Sorting The Wheat From The Chaff

Or, Racial Experiences Suck - Who Knew?

I came across an interesting article from the Huffington Post written by a guy named Mason Hsieh in which he describes his experience of being asked the question "Where are you really from?". Hsieh does a great job outlining the racist presumptions that makes this line of questioning uncomfortable for Asians, as well as the socially inappropriate practice (bordering on harassment) of interrogating someone about their national or racial origins after they have already explained to you several times over that they are, in fact, American through and through.

Hsieh describes the incident thusly....

A few months back, I was at a party and was introduced to a random, white girl (let's call her Tammy). We hit it off relatively okay and began that boring, yet inevitable, game of "tell me about yourself." .........Everything was going fine until she asked me: "So, where are you from?" The conversation went as follows: 

Tammy: So, where are you from?Me: I'm from California.T: But where are you really from?M: I'm from the Bay Area.T: But, like, actually. Where are you really from?M: Oakland.T: Okay, what I mean is your face is not an "American" face.M: Excuse me?T: Like, your eyes... 

At this point, I simply fell silent and walked away from the conversation.

Strangely, even though Hsieh raised many pertinent points about the racial presumptions and ingrained racialized thinking that makes such conversations a common, uncomfortable, and sometimes a potentially dangerous experience, I can't help but feel as though he missed a golden opportunity to advance his own sense of personal empowerment from the situation.

I concur with Hsieh's views about the racial presumptions that drive such interactions, yet his own presumptions about the intent of people who engage in this line of racial interrogation is where he lets himself down both in the article and in the moment of his interaction with the interrogator. Although he acknowledges that he cannot know "Tammy's" intent, he continues as though he has judged her intent to be negative for no apparent reason other than it left him with negative feelings. Worse still, he then goes silent and then storms off, leaving Tammy's presumptions unchallenged.

To me, this defeatist behaviour is the natural, detrimental outcome of Asian-America's feminized anti-racist narrative that promotes feelings of offendedness as the foundational point from which counter-racist  commentary proceeds. As I have tried to explain many times before, our hurt feelings and sense of affront at meda slights and other hate crimes are un-compelling and un-inspirational as a means to galvanize empathy and hopelessly inadequate as a philosophical point of view to provide a strong unifying force for the community that can make coherent and compelling commentaries expounding on our racial experiences.

Amongst adults and in the world of the mature minded, feelings - hurt or otherwise - are things to be managed, and those who operate from emotion and make their feelings the subject of public debate are - often justifiably - viewed with suspicion and lose credibility. In short, Asian-Americans just don't have the privilege of making their feelings a matter of concern. We don't have the option of storming off and leaving the "fight" and we certainly don't have the privilege of allowing racialized or racist experiences go unchallenged in the moment.

To my way of thinking, Hsieh would have better helped himself if he had conveyed some of the ideas and feelings that he wrote about in his piece to the person who had actually caused him the distress. By storming off, he fundamentally conceded defeat by leaving the "floor" to the "offender" - at the end of the day the last man (or woman) standing is the one whose worldview prevails.

Don't get me wrong here, I'm not saying Hsieh should have been aggressive and responded with anger to his interrogation, but he may well have felt a greater sense of personal empowerment if he had stood his ground and made his case rather that allow himself to be driven by emotion. This is where the intent of the supposed micro-aggressor becomes important. To my mind, these situations provide a myriad of opportunities for personal growth in which we can educate those who are well-meaning, but conditioned to react this way to Asians, or conversely, we can call out and confront those who understand and utilize racialized presumptions to engage in what amounts to harassment or bullying of Asians. It is well and truly a process of separating the wheat from the chaff and that is something that has to be done in the moment on, unfortunately, a daily basis.

Some might argue that Asians should not have to educate people out of their racist conditioning and I would understand the sentiments behind that. Reality, however, has a way foiling such high-brow ideological pronouncements. By storming off and not seeing out these kinds of situations through to their conclusions, Hsieh and any Asian-Americans who react in this way are allowing such racialized conditioning to persist unchecked and unchallenged.

It doesn't really seem like it even comes down to "re-educating" people. It is more of engaging in a process of enquiry in which you assume the responsibility to shape and define the racial dialogue in your own personal spaces. In other words, you will be the one being educated and all of the ambiguity that surrounds these kinds of day-to-day interactions will fall away and you will be in a better position to judge the intent of those who approach you with this kind of interrogation. It could be that if one chooses to engage rather than storm off that one could end up with a friend who examines their presumptions. Conversely, the situation could turn into a full-on hate-crime. Either way, at least you will know where it is you stand and, hopefully, have a clearer picture of the most appropriate response for the moment. Plus, the article one writes about the encounter later is sure to be far more interesting.

To conclude, I want to emphasize that such situations are always awkward and knowing how to deal with racism is extremely difficult, particularly in the moment and when the intent is deliberately - or not - ambiguous. But that is merely an accurate summary of the Asian racial experience; there is an ambiguity about Asians as an ethnic minority that places us firmly outside of the considerations of both side of the racial equation. This ambiguity results in a wide gamut of outcomes ranging from awkward questioning and racial slurring, to employment discrimination and violent hate-crimes. So I don't fault Hsieh if he simply was at a loss at how to deal in the moment - we have all been there, including myself. It is a process and sometimes one fails.

It is in our interest to move away from the approach of haughty offence and wounded racial pride as foundations of our commentary and begin to think about and relate how we engaged in such situations so that we shed light on what it requires for us to have the kind of normal social and personal interactions that others take for granted.

Mytholigising The Model Minority Myth.

Why We Need To Think Twice.....

In my previous post I discussed a Times article written by Jack Linshi in which he made the point that questions, discussions, and considerations of diversity almost always exclude Asian-Americans. A pompous rebuttal piece in the Toast criticized Linshi's article for focusing too much on Asian-Americans in an article about Asian-Americans - go figure. One particular criticism was that Linshi failed to point out how the model minority stereotype is used as a "weapon against both black and brown people" which is also a criticism echoed in a critique of Linshi's article by Julianne Hing at Colorlines which rants.......

People who shape the dominant political narrative in this country—politicians, pundits, media—have little use for substantive conversation about any group of non-white people unless it’s to uphold, in stark terms, notions of black inferiority and white supremacy. To that end, Asians have actually been the subject of quite a lot of public fascination, mainly as props used to denigrate blacks and Latinos and programs designed to support them and other people of color—including segments of the Asian-American population. All too often, Asians are willing to play along.

My first reaction to this is that I fail to see why the possibility that white racists might use Asians and the model minority narrative to "denigrate" people of color should in any way preclude Asians from writing articles that specify the Asian racial experience and focus a little attention on it. Surely, writing about the Asian experience of white supremacist structures is itself a critique of that system and, hence, in no way "plays along" with it? This idea and self-righteous proclamation that "all too often, Asians are willing to play along" is troubling in itself, simply because it sometimes seems to be merely a rhetorical tool utilized by Asian-American advocates to point out how different they are from all the other Asians who just don't get it as opposed to a means of shedding a nuanced light on the attitudes and socio-political stances of Asian-Americans.

Actually, we rarely know just what Asian-Americans are thinking or believing about politics or social issues, largely because we are excluded from the enquiry into diversity, race, and many other aspects of American life. But it always helps one's advocacy cred to make vague and unsupported claims that there must be some Asians out there who are bastards and you're not like them. Of course, the irony here is that in order to make such a sweeping statement about Asians and to have it stick with any kind of rhetorical power, one must be implicitly participating in a process that marginalizes Asian's opportunities to speak for themselves and, thus, take advantage of the racist structures that accomplish the very invisibility that enables the media to engineer an identity for an entire minority. I find it hard to take anyone seriously who so unconsciously appropriates the trappings and benefits of white supremacy whilst believing themselves to be speaking out against it.

A subsequent Times article by Linshi actually seems to heed - or it may be mere coincidence - these criticisms and addresses the issue of the apparent role that the model minority stereotype plays in America's racial discourse. Writing about the significance of Ferguson to Asian-Americans he says this about the model minority stereotype........

One possible answer could be found in the model minority myth. The myth, a decades-old stereotype, casts Asian-Americans as universally successful, and discourages others — even Asian-Americans themselves — from believing in the validity of their struggles. But as protests over Ferguson continue, it’s increasingly important to remember the purpose of the model minority narrative’s construction. The doctored portrayal, which dates to 1966, was intended to shame African-American activists whose demands for equal civil rights threatened a centuries-old white society. (The original story in the New York Times thrust forward an image of Japanese-Americans quietly rising to economic successes despite the racial prejudice responsible for their unjust internment during World War II.)

So, Linshi (as is the case with many other Asian-American commentators) is suggesting that the model minority stereotype owes its existence to the exigency of white supremacist structures to somehow affect the civil rights struggle by shaming, denigrating, or embarrassing African-American activists. Although seemingly an axiom amongst Asian-Americans in general and a fundamental ontological pillar of Asian-American reactivism in particular, I think that it is an overly simplistic conception of the stereotype. Furthermore, this conception of the stereotype itself betrays the danger and immense damage that this custom of relegating the Asian experience to a mere side-note of anti-blackness can present.

It is generally accepted that the term "model-minority" first appeared in a 1966 article in the New York Times Magazine written by sociologist, William Petersen, (a subsequent article that same year in the conservative-leaning U.S News and World Report described the self-sufficiency of New York's Chinese-Americans) in which he described the phenomenon of how Japanese-Americans had overcome extreme racial prejudice and incarceration in internment camps to become a successful demographic. He termed this community the "model-minority". Upon reading the piece, it is difficult to reconcile the charge that the model-minority stereotype was specifically designed to shame and hinder black civil rights activism with the content of the article itself.

Certainly, the NYT piece makes references to the black experience - minor allusions consisting of a bare few sentences - but to my reading, it more significantly provides a wealth of information about the unique history of anti-Asian racism and exclusion with very little indication that blacks are being targeted in any way. In fact, there are just as many, perhaps more, references to how Japanese-Americans outperform whites, yet, no-one has suggested that the piece tries to denigrate or shame whites. It requires an extremely sensitive reading of the piece to even remotely conclude that it is anything other than an expose - extremely unusual for its time, and hardly typical now, five decades later - that focuses on Asian-Americans. In short, the piece does the one thing that Asian-American reactivists seem to hate more than anything; it focused specifically on Asians and anti-Asian racism as significant subjects in and of themselves.

If one steps back from the subject to assess the claim objectively it seems somewhat absurd to believe that this 1966 article served as some kind of anti-civil rights effort. Bear in mind that the FBI was actively gathering intelligence on individuals associated with the civil rights movement through a campaign of surveillance and infiltration, such that they most probably were aware of any facts that could incriminate and discredit the movement and its leaders. Thus, I am being asked to believe that even though there was probably a wealth of intelligence gathered information on the civil rights leadership that could have been, at least, manipulated to make it look unsavory in order to shackle them, the tactic of writing passive-aggressive articles with sometimes vague or passing mention of blacks was utilized to stymie the movement. I hope that sounds as far-fetched to you as it does to me. Quite frankly, it sounds absurd.

What is being said is that the people and culture that inflicted injustices on black people came up with a passive-aggressive ploy - that amounts to name-calling - that they presumed would work on a community who had endured and survived some of the worst treatment ever inflicted on an oppressed people all in order to maintain the unequal social order. Name-calling as a means to undermine the emotional well-being of, and a movement driven by, a group of people who had endured extremes of abuse and not been broken by it? The only shock here is why such an inane idea has flowered and endured amongst Asian-Americans. But, if the piece was not written to denigrate blacks, why was it written?

To answer this question we have to understand that in the mid-nineteen-sixties there was little love lost for Asian people in America. It was only twenty years after a brutal and savage war with Japan in which western prisoners of war had been subject to severe maltreatment, and the war itself had been conducted on the home front with an explicitly racist tone by utilizing existing stereotypes of Asians that had developed since the first Asian immigrants arrived on the West Coast to galvanize the will and antipathy of the American public. A mere few years after the Pacific War, America again was at war in Asia in the Korean peninsula, and once again, the war on the home front was conducted with an explicit tone of racist xenophobia as Chinese-Americans were placed under surveillance by America's intelligence communities.

During this period, the US considered using nuclear weapons against both the Chinese and North Koreans, but also apparently considered a French plan to nuke the anti-colonial insurgents in Vietnam during the nineteen-fifties. Plus, from the mid-nineteen-fifties onwards, the US began to slowly increase its involvement in the Vietnam war - an involvement that utilized strategies of mass-destruction like Agent Orange and carpet bombing, but was also characterized by personal animosity resulting in countless and commonplace atrocities against the local population. In short, Asians were largely viewed as enemies devoted to destroying America's way of life that few Americans would have preferred over blacks. The reason that there were so few Asians in the US was that Asians were simply not liked, and it was the passing of the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act - that would allow unimpeded migration from Asia - that brought Asians closer to the forefront of America's race dialogue.

America, by the mid-nineteen sixties, was a global power that, through a series of alliances, was striving to stem the advance of communism by pushing its own ideology of freedom, democracy, and equality. The problem was that the whole world could see what nonsense that was. Jim Crow (4th section, "Engaging with Africa") and racist immigration policies undermined America's credibility in the very countries of Asia (page 10) and Africa where the fight against communism was taking place. Thus, doing away with racist immigration policy was essential to maintain America's standing with its allies in Asia. The only obstacle was that Americans were largely against immigration reform that would permit unhindered migration of Asians into the country.

Thus, Asian-America's focus on America's social anxieties at the passing of civil rights legislation ignores the - perhaps equally - anxiety-inducing legislation that dramatically altered America's immigration policies. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 removed all of the barriers that up until that point had severely restricted immigration from Asian countries. Given that for decades Americans had been comfortable with immigration and social policies that excluded Asian people, it is not hard to see why the new legislation that would permit a group of people who were largely viewed as enemies to migrate en-masse might have been received with no small degree of trepidation. A Harris Poll of the time found that almost two-thirds of Americans opposed the act, and another 18% were undecided. America just was not happy with the idea of Asian immigration.

In light of this anti-Asian racism of the time, as well as the overwhelming opposition to the 1965 Immigration act, it seems even more far-fetched to suggest that Asians could possibly have been used as foil in some way to undermine black rights in the American mind. What is more likely is that the New York Times piece was merely an attempt by a liberal-leaning news publication to assuage anxieties about, and shape public opinion in favour of, a very unpopular , but politically necessary, piece of immigration legislation by painting Asian immigrants as a non-threatening and industrious group who make positive contributions to society. That's all it was. Even the US News piece seems to make no attempt to denigrate blacks and even quotes a social worker who explicitly states that the Chinese would exhibit very similar problems to blacks if they were placed under the same circumstances.

To fully understand the scope of American society's opposition to Asian immigration it is worth noting that more than a decade after the 1965 Immigration act, Americans were still voicing misgivings and hostility towards the prospect of Asian immigrants. As these two Harris Poll records show that Americans were in favor of closing the door to Vietnamese refugees, feared that they would take jobs from Americans, and widely believed that they would not be able to integrate. That hardly sounds like a resounding belief in the idea of Asians as a model minority that other minorities should emulate. Even today, some in white America are still smarting about the 1965 Immigration act. Articles like these show clearly that there are some Americans who continue to feel cheated out of their demographic privilege by the 1965 legislation.

By belaboring the dubious assertion that there was, and is, some kind of conspiracy of passive-aggression to embarrass blacks into submission - when several centuries of brutal slavery and decades of Jim Crow failed to do just that - Asian-Americans are not only obscuring history, they are contributing to Asian-American invisibility by deflecting attention away from the Asian-specific racial experiences described above and in so doing deny Asians a deserved autonomous racial perspective.

But, what of the idea that the model minority stereotype continues to be used to "browbeat" other minorities and justify discrimination against those groups? Most recently, public figures like Adam Carolla and Bill O'Reilly utilized the stereotype and its most trendy incarnation, Asian Privilege, to deny that racism is the inhibiting force that minorities say it is. I will discuss the Carolla and O'Reilly use of "Asian privilege" rhetoric in my next post, but for now, I ask the question; is there evidence that those who believe the model minority stereotype also exhibit racist attitudes towards blacks that are justified by, and derived from, it? Unfortunately, the answer is not as straight-forward as the examples of Carolla and O'Reilly would make it seem to be.

A study by the Northwestern University of Law found a tenuous correlation between those whites who adhere to the model minority stereotype and a corresponding adherence to anti-black attitudes. Even where a correlation was present, there was no reason to believe that the model minority stereotype was a causative factor in forming anti-black attitudes, merely that there was a pattern or correlation. Do Asian-Americans really believe that white racism requires an Asian intercessory justification to legitimize its existence in the minds of those who adhere to it? From the study....

..generally non- Hispanic whites who believe that Asian Americans work harder than whites are not less sympathetic to blacks’ need for greater government assistance (see Table 1). Put slightly differently, the belief that some Asian Americans have “pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps” does not necessarily accompany the view that all groups should do the same.

More significantly, the study found a strong correlation between the belief that Asians are hard-working and successful and a belief that Asians experience no discrimination. In other words, the model minority stereotypes  hurts Asians, by obscuring the fact of anti-Asian racism, more than it informs negative attitudes towards other minority groups.

The Model Minority Hypothesis would predict that those who consider Asians smart, hard working, or wealthy tend to think that Asian Americans are not discriminated against..........Among non-Hispanic whites, the belief in most of the five positive model minority stereotypes correlated very strongly with the perception that Asian Americans faced little or no discrimination in the job market or government assistance for other minority groups.......Similarly, those non-Hispanic white respondents who believe that Asian Americans are wealthier or harder working than other minorities also tend to be more likely to believe that Asian Americans face little or no housing discrimination.

The study's conclusions?

Overall, there is no relationship between positive views of Asian Americans and negative views of African Americans. Where significant relationships exist, they usually tend to undercut the Model Minority Hypothesis, rather than support it. ....On balance, we found no significant support for the concern that those who espouse model-minority-like beliefs are more likely to oppose affirmative action for African Americans in employment or college aid, to believe that blacks have too much government influence, or to believe that we spend too much money on schools in black neighborhoods (see Tables 1 and 2).

In other words, it is particularly those who hold the stereotype of Asian Americans as hard working compared to whites who show intermittent favoritism for immigration, immigrants, Asian Americans, African Americans, and government programs to help them—no “Yellow Peril” here.

The data showed no general pattern of correlations between beliefs that Asian Americans are smarter, harder working, or richer than other minorities and hostility to immigrants, Asian Americans, or African Americans.

Ouch. There is no reason to believe that whites who hold to the model minority stereotype also exhibit a corresponding antipathy to other minorities. In fact, those who view Asians as model minorities also view other minorities sympathetically. This suggests that despite conservative pundits' use of the model minority stereotype to race-troll, average Americans aren't buying it.

Although it is almost certainly true that politicians and media pundits make rhetorical plays on the stereotype, there is little reason to believe that there is widespread adoption of these attitudes in the general population. There is also reason to believe that the idea that Asians receive favorite status or some kind of special treatment from whites - the "Asian Privilege" theory - is little more than a concocted fantasy. After all, few believe that Asians experience discrimination such that it would warrant special treatment. Believing that Asians are more hard-working than other groups simply does not correlate with any notion that blacks and immigrants should be denied assistance, nor is there reason to believe that the model minority stereotype confers political or social benefits on Asians. I wonder if the entirely Asian-American created notion of Asian privilege has done more to generate resentment from other minority groups than the model minority stereotype.

What all of this suggests is that one of the foundational concepts in Asian-American thought is in dire need of revision. Primarily because focusing on how the model minority stereotype affects other groups - which seems to be not at all - we are implicitly obscuring the patterns of racism that have affected Asians for decades and further handicapping our credibility as deserving participants in the race dialogue.

Conservative politicians and pundits are able to use Asians as battering rams against other minorities precisely because Asians have little opportunity in the mainstream to present their own point of view. Asian-American commentators aid this marginalization by criticizing Asian-focused narratives for being Asian-focused.

Weren't The First Chinese-Americans....

.....Mostly Men?

I came across an article in the Huffington Post today that reports on a photographic exhibition taking place in New York that examines the lives and contributions of the early Chinese immigrants to the US. The exhibition is called "Chinese American: Exclusion/Inclusion" and looks to be an interesting show. The HuffPo article is also very interesting, but in a different way. In light of two recent posts - one dealing with the downgrading of the anti-Asian male violence nature of the Isla Vista killings, the other dealing with the need to promote Asian-American history through culture - the HuffPo article does a good job of illustrating the tendency of commentators to do the former, as well as the necessity to enact the latter.

The article begins thus.....

It wasn't easy being Chinese American in the early days. From exclusionary laws to the racist caricatures that dotted newspaper comic pages, America wasn't exactly laying down the welcome mat.

Although the above statement is true, it is also - paradoxically - false. The falsity occurs in what is omitted in the description of the experiences of the first large-scale Chinese immigrants in America. As I wrote in a previous post - here - the lives of the early Chinese immigrants were characterized by savage violence inflicted upon them by white Americans. This is what I wrote in that post, which I titled "Driven Out - An Asian-American Holocaust"......

The stories of violence and manifestations of hatred are almost unbelieveable - they are so savage, brutal, and sadistic, that the perpetrators and the violence that they committed sounds like little more than a caricature of a medieval warlord and his mob of rampaging peasants. If one were to write a novel - or make a movie - with these kinds of incidents, most people might find the characterizations to be too far-fetched. But these things did happen, and the sadistic brutality was real, yet, the entire episode has almost disappeared from the American consciousness...... 

Mobs of men (but sometimes including women and children) would enter Chinatowns, forcing the Chinese out of their homes and businesses, they would be beaten (or killed) and then made to walk miles to the coast or railway stations where they would be forced onto trains and ships and removed from the town. Then the homes of the Chinese would be ransacked and burned. In some instances, Chinese homes and dorms would be set on fire with the Chinese men still inside, who were then shot at and murdered as they tried to escape the flames....... 

In the six or so decades between the 1850's and the early 20th century, there were hundreds of such incidences, that drove Chinese communities out of dozens of American West Coast towns, killing many Chinese men and injuring thousands more. Following the so-called "dog-tag" laws in the 1890's that required the registration of all Chinese, the idea was floated that any Chinese who could not show that they were legal should be placed in "enclosures" - a disturbing foreshadowing of Japanese internment.

Most of the information for that post was taken from a book - that all Asian-Americans should be made to read - called "Driven Out", and it paints a far more horrific picture of life for America's first Chinese immigrants. Although exclusionary laws and racist caricatures in the media were significant - and serious - issues facing the first Chinese-Americans, the pervasive violence that accompanied it deserves to be remembered, documented, and imprinted, even, in the consciousness of both Asian-Americans and the mainstream.

But why is it necessary to remember these terrible historical episodes when the Chinese men who went through it were themselves reluctant to record these experiences, preferring to forget the horror of it all? Well, firstly, if we forget exactly how extremely difficult it was made for the early Chinese immigrants  to establish communities, and then thrive, then it actually diminishes the successes highlighted in the HuffPo piece. For example, it is an achievement that there was a Chinese-American WWI pilot (highlighted in the HuffPo piece), but if all the community that she came from had to overcome were some mean caricatures and racist immigration laws (which by her very presence, she had gotten around), then her achievement seems less of one.

By contrast if we acknowledge that in order for her to be able achieve what she achieved, her antecessors had to resolve to carry on after being violently expelled from homes and businesses that they and taken years and decades to build, and watching friends, family, and acquaintances, being rounded up, beaten, and murdered, in the process, lends a whole new level of significance to her success. Overcoming racist caricatures and immigration laws to achieve success is good, overcoming a six-decade period in which your community was were subjected to expulsions from dozens of towns, pogroms, ethnic cleansing, and suggestions that they should be placed in "enclosures", is far more significant achievement.

The second reason to remember the violence perpetrated against the first Chinese-Americans is that we can see echoes of the relationship between anti-Chinese/Asian political rhetoric, racist media depictions, and racist violence and behaviours, that is still with us today. Often our racial experiences are shaped by rhetoric driven by political tensions between the US and some Asian country that manifests as racial hostility or violence against Americans of Asian descent. Vincent Chin was one such victim of this process. It is possible that political rhetoric empowers and enables the expression of casual racism against Asians in the media which in turn empowers and promotes demeaning racist behaviour and perhaps even violence towards Asian people. This process was a problem for the first Chinese Americans -with deadly results - and it remains a significant issue today, and one that we still struggle to deal with. This is a disturbing reminder that however far we think we have come as a community, there still exists in America a cultural phenomenon and process in which politics and media combine to shape behaviours and attitudes towards Asians that are still largely hostile, dehumanizing, and casually racist.

The third and final reason to remember the violence perpetrated against the first Chinese is not to do entirely with white racism, but has more to do with how we tend to collude (both intentionally and unintentionally) with the mainstream to marginalize uncomfortable history and those who experienced it. The facts of history tell us that the first Chinese communities in America were made up almost entirely of Chinese men. Of course, what this means is that the vast, vast, vast majority of the victims of the expulsions, round-ups, beatings, tortures, and murders, committed by white-American mobs all along the West Coast were men - Asian men. What this means is that by not making mention of this period of ethnic cleansing against the Chinese we are erasing one of the most monumental episodes in history that lies at the root of and defines America's cultural conceptions and attitudes towards Asian men (just think of all the Asian men we still see being slaughtered by the dozen in American films), but we are also erasing - and as a consequence, dishonouring - the bravery, steel, and determination (qualities often associated with masculinity) exhibited by these 19th century Chinese men.

They are the ones who were violently expelled from their own homes, and who did not give up but instead starting again somewhere else, sometimes several times over. They were the one's who survived beatings and violent round-ups, and witnessed their friends being murdered, but who persevered. By their perseverance and bravery, these Asian men made possible the successes of later generations. If they had not fought back against their persecutors, there would have been no "later generations" of Chinese or Asians in America worth talking about. Yet, their story is marginalized. The reasons for this may be complicated.

Some of us may have internalized America's refusal to associate Asian men with qualities of bravery, perseverance and masculinity, and are, thus, unable or unwilling to view this period of Asian history in that light. Some of us may also have internalized America's discomfort with strong Asian men, the idea of which may seem threatening. Some of us may simply be ignorant of this history. More disturbing, perhaps, is the possibility that the story of these Chinese men, who overcame extreme brutality, is somehow a victim of the Asian-American divide that places the genders in competition for a share of mainstream attention and acceptance. It could be that it does not fit the narrative to acknowledge that Asian men laid the groundwork for the subsequent growth and thriving of Asian-Americans - the preferred narrative and the one most readily accepted by the mainstream (i.e. white America), the one that defines Asian men almost entirely by their attitudes towards, or treatment of (real or made-up) Asian women.

The result is that we are left with an Asian-American culture that largely avoids the uncomfortable episode of ethnic cleansing that targeted the first Chinese immigrants but also continued in the form of pogroms and race-riots that targeted subsequent communities of mainly male Filipino and Japanese immigrants. By allowing ourselves to forget, allow our community to be ignorant of, or deliberately downplay the experience and history of Asian men overcoming decades of racial violence, then we are guilty of colluding with white supremacy. Firstly, we are basically allowing Asian-American history and thus Asian-American culture to be feminized in an unhealthy way - a type of feminization that does not uphold Asian feminine power, but rather patronizingly views Asian feminine power as somewhat passive, cute, and girly. Secondly, we are allowing mainstream sensibilities and apathetic acquiescence to racial stereotypes to be the main factor in defining the elements that are important to the cultural development of Asian-Americans and, hence, the factors that drive our identity.

It could be that the resilience of these early Chinese immigrants does not fit our own mainstream caricature-derived notions of Asian men and their masculinity. The Chinese men who overwhelmingly comprised the first Chinese immigrant communities, had to display a kind of courage and depth of determination that one would not believe possible if we were to take our references for Asian male masculinity from America's cultural depictions. Consider this; over a six-decade period, these men were targeted by mobs and individuals for violence and abuse. They were dragged out of their homes, beaten, their homes ransacked and their belongings stolen, then often their homes and places of business were burned to the ground, sometimes with the Chinese men in them.

Those who were not murdered were rounded up, and marched at gunpoint - sometimes for miles without being given food or water - and were forcibly put onto trains and ships where they were told never to return to the towns that had just expelled them. Now, remember that none of this even speaks to the daily occurrence of racism that they endured - like verbal harassment, personal violence, white customers taking goods and services from their stores and refusing to pay, not to mention racial murders, separate from those committed during the expulsions, that were never investigated, or when they were, resulted in no charges or only perfunctory sentencing for the perpetrators.

Our racist concept of Asian masculinity that is America's culturally appropriate way of viewing Asian men that we have internalized, might make us believe that the response of the Chinese men might be to slink away in fear, complaining unintelligibly in funny ching-chong accents, and cower in fear. Yet, this is not the case. Even after being threatened with death - by local politicians as well as local labor thugs - if they returned to their burned out homes and communities, these Chinese men, did just that to reclaim their belongings, homes, and even to seek justice from their attackers. Others simply re-settled elsewhere and started over, arming themselves for defense. The real nuance here is that even in that time, these Chinese men found ways to negotiate with their white neighbours - some of whom were sympathetic, others not so much - and build a strong connection and even community that included non-Chinese friends and benefactors that helped the communities to survive. These Chinese men were smart as well as tough.

This is how it was possible for Asian-America to exist and we have Asian men to thank for it and the subsequent successes that we have come to enjoy. Let's try to remember them.

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.

A Modulating Racism

Prosperity, Success, And The Permissiveness Of Racism.

I came across an article in the New York Times that covered the racial experiences of minority groups at the University Of Michigan. What struck me about the piece was one comment by a black admin officer that I thought had significance in the intra-Asian-American dialogue on the model minority stereotype. This is the comment...

We’re clearly not postracial,” said Tiya A. Miles, chairwoman of the department of Afro-American and African studies. “Sometimes I wonder if having a black president lets people feel like that gives them cover. It absolves people of being prejudiced.

An interesting comment that sums up in a nutshell the experience of Asian-Americans.Whereas the the above comment mentions the "success" of having a black president serving as an excuse or cover for prejudice, for Asian-Americans, it is the notion of an economically and educationally high-achieving minority that excuses anti-Asian attitudes - what do Asians have to complain about when they are so successful?

Whereas much commentary focuses on how the minority model stereotype separates us in the eyes of our co-minorities, all too often we miss the fact that the stereotype's primary function serves to render an autonomous Asian voice invisible and downplay the fact that casual anti-Asian racism and hate crimes are regularly committed through derogatory cultural representations of Asians, normalizing such attitudes and further ingraining anti-Asian hostility into the cultural zeitgeist as the normal and acceptable mode of behaviour and conceptualization of Asian people.

While we spend our time decrying how the successes we achieve are an affront to other minorities, we fail to notice that this success - paraphrased as the "model minority" - serves as an excuse to legitimize America's casual cultural racism towards Asian-Americans. Many of the incidents cited by the article of racial intolerance and insensitivity towards black students are mirrored in commonplace experiences for Asian-Americans. In fact, not only are they common, American culture itself brazenly and unapologetically propagates this intolerance flagrantly distilling "Asian" characteristics down to a series of demeaning qualities that are recycled by subsequent perpetrators and even broadcast to international audiences.

Here are some examples of the intolerance cited in the article....

fraternity hosting the party, whose members are mostly Asian and white, had invited “rappers, twerkers, gangsters” and others “back to da hood again.”.....high-profile incidents — including a number of fraternity parties nationwide that have used racist symbols, including watermelons and gang signs....a black student at the State University of New York at New Paltz, shared a photo of a “colored only” sign that had been placed on a water fountain in his freshman year.

What is being described here echoes the kinds of media depictions that Asian-Americans complain about, the difference is that the article is acknowledging that these incidents may reflect an intolerance towards blacks, whereas the media's perpetration of the same kinds of insensitivities and dehumanization of Asians causes few eyebrows to be raised, and scarce criticism save from Asians themselves. Rarely, if at all, is the possibility raised that these intermittent but consistent depictions of Asians might reflect intolerance. The question is; what is the difference between "play-acting" at being a "gangsta" in a college frat-house and play-acting dehumanizing ideas about Asians on the television or movie screen?

One difference is that Asians are a model minority whose educational and economic achievements have enabled anti-Asian racism to find an acceptable avenue of expression - prosperity alleviates the effects of racism, so the prevailing wisdom goes, and, in fact, prosperity itself may reflect a reversal of racist attitudes such that racial insensitivities can be excused because the bottom-line has become the gauge of its prevalence. The logic is flawless and convenient; prosperity is an indicator that racism has diminished, therefore racially demeaning depictions of Asians simply cannot be racist.

The reality is that what the Asian-American experience can offer us - and it is an experience that we often miss in our attempts to distance ourselves from "internalizing" the model minority stereotype - is an insight into the future of all visible minorities who attain some level of prosperity. If we accept that prosperity is the line beyond which racism is judged to have disappeared - when our experience tells us it has not - then we have not really succeeded in changing ingrained racist attitudes, we merely allow them to exist in a more subtle or snide way that enables the permissiveness of racial harassment.

The model minority dialogue must provide more room for the exploration of this phenomenon of prosperity providing the legitimacy for the permissiveness of racial harassment. Instead of framing the Asian-American experience of achieving prosperity as primarily a story of a formerly aggrieved minority's ingratitude or indifference to other minorities who may be less successful than we, perhaps it would behoove us to explore the subtle, grudging, racisms that accompanies prosperity or even merely the appearance of prosperity, and in so doing, highlight the fact that racism does not end once a group has exhibits high college graduation or income levels. 

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.

A-Town Boyz Movie

Asian-American Gangsters Of Atlanta.

I just read about this on the AngryAsianMan blog. A woman named Grace Jung is part of a production team that is making a documentary about Asian-American gangsters in Atlanta. The documentary was made under the direction of award-winning director Eugene Lau, and began production with the help of a grant from Spike Lee. Writing on a website called "Thought Catalog", Grace explains why this particular subject matter...

Why Asian American Men?.......Nobody ever asks for their point of view; Asian-American males are a neglected group in our society. The subjects of our documentary are all male, Asian American and either from or currently based in Atlanta. Our subjects have a diverse background but share some similarities: raised by immigrant parents who worked long hours (parental neglect at home) and lacked the knowledge to navigate the educational systems due to the language barrier (extra pressure on the children to figure things out alone at a very young age), and struggled with racism in their schools where Asian Americans were taunted for their looks, language, culture, etc.

Hey, someone is listening! Then Jung goes on to explain further some of the factors for the alienation of these young Asian-American men...

The main point we’re addressing with subjects like these is that they felt unheard and misunderstood by everyone. The lack of proper role models at home, school and in the media (a general lack of real Asian faces that are not embarrassing all of Asian Americans by perpetuating undesirable stereotypes that are easy to poke fun at or laugh at), these young men felt let down and alienated.

I don't think I could have put it better myself. This idea of alienation - bizarrely, a word I hardly ever see being used to describe the Asian-American experience - is a recurring theme in my writing. Although this documentary focuses on a specific demographic (Asian youth joining gangs), I would add that many Asian men from all demographics experience a similar sense of alienation from society for the same reasons that these young men do; a culture that normalizes derogatory ways of thinking of and behaving towards Asians (particularly Asian men) and that neither offers few images of a healthy, dignified, culturally appropriate Asian masculinity, nor fosters an inclusive cultural identity for young Asian-American men.

Anyways, I am looking forward to the movie, here's the trailer......





And here is the documentary's website...

http://www.atownboyzmovie.com/

Support this movie when it comes out.

"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.