The Emma Stone Whitewashing Saga.

Asian-American Cognitive Dissonance.

I had to stifle a mirthful laugh last year when the movie "Aloha" was released amidst outraged criticisms of its casting. Critics griped at the lack of Asian main characters in the film despite the fact that it was set in Hawaii (a place swarming with East and South East Asians), but the main issue concerned the casting of Emma Stone - a blue-eyed and occasionally, blonde red-headed Caucasian woman - in the role of a mixed-race Asian woman.

Naturally, I understand the sentiments - Asian-American actors are discriminated against in film and television (although this past year has seen a significant improvement) in that so many Asian roles are implicitly racially demeaning, Asians have been largely absent from lead roles, and, of course, some roles are whitewashed. The favourite argument given for this state of affairs is that Asians actors (particularly men) cannot carry a lead role and bring in major returns, or that there simply are no well-known Asian-american actors who can carry these roles - of course, not being given opportunities may contribute to the fact that there so few well-known and bankable Asian actors.

Yet, I could not help but wonder if the actions of some Asian-Americans in the industry might be damaging the credibility of these complaints aimed at white film makers. The reason I say this is that some Asian-American film-makers are doing a piss-poor job of doing the very thing that they demand of white film-makers. Of course, I am speaking specifically about Asian-American female film-makers whose record when it comes to diversity considerations may actually be far, far, far worse than that of white film-makers.

As I wrote in a previous post - here - a study of largely independent films made by Asian-Americans (both male and female) reveals that whilst Asian male film-makers create content that provides significant opportunities for Asian female actors to gain experience and showcase their talents in lead roles, Asian female film-makers do the exact opposite. I found in my study that Asian female film-makers follow the same standards of discrimination of white film-makers - Asian men are largely non-existent in lead or romantic roles (an important point since many of themes of their movies are of a romantic nature), and are thus not afforded opportunities even by their own community to showcase their acting abilities and hone their acting skills.

Even worse, although white film-makers have a poor track-record when it comes to providing non-demeaning roles to Asian men, I found that in cases where white film-makers created serious content about Asians, they provided more opportunities for Asian male actors than Asian female film-makers. Hence, my laughter about the "outrageous" crime of Cameron Crowe in giving the role to Stone instead of an Asian woman.

In short, it is hard to take such complaints seriously when Asian female film-makers adopt the same approach to their craft as the racist white male dominated mainstream in which white men are afforded starring roles whilst minorities are somewhat relegated to the periphery. Furthermore, there seems to be little meaningful pressure within the Asian-American community to change this proclivity to uphold white racist practices in the film industry amongst Asian female film-makers.

I don't see it as unreasonable to expect Asian-American film-makers - many of whom seem aware of the discrimination faced by Asians performers - to do their utmost to provide the platform that would give Asian actors (of both sexes) the opportunity to showcase their talents. If we don't offer that to our community, then who will? Most importantly, if Asian female film-makers have no problem with maintaining the racist status quo, then how can we demand that white film-makers use more diverse casting? Why are they obliged to cast Asian leads when Asian female film-makers feel perfectly justified in imitating this discrimination in their own projects? It naturally follows that white film-makers have no obligation to make their casting practices more diverse - particularly when it comes to casting Asian-Americans.

What has become apparent to me is that there may be a fundamental difference between the genders in Asian-America on what they want from the film industry - Asian men seem to want to see an improvement in representation for both Asian men and women so that neither are demeaned or discriminated against. Asian women in the industry seem more interested in maintaining the status quo.

Equally problematic is the silence of Asian-American actors and others in the industry who participate in projects - both in front and behind the camera - that contain racially dehumanizing content. Two recent shows come to mind here; Make It Pop, and Dads.

Make It Pop garnered considerable controversy when its producer apparently exclaimed during a boardroom meeting that having Asian guys on his show was "not gonna happen" even though the show is inspired by K-Pop, and half of K-Pop artists are Korean men whose predominantly non-Asian female fans drive the industry's success. The show has three Asian-American female leads, and Asian males in supporting roles, but no leads as such. The show "Dads" was met even more hostility as it seemed to set out to racially provoke minority audiences. Although it was criticized for its general insensitivity to race, Asian-Americans objected to the show for its racialized sexism and its demeaning jokes on Asian men's penis sizes.

I have come to expect the white media to propagate demeaning and dehumanizing stereotypes and depictions of Asians, but it is the reaction of the Asians involved in these shows that disappointed. As far as I know, not a single one of the actors involved in these two projects opted to make a stand against the racism in their productions. Worse still, they ignored or defended their shows and their participation in them.

Speaking about the criticisms of her show, Make It Pop lead Megan Lee had this to say....

As for the Asian male lead, I heard some things about that and some people kind of misunderstood and got slightly offended. We do have Asian male characters in the show, I want to make that clear, we might not have an Asian male lead, but that was not specifically cleared out that way. We're not trying to exclude Asian males in any way. The casting kind of went that way. It was an open-ethnicity casting call. It was not even meant to be three Asian female leads either. It was all open ethnicities and, from what I've heard, whoever portrayed the role right got the part. It's not specifically "This is a Caucasian role, this is an Asian role, this is a whatever role."

To paraphrase, Lee pleads ignorance - she only "heard" some things about the producer refusing to entertain the idea of an Asian male lead - and then outright contradicts the straightforward statement of the show's producer when he said he would never have an Asian male in the show. That's quite a remarkable set of comments considering that on the one hand Lee claims to have only "heard some things about that", yet she is able to make specific claims about about the casting process. In short, Lee's defence/explanation of the producer's racist comments seemed like mere dismissive excuse-making.

Seth Macfarlane's "Dads" presents those Asians involved in the project with a far more significant problem. The show was overtly and unapologetically racially provocative - not provocative in any positive sense, but only in an ignorant, childish way. Two issues in particular raised concerns amongst Asian-Americans: firstly, an Asian-female lead, Brenda Song, was deemed to have been racially stereotyped and hypersexualized by being made to wear a "Japanese school-girl" outfit; secondly, Song's race became a running joke throughout the series, and, of course, the infamous gratuitous scene in which Asian men were sexually denigrated

It is worth noting at this point, that this kind of sexual denigration is not only racially dehumanizing, it is actually sexist. This is a remarkable phenomenon that rarely gets noticed; Asian men are regularly the object of sexist denigration in American culture and are subject to a sexual mockery that would not be accepted if it was applied to women of any race. This fact alone should warrant some serious discussion, but the fact that none of the Asian actors (not just the two Asian female leads - Song and Vanessa Lachey - but also the Asian men who had bit parts in the series) spoke up about either the racial jokes about Song, nor the racialized sexism directed at Asian men.

I've said it before, but it apparently needs to be said again - Asian-American efforts to end discrimination against Asian actors and racially demeaning stereotypes are pointless unless Asian-Americans in the industry draw a line in the sand and refuse to participate in these kinds of projects. It's not an unreasonable suggestion - Native-American actors walked off the set of an Adam Sandler movie recently complaining of racially denigrating depictions of their characters.

So why do Asian-American actors continue to legitimize these racist projects not only with their continued participation but also with their lack of condemnation? Doesn't it make sense that if Asians consistently refuse demeaning roles that the industry would stop creating them? Wouldn't it have sent the strongest message to the industry if Song, Lachey, and the other Asian bit part actors had simply refused to be racially demeaned and had chosen instead to simply walk off set? If they don't advocate for better depictions for themselves and others, then why should the industry bother changing?

Sadly, Lachey seemed to make no comment on the issue at all, whilst Song actually defended the show's casual racism. Talking to Audrey magazine, she had this to say....

“With the controversy, I found it interesting,” says Song. “People took a 30-second bit and, in my eyes, blew it out of proportion. Our show isn’t for everyone; that’s why I was so attracted to the character of Veronica. On a show like that, we’re able to poke fun at stereotypes. It’s empowering to get ahead of the joke......Something I might find funny, my dad may not find funny,” she adds. “But we’re not out to please everyone.” 

The problem here is that Song has actually defended every racially demeaning stereotype ever produced by the white racist media as though somehow, it is the duration of the racism that gives it its dehumanizing power. In fact, it is certainly not one single brief racist scene that is the problem, it is the fact that there exist a multitude of such brief media moments that together amount to a cultural norm. Stereotypes and demeaning slurs are designed to be a kind of shorthand dehumanization, a condensation of profound philosophical racism into a single word or idea that expresses the most fundamental idea of racist thinking; that non-whites are lesser beings and not worthy of consideration as individuals.

It is the brevity of such stereotypical depictions that prove the pervasiveness of the racist thinking they have distilled. The ideas expressed are common and widespread - they wouldn't have meant anything to anyone if the ideas being expressed were vague and not widely known and it only takes a brief moment of airtime to remind audiences of a wealth of racist ideas and beliefs.

Yet, Asian actors - as Song does later in the same interview - continue to wonder why they cannot get better roles. I would say that if they continue to help create the demand for demeaning roles by participating and then defending them, then producers will be unlikely to be motivated to change their attitudes.

If Asian-Americans want to overcome media racism (both in its portrayal of Asians and its discriminatory casting habits), we have to hope that those Asians already in the industry stop defending demeaning depictions. Most importantly, we have to hope that female Asian-American film makers stop adopting white racist practices when it comes to casting otherwise they continue to undermine the demand for diversity and equality in film and television.

Do Asian Men Exist In Asian-American Movies?

Well...... It Depends!

I came across an old post from 2010 on the YouOffendMeYouOffendMyFamily blog that asked some uncomfortable questions about possible invisibility of Asian men in Asian-American literature.  As this YOMYOMF post from a few years back suggested, there may well be bias in some Asian-American produced literature in which Asian men are rarely given romantic prominence opposite Asian female protagonists. Uncomfortably, those novels listed in the YOMYOMF post are all written by Asian-American women. But, this got me thinking about Asian-American film, and how the Asian-American gender relationship plays out in that particular cultural arena.

Wikipedia has a page devoted to Asian-American films that provides a convenient list (and links) of one-hundred-and-twenty-seven films deemed to belong in the category. I took the liberty of doing a casual study of the listed movies to try and gauge how we represent ourselves. Since I was hoping to gauge the degree to which Asian-American films represent Asian men in leading or love-interest roles, I decided to slim down the list to include only those movies that are full-length and have narratives that call for a (archetypally) masculine lead or love interest. So, I omitted documentary works, short-films, films in which an Asian male lead (i.e. a "masculine" lead) was not really called for (e.g family movies, or girl power movies - like "Eden") and older movies (because when these films were made pre-1970's, the Asian race dynamic was vastly different than what it became post 1980).

I ended up with around 66 full-length narrative films, from which I extrapolated the following information; gender and race of the writer (either screenplay or novel derived), the race and gender of the leading male and female characters. Bear in mind that I have not watched all (or even most) of these movies, but instead read the plot outlines on their respective Wikipedia pages, or Internet Movie Database site - not perfect, but I think sufficient enough for a rudimentary study that I hope will lead to more questioning within the community. I admit that I discovered some interesting things.

Out of 66 films, 19 were written by women, and 47 by men. Interestingly, even though the category is "Asian-American Films", a significant number of these 66 films were written by non-Asians - of the 19 films with female writers, 2 of those were white women, of the 47 written by men, 18 were written by white men, and 3 were white/Asian male collaborations. So, even though there appears to be an ostensible gender disparity in these productions, once we subtract those "Asian-American films" written by non-Asians, then this disparity decreases significantly. And, of course, since so many of the listed movies were written by white males, there are some questions about what actually makes a movie "Asian-American", a subject which I will not delve into in this post.

Of the 26 movies written by Asian men, 15 had both an Asian male and Asian female lead/prominent roles and 4 had an Asian male and white female lead (the rest either did not specity any female leads or their presence was difficult to gauge from the Wiki Plot outlines). Of the 21 Asian movies written by white men (or Asian male white male collaboration), 13 had Asian male leads, 3 of which were Asian male/female co-leads, and 8 were written with white males as the love interest or main lead opposite Asian female characters. Of the movies written by white women, one featured an Asian male lead with a white female lead (Restless), the other featured Asian male/female co-leads (Eat A Bowl Of Tea - based on a novel by an Asian woman).

But, it is the movies written by Asian women that are the most interesting. Of the 17, a whopping 12 feature either a white male lead or love interest with an Asian female lead, or even when there is a prominent Asian male role, their characters are somehow not eligible as love interests. This means that even white dudes have a better record at writing lead roles for Asian men in Asian themed movies. Interestingly, I included two gay themed movies with Asian male writers (Colma The Musical and The Wedding Banquet), and in one of those, the love interest is also a white male (but there is an Asian male lead). Here's a rundown of the Asian male devoid Asian female written films......

Bam Bam and Celeste        No prominent Asian male roles
The Beautiful Country        Asian lead character is a child - the leading
                                           "men" characters are white
Falling for Grace                Asian female, white male love interest
                                          Asian male "lead" character is Asian
                                          female's brother
Half-Life                             Two Asian male leads, one is the brother
                                          of the female lead,the other gay, white
                                          male love interest for main Asian female
                                          character.
The Joy Luck Club             Asian men are bastards. No explanation
                                          required.
The Mistress of Spices       Indian Asian female, white love interest
The Princess of Nebraska White gay male lead character, no apparent
                                           prominent Asian male roles
Red Doors                         Asian male character a family member,
                                          white male love interest for eldest daughter
The Sensei                        White male love interest.
Thousand Pieces of Gold  White male love interest plus, Asian male
                                          character is a bastard.
Thousand Years of Good Prayers  White male love interest
Tie a Yellow Ribbon            Asian woman seemingly in love with her
                                          adoptive white brother.

One of the films written by Asian females feature an Asian man in lead roles with a white female love interest - Never Forever - and a three of the movies - Golden Gate (David Henry Hwang), Charlotte Sometimes, and Disney's Wendy Hu (Victor Cheung) - are written by Asian men, or have Asian men as part of the writing team, and they also feature white male leads and love interests for the Asian female leads. But, overall, it seems that Asian men are underrepresented as leads and/or love interests in movies written by Asian women. On the other hand, the majority of Asian-American films written by Asian-American men seem more inclusive of Asian females and provide opportunities for Asian female actors. Again, I offer the caveat that I have not watched most of these films and so I cannot make any qualitative assessment of how any of the characters were portrayed (regardless of race).

But, based on the plot lines, it seems as though films written by Asian women, for the most part, follow in the footsteps of the mainstream media's habit of excluding Asian males from roles where they can be the love interest. Even white dudes - when they write serious "Asian"- themed screenplays - seem to have a better record at giving Asian men lead roles in Asian-themed films. Ouch!

Notes:

Here is the list of movies written by Asian men that feature prominent Asian female roles....

Asian Stories, Better Luck Tomorrow, Catfish In Barbecue Sauce, CharlotteSometimes, Close Call,  The Debut, Fakin Da Funk, Kissing Cousins, Living On Tokyo Time, The Rebel, Robot Stories, Undoin, West 32nd, Wendy Hu, Yokai King

And the rest of the movies written by Asian men that I used in the survey....

Amerasian, Baby, Colma The Musical,  Golden Gate, Green Dragon, Miami Connection, Shanghai Calling, Shanghai Kiss, Supercapitalist, The Wedding Banquet, Yellow,

Movies written by white dudes which have a white male lead/love interest opposite an Asian female character......

China Girl, Come See Paradise, Heaven & Earth, Lani Loa, Make Your Move, Redwood Curtain, Snow Falling On Cedars, GranTorino.

White male writers with Asian male leads or prominent roles....

Americanese, The Corruptor, Dark Matter, Dim Sum Funeral, Drive, Fast and Furious, Harold And Kumar (2 Movies), Replacement Killers, White On Rice, Chan Is Missing, Revenge Of The Green Dragons, TakeOut 

Movies with Asian female writers that feature prominent Asian male male leads/roles....... 

Never Forever, The Picture Bride, Raspberry Magic, Shangri La Cafe, Strawberry Fields 

To be fair, The Joy Luck Club did have prominent Asian male leads, but qualitatively, the roles were somewhat negative overall.

The two movies written by white women that feature Asian male leads...

Eat A Bowl Of Tea, Restless                

Reclaiming Asian History

One Story at A Time.

A call went out a while back from photographer, Corky Lee, asking for volunteers to participate in a photo-shoot that coincided with a decision by the Department of Labor to induct the Chinese rail workers who constructed the US railways back in the 19th century into their Hall Of Honor. Once the railroad was completed, the Chinese laborers were excluded from participating in the official photograph ceremony, and their contribution was more or less wiped from the historical and, more importantly, the cultural consciousness. So this is a long overdue acknowledgement of the Chinese contribution to American history and development.

In addition to the above mentioned efforts to bring Chinese railroad workers to historical recognition, other articles highlight the lack of historical recognition for Filipino activists in gaining rights for farm workers, the poorly understood and recognized atrocities of American imperial aggression in the Philippines in the late 19th and early 20th centuıries. Also, recently, Canadian authorities issued an official apology for racist policies of the past, and in New York's Chinatown a street was renamed in memorial of Private Danny Chen, the US soldier who committed suicide after being racially bullied by fellow soldiers.

I am always a little shocked whenever I am reminded that Asian-American history is so invisible, misunderstood, or its general facts and details unknown, outside of the Asian-American community. For a country like the US - which is the most significant power in the Asia/Pacific region - to be basically ignorant of the Asians in their midst is frightening to contemplate. As a nation and leader in the entire Pacific basin, our policies and attitudes towards the various races of Asia can - and do - have significant repercussions in the region. Yet, America - as evidenced by its cultural dehumanization of Asians - is largely content to view Asian-Americans through the purveyance of demeaning stereotypes and certainly not through the accurate or empathetic cultural understanding of their historical experience.

There may be a number of reasons for why Asian-American history and historical experience remains so invisible and unknown in the popular cultural consciousness of America. First and foremost, there is little empathy amongst mainstream America's cultural gatekeepers for Asian subjects in general - seeming to prefer promoting demeaning images of Asians outside of any historical (or social) context at all. Secondly, Americans may have a general ignorance or general lack of interest in history of any kind. This second point is of particular significance because without a grounding in the facts of history, it may be via the platform of popular culture that mainstream ideas about history in general and Asian-American history in particular are being generated.

This is important because the third possible reason for Asian-American history being so invisible and unknown could be that Asian-Americans themselves may not, to any large degree, be promoting Asian-American history through creative cultural endeavours. Simply put, Asian-American artists seem to not be pursuing many creative historical narratives that tackle, or allude to, the extremely uncomfortable (for mainstream America) developmental pattern of violent and xenophobic anti-Asian prejudices that over the years have evolved into the kind of casual, "second-nature", anti-Asian bigotry of the present.

In order for the Asian-American historical and racial experience to be taken seriously and become integrated into the fabric and consciousness of the wider American mainstream it it is up to Asian-Americans to themselves integrate those same experiences into their own cultural consciousness. In other words, if we want our Asian-American historical experiences to become simply American experiences then we have to set about promoting that history. Of course, this presents a significant challenge for Asian-American artists of how to produce creative work that is original in scope, sufficiently interesting to attract a reasonable audience, but also stays true to the Asian-American historical narrative in such a way that it might appeal to audiences beyond the Asian community itself.

Those who think these "audiences beyond the Asian community" is a reference to white people, then give yourself a slap, because white people are not the only audience beyond the Asian community that could be potential audiences for Asian-American arts. In fact, an exploration of the Asian-American historical experience through cultural endeavours that seeks specifically to attract audiences from other minorities may well be more likely to be successful since such work might - if it were to be historically accurate - strike a chord of empathy with the shared experience of prejudice that is common to all of America's ethnic minorities.

This approach could solve two problems; firstly it would enable Asian-Americans to explore their own history of oppression at the hands of white supremacy without having to compromise historical truth in order to appeal to a white audience that simply might not want to be reminded of past brutalities committed in their name. Secondly, it seems logical that other minorities who have themselves experienced oppression would be more open to viewing historical narratives that echo their own narratives of oppression. The outcome of such an approach could be a major game-changer for Asian-Americans in that it could open up opportunities for artists that are not forthcoming from the white mainstream, but even more importantly it could serve as the basis for greater unity, understanding, and cooperation between ethnic minorities that could have positive repercussions beyond the artist/audience dynamic. In some ways, this approach is a movement towards a counter-culture that can challenge mainstream domination and control of the Asian-American historical narrative.

To summarize, true mainstreaming of the Asian-American historical experience can only occur if and when we make it integral to our own cultural endeavours. This means that Asian-American artists need to concern themselves with exploring our historical narrative through culture as a means of cementing our place in the cultural consciousness of America. Furthermore, by striving to appeal primarily to the non-white mainstream - as opposed to the white mainstream which we seemingly tend to do - we could be laying the groundwork for greater understanding and commonality between us and other oppressed groups, whilst simultaneously slowly mainstreaming our history.

Furthermore, the whims and tastes of white audiences have often been cited as explanations and excuses for the invisibility and stereotyping of Asian-Americans in the media and, thus, may itself have served as a deterrent for Asian artists who have sought to explore Asian-American history. This means that it is possible that the only avenue to disseminate the knowledge of our historical experience beyond the classroom and into the popular consciousness is by prioritizing its appeal to other minorities, as opposed to the white mainstream.

Emasculation And Asian Male Sexuality.

Are We Afraid Of Free Choice For Asian Men?

In the wake of the recent tragic shooting in Isla Vista, in which Elliot Rodger murdered his two room-mates and their friend as well as three random people who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, a spate of blog posts and news articles were published that sought to make sense of the tragedy. What I found interesting is the way that writers with different agendas focused on their own specific aspect of the tragedy; feminists focused on Rodger's misogyny, black folks focused on his anti-black racism, gun-control advocates focused on his guns, and gun-control opponents focused on his mental illness.

One interesting perspective came from Jenn over at the Reappropriate blog, who coined a new word - misogylinity - to describe what she views as an unhealthy adoption by a segment of Asian-American men of hyper-sexuality as a means to define their masculinity as a response to America's cultural emasculation of Asian men. In short, Jenn suggests that this creates an environment of "woman-hate" - the kind that Elliot Rodger latched onto to justify his misogyny - that leads this particular group of Asian men to disrespect and demean women. Whilst acknowledging the need for a positive response to the emasculation of Asian men, Jenn question whether we should be more nuanced about the kind masculine ideals we should (politically) push for. Her suggestion is to somehow "de-link" sexuality from masculinity such that sexual conquest does not come to define what it means to be a man.....

But let’s be clear: this sex-based masculinity is not actual masculinity. It is something else: let’s call it “misogylinity”..........................Too often, we narrowly (and sometimes uncritically) promote pop culture images of Asian American men in sexual or romantic roles (where the character’s explicit heterosexuality alone defines the character as empowering and masculine). Too often, we revere characters like JT Tran, who sells an Asian American-specific version of pick-up artistry workshops, and David Choe, who hosted a popular Asian American-focused podcast that intended to subvert Asian American emasculation through real or manufactured tales of sexual conquest (where he also allegedly confessed to rape).

Firstly, it is worth pointing out that the first half of that paragraph above is somewhat at odds with my own experience. I don't ever remember any Asian-American - male or female, and certainly no-one of any significant influence whatsoever - actually promoting any Asian male media character based solely on their heterosexuality alone. On the contrary, almost all commentators on the subject seek to promote Asian male (and female) characters in the media who are well rounded and human. People seem to want to promote Asian male characters who are physically strong, emotionally complex, and yes, not devoid of sexuality. But it is certainly a stretch to claim that Asian masculinity is being promoted by way of sexuality alone.

At the same time, does it really need saying why there is (and should be) a focus on Asian male heterosexuality? How about this; it is specifically Asian male heterosexuality that is being maligned and demeaned by American culture? I am not aware of any habit or practice within mainstream culture of demeaning gay Asian men based on their homosexuality. So, suggesting that there might be other ways of addressing sexual dehumanization of Asian men is somewhat absurd - akin to holding you hands over your groin protectively to defend against punches to your face. What other Asian male sexuality is or has been under attack? That aside, the main thrust of the piece is that Asian men who adopt a hyper-sexualized identity as the basis for their masculinity are, basically, to be marginalized by the community at large.

In the latter half of the paragraph, two men in particular are offered up as examples of the kind of Asian man and Asian man behaviour we should eschew. Pick-up artist, JT Tran, and Korean-American artist, and sex fantasist, David Choe, are presented as the kind of slimy characters we would all do well to avoid. The argument is that we should not be giving time to, or supporting, those Asian men - like Tran and Choe - who promote the idea of sex and sexual conquest as some kind of remedy to the emasculation of Asian men. The reason is that they are - it is asserted - misogynists (both) or possible-rapists (Choe) whose hyper-sexualized personas are implicitly "oppressing" other identities....

Do we sometimes let the fight to reclaim Asian American masculinity rationalize the recreation of systems of oppression against other Asian American identities?

I am not going to defend Asian PUA or Choe (still not sure what his sin was), but what I do find disturbing is the puritanical and un-nuanced judgment that hyper-sexualized Asian men or simply the pursuit of a hyper-sexualized lifestyle as an expression of masculinity is somehow morally reprehensible and something we should marginalize out of the community. The piece never gets around to explaining why a masculinity that is heavily informed by hyper-sexuality is implicitly bad. The closest it comes to an explanation is to suggest that hyper-sexual Asian men are somehow implicitly misogynistic, but a broad-brush assertion is a weak argument for a proposal that seems to seek to interfere in individuals' lives on the grounds of our own presumed ethical superiority.

The first problem here is that we live in 21st Century America, and there exists a rather vibrant culture of casual sex and casual pick-up in which both men and women are happy and eager to participate and both sexes use eachother. Bars and clubs (not to mention the college campus bars and notorious spring breaks) all over the US are packed every weekend with single people whose goal is to hook-up - and it is entirely consensual. This means that there is an environment where people like Tran who choose (or merely possess) a highly sexualized identity are welcomed - so in order to imply a moral transgression by Tran, one would have to make sweeping moral judgements on the lifestyle itself. Good luck with that, and if you succeed, then welcome to Taliban USA. Sadly, it is difficult (and unethical) to to impose our own set of ethical values on the actions of willing consensual adults, but even worse, this idea that hyper-sexualized Asian men are a threat seems to merely echo white -supremacists ideas of the sexually rapacious Asian man who presents a threat to white womanhood.

The point here is that that lifestyle is a choice - and insinuating some kind of moral judgement on people who make different choices to ourselves is simply a repression of diverse individualities and nothing more. But worst of all, the idea that an identity that is based largely on sexuality is implicitly something to eschew is never argued effectively for in the post. The only way to answer this is with a question; why? Why is pursuing many sexual partners something we should pour moral scorn upon, and why is it wrong to have an identity that is based on high sexualization? The answer is that it is not - you just can't get passed that consenting adult issue.

Jenn's post calls on the community to redefine what we mean by, and how we present, Asian masculinity whilst inserting the caveat that sexuality based masculinity is to be avoided which, ironically, is an example of oppression of other Asian identities. Who made the judgement that says that masculine identity based on sexuality is wrong, inappropriate or, even, not empowering? Should we make highly sexualized Asian men into some kind of pariah caste because they have made a choice that - for whatever reason - has made some of us uncomfortable? Or, is it better to mind our own business and not try to control and judge other people's choices? How on earth can anyone claim to know that what individuals claim gives them a sense of empowerment is not actually giving them a sense of empowerment?

It is especially confounding that we are even talking about this since - as I pointed out in this comment - Asian feminists have for years presented an aggressive and independent sexuality as a means of empowerment - they (rightfully) choose their own sexuality and they can attach whatever importance to it that they choose; if Asian feminists choose to frame their sexuality as socially and culturally empowering, then so be it, and who are we to argue? Likewise, if there exist Asian men who feel their sexual conquests assuages America's dehumanization of them, who are we to tell them it does not? Jenn seems comfortable leaving room for the possibility that Asian female sexuality and the expression thereof can be politicized and empowering, yet erects (no pun) a moral barrier at the thought of Asian men finding empowerment through the exploration of their sexuality.

Here is where the problem with painting with a broad brush comes back to haunt you. Sexuality, for many people, is hugely integral to their character. People who have been in long-term relationships may still view their identity as highly sexualized and even base their sense of masculinity (or femininity) on their sexual endeavours with their partner. In fact, that sense of "conquest" of your partner does not necessarily go away for people in long-term relationships, and I would guess contributes greatly to the sense of femininity for women and masculinity for men. Are these people to be stigmatized too? Is getting many fucks out of a single partner equally as morally reprehensible as getting single fucks out of many partners? I need more convincing.

Of course, the argument that PUA offers a snake-oil remedy for Asian men who struggle to get dates that ultimately backfires is a legitimate one, and Jenn's piece makes much of the fact that Elliot Rodger felt even more desperate after apparently failing with PUA techniques - although it is not entirely clear that Rodger actually took any PUA classes. Regardless, the focus on that point (although valid - false advertising is false advertising, after all), for the purpose of supporting a vague moral argument to marginalize Asian men with high sex-drives also, sadly, deflects attention away from the fact that the field of psychotherapy also failed to reach Rodger. Yet, no-one has suggested that the failure of psychotherapy to create a meaningful psychological shift in Elliot Rodger reflects any failure on the part of the profession itself.

In the context of Asian and Asian-American mental health, the psychotherapeutic process is complicated by racial and cultural factors which have been documented to impede therapeutic success. Now, as a community, we sound off about Asian-American mental health, yet, in one of the clearest examples of an Asian-American whose mental state made him unreachable, we somehow conspire to miss the opportunity to highlight the unique challenges facing Asian-Americans with mental health issues. From what I understand, Rodger had been in therapy since childhood, and even though I cannot possibly know the specifics of his therapeutic plan, it is worth considering the possibility that the unique experience of cultural marginalization, normalized cultural dehumanization and emasculating stereotypes that promote demeaning behaviours and attitudes, might perhaps have been outside of the realm of experience for his therapists to address, even if they were Asian themselves.

All of this highlights some disturbing facts about emasculation and how we conceive of its character and effects on Asian men. Because Rodger focused his ravings on sexual conquest it is natural to consider his feelings of sexual disempowerment as the fundamental cause of his sense of emasculation. But this is merely narrow thinking. Rodger was - throughout his entire life, possibly before sexuality even became a factor for him - emasculated, even in childhood. This came about through bullying and marginalization. The emasculation of Elliot Rodger quite possibly had as much to do with an inability to assert himself in his social environment, or his inability to find an empowered voice that could enable him to assert control over his own experiences, as much as any inability to get laid. Are we really choosing to believe that Rodger killed mostly because he could not get laid, based on his arguably mad rantings?

If we do choose to follow this narrow understanding then we miss the opportunity to realize that emasculation is a form of dehumanization that attacks and demeans every aspect of a man. This includes their sexuality, but also other equally important aspects of their identity such as their sense of confidence, ability to provide for their family, or their opportunities for participation in the cultural life of their society. For example, men have rampaged when they have lost their job because being economically fruitful is implicit in a masculine identity. Emasculation is not just about sex if it was, then  how can we explain that fact that black men are hyper-sexualized, but there are still voices in that community who argue that this society emasculates black men by capping job opportunities, or stigmatizing their educational abilities.

The point here is that emasculation of minority men occurs in a number of ways, and as I pointed out above, there any number of qualities that we positively associate with masculinity that when compromised can lead to violent or misogynistic behaviour, so focusing on ideas of Asian male hyper-sexuality as being a dangerous echo of Elliot Rodger's type misogyny simply does not add up, and to think of it that way might serve an agenda, but does little to improve our understanding of the nuanced nature of racially inflected emasculation.

We should not lose sight of the fact that emasculation is about control, or more specifically about the power to control a man's life, social identity, and opportunities, being in the hands of people other than the man himself. It is emasculating for black men that their opportunities in employment and education are often unfairly limited by factors outside of their control. It is emasculating for Asian men that some nameless and faceless media types are able to define what it means to be an Asian man in an apparently arbitrary and defamatory way, that they have no control over.

This is a point that requires more consideration - the root of Asian male emasculation is the appropriation of our capacity to define ourselves within the context of our culture and society - everything else is secondary to that. For example, I view jokes about Asian men's dicks as emasculating because they represent the capacity and power of others to arbitrarily define and describe our bodies - the joke itself is meaningless. It, and every other derogatory stereotypes are merely symptoms of the problem, and not the problem itself. Just like rape is considered less about sex and more about asserting power, emasculation is fundamentally the capacity to assert arbitrary power over other men.

This is why personal choice is all important in the struggle against emasculation. It is, therefore, ironic that a blog post that seeks to promote "healthier" conceptions of male masculinity, seeks to do so by controlling and limiting some self-definitions and choices simply because we don't like it. Even worse, is the irrational fear that such hyper-sexual masculinity when skewed could lead to more Elliot Rodgers, when the fact is that any masculine quality (any human quality, in fact) can lead to tragic events when we abuse them.

What Is An Asian To Do?

America's Asian Problem.

I came across an online news article in the Guardian that surprised me because it was written by an Asian-American (Jennifer Lee), on the subject of Asian-Americans - the Guardian is a British news outlet. In the article - written, somewhat, in response to the recent Amy Chua claims on how culture affects success, and based on studies conducted by Lee and Min Zhou - Lee suggests that "we" need more US Asians - US Chinese in particular - to move away from the rigid definitions of success that have typically driven their apparent economic and academic successes. The gist of the article was - as the article's title suggested - that Asians should expand their definition of success beyond the "limitations" implicit in presuming success to mean a high educational attainment leading to a successful professional career and the financial rewards that such a career brings with it and move into the arts.

I have heard this sentiment being expressed several times before elsewhere and it seems to be a common feeling in Asian-America that somehow seems to based on an assumption that succeeding in the arts is a piece of cake. Whilst I believe that real social change occurs mainly through the process of changing attitudes by means of a strong cultural voice - that is, a creative voice - I also think that we have to be aware of the prevalent culture that seems to condition a negative knee-jerk response to any Asian successes and find fault with it at any cost. Or, on the flip-side, find Asian successes problematic because Asians are simply the wrong kind of minority.

Consider this.....

But this narrow framing of success comes at a price: young people who don’t “make it” are made to feel like failures and under-achievers, often leading them to isolate themselves from their ethnic communities and reject their ethnic identities. These “under-achievers” told us that they “don’t feel really Chinese”, “aren’t like other Asians”, or have become “the black sheep” of their families because they haven’t met what they perceive to be the expected levels of achievement for Chinese Americans.

This is somewhat insulting.The implication here is that a career in the arts is somehow not measured by financial success and academic achievement is less of a necessity, or, even worse, that failure in the arts is somehow less devastating than failure to make it in the professions. This is plainly false.

In truth, in order to succeed in the arts, one has to work extremely hard just to outperform competitors, and then hope that an agent or patron of some kind can find an angle for your work and then pitch it to the right people to pitch it to the general public. In the meantime, the artist often lives a life in which financial uncertainty becomes a way of life. Of course, if you are lucky and manage to make it, then the rewards are probably worth the effort, but for every successful artist there may be dozens more who don't make it. It is that hard, even if you don't add in the ingredient of prejudice that Asians may encounter - as the article says - working in a field where rewards are often derived from the subjective whims of audiences, who may be swayed by prevailing racialized attitudes. How this describes a less stressful career choice or one that carries a "softer" failure I don't know. I would not be surprised to discover that most artists - writers, fine artists, classical musicians and the like - actually do achieve at least a master's degree or above, and that these folks even excelled in their studies.

Even popular musicians - including the self-taught - typically will spend hours in practice, and years performing in dives gaining vital experience. The point is that for every painted masterpiece there are dozens of sketches and rejected ideas, for every hit song, there are dozens of bad takes and rejected verses that never see the light of day. And even when - or if - an artist does produce a masterpiece, there is no guarantee that the world will recognize it as such until well after the artist dies. So, to suggest that a career in the arts leads to more happiness, or is in some way a better way to define success is simply nonsense. The point is that regardless of whether one chooses a professional career or a career in the arts, the application and drive to succeed are fundamentally the same, and success often follows a successful academic career. The only difference between those who choose the professions and those who choose the arts is the vehicle that people are using to get to the same end of financial security and acclaim.

Clearly, regardless of which career choice one makes, the fact is that to succeed in that field, one has to work equally hard, put in thousands of  hours of practice and apply oneself in education,the goals of which are fundamentally the same as they would be in a professional career. To imply otherwise is misleading - the arts require an extremely high degree of educational attainment so I am always somewhat puzzled when I hear Asians speaking about a career in arts as though it is a breeze to achieve.

But there is another aspect to this way of thinking that I find troubling. This what the article says....

Americans often measure success by the three M’s: money, Motorola, and Mercedes. Most Chinese immigrant parents, on the other hand, define success as getting straight A’s, graduating from an elite university, pursuing an advanced degree and becoming a doctor, lawyer, pharmacist or engineer.......Could this be why the children of Chinese immigrants are, on average, better educated and wealthier – with higher paying jobs – than the general US population?.......

Given these consequences, why do Chinese and other Asian immigrant parents frame success so narrowly?.......They do so because they come from countries where education is one of the only paths for mobility. And, as non-white immigrants in the United States, Asian immigrant parents fear that their children will experience discrimination in their careers. So parents shepherd their children into conservative, high-status professions in which they may be most shielded from potential discrimination by employers, customers and clients.......

Based on our interviews with the children of Chinese immigrants, we learned that their parents believe that careers in writing, acting, fashion and art are risky because these professions involve subjective evaluation, thereby making their children vulnerable to bias. By contrast, careers in medicine, engineering, law or pharmacy require higher credentials and advanced degrees, which protects their children from the usual types of discrimination.

What strikes me here is that the article is suggesting that because some people struggle or ultimately fail in their attempts to enter the professions with impeccable educational credentials that this is somehow a good reason to re-define the terms of success. As I explained above, success in any field is fundamentally measured by the same criteria; acclaim from peers and community and financial security so, in reality, success is not actually being re-defined. It is merely the means by which these goals are achieved that has been changed and that carries with it the same, or greater, risk of failure.

But even though the article outlines clearly that perceived and real experiences of prejudice and discrimination have already shaped Asians practices and attitudes towards careers and success - that is, Asians have already re-defined success to adapt to these experiences - Lee's piece somehow manages to avoid the elephant in the room by suggesting that Asians should reappraise of how we define success as a separate dialogue from the factors of prejudice that largely shape them. In effect, Lee is saying that Asians should put their heads down and unilaterally adapt - again - to the obstacles of racism and prejudice that shape how we may approach career choices without, presumably, addressing the issues that have limited, and caused Asians to self-limit, their career choices.

What I am getting at here is that if we know and acknowledge that stereotypes, discrimination, and prejudice, play a significant role in shaping or limiting the avenues for opportunity that Asians feel are available to them, then any reappraisal of this has to be culture and society-wide, and include a reappraisal by society of its attitudes that limit Asian participation in all aspect and areas of the culture.

Certainly it could be argued that by making the decision to strive for success in fields where Asians are not "traditionally" to be found could create a shift in attitudes, but as Jeremy Lin has shown in sports, and several Asian actors have shown in film, even if you have abilities to succeed outside the Asian norm, the deeply ingrained attitudes can and will hold you back. But in both Jeremy Lin's case and that of Asian actors not being given opportunities, it could be argued that the support of the larger Asian-American community who have attacked head-on and basically stopped the overt dehumanizing stereotyping  and characterizations of Lin has helped to smooth his path somewhat, and Asian responses to poor representations may have slightly improved opportunities for Asian actors.

The point here is that the combined efforts of  of Lin's pursuing an "outside of the box" career and the head-on confrontations of the community to the racist backlash against him may have served to highlight the societal conversation about anti-Asian racism, and softened America's cultural conceptual barriers that see or accept a very limited definition of what it means to be Asian. Lee is fundamentally describing a shift whereby Asians act like a "model minority", by changing their own behaviour without necessarily rocking the boat of mainstream racist attitudes, despite the evidence that with a combination of personal application and community will we can soften, slightly, the blows of racist presumption.

Now the irony here is that Lee's piece was written almost as a refutation of Amy Chua's supposed model-minority-celebrating-new-novel in which she cited cultural characteristics as the cause of the successes - as defined by financial and academic achievement - of various American ethnic minorities, including, naturally, the Chinese. Oddly, Lee seems to be a champion for Asians to model-minority their way out of career and choice limiting prejudice in much the same way that Chua has been accused of doing. Even more funny, is that Lee actually reaches the same conclusions that Chua reached - cultural factors are responsible for the success of some minority groups, which is exactly what Chua has asserted. It seems odd to rebut an idea by seemingly agreeing with it.

My sense, though, is that Lee's piece is but one manifestation of the widespread embarrassment amongst Asians that Amy Chua has chosen - by default, perhaps - to not be contrite about Asian success and put it out there as - again perhaps not by design - something that deserves praise in and of itself without it being framed as an implicit affront to the cause of social justice and anti-racism. I'm a little fatigued by the constant reminders that Asians should be ashamed that being successful supposedly makes other minorities look bad, or that our successes are some kind of leverage to justify racism against other groups. On the contrary, the model minority stereotype first and foremost is used to justify racism against Asians, or diminish its importance.

Some suggest that we should throw off the model-minority stereotype for these reasons, I say that by allowing the stereotype to loom large in our consciousness we are giving in to the power of stereotypes to shape our lives. The fact is that regardless of who you are, if you believe stereotypes then you have accepted and utilized racist thinking. This holds true for the white racist who justifies racism against non-Asians by citing the model-minority stereotype, but also for the non-white person who allows themselves to develop racialized resentment towards Asians because they may have been told that they should "do what the Asians do".

We are not responsible for the stereotypes that are created about us and trying to not seem to be that stereotype is to allow racism to shape your actions, when the focus should really be on developing original approaches to shaping identity, our cultural footprint, and our inclusion in more aspects of the culture. Shaming ourselves about Asian successes is to accept the principles of racial prejudice. This is because anti-Asian racism manifests as a refusal to accept Asian-American accomplishments or view them as implicitly threatening, suspicious, or as a justification for resentment which are foundational aspects of anti-Asian racism.

How odd that it is being suggested that we can strike a blow against racism by encouraging shame and suspicion about successes that are largely shaped by that very racism. This behaviour allows the virus of racism to persist because, paradoxically, the carrot of economic success through academic achievement and a career in the professions is still largely held up as the goal for every other group but Asians who, apparently, should be questioning it. This means that decrying our successes supports the racist perspective that is threatened by, and suspicious of, Asian success.

Dreaming Of A Non-White Winter Olympics

Things Unsaid....

I came across an interesting article in the Washington Post about the lack of diversity at the Sochi Olympics. Bemoaning the lack of African-American and Hispanic athletes, the piece highlights the almost absolute "whiteness" of the games....

Don’t listen to your friends back home saying the Winter Olympics are just for white people who like the cold and vacation in Aspen. This is the most inclusive Winter Games ever. Why, there are Caucasians here from almost 88 different nations......this place is whiter than an episode of “Downton Abbey.”

Fair enough, black and Hispanic underrepresentation in winter sports is something to ponder, but not, in my opinion any more or less worth pondering than the general underrepresentation of Asians in sport - more on that later. Whilst the dearth of black and Hispanic athletes in winter sports is certainly something that requires attention, the fact that Asians have traditionally not been associated with sports and, thus, generally not considered as "sporty" - which may be reflected in the relative dearth of Asians in sport - is something that I think also warrants some degree of inquiry.

So, surely, Asians who do make it in sport is a subject worthy of its own investigation and story - after all, Asians are a racial minority affected by racism and stereotypes (particularly, perhaps in sport) that seeks to limit their prosperity? Well, maybe not........

Look, I don’t care about the color of the competitors. And I don’t think the paucity of black or Hispanic athletes should cheapen any gold medal, as if somehow this were a cold-war Olympics that didn’t include some of the greatest sporting nations......The fact is, despite Vonetta Flowers becoming the first black person to become a Winter Olympic gold medalist as a bobsledder in 2002, despite Davis becoming the first male African American to win individual gold in 2006, there hasn’t been a whole lot of carryover.

Yes, more minorities, more colour, more diversity........yes?

Aside from the large contingent of Asian athletes and a smattering of Jamaican bobsledders and Tongans, the Opening Ceremonies’ Parade of Nations is as white as a von Trapp family reunion.

Er..no! That's right, apart from the large contingent of non-white Asians and a few blacks and Pacific İslanders, there is just no diversity at the games. Why the writer of the article apparently feels as though a large contingent of Asians is somehow a lesser quality of diversity isn't specified. Given stereotypes about Asian physical weaknesses and inaptitude for sports, surely the fact that there is a "large contingent" of Asians participating in a sporting event at the highest level warrants a more enthusiastic commentary. Instead, I can't help  but feel as though the writer is suggesting that the Asian contingent is a kind of disappointing diversity that is only worth the effort of inclusion in the discussion only to further highlight that, well, there are few blacks at the games.

To me, the fact that Asians are present in numbers at Sochi is, in fact, a huge victory against the racialized thinking that stereotypes Asians as nerdy, unsporty, weaklings and is something that deserves to be celebrated - particularly in light of the fact that several of those Asian athletes are Americans. A more interesting question may be, perhaps, why Asians are present in numbers at winter sports and what that may tell us about the complexities of American attitudes towards race and stereotypes.

It could well be that - for the Asian-American athletes at least - the very lack of black dominance in winter sports has offered breathing space for the consideration of Asians for inclusion. What I mean by this is that stereotypes about the sporting prowess of black athletes coupled with opposite stereotypes about Asians may conspire to leave little room in sporting programs for Asians to be included, no-one expects to find  good Asian athletes, so no-one is looking. Since winter sports don't seem to be looking for a "Michael Jordan", there is room for Asians to taste the waters of athletic competition and compete at the highest level since they are also not competing against stereotypes of superior black sporting aptitude.

The point is that the typical stereotypical modes of thinking that have discouraged the idea that Asians have the physical capabilities to compete at the highest athletic levels are almost certainly being overcome and belied by the very presence of Asians at the highest level of competition at Sochi. This is a cause for celebration, it is certainly worthy of far more than a single disappointed throwaway line that diminishes the value of the Asian component of diversity.

But perhaps the biggest point of concern - and disappointment - is the implication that Asian athletes participating in lieu of white ones is somehow cheating America (and possibly blacks and the whole world) out of true diversity, which really should mean black and Hispanic athletes competing in lieu of white (and possibly Asian) ones. There are some disturbing echoes here of the debate over college admissions in which Asians have become something of a bogeyman and stumbling block for the liberal narrative of diversity and its recent addendum that too much success amongst Asians is a threat to black empowerment.

In summary, the piece illustrates that Asian-Americans are the blindspot of America's race dialogue - our "successes" are not the kind of race-dialogue that America welcomes, even when it is a clear illustration of overcoming racialized adversity. The fact is that it is in the field of sports that black and Hispanic integration has been quite pronounced, such that these groups dominate or are on an equal footing in mainstream American sports. Ironically, it is aspiring Asians who need encouragement to participate in sports and whose presence is underrepresented - so why is a large contingent of Asian athletes only worth mentioning in the context of how few black and Hispanics there are?

True investment in diversity should lead us to ask balanced questions and think, well, in more diverse ways. In the interests of genuine diversity in sports it is fair and balanced to ask; how do we expand the involvement of Asians in sports so that they are more equally represented in sports outside of winter competition? But that would mean that America would have to start thinking about the Asian experience of race, racism, and racialization - something it presently generally prefers to dismiss.

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.