind of populist illiberal democratic politicians that have begun cropping up all over Eastern Europe. His most recent affront was to Muslims, but because his rhetoric has become so polarizing and inflammatory, it seems to have been forgotten that Trump started on this path with hostility to China even going so far as to use a mocking Asian accent at one of his rallies. Not wanting to be outdone, Jeb Bush jumped onto the bandwagon by clarifying that Asian anchor babies are less desirable than Hispanic ones - a sentiment which I took as a major disavowal (a.k.a "go fuck yourself") of the legitimacy and sensibilities of the Asian vote.

Of course, Trump and Bush received the most attention for their comments, but other candidates have also veered into xenophobia-tinged campaigning. Starting with democratic presidential hopeful, Hilary Clinton - who initiated this election season's sinophobic rhetoric with her outburst about Chinese hackers, and Carly Fiorina who seems to just dislike Asians and views them as cognitively deficient. All of this is unsurprising to me since I have come to expect a rise in anti-Asian rhetoric at election time, and was not surprised by the cynical and unapologetic use of it by presidential hopefuls on all sides of the political spectrum.

From the perspective of Asian-American progressivism, Trump's words especially are of particular interest. Criticizing companies that hire through H-1B visas, he argues that wages should be raised for those employed in these jobs so as to discourage companies from hiring from overseas and, in so doing, boost opportunities for American workers in the field - particularly blacks and Hispanics. The key point here is that the H-1B visa program has opened the door for many Asian immigrants to gain a foothold in America and go on to apply for residency and ultimately citizenship. Thus, encouraging companies to hire Americans implicitly closes a key avenue of immigration for Asians. To me, this is obviously an attempt to pit minorities against one another.

As I have pointed out in a couple of previous posts - here and here - there seems to be a correlatİon between Asian-American progressive discourse and conservative racist posturing, in which conservatives, coincidentally, come up with ideas about Asians that are remarkably similar to those invented and propagated by Asian progressives. In a too-good-to-be-true series of coincidences, white conservative commentators have taken to adopting language remarkably similar to that used by grandstanding Asian progressives who decry "Asian privilege" and make wild, unsubstantiated accusations of racism committed by their own community.

White conservatives have borrowed the claims of grandstanding Asian progressives as a means to defend against charges of white racism - reasoning that, surely, if Asians have privilege then white racism is exaggerated! Even more troubling is that liberals are beginning to adopt a similar practice as evidenced by Bill Maher's recent claim that Hollywood racism can be explained by Asian racism - a claim echoing by the Asian progressive accusations via the liberal media of rampant "anti-blackness" in Asian communities.

Trump's racially polemic scheming on the H-1B visa program voices similar sentiments to those voiced by Asian progressives who view Asian success in education and the tech industry as an act of complicity in anti-black racism. According to these commentators, it is out of unadulterated anti-black racist spite that Asian-Americans pursue higher education and careers in tech. By merely participating in things like the pursuit of a degree, or a job in a field that interests you - like in the tech industry - Asians are upholding white supremacy, and are, thus, complicit in it. Likewise, Trump is also implying that Asian immigration disadvantages blacks and Hispanics.

It follows as a matter of common sense that if - as Asian progressives insist - Asian success in tech is implicitly disadvantageous to blacks, and that Asians are consciously colluding in a process of racial discrimination against blacks, then barriers should be put up that discourage Asian participation in tech and stop the H-1B visa avenue of Asian immigration. After all, who wants to let a bunch of rampant Asian racists into the country whose career choices are implicitly racist?

It could be a mere coincidence that Trump's bizarre and specific focus on the tech industry coincides with Asian progressive condemnations of the Asian presence in the field - yet the very fact that Trump was so specific about the tech industry gives me reason for pause. It strikes me as extremely unreasonably fortuitous that a presidential candidate would draw attention to the hiring practices of the tech industry - it is so out of left field (no pun) that I am left asking why the specific focus on tech? The only other people making any political issue about Asians in tech are Asian progressives. Trump is expressing pretty much the exact sentiments of "unfairness" that Asian progressives claim, but he is taking it to its logical conclusion - exclude immigrants (many of whom are Asian) from the industry.

But that is the natural consequence of pushing the idea that high Asian participation in higher education and the tech industry are acts of flagrant anti-black racism - following this flawed reasoning to its logical conclusion, any achievements made by Asian-Americans, by definition, disadvantage blacks. That is as clear of an anti-immigrant sentiment as it can get - and it is Asian progressives who are pushing the idea on American society.

That is not only dangerous it actually echoes the anti-Asian rhetoric of eras past, that brought about a decades-long campaign of anti-Asian pogroms and attempts to expel Asian communities from America both through legal or violent means. Our progressive friends have seemingly laid the foundation for a new era of Asian exclusion and even - if Trump has his way - expulsion of some immigrants amidst the closing down of a major avenue of Asian immigration.

The question is though, is it reasonable to wonder whether self-righteous Asian progressive rhetoric is informing white America's defence of its own racist attitudes? I think that the evidence is compelling that white America - particularly conservatives are appropriating Asian progressive rhetoric to stigmatize the Asian community, stereotype their attitudes, and use progressives' claims about Asians to defend their own racist attitudes and deflect attention away from it.

For instance, the term "Asian privilege" seems to have been coined by Asian progressives over the past few years and was never - as far as I know - part of conservative America's lexicon. Yet, such luminaries as Gavin McInnes, Bill O'Reilly, and Adam Corrolla have all borrowed the term and concept to defend against charges of white racism. The idea of a culture of rampant Asian racism is another (unsubstantiated) claim made by Asian progressives and recently we have seen Dylan Roof adopting this concept, and Bill Maher using the idea to defend Hollywood against the charge of racism.

Where on earth could these guys be getting the idea of Asian privilege and the notion of an attitude of rampant, identity-defining anti-black racism? As far as I know, there are no reasons to view Asians - particularly Asian-Americans - as especially racist such that their characters and cultures can be defined by it, and the notion of Asian privilege is merely a philosophical generalization. That leaves the anti-Asian rhetoric spewed out by Asian progressives as the likely source of these white attitudes, that enables defenders of the racial status quo to make reasonable arguments to support their claims.

These ideas were never part of America's political dialogue, yet suddenly, after five or so years of Asian progressives making repeated assertions about Asian privilege, and Asian anti-blackness we now see a commonplace adoption of this rhetoric by white commentators to defend white racism. Most importantly, the specific notion that Asian success carries with it an implicit disadvantage to blacks - and that Asians enter the tech industry or seek higher education out of racist spite - is an invention of Asian progressives.

Anil Dash writing on the "Medium" platform has this to say...

...one conclusion that is inescapable: Asian American men who work in tech are benefitting from tech’s systematic exclusion of women and non-Asian minorities.

He continues....

One of the most destructive tropes about Asian Americans is the pervasive myth of the “model minority”.......And this myth is all too often embraced within Asian American communities, making us complicit in systems of exclusion, even though we know what it’s like to be on the wrong side of those same systems.

The problems in these two snippets are manifold. Dash provides no evidence that this "exclusion" is "systematic" nor that it is even real - the statistics that he cites could reflect the availability of potential recruits, meaning that hiring could be a reflection of the make-up of those who actually apply as opposed to any deliberate policy of exclusion. Given the lack of meaningful evidence for any kind of conspiracy that excludes non-Asians and women, and the lack of evidence for the existence of a policy of discrimination against these groups, Dash's accusation that Asian men "benefit" from this unsubstantiated inequality has no merit. Furthermore, one would have to also answer the question of why Asian men are so privileged that these white racists tech companies would prefer them over other white men. It just makes no sense.

Sadly, Dash falls back on the blandly overused, but under substantiated assertion that Asian-Americans embrace the idea of the model minority and that this shows their complicity in anti-blackness. A previous post shows that this is not necessarily the case. As I wrote here, there is good evidence that shows that white people who believe the model minority stereotype also hold corresponding positive attitudes towards other minorities. Why, then, should I believe that Asians would adopt (or implicitly adopt) negative attitudes towards other minorities if they embrace the model minority stereotype?

The problem here is that Dash presumes that all Asians are familiar with the one or two articles that were published in the 1960's that made comparisons between Asians and black minorities and he also presumes that in the present when white people refer to Asians as a model minority, that they are by definition being anti-black. To most Asians the model minority myth may well mean only that Asians are a hard-working community and not necessarily that this implicitly denigrates blacks. That is merely an inflammatory progressive invention. Unfortunately, Dash is not the only one casting aspersions on Asian-Americans.

Writing on the African-American blog "BlackGirlDangerous", another Asian anti-anti-blackness-Messiah-hopeful (Ally Ang) adds fuel to the anti-Asian-sentiment-fire with this unsubstantiated gem....

The harsh truth is that even though we experience racism in deeply painful and traumatic ways, we are settlers on stolen land just like white people. This nation would not exist without the enslavement and subjugation of black people, and we as Asian Americans have often been complicit in the continuation of their oppression..............In two of the earliest Supreme Court cases regarding the citizenship of people of color, the plaintiffs argued that as Japanese and Indian Americans respectively, they were both closer to whiteness than Black or Indigenous people, and they were therefore more suited to be American citizens than other racial minorities. For many years, Asian Americans have attempted to claim whiteness and “model minority” status, often throwing black people under the bus along the way.

Ang's self-righteous indignation and moral grandstanding is cloying, not to mention morally suspect. The first issue is that Ang suggests that the very presence of Asians in the US is an implicit reinforcement of white racism -  which is silly. I could argue the point, but since Ang does not bother making a meaningful argument and merely asserts her claims, that would give her charges more credence than they deserve. It is the sentiment that is important here - Asians are complicit merely because of the fact of their presence.

The second issue - and this is slightly off topic - is that she looks down her self-righteous nose at the actions of people who lived at a time when everyone (even those with black heritage) was trying to pass for white. Her moral condemnation of people who lived under circumstances that we cannot even come close to imagining is simply sickening because it is so obviously a self-serving attempt to elevate her own delusion of moral superiority.

Another piece written by jazz musician Vijay Iyer, implies a similar embrace of white supremacy by Asians merely via the act of succeeding...

Whether you attribute it to some mysterious triple package or to your own Horatio Alger story, to succeed in America is, somehow, to be complicit with the idea of America—which means that at some level you’ve made peace with its rather ugly past.

I grant that Iyer's piece is more sophisticated and nuanced than some others that I have read, but even in this case, the theme of an implicit disadvantage for blacks when Asians succeed creeps in. It should be mentioned that everyone has to make peace with America's ugly past - if they did not, they would leave or withdraw from the game - the problem with Iyer's claim is that he conflates America's past with the "idea of America", and concludes, nonsensically, that to embrace one is to accept the other.

Over and over again, we see Asian progressives asserting or implying that Asians succeed at the expense of blacks and, worse, that this success is achieved with sneaky complicity and collusion with white racism. Of course, none of these assertions are ever supported by evidence of any kind, and at best, Asian progressives will gift us with a personal anecdote to buttress their claims.

Given the ubiquity of these kinds of articles, it is far from unreasonable to consider the adoption of similar rhetoric by white conservatives and right-wingers as connected in some way, after all, they didn't start bringing all of these ideas into their dialogue until Asian progressives started spewing it first. The problem is that if our Asian advocates are correct in their claims, then Donald Trump is justified in seeking to limit Asians in tech by abolishing the H-1B visa program and Jeb Bush is correct to question things like Asian anchor babies as being specifically detrimental to America - after all, even though Hispanic anchor babies are more numerous, no one is claiming that the mere presence of Hispanics in this country is implicitly disadvantageous to blacks.

Anti-Asian Pogrom?

The Looting of Asian Businesses In Baltimore. 

The high-profile shootings of unarmed black men by the police in recent months has brought the state of black/Asian relations to the fore of progressives' discourse - at least for Asian-Americans. Although much has been written over the past several months by Asian-American commentators - often with titles like "Why Asians should care about such and such a black issue" - attempting to forge a narrative of a common black/Asian political and social agenda, it has been noticeable that pretty much all of the commentary to forge this partnership of visible minorities has been done by Asians, with apparently little being said by the other half of the alliance.

Perhaps there does exist an extensive body of work and conceptual analyses that envision a mutual black/Asian power block from an African-American perspective, but so it seems not to be a high priority for them. It seems as though Asians are more invested in the alliance than their black counterparts. The one area where Asian advocates and their black cohorts seem to be in perfect alignment is in their response to reports of anti-Asian sentiment that seemed to creep into the Baltimore riots following the killing of Freddie Gray. In short, the reports of alleged targeting of Asian businesses and the subsequent destruction of many of them have largely been ignored by both Asian-Americans and African-American commentators alike.

The first report that hinted that Asians were being targeted came from the respected news source, NPR, whose piece, although brief, offered a clear picture of the tensions that seem to exist between Asian merchants and the black community in some parts of Baltimore hit by riots. The NPR article notes that although there are those in the black community who have positive and even close relationships with Asian shopkeepers, there are others who harbor resentments and view Asians as interlopers who "give nothing back" to the community.

At least forty-two Korean-owned stores were looted and/or destroyed in the area whilst reports suggest that black-owned businesses were protected and spared. It could certainly be argued that evidence for racially driven looting is inconclusive, although the  main reason for that could be that there seems to be little interest or motivation to actually thoroughly investigate either the experiences of Asian merchants, or claims of racially motivated targeting of their stores. But most noticeable of all is that Asian-American advocacy seems to have no stance, opinion, or point of view regarding this apparent targeting of Asian stores by some black locals.

The best that we seem to have come up with is the effort of progressive CNN writer, Jeff Yang, whose piece seems more concerned that America will get the wrong impression about the character of the riots whilst completely avoiding any hint of empathy for the Asian-American victims of a brutal and terrifying pogrom. It is this disconnect between those who act as spokespeople for Asian-Americans, and those Asian-Americans who have the least political and social clout but who find themselves in the no-man's land of America's racial dialogue that I find troubling.

This disconnect allows Asian merchants - who are most often immigrants with poor English language skills, and who are amongst the poorest and most vulnerable group within Asian-America - to be repeatedly excluded from the dialogue on their own experience. Instead, their experience is lost and diminished (and even "gaslighted")  in narratives put forward by progressives such as Yang who exhort us to accept the big picture that effectively leaves targeted Asian merchants as necessary collateral damage in the fight against anti-blackness. Yang quotes Jennifer Lee  thusly....

..the mainstream media continues to pit minority groups against one another to draw attention from larger structural problems that plague poor, disadvantaged communities. By directing our attention to interminority conflict, it directs blame away from the structures that perpetuate gross inequality and toward individual problems.

As you can see, there is no mention of the human tragedy experienced by Asian merchants nor of their looted and destroyed livelihoods - it seems to be forgotten that Asian immigrants often count as poor, disadvantaged and vulnerable. It is probably true that the media promotes this narrative of inter-ethnic conflict - most probably because it makes for exciting viewing as much as for the purpose of deflecting attention away from real social issues - yet, that does not mean that we should ignore the very real possibility that there are elements in black America who harbor racial bias and hostility towards Asians.

The problem is that there is no reason to believe that any anti-Asian sentiment would be assuaged by an improved economic situation, or even that such sentiments are the result of dire economic circumstances. Adhering to this belief ignores the larger picture of xenophobic anti-Asian sentiment in American society that blames Asian economies for taking jobs, resources, and prestige away from Americans who are more deserving of it. The parallels with sentiments expressed by African-Americans are striking - the idea that Asians are taking an economic slice of the pie that rightfully belongs to African-Americans by operating in black neighbourhoods, Asians are taking jobs from locals by unfairly self-employing, and Asians are flaunting their prosperity by looking down their noses at locals, all speak of an entitlement complex that is too similar to mainstream America's negative attitudes towards Asia to be so easily dismissed.

Yang...

....there's little evidence to suggest a pattern in which Asian businesses have been actively targeted out of racial animus.......Instead, it seems as if Asian-owned stores have experienced damage partly because they make up a portion of establishments operating in the most economically vulnerable and socially volatile of neighborhoods. In other words, they were collateral damage, along with other stores in the vicinity of riots.

This is extremely insulting to those Korean-Americans whose stores were destroyed in Baltimore. Does there have to be a pattern of racial animus for racist hate-crimes to be considered as such? The NPR piece that Yang is responding to explicitly reported eyewitness accounts where Asian stores were the only ones targeted.....

But on this particular stretch - picture three treeless blocks of row houses, a lot of them boarded up - the only shops that were targeted were ones owned by Asian immigrants - mostly Koreans.

Speaking of racial animus, one local had this to say......

It's almost like payback, I guess you could say.......For all of the unspoken things that has happened between those businesses and our people, I feel like it was payback.

So, yes, the NPR piece does provide us with sufficient reason to believe that (at least in some cases) Asian stores were specifically targeted and that it was the result of racial animus. Whether or not this constitutes a "pattern" of any kind is completely irrelevant and I think Yang is intelligent enough to know that just because not all looters were targeting Asians stores does not remove the possibility that some were. The absence of a pattern of racial animus in no way precludes incidents of racial animus.

What I find most appalling about the Yang quote above is that he seems perfectly happy to hand-wave away these possible incidents of racial animus (that destroyed people's lives) in order to refocus our attention on what he terms the "real issues". In case he hasn't noticed, racism in America is a real issue and for those Koreans whose stores do seem to have been targeted, it was a very real issue, but Yang has presumed the moral authority to school us on what should really matter to us and whose suffering we should prioritize. That's easy for him to say and it seems his conscience permits him to view the livelihoods of targeted Korean merchants as a price he is willing to pay - all, I suspect from the comfort of a safe neighbourhood that is patrolled by a racist police force. The Koreans on the other hand might not be so thrilled and I don't find this sanctimonious posturing to be particularly ethical either.

Yang's piece gives absolutely no indication that he knows enough about the circumstances of the people or circumstances of that community whose experiences he, remarkably, presumes to be knowledgeable enough of to frame for us. He simply does not seem to have sufficient information to dismiss any reports of racial animus or what seem to be reports of clear incidents of targeting of Asian stores.

Yet, he has presented his piece (and himself) as authoritative on what was happening in a community which he seems to have no first-hand experience of nor does he seem to have actually gone to Baltimore to investigate whether the claims made by NPR are true or not. Thus, I fail to see on what grounds he was able to so thoroughly dismiss the NPR report. His only argument seems to be that we should dismiss claims of racial tension in Baltimore since the media has in the past - and does still - stoke the flames of urban violence with hyperbolic reporting on inter-ethnic tensions, 

It should go without saying that hyperbole does not mean untrue and that just because tensions are melodramatically reported, does not mean they should be dismissed outright.

Interestingly, the NPR piece is actually far from being hyperbolic - if anything it seems balanced and presents several different perspectives. What the NPR report showed was that there are African-Americans in the community who view Asian merchants with great fondness, while others are hateful. No hyperbole there.

I genuinely believe that most African-Americans - even in poor neighbourhoods that are subject to oppressive policing - do not harbour anti-Asian hostility. And I would even suggest that for many (hopefully most) African-Americans, these Asian-owned stores provide an important and convenient service to the local community. If this was not the case, then it is hard to explain how some of these Asian stores could remain in business for the years and decades that they have if they were such terrible racists as some locals suggested. But Yang's approach to frantically dismiss any and all suggestions of racially motivated looting merely plays into the hands of the hyperbolic mainstream media.

It could be that be that one reason the media is even able to stoke racial tensions between blacks and Asians is because prominent Asian-American journalists like Yang marginalize the racial experiences of Asian merchants in black neighbourhoods. The vacuum is naturally filled by the mainstream media. As far as I know, no prominent Asian-American journalist has even bothered to report on what these 42 Korean merchants went through. So don't complain and freak out when the mainstream media does the work of giving these marginalized, invisible, and neglected members of Asian-America a voice and then shape what they say to suit their own racial agenda (although the NPR piece didn't actually do that). Maybe, if Asians themselves were to include these merchants in the narrative of vulnerable communities then the mainstream media would not have the opportunity to take advantage of their invisibility?

I don't agree that Yang's proclaimed "real issues" should exclude the suffering or hardships experienced by Asian merchants in depressed areas. If people are looking to these merchants to be part of the solution to urban dysfunction then it is logical to include them as part of the "real issues" - particularly when their stores are targeted by resentful looting mobs. Losing your livelihood is a real issue and, by its silence or casual dismissals, the Asian media is complicit in protecting, defending, and excusing those who perpetrate these kinds of crimes against Asian merchants. 

Killing Us Softly With Words.

Storytelling Asians To Death.

In a previous post I touched upon the idea that Asian "maleness" has, at best, a second-class status in American culture. For Asian men growing up in the US, the stories that American culture tells itself about us are typically demeaning and xenophobic, or combative and hostile. Naturally, many Asian men feel a sense of cultural and social marginalization that their humanity is demeaned, and their masculinity is afforded scarce cultural space to find expression or validation. Subsequently, ideas of masculine identity seem to recur as themes amongst Asian men and with it notions of their "place" and sense of acceptance in this society. One way that culture fosters an inclusive identity is through the narratives of storytelling.

Stories and narratives ground people in culture providing a profound sense of connectedness and identity by offering readers, listeners, or viewers, the opportunity to identify with characters - and the scenarios they find themselves in - so they are able to firmly place themselves into that narrative and hence the culture it reflects, represents, and describes. On the flipside, in order for these narratives to have cohesive power, they must provide a narrative of what this identity does not represent - that is, a set of contrasting qualities that clearly define what they are not equally as strongly as depictions which powerfully reinforce and shape ideas of what they are. Often, this set of undesirable qualities are embodied and visualized in the form of Asian men so, naturally, they perhaps find little sense of inclusion, and certainly little sense of visibility, in this cultural narrative.

One thing is certain, many Asian men feel that there is scarce acceptance of them save for specific situations where they fit the pre-conceived notions of the mainstream (and mainstreamed) community around them. But while Asians have long campaigned against the culture of stereotype and the media that propagates it, new research highlights the degree to which constant, one-sided and one-dimensional, media depictions might profoundly condition society to hold deeply ingrained racist attitudes (and, hence, behaviours) towards Asians. All of this happens through the very simple process of storytelling.

According to this article, new research presents the intriguing possibility that narratives actually create biological changes in a reader or listener......

[after reading a given passage] fMRI....scans showed....heightened connectivity in the left temporal cortex, an area of the brain associated with receptivity for language, on the mornings following the reading assignments.....[and]..Heightened connectivity was also seen in the central sulcus of the brain, the primary sensory motor region of the brain. Neurons of this region have been associated with making representations of sensation for the body, a phenomenon known as grounded cognition. Just thinking about running, for instance, can activate the neurons associated with the physical act of running.

What is not known is how long these changes remain in effect, but if these changes are temporary, it seems reasonable to wonder if a continuous narrative on any given subject might effectively prolong these biological changes.

As stated above, "grounded cognition", is a physical response created merely by thinking about something; if you "think about running, then you can activate the neurons associated with the physical act of running". It should follow that if the majority of narratives about Asians denigrate and dehumanize, then you think of Asians as dehumanized, and as little more than a collection of demeaning and distasteful qualities, and that there would be a corresponding physical reaction of distaste that reinforces the emotional and ethical distancing from Asians with every depiction?

So, given that American culture runs a repetitive narrative that depicts demeaning attitudes and behaviours towards Asians as normal, ethically neutral, or morally justified, it raises the possibility that this is, in fact, an "association" process that ingrains anti-Asian attitudes down to a physical level. This means that if Asians are repeatedly depicted most forcefully and memorably in ways that portray them as a threat and, therefore, as the recipients of justified violent retribution, or as objects of ridicule, then any physically conditioned responses - "gut reactions", if you will, albeit unconscious - would surely be ones of distaste and withdrawal of moral empathy merely as a consequence of this conditioned response.

This is clearly and inadvertently illustrated in an interesting video on YouTube (pertinent part starts at 8:20) in which Chinese-American award-winning journalist - Ti Hua Chang - talks about his experiences trying to make it in the media industry. At one point in his career, he is told - by a well-meaning mentor - that audiences would not embrace him because whenever he sees an Asian man, he has an uncomfortable physical response that he associates with distasteful notions about Asian men.

Other research into the human mind provides us with even more food for thought. According to research done at the Max Planck Institute, decisions (and, therefore, I would presume, responses) are made several seconds before we become conscious of them. That is, whatever conditioning we may have received throughout the course of our lives - and that must include neurolo-physiological conditioning of narratives - must play a role in how we respond to, and make behavioural decisions about, people and things around us. But it is seemingly a mostly unconscious process.

So, human beings become aware of decisions several seconds after they are made, these decisions are thus largely physiological processes (becoming conscious later) and thus probably, at least, in part conditioned by cultural narratives. Such narratives elicit a physical response in listeners, and America's cultural narratives concerning Asians are largely one-sidedly dehumanizing and demeaning. That means that casual, even "jokey", anti-Asian cultural racism has the potential to shape and condition racist behaviours on an extremely profound level, such that it gets to the point that even when Asians are not depicted negatively, the physically reinforced emotional gut-reaction is, because of conditioning, a negative one.

One way that Asians have responded to these demeaning depictions has been to protest racist media narratives, although it has to be said that given the possibilities outlined in this essay, it seems like a terrible mismatch of comprehension to respond to ingrained, physical response-inducing derogatory narratives, with our usual ubiquitous meek challenge of "we're offended". Although this advocacy has been valuable in the extreme, my sense is that there has to be a "second arm" to the struggle against dehumanizing narratives, which consists of a kind of personal responsibility. What I mean by this is that, as individuals, we can take responsibility of our own personal narratives simply because a good way to overcome powerful denigrating stories is to tell better stories about ourselves. Another way of saying this is that fostering creativity (and the narratives it produces) is possibly one of the most powerful avenues to supersede the denigrating narratives that this culture tells about us.

Strangely, the goal here is not to change the minds of people who have, perhaps, barely conscious ingrained racist responses to us, but rather, create an equally powerful ingrained conditioning within ourselves that contextualizes our experiences as men within this society. After all, these derogatory narratives must also leave their mark on young Asian boys growing up in this culture which conceives of them as the embodiment of all that a man should not be. This process would involve creating personal narratives in the form of metaphors that serve as the basis for the kind of heroic "myths" that any conscious being must hold about themselves which serve to provide an all-important sense of transcendent purpose that is integral to the human condition.

That, in a nutshell, is the nature of this culture's prejudice against Asian men - cultural marginalization and its narrative of dehumanization offers scarce space for cultural participation in one of the most fundamental aspects of human life; transcendence myths that are the basis for aspiration, and which assists in the formation of a contextual identity. Oddly, it seems that one of the best possibilities for advocacy for Asian men, comes in the form of simply telling more compelling stories.

H/T Alpha Asian for Ti-Hua Chang video.

Don't Mention The War!

Afro/Asian Solidarity.

There was an old British sit-com that I used to enjoy called "Fawlty Towers", and one of my favourite episodes was called "The Germans". To cut a long story short, the protagonist of the show who runs a seaside hotel, is under so much stress to make his German guests happy and not offend them, that he actually ends up doing just that.

An article on an Asian-American activist blog called "Critical Spontaneity" caught my attention recently because it reminded me of that episode. Titled "Can Afro-Asian Solidarity Exist?", the post sought to address two main issues that the author felt related to Afro-Asian solidarity as brought up by a Twitter conversation on the subject; Asian Anti-Black Racism, and (our old friend!) Asian Privilege.

On Asian anti-black racism....

One of the most salient critiques mentioned was that there can be no solidarity between Asian Americans and African Americans because of the discrimination towards African Americans by Asian Americans. Asian Americans were criticized for profiting off anti-black ideologies and aligning themselves with white supremacist norms............As a group, we agree that this is and has been a serious problem within the AAPI community.

In order to address this issue, the author suggests that we (the Asians) ask ourselves the following...

* Are we simply asking to be accepted and tolerated within a country that has exploited, enslaved, and committed genocide against people of color, or do we seek to reject white appeasement in its entirety? 

* Recent activism and scholarship in Asian American Studies and AAPI communities has been critical of early AAPI movements, which were critiqued for being assimilationist, domestically centered, and for constructing an Asian American subject that was predominantly heterosexual and male, thus ignoring the diversity of AAPI subject identities. From this standpoint, how do we act in order to achieve these more radical goals? 

* Despite the historical differences that AAPI and African Americans have experienced in the U.S., how can we jointly organize around shared interests and goals that speak to investments in civil rights and social justice issues?

My first thought is that I don't see much advocacy for Asians in the above statement of intent - problematic if you are an Asian activism blogger. In fact, there is no advocacy for Asians in the above statement of intent, only unsubstantiated accusations of discrimination perpetrated by Asians that the author acknowledges as being a "serious problem within the AAPI community". With advocates like that, who needs oppressors! Of course, it is untrue - and a little silly - to imply that any lack of solidarity between blacks and Asians is solely the result of rampant serious discrimination on the part of Asians. As a matter of fact, that is itself a racist accusation.

I am being asked to believe that either the black/Asian relationship is in no way partially shaped by anti-Asian racism in the black community, or that anti-Asian racism does not exist in the black community. Both of these ideas are nonsense, but somehow the quest for solidarity between the two groups requires that even though this racism almost certainly exists, I am required to pretend that it does not. This is a poor basis upon which to build a healthy coalition of advocacy. No relationship ever worked out when one of the parties had to deny a significant aspect of their life experience, and hence their identity.

Oddly enough, this approach is actually a kind of "closeting" of the Asian experience of black racism,  like the kid who is molested by his or her father and is then told by the mother not to say anything to anyone because to do so would break up the family. Yes, it is that sick. I actually can't help but get the feeling that some activist's concern lies more in earning street cred and being "down with the homies" than any real drive to explore the issue of solidarity in a meaningful way that is less agenda-driven.

A good example of this is the second point in the list of contritious acts that Asians must undergo so that Asian-American activists can save face in the eyes of their black activist cohorts. According to Park (the blog author is named Suey Park), early AAPI movements have been judged to have been less credible than previously thought because they have been found guilty of being assimilationist. Park doesn't mention any names, but it seems to me that early AAPI movements were far more radical than the present crop, whose radicalism, ironically, seems to consist of steering the assimilation ship into blackness and away from the white, yet still, frustratingly, devoid of an autonomous Asian-ness. So, instead of the invisibility of assimilation into whiteness, we should become invisible within blackness. Either way, we remain invisible but instead of downplaying white anti-Asian racism - which many of us do in order to prosper - we should downplay black racism. I suppose that could thought of as a form of equality.

By way of conclusion....

As a group, we reject the historical racisms perpetuated against the black community in the United States and call on our community to deeply interrogate the reasons behind these racisms, and to find ways to combat it. Without this, we will not be able to achieve any form of solidarity with other people of color.

That is a tall order. Asians - as a general observation - don't even deeply interrogate the reasons behind anti-Asian racisms (as evidenced by the article under review) let alone find ways to combat it. But even more naive is the idea that in order to prove themselves, Asians can brainstorm and find a solution to something that very smart people have been working on for a very long time and for the most part come up short - how to combat racism. There is a tragedy about this way of thinking - not unlike the idea of the Chinaman's chance - in which a bar is set so high in the full knowledge that it can never be reached.

But there is a deeper problem with Park's piece; solidarity amongst Asians themselves is nebulous to say the least, and we have not really figured out how to create that solidarity between the various Asian ethnic groups, classes, genders, and generations. In fact, some of these demographics seem to be at odds or warring with each other on a regular basis with no real coming together in sight. There probably cannot be Afro/Asian solidarity because there is not really an Asian solidarity, even on seemingly fundamental issues like our experience of racism. I would like to hear more ideas on how Asians can resolve their own lack of solidarity before I can be sold on the the efficacy of Afro/Asian solidarity. If Asians the issue of solidarity is not resolved, then how am I supposed to believe that the points suggested in the article are feasible?

Having said that, one way that we could approach solidarity with black America is to speak about our own experiences of racial victimization, with the expectation that these experiences will be respected instead of being minimized as secondary to, and less credible forms of suffering than, the greater suffering of black Americans. And this is not being facetious. Understanding between peoples emerges out of a genuine dialogue in which both parties are honest about who they are, what they have experienced, and what they want. If we are required to be silent about black anti-Asian racism in order to be accepted, then that is not real solidarity, that is merely an unhealthy relationship. You can observe this unhealthiness taking shape in the second part of the article that deals with Asian privilege.

When writing about Asian privilege, Park is eager to deny its existence but, for me, whether it actually exists is less important (hardly important at all, in fact) than why the accusation of its existence exists. A feature of anti-Asian racism is that its credibility is questioned. That is to say that anti-Asian prejudice is downplayed, and given secondary significance to racism experienced by any other minority group and even perhaps to racism experienced by white people. The reasoning is that Asians are successful (really?) so talking about anti-Asian racism is unnecessary. But this is just plain silly.

If we abided by this reasoning, then any ethnic minority individual should lose their right to complain about racism once they reach a certain income level. This means that only poor people can complain about racial prejudice - so when someone like Forest Whitaker cries racism we should all remind him of his wealth and how much privilege this affords him and tell him to live with it. Of course, this just isn't done - except when Asians are the victims.

So, what this means is that calling on Asian privilege is merely another way of normalizing anti-Asian prejudice - by deflecting attention away from our experiences of racism, and downplaying their impact on the basis that it is offset by high average incomes. Citing average incomes are the dishonest but popular way of delivering this form of anti-Asian racism, particularly in the oppression Olympics. No, if high incomes lessen the impact of racism - as Asians are often told it does - then it should lessen the impact for every minority individual who has a high income. Defending against notions of Asian privilege gives the nonsensical basis for the accusation far more seriousness than it deserves. If someone wants to play the privilege card, then that is often tantamount to using a racial slur against us.

In summary, any movement towards Afro/Asian solidarity is doomed to failure if the marriage is based on one side denying its experience whilst taking the blame for all the pathologies in the relationship. Even more problematic is the fact that without Asians experiencing solidarity amongst their own disparate groups, we don't actually have a good model upon which to conceive of a healthy solidarity with any other group. We don't need to own or defend our "privilege" because no other minority individuals who have achieved economic success are required to do so, and neither is any suggestion made that economic success makes such individual's experience of racism any less significant.

Furthermore, as I alluded to here this idea of declaring contrition for privilege, makes for good rhetoric, but poor inspiration. This is because other factors - like compassion, a sense of justice, and empathy - are more likely to foster solidarity than the simplistic jingoism of accusing random Asians of privilege and demanding that they seek atonement for it at the altar of black suffering. That approach is doomed to failure.

But I'm Not Chinese Or Japanese!

Pan-Asianism - Not So Scary, Not So New.

In a previous post I suggested that Asian male athletes, for some reason, have served as occasional catalysts for spontaneous expressions of unity amongst Asian-Americans, and that this suggests that Asian male empowerment is an essential component in establishing a uniquely Asian-American identity. One of the commenters on that post made mention of the idea of Pan-Asianism, which I suppose was something implied in that post, given the idea of Asian-Americans "cross-referencing" their identification with different ethnicities.

A commenter made the following comment which I thought was probably fairly representative of what many Asian-Americans feel.....

I used to dislike the concept of "Asian Americans." I was proud of my ethnicity, but I didn't like the idea that I should feel some kind of kinship with, say, a Taiwanese and a Filipino just because we were "Asian," an identity that's been dictated to us by White Americans.

I have also had this feeling - frustrated that my experience was defined by who I was not, rather than who I was. That is to say, that the idea of "Asian" as represented by the plethora of stereotypes and xenophobic hostilities deriving largely from fears of growing Chinese or Japanese economic and political muscle. As an Asian of non-Chinese or Japanese origin, I felt that part of my struggle was to assert my separateness from these concepts of Asian-ness, by, perhaps, asserting the "different-ness" of the various Asian ethnicities and cultures and blah, blah, and so on and so forth. But I learned pretty early on in my early teens that this approach is actually disempowering and sets one on a path of constantly tweeking the perceptions of those around you without actually addressing the main issue of the implicit and explicit dehumanization that such attitudes carry with them.

Some respond by downplaying or rejecting commonality in favour of an assertion of specific identity (most of us have probably done this), but some also respond by decrying the very notion of "Asia" as an identifier or even as an entity, and suggest that "Asia" is merely a Western concept that implicitly denies agency of Asian peoples to self-identify. Strangely, whilst I think that both of these ideas are fair reactions that have a place in the dialogue, as well as reflect (in the case of the use of the term "Asia") a historical reality, they might well be an incomplete way of understanding Asian identity and the Asian historical narrative.

Whilst it is definitely true that the term "Asia" is a western designation, that in no way changes the fact that prior to western involvement in the region, there existed a healthy and vibrant state of interaction between Asian peoples and nations which involved an exchange of cultures, languages, and ideas. Naturally, conflicts and wars took place between these people, but just as importantly, philosophical and religious ideas spread across the region between Asian countries carried by ancient trading routes, which also saw the movement of peoples between nations. Aside from being historically interesting, the point here, is that this fact of a regional commonality, defined by peaceful exchanges of ideas, and driven by vibrant trade, existed for centuries before the west showed up to teach us our place in the world.

It is well known that Chinese merchants and their families were settling all over SouthEast Asia (and, apparently, without the ethnic strife we see today) for centuries, Indian influence throughout SouthEast Asia shaped language, culture and religion, interactions between India and China over the centuries paved the way for the exchange of world-changing philosophical and religious ideas and their dissemination. Asians have been interacting and influencing each other for centuries. This is not to say that there were any notions of an "Asia" with a specific identity - there may have been, but history has not really explored this possibility - but it is to say that Asian cultures were influencing each other, and learning about each other such that it might be possible to suggest that without western colonial aggression, a more cohesive notion of regional commonality could have developed, and with it, a regional identity.

The point is this; just because "Asia" is a term that has been foisted on the region by imperial powers, it does not mean that the idea of commonality, the possibilities of union, or the history of cross-cultural and ethnic relations should be overlooked or rejected. In a culture that conceives of Asians as de-individuated and their cultures as fundamentally interchangeable, it might seem expedient or necessary to want to challenge these notions as a way of asserting identity, and this may well be appropriate in some cases. The issue is that doing this often misses the opportunity to assert an even greater truth; Asian identity, commonality, and inter-relations, pre-date western interference, and thus removes from the consciousness - derived from the habit of colonial thinking - the very powerful notion that the modern Asian "identity" is in some ways an entirely western invention. This notion is a distortion of history and since the historical experience is one of the most important pillars of cultural endeavour, and hence identity, not taking ownership of this history when the opportunity arises, is tantamount to impeding the development of an Asian-American culture. It is the anxieties of racist xenophobia that has rendered suspicious or undesirable any commonality between Asian cultures and ethnicities

This highlights just how insidious are the effects of anti-Asian racism; the implicit dehumanization of identifying an entire region of diverse people as merely "Asian", leaves many an Asian reacting in such a way that implicitly downplays the very thing that they should be celebrating - any sense of commonality between varying nations and cultural groups that moves people towards greater mutual understanding and respect is surely a good thing.  Another way of saying this, is that Asian-Americans, in addition to being made to feel ashamed of their own race, are also made to feel ashamed of their historical connection and inter-relatedness with neighbouring peoples and cultures. In turn, this means that Asian-Americans are quite possibly conditioned to be suspicious of their own historical experience, but worse, be suspicious of a process of unity that when applied to Western nations (union of Europe and US/European "commonality") is viewed with great pride that union and recognition of commonality leads to peacefulness and prosperity.

For Asian-Americans - a group whose loyalties are often casually called into question - it could well be that the idea of supporting a strong, independent, and co-operative Asia runs counter to our claims of being true and loyal Americans. But this only makes sense if it is accepted that Asia, Asian prosperity, and Asian cultures, are implicitly and irrevocably doomed to be incompatible, and at odds, with the western cultures which we call home and to which we are truly loyal. Yet, given that modern western thought and the secular Enlightenment that brought it about were influenced heavily by Confucian, humanist, ethics, and thought, belies this notion of incompatibility. Additionally, the adoption and great affection in the west for Buddhist teachings and practices further casts doubt on these ideas. No, incompatibility is not a reasonable argument, and there are no reasosns why a prosperous, united Asia, would, or should be even considered to be an insurmountably threatening entity - unless of course, there are other, racially xenophobic considerations to take into account.

My point is that I see no reason why as an American of Asian descent I should not be as proud or motivated to encourage my country - America - to support and welcome "Pan-Asianism", or Asian union, as much as it supports and welcomes European unity. Unity in Europe has brought unprecedented peace and unprecedented prosperity - surely Asians should work towards this goal also, and Americans of Asian descent even more?

Of course, it is precisely because America seems to see itself as engaged in an existential battle with Asian economic might that it views Asian unity as a problem, and this stance may well be the result of irrational xenophobia. But perhaps that could be a significant contribution that Asian-Americans make to the culture of America that through our acceptance of the historical commonality of Asian peoples and cultures, and the development of this notion through an autonomous culture, we can pave the way for an America that is less parochial in its Euro-Centrism.

The Western World And Asian Racism

 A Strained Advocacy.

I came across an interesting article written in 2012, by a Caucasian woman (Julia Bass) who had lived in Korea, in which she draws attention to South Korean racial attitudes towards foreigners, and all non-Koreans, and to be perfectly honest I had to laugh. Don't get me wrong, racism is a bad thing regardless of who is perpetrating it, but a fair amount of the racism that she describes seemed to be actually identical to the kind complaints about racism that Asian (and perhaps other minorities) speak out about, and for which we are told to stop being so sensitive, or "it's just a joke", or even "stop complaining, blacks have it worse". After further reading on this subject from the point of view of white ex-pats, I could not help but notice how eager these guys were to play the race card in describing their experiences.

First of all, to put the Julia bass piece in context; at the end of her piece, it is noted that she spent one year (yes, one whole year) living and teaching in South Korea. Now as an ex-pat myself, and someone who knows a lot of ex-pats, I can say with some fair degree of certainty that it is impossible to truly gauge the character and attitudes of a foreign people or culture. This is especially true when you move to a country that has a radically different cultural and historical experience to the one you came from and the language is alien or unfamiliar. Most of the ex-pats I know (many of whom have foreign service careers and move to a different country every three to five years) will tell you that it takes between six months and a full year to actually settle in and even hope to begin becoming familiar with the local culture and character of the people. So, right up front, I question the impressions of someone who most likely didn't stay long enough to even settle in properly. In reality, these observations actually sound superficial and little more than the usual litany of (ironically) racial and cultural stereotypes that get thrown around about Asia and its people.

In response to a news piece widely condemned as racist by race-sensitive ex-pats that was aired on Korean television (a video I referred to here) Bass has this to say......

"the issue has everything to do with every foreigner. Each time I walk down the street and people take a second look at me, I wonder ... I've seen the video, maybe they've seen it too ... do they think something is wrong with me? Am I actually unwanted in my quaint, peaceful town of Yeoju that I've come to call home for the last 10 months? I'm not a western man with a Korean lady attached to my arm, but that isn't the point. I'm an outsider to them, and now I'm an outsider who is associated with messages like this one. Moreover, messages that my students will see and will affect the way they see me."

I can relate. Perhaps it is true what Asian-American have been saying for years - and according to Bass, the ex-pat community of Korea agreed - that racism in the media and cultural stereotyping have the potential to shape racist attitudes and racist behaviours towards those targeted by it.

Bass also voices concern for the plight of Korean women...

"Another upsetting component in this video is the way Korean women are dealt with. Phrases like "our women" are not only objectifying, possessive, and archaic, they also paint a picture of women who lack self-respect or intelligence—a picture I can whole-heartedly argue is untrue. Women here—although a little too obsessed with skin whitening cream and hand mirrors for my taste—are decisive, altruistic, and highly intelligent."

Actually if you watch the video in question (here) you might actually think that some of those Korean women were, in fact, lacking self-respect, but also note the sly dig at Korean women in that last sentence. On the other hand, I might be a little more empathetic with the plight of white dudes if I did not already know that there is a culture of gendered racism directed at Korean men by ex-pats whose apparent aim is to control the choices of "their" western women with scary, xenophobic, racist, contradictory stories about the asexual/ sexual predatory Korean men. As I noted here, there seems to be a mode of thinking that excuses white racial attitudes towards Koreans (especially Korean men) by using sexism to justify racism.

But there are some observers trying to address the subject objectively. Here is another article in the online magazine "The Diplomat", that addresses the subject of racism in Korea, and - to its credit - the article does attempt to add perspective by noting that ex-pat complaints of racism might perhaps be attributed to mere miscommunication (and my guess is that exaggeration is a problem too) and that their complaints pale in comparison to those of the workers and immigrants from South and SouthEast Asia who bear the brunt of racism there. I also understand that Asian-Americans of Korean descent have sometimes been considered suspect by Korean society, but white culture has a history of appropriating the experiences of other groups and re-making it in their own image.

Perhaps the best and most eloquent analysis of white-ex-pat claims of racism in Korea has been outlined in a post written by an African-American woman who spent some time in the country. She writes...

What I've found is that essentially white teachers really exaggerate how bad racism in Korea. At least from the black perspective it’s exaggerated because in our home countries we have to deal with it, so when we come here, for better or for worse, we're used to it. We’re used to people gawking. We’re used to people assuming negative things about us. Of course, we’re used to discrimination based on the color of our skin.

An interesting, although not altogether unsurprising, perspective. Those who are familiar with my blog might recognize this idea of exaggerating things about Asia and Asian people as a characteristic of the way that American (and perhaps all English-speaking) cultures condition their societies with negative bias towards Asians. But it is not just Korea where the ex-pats seem race-conscious.

Japan also, receives its fair share of ex-pat complaints of racism. In a recent incident that received a fair amount of mainstream press in the US, an American teacher in Japan came under fire from so-called nationalists for trying to teach his students about Japan's history of discrimination. The first thing about this story is that the backlash came mostly over the internet after the teacher had posted a YouTube video, and that the teacher in question (an American of Japanese dissent) was given the support of his school, and - as far as I know - continues to teach this subject at the school. From my point of view the fact that the school vice-principal agreed that the lesson was a good thing, and that he received no complaints, tells a far different story than the one inferred in the article. The vice-principal says this...

The vice principal of the school said he wished more Japanese students could hear the lesson. Dezaki didn't get a single complaint. No one accused him of being an enemy of Japan.

That sounds very encouraging to me, yet, it is anonymous internet complaints that receive the attention. But, as I mentioned before, exaggeration of negative qualities in Asian people and cultures is a hallmark of how American culture conditions its people to conceive negatively  of, and behave towards, Asians, whilst overlooking positives. Compare, for instance, this story out of Seattle, in which a teacher was transferred from his post to another school after receiving a complaint for teaching American students about racism. Does America, or its people, really have anything to offer Japan about teaching racism in the school curriculum?

In a recent post, I reviewed a book called "Driven Out", which documented the hundreds of cases of pogroms perpetrated by mainly white mobs against the early Chinese immigrants to the US. During these riots and attacks, Chinese men were rounded up, beaten, murdered, and had their livelihoods destroyed by mobs driven by racial hatred, all under the watchful eye of law-enforcement officials, and with the explicit support of politicians going all the way up to the level of Congress. Yet, this period of history that lasted almost one-hundred years and ultimately paved the way for the internment of the Japanese in WWII, is absent in its entirety from American school books and the cultural consciousness, so much so, that Asian-Americans themselves are surprised to learn about it.

This is not to say that there is no racism in Japan, nor am I making the simplistic argument that "America does it too!". What I am saying is that we need to be aware that western ex-pat complaints of racism in Japan may carry with it westerners' own racial assumptions and intolerance for Asians that seem to be the standard cultural attitude in, at least, the English-speaking world. Plus, there is the ever present possibility of gross exaggeration that seems to typify western attitudes in general, and complaints in particular, about Asians and Asian racism. This is especially apparent when white ex-pats express horror at Japanese (and other Asian) attitudes towards black people, as complaints about racism towards blacks in China will illustrate.

Given that American culture seems to be geared towards suspicion of Asians in general, and recently, the Chinese in particular, it seems natural that China would receive its share of self-righteous western condemnation for being racist. What is interesting in this process is that we are able to witness the creation of racial and racist stereotypes as it happens. Apart from the generally understood meaning of "stereotype", there is another aspect of the process that goes unheralded but which we can see happening in the labeling of China as a country that is horribly racist towards blacks.

In America, (at least according to the often delusional stories the media tells about America) American quasi-values maintain that being racist towards blacks is morally reprehensible, and Americans are extremely uncomfortable accepting that anti-black racism is still an implicit aspect of American society. So, just like in every other instance of stereotyping, the worst aspects and qualities that Americans hate to see being pointed out about themselves (their prejudice against blacks), are projected onto another group, giving America the opportunity to assuage its own discomfort. In other words, in the case of American attitudes towards Asians, racism is used to justify racial stereotyping.

An article from July of this year, touches upon the experience of an African-American who lived and worked in China. He writes...

I taught English to Chinese people from all socio-economic backgrounds......By all accounts, my supervisors and other teachers respected my skills and knowledge in the classroom. Around 2003, however, I noticed a shift in the market and it became increasingly difficult for me to hold on to assigned classes. There were a number of complaints from students.......She told me I was an excellent teacher and could find little fault in my methods and teaching of the prescribed curriculum. Students just wanted a "different" teacher.....While on break, I overheard students speaking in Chinese about how they were paying so much money and wanted a white instructor. One student went so far as to say, "I don't want to look at his black face all night."

Another report from CNN, touches upon the same issues of discrimination and the uncomfortable relationship between black migrants to China and the local population. Clearly, some black people experience prejudice and discriminatory attitudes in China. Both articles go to great pains to highlight the historical background of China's attitudes towards dark skin, which they suggest may account for some of the negative experiences of blacks, reporting that white skin was considered beautiful and darker skin, not so much. While both articles - and others like it - highlight a significant issue, the focus on negative attitudes towards blacks in China indicates a simplistic, one-sided, aspect to China's ethnic story and reflects the inflexible perspectives in which America's attitudes towards race are structured.

The fact is, that even Americans of Asian descent are discriminated against in China, notably in school hiring procedures. This article from NBC News, reports on this very phenomenon, even quoting from a popular ex-pat forum on the apparent hierarchy of preferences for teachers in Chinese schools. In order of preference....

1. White Americans/Canadians  2. White British  3. White Australians/New Zealanders and South Africans  4. European Nonnatives/Black Americans/Black British  5. American Asians/Black Aussies (Australians) and Kiwis (New Zealanders)/Filipinos/Africans”

Notice that the perception amongst some ex-pats is that African-Americans are preferred over Asian-Americans. This phenomenon of discrimination towards Americans of Asian descent is documented here also. Clearly, Chinese attitudes towards blacks and race in general are far more complicated than the pejorative insinuations that China is "racist against blacks" would suggest. To be fair, the last word of the CNN article goes to another black ex-pat, who had lived in China for eight years, who has this to say....

"Yes, I've sometimes had people stare or touch my skin, as if to see whether it's going to rub off,". "But I think this comes from curiosity not negativity. Here I don't feel the racial tension I feel back home. I've done things, such as setting up my own geophysics company, which as I black woman I might not have been able to do in the States....."Yes, I'm treated differently from Chinese people. But here I'm different first, black second."

Now that is fair and it reflects the fundamental dishonesty, and perhaps ignorance, in trying to paint Chinese attitudes towards race as analogous to America's. As I pointed out in a previous post, racism and racial thinking are integral to the very identity of the concept of white, and it is contrasts of racial characteristics and supposed racial qualities, by which Europe has defined itself since the time of Classical Greece. Race is fundamental to the European (and hence "white) concept of themselves and it is racial physical and character traits that gave Europeans a sense of who they are, and their place in the world. Over the centuries, these archaic ideas of race were refined by subsequent intellectuals and race-thinkers, and gave us the modern world we have today. This is a far cry from the China's beauty standards that elevate light skin - a notion that derives more from a class chauvinism than racial prejudice - darker skin reflected poverty, not racial inferiority.

It may well be a measure of America's resistance to engaging with Asians in a genuine way that China's (as well as Korea's and Japan's) supposed racial prejudices are illustrated through its ambivalent attitudes towards blacks. America seems to be simply reluctant to acknowledge the depth of prejudice that it has had and continues to have towards Asian people. Even though it could be argued that in all of these countries, it is South and SouthEast Asians (and even Americans of Asian descent) who may well bear the brunt of racial discrimination, America's dehumanization of Asians, and its cultural proclivity to depict Asians on the margins of consideration at best, and beyond hope of commonality, may well prevent America's media from addressing Asia's race issues in a meaningful way. How can you genuinely show the plight of Asian victims of discrimination and expect empathy from your own culture when everything about your culture conditions people to actually conceive of Asians as monsters and beyond empathy? In this light, focusing on supposed anti-black racism gives America the chance to maintain its suspicion of hostility towards Asians, whilst presenting itself as the model for racial tolerance.

It is this last point that I find to be of interest; can America be a model for racial tolerance for Asian countries to emulate, particularly in the case of anti-black prejudice? Ostensibly, this is a no-brainer - after all civil rights, MLK and all that. Yet, blacks in America remain the poorest (due in part to prejudice in hiring), amongst the least educated, the most incarcerated, the most likely to be on death-row, make less money, and have shorter life-spans than whites. Plus, many police forces routinely target blacks - especially males - for harassment and random stops, and dozens of blacks die in police custody every year. Hispanics are not far behind either. In this light, I think that it is in the interests of African-Americans to beg China - and other Asian countries - not to look to America as the model for how to treat minorities.

It is for these reasons that I tend to think that the white media and the white voice has no place in the issue of racism in Asia. Firstly, what may be the most severe cases - against South and SouthEast Asians - are all but ignored, secondly, western criticisms often bear the characteristics, and are presented in a similar manner as inflammatory racial stereotyping, that is, one-sided, simplistic, and superficial, and thirdly, white Americans don't seem to have a realistic grasp of the depth and damage that white racism wreaks on ethnic minorities, so how can they advocate for something that they may not even seem to comprehend? That's not to say that all white people are like that - thankfully, there are voices of reason out there - but for the most part I would suggest that white America is out of touch with the experiences of its ethnic minorities.

Whilst I don't deny that racism may be a problem in Asian countries, I simply don't see how the west, and particularly America and Americans, can seriously present itself as a model for aspiration. In most western countries it is the dark-skinned and ethnic minorities who occupy the lowest rungs of the social ladder, and police harassment characterizes the experience of these communities. No, let's all hope that the economic powerhouses of North East Asia, look elsewhere for their model of race relations, the west has nothing to offer in that regard.

"Asian Girlz" Video Is Racist and Sexist.......

....But Asian Men Are Bastards.

I came across an interesting blog post by an Asian feminist blogger, called Esther Choi, at blog called "stabra", which I thought had moments of insight, but which seemed to ultimately and with great irony fall victim to its own white supremacist presumptions. The boldly entitled piece "ending white supremacy does not begin with controlling asian women's decisions", left me with high expectations which were, sadly, dashed moments later in the sub-headings. The article goes on immediately to uphold the tactics of white supremacy by generalizing culpability to an entire group by addressing the piece to "straight Asian men".

A part of me really wanted to believe that this might simply be a rhetorical tool to provoke discussion which would be backed up by an article rich in thought-provoking points. But it was difficult for me to take the article seriously when there was clearly prejudicial thinking implicit in the premise; straight Asian men as a group are culpable of controlling women's choices. It may be true that ending white supremacy does not begin by controlling Asian women's choices, but I'm pretty sure that it also doesn't begin by pointing an accusatory finger at an entire group, strongly implying culpability and guilt. In fact, that is known as bigotry, and in this case it is also racist.

So right off the bat, Choi has used racism as an implicit premise for her points. But even more intellectually problematic, is the fact that Choi never actually specifies or shows why controlling Asian women's decisions is not an important part of the fight against white supremacy. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that Asian guys should control Asian women's choices, I'm saying that Choi never shows why doing so would hamper the fight against white supremacy. In fact, history is full of examples of self-sacrifice, of people controlling members of their own group in order to attain a commonly accepted goal that serves the greater good of that community.

It may well be that ending white supremacy may, in fact, require submission of Asian women's decisions to Asian men (haha) - just as some black feminists say that they allowed their voice to be put on the back-burner in order to support the greater good of the civil rights movement - I honestly don't know, but I'm not the one claiming to know. Choi doesn't know either, but she does know that "straight Asian men" are to blame, regardless. Choi's confusion becomes even more apparent once we get into the sparse meat of the article. Having pointed the finger at all straight Asian men, it turns out - ironically - that white racism has prompted this latest lashing out against Asian men.

The article begins with a reference to the, now infamous, Day Above Ground song "Asian Girlz". Describing the song and its accompanying video as "violently anti-Asian, sexist and all-around stupid", she goes on to write how the outcry by a feminist group who mobilized protests, led to the.....

"interruption of racist violence was only one example of the powerful vigilance and solidarity of Asian American women against issues of hypersexualization and objectification that damage our lives."

On a side note, I'm not against strong language to condemn racism, but is it accurate to label the song's racism as an act of "violence"? Or is that just crying wolf? The problem is that violence against women is a real issue, that is, real violence is a real problem which, to me, makes this characterization of the song seem like an overly-dramatic exaggeration that trivializes the concept of violence against women. But that isn't all. According to Choi.........

"It was the transnational feminist organization, AF3IRM, who initiated a swift response and mobilized protest on various fronts, which led to the band losing gigs and sponsorship. "

That may be true - or not, I have no way of confirming this - but the bandmembers posted the following statement on their YouTube channel part of which read....

This video is intended to be a satirical, provocative, absurd, & even silly work of art. The lyrics, story, and visuals are so completely over-the-top and ridiculous that we thought it'd be impossible to miss the point........But some very vocal groups, especially the blog, "Angry Asian Men [sic.]," attacked it right out of the gate very aggressively. Their fury was soon amplified by the blog/news cycle. Shortly after, the views and craziness began climbing by the second.........Angry Asian Men, to you we say - all's fair so well done! We salute you. Seriously. No satire intended this time.

Aside from the band's smarmy deference to the aggrieved groups, one thing stands out; the only Asian voice they mention is that of an Asian man - specifically the blog of Angry Asian Man, who, as far as I know, is straight. How awkward. The only Asian voice of dissent against the sexism and racism of the song singled out by the band belonged to a straight Asian man - bastard! Is the very straight AngryAsianMan also trying to control Asian women's choices too? After all, he is straight, male, and Asian.

While Asian men should speak out when it comes to racist and sexist incidents like the Asian Girlz video because their identities are affected as well, the way straight Asian men have most vocally chosen to approach the fetishization of Asian women has been in a manner that further marginalizes and oppresses Asian women..........Straight Asian males often respond to racism affecting Asian women’s bodies and sexualities as proxies for their own issues.

This is an interesting point because it shows the gulf that exists in how some Asian men and women conceive of what drives the other. First of all, there she goes again with that "straight Asian male" accusation, but more importantly, what exactly is meant by "proxy for their own issues" is key here. She seems to be saying - and criticizing - that internalizing racism that is experienced by others of the same group is somehow unnatural or incorrect. The problem is that this seems to be the most natural thing in the world and its called empathy and happens to be a very human and humane quality. It's why white civil rights activists in the 1960's were willing to risk their lives for black rights - perhaps they viewed the absence of rights for blacks as a proxy for their own issues, and felt empathy and compassion? Choi seems to be critical of this

That aside, it is ungenerous in the extreme - but to be expected in an article that accuses all straight Asian men - to suggest that Asian men are reacting to racism against Asian women basically out of self-interest. I believe that Asian men are capable of higher thinking and even have complex emotional inner lives, which means that Asian men may be responding to racism against Asian women for any myriad number of reasons. Some of it may be self-interest, some of it could be empathy and a sense of a common experience, some of it could be an ideological aversion to bigotry, some of it could be a sense of moral outrage, some of it could be opposition to any kind of bullying or injustice. The list of possible motives that drive Asian men's reactions to racism are probably large and far more complicated and nuanced than Choi seems to understand - but unfortunately, in America it is easy and normal to "paraphrase" the drives and motivations of Asian men into a simplistic and often negative caricature (as modeled by the culture of white supremacy), and this is the approach that Choi has taken.

But, perhaps most problematic of all for Choi's contention that "the way straight Asian men have most vocally chosen to approach the fetishization of Asian women has been in a manner that further marginalizes and oppresses Asian women", is that her article never establishes this as a fact. Do most Asian male commentaries on the fetishization of Asian women further "oppress" them? I don't truly know, but I've read enough commentaries to know that there are many straight Asian men who approach that issue without rancour towards Asian women, so much so that I question the accuracy of the claim. If there is a majority of Asian men doing this, then fair enough, but my observation is that those who attack Asian women because of "their choices" aren't actually taken that seriously by the rest of community, male or female.

Choi continues.....

In response to the emasculation of Asian men implied by the fetishization of Asian women, the solution appears to be to reclaim what seems to have been taken from them—power over women, especially Asian women—and this usually involves attacking Asian women for their decisions regarding their sex lives.....But the oppression of Asian men is not created by the decisions of Asian women. It is created by a white supremacist system that is very much designed to make them feel impotent. 

This is a classic bait and switch, and horribly un-nuanced. Choi is segueing Asian-America's favourite subject - interracial dating(!) - into the discussion. Uh-oh.

In response to the Asian Girlz video, popular Korean American comedian David So explicitly states that he is more concerned with Levy Tran’s choice to be in the video than the actions of white dudes, whose racist behavior he can expect. In his efforts to respond to anti-Asian racism, he launches into an extremely misogynistic attack against Levy Tran that further demeans and sexualizes her, and goes so far as to criticize her for participating in sexism while calling her a bitch in the same breath.

This is where the article becomes all muddled. What are we talking about here, Asian women's sex-lives (which some Asian women seem happy to make the subject of public debate, so it lacks credibility to cry foul when people do actually chime in with an opinion), or the response to the Asian Girlz video - which, incidentally, received a single sentence condemnation, compared to the entire article faulting Asisn men? The two are clearly separate issues. Whilst I agree that Asian women's dating choices are irrelevant to Asian male empowerment, I also think that we are obliged to speak out when Asian-American men or women make free choices to participate in any production or activity that is racially demeaning. This is one choice that all Asian-Americans should try to control in others.

The Asian Girlz song and video is completely unambiguous; that is, it is a stretch to claim that the lyrics and imagery are not utilizing racial stereotypes and racial language in a demeaning way. Unless  the girl involved in the video did not see or hear the lyrics, then she knowingly participated in a production that demeaned Asians and Asian women. That doesn't make her a victim of racism - as Choi wants to believe - that makes her a willing participant in its expression. It is unrealistic to suggest that there was coercion or a lack of choice, and that she participated because there was simply no other avenue available.Granted, the David So video does use off-colour language. Choi describes it thus.....

In his efforts to respond to anti-Asian racism, he launches into an extremely misogynistic attack against Levy Tran that further demeans and sexualizes her, and goes so far as to criticize her for participating in sexism while calling her a bitch in the same breath.

While it is true that So sexualizes the girl, there is a context to the video that goes unacknowledged. David So also refers to the white band members as bitches, and the Asian band member as a bitch, and is scathing about his role also. In fact, a little research would show that So uses vulgarity in many of his videos, and uses the term "be-atch" in many of his videos. While it is true that the Asian-American gender dynamic sometimes does devolve into vulgar online insult fests, I think it ungenerous to ignore the context of So's video work. Objectively, So's work seems to have adopted hip-hop culture that uses vulgar delivery in a way that isn't particular to his dialogue on Asian women. What can be said about David So, is that he uses a form of comic expression derived from a cultural art form which some may consider immature and unsophisticated. In short, Choi is making a mountain out of a molehill - at worst perhaps his video is annoying, and terribly unsophisticated but that's it.

Furthermore, Asian actors and artists of both sexes come under fire when they participate in productions that Asian-Americans may deem to be demeaning - it's not just Asian women who come under, sometimes vulgar, verbal assault for doing this. Gedde Watanabe and Ken Jeong spring to mind as male performers who have been sometimes viciously verbally attacked by Asian-Americans for taking roles deemed to be racially derogatory, so I don't believe that there is any special vitriol reserved particularly for female Asian performers. Is it right or fair? Not necessarily, but it is understandable, and surely it is more true to say that these kinds of responses are themselves a result of the frustrations stemming from the marginalization of Asian people, as opposed to attempts to coerce, abuse, or control others for its own sake? Choi continues.....

A related issue of great concern in the Asian blogosphere is that of Asian women dating white men. Both Asian American men and women have approached this issue by bemoaning the high level of “out-marriage” of Asian American women. However, considering Asians make up about 5% of the US population, this simply means that these women happened to find their partner from a pool of 95% of the population rather than 5%. When you put it that way, is it at all reasonable to conclude that Asian American women are doing something wrong?

The bait-and-switch is complete! In Asian-America, all roads lead to the interracial dating disparity and Asian women's dating choices - that is what Choi truly wants to talk about! But, okay, let's go there. I've made my views on the IR disparity clear - I personally couldn't care less about Asian women's dating choices, I think that notions of the degree of Asian male antagonism towards IR are exaggerated, and for those Asian guys who are vocal in opposition to it, I say move passed it. The only problem I have with IR is that it is often held up as evidence that anti-Asian racism doesn't exist, or that IR is responsible for its abatement, and there is a general tendency to exaggerate its social, historical and cultural significance.

Despite this, the fact remains that so many Asian women wanting to date specifically white men - and occasionally spouting racist and sexist stereotypes about Asian men in the process as a justification - is an unusual phenomenon. My guess is that from an anthropological perspective, this is a very unique state of affairs - that the women from one demographic see more in common with men from a completely different demographic than with the men from their own. Saying that there is nothing unusual about this seems unrealistic. It is unusual! Is it wrong? Of course not, but it certainly is unusual.

That is why it is highly dishonest to not recognize this fact, and any discussion on Asian men's responses to the IR disparity is pointless without an acknowledgement that it seems grossly unfair to heap judgement over a situation that is so unusual that it has no historical precedent. For young Asian-American men growing up in a culture where there are no cultural role-models - save demeaning ones - and where the culture seems to have closed ranks against them (with Asian women seemingly on the inside), and where acculturation and socialization are hampered by stereotypes, it seems ungenerous, to say the least, to stigmatize Asian men for not having a better disposition about the phenomena of high out-dating/marriage rates, but even worst to suggest that there is something wrong with Asian men for struggling to deal with it. It is, after all, extremely unusual and without historical precedent.

Should Asian men attack Asian women who do this? NO! Should we be surprised and wonder about it? Of course - that is the only natural response to a phenomenon that is unique historically, anthropologically, sociologically, and culturally. Denying the uniqueness of the phenomenon is simply dishonest. Thinking about the issue in terms of right or wrong is unfair to the individuals who do make these choices - both Asian women and the (few) Asian men who may have a hard time coming to terms with it.

Here's Choi....

Whatever the case, it is never right, especially in a social justice context, to condemn people’s personal decisions simply by categorizing them in a “problematic” trend. Love and relationships are one of the most complicated and uncontrollable things about our lives, and no one would ever want this significant part of their existence to be vilified by a larger social phenomenon.

That's irony. All feelings are complicated, and sometimes (not always) uncontrollable - even those of the dreaded "straight Asian man" - yet, "straight Asian men" have definitely been categorized (in Choi's article, and elsewhere) as "problematic", even though it is feelings that most probably drive the choices of the few who are vulgar in their criticisms of Asian women. But thanks to the gross generalizations made of straight Asian men that American culture normalizes - and which Choi is happily oblivious to having utilized - the human side of the Asian male voice is denied, and replaced with unsympathetic intolerance. More Choi....

Due to this obsessive focus on Asian women’s relationships, we not only have to look out for the countless ways in which we are exploited, but we also have to defend against constant judgment about being the passive victims of Asian fetish or internalized racists whenever we simply interact with a white male, and alter our behavior accordingly.  

Choi likes exaggeration. Where and how does this "obsession" manifest? It certainly isn't amongst straight Asian male bloggers, most Asian male bloggers don't make Asian women's sacred dating choices the central focus of their observations. This obsession certainly doesn't seem to manifest in Asian male works of literature, film, art, or any other creative endeavour, and it doesn't manifest in politics. In fact, most straight Asian men who have something to say, seem to almost ignore Asian women's dating choices. A few ornery internet commenters (who also happen to be anonymous, which leaves open the possibility that some may not actually be Asian at all) don't really constitute an "obsession".

By contrast, it is Asian women themselves who, often via mainstream outlets, seem obsessively focused on their own dating choices. If you look at Asian-American women's cultural output, in fact, much of it seems driven by this one theme; Asian women and the white men who complete them. It is almost as though Asian women don't have much else to talk about, so they keep returning to the one subject that they know people will respond to. The only people "obsessed" with Asian women's dating choices and who always seem to be raising the subject are Asian women themselves - just as Choi does in her article, in fact.

But this brings me to another significant issue with Choi's piece that is missing. The only ugly aspect of Asian women's dating choices, and one which many Asian men respond to with ugliness, is that some Asian women actually justify their choices by racially stereotyping Asian men, often in an extremely ugly way. Even worse, this aspect of the issue is often played out through culture; for instance, it is not uncommon for the dating-choice-obsessed-Asian-female-cultural-output to caricature the Asian male characters in their work in the same manner demonstrated by white supremacy, funnily enough. This is another reason I avoid castigating and judging Asian men who do focus on the IR disparity - it is quite possible that some of them have had really ugly personal experiences with the kind of Asian girl that we all know plays a significant role in generating the ugliness in the issue, but about whom we never talk about; the nasty piece of work who makes it her business to attack Asian men (often with ugly racial stereotypes). So, I try to be little more empathetic, and non-judgemental.

As Choi says....

You won’t liberate yourselves as Asian men or reclaim your power by supporting American constructs of masculinity, or being the exception to the rule. The racist stereotypes that try to emasculate you never had anything to do with your actual behavior or your value as a man, and the stereotypes will hold no matter how often you defy them. Liberation begins by questioning and destroying the system that so violently excludes and dehumanizes you.

That is a strange thing to say in light of my previous few paragraphs. Some Asian women's obsession with dating white men - as evidenced by the vast cultural output of Asian women with this as a significant theme - itself largely excludes Asian men or only includes them as secondary caricatures of real human beings. These dating-choice-obsessed creative works by Asian women themselves support American constructs of masculinity and the culture that nırmalizes it. In fact, the Asian Girlz video upholds American constructs of masculinity - but Choi doesn't actually have much to say about the actual white supremacy of the Asian Girlz video, unfortunately, except to call it some names.

The main problem with Choi's piece is that she could not quite decide if she wanted it to be a screed, an advisory, a rant, or an opening for a meaningful dialogue, and because of this, it fails on all counts. This is a pity because she does make a few insightful points at various times of the piece, but it gets lost in the muddle. What is apparent, however, is that Choi, by failing to fairly consider every point of view in this issue, and her blanket presumption of straight Asian male culpability, has actually written a piece that diverts attention away from white supremacy and the behaviours that help to uphold it that exist even within the community.

Despite Choi's accusations of Asian male obsessiveness, the Asian feminine-driven culture that has developed around the dynamic of Asian women and white men, provides a strong indication that it is actually Asian women themselves who are obsessed with their own dating choices. Furthermore, Choi fails to recognize that this culture produced by some Asian-American women whose work seems preoccupied with white dudes, quite possibly does more to uphold the white supremacy that suppresses all Asians, than a few Asian guys on the internet who may be struggling to understand the significant historically and anthropologically unusual and unprecedented phenomenon of a demographic rejecting wholesale, men from their own community.

Most problematic for Choi's piece is that she utilizes similar strategies to those that uphold white supremacy - her blanket address to straight Asian men, amounts to little more than an accusation which implicitly renders all Asian men culpable for the actions of a very few. For a piece that ostensibly decries white supremacy, Choi has not been shy in applying white supremacist tactics in her article. Furthermore, in a remarkable twist of irony, Choi has used the oppression of white racism to justify her own racist presumptions. In much the same way that some expats have used feminism to justify anti-Asian racism, Choi seems to have used the language of oppression to justify a way of conceiving of Asian men that can only be described as ungenerously one-dimensional, and ultimately prejudiced.

These issues can be best illustrated through Choi's own words; she very kindly provides a list of suggestions (although the word "commandments" did come to mind), for how Asian men can support the struggle for dating empowerment. Here's number one....

Raise women’s voices. The conversation on the issues affecting Asian American women are being led by Asian American women in insightful, challenging ways. Here here and here are some more examples. We are neither helpless nor in need of male supervision. Our struggle against our own oppression as Asian women helps break down white supremacy and weakens its hold on every part of our lives, including our relationships, more than lectures from Asian men ever will. Supporting women’s voices on these issues breaks down the racist, sexist, homophobic stereotypes that oppress us all.

Choi has not provided any reason for me to believe that Asian men do not, or have not, supported Asian women's voices on these issues. In fact, I would say that there is every reason to believe that Asian men do support women's voices, both in cultural endeavours, and in social media. For every outspoken "angry Asian man", there has, in my experience, been many more Asian male voices that do not tolerate that type of approach. Choi simply has a skewed notion of Asian men that doesn't allow her to think of them in any way other than as an annoying mass of anonymous Asian faces out to disrupt her dating choices.

On a final note, it is interesting - and an entire post could be devoted to this - to notice that implied in Choi's piece, is the notion that Asian men have nothing to offer in the dialogue on sexist based anti-Asian racism, and that only Asian women can be in possession of the insights necessary to combat it. This both silly and dangerous. It is silly because all too often in life it is the person who is not directly involved in a given situation who is more able to see the bigger picture in ways not easily apparent to those "in the trenches". It may well be that the counter-foil of Asian men does hold the key to Asian female empowerment, or not, I'm just not prepared to dismiss Asian men's perspectives out of hand on any issue just because they are inconvenient. It is dangerous because by refusing the Asian male voice (and perhaps occasionally a dissenting or leading voice) in the dialogue, Choi is effectively removing the basis of community.