The following is based on Dr Beverly Tatum’s excellent book, “Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?” (1997):
Asian Americans are not all alike. Asians came to America from different countries at different times for different reasons. Some grew up in America, some grew up overseas. Some live in poverty, some do quite well, though not quite as well as many imagine – they still make less money than whites with the same education.
Despite all that they have certain common experiences of racism from living in America because they are seen as being alike. And that affects how those who were born in America grow up.
Overall it is like growing up black, going through roughly the same stages:
- race does not matter
- experience of racism
- making sense of your race or ethnicity
- becoming proud of your race or ethnicity and moving forward with a secure sense of who you are
Unlike blacks, however, some Asian Americans can fool themselves into thinking of themselves as honorary whites, as raceless in a sense – like Tiger Woods, in fact, who is half Asian. So it might not be till their late 20s that they go through all these stages.
The danger of not coming to terms with being Asian in America is that it leads to self-hatred and insecurity. If you do not have your own image of being Asian, you will have the white image of what that means, stereotypes and all. That is bad: Whites, in the end, look down on Asians. They do not see them as fully human. That is what the racism is about.
Asians are affected by two main racist stereotypes:
- model minority: Asians as quiet, hard-working, putting their families first and being good at math and science.
- perpetual foreigner: Asians as not truly American even if they grew up in America. Because they “look Asian” they do not “seem American”.
Asian Americans often grow up in white neighbourhoods and become completely White American by culture – in how they talk and act and think – but still they are not fully accepted by whites because of how they look.
Some might wonder what is wrong with being a model minority. It is a good thing, right? No:
- Like any stereotype, it is extremely insulting: it refuses to see a person as an individual. If you work hard and get good grades, for example, it is “because you are Asian”.
- It gives whites an excuse not to take Asians seriously when they complain of racism.
- It is not even true: most Cambodian Americans, for example, never complete high school!
- It puts Asians at odds with blacks and Latinos when both should make common cause against white racism.
Asians are seen as these limited, cardboard beings. That comes across, for example, in the limited way they are shown in Hollywood and comic books. To become fully Asian American you have to overcome the white ideas of what that means.
See also:
[…] the Chinese as well. His rhetoric is simple and easy to understand. He should run for office. growing up Asian American – abagond.wordpress.com 08/21/2009 The following is based on Dr Beverly Tatum’s excellent […]
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Way off on this one. My wife is Asian and gets the stereotypes from everyone, not just the whites.
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@Christopher
Yeah, my ex-boyfriend is Asian and he received the same from everyone. When we were out, black men would make “kung fu” noises and tell him to leave their sister alone (me).
And white men would ask what I am doing with him.
He didn’t identifiy with the white race.
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Excellent post.
I’m not East Asian but I grew up with many and used to browse many Asian American forums. This sums up how they felt about being “yellow” in the U.S.
Islandgirl,
I think it’s weird that some black guys openly disapproved of you being with an Asian fellow. How dare they! LOL. How many years have black women had to see them FLAUNT their (usually unattractive) non-black women! The nerve. LOL.
Black female/Asian male combos are super rare in the western world.
But again, great post, Aba.
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Thanks, Mynameismyname.
@ islandgirl & Christopher Herz:
I know that black-on-yellow racism can be particular mean, to say the least, and there are reasons for that (I hope to do a post on it in time), but for anyone growing up in America white racism is what matters the most in the end because whites have the most power in society by far.
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I’m Asian-Canadian of Filipino descent and the part about model minority is something I was expected to live up to. For example, I suck at Math. I had classmates in school copy my answers because they perceived I was very good with numbers. Wrong! Imagine their surprise when they discovered they did just as poorly as I did. That’ll teach them for copying me. LOL!
Regarding the perpetual foreigner, I know some Asians whose families have lived in Canada for over a hundred years…at least, four or five generations, and they’re still looked upon as strangers.
Another thing. Although I was born in Canada, and have no accent whatsoever, I always receive, “You speak English well. What country did you originate from?” despite the fact I was born there.
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I have been guilty of that: I once asked an old Asian man in New York waiting for a bus if the bus was headed to where I was going. I asked him slowly and probably a bit too loudly, thinking his English was not all that good. Imagine my embarrassment when he answered me in perfect English!
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^ I’ve experienced that as well. I’ve said, “I heard you loud and clear. I’m not deaf, you know.” LOL!
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I was reading some more again about the Vietnam War – many American GI(s) when on leave would go to Australia or a country with “no Asians” instead of the many Asian countries near Vietnam because they couldn’t handle “seeing all those slant eyes” – not all Asians are Vietnamese but yet to these GI they were all the “same”. That is RACIST!
Some Asians may not have dark skin but that does not free them from experiences of very extreme and nasty racism.
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Wow.
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@Therese:
Before the Vietnam war, there was the little known Philippine-American war (1899-1902). As I mentioned previously, I am of Filipino descent. My mother made me aware of my people’s history and struggles. She mentioned African-American soldiers were conflicted that they had to fight in a war against their “little brown brothers” as Filipinos were called back then and a lot worse, mind you. Here’s an excerpt from a journal article titled
“African-American soldiers and Filipinos: racial imperialism, Jim Crow and social relations” by Scot Ngozi-Brown.
In February 1899, the Spanish Government ratified a peace treaty which “entrusted” the Philippines to the United States. Despite the success in the war with Spain, the United States military forces could not avoid conflict with another opponent in the Philippines. Emilio Aguinaldo had led a well-organized Filipino resistance to Spanish colonialism prior to the United States’ intervention, and this resistance continued after the Spanish defeat. When the peace treaty was ratified, skirmishes between Filipino nationalists and United States forces had already occurred. These conflicts evolved into full-scale, pitched battles. The Filipinos also used guerrilla warfare tactics to resist what they considered an American replacement of Spain as the oppressor.
This turn of events in the early Spring, 1899, marks the beginning of the Philippine-American war (1899-1902) – a war which quickly involved the United States Army’s African-American soldiers. All four black regiments which had previously fought in Cuba were dispatched to the Philippines in the summer of 1899. These African-American soldiers were to find themselves placed in an extremely difficult situation. They were foot soldiers for a racist ideology in which white Americans characterized Filipinos as they did African-Americans: as inferior, inept, and even subhuman. When the United States military occupied the Philippine islands, it installed a racist society which alienated both Filipino and African-American soldiers.(1)
Here’s more info about the African-American soldiers in the Philippines-American war.
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I know that black-on-yellow racism can be particular mean, to say the least, and there are reasons for that (I hope to do a post on it in time), but for anyone growing up in America white racism is what matters the most in the end because whites have the most power in society by far.
I don’t know…
I’ve been wrestling with this idea for some time now and I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s counterproductive to think of racism from different races having a different “power.”
The idea that an African-American or Native American calling you a “Chink” is somehow different or less damaging than a White person calling you a “Chink” seems questionable logic at best.
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^^
Good point.
However, black and Native Americans are also stigmatized, due to living in a white supremecist (sp) so them calling an East Asian a “chink” can be seen as the pot calling the kettle black.
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Thank you so much for that information L.T. – I do try to read up on as much information as I can about colonial and civil wars in the South East Asian area (along with the rest of the world as much as I can) especially at the turn of last century.
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King, great point, but I would still agree that Whites have more power. All races can use ethnic slurs, but Whites are the only group that has enough power to discriminate on a widescale, i.e., in employment, in housing, etc.
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Sorry, I meant to include that the examples I mentioned are institutional racism, and in the US the “institution” is set up by a White power structure.
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Right, blacks can be racist at a personal level but generally only whites have the power to do it at the institutional level: the police, courts, schools, employment, housing market, newspapers, fashion and film industry, etc. At the moment you are being called names that stuff does not matter, but over the space of your whole life it will matter more. Not that that ever makes it right to call someone a name.
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L.T.:
Thanks for the information about black soldiers in the Philippines. It makes sense but I did not know about it.
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@Therese & abagond:
You’re very welcome. This is a part of history that needs to come to light. We may come from different backgrounds, but we’re not so different after all. Racism affects all of us and we’re in this together. 🙂
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>Black female/Asian male combos are super rare in the western world.
Why is this, btw?
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Because according to American stereotypes Asian men are the least manly and black women the least womanly.
By that measure, though, black men and Asian women should be the likeliest interracial pairing, but it hardly is. Partly I think that is because black men are not all that attracted to Asian women, certainly no where nearly as much as white men seem to be.
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White men are very much attracted to Asian women.
A lot has to do with pure attraction. To some, their looks are exotic.
I once had an Asian girlfriend who used to hate the way she looked i.e. her eyes. But I told her that’s what makes us all unique.
How boring it would be if we were all the same.
Many other white men see Asian women as being submissive. Which in my experience they are.
I certainly don’t want a woman who is overbearing to say the least. IMO, women should always be submissive with the man being the dominant figure in the household.
At least that’s the way I was raised anyway.
Submissiveness is good for me, I don’t want to feel like I’m dating a dude. I want her to be womanly like.
And I prefer the petite (5’5″) – (100-125 lbs.) and many other white males prefer that as well.
That’s just the physical aspect of it.
Personalities vary of course, but the ones I’ve known/dated, are very sweet, kind and submissive in their approach. Very family oriented.
White males when dating a different race tend to lean towards the skinny/petite/submissive type of women.
Of course that varies man to man, but I suppose that is only part of the reason white males prefer/date/marry Asian women when they step out of the box.
Just my opinions/experiences here. In no way does this reflect every white man nor am I trying to reflect upon every white man.
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@Azrazyel:
Everytime I hear the word “exotic” I’m thinking, “Exotic compared to what?” Asians have eyes, nose, ears, etc. just like everyone else. What does the shape or shall I say the slant of our eyes determine how “exotic” we are? Btw, having slanted eyes is not exclusive to Asians.
I bet you the reason why your Asian girlfriend despised the way she looked is because she was made fun of for looking different. I can relate. Growing up, I was one of the few Asians around and I was mercilessly taunted simply for being Asian.
Regarding Asian women being submissive, I am one Asian woman who is definitely not. Ask my significant other, and he’ll tell you otherwise. lol! Asian women are no more or no less submissive than other women.
As for the physical aspect, many Asian women are indeed petite in height, and are quite slim. I really hated that as I was expected to have the typical Asian woman’s build. Although I’m 5’3″, and weigh 110 lbs., I also have breasts (C cup)with a bit of a derriere. It may not sound big to others, but when you’re this size, you end up looking like the Asian version of Pam Anderson. Also, it’s automatically assumed I have implants because I have breasts. I find that quite annoying.
Another thing, coming from my own personal experiences, I’ve been approached by men of different backgrounds and not just White men. And they have this notion that Asian women are tighter down there. That’s disgusting! I’m more than what’s between my legs. And I’m not a sex toy for some man’s amusement.
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Hello L.T.
Submissiveness was just my personal encounters. I felt more at ease with them than any white woman I’ve dated. Too bad there isn’t enough of them around here otherwise I would be in lala land…..lol
I’m sorry that you were approached with the preconceptions of being ‘tight’ down there. I think it’s pretty disgusting myself since I’m only one of few guys who actually carries morals with them.
People just don’t get the notion anymore of having a relationship without regards to sex in any way, shape or form.
What I meant by exotic was I think Asian women are unique in their own sense. Every race has a unique attribute, but Asian women, to me at least, being exotic meaning…..petite, slim, facial features esp. with the eyes. I love the eyes and I think it is one of many beautiful aspects of Asian women.
Of course it’s more than just physicality. It’s personality which matters most of course which varies person to person.
I’m only 5’7″ and I weigh 133 lbs. So of course I would like someone who is smaller than me. Being the typical white male and preferring the slim/petite type, Asian women have it going for me.
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I just came across this post while doing a project in one of my classes. My parents were immigrants and I grew up Asian in an all-white neighbourhood. I am one of those admitted white-washed, banana/twinkie Asians. I identified with being a white person for years. It was a rude awakening to realise that caucasians didn’t see me as the same (i was roughly 9 years old at the time); i was suddenly stuck between two universes, one that i did not feel a part of but was supposed to feel a part of.
You said, “The danger of not coming to terms with being Asian in America is that it leads to self-hatred and insecurity. If you do not have your own image of being Asian, you will have the white image of what that means, stereotypes and all.”
I can attest to that. I battled with having the stereotypes of Asians particularly because I didn’t identify with them, and whatever I did feel, those were negative. I can admit that. I also dealt with a lot of self-hatred and I struggled with being Asian and having to contend with all those awful stereotypes that had nothing to do with me.
I don’t feel these things now. It has been a long, hard battle. It was very hard to deal with while growing up. But things are a lot better for me and I accept my past and look beyond those things now.
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@ché:
Thank you for telling your experiences. I’m also the daughter of immigrant parents, and I grew up in an all-white neigborhood as well. Although I seemed the typical Westernized kid (born and raised in Canada), my parents made me very aware of my roots and that I would always be regarded as different or foreign by the people where I lived…no matter how assimilated I had become.
I knew one Asian friend now ex-friend, who was a twinkie (yellow on the outside, white on the inside), and she didn’t want any association with Asians. She always made negative comments about Asians when she was one herself!
I loathed her attitude as she was smug and considered herself superior. I eventually distanced myself from her because we always got into arguments about her stereotyping fellow Asian people to the point of being derogatory. I realized…by her being derogatory to Asians, how much she despised being Asian.
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@ché:
Thanks for recounting your experiences Che. May you grow in strength!
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I’ve never heard of Yellow Rage until now. Wow, now that’s what I call a declaration! I totally understand where these women are coming from regarding their frustration of AW stereotypes.
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I have a Cambodian Vietnamese mother and my father is American. They met during the war and I was born in Vietnam. My father brought us back to a small northern WI town. I’ve heard on many occasions- Go back to your country. You don’t belong here you stupid gook. However, blacks and Indians throughout the years could be just as cruel. Former G.I.s, Yes, experienced it there too. Some of my father’s family was embarrassed my father had to bring a woman back from Vietnam, as if Vietnam wasn’t already a thing of shame and embarrassment. Vietnamese have been just as guilty too though. Some have had their discriminative ways because I am mixed. Regarding the model citizen, with some whites, you will never be American, well at least not a grateful American; even though you are supposed to have the right to do what every American has the right and responsibility to do- question government and policies, but if you do, you are an ungrateful Asian. America love it or leave it you know.
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^bringing embarrassment and shame to both sides of your family –
^ ungrateful *American* and despised *foreigner* in Asia
– YEP, YEP, YEP
😦
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If it is any consolation, would be nice to know what it would be like growing up white in E/S.E. Asian countries. It is no picnic either. First of all most of the time it would be hard for you to immigrate there. And even if you do and become naturalized,
1) People will call you a “foreigner”. Always. Openly, in front of others. Such as in restaurants, buses, social situations, etc. They would say- here, give this foreigner some food. There is no political correctness in the way people label you and talk about you.
2) People do not believe that you can eat rice. Never mind that the US is the 2nd biggest producer of rice in the world and that rice is Spanish and Portuguese staple food and Arab staple food. What people do not eat rice.
3) You will be treated as a guest who must go home at some point. Always. You will not be expected to speak a local language and people will almost never ask you for directions ( unless they are drunk).
4) In Northern Asia, you will have often a problem getting housing and going into clubs, bars which have a “no foreigners” policy. With signs and all.
5) If you are a guy, you will have problems dating good girls and will be seen as a spare tire by local women when local guys do not want them- because too old, not pretty enough, has a kid, etc.Dating a pretty local girl in her prime will be very hard.
Otoh, in an Anglo society, you at least can become a hyphenated American/Canadian but no white person can hope to become a hyphenated Japanese/Korean, etc.
Singapore and Philippines are exceptions.
This is just tribalism- a human instinct.
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“Whites, in the end, look down on Asians. They do not see them as fully human.”
I wish this were qualified at least a little, since I hope you don’t mean all whites. I am white, my brother’s wife is Japanese, and I can assure you he doesn’t think of his wife as less than human. Probably in large part because I was a young teen when my brother married, and because I became an uncle soon after, Asians (especially East Asians) just don’t seem very other to me. My brother has two daughters, one of whom looks more Japanese than white. I certainly don’t love her any less than her sister, and as family photos demonstrate, she spent a lot of time in my arms when she was young.
I also have to say that in my circles anyway I have heard hardly any anti-Asian sentiment expressed by other whites. So I find your sweeping statement extremely unrealistic.
Additionally, you underestimate the power that non-white minority groups are capable of exercising in the United States in certain situations. I lived for almost twenty years in Philadelphia. I can assure you that many African-Americans there take advantage of their numbers to exercise power, albeit often in very petty ways (ultimately tending to be ineffectual in improving the situation for African-Americans in general).
You write: “[F]or anyone growing up in America white racism is what matters the most in the end because whites have the most power in society by far.” What if you are an Asian who gets sent to the hospital thanks to black individuals acting on their hatred of Asians? What if you are an Asian who has to put up with years of regular racially motivated, or at leat racially tinged, bullying in high school? I’m sorry, but I bet that if you asked Asians in Philadelphia whether blacks or whites do the most harm to their quality of life on a day to day basis, the answer would be the former.
This is a particular example, but it’s hardly an isolated case:
Click to access AALDEF_SummaryofDOJComplaint_Philly%281%29.pdf
*
Some music (click featured embedded video). A nice demure Japanese girl, devoid of actual humanity the way us white folks see them, right?
http://www.youtube.com/user/dokidokiup11?feature=
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@ RudyM
1. Love hardly requires a sense of equality. Otherwise there would be no loving husbands who are sexist.
2. “Whites” does not mean “all whites”. I can say, “Whites owned slaves,” even though most did not. You are applying quantity to a sentence that is not about quantity. Why is that?
3. Black hate crimes against Asian Americans hardly proves there is no white racism against Asians or that it is not as bad. I doubt blacks have much to do with glass ceilings, higher rates of Asian poverty in America as compared to whites, higher unemployment, or lower incomes for a given level of education.
4. Just so you know, there are Asian hate crimes against blacks. In 2009, for example, there were 11 black-on-Asian hate crimes and 10 Asian-on-black ones. Yet it is only the black-on-Asian ones that white people bring up. Why is that?
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lol
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Oh, those white men that wouldn’t-be-caught-dead-with-a-black-woman-but-think-East-Asian-women-are-babes…
Aren’t they the ones who studiously choose the East Asian or Southeast Asian woman as proof of the outer limit of their racial tolerance?
I knew 2 friends, both white men, and very competitive with one another.
One of them started to date a black woman, but the other one, not be outdone, had to show that he was open-minded, too.
He found himself a Taiwanese student, and was very pleased at how inclusive and liberal-minded he thought it made him look. As for black people, he looked down on them, scorning the women.
The less adventurous white men will prove how “liberal-minded” they are by dating say, a white Brazilian woman, thinking these women somehow “sultry” for a reason they can’t define*. Or choosing, say, a Spanish woman from Spain or even from Hispanic America — so “hot” — loving off their dark looks (lol).
Another set of white men fancy themselves “out there” by scooping up a “sexy” Russian, Pole, Czech, Lithuanian,etc., although many of these educated and cultured women seem ill-matched with the Western men who launch themselves at them.
Those are the white men who believe they will somehow have “more in common” with a woman from quite a different background and culture — simply because they look very white but with a Slavonic twist. (Yet white Americans and black Americans, as Americans, will seem far more alike, ironically.)
For white men who don’t want to follow the hereditary pattern in choice of mate, I sometimes believe those choices form a pyramid of which “lower status” woman is desirable: East Asian, or Southeast Asian woman on top, then the Southern Europeans and East Europeans in the middle.
Black women on the bottom.
This is definitely about power.
(* I used to hear white men describe the appearance of white Brazilian women, whether students or models this way. As if these women had extra spice because they had a black grand- or great-grandmother lurking in their families to give them that certain va-va voom.)
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@Kiwi:
Interesting. I wonder how many other racialized youths and people suffer from depression whilst knowingly or unknowingly battling internalized racism?
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I witness two scary things in tv world in the past. They was killing asian actors and actress with no tomorrow in Almost Human and Sleepy Hollow. I know the hatred towards my people from white. I saw one forum with full bloom racism and threats towards asians in America in WT. I was scare for them. I saw someone try to play the diverse card with asian vs black and try to announce white and asian unite. When the woman asks the old troll about his behavior towards poc. He straight up call her a ugly gword. Topix
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This article is spot on. I’m half Chinese and half white and I was born in San Francisco. My grandparents on my mother’s side lived through the scary Sino-Japanese war where 20 million Chinese were killed in an 8 year period during World War II. My grandfather told me stories of the Japanese invading his village and killing dozens of people at a time. That pretty much destroys the stereotype of Asians being agreeable non-violent people by nature.
My grandparents on my mother’s side moved to San Francisco in the 60’s. They started off dirt poor living in the predominantly black Fillmore district; one of SF’s high crime ghetto areas. All throughout the urban Bay Area and urban California there are high crime inner city areas with large ghettoized Asian American populations from the Tenderloin in SF to Funktown in Oakland to the Eastside of Long Beach. My mother met my father while washing dishes together at UC Berkeley. I was born and raised in San Francisco’s crime ridden Oceanview district where the ethnic mix was lower middle class to poor blacks and Asians living side by side. My mother supported the family and we were living in one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the urban Bay Area in the 80’s and early 90’s. Bullets used to come through the windows of our home and the streets outside were a place of business for drug dealers and gang bangers. But this is the only place my mother could afford to live as a professional Asian American woman breadwinner with a bachelor’s degree in 80’s and 90’s San Francisco.
When I got a little older, my father finally finished his advanced schooling and got a good job in Baltimore, MD. We literally moved on up to the east side. We moved to a safe smallish suburb known for diversity, integration and acceptance of interracial couples and mixed race people. I never experienced overt racism again until I was about 14 years old and went to high school in Baltimore City at a school that was roughly 50% black and 50% white. Both white kids and black kids would tease me everyday with stereotypical Asian jokes. Although I am half-white, the white kids in Baltimore made it clear I was not one of them. This was never the case where I live in integrated PC post-racial suburbia. I sat at a table with all white kids who make fun of me everyday for a year before I transferred schools.
I am racially ambiguous, not by choice. Some people think I’m Latino, some people think I’m white, some people think I’m lightskinned black. But for those who know my background, most people never consider me biracial but instead simply “Asian”. And when they say this, it is always condescending like they are implying all the stereotypes about Asians are somehow actual facts. I think this is funny seeing as there is nothing stereotypical about me. I’m not short, I’m 6’1″. And no, my height doesn’t all come from my father’s side beacuse my Chinese grandfather was 5’11”. I’m not Korean and my family doesn’t own any liquor stores or laundromats. My family was never rich, I grew up in the hood in California and we started from the bottom.
But I love my story. Out here on the East Coast, most Asians do seem more stereotypical as a whole because it takes so much gumption, money and or education for people from Asia to get out here. Where I’m from in California, you have wealthy Asians, middle class Asians and poor Asians who grew up in the hood such as myself. But it is hard to extend an olive branch to black people out here sometimes because they buy into the stereotypes of Asians being a model minority because that’s all they see. People on the East Coast have never seen blacks and Asians living together and getting along like they do in the inner city areas in SF and Oakland.
I get the most insulted when white people try to tell me who I am. Most white people who do that are sheltered white people from the suburbs. Their families never had to fight to get here the way my family did.
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@ SanFranpsycho415
Interesting story of yourself.
Question 1: If you had a choice – which ethnic group would you identify with?
Question 2: I don’t know your higher educational background but for the sake of argument if you were applying to attend a top major college or for a top-positioned job in the workforce what race would you bubble – Asian or White?
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@ Michael Cooper
In America, I am seen as Asian despite being biracial and racially ambiguous. And my Asian side of the family raised me more than the white side. I used to go into Chinatown everyday as a kid in San Francisco with my Asian grandparents. Even my grandmother on my white side tried to tell me I was more Asian as a kid by buying me Chinese history coloring books for Christmas.
Being white in America is like an exclusive club. Biracial people no matter the mix are never extended membership unless that person looks unmistakably wholly Caucasian, which I do not. And if the truth comes to light that this mixed person is “passing” as white, white membership is revoked. I am not allowed to identify as white in America because white America is so white that anyone who is not wholly caucasian stands out as being different especially when they look “ethnic” like I do. I never felt the least bit white growing up because even as a child I knew that being white was an exclusive privilege only afforded to real white people with two biological white parents. I knew I was different from the other white kids even as a child. All of the white kids at my school had parents who refused to drop of them off and come play at my house in scary violent marred inner city Oceanview. Culturally, growing up in minority-majority community and an integrated suburban community, I have never wanted to identify as white because I know that would be a lie.
Personally, I identify most as a mixed race person and person of color first and foremost.
As far as applying for a job, I always check two or more races or Asian if there is no option for two or more races. And I never ever check “white” on these forms because I know the white interviewer would be quite mad if he saw me show up for an interview when he was expecting a blonde haired blued eyed white guy. Once again, biracial people are never allowed to define themselves as white in America. And the glass ceiling and lower pay for Asian Americans is real.
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@ Kiwi
Perhaps. But even many half-black/half-white people have gotten away with passing as white. It’s historical. But I’m not one of those mixed race people who can or wishes to pass as white. Some people think I’m white and I think that’s insulting. But most people can tell I’m ethnic at the least. But by definition, anyone in America who is does not have two white parents is never ever truly considered white. For example, a popular pop up ad on the internet is “celebrities you didn’t know were black” which consists of a bunch of biracial and maybe even only 1/4 or 1/8 black white celebrities but that ad is never called “celebrities you never knew were mixed or 1/2 or 1/4 black”.
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@ SanFranpsycho415
Celebrity Blacks passing for Whites remind me of the classic movies that I have in my movie collection – ‘Imitation of Life’ (1934 and 1959).
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@Kiwi
No, you’re completely wrong about being multiracial Asian being “en vogue”. Maybe if you are describing PC suburban white collar whites. But for most white people living in red state white middle America, it is definitely a taint. And being multiracial Native American is often the product of white male rape of Native women. My friend who was adopted by white people as an infant was the product of a white man raping a Native American woman. Native American women have the some of the highest incidences of rape in America.
And your assessment of multiracial Asians being accepted by whites couldn’t be further off. The majority of whites I come across do not treat me like I’m white. Most whites go out of their way to tell me I’m “Asian”. Some people say you’re “Asian but mixed with something else, is it American?” as if American was a race. American does not equal white. And being female doesn’t matter either. My sister looks whiter than me but identifies as Asian and she has three kids by two different Asian American men.
If you have no first hand experience with being multiracial and Asian, you have no right to talk about it. That’s like me saying it must be nice being black because of stereotypes of being viewed as dangerous, cool, dominating sports and popular music and being seen as some super sexualized being by white and black women. But I know that being an average black man or woman is not glamorous at all. Nice try.
But this is not a discussion about mixed race people. Many, many people go out of their way to remind me that I’m “Asian” as if I somehow forgot because obviously there are proscribed ways that all Asians act. When I was down and out and unemployed, I remember drinking at the local predominantly black hole-in-the-wall bar and talking about being jobless when an older black man would always remind me “you’re Asian” as if that would make my problems not that bad. Ironically, this older black guy in his 40’s had lived in affluent quiet safe integrated suburbia his whole life. He had never even been completely subject to all the ills that disproportionately effect inner city blacks that many suburban blacks try to claim as their own problems. And the weird plot twist was this Asian actually grew up around those problems that suburban black people like to complain about.
But the stereotypes of Asians are applied to you even when they don’t fit. And whites and blacks who have limited experiences with Asians get mad when you don’t fit the stereotypes. So in the end you are never truly accepted but instead marginalized.
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Kiwi,
I ALSO am going to have to agree that your assessment of multiracial Asians is quite “off” much of the time. Despite the fact that you might have some mixed race Asian relatives, I think you don’t really have a good broad feel for the experience. Maybe it would be better if you don’t always tell other people what the experience is, but sit back and listen sometimes. You might learn something other than just what you interpreted from your interactions with a couple cousins.
And I agree that
is quite “off”. Sure, you might be able to find a few people who fit in that mode, but after studying this for many decades and personally knowing many thousands in that category (and even moderating an international Hapa online forum for a while), I vouch that that does not come even close to describing what most experience.
In fact, it was multiracial Asians (mixed with white, black and Latino) who campaigned most vigourously against “tick the box” mentality and practice. If they were indeed trying to pass as white or something else, they would not be doing that.
@SanFranpsycho415,
Have you been to your maternal grandparents’ hometown? Have you had the chance to experience being a multiracial person in Asia? How about elsewhere (Europe, South America, Africa?) Have you spent time in your paternal grandparents’ hometowns?
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I agree that that could possibly be a fairly common experience with East Coast blacks. Many actually believe the model minority stereotypes.
Unfortunately, many of the commenters on this blog also seem to buy into the model minority stereotype. You will see some appeal to that idea in their comments, even to events decades before such a concept existed. But I can remember back before the media starting using the model minority stereotype, so I know it is all completely fake.
Part of the reason might be because Asian American history has been omitted or deleted from the US history that most Americans leanred, including blacks. Therefore, both whites and blacks will simply replace that void with stereotypes. Even some Asian Americans will do that.
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The Asian American male stereotypes are seen as facts in America. Even mainstream movies that try to break Asian American stereotypes like Harold and Kumar, a story of a duo of two young Korean American and Indian American pot smokers, are still deeply rooted in stereotypes. Harold, the Korean American lead character, was a quiet successful banker with a shyness of women.
And these stereotypes do effect Asian American men negatively in society. Asian American men being in positions of dominance creates gag-like responses of disgust. I think it will be a very long time before we have an Asian American president. Straight porn interracial porn scenes featuring Asian American men are the lowest rated scenes out there. Cohesively, Asian men are the losers of interracial dating. Even though Asian men are more successful and educated on average, the stereotypes of them being nerdy, feminine, weak, short and uncool often turn off non-Asian women. Asian male pairings with women of different races is rare compared to Asian woman/white male, white male/Latina pairings and black male/white female pairings which are seen as the norm when it comes to interracial relationships. And Asian women outmarry at a higher rate than any other group.
But one thing this article addressed very well is defining to yourself what it is to be Asian American. I am fortunate enough to have grown up San Francisco, perhaps the most important city in America when it comes to the Chinese American experience. Also, in the Bay Area, Asians are accepted in all different socioeconomic circles from wealthy trust fund babies to techies to ghetto people who rep their turf. The Bay Area really sees the full spectrum of the Asian American experience. The Bay Area is arguably the independent Rap capital of the U.S. and some of the most respected rappers there are Asian American. One of the biggest rising rap stars in the Bay is a Cambodian American rapper named Ezale from the racially mixed heavily Asian Funktown neighborhood in East Oakland. One of the most revered San Francisco rappers of all time of Equipto, who is half Japanese/half Colombian, who has made full-length albums and countless features with the most respected black Bay Area Hip Hop artists from Andre Nicktatina to San Quinn.
I couldn’t imagine how hard it would be for an Asian American person growing up in an all white-environment to figure out their own definition of being Asian American. Must be a tough thing.
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Kiwi,
Did you miss some of what was said?
SanFranpsycho415 said that some people do try to affix a white label to him/her, making one feel uncomfortable with that. I see people trying to affix white labels to Eurasians / Hapas all the time. It does not mean that they are actually passing as white in front of white people nor does it mean that they identify that way. If a white person feels compelled to assign a white label, then they are still not actually passing.
The vast majority of 1st generation multiracials who are part white cannot unambiguously pass for white in the eyes of white people. They can, however, perhaps be admitted to “the White club”, enough so that most white people ignore or do not pay attention to the fact that they are not fully white.
(https://abagond.wordpress.com/2009/11/20/the-white-club/)
but, I think it is also possible for persons with neither parent as white to be admitted to the White club. You have to “pass” as white regardless of how white or non-white one looks in order to be accepted as white.
Many people who are 1/4 black also pass as white. Anatole Broyard did it @ about 34% black.
But even some who can pass as white choose not to. Walter White, prior president of the NAACP often passed for white right in front of southern white people @ 5/32 black. However, he always maintained that he was black.
Jerome Charles White, Jr. (Jero) is 1/4 Japanese and 3/4 black, and probably to you, looks black. But he is very engaged in his Japanese background and has acquired a large fanbase, attracting young Japanese to be interested in Enka, where “full” Japanese have failed . Having a Japanese grandmother is not just for show and tell.
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Even people who can “pass as white” aren’t necessarily going to do so. You’d have to like being around white people and playing along with their bullshit, which SanFranpsycho415 clearly doesn’t. I lived almost all of my life in Sacramento and the SF bay area, and I can relate to what he says.
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@ Kiwi
Yes, you are somewhat correct about mixed race Asian men having somewhat of an advantage, sometimes. But if a mixed race Asian man looks Asian and is short, he is just as bad off as any other Asian men. My half-white/half Asian buddies who are short have a hard time dating. I’ve had a hard time dating in my life despite my looks. I have the advantage of being tall and good looking; not to sound conceited, but it’s true :-). But I’ve had a woman tell me that they “don’t date Asians” before. Ironically, this girl was pretty fat and was hitting on me first and I was pretty drunk at the local bar the time and she was quizzing me on my dating profile stats (i.e. income, job, education level) like a job interview.
But yes, I have dated both white women and black women. Black women like more more than white women to be honest because it is obvious that I grew up around blacks in the city. White women like me too because I’m ethnic but not too ethnic and still am attractive by white standards of beauty in being tall having light hazel eyes and not being stereotypically nerdy or antisocial. But it all lies in the eye of the beholder with me. Many people look at me like I am not biracial at all, but just “Asian”. Other people give me positive reaction when they simply assume that I am Latino or mixed race black and apply the positive stereotypes of those races when I am too bored to correct them about my heritage.
And yes, mixed race blacks, especially lighter skinned black women have a place of privilege in dating and attractiveness. In every print out ad in the Sunday paper, you can guarantee to see an attractive very lightskinned black probably mixed black girl with a thick curly afro. I don’t blame them because those types of girls are beautiful.
But back to the subject, mixed race Asians have it hard because we are often not considered Asian enough by full-blooded Asian people. I’ve had Asian people tell me I’m “only half” and then they would criticize the way I talked and dressed as not being authentic. But most of these Asians were the first generation variety raised in the white suburbs who found their niche only socializing with other Asians all throughout school. Being mixed race is a hard nut to crack. Both races usually don’t accept you and both are constantly try to casually disown you.
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@ Kiwi
Nah, Asian women mostly go far white men or FOBy Asian guys where I live in Maryland. The last time an Asian woman really looked my way and looked interested was in NYC Chinatown. The very real flaw in all of your posts is that most people in America do NOT see mixed race as a real thing. I am Asian to everybody except Asians. I remember when my half Japanese/half Ethiopian friend in college brought me around all of this Korean friends and everyone thought I was Latino.
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@Kiwi,
Yes, I most definitely read what you wrote. I just firmly disagree with it.
I also get the impression that you read things differently sometimes – occasionally it may appear to be some lack in your reading skills (not often, but sometimes), but I think it has more to do with extrapolating your anecdotal experience.
My main point above – you suggest that part Asian people who pass as white is pretty much entirely dependent on whether or not they unambiguously look white. My suggestion is that they have to try and succeed to pass as white in the first place. It is less dependent on what they look like (of course that is a minor factor, but not the most important one). This is consistent with what Speak Out wrote.
Obviously this is an OPINION and you are free to disagree.
No, that is not at all what I am implying or suggesting.
I have met white people (and black people) who claim some distant Asian ancestry from the 19th century century. We might be able to find some parallels to blacks and whites who have distant Native American ancestry. But we weren’t talking about them, and they were not the main force between the “tick the box” push back.
Having said that, I read that Mississippi had the highest growth (around 70%) in those who identify as Multiracial between 2000-2010. That was not due to a sudden surge in interracial marriage there. It was due to multiracial people switching from a ticking a monoracial to a multiracial box. The same thing (albeit a lower percentage) happened in Hawaii.
I think we need to have some posts on the multiracial American activist movement and the multiracial experience here. It is not all about “tick the box”. Remember they have to navigate having parents, grandparents and others who have different racial identities in a era when one drop rule and tick the box are no longer hard and fast rules.
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@SanFranpsycho415
That was my experience in Maryland too.
Asian women seem to prefer either Asian men or white men. For those that preferred Asian men (usu from Asia), I was too white. For those that preferred white men, I would be way too Asian. Mixed raced Asian men often fall to the bottom of the basket in that kind of scenario. There was no “pedestal” thing, and it didn’t just apply to Asians who grew up around other Asians.
Yep.
8-15 years ago I was active on some Hapa / Eurasian sites. That experience was common among the hundreds I talked to.
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^ I disagree that that is the main or only reason. It is certainly a factor, but a bigger factor is more related to what I said
“they have to navigate having parents, grandparents and others who have different racial identities in a era when one drop rule and tick the box are no longer hard and fast rules.”
But agreed, for multiracial Asians (or even those nonmixed Asians whose parents are the same ethnicity), who are trying to “pass” as white, they need to accept, or even embrace the white racist supremacy that is America. This applies to all Americans, regardless of their racial or ethnic background.
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Even though I am biracial and obviously mixed, whites an blacks just label me as “Asian”. With whites and blacks, the one drop rule is very real. But for me, it is obvious that I grew up in the minority experience. I don’t “act white” so to speak. But I grew up in minority-majority communities for most of my life. This counts as a double strike against you as a multiracial Asian. Multiracial Asian men are expected to be extremely pandering towards whites to the level of femininity. I see on TV all the time. The extremely feminine half white/half Asian man on VH1 confirming all the Asian stereotypes to white people. But that is not my experience. I grew up in the inner city in California. My life experiences are closer to Kendrick Lamar than Keanu Reaves. But this is not stereotypical, so people ignore my that and choose to try to squeeze my large foot into a tiny stereotypical shoe to which it can never fit.
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@ Kiwi
Your generalizations of mixed race Asians being somehow “privileged” is somewhat nauseating. Your dealings with mixed race white/Asians sounds limited to the Starbucks set. Where I’m from, there are petite multiracial white/Asian women who had rougher lives than 6’4″ black men raised in the suburbs who cry all day about racism. For example, a few years ago, there was a huge stir in the blogosphere when white girl rappers from Oakland of the White Girl Mob went viral with their hit “Gucci, Gucci”. This song introduced America to V-Nasty, a half-Vietnamese/half white girl from East Oakland who robs people at gunpoint for a living and frequently drops n-bombs in her raps. Needless to say, V-Nasty and the White Girl Mob never crossed over to the mainstream completely because of the stereotypes of how petite white girls could somehow never be hood which is lightyears away from the truth.
In the urban Bay Area, there is much brotherhood between blacks, Asians and Latinos, but it is mostly bad. Ironically, the worst parts of Oakland, the statistically second most dangerous city in America, are the most racially integrated and racially inclusive. You will see young black, Latino and Asian men jobless in the streets during weekdays hustling illegally to make a living there. Saying something stupid and racist gets people killed out there because everybody’s too busy hustling trying to survive to be divided along something as arbitrary and stupid as race.
Cohesively, Asians are much like blacks and Latinos in America in the fact that strong Asian masculinity in America is often solely linked to criminality. Asian men are seen as nerdy, quiet and subservient, but the only strong masculine Asian men depicted in the white mainstream media outside of the shallow stereotype of martial artists are the scary gangsters on Gangland and Gran Torino. White masculinity is not like this. There are dozens of examples of ideas of non-criminal strong white masculinity in America from construction workers whistling at women, rough outdoorsmen hunting deer, truck drivers, the default image of policemen and firemen and every generic authority figure.
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@ Jefe
I don’t even bother trying to talk to or date Asian women out here in Maryland because the vast majority of them are not interested in me at all. I mine as well be invisible to Asian women because Asian women rarely look my way if ever. In California, it’s a different story as Asian women out there always have googly eyes for me. Especially the American-born ones. However, multiracial Asian women are attracted to me and not just the half-white/half-Asian variety either. I live in a diverse town in Maryland known for mixed race people and there are quite a few black/Asian mixes out here. I have seen some fine half-black/half-Asian women out here. There is one in my neighborhood who I am definitely going approach next time I see her because she always has eyes for me.
But 90% of the women I have dated are black women. Black women show me the most interest everywhere I go. White women usually think that I’m culturally too ethnic for them. White women often don’t even care to know what I am mixed with and they just treat me like I’m not white. I love black women because I am naturally attracted to curvy women and there are a lot of curvy black women out there. This is a reason why I am not a big fan of most Asian women because they tend to lack curves. I also am attracted to strong educated women and black women are known for that.
But there have been hurdles for me in dating black women. I remember going to a woman’s house to pick her up for a date and her mother answered the door and looked at me like I was crazy when I asked to see her daughter. As we were driving through the city to go to the movie theatre downtown, she asked me the dreaded “what are you?” question. I told her I was white/Asian. She then said “Yeah, I could tell you were Asian by your face” in a resigned subtle disgust. She told me her mother that when I came to pick her up she said “There’s some Asian guy at the door asking for you… I hope he has the wrong house”. But I told that girl I wouldn’t be anyone else in the world if I wanted and that I loved who I was. She ended up falling hard for me that night, but I wasn’t that into her and I eventually broke things off.
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“White masculinity is not like this. There are dozens of examples of ideas of non-criminal strong white masculinity in America from construction workers whistling at women, rough outdoorsmen hunting deer, truck drivers, the default image of policemen and firemen and every generic authority figure.”
I don’t think there are many if any healthy examples of white masculinity in the U.S. Most white men act like they have no idea of how to treat women or people of color, what women want in a man, or how to be men in a positive way. This is especially true for white men who are “authority figures”.
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What white men do or any men do is definitely not of women’s making. There is male privilege just like there is white privilege. When men of color complain to me about women it makes me feel like when white people complain to me about people of color being “racist” to them.
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Google autofill does not make those generalizations any less nauseating.
Just think who is typing that stuff into Google in the first place.
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I’m always interested in learning about how other Asian-Americans/Asian-Canadians grew up because I was surrounded by nearly all white people until junior high school.
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Yes, probably followed by white men, then Asian men, then white women.
I really doubt that Hapa / Eurasian people would do that, unless they want to get nauseated from reading others’ comments.
Blacks and Latinos won’t get nauseated as much, but they probably wouldn’t feel compelled to do that search either.
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I guess they could be. How did you end up typing that in Google?
My point was that Eurasians / Hapas would not do that unless they want to read nauseating comments from Asians & whites.
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@ Biff
It’s true that many East Asian women or women of East Asian descent dig White guys, but I must admit that lots of White guys have a fetish for East Asian women.
My question to any commenter is that why White people, particularly White men, are at the root of most East Asian women not being attracted to unmixed East Asian men and the media favoring light-skinned Black women over dark-skinned Black women? Is it because half-East Asian men and light-skinned Black women have noticeable “White blood”? Kiwi or Biff or anyone hit me back with answers. Thanks.
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Seems abagond is going to moderate my last comment, even though I think it was on topic this time, as it relates to how Kiwi (and possibly jefe) approach this whole topic…
Michael Cooper: I’ll give you an un-PC but honest answer. Men usually prefer more feminine women and women usually prefer more masculine men. There is a strong tendency for most people to date within their race, but when they don’t, this preference comes into play. Blacks are perceived as more masculine than whites and Asians are perceived as more feminine. About 80% of black-white couples are BM/WF and about 80% of Asian-white couples are WM/AF. It is what it is.
Generally speaking, men have from time immemorial preferred lighter skinner women–on average. I don’t think you can lay that one all on white people. If anything, this tendency is more pronounced in Asia, Latin America, Africa than in the West.
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@Kiwi
If you know what that feels like, can you try to empathise with why SanFranpsycho415 felt nauseated after some of your comments about mixed race Asians? You said them yourself – not simply something copied over from google search.
Changing the topic,
I just watched “The World of Suzie Wong” again for the umteenth time this past weekend. I am thinking that that helped propel white men’s interest in Asian women. It is another sort of white saviour movie, and came out just a few years before the Vietnam War. White men think Asian women need to be saved from their wretched condition, even and including poor treatment from Asian men.
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Or specifically this one
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@Kiwi,
My question was if you could empathise with why some readers of what you wrote can make them feel nauseated. You did not answer that. You were making a lot of empirical observations about what people experience when it is not your experience.
For example, do you think it is reasonable for white people OR black people to pontificate about what mixed black/white biracials experience and discount what they hear what the targets of their pontification are actually saying about it? That is no more reasonable than having white people telling black people what their experience actually is, and they “know” because “some of their best friends are black”.
I suggest that when the topic veers over in that direction that you consider sitting back and listening for a while. Of course you can add your two cents (based on some of your empirical observations), but please don’t invalidate others’ actual experiences. Even interpretations of what you observed in YOUR experience might not be reflective of what people who are not you are actually experiencing.
I was trying to hint at you that your google autofill reference was rather nauseating (along with some previous remarks). It seems that you still didn’t quite get the hint and you are still trying to express others’ experiences in terms of “facts”. Using a nauseating reference to “justify” or “support” a nauseating remark does not make a prior remark any less nauseating.
It is certainly possible that there could be some “benefits”, both indirect and even direct, but there are also many a price to pay. One of the prices to pay is to be subject to others’ dictating to them what their racial experience is, or what it should be, regardless of how nauseating that can become.
For example, when SanFranpsycho415 mentioned that in his experience, Asian women pass him over for either unmixed Asian men or full white guys, I “get” that right away. I experienced that too, so I know exactly what that means. Now, how do you use “white privilege” to explain that? You can’t, at least not directly. When racial factors are at play, it is not always about white privilege. In this case, it’s more a matter of being irreversibly tainted.
Biracials and multiracials are subject to various racial stressors that monoracially identified people do not have to contend with. In the racially electrified society of the USA, these can become serious issues no matter what the person is perceived to look like.
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Kiwi:
Guess that depends on how you define “value”. Maybe you believe your enlightened comments will somehow help fight the ultimate evils of racism and sexism (anti-homesexuality and transgenderism, etc.) and help create a perfect world where everyone lives in harmony and equality. I think that’s pure fantasy and ignoring facts. The U.S., for instance, is becoming observably less “equal” following leftist policies.
For me, I hope some of my comments may help others to question politically correct dogma and realize that the decline we see in morals, civilization, etc. is actually due in no small part to this same leftist brainwashing we all receive in schools nowadays.
If abagond truly believes that a different view point doesn’t “add any value”, he is of course free to add me to the long list of critics who have been permanently blocked here for one reason or another…
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@ Biff @ Kiwi @ Herneith
Deleted comments where you talked about or made insinuations about other commenters’s sex lives.
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@Kiwi,
I do believe that it was indeed relating an experience that you had. 100% agree with this statement.
In fact, my mentioning that I also felt nauseated by the google fill act demonstrates that I empathise with the nauseating feeling that you had. It has a negative impact on my self-esteem also (even though it appears that it should be doing the opposite).
However, that was not at all my point. My point was invoking a nauseating act in no way validates or explains prior nauseating remarks (made by you and not via google search). The prior remarks remain nauseating.
All I am asking is that you try to understand why some remarks may appear nauseating to others, instead of searching for other nauseating remarks to justify or validate prior ones.
So to sum up, I validate that particular experience of yours – I feel nauseated too. What I do not feel comfortable with is how that nauseating experience of yours (and mine too) validates prior remarks from you which made others nauseated.
Admittedly, there is some monoracial experience that I will not be able to empathise with very well. But 60% of my family contact and general social contact in the USA was with monoracial Asians. My professional and educational experience in the USA overlaps about 80-90% with many monoracial Asians I knew, but maybe only 10% with whites. I also recognize that I did not share a lot of experience with biracial Asians with white fathers. They experienced something very different from what I did.
Nowadays 99% of my regular contact is with monoracial Asians, which includes both Asian Asians and those who grew up in Western countries. At least I recognize that there is a huge variety of experience and there is no one size fits all.
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Kiwi, Jefe
not sure if this is the appropriate thread but I just find it fascinating {sarcasm} that after all the failures, last year, to indict officers who killed unarmed black men,
a grand jury has managed to indict Peter Liang, an Asian-american, for second-degree manslaughter in an accidentally shooting of Akai Gurley (bullet ricocheted off the wall and hit in the chest) while trying to open a door while holding a gun
http://5newsonline.com/2015/02/10/nypd-rookie-cop-indicted-in-shooting-of-unarmed-man/
I just realllly wonder if he was white, would this indictment have come down?! makes you go hmmm — can we say, expendable model minority
OK, conspiracy theory moment over 🙂
of course, will he be convicted, probably not, since most cops don’t go to jail for killing anyone. But still, Liang did not chase any one down and shoot them multiple times, nor did he choke anyone to death
but he is NYs answer for doing the right thing to show that the NYPD means to clean up?!
and of course, Liang calling his union rep before he and his partner called for help might have been hard to overlook for the grand jury but they sure did manage to overlook real reckless and illegal behavior by both cops in the Brown and Garner case.
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@Linda,
Asians have been treated as both surrogate whites and surrogate people of colour in the USA for many decades, by both whites and blacks.
When whites are the actual targets of black angst (eg, in the Rodney King case), Korean-American shops were attacked.
During Jim Crow, middle class blacks in Mississippi preferred to shop at the Chinese owned shops (instead of black ones and the white ones) as the Chinese shopowners gave them preferential treatment over poorer blacks. Preferential treatment from blacks did not mean as much and whites did not give them preferential treatment.
Whites delayed blacks from integrating during the affirmative action era by admitting token Asians first.
And Asians (as in this case) can be used as collateral damage to show that whites (ie, the police) are not racist towards blacks.
Do you believe that this made the headline news tonight in Hong Kong? People will interpret it that deliberate killings by white policeman are excused, but accidental killings by Asians are not.
Maybe this belongs more in the post threads about cops who shot / killed unarmed blacks.
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Interesting video. I have come across a lot of Canadian-born Asians who have felt the need to alter their physical appearance at some point in order to emulate white people. Of course, this happens to non-Asians, too.
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOMG3j_PSBE)
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My nephew is Asian and white and I worry about him growing up around all white kids. They’re already calling him the “Asian one” at school.
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This article is 100% spot on and then some in regards to my situation.
I was born in the US to immigrant Chinese-SE Asian parents who had to flee here due to US bombing and financing of political instability. (They didn’t have much of a choice, it was either immigrate to US or starve to death in the hollow shell of a once good life…).
Anyway, I grew as American can be- took up boxing in highschool, played football (American kind where you tackle and sometimes knee the crotch of others trying to get around that cup heh).
I took up marksmanship too- handgun & rifle, and studied lots of math, science and accounting/business. However, I could never make any white friends or become friends with anyone who worship the whites. I was friends with some blacks and latinos as a kid… but these same ppl ended up trying to rob me or damage my car.
However, what I did end up finding where good friends who were as very much Asian identity- Chinese, Thai, Cambodian, more Chinese 😀 so that made life in the US livable.
Oh yes whites treat me like subhuman garbage and a second class citizen, no matter how smart I worked or how much money I can save & invest. They don’t go head on openly of course, that would get you fired or shot, but they know how to exclude you from anything and make it known.
I didn’t choose to be born in the US and had no say (hard to voice objections when you are a fetus) so the best I can do is fix my American problem and make use of my hard earned savings & investments and retire early back to Asia- China, Thailand & Cambodia (excellent great places to live by the way), where the heart and home is.
See, rather than complain anymore about life as a Chinese American, I visited those countries above many times and scouted out lease agreements, apartments, condos, retirement visas, bank account laws, etc, and had some of the happiest times that cannot be matched in the US.
Now I will return to the three Asian countries above in 2016 winter (2015 long vacation is over sadly) and continue my “Logistics of Living” research so that when I finally retire in a decade or so, I will be able to support a wife and kid & live in a very nice place :p Oh, and still be young too (I got jaded early so I will retire before age 42)
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