Drake's Impersonation Of Manny Pacquiao

Is It Offensive?

There's a video that has been making the rounds that shows the singer, Drake, impersonating Filipino boxer, Manny Pacquiao. The skit shows Drake - as Pacquiao - in the recording studio talking about his love of music amongst other things and, well, just watch......



What do you think? I thought the skit was hilarious and not in the least offensive or racist, but the video has apparently caused offense amongst some Filipinos. The Facebook site of the Philippine newspaper, Inquirer, has asked readers if they consider the skit to be racist, to which most have answered "no". This link shows some reactions to the skit - mostly positive, but a few not so much. Another Filipino blogger has written a post explaining why he thinks the skit was racist - here - calling it a type of blackface.

Whilst I understand the sentiment of those who are uncomfortable with the skit or have found it racist or offensive I don't agree with them. Where I agree with those who are offended is that we have a responsibility to examine these kinds of representations of Asians in the media because the vast majority of the time those representations are overwhelmingly demeaning and negative. In this case, however, I think that we have to look at the context and the big picture in order to be able to truly assess the intent of the skit.

There is a major difference between the Drake skit and the typical "comedy/satire" that mock and demean Asians. We have to remember that the usual demeaning representation of Asian people de-individuates us, meaning that this kind of racism relies not so much on observation of particular individuals, but rather draws from the library of stereotypical and racist conceptions of Asians - some of which are decades old - that are based more on the product of the mainstream racist imagination than on any real interaction with Asian people. After all, you cannot know Asian people and be their friend if you interact with them the in the way modeled by the media. So, all the "ching-chong" representations of Asians are not based on observations of individuals, but are mostly drawn from mainstream-created unrealistic stereotypes the purpose of which is to demean and dehumanize Asian people.

Drake's impersonation of Manny Pacquiao, by contrast, does the exact opposite to the above. Firstly, it is an impersonation based on the observed behaviour, mannerisms, and speech of a real person and not merely a regurgitation of tired stereotypes. Manny's love for singing is parodied, and his "renaissance-boxer-man" approach to life is cleverly satirized, and it is all delivered using an accurately executed Filipino accent and a well-observed Pacquiao humility. In other words, whoever wrote the piece actually bothered to observe aspects of Pacquiao's character and demeanour and was thus able to produce a clever personalized parody of a real, individual, Asian person instead of the typical dehumanizing allusions to slant eyes, and gibberish language imitation.

That to me is the crux of why the piece was not racist; instead of saying the usual "look! An Asian! Ching-Chong!", the piece was individualizing an Asian man through parody, instead of de-individuating and dehumanizing him. Whether this was by design or if it was merely a happy accident I do not know but I think that, in a sense, the skit  is one of the most normalized depictions of an Asian man that I have ever seen, simply because it is based on the actual observation of a real, individual Asian man.

H/T FlipFob

The Unified Voice.

Asian Men And Forging The Asian-American Identity.

I recently read an entry from the AngryAsianMan blog about a charity drive by Asian-American artist (of Taiwanese descent) and entrepreneur named Martin Hsu who produces a selection of art-related goodies for sale at his online store. The charity drive was in support of the victims of typhoon Haiyan. All sales of his signature "Dragon Boy" t-shirt will be donated to the Doctors Without Borders typhoon relief fund - furthermore, total sales of the shirt will be matched by Hsu and also donated to the fund. Offer ended at Thanksgiving, so those who participated are appreciated.

Aside from the kudos for the generous humanitarian effort, one thing has struck me about this Asian disaster and others like it and the responses of Asian-Americans to them. I'm relying solely on perception here, but it seems that regardless of the particular nation that has been struck by a disaster - Japanese or Indonesian tsunamis, the Sichuan earthquake of 2008, and now Haiyan - Asian-Americans respond, for the most part, as though they have a personal "connection" to those who have become victimized.

This is especially obvious if or when such tragedies have been accompanied by gloating racist outbursts on social or other media, as was the case with the 2004 Indonesian tsunami, the Japanese tsunami of 2011, the Sichuan earthquake, and even the Haiyan disaster. In all of these cases, the response of Asian-Americans seemed to suggest a "broadening" of specific ethnic identities and identifications, and a more expansive sense of an "Asian" identity" and identification.

But it is not only in the aftermath of disasters that the "boundaries" of ethnic identification seem to become more permeable. Successful or high profile Asian and Asian-American sportsmen like Manny, Jeremy Lin, Ichiro Suzuki, Yao Ming, and perhaps even Kristi Yamaguchi, have been supported and identified with by all Asian ethnicities in the US who may, perhaps, feel as though they are represented by people who look like them in a mainstream where Asians are typically invisible. As a Filipino, I certainly feel a sense of pride whenever I see Manny in action in the ring, but I also have equal investment in seeing Taiwanese-American Jeremy Lin succeed, hoping that his success will have a trickle down effect on the American psyche and create a shift in attitudes towards all Asians regardless of ethnicity.

To me, this represents a rudimentary notion of an identity - a sense of commonality of aspiration and experience that somehow causes a unity of sorts. What is interesting is that there seems to be little expression of commonality between ethnic groups apart from unity in the face of tragedy (and I include racial violence in this category), during protests against racist cultural depictions, and in support for Asian athletes. To me, this is a different way of saying that there seems to be no unifying culture that knits various Asian-American ethnicities together in the same way that support for an Asian sportsman might. Aside from the unifying force of tragedy, it is pretty much only via athletes that Asians (of all genders and ethnicities) have expressed or had the sense of the notion that, "yes, that represents me".

The same cannot really be said of Asian artists or other cultural figures. Certainly, there have been Asian-American cultural figures whose ideas have galvanized sections of the community (sometimes against each other!), but it seems predominantly through athletes that Asians most exuberantly express a sense of commonality. But most interestingly of all, is that it is Asian male athletes who have most forcefully been the source of this unifying force.

In view of my previous post, in which I outlined the apparent discomfort that some within ouır community have with both an empowered, specified Asian male voice, and the exploration of Asian masculinity and male sexuality, this idea of Asian male athletes being the driving force that seems to unite the community presents us with something of a dilemma; whilst Asian athletes - predominantly male - with displays of masculine prowess in their field of competition, have been the figures around whom Asian-Americans feel empowered to claim as their own regardless of ethnicity, there is an apparent counter-current that views Asian masculinity either with some distaste, or a focus on the Asian male voice as an incomplete inquiry unless it defers to other issues simultaneously.

As I suggested here Asian male sportsmen - just like black sportsmen overcoming segregation in years past - are necessarily on the forefront of the fight to shift cultural attitudes and beliefs about Asian men. Coupled with the fact that Asian male sportsmen have - observably - been the fulcrum around which Asians have rallied to raise their voices in support, and with whom many have identified, this idea that Asian masculinity and male voice are somehow threatening or is an incomplete area of discussion in and of itself, can be viewed as being ultimately a handicap on the empowerment of the entire community. Displays of Asian masculinity unify - this is observably true - so it follows that exploration of the Asian male voice, and its empowerment in its own right, is essential to unifying Asian-America.

The interesting thing is that this unifying phenomenon reinforces the commonality of the "Asian" piece of the Asian-American identity - somewhat different from the usual drive to define our American-ness and highlight the "American" half of the label.

What About Us?

Well.....What About You?

It is somewhat amazing that in the two years or so since Wesley Yang wrote his piece for the New York magazine and I'm still deriving so much rich material from it to post about! Perhaps it is the general dearth of Asian men being given opportunities to voice strong opinions in mainstream outlets that may explain my continued revisiting of the one that stands out the most.

My original opinions on Yang's piece were critical, but I noticed an interesting phenomenon in some other responses to his piece - the fact that he had actually chosen to focus on Asian men seemed to be a source of criticism. Despite all the issues that I had with Yang's piece, the one positive that I took from his piece was that he had focused on Asian-American men. I don't think he should have been criticized for that - although I did not agree with much of what he wrote, the fact that he chose to focus specifically on Asian men is in and of itself not a good reason to criticize his piece. But some critiques seemed to find Yang's Asian-male-centric focus to be problematic.

A response piece written in Slate magazine by Nina Shen Rastogi at the time offered some valid criticisms of Yang's piece, and then threw in this somewhat leading remark in the second paragraph...

As the accompanying  Yang, recent college grad Jefferson Mao, restaurateur Eddie Huang, and "pickup artist" J.T. Tran make clear, this essay gazes up at that woody canopy from a decidedly male perspective. The 9,000-word piece profiles several young Asian-American men but there is only one woman — a marketer for IBM — who emerges as anything near a character, though she's far less vividly drawn than any of the males. What's more, male sexual inadequacy is a consistent theme in Yang's lament: Failing to master the nuances of American masculinity is portrayed as a key part of the Asian-American experience. (On the question of where that leaves us Asian-American women, Yang is silent.)

The fact that the above comment occurs in the second paragraph might suggest how important it was to Rastogi to point out that Asian women did not feature in Yang's piece. To me this is a bizarre and perhaps, petty, criticism; Yang's piece is about the Asian male experience, and that is worthy of focus and attention in and of itself without having to be all-inclusive. How mentioning Asian women in the piece might perhaps lend greater credibility is never explained by Rastogi.

The emboldened part of the criticism is especially perplexing. Asian men's masculinity issues - that is, America's cultural dehumanization of Asian men - is a key part of the Asian-American experience. Where that leaves Asian women is really up to Asian women to explain, and Rastogi would have done better to, perhaps, put forward her own ideas on this instead of offering pointless, insinuative criticisms that seem to be little more than discomfort that there exists an Asian male experience that need not require the presence of Asian women to give it validity. The fact is, Asian men have their own set of issues relating to race, or otherwise, that are deserving of their own space and opportunity for investigation and which is necessarily independent of Asian women's issues. Why this disturbs folks is beyond the scope of this piece to explain.

In another critique, which I found to be insightful overall, an Asian male blogger at a space called "Scattered Speculations" offers similar criticisms....

I ask this, following Vijay Prashad’s wonderful book The Karma of Brown Folk, because I think what Asian Americans (I hesitate to say “we” here) seem to constantly miss is how much discourses of “Asian American success” and “model minority” are used (not necessarily by us at first) for the reproduction of the American racial strata whose logic and raison d’etre is anti-Black, and largely sexist. (I need not remind you all the racist figures of “welfare queen” that began under Reagan and came to a boiling point in Bill Clinton. It is he who ended welfare after all.) And most importantly, how Asian American men benefit from this. More than anything, I’m troubled by Yang’s utter ignorance of this fact. There is no mention of African Americans or women. Hence, his piece is littered with stories about Asian American men’s inability to get what white men get—whether it be in the realm of college admissions, professional mobility, or white women. (It is on this last point that I find the non-mention of Asian American women, even just an aside, to be rather odd.)

The author of that blog - a dude named Sam Han - ups the ante in the above comment, calling Yang out for not mentioning African-Americans as well as women as, perhaps, being more harmed by the model minority stereotype and notions of Asian-American success. But, again, the implication is that Asian men's experiences don't have a legitimate claim for specific focus and that such issues are devalued without a wider context. This is like having your child repeatedly come home from school with a bloody nose, asking him or her to explain what happened and how he or she feels about it, but then criticizing the answer because they fail to mention how their bloody nose affects their classmates.

But even more problematic in the Han criticism is that it, ironically, fails to notice that many stereotypes bring benefits to varying degrees to those who are stereotyped based on one's position on the political spectrum. Asian women "benefit" from the stereotype of being passive and submissive (that is, "safe"), by being more readily accepted - at least as media figures - than Asian men, and perhaps even more so than black women. African-Americans benefit from America's suspicion of Asians by being more associated with being "American" - that is, black loyalties are rarely questioned.

Worst of all, Han's criticism implies that Asians are somehow required to answer for stereotypes that they had no role in creating. I don't think that we are required to answer for stereotypes that others create about us, especially when - as I pointed out here - it is questionable the actual degree to which the model minority stereotype actually informs government social policies, and it is mostly Asians themselves who seem to be the one's most likely to talk about it these days. More importantly, the model minority myth hurts Asians more than anyone else - a fact that gets lost in our drive to perform damage control the effects on other groups of a stereotypes that we did not create. No, it is ridiculous to insist that a discussion on the specific issues that affect Asian men should have an "all-inclusive" element. The subject is worthy of attention in and of itself, without the need to apologize for its existence.

Although it may not be the intention of the two critics above, the result of such criticisms is that it insists that Asian men's issues (and, strangely, by extension all Asian issues) are more credible or even valid only if they don't somehow only focus on Asian men. This is tantamount to saying that the Asian male voice cannot speak on its own behalf specifically, but must highlight related issues along the way. If we were to follow this policy, it would mean that Asians can have no credible autonomous voice, and that Asian men's issues are only valid relative to the issues of other oppressed groups. That is a dangerous way of thinking. Albeit unintentional, this way of thinking is actually a classic Red Herring type approach that is usually used by those opposed to any minority voice.

Occasionally, the apparent drive to tamper with and temper the Asian male experience manifests in snide ways. In an article from earlier in the year, Slate writer, Anne Ishii, offers a somewhat eye-rollingly derisive review of a biography called "Fresh Off The Boat" by Asian-American provocateur (of sorts), Eddie Huang. Ishii's review seems to go a step further and instead of insisting that there be no focus on Asian men, she seems to haughtily find the whole process of Asian men blindly sorting their way through pervasive racist stereotypes to be distasteful - who do Asian men they think they are, indeed?! In fact, it is almost as though Ishii is embarrassed that Huang has a racialized masculinity - as though it is his fault - and she is somehow losing face because of it.

In short, Asian men's stories - just like any other demographic - are significant in their own right without having to be vehicles for other oppressed groups. Yes, there is a time and place for that kind of crossover work, but given the dearth of Asian men's points of view in the mainstream, it seems petty (and repressive) for people to insist that what little time we are afforded to present a specific Asian male perspective must be shared with others who may, in fact, already possess greater opportunities and avenues to recount their experiences than Asian men could even hope for.

For all of the criticisms that have been levelled at Wesley Yang's piece, the most unexpected (and pointless) is that he was somehow at fault because he focused on issues specifically from the perspective of Asian men. Criticizing this further marginalizes Asian men, and represses their opportunities to have an autonomous voice within American culture.

Lifting The Veil

The Impact Of  Stereotypes...

I came across an interesting and funny article written by a Caucasian woman named Sarah Shaw in which she writes about Asian stereotypes that she had been exposed to in the US, and which she bought into. Similar to the experiences of another American woman whom I wrote about, here, when this woman actually got to be around Asian men in an environment where the culture did  not bombard her with denigrating images and beliefs about them, she was suddenly able see that Asian men could be viable partners, and that she could be and was sexually attracted to them. Prior to moving to Seoul, she was convinced that she just wasn't attracted to Asian men and would definitely not be dating them.

This is what she writes.....

While growing up in a homogeneous white town, it was a standard perception that Asian men just weren’t attractive. I’m embarrassed to admit that I once mentioned to an friend, “Asian girls are so attractive, but I don’t find Asian guys attractive at all.” I can’t even believe I would make such a blanket statement about about an entire race of men, but now, I am fully aware that the American media vastly influenced my perception.

This is interesting for a number of reasons. Growing up in a homogeneous white town, the most likely source of her aversion to Asian men would certainly not have been based upon personal acquaintance. Shaw acknowledges that it is most likely media influences that shaped her ideas about Asian men. Sometimes Asian men (and women) are chided for seeming to place an unreasonable significance on how the popular media portrays us, yet  the fact that individuals can form belief systems that they may consider an accurate representation of reality based entirely on what the media says, illustrates its potential to shape attitudes for both positive and negative outcomes. Shaw continues....

In Western pop culture and Hollywood movies, Asian men are often de-sexualized, usually fitting into one of three roles: The asexual math geek or computer nerd; the funny ugly guy with a thick foreign accent that everyone laughs at; the badass ninja, samurai or any other type of martial artist in traditional Asian garb clutching a sword.

There you have it; popular cultural notions can and do act as a surrogate for real-world experience and foster the formation of beliefs in much the same way that real-world experience might. When you factor in conditions like one-sided depictions combined with limited personal exposure to Asians, the effects can evidently be dramatic and people can formulate a worldview and a set of beliefs about a group of people without even coming into contact with them much, if at all.

Having moved to Seoul and apparently freed from the prejudices of American popular culture, Shaw began to find plenty of dating material amongst the men of Korea, but found herself beset by confused disbelief  of friends back home at her decision to date Asian men. Citing a steady stream of stereotypes gleaned from knowledge gained via popular cultural depictions, Shaws friends express incredulity that she could date Asian men.Sadly (but perhaps not surprisingly), Shaw also encountered several Asian-American women who also expressed prejudiced attitudes towards Asian men. Noting the unique affection of Asian gender dynamics, she says.....

I’ve also met several Asian-American women who stereotype Asian men. “Someone’s gotta love the Asian men! I only date white guys,” one of my friends said last year, after I told her about the guy I was dating.

Nice. Shaw finishes with this...

No, I don’t have yellow fever (okay, maybe a little) and I don’t necessarily have a “thing” for Asian men. I’m not attracted to the Korean guys that wear BB cream and carry designer purses, but I do like smooth skin and silky black hair.

I emboldened that last sentence because it highlights something that Asian-American guys never seem to tell themselves - they possess physical qualities, like silky black hair and smooth skin, that many women find attractive. The reason may be that, unlike in Asia, Asian-American guys grow up smothered by societal messages propagated via the media, that tell them they are clownish weaklings and ugly. We talk often about how brainwashed Asian women are by the media, but I think we have to acknowledge that Asian men are brainwashed as well - many of us believe what the media says about us (even though we would deny it). Many Asian men believe that they are disadvantaged because they have either internalized prevailing stereotypes about themselves, or they feel that the sheer weight of culturally normalized prejudice is too massive a hurdle to overcome as an individual.

This latter point is understandable, because profoundly ingrained racial stereotypes are held in place by peer pressure - once an idea sticks, it's "veracity" is upheld by social habit and custom. Forget everything you have heard about the western character being one of individuals not swayed by social conditioning, and too individualistic to be pressured into conformity. That's nonsense. White people do conform, but they just often don't know it, or simply won't admit it. The Shaw article and others like it are a testament to this - once people leave the confining circumstances of their own cultural prejudices, and are away from the peer-pressure of it, they suddenly feel free to actually exercise their individualism and go against the grain of their culture's beliefs.

In another article that illustrates how cultural conditioning holds Asian men back, a Dutch blogger describes how her visit to the Phillipines was something of a shock...

[In the Phillipnes there was] Head-turning when walking by, men extending a friendly hand to me while my male partner was ignored and Filipino’s calling me miss sexy despite the fact that my male partner was right beside me. The weirdest incident happened when a child I would guess to be about 7 years old walked by me and said: hey sexy (by the way, what do you reckon, nature or nurture?)

Nowhere in American culture have I ever seen any Asian men being shown to be so brazenly flirtatious, or brazenly sexual. Even Filipinos in the US don't have that reputation - as far as I know. My take is that this aspect of Filipino culture - and I would guess, the sexuality of men from other Asian cultures - gets lost in translation during the migration process. Of course, being bombarded with denigrating images via the media probably contributes significantly to this process.

So whilst it is true that stereotypes probably do shape many people's attitudes towards Asian men, it is equally probable that Asian men don't help their own situation because they too might down talk themselves. My sense is that it need not take an entire cultural revolution for Asian men to seem more attractive - I think that individuals can make an impact also, probably just by starting to think differently about themselves.

Asian Kickass....

Loved this story from the UK......

Gurkha ignores knife wound to trap his mugger for 15 minutes while blade was stuck in his arm....... Anyone with any knowledge of military history knows the golden rule – don’t mess with a Gurkha.But the knife-wielding mugger in this drama clearly had no idea what he was messing with. He pushed Taitex Phlamachha, a former member of the famous fighting force, up against a wall and demanded money..........In the fight that ensued, a knife blade was buried in Mr Phlamachha’s arm, but he still managed to get the better of his attacker.....The 38-year-old shop owner was taking an evening walk with his wife Asha when they stopped to look in the window of a health shop in Maidstone, Kent. Suddenly he was hurled against a wall and allegedly told to ‘hand over the money’, or be stabbed....The pair fell to the ground where the mugger knelt on Mr Phlamachha’s chest and tried to stab him. Mr Phlamachha blocked the attacks and at the same time even managed to throw his mobile phone to his wife so she could dial 999......He threw the attacker off then disabled him with a kick before holding on to his clothes with one arm to stop him escaping for a full 15 minutes.

Awesome! 

 

For those who don't know, "Gurkha" is an umbrella term used to describe a number of Nepalese tribes whose fighting prowess so impressed British colonial forces in India in the 19th Century, that the peace treaty between the two opposing forces included the deal that Gurkhas would be contracted to serve in the British army. Over the next few decades the Gurkha regiments were used to great effect in most of Britain's wars, and whose reputation as fierce uncompromising fighters earned them the respect of militaries around the world. 

Naturally, racist Britain treated these troops, who have served the crown with distinction, as second class citizens and awards them lower pensions than their British counterparts. Although partially resolved, Britain still tries to dick some Gurkhas around over their right to stay in the UK.

Anyways, this particular guy didn't get the memo that insists Asian men are weak and wimpy. LOL!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2217460/Gurkha-ignores-knife-wound-trap-mugger-15-minutes-blade-stuck-arm.htm

Rugged Individuals?

The Fear Driving Racism Against Asian Men.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Describing her Korean date thus....

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

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

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

The harassment continued.....

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 LOL! Nice!

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

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

Commentary.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here are the links again....

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

The Free Lunch For Racists

 When Is a Hate Crime Not A Hate Crime?

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

Hate Crimes can encompass several things....

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Konishiwa Bitches.

The Upside Of Racial Exclusion.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Role Model At Last - Take Notes.

And Follow In This Guys Footsteps.

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



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

H/T Angry Asian Man

Dumb And Dumber

Dating White Guy Activism.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Don't let the dumb rule.