The Fighting 44s

** Idea adapted from BananaBoys with the blessing of Terry Woo.

Any of you assholes ever done this? Divide your brain into a pie chart, splitting it by percentage with whatever stuff you’re thinking about at the moment?

Here’s an example:

40% Work.
20% Money.
20% Sex.
10% Creative stuff (for Tojo, it’s mostly Asian identity issues.)
10% Basic functioning stuff - bills, groceries, tuition, excercise, laundry, etc.
—-
100% - TOTAL

The thing is about Asian identity issues is that it seems to pre-occupy a fairly large amount of brainpower these days, to the point of consuming me and skewing the pie, like nuclear cherry filling. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing: I have a personal interest in it, a passion for it, a historical background in it, a vested interest, and an outlet (i.e. here.)

But as a result, things get kind of negative, sometimes. Why? I think it’s because it’s based primarily on The Politics of Grievance.

The heart of Asian identity politics is about crimes committed against us - not only by external forces, but even by our own kind:

• CCB’s
• Then AMs who trash all AFs as a result of CCBs
• And then AFs who trash all AMs for trashing AFs as CCBs
• And then finally, bitch-ass AMs who trash other AMs to get over it.

(Lemme tell you, there’s nothing more negative when someone who looks like you, talks like you, who by all rhyme and reason you should have loads in common with, ends up bitchslapping you upside the head.)

Is there room, then, in our quest for identity for The Politics of Joy? We all know that the road of Asian identity politics is fraught with peril and aggravation, but are there things on this road to rejoice in?

• About the fact that we actually have a culture to draw from? (A common problem, for example, with modern white Americans is that they have no direct connection to their culture, and as a result become aimless and adoptive of other cultures for meaning - read: Orientalism.)
• About the fact that this culture is a source of driving passion for us? That caring deeply about something this substantial makes us better people?
• About the inherent strength our culture gives us? (Example: being Asian gives me an Asian family - solid to the bone, based on the culture. Anecdotally, I know so many white kids who’ve been thrown out at age 16, with only alienation and contempt towards their folks. Thank Vishnu it’s not me.)

Grievance has become a way of life for many of us - I think the conventional wisdom is I’d rather be angry than cry. But I know that this does not and cannot sustain.

I may forget this sometimes, but our battle is also a joyous thing. To be able to move forward so far so fast in this crazy time in human history - it’s an amazing thing. So many people in life these days seemed mired on a track or in a structure that gets them nowhere: maybe a bunch of new toys here and there, but they’s no good when youse dead. Sure, there’s a lot of pain in this battle, but I see so much potential for goodness in the search for identity.

I’ve ultimately figured that out. And I’m glad I did.

And now I want you to figure it out, too. There’s a time and a place for anger. Don’t let it preclude you from the goodness.

– General Tojo, The Fighting 44s
(currently buying pennywhistles and moonpies.)

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 22nd, 2004 at 7:27 pm and is filed under Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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