“Where are you really from?” is a question that Asian Americans and others often get. This is that question where New Jersey or anywhere in the US does not count as an answer. Because, apparently, all Asians are foreigners. Even those born in the US. Even those who speak with an American accent, aka “Perfect English”. It is a good example of the perpetual foreigner stereotype.
Ken Tanaka’s “What kind of Asian are you?” (2013) on YouTube is the best thing yet that I have seen on this.
Scene: Scott meets Stella while going for a run. Scott is White, Stella is Asian. Both speak with an American accent:
Scott: Hi there.
Stella: Hi.
Scott: Nice day, huh?
Stella: Yeah, finally, right?
Scott: Where you from? Your English is perfect.
Stella: San Diego. We speak English there.
Scott: Oh, uh, no, uh: Where .. are you … from?
Stella: Well, I was born in Orange county, but I never actually lived there.
Scott: Uh, I mean before that.
Stella: Before I was born?
Scott: Well, where are your people from?
Stella: Well, my great grandma was from Seoul.
Scott: Korean. I knew it. I was like she’s either Japanese or Korean, but I was leaning more towards Korean.
Stella: Amazing.
Scott: (bows) 감사합니다 (= Korean for “Thank you”). There’s a really good teriyaki barbecue place near my aparment. I actually really like kimchi.
Stella: Cool. What about you? Where are you from?
Scott: San Francisco
Stella: But where … are you … from?
Scott: Oh, I’m just American.
Stella: Really? You’re Native American?
Scott: No, uh, regular American.
Stella: (waiting for more)
Scott: Oh, uh, well, I guess my grandparents were from England.
Stella: Oh, well – (in a Cockney accent) ‘Ello guv’nor! What’s all this then! Top o’ the morning to ya! Let’s get a spot o’ tea? Spot o’ tea! Double, double, toil and trouble! (does a little dance) Mind the kerb! Beware Jack the Ripper! BLOODY HELL!! (does a little dance) Pip pip! Cheerio! (back to an American accent:) I think your people’s fish and chips are amazing.
Scott: You’re weird.
Stella: Really? I’m weird? Must be a Korean thing.
Notice that her people have been in the US longer than his people, yet he sees her as the foreigner!
There was nothing in how she talked or dressed or acted that would make one suspect she was foreign. Instead, he was so blinded by her race that even her American accent was not taken as a sign that she was American! Instead it made him wonder what country she was from! And then, when she told him she was from the US, he still saw her as a foreigner – bowing, speaking in Korean, assuming she was interested in teriyaki (a Japanese, not a Korean, dish!), etc.
When she gave him a taste of his own medicine, seeing him, a third-generation American, as a stereotyped foreigner, it went over his head.
Thanks to Jefe for bringing this video to my attention.
See also:
- Ken Tanaka: What kind of Asian are you? – watch the video (2 minutes)
- perpetual foreigner stereotype
- The term “America” – how “American” came to mean white people in the US
- The three pillars of American white supremacy – see pillar three: the
true function of Asians in Whitelandia - Posts on other YouTube videos about race
- Chescaleigh: Shit White Girls Say … to Black Girls
- Aisha Muharrar: Black Best Friend – yet more clueless racial stereotyping
Hahahahahahaaaaa! love it!
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Perpetual Foreigner stereotype.
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I’ve seen this before but it is still just as hilarious.
I read a thing on the theroot today which is similar to this but in reference to regular black vs ethnic black and at first I was like isn’t all black ethnic black. It was a very good read.
http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2014/04/_regular_black_and_ethnic_black_experiences_at_elite_universities.html?wpisrc=topstories
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This is good. LULZ
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Well, at least *they* know what country their people are from. Wish I did.
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America is a racist country in every way. Even the religions are racist. In this country if you’re not male and white forget about it. Sad but true. A few years ago a female black professor did a study of racism in America her successful conclusion was that racism is so ingrained in the white male mentality that this trait can scientifically labled a mutation; so racism isn’t going away any time soon friends.
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Oh it’s a lot more widespread than that: white males, white females, orientals, other black people. In Ellison’s mirrors of hard distorted glass, all manner of racists are reflected. They see figments of their imagination, etc., etc., themselves. Anything and every thing is projected upon that black visage which because of these distortions remain unseen.
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Sweet, 🙂
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I guess the reason why Black Africans and West Indians don’t get this as much is because Black African, West Indian and Black American are all the same to them.
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That was funny, thanks for posting.
If you think about this scenario, the character played by the white guy, wasn’t trying to run-down the Asian woman, he was trying to impress her with his albeit limited knowledge of things Korean. I think this happens more often than not – dim bulbs trying to impress those of other cultures with how much they “know” about that culture.
Whites do it to other whits all the time, Ihear an accent and try to place it. Haven’t you ever done that?
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This the litmus test for whether a white person is a red neck racist vs. color blind racist. The color blind racist would ask to an American of Asian descent “Where did your ancestors come from?” and the red neck would just say,” What country are you from, you speak perfect English!” * in voice expressing shock*
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Stella: Before I was born?
lol!
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To be fair to these racists; 74% of asian-americans “are” immigrants to this country…….
And I think we’ve all had the transfer student who spoke better english than any body else at the school.
Even had a Chinese immigrant who spoke perfect “american” English, not dictionary perfect but generic “american” perfect. Like accent, physical mannerisms and everything; nothing about him seemed different in any way.
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This was great, buts its a very normal practise and belief that many whites today still have and will always have because white people have grown up thinking the world belongs to them
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Two comments:
1: Even if Stella’s family has been in this country longer than Scott’s , Scott’s people (the English – early 1600s) have been in this country much longer than Stella’s (the Koreans – mid 1800s)
2: Scott is third generation, not second generation
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Sorry, the only people who care about this are left wing Asians, i.e. emotional Asians – be careful not to take them too seriously
Conversations with me go like:
Him: Where are you from?
Me: Family immigrated from Korea
Him: Oh
And that’s it.
What people want to know is your ethnic background, they’re just not articulating it well. Nobody I’ve met, no matter how stupid, believes only whites can be citizens. Asians who complain about this usually drama queens who believe in equality and such, so I don’t know how credible they are
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@R_Bob,
It seems that you have already normalized the behavior of the white guy but find the behavior of the woman odd, just as the white character in the video.
Couple points:
1. Pressing the woman to answer the question after she answered it (“San Diego”) IS running someone down, esp. to the point of trying to impress a 4th generation American with their pseudo-knowledge of Asian culture or cuisine. What the woman responded with was in no way more ridiculous or running him down any more than what he did to her – eg, trying to impress him with her knowledge of English culture or cuisine.
2. Whites do it to other whits all the time, Ihear an accent and try to place it.
Really now, how is that related to what transpired? What accent was being heard from either party that one was trying to place. You are trying to apply the “But that happens to me too!”, but that is not what happened here.
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@V-4
To be fair, the figure is more about 2/3, but it certainly is not fair to the remaining 1/3 to treat them like an immigrant. There are plenty of 3rd and 4th generation Americans of Asian descent who get this “What country are you from?” from 1st and 2nd generation non-Asian Americans ON A DAILY BASIS . Who is treating who as the foreigner here.
This is a perpetuation of the Perpetual Foreigner Stereotype. It is so amazing that a foreign student can speak native sounding American-accented English that the amazement even persists well into the 3rd or 4th generation.
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Riverside Rob’s comment is not worth spending much time on. I hope it is not the start of a derailment.
Rob go to the following link and do all the “placing” you want:
———————————————————————————
Now, back to the topic at hand…
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@Jase,
It is interesting that you attribute an Asian reacting negatively to the “Where are you from?” question to a political or emotional stance. If you are indeed a native born American and you answer “My family is from Korea”, it indicates that you have already internalized the Perpetual Foreigner Stereotype from white people into your own psyche and thus have “translated” the coded question into what you think the person was asking you.
If I ask you that question and mean (Where in the USA are you from) and you answer that way instead of something like “New Jersey”, then it tells me that you have internalized the stereotype.
Finally, you might find it is OK if you truly identify your family as coming from Korea (esp. if your parents and older siblings are from there), but how do you expect the person who is 1/4 3rd generation Chinese, 1/4 4th generation Japanese, 1/4 Hawaiian and 1/4 Irish to answer that question?
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As opposed to the credible Asians who do not show their emotions and who do not believe in equality… and such.
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As opposed to the Asians who don’t have a stick up their butt… and such.
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You mean, like, the traditional inscrutable ones, King, who knew their place?
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/InscrutableOriental
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One day, this won’t be an issue.
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bulanik
That’s an interesting defense mechanism. You consider Asians who don’t share your hostility as “inscrutable ones” who :”knew their place.” It reminds me of blacks who describe those who don’t hate whites as “uncle toms”. I don’t see much difference in your attitude and that of a klanster who calls someone who doesn’t hate blacks a “n-lover.” When you get to the bottom of it, you’re all three the same.
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jokah, all your talk of hostility and hate and sticks up butts, when all King and I are doing is sharing an observation.
You sound like you are feeling under siege.
Cheer up and don’t be so fatalistic.
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I met a woman once from the Seychelles. I consider myself to have a decent ear for accents. I can, for example, tell whether somebody is from Nigeria or Ghana based on accent. I once met a woman whose accent puzzled me — “I can’t tell if you’re from Nigeria or South Africa” — and she laughingly told me that she was born and raised in Nigeria, but attended a boarding school in South Africa, which led to her hybrid accent.
But the Seychelles accent is not one I had heard and thus could not identify. Frankly, it sounded like a mix of French Canadian and Jamaican Patois. So that was my guess: a Jamaican family that had moved to Montreal. Not an unrealistic guess considering that (a) many people from the Caribbean now live in Canada, and (b) many people here in the upper Midwest come from Canada.
“No, the Seychelles”, she said, mischief glinting in those haunting eyes, a flirty smile ticking the edges of her lips.
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blanc
No offense, but the end of your comment sounds like a cheesy romance novel.
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@ Bobby M
Thanks. I updated the post.
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Ha! Yes Bulanik those inscrutable Orientals—the ones who make takeout food, run Chinese laundries and keep quiet!
@ Da Jokah
Ha! I think they passed out butt sticks as a requirement for exiting the Mayflower. Who is more uptight than White people who can’t accept that minorities might actually have some legitimate complaints about how they are perceived by and treated by the majority?
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king
If the only complaint someone has is being asked where they’re from then they don’t have much to complain about.
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@Bobby M,
By that line of reasoning, an ethnic English person born and raised in the UK and who has never stepped foot in the USA would have more entitlement to be treated as an American and NOT as a foreigner than someone whose family has been in the USA for 7 or 8 generations.
Yet Native Americans were not granted USA citizenship until 1924, despite having ancestors spanning back 10,000 years.
Finally, Filipinos and some Chinese first started arriving to what is now the present day United States as far back as the 1580s, BEFORE even the English. Should we say that current Filipino- and Chinese- Americans, even newly naturalized ones, can say that the English-Americans are more foreign than they?
The Fourteenth Amendment (1868) made all US born persons US citizens. The length of the history of one’s related ethnic groups in the USA has no bearing whatsoever on this and cannot make one more or less foreign than the other. None of them are foreigners at all. To make an argument like the one above is not only specious, but entirely spurious.
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@ DJ
The complaint is that Asian Americans are often treated as perpetual foreigners, and no matter how many generations their families have been living in America, Whites seem to continue to emphasize their connection to Asia above their connection to the U.S.
That is the complaint. Being asked “where are you really from” is but ONE symptom of this.
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@King
Bravo, I think you get the point.
Only thing is …
Blacks do it also. So do some Latinos and even other Asians. The perpetual foreigner stereotype is not held by only whites. The media promotes it too.
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@ Jefe
Yes, if some Blacks follow White society’s views, even in their perceptions of their own race, then you can be sure that some will also follow the trend in “othering” fellows minority groups.
My focus on Whites, in this case, is (as the national majority) many races follow their lead in how they perceive other races.
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@Jefe
Turns out your kind of right; its 74% of Asian-american adults that are immigrants.
Point being; if the majority of Asians, a strong majority at that are immigrants…..than why is it off if the initial impression on seeing an Asian person is to assume they are an immigrant?
And while it might be a perpetuation of the eternal foreign stereo-type; you can’t deny that there are definitely immigrants who speak and act “american” to the point you would have never known they weren’t from the states.
Now is this guy from the video racist? Clearly; like I said it was being generous to the racists. Not that it wasn’t racist.
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I’m glad jefe pointed out that it’s not exclusive to whites. He’s one of the few on here who even makes an effort at morally consistency. It was actually a second generation immigrant acquaintance who introduced me to the term “regular Americans”. We had to ask him what he meant because none of us had ever heard it before. He had actually picked up the attitude from his Taiwanese immigrant parents.
I think it’s a fairly common phenomenon that cuts in all directions depending on the circumstances. In America it may be Asians who are sometimes seen as foreign. In Africa it’s frequently arabs, indians or whites who are seen as foreign. As jefe points out, sometimes even by the immigrants themselves.
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While I appreciate the point I’d like to use king’s comment to make another, similar point.
king said…
“The complaint is that Asian Americans are often treated as perpetual foreigners, and no matter how many generations their families have been living in America, Whites seem to continue to emphasize their connection to Asia above their connection to the U.S.”
Now, to reframe it…
The complaint is that [white] Americans are often treated as perpetual [oppressors], and no matter how many generations [have passed or whether] their families [were even] living in America, [people] seem to continue to emphasize their connection to [slavery].
king even went so far as to scapegoat black attitudes towards asians on whites in a later comment. As if blacks are incapable of moral agency. I guess he really does believe that whites are the devil leading innocent blacks astray. I half expect him to say that “whites are the root of all evil.”
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The amazement surrounding an immigrant or foreign student who can speak and act “American” is not the perpetuation of the perpetual foreigner stereotype that I was referring exactly. It is the amazement that persists until the 3rd and 4th generations or beyond that I was referring to.
1/3 of Asian-Americans are native born Americans and maybe 1/3 of the immigrants are US citizens as well. They are not foreigners. So it is definitely wrong to assume that they are, esp. if they tell you that they are American.
I had real estate agents in New York City refuse to show me apartments because they were not satisfied with my answer to their question, “What country are you from?” when I replied “USA,born and raised in Washington, DC”. They then asked “Yes, but what is your nationality.” to which I replied “American”. I even told him what my ancestry was and where my parents were from (in the USA). They replied to me after that they cannot show me apartments as they have to tell the landlord what country their tenants are from and I had refused to tell him. I was flat out discriminated against in the search for housing because of this perpetual foreigner stereotype, and yet I have ancestors in the USA that predated the Revolutionary War. I was also refused job interviews for the same reason. The result is not always funny as depicted in the video.
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@DJ,
Just because both whites and POC practice a behavior, that still doesn’t make it right, appropriate or acceptable.
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v-4,
“Point being; if the majority of Asians, a strong majority at that are immigrants…..than why is it off if the initial impression on seeing an Asian person is to assume they are an immigrant?”
We aren’t talking about initial impression or assumptions. The woman said she was from San Diego and born in Orange County.
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Da Jokah,
“The complaint is that [white] Americans are often treated as perpetual [oppressors], and no matter how many generations [have passed or whether] their families [were even] living in America, [people] seem to continue to emphasize their connection to [slavery].”
Zero generations have passed since the end of oppression, since oppression hasn’t ended.
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jefe “Just because both whites and POC practice a behavior, that still doesn’t make it right, appropriate or acceptable.”
I never said it did but you say that as if I had.
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solesearch
Thanks for demonstrating my earlier point that whites are stigmatized as the “eternal oppressor”.
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I’ve seen this video before, and it is pretty realistic, while still being hilarious! LOL.
Although this happens to Asian Americans pretty frequently, it also affects other non-whites, such as myself.
I speak proper English regularly, and despite this fact, I am constantly plagued with the annoying questions about where I’m from from whites, and other non-Blacks.
This is in addition to the typical shock I receive from them about how “articulate I am”, as if it’s a shock that North American born Blacks have great command of the English language. SMH.
It is so unbelievably ignorant, and insensitive.
Unfortunately, it seems as though they won’t be going away any time soon.
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Reblogged this on Life in Anglo-America.
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dirty jers
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Yes, but White Americans actually ARE perpetual oppressors. That is the difference. Not every individual White person, of course, but White society has hundreds of years of ongoing oppression of minority ethnic groups in the U.S. Perhaps this has escaped you, Jokah?
White society actually voted on almost every cruel, inhumane, and imbalanced policy that was ever enacted. It was not “just a few bad eggs,” it was the collective White will that these things should happen. You cannot say that about any other race in the U.S. Now I’m certainly not saying that nothing has improved, and that no progress has been made, but is yet some level of oppression still going on? The answer is YES. And that answer qualifies Whites prima facia as perpetual oppressors.
This is utter nonsense. I didn’t say that Blacks have no agency, I said that Whites have an *influence* because they are the majority race, are the most wealthy, and remain the most powerful race. That is clearly not an unreasonable statement to any logical brain.
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@King
Isn’t that kind of an iffy statement? I mean; from that perspective, one it relies on the idea that the US still systematically oppressing people.
I’m not talking about the occasional law passed in one state or the other but that its happening both on a national level and/or the majority of states are also doing it.
Two; it relies on the level of power but going by that argument regardless of whether or not their actions were benign or negative as long as white people remain TPB, they will still be “oppressors” because theirs is the will being carried out.
That in this statement or view of things; literally the only way for white people to stop being oppressors would be to start being the oppressed or vice-a-versa for the other groups or any majority/minority situation.
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@King
You didn’t directly say that black people have no agency and thus no moral responsibility but that is how you were using your argument to justify and down play the actions/beliefs of black people or other races.
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Did some of you tear your lat muscles on this reach…. and did you find the straw? There are black bigots who do the same thing and there are plenty of white americans who don’t ask that silly question.
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“Isn’t that kind of an iffy statement? I mean; from that perspective, one it relies on the idea that the US still systematically oppressing people.”
Very well.
Before I answer fully, allow me to answer a question with a question:
In which year (or decade) do you think the oppression stopped?
Just tell me where the cutoff point was, so that I can have some idea of your conception of history t go from.
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@King
At what point do I think the US stopped “systematically” oppressing non-white people?
This hardly has scientific backing to it but I’ll go with 1994.
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Why 1994?
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Are you saying that in 1994 oppression from U.S. Whites ceased against all other ethnic groups?
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@King
Pretty much. Basically this has no real basis to it but going by my gut, the 80’s while most people wouldn’t think of that as a “racist” or oppressive time. It feels more like a transitioning period between the last real organized oppression during the 70’s era to the beginning of a more open minded era of the 90’s.
Not quite as bigoted but still working through a lot of the problems still left over.
I’m saying that oppression as a systematic, nationwide thing basically was over by that time.
Still had issues with bigotry and prejudice but mostly an individual/occasional corrupt group of them who might get in positions of power.
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“Isn’t that kind of an iffy statement?
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Consider economic oppression (think big banks/Wall Street)
Also consider the way the legal system has been run
Just start with those. Ask yourself this. are white people and Black people really treated equivalently? Or is there still an element of oppression and unequal treatment within certain National American institutions?
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I just saw the opposite:
http://www.nummervandedag.nl/post/5517710186/toen-ik-naar-een-naaste-zocht-van-truus-simons/#.U0jndWcU-Uk
For some unfathomable reason it is thought that the singer is white, even though her portrait on the cover was made using brown paint, though the person doing so knows where she lives (granted with both Truus and Simons not being rare in the Netherlands, she shares her name with some white women, but they are not the famous gospel singer.)
Just try whether that voice sounds “white” to you.
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yes. kiwi, i hv often heard immigrant asians use “american” to mean white person, eg, “he looked american, but couldn’t speak english”, or “a man helped me back up”, “american?”, “no, a black man”, etc.
but that reflects to me more how the media has presented it.
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king
Your claim of “oppression” is unfounded. What I’m seeing is black underachievement and discrimination against whites.to close the gap.
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OFF TOPIC: oppression, except as it directly relates to this post or the perpetual foreigner stereotype.
This is a vintage DJ derailment. Take it to the Open Thread.
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Well, closer to the OT, I think that DJ, Dave, and V-4 are responding in the way that one would expect. Asians who complain about being held in “perpetual foreigner status” have sticks up there butt, or are overly touchy, or ungrateful, just as Blacks who complain about oppression are. This is all part of the same fabric.
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This is interesting but it’s just another example of the white cultural ego in operation. Time in America has little to do with whether you’re truly American. Using that metric, many African-Americans are as American as almost anyone can claim to be yet we know how America views blacks. Furthermore, we’ve often seen native inhabitants converted to foreigners in their own lands. I don’t believe Scott meant any harm in this particular exchange. IMO, the point of recognizing these tendencies is not to educate whites but to be able to predict how it will drive behavior in less friendly situations. Really, if Scott were sensitive enough not to say things that revealed his view of Stella as ‘not-quite-American’ he would still have been thinking it. So pressuring whites to completely hide their feelings (political correctness as some say) partially deprives us of data that would be helpful in discerning where we stand. It creates a comfortable illusion. Then war breaks out with an Asian country, for example, and Asian-Americans end up in an interrment camp. Or a powerful hurricane floods a black neighbourhood and refugees get shot at by white Americans.
I do not believe that the spirit of the today’s America is tremendously different from that of the past. The LAW is different thanks to the battles fought by previous generations. This is why situations in which the law breaks down (eg. war, disaster) and the spirit takes over can sometimes reveal the latent ills. The view of Asian-Americans as not only non-white Americans but ‘perpetually foreign’ is related to the America’s acquired nature as an imperialistic world power and the fact that there are Asian countries that have retained a considerable degree of self-determination. Furthermore, due to the circumstances under which their ancestors came to America many Asian-Americans may have retained more knowledge of their ancestral culture. Thus Asian-Americans are seen as having a choice between a credible ancestral homeland and America. They are relative outcasts, as all ‘non-white’ people are to various degrees, but also seen as foreign because they may have ancestral homelands that are not completely controlled by the empire. Whites will speak about their ethnic origins sometimes (I’m French, German etc.) but that does not turn them into foreigners because those nations are viewed as part of the system of Euro-American hegemony. African-Americans are not completely American either but they are considered to have nowhere else to go due to the destruction of their ancestral homeland and their own transformation (‘go back to Africa’ is said mockingly). Therefore they are not considered to have loyalties elsewhere and are not seen as ‘foreign’. So if Chinese Americans, for example, want the perception of them to change they should do their utmost to ensure that China loses all practical independence. Then they’ll graduate from being foreigners to lesser beings under the control of the system of white supremacy. Congratulations!
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“Just because both whites and POC practice a behavior, that still doesn’t make it right, appropriate or acceptable.”—Well said Jefe and I completely agree.
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Interesting enough I found myself in a situation today where I could have ( and almost applied) this logic. She was of East Indian decent and was from California. Where it became tricky was on the subject of religion. I asked her what religion she was born into ( or that her family practices) she said Christian. My face started to turn into one of confusion and I caught myself quickly to remedy the situation. On the flip side she thought I was Cuban, so was quite thrown back when I said no I am just black.
In the end I must say we hit it all pretty well but it made me realize that I carry those same perpetual foreigner ideas to an extent.
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Excuse my typos.
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I really wish the guy’s name wasn’t Scott, but when someone’s that blind it doesn’t matter who it’s coming from.
You can’t fix stupid. Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try but good luck not strangling stupid in disgust before you get there.
Born in America = American.
See person who is descended from Koreans and thinks foreigner (or furener or less savory term) = stupid
Of course it went over his head (see above re: stupid)
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Origin wrote:
“African-Americans are not completely American either but they are considered to have nowhere else to go due to the destruction of their ancestral homeland and their own transformation (‘go back to Africa’ is said mockingly). Therefore they are not considered to have loyalties elsewhere and are not seen as ‘foreign’.”
_ _ _
According to my own life experiences as an actual Black American, the descendant US enslaved Africans (as well as non-Africans), this is pretty much dead on from my standpoint. Whites, and this includes tourist and immigrant whites, do not view me as a full-fledged American but, and unless my ethnicity is mistaken for a typically non-Black one, I am not viewed as being a ‘foreigner’ (a more phenotypic ‘black’ person would probably make a better example).
My experience in being mistaken for a member of another ethnic group is that it is not only East Asians who are automatically taken to be immigrants but pretty much ANYONE who cannot easily pass as being either white OR Black. (I myself am NYC based; those readers from the West Coast or from states in the Southwest may have a different view with regards to Chicanos / Mexican Americans). I have often been asked, “where are you from?” or, sometimes, “what are you?” by strangers. And they definitely were not inquiring after my hometown or gender.
Living in NYC, most of the non-Blacks PoC I’ve met indeed are either immigrants or second, or even third generation Americans who often identify with the nationality of their parents / grandparents more than their own (this includes not only East and South Asians but Latinos, West Indians and Africans as well).
White immigrants are the ones who seem much more likely to identify as ‘just plain ol’ American’. Years ago, as a very young person, I inquired after the background of a man I’d just met who spoke English with a heavy foreign accent. He told me with a somewhat serious look on his face that he was from Russia, but then smiling from ear-to-ear, he proclaimed, “but I am American now!” [I no longer question unknown persons with regards to their heritage or national origins.]
I remember reading a comment years ago from a guy in a chat room who only identified himself as living in Hawaii and being neither Black nor white and who said words to the effect that to be an American is to be either Black or white; if you are neither Black nor white, you are not truly regarded as being American.
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@Origin, thank you for your long and detailed commentary. I have a couple comments / questions.
Is this based on some hard research, or did you just throw that idea up in the air? Many 3rd / 4th generation Asian-Americans are even more removed from their ancestral culture than many similarly situated white or black Americans. What makes you think they are different? In some cases it is even worse for Asian-Americans (than for either whites or blacks) as their history in the USA has been largely erased.
Of course there are plenty of exceptions, but in general, I really don’t think that Asians retain any more knowledge or identity with their ancestral cultures than do white or black people.
Yes, I do agree that that is the perception, but for the vast majority of American-born Asians, such a choice does not exist any more for them than for white or black people.
One of the biggest rifts I noticed between blacks and Asians in the USA on the subject of race relations is how Asians “can go back” whereas blacks cannot. However, in reality, that perception is way overblown.
Do you truly believe that the character Stella in the video above has a realistic choice (however “credible” it might be perceived) of going back to some ancestral homeland? This is particularly true of the multiethnic or multiracial Asian-American.
(Imagine the person who is 1/4 Chinese, 1/4 Japanese, 1/4 Filipino, 1/8 Hawaiian and 1/8 German who looks and identifies as 4th generation Asian-American, yet has not been educated about Asian-American history, much less ancestral Asian culture and history. What “choice” does this person have? I have a cousin whose son is 1/2 4th generation Chinese-American, 1/2 Irish-American and had children with an American-born Pakistani American — please tell me what ancestral homeland their 5th generation American-educated children can go to)
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Oops! In my comment I meant to write first and second generation Americans rather than 2nd & 3rd.
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kiwi “I find it noteworthy that in identical circumstances, the white medical professional was fixated on my race despite its irrelevance (my condition is more common in white males) “
If your condition is more common in white males then it may well be relevant to mark “Chinese” in the report. Conditions can respond differently to treatment depending on who has it. Treatment that may be appropriate to one group may not be appropriate to another.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_health#Race-based_treatment
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^ That might only be relevant if the doctor discussed the issue of the relationship of race and ethnic background to the relevant disease and treatment with the the patient and had also ascertained the patient’s ethnic or racial background before making that conclusion.
Marking a patient as “Chinese” without discussing the relevance to the disease or treatment and making this determination without verifying anything about the background of the patient may indicate that the doctor has behaved unethically and has made assumptions which might actually cause harm, violating his Hippocratic oath. This is true whether or not the patient’s ethnic background is relevant at all to the disease or treatment.
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Living outside the States, one of the first questions people ask me when I meet them is where I’m from. Often they have a guess. It doesn’t phase me. If they guess somewhere in Europe from whence ancestors of mine came, I give them partial credit.
A solid majority of my close friends for the past couple decades have been Asian, and I’m married to one. I can usually identify East Asian ethnicity on sight and feel, but when I can’t, I’ll ask if I want to get to know the person. Generally, it makes a huge difference in terms of understanding what the person is like, e.g., huge difference in the way US Koreans and Japanese approach things, and between folk whose family is from Taiwan vs. Mainland China, 1st vs. 4th generation, etc. Most Asian Americans would definitely try to figure this out about their Asian friends for the same reason (but they’re better at asking without sounding like idiots, I suppose). Outside of the U.S. (and maybe other places in the traditionally Anglo world), nobody even gets offended by this kind of questioning. Guess the U.S. is just the best in terms of making people sensitive and turning people into perpetual victims.
Jase, like your response.
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You are referring to cases where people travel outside their home country to a foreign country. The case in this post above refers to native born people asked this question in their home country. That is an apples to oranges comparison.
So you ask a person where they are from in order to ascertain their ethnicity or their ancestral heritage or how many generations they have been in the country? What is your reaction when they answer accurately with something like “New Jersey” or “Chicago”? Would you be offended if they answered like that?
That is simply not true. Not true at all. At least not in any of the several dozen countries I have travelled or lived in. You can probably get away with that a little more if you are the foreigner in the country (and don’t know any better), but it is not appropriate in any country that has a significant locally born multi-ethnic or multi-racial population for a local national to ask another local national “Where are you from?” to determine their ancestral heritage.
I have had non-Asian Brazilians emphatically remind me that Brazilians of Japanese descent are simply and equally “Brazilian” and it would be completely ridiculous for an ethnic Malay ask an ethnic Chinese Malaysian in Kuala Lumpur where they are from to learn what part of Fujian Province their ancestors came from – the respondent could just say with complete accuracy “I am from Penang (2nd largest city in Malaysia)” which has nothing to do with their ethnic ancestry. Yes, the “where are you from?” question to ask a person’s race or ethnicity might occur to native born non-white non-Aboriginal people in Australia (which would make it like the USA in that regard) or to native born multiracial Japanese, but it does not make it any more correct or appropriate. I have met multiracial native born Japanese who hated being treated that way – as if they were a foreigner — with no other country to call home.
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Leave it to biff to pull the “I know everything about Asians because I am married to one” card.
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@pay it forward
Thank you for your comment as it addressed a question I have been pondering since September last year.
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That is a parallel corollary to “Some of my best friends are Black.”. 😛
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“Da Jokah,
If your condition is more common in white males then it may well be relevant to mark “Chinese” in the report. Conditions can respond differently to treatment depending on who has it. Treatment that may be appropriate to one group may not be appropriate to another.”
Linda says,
Da Jokah, it seems to me that every time Kiwi speaks, you feel obligated to say something to him — but sometimes you need to learn when to stop running your mouth, especially on subjects you know nothing about
The doctor who wrote Kiwi’s history and physical (H/P) wrote Chinese because that’s the stereotypical descriptor that popped into her head at that moment (since it was obvious Kiwi was Asian)– it wasn’t based on anything scientific or medical — another doctor could have easily wrote “Korean” or “Japanese” if they felt like it.
Race or Ethnicity is not used to determine “the drugs” that will be used for medical treatment — the symptoms the patient presents with and the objective data collected(ie lab tests, diagnostics, past medical history/diseases) is used to determine medical and drug treatment.
In the medical world, many stereotypes that are associated to “race” affects the quality of treatment— not the drugs used or medical treatment.
ie white Americans are seen as the biggest users of pain medications more than black, Latino, or other Americans — not because white Americans are
“racially” more predisposed to prescription drug use — they are prescribed pain medication more often than black and Latinos because black and Latino Americans “under-report” their pain more– so their pain is under-treated and they receive less pain medication than white Americans (squeaky wheel gets the grease) — so now, white Americans are seen as the biggest abusers of prescription pain medications and doctors are now wary about “over prescribing”
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to continue:
Even though the doctor did not ask Kiwi his race or ethnicity and wrote down what she wanted, her assumptions would have no impact on his medical treatment nor is it necessary to include someone’s race or ethnicity on the H/P —
Someone’s race or ethnicity might be used to determine if that persons ethnic “culture” will be a factor (or hindrance) in the care they receive, based on that individuals Ethnic beliefs or cultural practices: example
1) a patient might not want to be treated by female doctors or nurses because it’s against their belief for a non-related female to touch a male (some ultra-conservative Muslims);
2) a patient might come from a culture that observes eating only kosher food and won’t eat regular hospital food, thus hindering the healing process (Hasidic Jews);
3) some patients refuse blood transfusions because of their religion (Jehovahs Witness)
“While working to avoid stereotypes, Dr. Robbins finds it helpful to consider certain beliefs that are common to one or more cultures. For example, in groups where the physician is regarded as an authority figure, a patient may agree to follow a treatment regimen even though he or she does not intend to do so because it is at odds with a culturally-held belief.
Through her research with Latino families, Dr. Robbins found that often a male family member-whether or not he was the traditional head of the household (i.e. the father or husband)-needed to be consulted before certain healthcare decisions would be made for a female patient.
Recalling her own experience working directly with Asian-American women with cancer, Dr. Robbins, came to realize that expression of even intense pain was not considered appropriate. Only when these patients were given verbal permission by someone in their community or family group to express their distress, did they do so.
She cautions that all patients should be treated individually and that the physician can open up a discussion by asking, “Is this something you and I should discuss alone?” or “Should we bring in a family member whose opinion you value?”
http://www.hss.edu/professional-conditions_culturally-sensitive-care.asp
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@jefe
I responded to your post but I don’t see my response showing up. When I try to post again it said ‘duplicate post detected’. So I’m not sure where it is. I’ll check again later.
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Ugh, maybe it was too long…let me try breaking into pieces:
@jefe
Is this based on some hard research, or did you just throw that idea up in the air?
It was just thrown out. Nonetheless, if an Asian-American can tell which general part of Asia their ancestors are from (eg. China, Korea, Phillipines) they’re doing better than most people called black who reside in the ‘new world’. So it was a relative comparison not a claim that Asian-Americans remain essentially Asian in culture. I am certainly not saying that an x-generation Chinese-American can be moved to China and fit right in. But because the ancestral homelands of some Asians have not been colonized and destroyed culturally to the extent that some other places were they’re seen as having another home. If you’re not seen as having been completely devoured to the root then you’re outside or foreign.
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@jefe
It is the acquisitive nature of the culture of the empire within which we live that drives these perceptions. It values that which remains in the wake of its advance while also seeking to consume it. When tourist destinations are being marketed and are described as being “exotic” or “unspoilt” what does that mean? It means that they’re relatively untouched by ‘western civilization’. So these places are considered desirable to visit by virtue of their being untouched yet it is the nature of the civilization to ‘touch’ more and more places.
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@jefe
So coming back to the way in which Asian-Americans are viewed with the above paragraph as a context maybe you’ll understand my point a little better. Some parts of East Asia represent a world that is not entirely under white control culturally or economically. They’ll not stop trying to control it but it also fascinates them because it is different. Asian-Americans become associated with this ‘foreign’ and ‘exotic’ world because of their ancestry and so are often seen in the same light. African-Americans (and Africans to varying extents) have been deep in the imperial belly for centuries and have been converted into owned possessions in the white cultural mind. So there is a negative reaction to blacks claiming any identity outside of their relationship to whites. On the other hand, Asian-Americans are given it even if they don’t want it. I wondered why and responded as I did.
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@jefe
Finally, I question whether it is desirable to be ‘just American’ when you’re not white American. I’m not saying it is proper for people to insist that someone was born elsewhere just because of his/her appearance. But if American culture tends to devalue those who are not white what would they gain by giving up all identity outside of being American? The idea of the American as ‘white’ forces other people to embrace their hyphens. Otherwise they’d have to become white in order to become American (although some have tried just that). Of course, one could also try to change the definition of American to be more inclusive. But for that, you’ll need cooperation from whites in general. Good luck!
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I am constantly being asked where I am from. People will ask me if I am from Jamaica; they will ask me if I am Nova Scotian because I have a ‘Canadian’ accent (being descended from veterans of the War of 1812 will do that to you).
Do I get offended? That depends. If a white person asks me, I feel they are doing so to put me in my place as an immigrant or at least a 1st generation Canadian. When you flip the script, the reaction I get ranges from mild annoyance to outrage. You see they see themselves as just ‘Canadian’, but I must relay my genealogy to the nth degree. Now I just say I’m from my mother.
When fellow black folk asks me, I feel they are trying to find common ground for the majority of the black people here in Canada are recent immigrants, or first generation Canadians. They are genuinely curious when they meet another black person with a different point of origin. I personally can’t be bothered asking where another black person is from as we are all the same to most white and non-black people (Jamaican, for some reason they think most black people if not all, are from there). If they volunteer that information great, if not great. With that being said, there is safety in numbers, so I am glad they are here! I think I will go get a plate of curried chicken at my favorite joint!
As for East Asians, I know, via my late grandmother, that they too have been in Canada for several generations, so if a person of Asian descent has a Canadian accent, I assume they are for the most part Canadian. A tricky question that, ‘Where are you from’.
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“Da Jokah,
If your condition is more common in white males then it may well be relevant to mark “Chinese” in the report. Conditions can respond differently to treatment depending on who has it. Treatment that may be appropriate to one group may not be appropriate to another.”
Linda says,
Also, this article you brought in is discussing a “new” drug “BiDil” that used 2, already in use drugs, to make it… this drug was controversial because its designers claimed that it should be labeled specifically for use by black people; when in actuality this drug could be used successfully by anyone—the drugs used to create it, hydralazine and isosorbide mononitrate, are/were proven and successful drugs already in use and there was no way that this “new” drug would not work.
isosorbide mononitrate is a nitrate ie nitroglycerine, that is given when people are having heart attacks; Hydralazine is a potent hypertensive drug that acts like vasodilator, that is used in the hospital to decrease the blood pressure without dropping the heart rate … neither of these drugs are new.
both of these drugs are given to everyone…regardless of race… in this study, they did what they were designed to do… Combining these 2 drugs is not groundbreaking…all it did was made it possible for patients to take hydralazine on a “long term” basis for maintenance. Imdur (isosorbide mononitrate) was already being prescribed for long-term cardiac maintenance
I’m not sure how I feel about this topic because on one hand, there is empirical evidence that supports doctors using race as a factor: Race is used to determine medical diagnosis such as sickle cell anemia, multiple sclerosis or cystic fibrosis.
But on the other hand, there are just too many variables that are left out when these trials are conducted – using “race” in medication and treatment plans has many factors to consider.
A study was published in The New England Journal Of Medicine showing that a cardiac ACE inhibitor called Enalapril (used to treat Hypertension) helped whites more than black Americans, and that black Americans were hospitalized more often while being treated with this medication.
Another study on Enalapril showed that the drug delayed heart failure in both black and white Americans equally (no difference based on race):
“The previous study found evidence for racial differences in response to ACE-inhibitor therapy only for a single clinical endpoint – the risk for hospitalization – which can be influenced by a variety of environmental and social factors,” said Dries. “In this study, the benefit of enalapril was consistent and robust in reducing a spectrum of clinical endpoints indicating disease progression in both black and white participants.”
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2002-07/uots-aid071802.php
As I stated before, medical treatment based on race can affect the quality of treatment received because many health professionals in the medical world do believe in stereotypes, and rightly or wrongly, sometimes will practice based on said beliefs.
Sometimes these factors are perceived as “race” based when in actuality, it is “economics” based– such as black Americans being seen as having more hospitalizations for chronic diseases, so it’s believed that race is a factor—when in actuality, it could be said that black Americans are more likely to not have health insurance (than white Americans) so, some people could not afford to pay for prescription refills (at full price), therefore, they didn’t take their medications on time and on a regular basis, thus, they end up in the hospital more frequently.
Or if they had to go to “free clinic”, the lines were so d’m long that they left, telling themselves that they would “go back” later—they don’t, so they don’t get the follow-up care they needed.
There are just way too many variables that goes into health care and the disparities seen. Money, lifestyle and diet plays a huge part in factors that lead to diseases…people who work night shifts are more susceptible to type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and other diseases related to stress and irregular diets.
anyway, my 2 cents, back to the regular scheduled program…
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@Origin,
Thank you for your kind and thoughtful replies.
I guess that having a vague idea where you ancestors came from can be *better* than having no clue, and most Asian-Americans have some general idea where their ancestors came from. I hope that some measure of DNA testing or something can bring some closure to black Americans who find that important. But I recall that Louis Gates, Jr. traced his paternal line to Ireland – you might not find many things relevant to your current ethnic and racial identity even if you could trace it. I have met many 3rd and 4th generation Chinese-Americans or multiracial Asian Americans know that they had a grandparent or great grandparent from “China”, but to be honest, that is about as vague as knowing that you had an ancestor from “sub-Saharan” (sorry for that term) Africa.
You have not been to China, have you? There are 1.4 billion people there, and their citizens are now on the move, both internally and externally, more than any other people on earth at the moment. The (nearly) billion person Chinese New Year march is the largest migration of humans on the planet – you do not want to be there during that stampede. My concept of “tourist destination” has already changed, and I aim to go to places that are relatively untouched by mainland Han Chinese. This means that most destinations in Mainland China are already off my list. These places are hard to find. I went to Ushuaia, Argentina and saw groups of them boarding boats to Antarctica. 😮
OK, I do agree that Asian-Americans (even if they are descendant from mountain hill tribes that still have practices bizarre to Westerners) are viewed as having come from an intricate, complex, historical culture that is independent of the West. Blacks are viewed as having descendant from unenlightened savage cultures and rescued under the wing of their white imperialist masters. White people do not like black people identify with anything that is not culturally under their control. It is difficult for whites to do this to Asians. However, whites have done some things to Asians which is also quite sinister. They can easily vilify them as the “enemy” in times or War or in bad economic times. Worse (in my opinion), whites have tried to erase their history and try to make Asian-Americans think they are like honorary white people, while at the same time, treating them as foreigners. The problem is not the same as for blacks; it is different. But it is also not good.
Yes, despite the benefits there is a huge cost in giving up one’s hyphen. The reward is to become white — Generic white (just like the people who tick ethnic “American” on their census forms). I am not saying it is better.
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Maybe I’m not being clear, “where are you from?” is not appropriate to get the answer you want all the time. I agree with that (most educated whites get this, believe it or not). If I saw an Asian speaking in perfect U.S. English and I asked that question, I would expect to hear “NJ” or “Cali” not Taiwan, and I would work with that (“oh, LA whereabouts?”). Instead, if I wanted to know their ethnicity, I would ask “what is your ethnicity?”. If they are the type who doesn’t even want to answer this question, then we probably wouldn’t get along well anyway. I’m just not a fan of very closed people (e.g., women who try to treat their age like its top secret, even though I know this is not uncommon).
Whether I’m a citizen of the country abroad I’m in doesn’t matter. It’s the “assumption” people make that I’m not just by looking at me. People here have argued that even though a clear majority of Asians in the U.S. are 1 or 1.5 generation immigrants that it’s still rude to ask, because many people aren’t. You can’t have it both ways. I think asking is fine in the right context (i.e., if you really want to get to know the person and ask in the correct way–no reason to ask a store clerk you’ll never see again.)
I have lived in Asia for most of the last 15 years, speak 2 Asian languages pretty well. I don’t speak face to face with non-Asians very frequently, but still apparently can’t have any knowledge about the way things work in Asia. Oh, yeah, it’s because of my skin color. However, you guys feel free to talk about white people in the U.S. because, well… oh wait.
Jefe, you can darn well bet that folks in Malaysia know if you’re Chinese or local Malaysian (and yes it makes a huge difference–e.g., massive anti-Chinese quotas in the universities).
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Ha-hah, The title of this post is “Where are you REALLY from?” Not “What is your ethnicity?”. Besides, most of those allegedly educated white people that I think you are referring to often ask “What is your heritage?” I think the discussion about appropriate ways to inquire about someone’s ethnic background could be the subject of another post. Also, someone’s ethnicity might be a personal matter, like their religion or what their Daddy does for a living. For others, their ethnicity might be a very painful, traumatic question or something that they must hide out of fear. Even that question is not as innocuous as you may believe.
Again, the main topic of the post is not whether it is rude or not to inquire about someone’s ethnic background, but how Asian-descended and other Americans are treated as perpetual foreigners in their native country.
“Whether I’m a citizen of the country abroad I’m in doesn’t matter. ”
What do you mean? So, whether one is a citizen of the USA or not has no bearing on whether or not they are treated as a foreigner? They are *NOT* abroad.
“It’s the “assumption” people make that I’m not just by looking at me.” You are still trying to give credence to the woefully misguided practice in America of treating multi-generational Americans in the USA as foreigners strictly by appearance. Even Native Americans with ancestors on the continent for hundreds of generations are often assumed to be foreigners. If tens of millions in Japan were treated like foreigners strictly because of an assumption regarding their appearance, then there is a major problem with that. Uighurs in China know this oh so well.
If Malaysians (regardless of their ethnicity) are so keen and clever to recognize their Malaysian born ethnic Chinese citizens as fellow citizens and countrymen, why are Americans so obtuse then? Many Chinese Malaysians settled in Malaysia about the same time that Chinese-Americans settled in the USA (mid-19th to early 20th century) and Chinese-Americans would have been just as numerous as Chinese Malaysians had the USA not entered a period of ethnic cleansing that it did. And I don’t think the anti-Chinese quotas in Malaysian universities are that materially different from the anti-Asian quotas at many US universities. More and more Asian Americans might be forced to study abroad just to get into a decent university as time goes on.
I have lived in both Asia and the USA longer than you have lived in either, and use multiple languages on a daily basis. In the USA, I lived in majority black, majority white, majority Latino and majority Asian neighborhoods and traveled around / stayed in extensively in the East, South and West (I admit that I have less experience with the Midwest). I don’t speak face-to-face to non-Asians on a daily basis now either. I am not saying that you are entirely clueless about how things work in Asia (although sometimes you do drop big BOMBS) but you do seem to have an obtuse understanding about the situation in the USA and a very misguided need to extrapolate misinformation about your perception or experience in Asia to the situation in the USA. Your alleged marriage to an Asian woman and experience of living in Asia doesn’t seem to have broadened your thinking that much, in that regard at least.
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Kiwi, thanks for getting to the point. How does having an Asian wife, living experience in Asia, and “yellow fever” make one an expert on how Asian-Americans experience racism in the USA. .
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Kiwi,
It’s crystal clear (and you beat it over our heads all the time) that you’ve been scarred by the personal family situation you deal with and are struggling with feelings of inferiority vis a vis your cousin’s family. It’s a regrettable situation, but you use your uncle’s behavior as a proxy for all whites, when you would strenuously object to doing the same with respect to. e.g., comments made by a random Asian to other Asians.
Jefe,
There’s not much to argue with you about. We have different experiences. You are trying to totally discount mine and using shaming language (fine to throw around “yellow fever”, but heaven forbid someone call you a racial epithet). I won’t respond to that. You sound like you are a very bitter person, who is a failure in your own mind if not in life. Maybe you and your family have been the victims of some serious race related discrimination (it sounds like that based on previous things you have said), and that’s regrettable, but realize that most East Asians living in the States don’t have the same history, and the reason there are these quotas, and why high status East Asians still flock to the U.S. (and other traditionally Anglo countries) is because East Asians are frankly kicking @$$ in may respects, including getting into the best schools and getting the best jobs in disproportionate numbers (though, knowing you, you would focus on the “bamboo ceiling”, instead of average salaries, or homeless/incarceration rates, which is a kind of apex fallacy you can’t even see).
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Not exactly discounting yours or feeling bitter, but trying to understand how your “experience” gives you inside expertise on how Asian-Americans experience racism in the USA.
So you admit that these quotas in the USA exist. How is Malaysia worse then? You make it sound as if it perfectly acceptable because of the “foreign” Asian students flocking to the USA. One of the problems I have with your reasoning is your habit of looking at Asians as foreigners to the USA. You did it again in your last paragraph.
And I do not think it will ever be acceptable to erase the last 160-170 years of Asian-American history with a simple keystroke because you believe that it doesn’t apply to most Asian-Americans. It is WAY more complicated than that.
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I feel like I just read this post again after reading some of the comments in this thread.
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@ Pay It Forward @ jefe
Excellent comments! Thanks.
@ biff
Stella is not in a foreign country, so your experience as a foreigner does not apply, In fact, it makes it seem like you are applying the perpetual foreigner stereotype to her, the same as Scott in the video.
@ biff
Kiwi is not saying all white men are like his uncle. He is just making the point that your being married to an Asian women does not mean you are not racist.
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@ King
@jefe
Right, because White American men know best what should offend Asian Americans, even more than Asians themselves!
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Biff
If you wanted to be clear you could have just said what you said. You frequently hide behind the “I’m married to an Asian” card as if it will make you seem more knowledgeable or credible when it does not. It frankly weakens your argument because you are relying on that alone to carry it. Having knowledge of Asians is perfectly fine, but when you are at a point when you are telling people that you know what Asians feel like I think you need to check yourself. Reading that I was somewhere between creeped out and trying to understand. Furthermore you are not Asian so to start “telling it how it is” as if you were and using the Asian wife argument is ridiculous.
On top of that you fail to realize that educated people can still be ignorant. In fact it seems to be “educated” people who are making those ignorant assumptions we are talking about. Though you statements seem to paint another issue. The belief that only certain brand of people engage in this similar to “the only racist are in the kkk or some other white extremist group” card. Which is delusional thinking.
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Yep, and don’t forget that the English have stiff upper lips (lol!), and their homes (‘omes) are their castles……
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@ Abagond, I’m making my way through the back-n-forth of this thread, and every time I think I am beginning to at last understand the US Way of Race, something escapes me.
I don’t know what to ask or think.
It seems what’s being said here is that only whites can be really “American” — yet black Americans and Asian Americans are also truly American, sometimes in a much harder-won way, but it’s complicated. Can this info be summarised?
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“I have had non-Asian Brazilians emphatically remind me that Brazilians of Japanese descent are simply and equally “Brazilian” ”
Jefe, I am not saying this to argue against you or undercut you,or take any side, i dont want to comment , but, i have to say, this one Brazilian’s opinion is exactly that…in truth, in Brazil, the Asian story is hidden more than in the USA, there identity is only now making a small apearance on the media and Asians can be routinly all be referred to as “Japa”..there was also Japanese internment camps in World War 2
Many notions get put out on this blog that only America is like this or that, but, it just isnt true
The Asian story in Brazil is more hidden than in the USA
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^ do agree that there is much more to it. It certainly does not do any justice to oversimplify it.
I have never had a non-Asian American insist to me that their Asian populations are, first and foremost American like what I experienced the several times that Brazilians said that to me. In fact, what I see most of the time from Americans (even from many Asian-Americans) is what people have been doing on this blog — they are pretty much foreigners in the USA and it is reasonable and normal to treat it that way.
But, is it really more hidden? I think 95% of Americans know pretty much zilch about Asian-American history. It does not surprise me if 95% of Brazilians know zilch about Asian Brazilian history.
Because I can communicate in Chinese dialects and Japanese and Tagalog somewhat better than Portuguese, I still used Asian languages daily when I went to Brazil — so I spent hours talking to people in Brazil about their experience living there in several different cities. I also got to know a number of Brazilian Japanese when I went to Japan. But I know I have just scratched the surface.
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It’s possible that attitude to race is different in some countries in the ‘new world’ that have a colonial history (exploitation by white nations) yet have large populations of people who’re not considered white. Everywhere is different but there may be certain themes in common. I would go into it but I don’t have the time now.
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@Bulanik,
I challenge you to the task. Are you up to it?
The Immigration laws which permitted more Latin Americans and Asians to enter the USA were not changed until 1965. At that time, the vast majority of Asian-Americans were Native Born Americans (after decades of Asian exclusion and designating all immigrants as aliens ineligible for citizenship, there had been scant immigration for decades). It took maybe 12-15 years after 1965 before immigrant numbers started to catch up with the native born population. Yet the perception that Asian-Americans were perpetual foreigners was already well-ingrained into the American psyche long before 1965, and has persisted ever since. So I do not buy for a split second that the perpetual foreigner stereotype arose because immigrants began to outnumber the native born in the 1980s. The USA has vigorously practiced it for 160 years.
My maternal grandmother had ancestors that came to North America before the Revolutionary War, and lived in Georgia for generations before moving to Alabama. Despite her French surname, she could very well be one of those Americans who would consider ticking ethnic “American” on census forms. But she lectured me endlessly when I was a child about how to be a proper “American” (even though most Asian-Americans at that time were actually native born Americans). Yet after doing that, she still told me that I can never really be American. She told me that my father was not American and even “negroes” and (Native American) “Indians” are not even Americans. They are only technically American citizens, but that does not make them true Americans. She told me my case was hopeless, but if I had kids with a white person, and so did my kids, then *maybe* my grandkids would have a chance to be accepted as American.
I studied French as a child (it should have made her happy), but when I started learning Mandarin (not my family’s native dialect) as a teenager, she basically wrote me off. She told me that my brother was probably going to turn out OK (because he was basically socialized with white people), but I was never going to move in the direction of being American enough to please her or have American kids, no matter what I did. She made one last attempt by trying to push me to learn German instead (my maternal grandfather’s ancestry), and I said I would after I try to get my Chinese up to speed. I told her that my kids would be Americans because I was, and she told me NO THEY WON’T. She practically threw me out of her house.
I decided as a child, that I will never allow a white person tell me whether or not I would be accepted as American or anything for that matter, because, no matter what the facts, they would simply make their own decision based on their perception.
I used to hangout at university with this black American female friend from Philadelphia. We used to share a lot of stories about Asian-American and black American issues. I told her that one problem is that whites generally do not acknowledge or perceive Asian-Americans as American (and that was before immigrants really started to exceed native born numerically). She told me that whites don’t really perceive blacks as Americans either. I told her that I even have white ancestry dating back to the Revolutionary war, born and raised in Washington, DC, but even my own grandmother did not accept me as American. Then she replied, “I got white blood in me too. We all do. But they still do not see us or accept us as real Americans.” We went to university in Boston. She grew up in Philadelphia, I grew up in Washington, DC and my grandmother was in Alabama. But the messages were basically the same everywhere. But her remark convinced me NOT to go down that road of trying to American enough to please white people. It was a hopeless and pointless task.
That was before the Model Minority stereotype was drilled into people’s heads during the Reagan era. So, I am still a bit shocked that some people actually believe that white people will ever accept them, as long as this Perpetual Foreigner stereotype clings in their minds.
I never perceived American as meaning “white”, but that perception in America is still very strong, even in places like New York, DC, LA, Atlanta, etc. where whites are in a minority.
America was built on the blood, sweat and tears of all its peoples, but I noticed only white people got into the history books. Non-whites were tokens in that history as making contributions to whites. I knew by age 12 that something was very wrong.
I still think it is wrong.
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@ Bulanik
Short answer: Many White Americans think that only Whites are Real Americans. Everyone else is just kind of here – even if their families have been in the country hundreds or thousands of years. Most Whites would never state it that baldly, but it comes out in what they say. Scott in the post is a textbook example. It is racist and insulting: everyone born in the US is American. He would not treat a native-born Black person as a foreigner, but the assumption that “American” means “White” would come out in other ways.
Longer answer: On paper (aka the US constitution) everyone born in the US is a citizen with full civil rights and equal protection under the law regardless of race. But in PRACTICE, the US is by and for rich White men. Only Whites can pretty much take their civil rights for granted – unlike Black, Asian, Native, Latino and Muslim Americans. Racial profiling is a good example.
A dramatic example is the Japanese American internment during the Second World War. Japanese Americans in California and elsewhere lost everything they could not carry and were sent to prison camps for the rest of the war. The Supreme Court UPHELD that violation of the constitution, in effect saying that race matters more than citizenship. That decision has never been overturned. It is still on the books.
When the word “American” started to mean “a US citizen” in the late 1700s, all citizens were White. Back then most Blacks were slaves, most Natives were seen as belonging to enemy nations. As late as 1924 many Native Americans could not vote. Many Blacks could not vote till 1965.
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@ Jefe, yah, I can only make a sincere effort to meet the task. 😀
Perspectives are going to be different in different parts of the world; I noticed this when I read some of this thread the other day: https://abagond.wordpress.com/2011/03/21/how-black-and-white-americans-seem-alike/
What you and others have been discussing is something I want to very much understand about the US, this entrenched and institutionalised rejection of a big lump of its people, the general and the specific. And also how personal. it is too.
Thank you.
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… the Japanese American internment during the Second World War. Japanese Americans in California and elsewhere lost everything they could not carry and were sent to prison camps for the rest of the war. The Supreme Court UPHELD that violation of the constitution, in effect saying that race matters more than citizenship….
When the word “American” started to mean “a US citizen” in the late 1700s, all citizens were White. Back then most Blacks were slaves, most Natives were seen as belonging to enemy nations. As late as 1924 many Native Americans could not vote. Many Blacks could not vote till 1965.
Abagond, thank you.
What constantly happens is that the real plot and sub-plots get overshadowed by the fancy stage-sets and lighting… so, when you present the stripped-down truth like that, it is obvious that that’s how it is, and because it’s something that’s been said over and over in various ways.
The shiny Image of America and the intimidating Superpower status always seems to creep over the truth and dominate.
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@jefe
Thanks for the response. I agree that both people of African and Asian descent (or both lol) face racism but it may take different forms.
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@Bulanik,
– Naturalization Act of 1790 – Only white people may become citizens
– 14th Amendment (1868) – All persons born in the USA are citizens (making the slaves citizens, but not Native Americans)
– Naturalization Act of 1870 – allowed persons of African descent to immigrate to the USA, but excluded Asians from naturalization
– Chinese Exclusion Act (1882) – banned immigration of persons from China as well as those of Chinese descent from other countries from entering the USA. Repealed in 1943
– US v. Wong Kim Ark (1898) – confirms that the 14th amendment applies to Chinese-Americans (and everyone else) even though they are excluded from immigration
– Immigration Act of 1924 – basically cuts off immigration from Asia.
– Indian Citizenship Act, (1924) – Native Americans are made American citizens
– Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 (completely revised the immigration rules, and put emphasis on family reunion)
(1960s – all sorts of civil rights acts are passed to grant civil rights to persons denied them in the past), eg,
1964 – Civil Rights Act
1965 – Voting Rights Act
1967 – Anti-Miscegenation acts repealed
1968 – Fair Housing Act
Etc.
The treatment of non-whites as NON-American is nothing new. It has been in the American psyche since the founding. So BALDERDASH to those who suggest that persons with origins outside Europe (except, maybe, for blacks) are “naturally” perceived as foreigners – there is nothing natural about it – it has been pounded into people’s heads and legislated for centuries. Repealing those laws did nothing to change people’s perceptions (which were not just formed post 80s in the immigration boom from Asia, Latin America and the Middle East). Non-whites have been perceived as foreigners, and thus potential traitors since the founding of the nation.
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The question of the ‘naturalness’ of racism is a deep question. It may be natural to some people. One of the little things that fascinates me is that Marco Polo saw a giraffe in China. People were trading and interacting before Western Europe became a major player. So I don’t think of racism as the inevitable consequence of contact. I see it mainly as a tool that whites use. While unravelling the hows and whys of the implementation of white supremacy I sometimes look into the philosophies of the cutlures they encountered. This is an excerpt from the Wikipedia page on Ubuntu:
“A person is a person through other people strikes an affirmation of one’s humanity through recognition of an ‘other’ in his or her uniqueness and difference. It is a demand for a creative intersubjective formation in which the ‘other’ becomes a mirror (but only a mirror) for my subjectivity. This idealism suggests to us that humanity is not embedded in my person solely as an individual; my humanity is co-substantively bestowed upon the other and me. Humanity is a quality we owe to each other. We create each other and need to sustain this otherness creation. And if we belong to each other, we participate in our creations: we are because you are, and since you are, definitely I am. The ‘I am’ is not a rigid subject, but a dynamic self-constitution dependent on this otherness creation of relation and distance”.
It’s a totally inverted viewpoint from the standpoint of Western thought. They’re saying that on a certain level we’re all one and the purpose of difference or otherness is mutually beneficial relationship. Relation requires someone to relate to so differentiation grew out of the will to experience relationship. IMO, they could conceive of this because they built the universe out of a different substrate. It was not matter but spirit and everything was a manifestation of spirit (ie mind, thought, consciousness). Often there’s no literal supreme being (though one may be symbolized) just a supreme state of being. That being universal love, harmony, and appreciation of oneness.
So this explains why these people could fall prey to racist visitors with ulterior motives. They had natural cultural tendencies not to see difference as a barrier to friendly relationship. Yet whites show strong and consistent tendencies towards xenophobia and have resisted attempts at re-education even when they have lived alongside ‘foreigners’ for generations. So I think those who say racism isn’t natural and those who say it is are both correct. “Natural to whom” is the question that should be asked after that.
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@ Jefe
Good summary. Thanks.
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As far as Brazil, Jefe, if the Asians there havent lived a while in the US, they might not have a referance..
also, non Asian Brazilians will tell you Brazil is not racist and the beaches are the most democratic in the world…there are a lot of cliches, but, racism is in Brazil. Where the strangest thing might be hearing most Asians regulated to “Japa” , in media depictions, what is in effect is there is very little Asian story or history in the main media…there is less presence than in the US…if Asian Brazilians living there, never got to and lived in the US a while, they would never know the differance…for me, you have to live in Brazil a while to understand how the Asian Brazilian dynamic plays out..and the story just isnt told that much…their little league team was all Japanese Brazilian, and they won the world champianship…it was only noted much later in a casual report…the Asian story in Brazil is mostly a non reported story…and its a big story , they are the biggest Japanese colony outside Japan…they also had Japanese internment camps in world war 2
Individual Asian Brazilians may have differant stories,individual Asian Americans might have a differant story also… Sao Paulo is huge, there are huge colonies of differant immigrants and first , second, third generation etc immigant families from everywhere…Im an immigrant…its like New York…what do you think an Asian American living in Chinatown in New York’s life might be differant from yours in DC? Since you lived in New York a minute , you may have an answer..
but, as an American, I totaly hear what you are saying, but, personaly, I never had a hang up about Asians being a perpetual stereotype foreigner..and, I dont remember it as a running theme growing up in Chicago…but, I can say, the Asian story just wasnt told…it was hidden…that is what I can say is truth for me…I know there are plenty of white people who think like this thread is portraying, but, plenty more dont…
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Native American, African American, Asian American, Arab American, Chinese American, Indian American, Italian American, German American, etc. There are lots of “Americans” meaning people with US citizenship. But as I pointed out in a previous post, American has multiple meanings which include both nationality as well as ethnicity.
In terms of nationality, every person with US citizenship is “American”. Due to the historical white majority, the non-hyphenated American is synonymous with whites. For non-whites to claim to be US nationals is fine. But for non-whites to claim to be ethnic American is like African-Americans claiming to be Chinese-American or Arab-Americans claiming to be Native American. I think most would object to that as a form of ethnic appropriation. Yet those same people wish to claim inclusion in others’ ethnicity while maintaining their own exclusive identity. They want to have it both ways. That’s not cool. And neither is exploiting the quirky, confusing and dual nature of the term “American” to practice prejudice against whites.
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The idea that the American (without qualification) is white is a privileged status for European-Americans. It is called white nationalism (and extends internationally with ‘manifest destiny’ ideas). I understand that they like it that way but to claim it’s wrong to point it out is a bit of a stretch.
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@Origin,
I was never talking about the naturalness of racism. I meant the naturalness of perceiving one as a foreigner (ie, perceive as non-citizen or non-local). Black Americans are less likely to be perceived as a foreigner – does not mean that they are less likely to be subjected to racism.
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@jefe
Yes, I agree with that.
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@jefe
Your last sentence touches on an interesting point. Acceptance as an American native (born here) does not necessarily translate to acceptance as a “true” American (ie white). From a certain standpoint Asian-Americans are farther from being ‘American’ in that they’re neither considered native nor white by default. Yet African-Americans, who aren’t assumed to be foreign, have a long history of being treated worse than visitors.
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Foes someone mind explaining to me why non-whites can not be ethnically American?
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Correction does
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Because “America is a white country.” This is by definition. As others have pointed out this idea has had, at various points in history, legal support.
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“Foes someone mind explaining to me why non-whites can not be ethnically American?”
Does someone mind explaining to me why blacks can not be ethnically Chinese?
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^ They can. Why not?
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The Northern New World territories have only been majority White for less than 200 years. They have never been exclusively White. Within 30 years they will no longer be the majority race in the region
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/06/13/18934111-census-white-majority-in-us-gone-by-2043?lite
White dominance on the North American continent will prove to be a very sharp blip in history, unlike the long standing history of the Chinese in China. I’m afraid that there is a big difference.
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@Origin
If that response was to me then thanks for the response.
Da Jokah
I guess that is your way of saying you have no real answer.
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@ Jefe
Based on my understanding of the definition of ethnic I too am confused on why not. So far it holds on the bases of “because I said so.”
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@ King
(I’ll read you link later; maybe I’m jumping the gun by commenting first …)
King, sheer numbers are not the only factor to be concerned with. We’ve already touched on the small number of whites in S.A. on the ‘white map’ thread. Also, if whites fully embrace Jews and East Asians as whites that will go along way to providing longevity to white hegemony of America, at least. I certainly could be very, very wrong, but my read on East Asians is that (generally speaking) they would and do support white hegemony and would love joining up as “full members” so to speak.
(and yes, I know that’s not pleasant sounding. I have no plans to repeat my last point, in this thread, but I do welcome rebuttals or commentary on it.)
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uck! what a punctuation nightmare. I’ll repost it King, if it makes no sense.
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Blacks can be ethnically Jewish, Chinese or ethnically American. I don’t see why not.
There are plenty of half black ethnically Vietnamese American in the USA.
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Of course you don’t. But your opinion isn’t representative because you’re mixed.
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@ Legion
I agree that Whites have *dominated* American society, culture, and policy. But domination does not mean that the dominant ethnicity is the only true representative of any particular culture. There have always been minority groups within cultures and regions. Trying to state that Whites are the only true ethic Americans is the same thing as trying to argue that only Straight people are truly Americans because they outnumber Homosexuals.
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But domination does not mean that the dominant ethnicity is the only true representative of any particular culture.
Yes, of course King. Perhaps we have had a disconnect here.
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Yes, I was commenting on Da Jokahs ridiculous notion that Whites are the only true American ethnicity. 🙂 I figured you wouldn’t agree with DJ on that point. What then is the source of our misunderstanding? I may indeed be missing something.
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“I may indeed be missing something.”
Indeed you are. I never said “whites are the only true American ethnicity.” I listed numerous American ethnicities in a previous comment. I’ve made a very subtle point. But I’m confident that if you pay close attention you will understand. There are many American ethnicities. One of those ethnicities is simply “American”. That ethnicity is white just like the African American ethnicity is black. The reason the American ethnicity is typically not called “European American” is that whites have historically been the majority and, therefore, it wasn’t necessary. At some point, “European American” will become more common. In the meantime, feel free to continue whining, btching and crying about this contrived issue.
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@ King
I’ve been skipping DJ’s comments sometimes. But still see a gist of what he is saying by sometimes reading him and other times reading people’s responses to him. You’re right, of course, that I don’t agree, with him, that ethnicity is colour based.
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“In the meantime, feel free to continue whining, btching and crying about this contrived issue.”—Considering that you are the one constantly bring up this issue, it is more reasonable to apply that you are the one whinning, b*tching, and crying about it. This will be the second thread you have attempted to apply this (could be more as I have not been around to see) logic.
Secondly it appears what king was saying went far over your head and into outerspace. Sure you listed other ethnicities, but you implied and have stated in other threads that only whites are ethnically American. A conclusion I believe you drew on based off self reporting data found on Wikipedia.
I threw in my question in order for a clear response on why nonwhite can not be ethnically American for a reason. You could not answer so it is my conclusion that it holds as no more than a belief of yours. Nothing more and nothing less.
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@King
if I am mistaken in what I took from your statement by all means feel free to correct me.
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@ Jokah
That is one way to look at it—a rather limited and foolish way, yes.
What you are saying (whether you realize it or not) is that you believe that there are technically many kinds of “American citizens,” but that simple Americans are White because they have grown to a majority.
But that is making a huge assumption on your part. It’s like saying that because most of the management and wait staff at a given restaurant are White, then it must be a “White Restaurant!” It’s all in your mind, Jokah.
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A wise and sagacious policy, to be sure.
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Spot on, Sharina.
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Kiwi, I suppose you and jefe were never condescending to me, huh? Thanks for all of your validation.
Based on what I’ve seen first-hand, I don’t think these so-called black Chinese/Japanese/Koreans would be at all accepted in the societies of China, Japan and Korea (does anyone really want to argue this? jefe?). Everyone here seems to hold American whites to a higher standard than ethnically Asian people in Asia. Holding one group of people to a higher standard conveys an implicit assumption of superiority…
You guys purposely refuse to understand my examples. Here’s another one, my kids are citizens of a foreign country and will no doubt be asked lots of questions (where are you from, etc.) growing up in that country (and, again, they are citizens born in that country) because they look different. As a father who wants the best for them, I hope they can try to stay positive and avoid a victim mentality in this case. It just doesn’t help much. If I were (hypothetically) a white citizen of Japan, it just wouldn’t do much good for me to get pissed off when people asked me where I was from. If someone starts purposely insulting me, that’s another thing, but that’s not what this post is about.
Legion, you may only get the answer to your question if you read comments from people like DJ (even though they are, unfortunately, opposing view points you would prefer to not even consider). East Asians have so far been co-opted to support liberal government policies that are actually against their interests. As high income earners, high taxes hurt them. As high achievers, affirmative action benefits to NAMs directly hurt them (jefe still can’t grasp this contradiction and appears to think quotas for Asians = bad, while quotas for NAMs = good –if you make a counterpoint based on percentages at top schools, please separate out gentile whites). Illegal immigrants overrun their neighborhoods and force them to follow the path of white flight. Have to give credit to the left for keeping them in the fold and telling them they are all “victims” with the same interest as NAMs. However, there may come a time when the reality that living conditions in the country are getting worse and worse becomes too hard to ignore and they move to the right en masse (probably silently). By then, it will likely be too late to have a truly conservative political majority, but the rich of all colors will always act to protect their wealth. Bank on it. More stratification, gated communities, private schools and hidden wealth. More poverty and dependency. More corrupt politicians. We will become much less like Europe (so will most of Europe) and more like Mexico and Brazil.
How about this for a separate topic, Abagond? You mentioned projected ethnic populations in the U.S. in 2100. What do you foresee to be the state of the nation, status of different ethnic groups and condition of race relations then? Do you think things are getting better? Will life improve for NWM as the number of whites decrease dramatically (we will have to use NWM after whites become a technical minority in 20 years of so)?
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Biff
You talk as if you know the point of the post when you seem to have missed it on several occasions, even after being directed back to the point. So I see this a whining on your part yet again.
For starters “based on what I have seen” is the key word in your statement. Your experiences are not a fact of life. Based on my experiences i have seen asians treat whites different depending on the company they keep. Certainly smile in your face and then talk sh*t about you later. That and the fact that you seem to hold on to the “whites treat you better” argument. I am curious on why you pick the weakest arguments to argue myself? As to whether or not black Asians are or are not accepted i think it is better to get the point of view of one that lives in an Asian country whether than to go on what you believe they will experience ( and some do live there).
Secondly you keep making this about treatment in other countries, when no one is talking about how people are treated in other countries but here in the USA. Using examples of what your kids might experience is not making your argument more so but making it seem like you want to deflect from the point. I guess you need something to argue about so hey. Also who is angry? You are the one that seems to be making this about anger. It is your anger towards the situation that is projecting out this idea that because people find it offensive being thought of as a foreigner in their home land, then they must be angry.
Lastly when are you going to stop making every post, every argument, everything about you. In many cases it has not been yet you seem to turn everything into a biff moment. No one gives a flying f*ck about your hurt feelings or guilt trips or uncomfortableness. What people do care about is a good valid argument. Of which you can not deliver because you get in the way of yourself.
Good day
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No one is ethnically American. American is a nationality not an ethnic group. Americans can be of any ethnicity. The same goes for Chinese.
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@solesearch: But there are ethnic americans! They are just called in PC language as Native Americans and otherwise as indians or injuns. But they are the real americans.
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Actually upon scrolling through these comments it appears that once again you have initiated contact with Kiwi. As can be seen here:
@ Kiwi
I am beginning to think your comments are making some of the white males on this thread paranoid. LOL…..unless of course da jokah and biff are the same people. hmmmm
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sharina
I never said that I’d never made a comment to kiwi. What I said was that most of the exchanges were initiated by kiwi. Nice try though.
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Also, most of the exchanges between us are initiated by you as well. About half the time I don’t even respond to you because you’re not worth the time.
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Sami,
American is not Native American’s ethnicity. We are talking about America as in the U.S., which is a nation that is made up of several ethnic groups.
All Native Americans don’t belong to the same ethnic group.
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@ Da Jokah
Nor did my comment say anything about you not making a comment to kiwi. What I said and allow me to quote is ” it appears that once again you have initiated contact with Kiwi.” Meaning that this is only one of the many that you have instigated so you are basically calling bs.
I actually could careless whether you respond to me or not. I actually prefer exchanges where I prove you wrong and you say nothing. Gives added effect. 🙂
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We’re grappling with these issues of nationality versus ethnicity because of imperialism and its consequences. Typically, ethnic groups did not come under external dominion by another nation or empire for their own good. From a certain perspective, it makes perfect sense that only whites are properly American.
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In fact, if I am feeling up to it, I will post the links on other posts where you have basically made this contact with Kiwi when he was talking to someone that was not you and not about you. The only person who may be able to hold that claim is biff and even he can not really say most or many.
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Origin,
And what perspective would that be?
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@ soulsearch said:
@ sami said:
But there are ethnic americans! They are just called in PC language as Native Americans and otherwise as indians or injuns. But they are the real americans.
@ soulsearch replied:
American is not Native American’s ethnicity. We are talking about America as in the U.S., which is a nation that is made up of several ethnic groups.
All Native Americans don’t belong to the same ethnic group.
?
There are 100s of different Native American groups, but I’ve always heard “Native American” used as a collective description. Like there are Italian-Americans and Swedish Americans, but they are all European-Americans.
is this a correct comparison?
Amerindian is a word anthropologists use to describe the indigenous peoples of the Americas. Is Native American a “racial” or “ethnic” term?
What Sami said made sense. I always understood the many Native American peoples to be American in a different way than other Americans…
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Where are you really from? It seems the question refers to the origins of a person’s genes, not necessarily his nation of residence or even the nation in which he was born.
What’s the big deal?
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I would agree with that except if I wanted to know the origin of a person’s genetics I would just ask. Not pressure them with where are you from because that question does not seem to be one that a person should or would use to determine genetic origin.
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The origin of genes… 😀 You mean, like in living organisms?
You really believe the question is really where do your molecules originate
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sb32199, joking aside, Sharina’s right of course. You might have to know a person quite well before you ask them about their family’s origins.
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@ Bulanik
“Native American” is racial.
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@ Abagond
It’s racial — they are Americans by race.
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Bulanik,
Native American is a race, but American is not.
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Soulsearch, I’ve heard Native Americans being called “Natives” for short, rather than Americans.
And because Native American is a race, I am assuming it is a legal term exclusive to the USA — is that correct?
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Bulanik, I don’t know how exclusive it is. I’m sure other countries have their own names. The U.S. census uses American Indian and Alaskan Native.
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Soulsearch, you’re right: race and ethnic classfications that seem obvious in one place, are not that clearcut in other places. I’ve heard Canadians say First Nations, and I’ve also heard Indians (India) say Red Indians, for instance.
@ George Ryder, what are you talking about?
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If you think it’s awesome, okay, but why would you say that, just out of the blue and to me?
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If I remember correctly from what I heard from the guys in AIM back in the early 90’s when I lived in US, they had their own names for themselves. And all the rest are foreigners, recent arrivals, immigrants, Swedes and italians and even blacks included. From their perspective, all the so-called “americans”, white or not, are immigrants or their off spring.
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@ George, I see. when you said you said “I bet you wish you lived in Merica!” I wondered what you meant by that…
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It seems to me a Cherokee’s ethnicity would be “Cherokee”, while an Apache’s would be “Apache”, et cetera.
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Yeah. What a load of hooey.
The owner of this blog is not a black man. Abagond is a bitter black woman with an agenda. An agenda that permeates this blog. I shudder to think what you are ‘teaching’ the children of America with your hatred and your lies.
Kiwi, you’re not an Asian man either.
Quit it with the inauthentic and fake identities. You’re spreading hatred and BS.
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@the night walker somthin on your mind stranger?
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i find that hard to believe
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The Night Walker
If a agony is indeed lying about this post then you would also be calling the man and woman who made the YouTube video liars. They made this video ( along with others) in response to this very issue. In fact after getting several hateful and confused responses from white commenter’s they made a follow up video. I think I will find it and post it.
@ kiwi
Lol. You have another one.
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Correction abagond not a agony
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Follow up in response to comments from first video.
Actors read real comments from What Kind of Asian…: (http://youtu.be/S0QeIq6xt1U)
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funny and sad at the same time,its seems like “whites” in this case are victims of their own cultural propaganda, specifically that only a white european can be a american, its funny if we just look at the surface because it makes a people who pride themselves on their intellectual superiority look incredibly stupid uninformed and naive.
However when I consider the numerous and continued calculated murder by the same group I’d say its more of a reflexive disciplined psych job on asians to keep them in their place amongst the local and global white hegemony.
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The owner of this blog is not a black man. Abagond is a bitter black woman with an agenda. An agenda that permeates this blog. I shudder to think what you are ‘teaching’ the children of America with your hatred and your lies.
Kiwi, you’re not an Asian man either.
Quit it with the inauthentic and fake identities. You’re spreading hatred and BS.
Folks, you can’t make this stuff up, this is comical! I wonder if Asplund has returned?
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The only people who react like The Night Walker are frustrated White men endlessly chasing after Asian women.They hate being called out as fools and frauds because they know that it narrows their chances.
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@BR
Well; if they are accepted as Brazilian than why would they feel the need to comment on the Asianness of people?
Why would there be much Asian culture if they were truly accepted? It would be like the Irish or Italian etc….in the US maybe one random holiday and a tendency to eat spaghetti more than others but not a whole lot that separates them culturally at first glance.
They would just assimilate in and be brazilians….
@King
So the United States have only been majority white since their creation by white people?
To me; it isn’t just that white people in the US think of only whites as true-merican’s but that non-white people outside of the US seem to think so to. Like I hear about black people in africa being surprised that there are black people in the US when black people are tourists in other areas.
Which is kind of weird if true; because they can’t get that from TV so I don’t know what they are getting that from.
As for why can’t “black’s, etc….” be ethnically “American”……aside from racism and an argument that the oppressive nature of the US means they are not true citizens, they can be.
Aside from the racial aspect of the definition there are also ones based on shared religion, linguistics or culture in general. Sure there are often differences between the races but there are also differences between the area’s as well.
Didn’t Abagond post once about the 7 nations in the US when broken down by culture/shared values?
But as a whole there is a “generic” culture that links every one in the US. I mean well all wear t-shirts, jeans and eat at McDonald’s.
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V-4
“Aside from the racial aspect of the definition there are also ones based on shared religion, linguistics or culture in general. Sure there are often differences between the races but there are also differences between the area’s as well.”—–You basically summed up my thoughts, so you can perhaps see my confusion on why a person would argue that blacks or Asian etc. Can not be ethnically American.
“I mean well all wear t-shirts, jeans and eat at McDonald’s.”—-lol. Yeah…we all crave the occasional clogged arteries at times.
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exit f*n 9
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I wonder why this post is bothering so many people. Also, to the person said that the US is the most diverse country. I think he needs to get out more.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Trinidad_and_Tobago
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Sharina,
How about another test? Go back and see how many times I initiated conversations with you vs. how many times you initiated with me. Also, feel free to believe that the reason I don’t respond to you most of the time is because you prove me wrong and I have no comeback.
I’m intrigued by the idea that DJ and I may be the same person, and that a agony (er abagond) may be a female who made up an elaborate story about his (or her) estranged wife and boys and not a typical U.S. indoctrinated beta male who believes the narrative hook, line and sinker and blames society’s ills on the white man and the patriarchy.
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@biff
There is no need for me to test. just as there is really no need for me to test it with DJ because I know I initiate most contact with both of you. Each for different reasons though. My reason for Jokah is quite different for my reason with you, but I find it odd seeing as you too are different people that you would even fathom they are are same reason.
My responses to you are based on the fact that I enjoy being an azz to you. Yes, it is that simple. Your arguments are just too weak to even go through any real debate and when I am bored I tend to find fun in being an azz to you and rob when he is here (though lately when he is he has been less annoying/fake).
“I’m intrigued by the idea that DJ and I may be the same person”—Either you are the same person or you have such a man crush on da jokah that you are now finishing his sentences and vise versa. So I amend my original statement. Looks like a serious man crush.
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Anne
I am actually beginning to wonder that too. I have to wonder if people are just finding it hard to believe that there are Asians that could be offended by this.
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@ Origin
Thanks for providing us with this.
“While unravelling the hows and whys of the implementation of white supremacy I sometimes look into the philosophies of the cutlures they encountered. This is an excerpt from the Wikipedia page on Ubuntu:”
Although I do have a clear understanding of the philosophy of Ubuntu, my frame of reference to it was predicated on the brutality of white South Africans recent past, but prior to the fall of Legalized Apartheid. One of the incidents that still have me dumbfounded even to this day, is of two white soldiers relating their story to SA’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of sitting around a fire, drinking beer, WHILE THEY ROASTED AN AFRICAN MAN OVER A SPIT.
Where the hell was their humanity when they were performing such savage act of human depravity?
The Brutality of Apartheid Systems is ancient history, most white South Africans will to argue, and very much like their American counterpart, will dismissively state that black people need to get over it; it was a long time ago.” By the way, this happened in the nineties.
AS with the white Americans, white South African are now claiming that they are being persecuted for what their great grandparents and grandparent did, NOT what their parents or they themselves did. I can only assume the further back the illusion of Apartheid is in their rear view mirror, the more” ANCIENT” it becomes, even if the generation who lived it, and are still alive, would like to refute that it happened in their life time.
The issue for them NOW is their skin colour, as if their skin colour never mattered in the past, and it wasn’t the people of said skin colour that created and fostered that cultural legacy. How convenient!
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Kiwi, I will just say that, based on your statements, I can say with confidence that you are 100% blue pill and have no idea what alpha means. If you spend a weekend or two reading through the Rational Male (therationalmale dot com, I recommend the link to the best of year one, which has some basics) it will change your life.
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Therationalmale.com is a nice read , but not a life changer. Unless of course you spent your life in a cave and need someone to tell you about life etc. *shrugd*
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V4 , there are enormous octoberfest celibrations celibrating German heritage in Brazil, and huge festivals celibrating Italian heritage , and these ethnic types are overrated in the media novelas, and general tv talking heads and movies..
Asians are only now trickling into the media in the most token way…if someone is truly assimilated , their phenotype should be represented.they show more tango on the Brazilian media than focus on the culture of the huge Japanese community in São Paulo..
Lets face it, media exposure of what culture is supposed to be , in Brazil and America , is a false , ridículous , manipulated stacked deck from the get go…I dont trust it , and it stupifies and numbs and dumbs down people..people dont know what their real cultures are…individuals push cultures forward , the masses blindly follow where the media spoon feeds them from the extremly mal nurished anemic buffet
I also dont trust assimilation where cultural ties and expresions are encouraged to be surpressed…our cultures are our rich traditions that ought to be embraced learned and passed down…they dont have to be embraced by everyone , but , looked on as a virtue and not surpressed…there can be assimilation and celibration of diversity in culture…now, some cultures get celibrated and others get left out
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Kiwi,
Yes, Biff is one of the most condescending on this blog, even more condescending then DJ. He raises points that try to give him authority on the subject that come across as completely daft, while treating others like they have no idea what they are talking about – yes, in a condescending fashion.
To illustrate the daftness of the Biff’s arguments, let’s introduce another hypothetical commenter. We can call him “Baft” (rhymes with daft).
A common stereotype exists in the USA that black American males are criminals and thugs. Of course, an “educated white person” (which Baft claims to be) knows that it is not true for ALL blacks, but Baft chimes in to give us his own version of the truth:
Baft
“It is reasonable that whites and other non-black Americans (or even fellow blacks) will view black men as criminals. The overwhelming majority of black men in the USA have an arrest record; 50% have a non-traffic related arrest record by age 23. In majority black neighborhoods, 70% or more have criminal records. So a non-black women should feel nothing wrong about clutching her pocketbook if a black man steps into an elevator with her. They are likely to be a criminal anyhow. Black men should not be offended if people do this sort of thing because the majority of Black men are criminals. Also blacks should not be upset if certain rights and privileges be taken away from them, such as voting rights and job opportunities. This kind of stuff happens to criminals and is reasonable.
They really should stop their whining with a stick up their butt. Most affirmative action programs benefit blacks anyhow.
Now, I know something about blacks. I am married to a Nigerian woman and have a fair command of two African languages. When I go to Africa, I expect that the native local Africans will have all sorts of stereotypes about me, eg, that I cannot speak or understand their language. Why is it unreasonable for people in the USA to have stereotypes about blacks, when the majority do fit the stereotype (criminal). Besides, I have children who are part Igbo and living in Africa. People there make stereotypes about them, and often treat them like they are American. It is no big deal. In the USA, white people might think they are black, and therefore a criminal, but that is just the way things are.”
N.B. This comment was not directed at Biff and it is NOT designed as an initiation of any conversation with him.
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@ Sharina
The reason is because they do it all the time and find nothing wrong with it. So, if someone claims that there IS something wrong with it, they interpret it as someone saying that there is something wrong with them. They take it personally instead of trying to learn what is going on.
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To illustrate the daftness of the Biff’s arguments, let’s introduce another hypothetical commenter. We can call him “Baft” (rhymes with daft)… This comment was not directed at Biff and it is NOT designed as an initiation of any conversation with him.
—
Nice, I see what you did there. Appreciate the intellectual honesty. You should certainly have the right to caricature me and put words in my mouth without allowing me to respond. You’ve outsmarted me again!
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@ Anne, you said:
LOL!! 😀
This has been a really enlightening thread, with some great comments.
In my experience the best learning usually comes from simply when a person just assumes nothing and keeps asking questions. It’s often so much better than only relying on what you already know, or have learned, have seen, heard and read.
Speaking of diversity:
“African countries are the most diverse. Uganda has by far the highest ethnic diversity rating, according to the data, followed by Liberia.
In fact, the world’s 20 most diverse countries are all African.
There are likely many factors for this, although one might be the continent’s colonial legacy. Some European overlords engineered ethnic distinctions to help them secure power, most famously the Hutu-Tutsi division in Rwanda, and they’ve stuck. European powers also carved Africa up into territories and possessions, along lines with little respect for the actual people who lived there. When Europeans left, the borders stayed (that’s part of the African Union’s mandate), forcing different groups into the same national boxes.”
That’s US research on ethnic diversity in every part of globe, which returned some surprising results. For some reason, I expected Suriname to be near the top, but the countries of Africa lead the way.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/05/16/a-revealing-map-of-the-worlds-most-and-least-ethnically-diverse-countries/
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@ Abagond,
sami parkkonen said:
All foreigners, recent arrivals, and their offspring.
Do you know which Native American writers or bloggers write from this particular perspective?
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@BR,
Why would a white or black person remember what it was like to be on the receiving end of the perpetual foreigner stereotype growing up? I takes the hundreds of daily microaggressions plus the recurring cases of outright discrimination (related to being treated like a foreigner or alien) to feel the full effects of this stereotype.
Scott in the video grew up in San Francisco, a place that has 165 years of unbroken Asian-American history and 450 years of Hispanic culture which also included settlement by Filipinos and Chinese both predating his ancestors, yet he does not even know, not to mention recall the “running theme” of perpetual foreigner. Why would he? Yet, this running theme has governed America’s immigration policy from areas outside Europe and Africa for centuries and psychologically supports America’s past and current war machine. It is not hard to invade and kill people from the continent of Asia if they can be dehumanized into something subhuman and alien.
Have you watched the Twilight Zone “The Encounter” (1964), which stars George Takei as a young Japanese-American? It was broadcast in May 1964, but then removed from syndication after that because of America’s involvement in the Vietnam war and the need to maintain the image of Asians as being foreign and subhuman. That TV episode also spread inaccuracies about the character’s father spying for the Japanese for the Pearl Harbor attack and being a traitor to the USA. There was never any case of treason from any Japanese-American during WWII.
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That TV episode also spread inaccuracies about the character’s father spying for the Japanese for the Pearl Harbor attack and being a traitor to the USA. There was never any case of treason from any Japanese-American during WWII.
Disgusting.
Not only should schools teach the history of America honestly but television programs from the past and movies should be aired with a disclosure and admission of propaganda similar to the warning labels on cigarette packages.
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Jefe wrote:
“It is not hard to invade and kill people from the continent of Asia if they can be dehumanized into something subhuman and alien.”
_ _ _
True, and we have as evidence horrific accounts from US soldiers who were court-martialed for the atrocities they visited upon civilians – which included not only men but babies, young children, the elderly, women and even entire villages — during the Vietnamese Conflict.
For many of these soldiers it was not at all hard to rape, burn, shoot, stab or bomb by hand grenade these people because in their estimation Southeast Asians were not human.
I have read that US soldiers were actually trained to regard the Southeast Asians they came across as non-human g–ks.
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@bulanik: This was in the early 90’s when I met some of those guys and we talked about things. In their mind all the non-natives were new comers, “foreigners” if you will. Regardless of the ethnicity. I do not know if any blogger writes about this.
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For those of you who have not seen the Twilight Zone episode “The Encounter”, you can find it here.
Part 1
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqkYVI8wTZU)
If you notice, the perpetual foreigner stereotype was addressed several times in the TV episode.
2:09-2:29 and again 5:36 – 6:12 George Takei’s character is treated as though he has a stick up his butt for being treated as lower than a white person and as a perpetual foreigner. George Takei was already a 3rd generation American in 1964 (as was his character). In 1964, the majority of Asian-Americans were native born. 50 years and 2 generations later, native-born Asian-Americans are *still* being treated like they have a stick up their butt for reacting to this kind of treatment. There is no way in hell that I think it has anything to do with the post-1965 immigration boom.
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In case it does not role over to Part 2, here it is:
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45630bM3EGU
In part 2, we see 2 more themes that actually caused it to be banned from re-airing after the first airing:
1. The Hawaiian-born (native born American) father was labeled a traitor to his American countrymen. Takei’s character has to avenge for the sins of his traitor father.
2. The white male character mentions that in order to become an efficient military killing machine, he had to train himself to dehumanize Asians and treat them as nothing more than “apes”. He says that he later learned that that was wrong, and Japanese are actually cultured, highly civilized people.
In the first item, certain groups in the USA (eg, the Japanese American Citizens League) objected to the messages as no Japanese-American was found guilty of treason. In the 2nd instance, the USA was entering the Vietnam War, and had to retrain its military recruits that Asians were subhuman animals so that they could be killed without feeling guilty. They could not spread the message that that notion was wrong.
Part 2 also showed how talked about the immigrants coming in, foreigners, cheap labour, including Mexicans, Japanese and Chinese, taking the jobs of white people. Making Hawaii a state means that the USA let in this whole new slew of foreigners. The white man associated the Japanese-American character with the foreign J*Ps he killed in the war.
This episode was never aired again.
It should be. It can serve a teaching purpose, a lesson about how America’s propaganda machine has a vested interest in this perpetual foreigner stereotype.
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Jefe, what you forget is , there were quite a few Americans oposed to the Vietnam war , and that was the reason it ended , for sure many oposed didnt do it for the Vietnamese, but quite a few were sympathetic to the points against making war against the Vietnamese. My point wasnt about the givernment position or brain wash…or that many Americans are biased against Asians…plain and simple , many Americans dont indulge in these stereotype depictions..dont think that way. So my point had nothing to do with someone on the receiving end…You need to get that there are plenty of Americans who dont think in the perpetual foreigner stereotype pertaining to Asians..and as a matter of fact, on this blog, implying I indulged in this stereotype was attemted to be pinned on me , for something i never said .
Of the various Vietnam veterans I knew , only one spoke prejudice against Asians…The guy I knew , who actualy was a tunnel rat , lowered into tunnels with just a flashlight and pistol, as about as gutsy as it gets, was a budha like center of calmness and focus, and I worked with him and never heard a negative comment about Asians…
American solders who take these racist positions , tend to have been racist in the first place, and in fact ,for every racist solder , there were others who had respect for who they were fighting
Im all for you pointing out that these types of thinking exist, and , what its like on the receiving end and I need to point out that , where I grew up, it wasnt a prevailing theme….if anything, because there werent that many immigrant Asians in my school district , they were Asian Americans.
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…and when this one veteran did make this racist comment, he wasnt my freind, he was an aquaintance if someone I knew, but , we looked at each other when this guy said it and talked later that we didnt like his bigated comment
In the community I grew up in, among white people , there were some classic racists, but many white people who were questioning values in society, including prejudice, and questioning the war and didnt like hearing racist bigated statements.
I really like where I grew up
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As a matter of fact many Vietnam American veterans were received home with shouts of baby killers and spit at …they were never received as heroes , they were dumped back into society after their tours of duty to deal with their personal war traumas , with no support or respect from society around them
People in knew in deep combat , like a roadie I worked with who had half a calf blown out at Khe San , never said anti Asian comments..maybe they dealt with their demons in private, but , Viet Nam veterans dont have any more anti Asian feelings than are in América in the first place…and like I said, I only heard one vet say a racist Asian statement…American Vietnam vets got the shor end of the stick all the way around..and many were drafted
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I posted the youtube video link to the Twilight Zone “The Encounter” episode. When it comes out of moderation, I hope that people will take time to watch it. They will learn how things have not changed in the 50 years since the Civil Rights Era.
Regarding Kiwi’s post above, I understand that that is one of the reasons that Asian-American activist organizations influenced by the Black Panther Party, like I Wor Kuen, were formed in the 1960s, was to react to this very idea. In WWII, they did not send the segregated Asian-American units to Asia. They sent them to Europe. But in the Vietnam War there was no more segregation in the military and Asian-Americans were sent to training camps that taught soldiers to dehumanize Asians. They were sent to Asia to kill Asians.
One of the points of the Black Panther party platform was the idea of fighting for an America that treated them like animals at home. “No Vietnamese ever called me a N-gg-r!”
For groups like I Wor Kuen, the parallel platform point was about Asian-Americans getting drafted and trained to be the object of dehumanization and coerced into fighting a war to kill Asians.
Well, even as far back as the Philippine-American war, they called the Filipinos “n-gg-s” and had blacks go over and kill them after being taught to dehumanize them as just another “n-gg”. Imagine the psychological adjustment it takes to fight for a country that does that to its soldiers. And then, it challenges them with the notion that they are not patriotic Americans and instant would-be traitors.
It is still here today. How can we explain the dehumanization racially motivated violent attacks and death of Danny Chen 2 1/2 years ago?
Danny Chen’s parents were born in Taishan, Guangdong, China, where the majority of 19th century Chinese-Americans came from. He is most likely a direct descendant, or at least an indirect descendant of someone who was beaten and lynched in the late 19th century. 130 years later it is still going on.
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@BR,
Yeah, we cannot pin the entire blame on the Vietnam Vet. There were brainwashed too by America’s war machine.
But of course you never heard any Vietnam Vet say to you that they fought in Vietnam so that YOU PEOPLE would not “come here”. So how could you know how many thought in that manner. Why would they bring it up with you? You asked them such questions? or invited Asian-Americans to their houses and heard them say that directly to them?
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@ Jefe,
This ^^, absolutely.
Thank you for that Twilight Zone.
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Kiwi said:
Rookie training didn’t just beat any traces of “girlishness” out of young male recruits, it racialized masculinity, too.
There are parts in Michael Herr book “Despatches”, one of the classic of war reporting (in Vietnam) that recounts the brutalized training regime that transformed kids into g–k-hating men. To be a soldier, and an American, was to be hyper-masculinized, and have destroyed all that was “feminine”.
I noticed that philosophy further explored in “Being and Nothingness” (J.P. Sartre). This was about the polarization between what is the nature of feminized evil — it is the “slimey hole” (nothingness), “g–k”, basically — opposed to what is masculine, Western and superior.
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@ Bulanik
Interesting idea. I have been trying to identify the source of Asian American male emasculation. It makes sense that military training during the wars in Asia had something to do with it.
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Bulanik: Rookie training didn’t just beat any traces of “girlishness” out of young male recruits, it racialized masculinity, too.
Kiwi: I read an account by an Asian American Vietnam War veteran (non-Vietnamese descent) who trained with white soldiers in the field. […] One night, he was awoken by a knife to his throat, and the white soldier holding the knife told him that he was “one of them” (the g**ks).
Re: Racism and sicko training in the military.
Back in January Omnipresent suggested the LaVena Johnson post, which Abagond subsequently wrote. I think Omnipresent left a youtube, one way or the other I checked out the La Vena Johnson affair on youtube. Afterward, I clicked on associated links to Johnson from the same uploader. I came across a very disturbing interview of a Filipino-American man who was brutalized by other marines. What was done was unspeakable. The former marine said that his colleagues ostracized him based on his race.
I don’t wish to leave the link; the curious among you can find it easily enough. There were a slew of other horrible accounts of other victims. All of it quite disturbing material.
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*…based on his race. Then they attacked him.
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@Legion, could not find the youtube you mentioned. Any suggestion where to look?
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@kiwi
Maybe your theory about the “effemination” of conquered males and the possession of non-white women may explain why the conflict between the West and Islamic World is so violent – Muslims men would struggle to the last breath but would not allow conquerors to “effeminate” them or allow white males to “possess” Muslim women.
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bulanik “Some European overlords engineered ethnic distinctions to help them secure power, most famously the Hutu-Tutsi division in Rwanda, and they’ve stuck.”
Ethnic distinctions between Hutus and Tutsis were pre-existing.
>>
jefe “Interesting idea. I have been trying to identify the source of Asian American male emasculation.”
East Asians present the highest degree of neoteny.
“There was never any case of treason from any Japanese-American during WWII.”
The US cracked Japanese military codes prior to WW2 in a program code-named MAGIC. Encrypted messages show that Japanese military were recieving extensive intelligence from 2nd generation Japanese living in California regarding airplane manufacturing plants and other military establishments, shipments of airplanes and other war materials, and the amounts and destinations of such shipments. Encryptions discuss connections with second generations working in airplane plants for intelligence purposes. As well as second generations the (U.S.) Army, informing them of various military developments.
>>
kiwi “A huge reason Asian Americans might take offense at having their Americanness questioned is that many are very patriotic and love this country just as much as many white Americans do.”
You’ve never struck me as a patriot.
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Jokah, you obviously know the difference between pre-existing ethnic distinctions and engineered ones introduced by Belgians and Germans armed with calipers, measuring tapes and ipseudo-scientific deas about which group was closer to Europeans…don’t you?
And, of course you realize how Belgium’s ethno-national divisions between Walloons and Flemish became mirrored in favouring either Tutsi and Hutu, don’t you?
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That ^^ notwithstanding, the quote about Hutus and Tutsi was from here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/05/16/a-revealing-map-of-the-worlds-most-and-least-ethnically-diverse-countries/
That is why I had it QUOTATION MARKS.
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bulanik
Apparently it hasn’t occurred to you that “Belgians and Germans armed with calipers, measuring tapes” were only measuring the differences between the two groups because the two groups were pre-existing. Belgians and Germans didn’t invent them. Regardless, I doubt Hutus and Tutsis spent much time reading foreign anthropology journals.
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Jokah, tell us what were the differences found with the calipers and measuring instruments?
And, you forgot to tell us about the Walloon and Flemish ethno-national difference and how those differences impacted on the population of Rwanda?
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@ jefe
Yes, finding the video was not as straightforward as I remember it being. I could only remember the subject matter and not the names of people associated with the video but after some navigating I have found it again.
Search for Amando’s story the uploader is Protect our Defenders.
The youtube algorithm will suggest that what you are really after is “Amanda’s story”, ignore this suggestion, of course.
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@ Bulanik:
“And, of course you realize how Belgium’s ethno-national divisions between Walloons and Flemish became mirrored in favouring either Tutsi and Hutu, don’t you?”
Please enlighten us.
Other than the fact that the Francophones considered Flanders every bit a colony (and still do BTW) as Ruanda-Urundi i don’t see the resemblance.
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Kiwi: “A huge reason Asian Americans might take offense at having their Americanness questioned is that many are very patriotic and love this country just as much as many white Americans do.”
DJ: You’ve never struck me as a patriot.
I always assume that the average person has some baseline love for their country without them having to be explicit on the matter. I assume it in the same way that each morning, I always think the floor will be there as I get out of bed.
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No, In Vino Veritas, this is really a question for Da Jokah to answer.
Be so kind as to let HIM enlighten us.
After all, it was HE who brought this original question to bear and it is his issue to defend.
Many thanks.
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“Belgium’s ethno-national divisions between Walloons and Flemish became mirrored in favouring either Tutsi and Hutu”
Actually, that was your claim bulanik. By all means, tell us all about it.
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@ No, Jokah. I have helped you enough.
You said this:
“Ethnic distinctions between Hutus and Tutsis were pre-existing.”
But you, as yet, you have not detailed those differences without my assistance, and without my clues.
I am still waiting for YOUR answer.
When I mentioned the difference between the Walloons and Flemish, I was pointing you in a direction to provide us with indicators.
I am waiting for YOUR answer on that, too…
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My only take on all of this is what it reveals about whites and how people should use this to plot their course through a white-dominated world. IMO, the process of their diverging from the African that has caused them to lose most of their color has also atrophied certain aspects of cognition. There might be biological link between melanin deficiency and ‘natural’ behaviorial tendencies. The role neuromelanin plays in Parkinson’s disease (extreme loss of movement rhythm) and the role neurohormones (Pineal/Melatonin and Pituitary/Melanocyte Stimulating Hormone) play in melanin production hint at a possible link. I don’t propose a strict linear relationship. The lengths of people’s legs vary; there is only a pathology if their legs are too short for them to walk properly.
But I’m not focusing on that right now and don’t want to go OT. I’m looking at the ample cultural data that we have including the issues raised here. This is the nature of the white mind as revealed by its cultural products: it splits or separates, then values one part more than the other. Once I noticed this, I saw it rippling like a fractal throughout all levels of organization. IMO the culture developed this way because most of the individuals are also polarized into favoring one mode of cognition so the integration (ie. the cultural person) resembles them self-similarly and imposes an imbalanced structure on the world.
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I’ll go way afield for an example of how this shows up everywhere. Take, for example, the development of musical instruments in the West. I’m not knocking the piano; I have one. But the piano is a harp embedded within an intricate contraption that separates the player from it. It is a mechanism for producing a note without directly manipulating the vibrating element. Within the logic of their thought processes the instrument must be a distinct object manipulated/controlled by the player. So the player is separated from the actual method of sound production and only manipulates an interface. This greater separation between player and instrument is considered an advance. An instrument like a cow’s horn for which the player is a part of the instrument (embouchure controlling pitch) is considered more primitive.
The separation and valuation shows up everywhere: male vs female, deduction vs intuition, science vs spirituality, objectivity vs subjectivity, stocism vs emotionality, us vs them and man vs nature. While the transcendent neutral pole of the trinity is the point of meeting of all the apparent opposites, the white collective sees only irreconcilable differences. This state of permanent imbalance endlessly generates ideological (heretic) and human enemies. Where they successfuly colonize, their subjects are misprogrammed and eventually become self-destructive because of separations that occur within a formerly coherent group. The ongoing side-discussion of Hutus/Tutsis is interesting when viewed in this light.
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I would definitely agree with that last insight Origin:
“…The separation and valuation shows up everywhere: male vs female, deduction vs intuition, science vs spirituality, objectivity vs subjectivity, stocism vs emotionality, us vs them and man vs nature. While the transcendent neutral pole of the trinity is the point of meeting of all the apparent opposites, the white collective sees only irreconcilable differences. This state of permanent imbalance endlessly generates ideological (heretic) and human enemies. Where they successfuly colonize, their subjects are misprogrammed and eventually become self-destructive because of separations that occur within a formerly coherent group. The ongoing side-discussion of Hutus/Tutsis is interesting when viewed in this light…”
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bulanik
You made all the original claims. The responsibility is yours. Either back them up or shut up.
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So my conclusion, after some years grappling with the whys, is that whites are inexorably racist. Racism is a natural consequence of their primary modes of thought. Their only eventual response to seeing a different culture would be to notice the differences, declare their culture better, separate themselves from the newly discovered ‘object’ with an ideological ‘interface’ and then try to control it. It’s just another outward manifestation of inner tendencies. (This is on a collective level. I’m not saying that everyone who considers themselves white is identical. But it takes critical mass to move the whole cultural organism.)
This realization did two things for me. I no longer worry about trying to change the white collective and I now consider it important to think about escaping from under their control. Yet one of the consequences of colonization/slavery etc. is that most of us have been miseducated, IMO. We have come to depend on whites to teach us how to turn off part of ourselves. Educate comes from ex- (out) and ducere (lead) yet a lot of what is going on is indoctrination (ie. to imbue with an idea or opinion…including self-hatred, corporate servitude, etc). It’s not a bringing out but putting in. Yet, if we are not blanc maybe we should be attempting to flower rather than to be filled. I think that unity and properly directed creativity is liberation. Look at what the enemy fears.
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@Kwamla
Thanks. Once you see it you can’t unsee.
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Da jokah
Bulanik may have made a claim, but you made a claim as well.
“Ethnic distinctions between Hutus and Tutsis were pre-existing.”
As such if you make one then you would have to prove it. Though as to your nature you will simply shut up or put up something that supports half or nothing in which you say.
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@Bulanik
I am not really knowledgeable about the hutu vs. Tutsi dispute, so I thank you for your input in regards to it. This source also highlights some of what you are saying. Especially the insight on how colonization turned the tide in the fighting.
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legion said:
“I always assume that the average person has some baseline love for their country without them having to be explicit on the matter. I assume it in the same way that each morning, I always think the floor will be there as I get out of bed.”
oh, ok.
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me personally? these ‘mercan politician type got some work to do, and i never expect to have a ‘floor’ under ‘my’ bed, helps me with dealing with it….
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Kiwi, it is true from what I’ve noticed. I myself, a non-Asian with slightly Asian-like features and a bit of East Asian heritage, am highly neotenic in appearance; I am far from being a child and was still being carded as of 5 years ago when I was a smoker.
I lack even a hint of a brow ridge and am baby faced / youthful beyond my actual age. I have been called “doll” by more than one stranger. Caucasoids, as a matter of fact, along with Austronesians, tend to be the least neotenic in appearence. Neoteny has sometimes be referred to as being ‘gracile’ in appearance. I myself do not take it as a put down. It seems to me that the further away we are from our animal cousins, the more neotenic / gracile we become in appearance.
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Abagond you should add:
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@PIF i doubt dj had any type of ‘gracious’ intentions with the whole introduction of what is perceived as a genetic trait that has connotations when brought up
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@ Sharina, thanks — well, are we surprised that Jokah added nothing?
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@ Sharina
This was a subject covered a couple of times in previous threads when we discussed Central East Africa, a couple years back. It was in relation to the Germans and their hand in the fate of the Herero and Namaqua in modern-day Namibia, this time SW of the Continent. Abagond has touched on a few of those European-created atrocities in Africa in previous threads, and the Rwanda tradgedy came up in those discussions, thus, I am surprised — but shouldn’t be — that Jokah is somehow in complete darkness when rather good information about this exists beyond this blog.
Note this too: Jokah pounced on this subject even though he hasn’t contributed anything to the discussion.
And we know why.
The Europeans had EVERYTHING to do with what became the deeply entrenched divisions in Rwanda. But…would this be the first time European nations waged their ideological fights with other Europeans on African, or Asian, soil? It shouldn’t be any surprise then, that the Flemings fought to gain supremacy over Walloons in an East African colony. These are 2 main ethnic / language groups that make up Belgium.
To just outline what I mean: there was a time in Belgium when one of thos main ethnic groups, the Walloons, held the main industrial power and wealth: they were very successful at it. That position in Belgian changed around the late 1950s with the closure of their mines and industries like steelmaking. In dramatic contrast, economic expansion in Flanders grew due to chemical and petroleum industries, and major foreign investments. Add in to this, a background history of long-standing “tension”, “friction” and “antagonism” between the 2 countries — you’ll see those words mentioned in any practically any report about them if you have the time to check anything about Belgium online. For instance: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_of_Belgium
In the main, that background history is about one group’s historic “struggle” (the Flemish-speakers) to gain equality for its language and political influence and economic opportunity equity. Belgium was a society that was once dominated largely by another group (the French-speaking Walloons) after the country achieved independence in 1830.
As Belgians in Africa, though, those feelings of petty differences were heightened into “racial” differences and imposed on the peoples they met in the nation they colonized — carrying on where the British and Germans before them had left off! What they did was engineer the tension, friction and sense of inequality between the Africans they encountered by enforcing the inequalities they had seen and knew well all to well, in Belgium.
For the Rwandans, the differences between themselves were essentially economic and had been, by and large, a peaceful arrangement (based on livestock ownership and use of land) in the way people conducted their affairs. However, at the time, the more powerful Walloons favoured the live-stock owning Tutsi over the Hutu, seeing them as “higher ups” and more like white people, more like them. That was a big deal. Not only did Christianity become compulsory for the Tutsi elite, but along with it, came the compulsory practice of card-carrying to identify Tutsi from Hutu to embed a sense of disunity and injustice. http://www.preventgenocide.org/prevent/images/Rwanda-cartedidentite.jpg
When the big power shift in Belgium came along — as well as independence throughout Africa — that hierachy was turned on its head. New alliances were now formed with the Hutu majority through the involvement of Flemish missionaries, eventually leading to their political support for the Hutus… struggles ensue, tensions heighten, turmoil begins…
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Sharina: http://anewdawnn.wordpress.com/2013/05/20/the-truth/
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pay it forward I myself do not take it as a put down. It seems to me that the further away we are from our animal cousins, the more neotenic / gracile we become in appearance
You’re right. The trend in human evolution is towards more neoteny. Later hominids are much more neotenic than their predecessors. For women neoteny is a plus as youth corresponds to feminine attractiveness. Neoteny has a certain attractiveness in men, too, but it creates a less masculine “boyish” appearance. I don’t know how anthropologists would rank these actors on actual neotenic attributes but at first glance I’d say Leonardo Dicaprio and Johnny Depp are much more neotenic than Sylvester Stallone or Tom Selleck.
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v8
My only intention was to answer a question.
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bulanik
Genetics shows they had different origins and culture. Tutsi were Nilo-Saharan pastoralsts and Hutus were Bantu agriculturalists. They weren’t “engineered”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origins_of_Hutu_and_Tutsi
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@ Jokah,
That’s true: the Europeans didn’t genetically engineer the Tutsis or Hutus.
*
What the article you have have misunderstood said was this:
“Some European overlords engineered ethnic distinctions to help them secure power, most famously the Hutu-Tutsi division in Rwanda, and they’ve stuck.”
Quoted from here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/05/16/a-revealing-map-of-the-worlds-most-and-least-ethnically-diverse-countries/
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bulanik
There was basically a caste system called uburetwa in place before the “European overlords” arrived. Though I’m not sure I’d describe them as “overlords”. They merely supported the existing Tutsi monarchy who, in turn, welcomed their support.
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Jokah, thank you.
As you feel that way about it, you might take that overlord issue up with the writer of the article.
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George Ryder
There is no secret that there was prior issues, but issues that were “relatively civil.” Even in what you quote clearly states that things did not become a big deal until 19th century colonization.
“The colonists did a lot to engender the future tensions between the two races. Their worst contribution was racial science.”
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From what I remember about the tutsi, they were considered to be more European. Though notably they did not really look much different. It was actually Europeans who brought in the racial science and I guess one can say “engineered” a distinction between the two groups.
I don’t remember any massive murders until after European interference.
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@ George Ryder
What do you mean by that the Europeans “reinforced” ethnic divisions?
What did they do?
How did they do it?
What were the effects?
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George, if you don’t know those answers then I can see why you agree with Jokah.
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George,
Every culture has a hierarchy or class system of some kind.
The main issue would be how the law of land is structured ie how did people advance in society- was it based on Ethnicity or Economics.
prior to European interference and colonization, the two Ethnic groups did not try to eliminate each other based on “racial” identity — they incorporated European reference points after Europeans came to their region.
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Before the Europeans, the Tutsis and Hutus lived in a way which allowed different groups to intermarry and change ethnicity. You could be born a Hutu but become a Tutsi.
When the European came, difference became a way to DISCRIMINATE.
This was based on stereotypes about how someone looked.
Social mobility was lost.
Total power was given to Tutsis.
Only education for Tutsi children.
On an economic level:
Someone with > 10 cattle was considered Tutsi
Someone with < 10 cattle or none at all was considered Hutu
That's how it worked.
In 1932 identity cards were issued according to one’s racial group.
It was permanent. No one could be excluded. No one could self-define.
One group is empowered while another is debased.
There was no more upward or downward mobility of clans.
Supervisors are now Tutsi.
Workers are Hutu.
Belgians are not trained to supervise and the responsibility falls on the Tutsi population. This CREATED lots of new problems.
After a time, the word "HUTU" came to mean “You are my servant”.
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im supposed to buy 12
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they’re 500 maloti/sa rand
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strike that reverse it, theyre $500 each so that’s 5000 m/r
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George Ryder
Unless I specifically say I blame white people then it is best that you not assume. Though I can assume your dismissing it as such as a measure of your lack of knowledge on the situation to begin with.
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Further if you read your own source then you would know Rwanda was not the first major massacre. I guess it was only con vigilant in so much as what you thought it proved.
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George
No it is never safe to assume in any situation, especially with me. lest you make an azz out of You and Me.
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George
“White folks didn’t plan this, nor did they carry it out.”—-I call this deflection and I consider it an insult to attempt putting words in my mouth. I never side white people did plan or carry out any of the massacre, but I did say the act of colonization and racial science lead to tensions running wild. So did your source by the way. I suggest you read it before you proceed to go on about how wrong I am based on what you currently assume I said or am saying.
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George
Did I say I did when I addressed you above?
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George, the problem is that too many White people are unwilling to see the other side of things. The Rwanda genocide is often used as a standard White argument about how Blacks are really their own worst enemies.
But the real problem comes when Black people try to point out that the problems there were AS MUCH set up by White people, as they were later carried out, by Black, years later.
Bulanik has lead you a fews steps down the path but you have not followed. So let me summarize for you. The Tutsi Nyiginya clan ruled Rwanda beginning back in the 1700s. But it was a cal/cultural distinction. As Bulanik has already said, it was not a static designation. You could BECOME a Tutsi. in the Congo Conference of 1884 Germany was assigned the Rwanda territory as a vassal colony. The Germans ruled pretty much through the Tutsis, using the existing monarchy as a proxy to German dominance and control.
NOW PAY ATTENTION… here is where the clueless, and poorly-educated Jokah falls off the beet wagon. His half-witted comment to Bulanik is that the Tutsi’s were not reading German Archeology Journals, but why would they need to? You see, theories and ideas have consequences that go far beyond mere paperwork conjecture. They expand rapidly into policy.
So the theories of the assorted German dunces of the day was that the Tutsi had originated in from Ethiopia, and thus the Tutsi were more “Caucasian” than the Hutu were, and were therefore racially superior to them and so better suited as conduits for the German colonial administration. THIS WAS A NEW AND DRASTIC DIFFERENCE from the previous understanding of Tutsi and Hutu tribal relations that reflected European racism which was a much mrs severe division than ever was known before in Rwanda.
During World War I the Belgian forces took control of Rwanda and it became a Belgian colony soon thereafter. The Belgians also backed the new Tutsi apartheid but were much more hands-on than the Germans. They began a slow but steady campaign of deeding all of the land rights into the hands of the Tutsi colonial regime. The Belgians also introduced modernization which was built upon the back of Hutu forced labor. Tutsi Supremacy/Superiority based on a supposed closer genetic tie with “Caucasians” was continued inter the Belgian colonial era. In 1935, Belgium introduced identity cards labelling each individual as either Tutsi or Hutu. The Roman Catholic Church [Jesuits] as an arm of the both the German and Belgian occupation first backed and favored the Tutsis, which helped stoke the fires of resentment. Then the Jesuits began backing the Hutu Revolution against their former protegés, the Tutsis.
In early 1960, the Belgians replaced most Tutsi chiefs with Hutu, The Hutu had gained the total backing of the Belgian administration who now wished to unempower the Tutsi.
Now to make a very long story short…. after decades of racist domination at the behest of European dimwits who had all of their facts wrong anyway, the Hutu had been disenfranchised and persecuted. They had slowly risen to power… then suddenly “rumors” of a second Tutsi uprising and resultant Hutu subjugation were introduced from somewhere (nobody knows for certain who – but ask the Jesuits). Shortly thereafter plans were made by the Hutu to eliminate all the Tutsi in Rwanda (genocide)
So George, you tell me—between the the Germans, The Belgians, the Jesuits and the Hutu, who among them was really holding the machetes?
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George
You assumed where it was heading. You only know if you can read minds and I don’t think you can.
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King
Was actually not aware of that information. Thanks for adding it.
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But George, you should at least check yourself, before leaving.
If the facts are the facts then can you really afford not to “be interested” just because they do not tell a story that you are comfortable with? None of us here are making this stuff up, it’s all in the history books.
Now, are the Hutus culpable? Of COURSE they are! You can’t go around blatantly killing your fellow countrymen, and expect to get a pass!
But the problem compounds exponentially when White people like yourself, choose to remain blissfully ignorant of what Europeans actually did in Africa to cause many of the tragedies of the last century. The plain fact is that the Rwanda Genocide would not have happened had it not been for the encouragement and indoctrination by White people and their stupid fantasies about racial superiority.
I don’t excuse the people holding the literal machetes, and you shouldn’t excuse the people who figuratively handed them out!
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No problem, Sharina.
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@ King
Thank you, for that brief history lesson.
@George Ryder
Business as usual.
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“it takes some crazy fucking shit to encourage a person to go house to house killing entire families with machetes.
it seems like most folks blame whites for this tragedy in this forum, not those who actually used the machetes.
that kind of blows my mind…”
****************
This is why some of us here state unequivocally: WHITENESS IS DEMONIC!
In other words, whiteness is a system of (superiority & justification) beliefs that lacks true SPIRITUALITY. It is a demonic system that taints the entire world.
Since you are an unbelieving and doubting white person, for a truly mind blowing experience you should read READ, study and ponder what white people that are NOT on this forum have to say… folks like Lillian Smith, Robert Jensen, Joe Feagan, Jane Elliot, Macon D, Tim Wise and some other well known anti-racist whites have stated about whiteness. YOU should be able to believe them! Because they’re WHITE – and not a part of this forum! Right?
Yep! Demonic ish IS CRAZY… exactly like WHITENESS.
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I have to challenge notion the US government was turning out hoardes of anti Asian solders in the Viet Nam era. The racism that was inherant to white America , certainly manifested in the ranks , from southern white mentality, to northern blue collar racism…but , it wasnt universal…if people are going to cherry pick examples they read in a book about individuals, written by an individual with an opinion, my anecdotal evidence is just as good, and, the majority of vets I knew , never made anti Asian statements…and, these arnt statistics or faceless book incriminations, these are real individuals with names and lives and their stories
William Giles, decorated veteran ,,motivational speaker at our high school , tunnel rat, as serious mano a mano combat as war gets, incredible rhythm and blues singer , who I toured , Chicagos deepest black neighborhoods , spending lots of time with…never one anti Asian sentiment ever
Roy Houston, came back from Viet Nam with a mettle plate in his head, was a super athelete, never one anti Asian sentiment
Pat, who was a roadie I went on tour with, spent long holes on the road , later roadied for Phil Collins, had half a calf blown out at Khe San, never one anti Asian sentiment ever
Bobby Williams , really good drummer, incredibly nice individual, I roomed with him for a year in Hyde Park Chicago, actualy was put in the stockade for seeing so much ugly crap, he decided not to fight…Bobby commited suicide not long after I wasnt living there , shot his head off with a shot gun, tragicly,not one anti Asian sentiment ever
Clyde, blue collar working class, the only vet I ever heard personaly use anti Asian rhetoric
These guys, except Pat and Clyde, were black Americans. And black
Americans where I lived didnt cow tow to white peoples prejudices…they were part of the north east urban black Americans who trained white people in America that if you used the n word in public there would be cinsequences , while into today you got European white soccar fans screaming monkey at black players, and throwing banans at them
Vets in general , where I lived, didnt spout anti Asian sentiments, unless they were racist in the first place, and , a big reality is that vets who commited atrocities against the Vietnamese people, are haunted by their atrocities, certainly one factor of thebhigh homeless and jailed numbers of vets…these things do have a tendancy to plaugue the human psyche
The biggest elephant sitting in the room , about the arguments that the USA was playing out some kind of manifest destiny against Asians , is that Viet Nam and Korea, were really about fighting communism, and that is what the army really imbedded in the troops is that they were going there to fight the spread of communism…its easy to see after Korea, that the government thought this was the way to deal with communism…I look at anyone strange if they imply there was something bad about fighting communism in Korea. The differance in peoples lives from North Korea to South , is unbeleivable and ominous and frightening at what North Koreans face…just blatent reality
Both Viet Nam and Korea were civil wars , it was Asians fighting Asians.For every one American solder killed, ten South Vietnamese solders were killed, Ann, a Vietnamese commenter pointed out this from a Frontline documentary
Depicting it as America versus the Viet Nam people is inacurate , a whole whole lot of Asian South Vietnamese didnt want communism either
América did commit excesses and went over board in the cold war…they supported dictatorships , overthrew democracies unleashed enormous destruction on the battlefeilds it fought and went through repressive communist purges at home
But in reality, what was happening with communism in the world , was a million times worse…..more people eliminated by communism than all world war two…the statistics are so large, in reality, no one here can wrap their head around it…the horrors , death and represion are so blatent it is no wonder that the other side decided to stand up and fight the way they did
Some notion the USA was making war against people of color is pure bs…more Americans of all colors have died fighting white people than any other people …World war two and one are closer to Viet Nam than today
People who run this notion are either nauve or have an agenda….it was the cold war, mutual nuclear destruction was very real, sonhe battle for these ideologies was taken to mostly poor countries, who already had their inner power struggles, who each side welcomed in the help of the superpowers to destroy the oposing side…everyone was dirty
In South America , they didnt need American boots on the ground, with Americas support, the militaries down there, through brutal represion, over threw democratic elected presidents and cracked down on the very real communist armed revolutionaries who had trained in Cuba, Soviet Union and China…it was brutal, but in retrospect I am so happy a che commie revolution didnt succeed
If South America actualy had more armed communist resistance, American solders would have been there…the biggest mistake by the marxists down there was that the people didnt join them in their commie revolution…
Korea and Viet Nam were full blown civil wars….just looking at the differance from North Korea to South, leaves no doubt what was at stake. Viet Nam was a horrible strategic error that backfired miserably , mostly because the American people didnt support the government position
But looking back in hindsight, making it look like some American policy against Asians, and not mention the real and valid reason , to stop communism from spreading, is a serious mistake, emanating from not well thought out agendas
The cold war was brutal , América made many mistakes,but, the more I live in a country that was affected by the cold war, had and has an active marxist representation, so I can actualy hear how some of these lies about América gets spread, the more I learn of the true reality of communism and the enormous blight on humanity it was and is, I see the truth in greater perspective
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“it seems every problem today is attributed to the white man.
i prefer ignorance if there is truth in such attribution.
i prefer blissful ignorance, ignorance is bliss”
*******************
If ignorance is bliss — then why do you continue to come here???
This isn’t a site for the faint of heart, or for those who love to bask in ignorance, blissful or otherwise.
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well in light of Ryder v. everybody as regards who to ‘blame’ for the hutu/tutsi issue in rwanda, i was sitting back, reading br’s commentary on vietnam vets, and i guess i would see the sociopolitical scenario as generally similar to rwanda, in that you have competing colonial powers (cccp and us) providing weapons and starting strongholds in the north and the south of the country, the north through proxy of china, the relatively new regime from the peoples’ revolution (59?) providing an interface to the actual people of northern vietnam and of course, providing ak47’s.
such as you see the us picking up after dien bien phu from the french’s demise (yet again!) and providing m1’s … then m14’s then m16’s etc etc
it provides ‘one step of removal’ so to speak and this is really basic and doesn’t tie in air america, bases in laos and cambodia, cia involvement, etc.
i’m a little weaker on my ‘beginnings of the korean war’ but i tend to see a similar development path for that?
and let me tell you something, i have known a lot of vietnam vets, and most of them had significant psych issues, the one guy was a medic for the USMC and he told me the dudes in his unit would cut the nva soldiers’ heads off and play soccer with them or just kick them around…
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George Ryder
Good old deflection. This was not about what some people do or do not attribute to white people today, as Rwanda did not happen TODAY. This was about your need to quote something that you had little or no understanding of and then throw a tizzy because it did not fit into the delusions you wanted to believe.
I am now curious on how you concluded that Most blame whites for the Rwanda tragedy when most did not even speak on the matter? You had 4 people total that spoke to you on the situation dynamics. So I will safely say you are now comfortable in making it up, assuming, and putting words in people’s mouth.
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It is interesting how Western countries can colonize a place, reorganize the whole society, get involved in civil wars there, and then absolve themselves of any responsibility of the aftermath. It is “what they do to each other”.
It is akin to saying that European intrusion into North America had no impact on the native population there – they either killed each other or died from diseases that the white invaders had no control over. “It just happened”. “They did it to each other.”
I do not know that much about Rwanda (but I am enjoying this conversation), but I do know about some countries like Malaysia – a country whose social fabric was completely redesigned by the Dutch, the Portuguese and especially the British. I bet the British wipe their hands clean and blame the current political problem there as testament on what “Asians do to each other.” However, they were the ones that imported all of the other ethnic groups to come and live in the same place. Then they just left.
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@ King: Great points, eloquently spoken.
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@ George Ryder
You are not listing to what I am saying.
I have said several times above that the responsibility is shared. This is not a case of simply saying, this is the White man’s fault. But certainly a big part of it was engineered by Europeans, if you read your history honestly.
If colonialists take a minor tribal dominance, and overlay it with their own ideas of racialization and racial intelligence, then they have introducing something new that wasn’t there before. And if on that basis, you assign people permanent status as upper and lower class, as intelligent and simpleton, that sets the basis for something bad. And if years later, you support the supplanting of the very upper class that you created, and then hand the reigns of power over to those who have been persecuted, disenfranchised, and abused, then you are lighting a fire in a dry field. Do not DARE to make the White man the victim here, because he is only being accused of what he has actually done—no more!
This has nothing to do with you personally. This is history. (look it up.)
What should instead capture your ire and attention is how long White people have been using Rwanda as a case study of how Blacks would run the world. Consider how bloody are the hands of those who accuse. Yet all of this is information readily available. Try Wikipedia… it may not be laid out in quite as compressed a fashion, but most of the facts will be there.
You have admitted up-thread:
The good Bulanik then clearly laid it out for you.
Yet, you seem unable to accept it the pure and obvious logic that setting up a “racialized society” in Africa in which where one group of Africans are the proxy Caucasians and the other must be the “Niggers” would cause terrible problems between the two groups.
You seem totally unable to accept that what the Europeans did was much more than some minor encouragement of an already existing problem. I’m sorry, but this was simply not the case.
Do you want truth or do you want to be comfortable in a lie?
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@George Ryder: Sorry sir but ignorance is not bliss. Sticking your head in the sand and plugging up your ears, doesn’t change the truth. I see a pattern with you, when someone presents facts you choose to bury your head in the sand like a silly ostrich, Instead of opening your narrow mind and taking into consideration that the facts being presented to you happened and that white are culpable in certain things. This blog is not about making whites comfortable. If that’s what you are looking for then you are on the wrong site. It’s not about what makes you feel good.
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@ King
Have you heard of the “Buchanan Policy” ** as regards European colonialism and US actions in Africa or Asia?
It refers to the fictional characters from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s book The Great Gatsby, Tom and Daisy Buchanan, the reckless couple, who:
”smashed up things and then retreated back into their money… and let other people clean up the mess they had made…”
So much easier to “EXPLAIN” things like this by calling it “tribalism”.
There’s never any sense to Africans’ behaviour. No history, no chronology.
I mean, how else to speak of and describe events in Africa and the nature of Africans? They are a tribal people…. That’s all that needs to be said!
By saying that the Europeans just “reinforced pre-existing divisions”, is not a simple failure of understanding. It’s not laziness.
Rather, imho, it’s an INFORMED CHOICE to ignore that the Germans and Belgians had the power, and used their power, to do whatever they wanted with what they owned, that is:
the land, the resources, and the people.
For those factors to profit them economically and politically, control was vital.
(** “Buchanan Policy” coined by Karl E. Meyer)
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@ King, contd
What good was the pre-existing Rwandan society to the Belgians?
It was too fluid: shared beliefs, living side by side, intermarriage, and many people of mixed ethnicity. Division was based on economics, rather than “race”. And when there was conflict, it was among and within people of THE SAME group. Kick that to the kerb.
The “Hamitic Hypothesis” that came to rule in Rwanda was a Colonial Doctrine which proved to be far more useful. Popularised by the Belgian missionaries, it’s the Bible story where Ham, the son of Noah, who upon finding his father naked and drunk, exposes his father’s nakedness to his brothers Shem and Japheth. The Myth decreed that the sons of Ham would be cursed.
This made classifcation far easier:
–The Twa (or “Pygmy”) were classed as forest-dwelling ape.
–The Hutu were classed as Hamitic-negroids, or Bantu.
–The Tutsi were Hamitic-caucasoid. But there was one more thing:
The Tutsi were foreigners and invaders. (After all, when the belief, Tutsis were narrow-nosed Caucasians, from somewhere beyond Rwanda, probably the descendants of Europeans..)
This ALSO fit nicely with what the colonialists could not make sense of: civilised institutions in Central Africa. The existence of African organisation and African civilization had to be the result of invasion by Hamites, or “black Caucasians”.
***
The Hamitic Hypothesis was used repeatedly as justification for the mass killings until as late as 1994. The Hutu broadcasters Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines often mentioned that “the invading” Tutsi in broadcasts, appealing to the Hutu to rise up against them, as though they had no right to be in Rwanda….*
This was not strange in a socieity that had institionalized Hamitic beliefs into government policy and internalized those beliefs into the population.
Thus we had identity cards to clearly identify who was who.
Ethnic quotas, for job, for school places. And, if you were luck enough to get an education, the curriculum would be organised around the Hamitic hypothesis too.
(* M.Kabanda & J-P, Chrétien, “Rwanda , racism and Genocide: the Hamitic Ideology”).
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Sorry for all that. Just frustrated.
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And it wasn’t Ham that was cursed, it was Canaan. But what the hell. The Belgians didn’t care one way or another…
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@ Bulanik
Haha! Actually Bulanik, I have never heard of “Buchanan Policy” up to now! However, I do know The Great Gatsby, so it does make me laugh! I’ll have to use that one.
I think you had it all laid out before I came in. I was just expanding a bit.
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“George Ryder
@Linda, Bulanik, and Sharina
If this conversation is headed in the direction of blaming white people for the Rwandan genocide…i’m not interested, not at all, sorry.
It wasn’t white people going house to house with machetes”
Linda says,
George, I never said the Rwandan Genocide should be blamed on white people.
I was saying that the Belgians and Germans were complicit in setting up the stage that led to “divisions” being formed in Rwanda along “racial lines”
YOU stated that there were already divisions previous to European arrival but even your own article stated that those divisions were “compounded” by colonialism…..are you disagreeing with your own reference article?
The Tutsi’s never believed they were better than Hutus’ because their hair was looser, faces & nose thinner, and looked more Caucasian. The Tutsi’s based their “superiority” on economic power ie cattle
So, what is your problem with accepting the fact that the Europeans introduced the concept of superiority based on race? its the TRUTH
My statement was highlighting that Every society has divisions based on something… such as economic class.
and those divisions can lead to “stress” along weak points created by those dividing lines (occupy Wallstreet happened for a reason, the American Revolution happened for a reason)
Does this statement say that “white people are to blame for the ACTUAL genocide? no it doesn’t, so how did you manage to get to that conclusion?
There is typically a catalyst in every action that leads to a reaction
Nothing happens in a Vacuum, George…. it’s OK to discuss the “Stress” points that leads up to the last straw that finally blows the pot cover off the kettle.
The goal in these discussions is to try not to take it personally, so that “honesty” can shine through… but it’s hard to do when you have people DENY historical aspects of a situation every time because it’s emotionally inconvenient (you) or
that denial comes from admitted racists whose sole goal is to say “black people suck”— if that’s the case, then there can be no intellectual honesty in these conversations.
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@ King — no, thank you for the way you clarified and explained.
What frustrated me was the reaction to all the explanations!
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King, I don’t mean George’s reactions only.
This happens all the time, not just in individuals.
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There is nothing i can add to what commenters Bulanik, King, Linda, have succinctly described what the who, what,where,and why to what caused the Rwandan genocides. All certain folks who shall remain nameless need to do is read and then check for themselves if the information that these commenters presented is accurate. I already knew about most of this, but it doesn’t hurt to have a refresher course on this subject.
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@ Bulanik
Yes, I agree. You can reproduce mainstream history for them (Not even alternate Afro-Centic history) yet they still will not believe it. The very same sources that they use to verify everything else that they believe are suddenly not worth even looking at, because they now upend their notions of how the world has worked.
Few White people seem to be aware of just how damaging and pervasive the idea of racialization has been around the world. How many conflicts, rivalries, and extermination have resulted from it.
There also seems to be very little acknowledgement that true Racism was not a widespread, cultural concept. There have always been different people groups, cultures, clans, factions, and castes. But the idea of genetically superior super races was unknown in most or the world, until the Europeans introduced it.
It seems far more comfortable to simply believe that everybody thought that way. Everybody believed in Race and Racism, in the same way the Europeans did. Otherwise what a debt of blood would Europe owe unto the world for loosing this Devil upon them!
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@King
Can you see the parallel in the promotion of the Model Minority stereotype by whites in the US?
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@ jefe
It’s from the same playbook under the bold heading of, “Building the Colonization Mentality Among Natives.”
“Play two sides against each other so that in a crisis, they will go after one another rather than after the colonizers.”
This has played out time and time again.
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I have always believed the Belgian colonizers were culpable in the Rwandan genocides, they are responsible for the hatred among the two tribes. They are the ones that fostered that one was superior over the other.
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Some great contributions from long time commentators here (I am sure you know who you are!) laying out in detail how historically “racial/ethnic” conflicts have begun and still continue to played to this day. i would agree with much of the accepted analysis and certainly have been educated in reading much of this myself.
One question though does come to mind from one of the observations that King recently made:
“… But the idea of genetically superior super races was unknown in most of the world, until the Europeans introduced it…”
Is it possible or conceivable that in the same way, initially, white Europeans played this superiority game on everyone else on the planet. That they themselves were also or are also being played by someone or something else?
Or does the buck truly stop and originate from the mentality and behaviour of white Europeans ONLY?
At least this is the direction much of the analysis here would seem to have concluded…
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@Mary
Yes, there is a noticeable pattern.
@Bulanik
Very well said and thank you for taking the time to elaborate on the situation between the tutsi and hutu. I was not aware of a lit of what you and king said so it is nice to have some detailed information to go on.
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Well first I should clarify one of my statements.
I should say that most isolated civilization believed themselves to be the direct descendants of the gods in one way or another. However, they saw this as specific to “their own culture.” So, for instance the Japanese never thought that ASIANS as a whole were a super race. The Aztecs never thought that American Natives throughout the New World were a superior form of humanity. It was Whites who first postulated that all the fair skinned tribes or Europe = “White People” and White people are born superior to every other type of people.
Yes. But I will not say who, or what.
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@ Herneith: I watched this on youtube: Leopold was a monster that oppressed the Africans in the Belgium Congo, made them work to harvest rubber from the rubber trees committed many atrocities against the people one cutting off their hands when they didn’t make their quotas. He has monuments all over Belgium. The Belgian people today don’t acknowledge what a monster this man was. I was reading about this beast on last weekend.
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@ George Ryder
And, as King exhorted to you to do: “(look it up).” You may want to check out the reason for current civil war (Tamil versus Sinhalese) in Sri Lanka (formerly, Ceylon), although, some will argue that it has ended – the French involvement in Lebanon, and the British involvement in the Indian sub-continent – (Pakistan, India & Bangladesh).
Hope, you will not get your feelings hurt.
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Neither side cares about ANY of our interests. Politics is the biggest racket in all of the world
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Oh, I already posted this one on the Map thread but I think this is the right one, sorry Abagond.
See, not all the whites have been equall either. Even the finns were not white enough back in the days 😀
From Wikipedia:
“The earliest Finnish immigrants, colonialists who were Swedes in the legal sense and perhaps spoke Swedish, and settled in the Swedish colony, were supposed to have assimilated into the British culture quickly.[12] More recent Finns were on several occasions “racially” discriminated[13] and not seen as white, but “Asian”. The reasons for this were the arguments and theories about the Finns originally being of Mongolian instead of “native” European origin due to the Finnish language belonging to the Uralic and not the Indo-European language family.[14]
On January 4, 1908, a trial was held in Minnesota about whether John Svan and several other Finnish immigrants would become naturalized United States citizens or not, as the process only was for “whites” and “blacks” in general, and district prosecutor John Sweet was of the opinion that Finnish immigrants were Mongols. The judge, William A. Cant, later concluded that the Finnish people may have been Mongolian from the beginning, but that the climate they lived in for a long time, and historical Finnish immigration and assimilation of Germanic tribes (Teutons)—which he considered modern “pure Finns” indistinguishable from—had made the Finnish population one of the whitest (fairest) people in Europe. If the Finns had Mongol ancestry, it was distant and diluted. John Svan and the others were made naturalized US citizens, and from that day on, the law forbid treating Finnish immigrants and Americans of Finnish descent as not white.[15][16]
In the beginning of the 20th century, there was a lot resentment from the local American population towards the Finnish settlers because they were seen as having very different customs, and were slow in learning English. Another reason was that many of them had come from the “red” side of Finland, and thus held socialist political views.”
The swedish racial biologists were the once who as the first suggested that finns are actually mongols. Others agreed for a long time. And the funny things is. this debate is still going on aonge certain circles!!!! 😀
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@King: WORD!!!
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@kwamla, not so much into some of your theories, but this one?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N_M_Rothschild_%26_Sons
“According to historian Niall Ferguson, “For most of the nineteenth century, N M Rothschild was part of the biggest bank in the world which dominated the international bond market. For a contemporary equivalent, one has to imagine a merger between Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, J P Morgan and probably Goldman Sachs too — as well, perhaps, as the International Monetary Fund, given the nineteenth-century Rothschild’s role in stabilising the finances of numerous governments.””
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@ v8driver
The theories tend to be the ones discussed endlessly in forums like this while the real factual events taking place outside our main view go unnoticed. We simply have no idea how they affect us. But they do! We ingore the real entities pulling our strings and focus on the demons they provide us with instead…well at least some of us do…!
@ King
What are you afraid to say or speak of?
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@ sami
Even though they slowly became white enough to be white American, the debate whether they are actually Asians continues…
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sami parkkonen, are you Sam the Fin?
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I am only willing to go so far. Kwalma is right, there is a power behind the powers and there always has been. But I’ll not go further than that.
As for the the world and it’s future, it has been broken so that it can be “fixed.” Now enough of cryptic thinking. Not everything can be told, some things must be seen or experienced.
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“After comparing the history i was brought up with to “actual history” it certainly feels like i’ve been played.”
*******************
Of course you’ve been played! All of us have. Whites have been “played” to believe that they are superior, and blacks have been “played” to believe that we’re inferior. Only the TRUTH can fix the damage that’s been done.
That’s why I keep saying that WHITENESS IS DEMONIC SH!T.
Because it’s totally devoid of any Spiritual essence from the Creator. The more we adopt WHITE (Western) values, the further away we go from our true selves!
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I second that @ sami
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It might make a difference in how you lived your life, but would not make a difference in changing things, no.
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@King. Yes it is me
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@ George Ryder, King, Matari,
“The system is not broken; that’s the way it was set up” – a quote I read recently – found it very telling, especially in matters such as these.
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@ Sam
AHA! So THAT’s where you went! Good to recognize you again! I thought you had evaporated in a sauna!
@ Ubuntu
That is exactly right. understand that there are always setbacks, and there are failures and struggles… It’s not 100% perfect control, but it’s still a contrived system! and time is always on their side.
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I’m black, of recent african descent, and people ask me this same thing. A couple times I’ve responded in a similar fashion, and it’s interesting to see people taken aback by inquiring about their own ancestries.
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@ melody
It’s not just a simple question of people inquiring about ones ancestry. The problem is when people won’t take “I’m American” as an answer. Some non-white people have 8-10 generations of ancestry her in the U.S. they are culturally Americans. So you can see how when that answer is not accepted, and instead it becomes very important to associate that person with a foreign country (no matter how far back the connection actually is).
It would be different if Whites asked each other the same thing as regularly, but any White person not speaking with an accent is simply assumed to be American. It’s a double standard.
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Not white Americans @George but Americans. You forget that this is a system and as a system this type of thinking become ingrained in every member of that system.
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Though whites seem to be the biggest perps.
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Those with more privilege are naturally more invested in the system that affords it to them.
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“George Ryder @ but who understands their privilege well enough to be invested in it?”
Linda says,
Lots of people George — people with privilege, people who have gained financially from inheritance, hard work, or luck —
people who moved to America and have moved into a different (higher) class/social status than the one they had back home… they believe in the American dream and exceptionalism and don’t want to see the system changed (even if they don’t know how it hurts or benefits them)
You have many “real” Americans, both black and white, who feel very strongly about immigration and they fear that the country is “changing”
what do you think the conservatives and Republicans are fighting for — to preserve their way of life, which they feel is being compromised.
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Understanding is not a prerequisite for indulgence. You may not understand how to make cake, but it will not stop you from eating it.
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It’s all around you George, you just don’t recognize it.
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0kV_b3IK9M)
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This discussion makes me more curious about the Philippines. 330 years of Spanish colonization brought Spanish and Mexican men (who were likely mestizo with Spanish paternity themselves) and would have left a large amount of European Y-Dna. Add to that the post-1898 Colonial period, and I suspect that a very large percentage of Filipinos have European male paternal ancestry.
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George, you are probably completely blind to your white privilege if you have no idea that you have been indulging in it all these years.
My mother figured it out. She was blind to it growing up, but after dating my father and getting married, she realized what it was all about and even used it, eg.
– showing up without her family to rent apartments
– making police reports without her husband present
– doing bank transactions herself
because she realized that she would be given better service (or even just “service”) as a white person, esp. a white woman (as can be found in the video above). She would even say something as “Let me do it. I’m white so they will listen to me.” etc. The issue I had was that after she recognized it and learned how to use it, she thought it was the natural state of things.
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@ George,
Well, it also works really good for stuff like getting a job:
http://money.cnn.com/2013/09/24/news/companies/bofa-racial-discrimination/
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Or for paying less for your mortgage
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/bank-of-america-to-pay-335m-to-settle-claims-of-unfair-loans/2011/12/21/gIQAEW7EAP_story.html
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Or buying a car
http://articles.latimes.com/2013/dec/20/business/la-fi-mo-ally-doj-lending-bias-20131220
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Well the point of White privilege is not to say that every White person in the world is rich or successful, or happy. The point is that Whites have greater opportunity (demographically) than do non-White people (demographically). Nobody expects White people to quit their jobs, or give up their houses. The point is to become aware that this is the case:
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“George Ryder
@Linda
I would think ending racism would actually be good for those people you are talking about.”
Linda says,
I am going to play devils advocate with you George and ask you
“why should those people I mentioned care about ending racism?”
Why should any white person or rich person care about ending racism against blacks or non-whites?
After all, there are financially successful black and Asian people in America.
The only Hispanics that are being disenfranchised are the illegal immigrants.
Racism doesn’t keep black people from getting low-level, low paying jobs– and we all know that Capitalism ONLY works if wages are low and sales are high–
If anything, it’s in the best interest of “real” Americans and legal immigrants to protect the status quo so that Capitalism can be allowed to work as it was designed to do in this Consumerism economy.
how will ending Racism benefit the middle-class and the rich? (regardless of colour)
and why should any white person in America care about racism, since racism does not affect their daily lives or their ability to achieve and move up the social/economic ladder?
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George, I don’t need to know anything more about you other than
– you live in USA
– you identify as white
– you are blind to white privilege.
I am not saying that you indulge in it all the time, consciously use it to your advantage every time you have the opportunity, but it is impossible to live in America (and many other parts of the world) without it affecting you one way or another. Even I have been affected by it in both directions.
First of all, learn to recognize it, pay attention to it, understand how it affects people. ie, become less oblivious. That might take a while for you.
Even the subject of this post and the video illustrates an aspect of white privilege that people take for granted.
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Look into it. Make sure it’s true. Examine the evidence.
But then live by the conclusions, especially among fellow White people. There are still many White people who will listen much more readily to another White person telling them about minority problems than they will a minority talking about minority problems.
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i have no idea how it works, and certainly could care less for maintaining the status quo, whatever that is.
That’s the beauty of it. Whether you are cognizant of it or not, it doesn’t matter as white supremacy is inherent in society as a whole.
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I thoughtI just said it.
A good example of the standard response to Minority issues that are raised by minorities can be readily found up thread.
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You’re right. You cannot police their brains or read their minds, for that matter. And that is why you actually have no idea what impact your conversations have had. Often people simply don’t tell you when you have made an impact on them… at least not immediately.
Don’t fall into the trap of excusing yourself from doing ANYTHING on the excuse that nothing you do will make any impact. Its untrue.
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@ Abagond
I thought you (and everyone else) should know that, although the video is spot on, the person who made it is highly problematic. He is the person who jogged past in the beginning of the video: a white man. His real name is David Ury, but he poses as Ken Tanaka, claiming to be a white American adopted by Japanese parents and raised in Japan. He posts videos online about his fake journey to the US to find his birth parents, putting on an awful Japanese accent and acting stereotypically.
Here’s a sample:
He’s more or less a super weeaboo, who’s so obsessed with Japan he has to make up an alternate identity so he can pretend he was born there and have an excuse for being extra creepy.
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(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awiW8UC3CWY)
Sorry, the video link didn’t work because I tried to post without embedding a video.
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@ Iris
Wow, now that video is sick
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I just viewed a couple of those Ken Tanaka videos on YouTube, and what I listened to coming out of that man’s mouth was so utterly preposterous that I am left to believe that either he is a nutcase or that he is purposely making a mockery of East Asian people in general, and Japanese culture in particular.
His supposed “Japanese” accent reminds me of David Carradine’s “Chinese” accent from that old TV series “Kung Fu”.
The fakery is so blatantly obvious that I actually felt a sense of nausea part the way through the second video and clicked off the page.
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I don’t understand. Why would he do something so revolting and stupid? He’s making money from this bizarre Asian thing he’s doing, correct? He has built some sort of strange racket?
I too became nauseous.
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http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=weeaboo
Man, when you’re into something, there’s just gotta be a better way. Jesus Christ … !
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Basically, Ken Tanaka = Mr. Yunioshi
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Sharina,
“Not white Americans @George but Americans. You forget that this is a system and as a system this type of thinking become ingrained in every member of that system.”
I think most people tend to forget that.
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Admittedly, David Ury (aka Ken Tanaka) has a number of creepy videos out there showing his weeaboo addiction, but I do think the video that Abagond posted on the topic, albeit a fictional dramatization, illustrates very well the problem of the Perpetual Foreigner stereotype in the USA. The fact that many commenters, esp. white (or white-washed) commenters found nothing wrong (or even creepy) with the incident in the video, indicating that it illustrated the point well.
What I mean is, just because this guy has some creepy videos out there does not mean that he did not produce some other videos worthy of consideration.
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@King
I don’t think it is the same at all. Mr. Yunioshi is a throwback to America’s fascination with using “Yellowface”. They can have a white person pretending to be an Asian and performing white stereotypes regarding Asians. The US still did it throughout the 70s with the TV series “Kung Fu”. It even persisted until Miss Saigon.
(P.S., we do need a post on Yellowface on this blog.)
But Ken Tanaka is a weeaboo, and Japanese wannabe. He is not trying to pretend that he is an actual Japanese – he admits he is a white person that is fascinated by Japanese culture. It might be a bit creepy, but it is a different kind of creepiness that what Mickey Rooney did in 1960. Ken Tanaka is doing “egg” behavior (white outside, yellow inside) and not Yellowface behavior.
I have a friend who was born and raised in Japan, but during High School he did a homestay with an (“white”) American family in Tuscaloosa, Alabama and later majored in English language at university. He developed some kind of love affair with things American, thinking about how he would like to be “American”, but he told me that he came to his senses, in that the most he could ever aspire to be was “Japanese-American”, a kind of 2nd class citizenship status. So he decided to go back to Japan and works as a translator. David Ury seems to me to be a kind of reverse of my Japanese friend.
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An addition on King’s Tiffiny’s link:
Yunioshi is at the end of the video.
“How they got through the development stage, we’ll never know” <—So incredibly cowardly. It takes two minutes of reflection to plausibly consider how these things get through the development stage.
I laughed through the whole countdown, I mean really laughed. The depictions are socially hideous, just hideous. So why the hell was I laughing? I think watching this list of horse manure, my feeling about it was amazement with how whites are so in love with the idea that they are so decent and have always been decent. These clips are terribly indecent.
One thing did catch me quite by surprise. I only saw the first Transformers movie. The one in the clip is some sequel; it is fucking hateful, holy shit. Call me naive but I did not think something like this would be done after the jarjar binks thing, evidently I was wrong. I never heard about the racism in The Transformers movie. I’m almost speechless about it. Imagine going to see this piece of filth with a mix of people and then having those characters come on the screen. The insult, the humiliation. I didn’t laugh so much at the Transformers clip. When they showed them unable to read, I thought I was in a freakin’ alternate reality, massive WTF moment.
Imagine a black side kick in the new Captain America movie who is dumb and can’t read. I guess the producers figured they’d pull a fast one by using robot characters. The Disney clip with the super content post civil war folks is so insane. Wait, did I say that loud enough? IN-FREAKIN’-SANE!!!!!!!!!!!!
——————–
Sorry Abagond a bit off topic, I won’t expand this any further.
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I think a blog article on “yellowface” would be quite interesting. Just offhand I can think of several films / film series in which Asian characters are portrayed by white actors. Somebody out there seemed to think it was a bright idea to allow actor John Wayne (wearing yellowface, of course) to play Temujin, AKA the Mongol leader “Genghis Khan”, in the film “The Conqueror” which turned out to be a major flop. [I myself have not actually viewed this movie but have only read about it (there is a controversy surrounding this film due to the cancer-related deaths, some years later, of several of the actors who played in it, including John Wayne himself. It seems that one of the locations of the film had earlier been a nuclear weapons test site.]
Also, come to think of it, there is at least one Black American who portrayed an East Asian both on stage and in film: actress Juanita Hall portrayed the Chinese matron “Madam Liang” in the stage and film versions of “Flower Drum Song”; as well as playing “Bloody Mary”, a Polynesian trader to stationed American marines in the stage and film versions of “South Pacific”.
From what I am able to discern by looking at stills, Ms Hall did not seem to don yellowface in either of these films. I must say, though, that as a child when I first saw Flower Drum Song on TV, I did not feel that the character of “Madam Liang” looked all that much like the other characters in the film, but I just could not put my finger on why.
Actor Patrick Adiarte, “Wang San” in the same film, also had a somewhat different “look” from all the other characters; this actor, as I have recently learned, is of Filipino origins rather than Chinese.
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Although there are lots of other examples of the use of yellowface in film, I’ll just leave off with my above comment just in case abagond himself wants to do a post on subject.
My apologies to all for going off topic.
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[Legion, I read your comment, as well the ending apology, and suddenly got shamefaced for having gone off topic!] 😉
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^Not as shamefaced as I am for forgetting to post my link! LOL!
Um, here’s the mysterious 😉 video I was ranting about:
http://www.watchmojo.com/video/id/11841/
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I have expanded on the Hollywood observations on another thread:
^ that link will activate later when the comment comes out of moderation.
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@ George
I deleted your comment. It is off topic and the use of whiteface is problematic. I have deleted blackface posts under the same circumstances.
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@ Jeffe
No comparison will be a perfect match to what it is compared to, of course. But I think if you ignore for a moment the differences in motivation for the yellowface, you may find that the end results are similar.
This is what I see. Mickey Rooney and Blake Edwards felt that they could simulate a Chinese landlord. It was just a question of compressing all the stupid and shallow stereotypes into a single performance and voilà – instant Japanese Landlord! That’s all it takes. On the other hand, they would never think that a Japanese actor could convincingly play a White man.
In the same way (albeit for different reasons) Ken Tanaka thinks he can channel the heart of Japanese authenticity just by feigning trouble speaking his “r”s and by affecting a terrible and cornball Japanese accent, complete with broken english, and by cutting his hear in a vaguely samuraiesque fashion.
The two example are the same in that they both oversimplify their feigned Japanese characters and underestimate the difficulty of truly being Japanese, beyond the obvious American stereotypes.
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another example of real world or external effect,after reading this post I can no longer bring myself to ask anyone ,where are you from.
Not that I would or have put the really bs on it ,but now I question why I even need to ask this if its not part of and relevant to the specific discussion at hand.
esp when encountering asian’s ,it also might explain some of hesitant responses I get when I ask africans ,they assume I don’t know that africa is not a country but a contenient composed of over 50 independent nations many of which Im textbook familiar with.
There is one group that does’t mind and is generally happy to tell you where they are from or what language they are speaking – white europeans.
who also just happen to look like what you’d expect a “american” to look like.
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@Legion,
Thanks for the link. I remember seeing the Song of the South when I was very young (7-8). My father took me to it telling me it was a movie he saw when he was a young boy. After that, I never saw it anymore. I would love to see it at this stage in my life.
@King,
I think the difference is that Mickey Rooney is doing stereotyped yellowface, and David Ury has assumed an entirely different persona. He is a weeaboo, but Mickey Rooney was not. The Breakfast at Tiffany’s character is much more offensive to me.
I know about a few films where Chinese actors in China played white characters in the film – who speak Chinese but play stereotyped foreigners (according to Mainland Chinese stereotypes).
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Dang, I didn’t even realize that Mickey Rooney just passed away a few weeks ago.
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As a Brit living in Austria, this question is usually completely harmless and it usually ends with the inquisitive party telling me how much they like Doctor Who or Monty Python.
However, I am a bit brown, so every so often, it goes like this:
…
Hey, where are you from?
Oh I’m from the UK, I was born in Essex, England.
Ah, but you’re not English?
Right, you got me.
So where are your parents from?
Oh them? No, they’re both English.
::confusion::
I grew up in Glasgow, so I’m either Scottish, or British.
No, I meant where are your parents from, originally?
You mean where were my grandparents from?
Err, yeah.
Well that’s interesting. Both sides of my mother’s family seem to have come from different parts of Ireland. but my Father’s parents were from Guyana.
In Africa?
No, in south America, near Venezuela
Oh I see, I get it now. Do you speak Spanish or Portugese?
No, actually Guyana is English speaking. Geographically it’s South America but culturally it’s part of the Caribbean.
Ahhh, so your Dad is black?
No, his ancestry is Indian.
Have you ever been back there?
To where?
India
No, I think I’d probably feel a bit guilty for having stolen all their gold, and limes, and so on.
Huh?
If you’ll excuse me, I have to go and pull my fingernails out with my teeth now. It was lovely meeting you.
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I work in an in environment that is predominantly white. The majority of the people there usually keep to themselves. I tend to be quite shy, but once I get to know you, I show my outgoing side. In an effort to get peopIe to interact with each other more, we were required to go around and ask questions from a piece of paper.
Okay, one specific question stood out in my mind. Who was born outside of Canada? EVERYONE came up to me and asked me this question. (Really? You guys think I’m not from here? Really?? It’s because I’m Asian, isn’t it?) The truth is, two of my co-workers were born outside of Canada. They were from Scotland, and Italy respectively. And they both had accents! The other white people automatically assumed I wasn’t Canadian. Yeah, this Asian face is a dead giveaway. 😐
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I get asked where are you really from all the time even when white people learn I was born in Canada. They keep pushing it and pushing it as if my response is unsatisfactory. I’ve never asked white people or other POC where they are from unless they have a distinct accent.
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Here, Iris Chang speaks about the origin of birth right citizenship in the U.S.; it came from a Chinese-American lawsuit! If I were Asian I would drop that history on whites who try to get at “where I’m from” when they engage in dismissive toned conversation. Also some words about the danger of concentration of power (and I would add knowledge and information) in the hands of a separate class.
(http://youtu.be/wp710sgTwdw?list=UUb2EYjrzI6WpNAmPZeihhag)
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“No! You are 100% American.”
^ Nice stand out part of the interview.
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@Legion
Abagond mentioned about US v. Wong Kim Ark Supreme court case in the “Chinese Exclusion Act” post
(https://abagond.wordpress.com/2014/06/03/chinese-exclusion-act/)
Actually, I have known about this for decades. I brought up on this blog almost 2 years ago and most commenters scoffed at me. Some said I was lying or making things up just to be confrontational (ie, trolling).
The case that solidified the jus soli principle of US citizenship is traced back Supreme court case involving a Chinese-American. The concept of “illegal immigrant” (and the requirement for an ethnic group to carry ID cards certifying the right to be in the US) is also traced back to the Chinese Exclusion Act. Native born citizens also had to carry these ID cards.
These 2 matters (birthright citizenship and concept of illegal alien) are so integral to the concept of American nationality, that ALL Americans should know about it. It is at least as important as the Dred Scott decision, Plessy v. Ferguson, Brown v. Board or Loving v. Virginia. But how many Americans know about it? This is what is so sad.
Even most Asian-Americans do not even know about this history. *sigh*
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^ Yes, all the white immigrants I’ve met throughout my life have also assumed I was a foreigner.
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Kiwi, Leigh204
Did most blacks, Latinos, Native Americans, Metis, also assume that you were a foreigner? How about Asians?
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@ Jefe:
I can only speak for myself, but half of them did. The same thing happened with Asians. However, some commented that they knew I was born in Canada because I spoke English and I didn’t look fobby. Their words, not mine.
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I mean, the Asians said I didn’t look fobby.
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My point was … it is not only whites that assume Asians in North America are foreigners. Blacks do it too. It is common among everyone, even Asians.
Even those Asians who guessed that you were probably born in Canada – I bet that they would still describe you as a Canadian-born Filipino (or Asian, if they didn’t know your ethnic background) as opposed to simply a Canadian (even one of Filipino descent).
To rephrase, they probably labelled you an Asian who happened to be born in Canada instead of a Canadian, who happened to be of Asian descent. The former reflects that the speaker still thinks of it as some type of non-Canadian who was born in Canada.
There is no such thing as a foreigner born in the USA. They are all native born Americans.
(Okay, there are 2 exceptions:
– children of diplomats
– Americans who have renounced their citizenship and assumed another nationality
However, most people in the USA will never meet either of those 2 categories).
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@ Jefe
Yes, I thought Abagond may have spoken of it, but wasn’t going to search about. It’s a wonderful thing to repeat, anyhow. 🙂
Actually, I have known about this for decades. I brought up on this blog almost 2 years ago and most commenters scoffed at me. Some said I was lying or making things up just to be confrontational.
Hahaha! That is so amusing. What a wonderful demonstration of the effectiveness of mind control, through propaganda and omission, in democratic societies.
Incredible that those commenters could not simply google your claim. It isn’t as though Supreme Court Decisions aren’t easily found on the internet! Hahaha!
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@Legion,
It was not amusing.
Actually, part of the reason that I brought it up was because some commenters insisted that the fight for civil rights was strictly an African-American one, that Asians and other groups never did anything but jump on the black civil rights bandwagon.
I knew it wasn’t true. I knew of dozens, if not hundreds of cases where Asian Americans alone fought vigourously for their civil rights. We also had many which involved Chicanos and Native Americans, plus many others.
I instantly thought of the most famous one alluded to above and mentioned it, and also said that Asian Americans had formed organizations and had been using the courts to fight for civil rights at least 4 decades even before the NAACP was formed (which formed mainly to fight for black civil rights).
I was scoffed at, accused of lying and branded a troll.
You said:
Is it only on whites that one is allowed to “drop” that history? Americans in general, not just whites, are unfamiliar with that history.
After the civil war blacks had citizenship, the right to vote, the right to own land, even served in Congress. Foreigners of African descent had the right to enter and even immigrate to the USA. Asians in the USA had none of these rights. The only right at their disposal was habeus corpus, which applied to both citizens and non-citizens, hence the use of the courts.
Those born in the US which were supposed to have US citizenship by the Fourteenth Amendment, yet those of native born Chinese Americans were stripped of their citizenship. US v. Wong Kim Ark makes sure that that never happens again.
It is such an important US Supreme Court case. Why is it totally absent from the US education system? Do the powers to be want to promote the idea that Asian Americans are (perpetual) foreigners? Or do they NOT want it brought up given the current political climate over immigration reform?
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Jefe, I know it’s a serious issue; sometimes we mock or have a laugh at a situation, it doesn’t mean we don’t appreciate the fundamental seriousness of the issue.
I agree, all Americans need an education on a great many things, Asian American history is certainly one of them.
It is such an important US Supreme Court case. Why is it totally absent from the US education system?
You’re not serious, are you? For the same reason Japanese schools don’t cover Japanese atrocities against the Chinese. Schools are for promotion and continuance of the dominant groups and systems that run society. You know that.
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@Kiwi,
Maybe one day you can do a guest post re: your perspective on the relationship between brain drain immigrants, both African / West Indian and Asian, and US civil rights history. Don’t wait for Abagond to get around to this. You might be in a better position to explain the perspective on this. Maybe you can even interview a couple of the African or West Indian brain drain immigrants (in addition to the Asian ones) and their families in Silicon Valley. That would be GREAT.
But even today, brain drain immigrants and their children make up maybe 1/4 of Asian-Americans (I know that well over half of Taiwanese Americans are). Not only are there “old school” Asian Americans, but there are also refugees and their descendants as well as economic migrants well further down the totem pole (who did not come to the USA for graduate school). But brain drain immigrants are the ones that whites are more likely to encounter (mostly at university and in the workplace and their suburban neighborhoods).
The Asian Americans who operate businesses in black and Latino neighborhoods are not of the brain drain variety. But, nevertheless, it might be interesting to learn their perspective on US civil rights history too. If I were in the USA, maybe I would consider doing that study.
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@Kiwi,
I think you just stepped on people’s toes with that. 😛
As I mentioned in another thread, I suspect that there are more slave-descendent black Americans alive today with some 19th century Asian immigrant ancestry (albeit in smaller percentages) than there are Asian-Americans alive today descendent from those immigrants.
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It reminded me of this scene: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRIUbFLjtX0)
There are some differences, but I think that they are both funny.
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This thread post is the definition of the word “microaggression”.
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@MB,
I think it can go a great deal beyond just microaggression. It also explains why we do not have any real Asian-American lead film or TV stars (most of the Asian US film stars are non-Americans) or musical artists and why we are eons away from having an Asian-American president.
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@jefe: I totally agree with you.
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@Kiwi,
Historically, most Asian-American politicians in the USA have been male, esp. Senators, Congressman, Governors, but even mayors and state legislators, diplomats and Executive cabinet members. Sen. Daniel Inouye, ascended to president pro tempore of the Senate, the most senior Asian-American national politician in US history. In fact, the film “The Man” (1964 novel and 1972 film) gave a scenario how a black man became president of the United States from exactly that position.
What we need now, is what we had in 1964 / 1972 — theoretical scenarios, even works of fiction, of how an Asian-American president would work. For many decades before Obama entered the scene, Americans had already been presented with hundreds of scenarios where the US would have a black president. They had already imagined a James Earl Jones or Morgan Freeman type as president.
We have nothing remotely similar to the concept of an Asian American president or leader even in a work of fiction. We already have actual precedence for Asian American governors, but have you seen a single scenario where that has been portrayed on the screen, on TV, or in a novel or magazine? We need to start that now, imprinting that image in the minds of Americans, if we expect to see it occurring some time over the next 50 years.
I hear what you are saying. It is likely that an Asian American woman married to a white man might be more acceptable to white people and to Americans in general, since they have seen that scenario played out to them in their daily lives. We have also seen the case where Asian-American talking heads and spokespersons who are females married to white men tend to be more credible in the eyes of whites than are Asian men or Asian women married to Asian or non-white spouses. But based on past history, we have more men with experience in national politics than women.
Or maybe someone like Jeremy Lin will go into US politics after he retires from basketball in 20 years. At least he’ll be tall enough.
But, .. … … ,
What is more likely is that we will have a WHITE man as president married to an Asian woman. Expect SERIOUS Asian male bashing.
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“Hari Kondabolu- Where are you from? ”
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAZTWRqaAwA)
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The MTV / Franchesca Ramsey take on this:
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igWYMo4z2OQ)
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@Abagond,
I love the part where the server quotes his origins from the native peoples of Southern Virginia, then tells the other guy that he is NOT really American.
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Vox posted an article over the weekend about Trump interrupting an intelligence briefing regarding hostages in Pakistan. This kind of attitude could potentially put national security at peril.
Trump reportedly interrupted intel briefing to ask Korean American, “Where are you from?”
He suggested the “pretty Korean lady,” who was talking about Pakistan, be reassigned to North Korea.
https://www.vox.com/world/2018/1/12/16885546/trump-asian-american-intelligence-briefing
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@ jefe
Vox populi.
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lately i’ll say, ‘where is your family from?’
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