Welcome to Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month! I will not write only about Asian American subjects, but it is the theme for May.
Thanks to everyone who suggested a topic. Below are the ones that were suggested the most:
- Black-Asian race relations
- Asian stereotypes
- Seattle Riot of 1886
- Kingdom of Hawaii
- Transpacific slave (aka “coolie”) trade
- Richard Aoki
- coolies
- Asian American civil rights
- Chinese Exclusion Act
- Asian men, Black women
- yellowface
- US v Wong Kim Ark (1898) – see Chinese Exclusion Act
- university quotas against Asian Americans
- Suey Park (#CancelColbert)
- Rock Springs Massacre
- “ching chong”
- Asian brain drain
- Amy Chua (“Tiger Mom”)
- American Samoa
- Vincent Chin
- Japanese American internment
I will not necessarily do only these or all of these, but this is my burn list. I will fill in the links as I do them. The last two are already filled in because they were requested but were already done.
Here are the non-suggested posts that appeared during the month:
- The term “Asian”
- Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month: Origins
- Manila galleons
- Yvonne Elliman: I Don’t Know How To Love Him
- Three ways Americans write about Asians
- Asians in the Library
- Amerie: 1 Thing
- Settlement of Asians in the Deep South (1763 – 1882)
- Taiwanese Americans
- Chinese Americans in the Deep South after 1882
- Chinese Americans in Mississippi under Jim Crow
For this month I will also be reading, at least in part:
Iris Chang, “The Chinese in America” (2003) – Chinese American history is a hole in my education. Chang is best known for “The Rape of Nanking” (1997). Unfortunately, she is no longer with us. Fortunately, she has left us some books to read.
Ronald Takaki, “A Different Mirror” (1993) – the US history of different ethnic groups. It is good on Irish, Mexican, Japanese and Chinese Americans, as far as I can tell, but not so good on Black or Native Americans.
Frank Wu: “Yellow” (2003) – racism against Asian Americans. I have already read parts of it. Excellent!
If there is a book you recommend on Asian Americans, please let me know!
See also:
- Nominations for Asian American History Month
- Asian Americans – go there for an overview and long, but outdated, list of Asian American topics that I have done.
@ Abagond: I feel so much better, I at least know you really do read my suggestions. I am glad to see at least two of them made the list.
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should be a very educational month in regards to this aspect of american history and culture.
Asians are very much a part of this society and even if not , a significant part of the world and our species.
As is ,while base perhaps my cultural introduction came initially via martial arts films ,I begin to delve into the history and culture of societies that produced this type of fighting.
Focusing most obviously on those whose martial arts where most represented,the chinese ,japenase and lastly korean.
ah chinese history with its vast timespans and dynasties,then there is the philsolophies or hundred schools of thought as some chinese may say – taoism via the tao te ching is my favorite,and need I mention the illustrious Sun tzu Art of war (seems inordinately popular in the american american community)
However as a middle age adult I find even historical and cultural info to be mostly irrelevant to dealing with these other human beings ,just some different type of americans thats all.
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Did anyone see the TV movie “Farewell to Manzanar” (1976). I understand that some schools have students read the book nowadays, probably for this month.
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Despite the discomfort some people experience when identifying asians as the “model minority”, they are exactly that. They are the group most other groups should emulate.
In NY City, the asian kids are the top students in all the public schools. The best public high school in NY City is Stuyvesant High School. Students must get a high score on an entrance exam to get in. The test is open to every 8th-grade student in NY City and there are free review classes open to all.
Nevertheless, about 73 percent of the students who attend Stuyvesant are asian. About 22 percent are white. The remaining 5 percent are “other.”
A similar story exists at the college level. Despite accounting for only 8 percent of the US population, asians are filling up the classrooms at the best universities in the US.
Seems like an extraordinary success story. Still, there are critics. Why?
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@ sb32199
If you take parents’s education into account, Asian American studiousness and social mobility are not “extraordinary” at all.
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@ sb32199
I think that you misunderstand what most of the critiques of “Model Minority” really are. When activists dissect the Model Minority concept, they do not conclude that Asian success (such as it is) is bad or undeserved.
We are more concerned with how the concept of Model Minority is used as a tool against other minorities by Whites, and how it is also used to define and contain Asians within a certain ideological box.
Immigration to the U.S. has come at different times in history and at different cultural junctures. The reason why immigrants are different is because their circumstances, their reception, and their masses are different, on e from the other. There are, in fact, many factors that make people different, and make they way they act out and see the world differently. No one group can be THE MODEL for the other, although they can all learn from each other on some level.
What Whites have done is to try and use Asian success as a blunt instrument to beat other minorities into submission. If you could only be like the Asians! This of course is ridiculous and intentionally divisive. And as mentioned above, it’s also used to imply to Asians that they must not disappoint Whites by acting like certain other undesireable minorities, by complaining, protesting, or demanding certain rights.
In other words, it’s just another means of White control of minorities.
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sb32199 – in addition to abagond’s response, the “model minority” effect is a direct result of racist immigration policies. for such a long time, Asian American’s could only come here if they were extremely credentialed. Additionally, because we only allowed in those who were almost pathologically committed to academic achievement, we’ve created a one-dimensional burden for their children and grand-children. why is it preferable to have a shit-ton of Asian medical students who care nothing about being doctors but have been forced into medical school by their parents who also care little about the role of the doctor in society but instead are laser-focused on the medical profession as the path to riches. I, for one, would prefer a nurse practitioner, of any race, who just loves helping people with their medical health over someone who begrudgingly became a doctor because of societal fucked-up-ed-ness.
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King – you make a lot of good points – your comments give me a lot to think about. But there is also one small issue…you believe your opinion is superior to abagond’s. Can they not exist side-by-side, equally valid?
Are you a middle-class white person? I am. I only ask because I hear some possible whiteness in your opening sentence — “you misunderstand what…the critiques…really are.” The reason I think of that opening sentence as possibly white is because, just as we white people love to correct other people’s grammar, we are also the group that is most likely to believe that there is only one way to perceive a thing or situation. Why do you believe there is only one way to critique the fallacy of the model minority?
It may be because of the blinders our upbringing strapped onto our heads from an early age. Do you think that might be the case?
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Thanks Kristi.
Why do you think I think my opinion is superior to Abagond? To be frank, I think Abagond and I agree maybe 85% of the time.
Of course, we don’t agree on EVERYTHING and believe me, Abagond wouldn’t want me agreeing with hime just to be agreeing. When I do disagree with Abagond, I feel that my opinion is closer to the truth than his is—otherwise there would be no disagreement.
I’m a middle class Black person at for the moment (the class thing being the possible variant, not the color) and my comment was aimed at the commenter directly above my comment, @ sb32199 not at the original post by Abagond.
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king — when it comes to comprehending this situation, I misunderstand nothing. You, on the other hand, have a bizarre view of whites and how whites relate to other racial and ethnic groups.
If there’s a common discussion among white about non-whites, it generally includes some mention of crime. Usually violent crime. As we know, there isn’t a major and socially destructive crime problem among asians.
Whites are aware of asians’ general willingness to live within the law, and it’s known that asians are often good students. Meanwhile, asians in the US are politically active. They complain, they protest and they demand, but in response, you’ll never hear much from whites.
As far as your understanding of what makes each immigrant group different from another, well, you have a firm grasp of the obvious. However, there’s no doubt that some groups are better suited to mainstream American life than other groups.
Meanwhile, it appears you have the mistaken idea that whites control asians. How could this be true? Asian students are filling up the freshman classes at the best schools in the US. Who are the asian students outperforming? White students.
If whites “controlled” asians, there’s no way asians would dominate the college-acceptance game. If whites “controlled” asians, there’s no way asians would fare as well as they do in the technology world. On the other hand, In the race for getting into good schools too few blacks outperform whites to matter.
That aside, immigrants from Europe, Great Britain and Scandinavia have assimilated sufficiently that none of those groups are at odds with each other.
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Oh Geez!
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@ sb32199
I’m not talking about what generally occurs in common discussions between Whites about non- Whites (in your experience).
What I was commenting on is how there perceptions are argued and expressed to other groups by White people. I am taking this not simply from my own experience but also from comments and discussions from many ethnic activist websites, some of which are Asian.
The error that Whites often make is in forming rather simplistic and unnuanced opinions about how different ethnicities adapt and thrive in the U.S. Often these opinions are formed without any consideration for the circumstances and mitigating factors that make for the differences. They act as if all of these differences sprung up without any history or consequence.
For example, the first settlers to the New World were Asians who travelled across the prehistoric Bering Strait ice bridge from the present day Siberian/Mongolian region to what we now call Alaska. So Asians have really been in the Americas longer than anyone else. However, if you look at this subset of first Asian settlers and their direct descendants, you will find that they are doing the worst of any group in the Americas. In the U.S. Native American crime rates are high, as is alcohol and drug use. School performance is low as is literacy and wealth. But this same pattern (or worse) exists in the entire New World. Throughout Canada, Central America, and South America, these first Asians are invariably at the very bottom of society.
But when you look beyond the statistics, you will find a long history of abuse, persecution, enslavement, treat breaking, genocide, cruelty, displacement, horror, and forced religious transformation at the hands of White people. So what is the difference between first Asians and the small recent immigration of Asians into the new World? The biggest difference seems to expose / isolation from abuse from Europeans. In fact, if you look at all distinctly non-White ethic groups, you will find that as a general rule, the longer and more directly that they have been in exposed to European Whites in the New World, the worse they tend to “be suited to mainstream American life,” and the poorer and less educated they tend to be.
Major factors are continual disenfranchisement, deliberate miseducation, and under-education, intimidation, economic isolation, and unequal protection. Those White-imposed factors tend to make a big difference… But White people in common conversations don’t talk about such things because they are either ignorant or duplicitous.
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@jefe: I did see “Farewell To Manzanar” That’s how i learned about the Japanese Internment camps.
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kristl
Thank you so much for pointing this out:
“why is it preferable to have a shit-ton of Asian medical students who care nothing about being doctors but have been forced into medical school by their parents who also care little about the role of the doctor in society but instead are laser-focused on the medical profession as the path to riches.”
I am often confused that more people simply do not see this. These kids are often pressured into professional careers not of there choosing. My father was like this, even though I am not asian, but he admired this brand of parenting pressure none the less. I have even noticed that I now do this to my kids.
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I don’t post for a while and you throw my comments into moderation. Lol
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king. Aha, so by finding a way to produce some data that supports your conclusion, nothing is what it seems. Nice trick. Means nothing.
Yeah, the old asians across the Bering Sea is an idea that’s been discussed for some time. And based on that notion, you’re suggesting “native Americans” are actually descended from a asians, and inasmuch as native Americans have had some tough times, you’ve concluded that it’s actually asians who’ve suffered. Native Americans are asians in disguise.
Why, I wonder, have native Americans suffered so? Especially when you consider that tribal lands have beneath them oil, gas and other natural resources worth at least $1.5 trillion. That’s enough to put every member of every tribe on his feet, and then some.
But something has gone horribly wrong. Managing tribal lands has been bungled in the most extreme way. Anyway, most of the problem lies in the confusing rules by which tribal lands are regulated. Of course, these rules can be changed. Why the slow progress? No one gains from getting nothing done. No one.
Why, I wonder? Why are native Americans incapable of getting things back on track? Well, not all of the are incapable. As we know, two tribes in CT operate two of the most successful casinos in the country. Meanwhile, in North Dakota the Three Affiliated Tribes (Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara) are building an oil refinery that will generate about $100 million a year for the tribes.
What is it that keeps various groups from entering the mainstream of American life? That exclusion doesn’t happen because the group has arrived from elsewhere.
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jefe
If that is an oh jeez! To what I think it is then Yes.. Oh Jeez!
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“So by finding a way to produce some data that supports your conclusion, nothing is what it seems. Nice trick. Means nothing.”
Nothing is what it seems and it does not require supporting data for that and while you have decided it means nothing I have decided that person experience or one dimensional accounts equal about the same. 🙂
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kristl — some of the original immigration laws intending slow the arrival of people from specific regions were aimed at asians arriving at the beginning of the 20th century.
Meanwhile, as some people like to point out, when it comes to various international tests of high school students, the asian students, sitting for their tests in their native countries, are leaders.
Therefore, it’s not a relevant factor to claim that high immigration standards today account for high achieving asian students among recent immigrants. However, I can tell you that plenty of recent asian arrivals, those who are employed by food service businesses, have kids who are doing well in their NY City public schools. Why is that?
It seems you’re looking for ways to twist cultural standards into something they’re not.
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Sb32199
I think you may have missed the point of what Kristl was saying and in effect going in on what you have concluded instead. Based on your opinions and personal experiences. If I am incorrect then I would be interested in a source that can provide further clarification on your points.
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Now because we are talking about cross country please avoid source that focus on one location only.
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Well, here is a teachable moment, to you kids watching at home… 🙂
This is the perfect example of a phenomenon known as “The Ignorant White Man Syndrome” Now let me hasten to state that not all White men are ignorant, but many are, particularly those who think they have a handle on race and superiority.
Here is an example of empty dismissiveness. You see the very same Asians sock who he is lionizing have done terribly when exposed to overwhelming White prejudice and prolonged injustice. That is what the true origin of “The American Savages” points out quite markedly, yet he thinks he can just dismiss it with a wave his hand.
– No counterargument
– No refutation of fact
– No correction
Secondly he is obviously ignorant of the the theory (other than in general terms) because if he were not, he would be aware of the fact that it has been substantially PROVEN by DNA testing. This is not “some old theory” or the other.
http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/6011/20140213/dna-12-600-year-old-clovis-boy-shows-asians-ancestors.htm
So what our Ignorant White Man is inanely waving away like some pesky horsefly is actually the current DNA-proven scientific consensus on the matter.
So he returns again to his usual “IT’ MUST BE THEIR FAULT” mantra. Why have Native Americans suffered? Was it treaty breaking, prejudice, massacres? No! it was because they didn’t “properly” exploit their land!
Even if they wanted to, the fact that it takes: high-level education, wealth, resources, and connections, to exploit those kind of petroleum resources (all things that were denied to Native Americans by arrogant White people). Also the fact that Native Americans would have been pitted against some of the richest and most powerful men in the country, who were themselves heavily invested in petroleum, seems to escape him. And the fact that native Americans may simply not have been interested in digging up their sacred land and pumping all the oil out of it, does not occur to him. He is almost completely ignorant of all the factors. No the only possible reason they didn’t do it was because they were not as smart as White people.
And notice there is NO acknowledgement at all, of White culpability. They didn’t do anything to the first Asians! They didn’t do anything to the Black slaves! They didn’t do anything! It’s the other guy’s fault, look while I move the shells on the table!
This is by-and-large the popular White mindset when it comes to these issues.
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The one thing I took notice of that bothered me about Asian stereotypes was that 2 in particular contradict one another. The stereotype that Asian men were nerdy, small & non-threatening, yet at the same time they all knew martial arts & could beat you with one hand tied behind their back. Leave it to white supremacy to propagate 2 things that can’t logically co-exist.I always wondered if anyone else realized this, I guess I’ll find out.
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A
Lol. Thanks for the reminder. I can’t believe that stereotype slipped my mind.
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king,
You obviously didn’t read what I wrote. No surprise.
“But something has gone horribly wrong. Managing tribal lands has been bungled in the most extreme way. Anyway, most of the problem lies in the confusing rules by which tribal lands are regulated. Of course, these rules can be changed. Why the slow progress? No one gains from getting nothing done. No one.
Why, I wonder? Why are native Americans incapable of getting things back on track? Well, not all of the are incapable. As we know, two tribes in CT operate two of the most successful casinos in the country. Meanwhile, in North Dakota the Three Affiliated Tribes (Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara) are building an oil refinery that will generate about $100 million a year for the tribes.”
There are other examples, but there’s no need to cough up a long list?
As I stated, and now I’ll restate it, the rules and regulations imposed by the Bureau of Land Management and the Bureau of Indian Affairs are a big part of the problem. But part of the problem is apathy among the tribes.
Meanwhile, the likely arrival of asians by way of the Bering Straits a thousand years ago is an interesting anthropological theory. Beyond that, it means nothing. Does it matter what mechanism accounts for why humans were living in North and South America before Columbus arrived? No. It doesn’t matter.
Maybe these claims matter to people who want to live in the past. But the past is murky and is easily shaped into whatever seems appropriate.
king writes:
“So he returns again to his usual “IT’ MUST BE THEIR FAULT” mantra. Why have Native Americans suffered? Was it treaty breaking, prejudice, massacres? No! it was because they didn’t “properly” exploit their land!”
When was the last treaty broken? What century was that? Massacres? When did that last happen? Prejudice. Yeah, that may be a lingering problem. But, there’s those resources under tribal land, and exploiting those resources would have, and hopefully, will in the future deliver a long-running payday for native Americans.
King, you obviously know nothing about the oil and gas industry. Drillers drill where there’s oil and gas. They do not care who owns the land or who pays them for their services.
The same holds for the oil & gas production companies, for the refining companies and for the businesses that transport oil and gas.
There is no basis for believing that “Native Americans would have been pitted against some of the richest and most powerful men in the country, who were themselves heavily invested in petroleum…”
That preceding comment of yours is just plain silly.
And then there’s this:
“And the fact that native Americans may simply not have been interested in digging up their sacred land and pumping all the oil out of it, does not occur to him. He is almost completely ignorant of all the factors. ”
In other words, you’re claiming that native Americans might choose abject poverty over tribal prosperity. If that’s true, well, then you’re saying there are some serious problems in tribal thinking.Or maybe it’s your thinking.
In fact, they are interested, but the approval procedures for getting drilling permits and other permits often take 10 years, the time it took for the approval of the oil refinery now under construction in North Dakota. The Three Affiliated Tribes have wanted to exploit their opportunity for a long time. Now it’s happening.
Again, why the slow pace everywhere else? Why no political clamoring for change? You’d think Obama would be on top of this one, but, then again, as someone who despises the oil, gas and coal industries, he’s not about to encourage resource-rich tribes to cash in. Too hypocritical for him. He’ll stand by while the tribes wallow in poverty.
As for asians, living in the US in the 21st century — those are the asians that matter — the future looks pretty good, even if some of these asians are descendants of a tribe that came to North America from Russia, or whatever it was 1,000 years ago.
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I think this maybe a swoosh moment.
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S32199
There is also more to it than simply drilling too. You would more than likely need connections in order to sell the oil or whatever comes next. Plus it can damage the land so if they are living on it, then I would not personally recommend drilling on it.
You acknowledge different situations and circumstances, but then go on to endorse the one that fits your view all the while telling king that is what he is doing. Stick to the supported facts because projection and arrogance are a recipe for disaster.
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@ Sharina
I think this maybe THEswoosh moment.
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Sharina, like KIng, you know nothing about the oil and gas industry. The entire process of finding, drilling, producing, transporting, refining and marketing of oil and gas operates along a well worn path in the US.
Meanwhile, the tribes can, if they choose, do nothing. It’s up to their leadership. However, it appears that doing nothing maintains their misery and poverty. It’s not wise to choose that option.
As for what happens when oil and gas wells are drilled, well, due to the advances of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling, many wells can be drilled from one small site.
Many farmers and ranchers have wells on their property. Those that do are happy to collect the royalty checks that come their way every month. Meanwhile, a number of tribes are equally happy to receive cash from the sale of resources beneath their land. In time, I suppose most tribes will take the large amount of money that’s theirs if they open their land to drillers and miners. As I said, it’s estimated that tribal resources are worth at least $1.5 trillion.
Something tells me you and King are very young and have no experience with the business world. You’re both probably in college or recently graduated.
As you shall see, asians will continue along their path in America, and whites will have no complaints about their success. Meanwhile, the US and the world will consume more and more oil and gas, and due to the rising demand, I hope the tribes collect as much revenue as possible from the sale of oil and gas on their properties.
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sb32199, I am asking nicely because people tend to through international high school rating around like confetti. Don’t use them unless you know the whole story. I have worked all over Asia and let me tell you if you slip in your grades just once you are headed for a school that is not rated. Which in turns means that only really that percentage of kids who are rated usually don’t come home from school until 9 and 10 at night and is usually those who have money are doing well. The other kids are really left behind in some of those societies you hear things like “You are such a disappointment why don’t you jump of a building!” Now I know you are not trying to suggest that we emulate that.
In Russia and Greece and few of the other countries I have the privilege of being around the idea is that they all group together. However, in America it would be called cheating and looks like cheating to us. In Australia you get the track system so as the Aussies say those who should go to college do but those who should never be. I can’t seem to find a standard system in which to say well look at them they are just like us and they are doing better or worst. There are good points and bad points of all systems of education.
One of the biggest problems I hear in western Europe is with the Muslim population. I hear things like they learn, they can’t get a job because they don’t speak the language. Here in America we don’t really have that situation because yes number one you have to basically be rich to immigrate to this country and two we only really encourage academics to come. By far we may have less problem in that area but it is not because of the Muslims themselves it because of the policy of immigration.
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@ King As usual FTW *slow hand clap* 😀
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sb32199
“Sharina, like KIng, you know nothing about the oil and gas industry. The entire process of finding, drilling, producing, transporting, refining and marketing of oil and gas operates along a well worn path in the US.”—Kudos, but I never claimed to know a massive amount of information about the oil industry. What I said, and I have no problem repeating for those that can not comprehend is “There is also more to it than simply drilling too. You would more than likely need connections in order to sell the oil or whatever comes next.” You disagree with this? If it is so simple then your next reply should explain the process.
“Meanwhile, the tribes can, if they choose, do nothing. It’s up to their leadership. However, it appears that doing nothing maintains their misery and poverty. It’s not wise to choose that option.—Nice story but does not address what I said. Stick to what I said and this can be very simple
“As for what happens when oil and gas wells are drilled, well, due to the advances of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling, many wells can be drilled from one small site.”—That is great but there are still risks associated with drilling. contamination of groundwater, air pollution impacts, etc.
“Something tells me you and King are very young and have no experience with the business world. You’re both probably in college or recently graduated.”—I think you should stick to addressing the topic and avoid trying to read me. So far you are pretty wrong, but then again I suspect you may simply be projecting your own inadequacies here. Nothing in the business world is cut and dry either but I am enjoying watching you paint things as such.
“As you shall see, asians will continue along their path in America, and whites will have no complaints about their success. Meanwhile, the US and the world will consume more and more oil and gas, and due to the rising demand, I hope the tribes collect as much revenue as possible from the sale of oil and gas on their properties.”—Again not interested in side stories here. Talking a lot is not a sign of knowledge after all.
P.S. When you are done deflecting I would appreciate it if you took time to address the issue of oil drilling. I am not interested in simply being told what I don’t know and moving on not to explain anything about the process.
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Thanks life learner
@ sb32199
Its not a question of technology or the “well worn path.” I’m taking about the Native-American Nations (“tribes” by your account) doing the work themselves.
You may be shocked to hear this, but in many cases, large American-run, White-owned petro-corporations are not welcome on Indian lands. You see, they have somehow got it into their heads that White “chiefs” are liars and thieves that can’t be trusted. They are afraid of being cheated, manipulated, or even run off of their land. (again)
I’m not sure where they got this idea… but you know how those Asian Savages are, once they get their blood up! But then many more are simply not interested in pumping out out of their ground. I know how foolish this sounds… imagine anyone not wanting oil money… true savages!
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@ Sharina,
“Geez” is a portmanteau of “Gee” and “Jeez”.
@King,
You let other commenters sidetrack you into other deflectionary territory. Are you enjoying it? If you are enjoying it, please continue, but just my 2 cents:
– Maybe we can divide people coming to the North American Continent into pre-Colombian and post-Colombian eras, i.e., those who “walked” over 12,000-14,000 years ago and those who took boats after 1500 (or planes after 1950s). The people in the Aleutian Islands and eastern Siberia might have closer cultural and kinship ties, but it is a bit out there to lump the Yamana together with the Kyrghiz.
– Both Native Americans and Asians are very diverse amongst themselves – very difficult to make sweeping statements
– Even different waves of immigrants / migrants are quite different from each other in many ways, even if they are more related to each other by “blood”. Is it easy to lump post 1965 immigrants from West Africa with the pre-1808 ones? Likewise, pre-civil war immigrants from East Asia have characteristics different from the ones coming post-1980
– The heart of your argument before it got so deflected was the origin of the “Model Minority” stereotype. All you have to do is look at the 2 articles from 1966 (the New York Times magazine article and the US News and World Report article) and you would know where it came from and it had nothing to do with the intrinsic characteristics of the people highlighted, could not have had anything to do with the post-1965 Brain drain. It had everything to do with the need to point out how “Orientals” are different from “Negroes”. So 1966 was really not that much different from 1866 when white people started to try to recruit Asian “coolies” to replace their emancipated “Negro” slaves. (These “coolies” are superior to our “Negroes” because blah blah blah.) I found some information on that and summarized into a post that I will be sending to Abagond VERY SOON if he wants to post it.
In 2014 they are saying similar things as what they said 150 years ago.
@KOT
Nice to see you back.
Yeah, we really need to look at the effect of the change in immigration policy post 1965. White stereotypes about everyone else already started before 1966. They have only been using confirmation bias and promotion of selected stereotypes to keep them alive.
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Anyway I am not sure that the model minority extends to all Asian groups. As here I live in a place with a lot of Hmong and the words coming out of some of co-workers and community mouths are foul. I think that anywhere you have a significant minority section you start to get colonial thinking from the established American Majority.
Things I have heard so far in a year of living in this place.
They eat dog.
They swear.
The girls maybe be beautiful but they have foul mouths.
They are farmers so their academics are bad.
They can’t learn.
They are bring down the education because they are second language user.
They stick with their own.
They don’t give to the community.
You shouldn’t send you kids with Hmong kids.
You can’t trust them.
There is a lot more but goodness grief, isn’t it enough. Why can’t they just shut their big fat mouths, racist. If you are going to be a racist please don’t say so much in front of your 4 or 5 year old kid. I will not list what I have heard the kids saying but I want to wash their mouths out with soap or least plug their ears when they are at home with their parents.
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I’m not saying that they are literally the same people in the sense that there is no cultural space between them. I’m only saying that they came from the same place and share closer genetic ties. America was originally settled by Asians. But “Asian” is a big blanket word that covers most of the people in the world, many of which don’t even look alike.
All I’m saying is that by ancestry Native Americans are Asian. So, on one hand Whites hold up one set of Asians as the “Model Minority,” while on the other hand, they hold the original Asian settlers in contempt as if they sprung up out of the Kansas soil. I find that ironic, if you do not then I won’t hold it against you.
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jefe
Sorry. My intention was not to correct you or come off as completely confused. I either read it wrong or auto correct got me. I was wondering if you were saying “oh geez!” in response to the comment above.
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@KOT
Shouldn’t be used in the first place.
Even for ethnic Chinese, there is just too much variety.
– post 1965 brain drain immigrants and their children, e.g., the ones from Taiwan or Malaysia or Philippines
– post 1965 cheap labour migrants, e.g., the ones imported by “snake heads” from places like Fujian province, some of whose victims remain mired in debt for decades. Even the ones who are not indebted for decades are VERY different from the ones who came for graduate school and raised their kids in the white suburbs.
– post 1965 ethnic Chinese refugees from Vietnam and Cambodia, many who lost family members to the Khmer Rouge or Vietcong.
– pre-1965 immigrants and their children – the “paper son” immigrants remotely descendant from the 19th century ones who came in before they changed the immigrant rules or soon after for family reunification.
I have the feeling the upper middle class white people will tend to meet the former in majority white upper middle class suburbs and the last one in average middle class more integrated suburbs. The middle two they will not even meet at all. It is the first one that they think of when they think of Asian-Americans, and the ones who are most crowded in the top schools.
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@Sharina
Yes I was. I was wondering if we had a reincarnation of one of those banned commenters.
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@King
By ancestry we are all African. Sure, we can trace human migrations from Asia to the Americas 12,00 to 14,000 years ago, but lumping Native Americans with Asians is a bit like lumping all people together who are part Neanderthal. It is meaningful for certain contexts, but a bit meaningless when applied to others.
For example, it is meaningful to lump Asians with Native Americans when we are trying to trace the migrations of mankind. It is less meaningful when we are trying to interpret the political motivations of applying the Model Minority stereotype.
As I mentioned to KOT above, it is sometimes meaningful to splice things down further when we discuss political motivations in applying stereotypes. Say, when we whittle down Asian-Americans down to Chinese Americans down to each wave and origin then we can identify exactly what goes screwy with applying the Model Minority stereotype.
– It was first mentioned in the USA in 1966
– It was specifically comparing pre-1965 immigrants (who had been quelled into submission as there was always the threat that they would be deported, locked into concentration camps or branded communists) to “Negroes” as an attempt to debunk Affirmative Action and Civil Rights disenfranchisement
– It was not extrapolated to include the brain drain immigrants and their children until late 80s-90s, and again as an attempt to contrast against the black brute criminal welfare queen stereotypes and AGAIN as a backlash against affirmative action.
So, people think that the Model Minority stereotype was based on fact when, in fact, it was created specifically for political purposes in the 1960s and again in the 1980s. I think that you *know* that down inside, but by bringing up how we can trace Human DNA Migration to support evidence that Native Americans entered the American from Asia 14,000 years ago and how we can use Asian as a blanket term *kinda* deflects from the point. I am not sure if you just got pulled aside by one of our hapless trolls, or if you know where you are leading up to (and if you do, please share it with us.)
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@King, My comment is in moderation, but please look out for it. 😛
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You must have said something really bad 🙂
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@abagond
Just found one online.
Margins and Mainstreams: Asians in American History and Culture
by Gary Y. Okihiro
University of Washington Press, 1 Jan, 1994
Looks very interesting inside. I just looked at a few pages to help me with the draft post I did.
Also, his
The Columbia Guide to Asian American History
By Gary Y. Okihiro
Columbia University Press 2001
He even discusses how we can apply “periodization” to analyze black / Asian relations in a white American history context and how that differs from the standard periodization applied to Asian-American history. For example, to analyze Asian-American history, the dates of 1848, 1882 and 1965 are most noteworthy, but to analyze black / Asian relations in a white history context we have to divide into separate periods, eg., pre-civil war, civil war and reconstruction (1861 – 1877), the segregation era (1895-1954) and the civil rights era post 1954. – interesting how different historians take different angles, but each help us understand the putting each even into context.
In fact, I have 3 posts in the works (will be done soon) which divided Asian / black relations in American history almost exactly along those periodization lines, BEFORE I found Mr. Okihiro’s book. 1877-1882 is a key transitional turning point in Asian-black relations that I noticed even before.
But, one problem is the situation of fairly rapid change in the past 20 years. Peter Kwong, chairman of the Asian American Research Institute at CUNY discussed it here:
(http://youtu.be/1–B_60PXOw)
It is 1:20 mins long, but very interesting to me (since I cannot physically go to CUNY and attend)
main problems:
– much of the Asian-American history narrative has been written by whites, which has skewed the whole depiction
– there has been rapid change in the communities so that a book written in 1994 would already be out of date discussing the situation today. (eg, in 1994 the brain drain children were still just children. Now they are giving rise to a new social dynamic.)
He mentions the book written by Betty Lee Sung and her first major book “Mountain of Gold” (1967) which gave rise to the growth of Asian American Studies courses in the USA (I even referenced her book when I did my research project in the early 80s). It is EXCELLENT pioneering study, but woefully now out of date. People liken her as the East Coast version to the West Coast historian Him Mark Lai, who passed away a few years ago. It seems like we need another book written for 2014.
BTW – another topic that I think most Americans are not familiar with, but should be – the growth and development of Asian-American studies. I think we need it because there is continuous confusion in the USA as it being the same as current US Asia relations, a result of both the Perpetual Foreigner stereotype and the omission of Asian-Americans from the US historical narrative.
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King, Sharina:
The oil, gas and coal industries in this country operate where oil, gas and coal are found. Their operations are only limited when they run into government roadblocks. Thus, if oil were discovered below NY City, due to a long list of government impediments, the oil would probably remain below the city untouched.
With respect to development of energy resources on tribal lands, the leading impediment is the confusion of rules and regulations imposed by the Bureau of Land Management and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Again, the government.
There may be native Americans who oppose energy development on tribal lands. But there’s no evidence they form a majority. The real problem is the welter of conflicting regulations imposed by various agencies. Meeting the endless list of requirements PLUS dealing with the time it takes — often 10 years — is a chief reason energy companies look elsewhere.
If the process of signing contracts and getting to work on tribal lands occurred on the conventional timetable for energy development, it would happen on tribal lands in a hurry.
King, this part of your diatribe is laughable: “You see, they have somehow got it into their heads that White “chiefs” are liars and thieves that can’t be trusted. They are afraid of being cheated, manipulated, or even run off of their land.”
Yeah, some native Americans may spout those objections, but if you were to get a handle on current relations between tribal leaders and organizations interested in developing tribal resources, you’d understand you’re reverting to stereotypes, which, in the context of this site, is amusing.
Bottom line — it will take some work by both tribal leaders and the government to untangle the regulatory mess that restricts and impedes the economic benefits that are within the reach of many tribes. Both sides have to work on re-writing the rules. However, as I said, Obama should be the champion of this issue, but, due to his ideological opposition to the development of hydrocarbon resources, he’s obviously willing to let the tribes continue to wallow in their troubled states.
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Sharina: “What I said, and I have no problem repeating for those that can not comprehend is “There is also more to it than simply drilling too. You would more than likely need connections in order to sell the oil or whatever comes next.” You disagree with this? If it is so simple then your next reply should explain the process. ”
The finding, drilling, producing, gathering, transporting, refining and marketing of oil and gas is not handled on a piece-meal basis. All the players line up at the start of operations. In some cases a single company is diverse enough to handle all those operations.
Not long ago that might have meant Exxon. But Exxon sold off its gas stations to Gulf, so if Exxon handled the other steps, it would eventually send its refined products to a retailer such as Gulf or Sunoco. Today a soup-to-nuts oil company is BP. There are others.
However, there a plenty of competitors at each stage of the process. And they all want more business, so you can be sure that if Continental Resources signs a contract to drill for oil on tribal lands, the other companies that perform the downstream processes will beat a path to Continental’s door. That’s how it works.
Your view of things gives you the appearance of someone who’s position is informed mainly by what you picked up in a classroom.
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King of trouble: Here in America we don’t really have that situation because yes number one you have to basically be rich to immigrate to this country and two we only really encourage academics to come. By far we may have less problem in that area but it is not because of the Muslims themselves it because of the policy of immigration.
Only the rich immigrate to his country? That’s a laugher. Or are you claiming those 15 million illegal immigrants are rich? There are at least 500,000 illegal immigrants here in NY City. They work many jobs, usually for cash, often in construction. But their kids — those that are born here — are legal citizens.
With respect to muslims, well, those who live here are merely a small subset of the population. Probably about 1 percent. Definitely less than 2 percent. As groups go, they are not quick to assimilate. In parts of NY City where muslims live, women are often seen in burquas and other full-body covers. Meanwhile, they are politically active.
Like asians, they often operate small businesses, such as convenience stores and 99-cent stores, in black neighborhoods, and that sometimes leads to antipathy between the store operators and some people in the neighborhoods. In NY City that antipathy does not exist when the stores are in predominantly white neighborhoods. Even 9/11 was not enough to destroy all the good will and acceptance that had developed.
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the problem is fracking can cause huge damage to the envirnment and the people
big business has railroaded through unregulated fracking contracts,,,they offer people money to frack on their land, and in a docu i saw, in various locations, the people who took the pay off got tremendous health problems
there are huge dangerous chemicals involved, and there hasnt been serious research about it
some super rich guy wanted to roll a huge shipping lane down past our beach , it would have meant a lot of jobs…and supposed money in the economy…but, a little research showed this guy had a trail of envirnmental damages with his projects and they would have hired mostly foreighn workers…im so happy they voted the project down localy…once you destroy a pristine envirnment…its over…this is a repeating destructive cycle by big corporate business, and they shouldnt be trusted
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S32199
I will respond at length later as I do not have the time.
“The oil, gas and coal industries in this country operate where oil, gas and coal are found. Their operations are only limited when they run into government roadblocks. Thus, if oil were discovered below NY City, due to a long list of government impediments, the oil would probably remain below the city untouched.”——Um mm duh, but this is more information that I am simply not asking for from you. I suggest you separate your response to me and king because so far your responses are simply deflections and disagreeing just to be disagreeable. You are talking in circles about thing to make it seem as if you know more about the oil industry than you do. My questions were clear and simple. Why are you having so much trouble here?
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Sharina, if you can’t understand the clear and complete response I gave to the question of yours that I posted at the start of my comment, then the problem lies with you.
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sb32199
“Sharina, if you can’t understand the clear and complete response I gave to the question of yours that I posted at the start of my comment, then the problem lies with you.”—No, the problem is not in me because I don’t even think you know what the question is(in fact there simply was no question). Either that you don’t have clear way of answering it. At any rate I will take the time to respond at length and point to your failure here.
“Your view of things gives you the appearance of someone who’s position is informed mainly by what you picked up in a classroom.”—-I never gave you a view of anything for you to draw this conclusion. I simply stated the obvious which is that it is not as simple as drilling. Regardless of where I learned my information (fyi not in a classroom as my major was criminal justice) it does not discredit me in anyway, but the fact that you keep making efforts to discredit me in the debate through efforts of reading me points to 2 things. 1) You know very little on the subject matter and 2) If you can discredit me it will show you are the clear knowledgeable one.
In your lengthy responses you put your foot in your mouth and proved my points for me. You gave minor detail to the process showing that there simply IS more to it than drilling. So it just appears you are disagreeing just to disagree or you have just decided that I am saying the same as King, but if that is the case then you are being pure lazy. At any rate thank you for proving my point.
I will respond more on the subject later.
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sb32199
P.S. It is not that I don’t understand your responses (why I said Duh) it is just that you are deflecting (you should look that word up). What you are saying is more in line with your debate with king not with me.
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@King
“So what is the difference between first Asians and the small recent immigration of Asians into the new World?”
What’s the difference? Uhm… Virtually everything…
“But ‘Asian’ is a big blanket word that covers most of the people in the world, many of which don’t even look alike. All I’m saying is that by ancestry Native Americans are Asian.”
You might as well call me an Arab. You have to go further back in time to make it work, but it’s about as accurate as saying that Native Americans are Asian.
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@ jeffe
Yes and no. As you argue above, every case is different, and I would add that every case has it’s similarities. But also, ‘origins’ do seem to matter. For example when the theories firmed up on an African origin of mankind, no matter how remote, it did change people’s thinking and perceptions. I’m not saying that it ended prejudice, of course, but it did move the needle in many people’s thinking to a degree. Also, when it comes to a lot of the current HBD style thinking, most of the arguments are predicated specifically on genetic origins in explaining and defining human behaviors.
But also the Asian / Native American connection is clearly much more recent than any Neanderthal connection. I mean that much can be seen by just looking at the Inuit tribes that can be found at the arrival point of that ancient migration.
But Asian phenotypes are also seen in Indian Nations much farther south
The distance between Asians and Native Americans (genetically and phenotypically) is much less than it would be between African and their European descendants.
As you say, I may be going down a bit of a rabbit hole here, but is it completely irrelevant to the larger question? I think not.
However, I appreciate the more direct path you are taking, some of which I am aware of, and some of which I was not in regard to “Model Minority” ideology and I think I will wait to argue any further with sb32199 until he begins to answer your questions, which I notice he seems to be avoiding.
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Sharina, with every response, you make it clearer and clearer you don’t know anything about the energy industry.
Like I said, the related segments of the industry — from finding oil to pumping gas into a car — are managed in a relatively seamless way. No tribe would find itself stuck halfway between finding oil and selling to end-users if it began the process of exploiting its resources. That’s not how the industry works.
The problem for the tribes is the federal bureaucracy that is the heart of the Bureau of Land Management and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Even though the tribal land is supposed to be the property of the tribes, they do not have absolute control of its use. They cannot sign contracts with energy companies without government cooperation and assistance.
Meanwhile, you seem to be remarkably thin-skinned. That always impedes discussions. And it seems you can’t keep track of your own position.
“My questions were clear and simple. Why are you having so much trouble here?”
And:
“No, the problem is not in me because I don’t even think you know what the question is(in fact there simply was no question)”
Even though you asked a question, which I posted in my response, you’re saying the question wasn’t asked. Okay….
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@Sharina,
Last sentence in point 2 here
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Jefe I’m in moderation myself now.
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sb32199, you seem quite knowledgeable about the energy industry unlike those that kid King. Can you please edumacate the rest of us kid on the energy industry? In addition you may want to also impart your overall knowledge! Thanks and carry on!
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I nean that kid King, hahahaha, sorry was laughing to hard. Folks don’t laugh and type at the same time!
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sb32199
“Sharina, with every response, you make it clearer and clearer you don’t know anything about the energy industry.”—Once again I never said I did (in fact this could be the second time that I said I don’t), but you repeating it does not change the fact that you don’t either. While I love being the center of attention at times, the issue is not me but rather the oil industry you claim to know so much about but can only respond on basics that took me 1 minute to find on google search.
“Like I said, the related segments of the industry — from finding oil to pumping gas into a car — are managed in a relatively seamless way. No tribe would find itself stuck halfway between finding oil and selling to end-users if it began the process of exploiting its resources. That’s not how the industry works.”—-That is great but my issue was never whether or not it was a “seamless” process or not. My issue was that there is more to it than drilling. People do not just drill unless they know there is something to drill for. These people would need to find a person to determine who will do the drilling. BP is not hiding on the land waiting for them to say yes. You are acting like there is a oil company on standby ready to simply drill. Sorry no and when I wanted details on how this process starts from the top you gave me a text book google search response glittered with what you think of me and what the tribes are going through. None of which is my concern other than the process you claim is just simple. If you can not explain it then simply use a source.
The two points below are the issues being addressed:
1. What is the oil drilling process from start to finish? Since you disagree with me saying there is more to it than simply drilling then you need to show that all there is is drilling. I have sources that prove other wise but I am giving you an option here. Here is a repeat of me saying this to you above “You disagree with this? If it is so simple then your next reply should explain the process. ”
2. You made the claim up thread that due to the advances in technology there is no risk to the lands. I also have a source that says otherwise. I will post it later.
“Even though you asked a question, which I posted in my response, you’re saying the question wasn’t asked. Okay….”—The only question posted in your response is “You disagree with this?” A simple yes or no. Unless you want to count “Why are you having so much trouble here?” But as far as the main issue…..No a question was not asked. If you are unsure of the issue please review above.
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jefe
Thanks for the link. Abagond has an extended library on troll behavior it seems.
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Sharina: “1. What is the oil drilling process from start to finish? ”
I listed all the steps a couple of times. Here we go again. Finding, drilling, producing, gathering, transporting, refining and marketing.
Obviously everything about the oil and gas industry is news to you. There are companies — Schlumberger is one — that find oil reserves. They use sonar and other techniques to locate underground and underwater reservoirs. But when it comes to oil and gas beneath tribal territory, it’s already known that there’s oil and gas in general area where tribes live. Some additional work would be necessary to determine the size of reservoirs beneath tribal lands, but there’s no doubt drillers would start drilling on tribal land tomorrow if the government weren’t blocking the way.
As for whether or not drillers will take a shot at drilling without knowing if there’s oil down below, in fact, that was the old way, known as “wlidcatting.” But even today some drillers still take chances by working at the fringes of know oil and gas fields. The leases cost less.
Drilling? That shouldn’t throw you.
Producing: That means pumping the oil out of the ground.
Gathering: When the oil and gas are up at the surface they are collected and prepared for the next step.
Transportation: taking the oil and/or gas to the next stop. Oil goes to the refinery. Most gas goes into pipelines that run from the gas fields to the cities and towns where it’s consumed.
Refining: Boiling the oil in fractionating columns to break it into its components, from heavy fuel oil to naphthalene.
Marketing: Your local gas station, or other appropriate venues for the specific products.
“2. You made the claim up thread that due to the advances in technology there is no risk to the lands. ”
No. I didn’t. But I did state that the combination of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling makes it possible to drill many wells from one small patch of ground, thereby sharply reducing the number of drilling pads that found in oil and gas fields.
Every industrial process is imperfect. No manufacturing or industrial process is risk free. Meanwhile, we’ve bee drilling and extracting oil and gas from the ground in and around the US for 150 years. During that time we’ve gotten pretty good at it.
Russia, on the other hand, does sloppy work. Under Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi oil industry became a mess. Iran is obviously botching the management of their oil fields, as is Venezuela.
We manage our fields well. Meanwhile, everyone in the US and in most of the world loves the benefits of oil and gas. Despite the love, some people can’t stop themselves from complaining about the industry. That’s how it is.
I am professionally involved with the energy industry.
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Sb32199
I know you listed the steps that proved my point that there is more to it than drilling (although there are actually prior steps as well), but guess what??? It proves MY POINT. Your whole post to me proved my point. I am not asking you to prove my point I am asking you to prove YOURS. YOU disagreed with what I said and it is you that needs to prove that what I said was incorrect…not basically sabotage your own stance. Unless of course now you are switching foot? In one breath you disagreed that there was more to it than drilling yet in another you list all the steps and things that go along with the process. So I have to ask what is the point of this disagreeing just to be disagreeable when you are still agreeing and not really acknowledging it?
“Obviously everything about the oil and gas industry is news to you.”—How’d you guess? Oh perhaps it was after my umpteenth time telling you just that. Though it changes what? This insult got old the moment I admitted that I didn’t. Besides considering you proved my point in detail I have to wonder if this does not simply apply more to you than me (project much).
“No. I didn’t. But I did state that the combination of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling makes it possible to drill many wells from one small patch of ground, thereby sharply reducing the number of drilling pads that found in oil and gas fields”—-Actually you said “As for what happens when oil and gas wells are drilled, well, due to the advances of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling , many wells can be drilled from one small site” but neither here nor there is you are rephrasing it. This was however in response to this “Plus it can damage the land so if they are living on it, then I would not personally recommend drilling on it.” So in this case your response was a disagreeance to the damage of land based on hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling , but that still does not change the fact that there is damage and there is risk to drilling that could harm the environment and the tribe. Regardless of whether or not the U.S. has gotten “pretty good.” You act as if this seal of “pretty good” means all is well and frankly it does not. For anyone that chooses to drill there is still much to take into consideration besides financial gain.
“I am professionally involved with the energy industry.”—That is great but claiming an authority on the matter does not gain you more credibility and the mere fact that you sought to use that card this late in the debate is suspect at best.
So now that you have taken the time to prove my point. I have to ask….what was your point?
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As an added bonus I will add one of my sources.
http://www.texasoilminerals.com/economics.html
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@ Jefe
Awesome! Thank you for the book recommendations.
Not surprised. This is certainly the case with Native American history.
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@King,
I have a friend who is ethnic Chinese born and raised and living in Hong Kong who hitchhiked 20 years ago up and down East Africa, including Kenya and Tanzania, etc., often staying with local families. He told me that Africans often called him “white” because of his fair skin. They often lumped him into a racial category that included Europeans. (Actually, this probably would happen in the USA too – southern Indians, Melanesians and Australian Aboriginals would often just get labelled “Negro” or “Black”.)
My point is that genetic distance is not a very reliable indicator of how societies divide themselves into races. In Malaysia (and also Singapore) you must have your “race” indicated on your national ID card. In Malaysia it is especially important as different laws apply to difference “races”. Those designated as “Malay” are also subjected to certain Sharia laws not applying to Chinese, Indians, Caucasians, etc. but also enjoy certain affirmative action (racial preference) privileges. They also have a category called “Eurasian” which are non-Muslims (usu Christians) who can trace their paternal ancestor to a European, but are otherwise mixed Asian. I just went to Malaysia last month and I had a “Eurasian” interpreter to help me interview people. He was of German, Hokkien Chinese, Burmese and Malay descent. Singapore, on the other hand, completely revamped their racial categorization rules a few years ago. Before they required all persons to be labelled according to the racial label of the father. It created the situation that first generation Eurasians (children of Caucasian parent and Asian parent) could not label themselves as Eurasian, but the race of the father only. Now, they can pick 2 races, a primary one and a secondary one, and a first generation Eurasian can now pick Eurasian as one of the choices if they want.
My point – despite that we can might be able trace the genetic distance from the Americas to Asia as being closer than, say, African to European, it does not mean that society will treat them as the same racial category. I have never seen any American literature or law which categorized Native Americans socially or legally in the same racial category as Chinese or Japanese. In fact, prior to inventing the word “Asian” in the 1970s, Chinese and Japanese were placed into *SEPARATE* categories by the US government. I suspect that North Africans and Central Africans are probably closer genetically (and culturally) than most Native Americans are to Asians, but even they are in a separate category in the USA.
Mississippi had many Choctaw and Chinese in the late 19th to the mid-20th century during Jim Crow. Just take a look on how they handled their “color” problem during segregation.
Not interested. He derailed the topic (look at the topic of this post) and has no interest in putting it back on topic. I have no interest in debating anything with him.
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You know…I am confused on why whites will brag about Asians being the Model Minority, but once someone really starts to break down the model minority stereotype they abandon it like it was the plague or something. Some just can’t change the subject fast enough.
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OFF TOPIC: Native Americans, except for their relationship with Asian Americans. Oil drilling is WAY off topic.
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I may have missed it at some point in the discussion, but when did the model minority idea come about?
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@Sharina
Colour-blind white-washed Americans RUN as soon as there is a hint that someone might use the R-word.
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@ jeffe
It’s funny, I have wondered about this since my teenage years. I have always noticed that many Koreans, Japanese, and Chinese have very similar skin tone to Europeans. I have never understood this idea of Asians being yellow! Asians seem to vary between brown to white in skin tone. So I could see how someone unfamiliar with the way asians are radicalized could get confused.
No, I should say not. I think that you and I both believe that “race,” as it is understood today, is a fairly new concept, and that it is derived from many different criteria. Or in the familiar shorthand, “race is a social construct.”
No, in my opinion, the genetics don’t matter… (at least not that much) it’s really culture that makes most of the difference. I only point it out because Whites, in particular, seem to be obsessed with race and genetics as indicators of common behavior rather than culture. My point in comparing the first Asian settlers with the latest Asian settlers is simply to point out that it is NOT so much the genetics. People can come from the same area or have close genetic ties and yet develop totally different cultures.
Possible, but I doubt it.
http://scienceblogs.com/geneticfuture/2009/04/30/massive-study-of-african-genet/
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2010/02/18/genomes-of-desmond-tutu-bushmen-show-africas-huge-genetic-diversity/#.U2g-EF7etHM
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* Correction: “unfamiliar with the way asians are radicalized could get confused”
my stupid spell check did that
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UGHH “RACIALIZED!”
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Kristl said this (and some other curious things): “just as we white people love to correct other people’s grammar”
What?
It was one of the shocking things about moving to Canada as a child that my grammar was superior to many of the adults. I automatically would correct others or rankle when they used bad grammar. I think of it as more of a Brit thing than a white thing to be corrective of others’ grammar. It’s offensive and curious to me that Kristl is slyly positioning whites as bastions good grammar. It’s a sly move with seemingly some weight given the constant examples in American media of slack jawed inarticulate blacks.
I realize now that many of those adults wanted to tell me “Fuck You!”, but it’s far too great a loss of face to be visibly affected by a child. It took many years to realize that people do not want to be corrected when they use bad grammar. It took a few more years to realize that the unwillingness to be corrected was not always a case of laziness and apathy. Marcus Aurelius has a wonderful bit of advice for correcting the speech of others when they make an error and you simply feel compelled to address it. It’s in Meditations; when I read the passage it was like a weight lifting from my chest. I also chided myself for having been so rigid in times past.
I was last corrected on my grammar by a wise teacher (and one of my Aunts) from early childhood who instilled in me the importance of speaking properly and well.
(Of course, King is scratching his head right now, given my fondness for profanity. 😀 )
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They are either going to sniff the “R-word” and flee, or talk back very condescendingly or quote a few irrelevant and dubious statistics. Just watch.
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Yes, but your profanity is grammatically correct, well punctuated, and uses proper syntax and conjugation.
Nothing is more offensive than profanity that uses the wrong tense! 🙂
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Legion wrote: “It was one of the shocking things about moving to Canada as a child that my grammar was superior to many of the adults. I automatically would correct others or rankle when they used bad grammar.”
Don’t pat yourself on the back too hard. Neither of your two preceding sentences are free of errors.
As for correcting the speech of adults when you were a kid, well, even though you suggest you gained some insight over the years, it seems you missed the plenty.
And you close with a whopper: “I was last corrected on my grammar by a wise teacher (and one of my Aunts) from early childhood who instilled in me the importance of speaking properly and well. ”
The preceding is an example of hubris.
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@ sb32199
We are rarely aspiring to academic level writing when we’re dropping comments on a blog. We tend to write in a more relaxed mode, allowing for a less rigorous proofing process in order to facilitate volume and speed. But then again, how one writes and how one speaks can often be quite different and context-dependent.
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@ King
Absolutely. I love how Abagond’s banquet has so many contributions…even sandwiches are welcome.
I don’t think it matters if a person writes flawlessly. Not at all.
Sometimes the most nutritious comments are the ones that are imperfect!
It only matters that the reader can SEE the meaning.
So much better than incredibly dull, through trying too hard to be blemish-free. 😀
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* So much better than BEING incredibly dull, through trying hard too hard to be blemish-free 😀 *
There. I am in dyslexics-heaven! LOL!
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@ sb32199
You don’t get it. I’m fine with making errors. To err is human you know; feel free to point out those errors. And by the way: “Fuck You!” 😀
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It only matters that the reader can SEE the meaning.
So much better than incredibly dull, through trying too hard to be blemish-free. 😀
Amen.
^And amen on that too.
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Kiwi
It is about time you showed up. I was really looking forward to your input.
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Legion
“And by the way: “Fuck You!” :D”
Rofl
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Jefe
Perhaps they will do us one better and simply not respond.
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@ Bulanik
Me too 🙂
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@ Jefe, it is approaching summer so I seem to have just a little time on my hand before summer school starts for the kids.
I do agree that stereo types are graded in. However, I grew-up with a few Asians. We were slammed with each other because being the only black kid in the school they were technically the only other minority. Also didn’t help that most people thought of me as Urkel.
So I got to hear from the teachers commits to my friends. You are Asian you should try harder when they failed something. Plus, there was an ever shifting battle between Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans on which group didn’t like which one. Yet, because this is America they were all lumped together. Culturally, the climate in my school Asian population was horrible and yet either the teachers didn’t care to find out or were too dumb to.
So I guess Asians aren’t a monolithic group, well dah!
@ sb32199 I’ll only ask that you look more about the countries we are talking about. America is not easy to get into in the first place. You still have to cross the Ocean, rich here and rich in another country does not equate the same thing. Stop being so foolish and opening yet another regurgitated comment. I had enough of those in high school.
America is sitting on the other side of an ocean from most immigrates. Even illegal ones(Which wasn’t the subject of my comments stay focus I deal with kids with ADHD and ADD all day I rather not have to try to focus someone on my time off from school.), since we are focusing on Asian and Muslim countries in my comments, you still have to put in monetary means.
What do you think people swim over here, or that some benevolent person is paying for people to come here? My goodness naivety is one thing but in this day in age you can find the answers by investigating even without Encyclopedia Brown to help. All you have to do sb32199 is look at the countries we are talking about and think how if you had no money would you make it all the way over there.
However, there are only usually two ways to do it which is either money or connections. I don’t teach students who can write any more but I guess having done it I should direct you a little more. If we are talking about American Muslims & Asians then you would juxtaposing them against the French, Netherland, and Dutch or the plebeian way of putting the European Asian & Muslim situation vs. the American A&M situation. Which compares jobs, social standings, and income earned that are usually taken by those ethnic groups by countries.
Any way I have grant writing to work on so I won’t be back for at least a few weeks. Yet if you leave you comment I will try to get back when I find that I can’t look at the grant anymore.
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I attended a school that was about 1/3 black and 2/3 white and less than 1% Asian or Eurasian and less than 1% Latino and 2% triracial (from the mixed Native American/black/white communities). It was soon after desegregation, so it was when the schools were technically the most integrated, at least along black/white parameters.
Socially, they were not. Separate clubs and organizations sprout up for blacks and whites. I noticed the “Amerasians” (with white military fathers) stuck mostly with the whites. I think it was because their family’s social situation was strictly connected to their fathers who moved around and they had European or Anglo surnames also. Their families had no connection to local Asian American communities and the whites treated them very differently from how they treated me. For the full Asian kids or those that did not have white military fathers, they either stuck to themselves or tried to join the white groups. For me, besides the non-racially identified organizations (ie, the band and the Math Club) I did join one of the black clubs. I felt very uncomfortable with the all-white clubs because they had all this negative talk about blacks, but the black clubs were not full of all this negative talk. But even in the band, the blacks and whites separated from each other.
Later on, I was a substitute teacher at one of the schools I attended. I heard many teachers make comments about this black/Filipino kid in the school. They thought that the reason he did not hang around easily with the black groups was because of “cultural differences” at home from his Filipino mother. But I suspected the blacks knew his mother was Asian and singled him out for that.
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Gee, it seems like you like to see if you can simplify things by reparaphrasing. The short answer is NO, that is not what I am saying.
I think the situation of “last name” is maybe a factor, but not the only thing I was trying to point out.
My main point was the issues that are more specific to war bride children with American military fathers and mothers from Asia. They came to the USA joining their husbands, without much, if any connection to respective Asian-American ethnic groups in the USA. Moreover, they often live in or near US military bases when they first come back to the USA. As such, most of those women form few relationships with the Asian American communities and their kids, albeit half Asian and perhaps even born in Asia, grow up without much family or community connection to Asian American groups. That is a phenomenon that I associated with the “Amerasian” version of the biracial kids that I grew up with. Having a non-Asian surname also helped. Other kids thought they looked a little different, may have even seen their Asian mom, but seemed not to think of them as being from a different ethnic community than the other white people. Also, this was an observation I made in the community and school I grew up in and am wary about extrapolating that to other communities. In fact, I remember visiting my grandparents in Alabama during the summer in the 1970s, and there was a white military man married to a Vietnamese with 3 kids who moved into the house behind hers. When we went to visit during the summer, my brother and I played with their kids, and formed a sort of playgroup with no white kids. My grandmother had all sorts of SCATHING remarks about that white man who went an married one of them “ferners” and had kids that were obviously part Asian (messing up his white bloodline). So even if kids are born to a white military father and an Asian war bride, it does not mean that they will be immune to negative treatment in the community.
Yes, I have indeed heard of many cases of Asian/white kids marking themselves as “white” to make it easier to get into universities. And indeed, Scott Chambers will probably able an easier time getting away with that than Scott Chang, even if Scott Chambers is 3/4 and unmistakably Asian looking. But, I think there are many factors that universities use to screen potential Asian candidates, so it might work some of the time, maybe not all the time. Scott Chang will have a harder time explaining how he ended up “white”.
I don’t think surnamed as “Lee” helps that much, as Asians surnamed Lee probably outnumber whites and blacks surnamed Lee, so someone who is actually white or black will probably need to “prove” that they are not Asian. There are many other ambiguous names out there – pre-1965 many Asian-Americans spelled their names in ways that would not look suspiciously Asian, e.g., “Lowe” instead of “Lo”, “Young” instead of “Yeung” or “Yeong”, “Joe” instead of “Chow” or “Chou”, “Louis” instead of “Lui”, etc.
No I am not saying that exactly. It really depends.
I think that probably the husband in a family will have more impact on where the family lives and in what kind of community, and the social effect of interacting with that community. Marrying an Asian woman only has a slight dent into the white male privilege that the white male enjoys, esp. nowadays. And if one of reasons the Asian female married the husband included benefiting from some of those white male privileges, then she might wish to confer them on her children. However, as we mentioned before, it will not be absolute. It may also be affected, say, if the parents divorce.
An Asian man might also get some more honorary white man privileges if he marries a white woman. They might see the Asian man as less “other” if he has a white wife that he brings along at social and business occasions. In that case, he is still gaining privilege as an Asian man, not retaining privilege as a white man as in the reverse situation.
As a very broad generalization, whereas the wife tends to have more influence on the practice within the home, the husband will have more impact on how the family interacts with the broader community. The white husband comes with white privileges. The Asian husband has to earn them. The children of a white father might grow up with them, but might not use them in the same way when he gets older. The children of an Asian father, should they so choose, have to continue to work on earning white privileges, but which nay have gotten a slight boost from having a white mother. In either case, for an Asian woman attracted to white male whatever, a Eurasian male will probably get more points on that than a full Asian man would. The one with a white father has a European surname to boot.
now there are other factors, eg,
– which extended family is nearby, ie, will the kids grow up closer to their Asian relatives or their non-Asian relatives
– which side of the family was more rejecting or more accepting of the marriage
– if the white man married the Asian woman and gains access to her family’s privileges, eg, a family business, then it might be a bit more complicated. (Example, the Asian woman’s father and uncle and cousin opened a medical clinic and her white husband is an aspiring doctor with no doctors in his family – some privileges might be conferred in the opposite direction.)
There is no “one size fits all” way to analyze this.
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I have been taking a look at the 3 books you are focusing on, and I think of the 3, the Frank Wu book really focuses down on the role and function and to some extent, the history of Asians in Race Relations in the USA, and its place between or alongside black and white. Its audience is more targeted towards all Americans, and focuses on race relations.
The other two books basically focus on historical narratives not normally covered in our US history books. So they are good references for studying history, but less applicable for studying and ANALYZING race relations.
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I would say that a white female, who already starts out with a bit less privilege than a white male, will stand to lose a lot of privilege after marriage to an Asian male. It will revert back closely to the amount of white privilege the Asian male has amassed already (which may be slightly augmented by the marriage to the white female). The white female may still be able to exert some white privilege as an individual white person, but it will be much more limited as it does not automatically extend to her family.
A white male, whose privilege is already higher than a white female, does not lose much white male privilege after marrying an Asian woman. The Asian woman suddenly gains a lot of white privilege from her marriage.I could see some Asian women living more or less like a white woman after marriage (esp. if they emphasize their white family connection and social inheritance).
As far as the kids, the ones from a AM/WF marriage probably can start out at the level of the AM one (which may have been lifted slightly from the WF marriage) and work from there. So it may be similar to other American born Asian males, but boosted faster by having a white mother. The ones from the AF/WM is trickier. They can start out similar to the WM level (which is already much higher than the AM/WF level), but may have trouble maintaining or asserting it especially the males.
I wonder how the WF see their white privilege affected by marriage to a black man. I actually think they lose more white privilege by marrying an Asian man than by marrying a black man.
BTW, this is taking a one sided viewpoint. There could be some families seeking greater “Asian” privilege, ie, for the white persons seeking to gain more privilege in an Asian based society. But that is SO rare, I can only think of a couple examples of it.
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I always find it much harder to think about this when thinking about how to navigate my own son around this issue. I still remember the things my teachers would say to my Asian friends. “You’re Asian you should be getting good grades!”, Of course you’ve already read Shakespeare you’re Asian. Quite a few of my friends cracked under the weight of the expectations that society had for them. Yet, one of the big things we would talk about on the lunch table was why study so hard if you didn’t have so many options. Doctor, Lawyer, or own your own business.
Most of my friends parents did own their own business if they were American. (We had a lot of overseas tag-a-longs who were also lumped in with us. Which create even more problems.) The future we envisioned was the mid-manager drift where you never really move up higher. I wish we had the internet like now back then. Back then we couldn’t name one Asian captain of industry. Not one.
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^ Yeah, role models are very important.
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Better late than never. Happy Filipino American history month!
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Miyamoto Eriana is Japan’s first Afro-Asian chosen as a representative in the Miss Universe pageant.
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I read about Richard Aoki who was an activist in the Black Panther movement. I also read he was an informant for the FBI and sold weapons to the Panthers but also that he sold them out at the same time.
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@ Abagond,
It’s Asian-American History Month and reading through the Peter Liang thread, it’s about time there is a post on Black-Asian race relations. It’s long past due.
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I second Leigh’s nomination.
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@ Leigh
Yes, ma’am.
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