Inter-racial Dating by Asian-Americans
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Given that inter-racial dating and marriage, and sexuality and self-esteem in general, is a significant issue among Asian-Americans, I thought it would be appropriate to make a serious, sober, and reasoned statement on the topic (as opposed to the sarcastic, and some would say hilarious, things we’ve said in the past).
This statement only represents the views of Lopan and I, the founders of this site and online community. It does not represent the views of our members, of whom we have many men and women of varying ages and ethnicities.
I begin with this: we believe that inter-racial dating and marriage is a good thing. At its best, and in its healthy form, based on love and mutual respect, it transcends ethnocentric boundaries of race, nationality, religion, and culture, and nurtures an atmosphere of acceptance and an appreciation for diversity. Diversity is good, love is good, and understanding the “Other” and integrating that “Other” into the “Self” is good, and is something for which people should generally strive, regardless of involvement in race and gender politics.
The effect of colonialism and racism is that it distorts social and economic structures, and perverts fundamentally “good” things or ideas into something less good, and potentially harmful. Take the idea of “equality” for example. Early, or classical, Liberalism was founded on the notion that all women and men were equal and should be treated “equally.” People began to notice, however, that because of power imbalances in the social, economic, and political structures, treating everyone the same, or “equally,” resulted in gross inequality and the oppression of women and minorities (be they ethnic, sexually-alternative, or disabled). As a result, people began to advocate for specific groups and causes, and proposed “special” (or “unequal”) treatment for women and minorities to try to balance out those inequalities. As a result, “total” or “absolute” equality is now regarded by advocates and rights groups as a bad thing, even though it was intrinsically a good idea, but ended up perpetuating or exacerbating colonial and racist distortions.
And now we come to inter-racial relationships by Asians. I completely agree that, generally, Asian females and males ought to pursue whatever romantic relationship they wish without “giving power” to colonial and racist distortions by making decisions as reactions to those distortions. In the case of AA advocacy specifically, however, I do not agree that Asian females and males ought to pursue whatever romantic relationship they wish. (Julia Oh takes a similar stance in her discussion of the special considerations of APIA feminist activism here.)
I say this because the advocate, the activist, is no longer merely a private citizen, but is in a special position, a political position, and political positions are symbolic. They represent ideals, which is why the personal lives of politicians are given so much scrutiny, and why the political and the personal are not actually two separate things, as some believe.
When you stand up and say that you represent AA rights, AA pride, AA beauty, AA unity, AA power, then you must live AA rights, AA pride, AA beauty, AA unity, AA power. Remember that you are not only a symbol of equality, pride, beauty, unity, and power in humanity, but you represent the hopes and emancipation of a specific segment of humanity, and not humanity as a whole, though you might indeed love humanity as a whole. Your standing up, your shouting, your struggle, is in direct opposition to the existing power structure. You actually oppose some aspect of the broader society because you are struggling against the power structures in place.
As such, when you choose a “significant other,” whether that be marriage or simply dating, and you are in a symbolic position of advocacy and leadership for a minority group, you ought to be (1) a member of that minority group and (2) have close relations with that minority group in your life, personal and political.
Remember, that when you choose your wife or husband or life partner or relationship, you are not only making a statement to yourself, not only making a statement to that other person, but you are also making a statement to the world. You are saying that at present, this is the person I love, the person I trust, the person I can most relate to in all the whole wide world. And if the person you love, trust, and most relate to in all the whole wide world, is not Asian, and you’re an Asian activist, then that is a symbolic statement to the world that you don’t actually stand for the advancement of Asian interests in opposition to colonial racist interests, you stand for some broader human interest that takes you out of the Asian advocacy sphere. You have found that you relate best to someone who is not Asian, and you have gained better access, willingly or not, to some of the advantages of colonial racist privilege which you are supposedly struggling against.
You are an Asian advocate. You speak for Asians. You fight for Asians. The question is simple: do you stand for “Asianness” or not? If you marry someone white, then you don’t stand for “Asianness.” You stand for something else entirely.
There is no way around this. This is an “either/or” situation. This is why you become an advocate in the first place, because someone else has power that you want to shift to you. This is not a situation of transcendence or all-inclusiveness or love or universal acceptance. This is “us vs. them” because that’s the only way we attain rights and respect. Someone else has power that we want. And the same goes for any form of advocacy. An environmentalist, who fights for “all people,” the whole world, fights against big industry. They can’t marry oil tycoons. A human rights activist fights against despots and corrupt governments. They can’t marry Saddam or his sons. A minority activist fights against the oppressive structures imposed by the majority. You can’t marry into the majority.
And if you do? You stand for something else entirely.
Essentially, then, the stance of the Fighting 44s is this: date and marry whoever you want if you’re a regular person, but if you’re a racial political advocate, if you’re putting yourself out there to stand up for Asians, then you should probably go out with an Asian, because otherwise you’re undermining the message.
If you advocate for hybrid cars by day and drive an SUV by night, you lose credibility. If you advocate for organic products by day and eat processed foods by night, you lose credibility. If you advocate for African-American unity by day and go out with white Americans by night, you lose credibility. This reasoning is not a product of insecurity, or patriarchy, or of somehow “giving in” to a colonized mentality, it’s a product of practicing what you preach.
I acknowledge that one could make the argument that one is “preaching” freedom, respect, awareness, pride, but not some sort of limiting ethnocentric unity, and I understand that. But power and public presence comes with a price, and that price is a limitation of freedom, because you are now a symbol, and as a symbol, you now “belong” to a greater group, and you are now representing something larger than just yourself.
The always astute Jenn Fang has written her own thoughts on the inter-racial debate, and it is what prompted me to finally lay my own thoughts out above.
It’s a wonderfully written piece, but as you can tell from the above, I don’t agree with everything she has said. I’d like to briefly address a few points that she makes.
1.
“Those who believe the dating disparity is a problem should be prepared to present statistics, evidence and cogent arguments as to why those of us who are skeptical about the impact of the dating disparity should change their opinion. Just as I must be prepared to present evidence of sexism online, body image concerns amongst APIA women, and the glass ceiling, proponents of the dating disparity issue should not hide within a sense of entitlement that their argument must be accepted universally, without having to make efforts that there is a widespread real-world impact to the dating disparity that combats the concerns facing APIA feminists.”
I want to emphasize that it is very tempting on the internet to take rants and nearly incoherent “thoughts” from barely literate “writers” and treat them as representative of an opposing stance. This, as we all know, is very different from engaging in serious discourse. Forget about the online ranting by incoherent Asian males and ignorant Asian females. It’s too easy to set up “straw man” arguments against either of those sides. I take it as a given that sexism exists, patriarchy exists, body image concerns and higher suicide rates among AA women exist, and general self-esteem issues and glass ceilings certainly exist for AA men and women. It’s one thing to argue against legions of ignoramuses on the internet, and it’s another to discuss these issues with people in the know. Sexual colonialism damages female and male AAs, but it does so in different ways (and in different “sub-ways” depending on whether you fit certain beauty and behavioral norms).
I also take it as a given that a significant “IR disparity” exists, as anyone “in the know” should know. If you take CN Le’s numbers as fact, APIA women outmarry, what, 50% more, at least? If you take the numbers of others who have examined the census data, you get ratios of 2:1 or 3:1. Regardless of whose data you prefer, a significant disparity exists, and that’s just marriage. Dating, incidentally, is probably even higher, and on a humorous note, you can play the IR punching game with a friend (or significant other!), where one of you looks for white male/ Asian female couples, and the other looks for Asian male/ white female couples on the street, and you punch the other person’s shoulder whenever you spot your particular combination. The AM/WF spotter invariably ends up with a very sore shoulder, and the WM/AF spotter usually ends up with a more toned and muscular arm.
2.
“If you believe that Asian American women are disproportionately dating outside the community and that this is a problem … you are ultimately arguing that what an APIA woman has chosen to do with her life is less relevant than what you perceive the consequences of her actions to be. APIA feminism, on the other hand, argues that Asian American men and women should be treated equally, including equal respect for one’s personal choices.”
This is not our “ultimate argument” and would not be the ultimate argument of anyone who knows something about social theory and is engaged in serious discourse. Our argument is simply that colonialism and racism are having a pathologically distortive effect on AA sexual relations (which it also has on African-American sexual relations, to name one other group, and which AA feminists take for granted has an effect on AA female self-esteem and body image, which are related to sexuality). This distortive effect, as do most effects of colonialism and racism, ultimately privileges heterosexual white males. With regard to what an AA women chooses to do with her life being less relevant than the consequences for “the cause,” any compassionate and socially aware AA male would never state or imply that. As I say above, an AA woman or man not directly involved in advocacy can and should date whoever s/he wants. One who actually fights and advocates and embodies “the cause,” however, stands for something more. It’s not that advocacy is more “relevant” than personal romantic decisions, it’s that personal romantic decisions are relevant to advocacy.
Remember, racism and colonialism benefits heterosexual white males the most. When you treat everyone “equally” in the classical Liberal sense without accounting for social and economic power structures, the heterosexual white man ends up on top. So to actually achieve “equal” treatment, you have to form advocate and special interest groups (a distinctly “unequal” thing to do) to chip away at that heterosexual white male power. It’s very hard to chip away at heterosexual white male power when we are making love to the heterosexual white male.
3.
“The argument that interracial relationships justifies distrust of APIA feminists doesn’t hold water with me. As I have expounded on before, to believe that outmarriage represents a “betrayal” of Asian American men by Asian American women is to argue that Asian American men have an existing, fundamental right over Asian American women and that we violate that hold by dating or marrying outside of the community. Only if this sense of entitlement or possessiveness over female sexuality exists can we be seen as disloyal for not “falling in line”. As a feminist, I reject this view, outright …
“The other concern I have with this point is that the issue is about certain APIA men trying to control the sexuality of Asian American women — and that point must be addressed rather than dismissed. I still do not see how one can, on the one hand, argue that an APIA woman should not outmarry based on the perception of that relationship by certain APIA men, on the other hand, that arguing this point isn’t about seeking to remove the decision (and the factors involved) on an Asian American woman’s own sexuality from her hands.”
This is about symbolism and political advocacy, and how personal choices are relevant to that. It is not about “falling in line,” it is not about males wanting to “possess” “their” females. By virtue of being a political and social symbol, one’s personal freedom automatically becomes limited, unless one chooses to undermine or cast aside one’s symbolic status.
Also, the writer is not in a position to say whether any “distrust” or suffering her position engenders “holds water” or not. If I, who supposedly speak for you, do or say something that hurts you, and you tell me that it hurts you, and you tell me that you don’t trust me to speak for you, and I tell you to get over it, or that I don’t believe that you’re hurt by what I’m doing, well, which ethnic majority does my behavior remind you of? And is it a mystery why you might feel more hurt, or perhaps even betrayed, because of my disregard?
4.
“And I don’t believe that facts support the assertion that this topic is always about Asian American women. The very existence of ModelMinority.com with no APIA feminist counterpart should be proof enough that Asian American feminists have been largely silenced in this debate.”
This is a false argument. While I am no fan of what goes on in the MM boards or of most of the members of the site, I could make a counter-argument by saying that MM exists because the larger APIA discourse is skewed toward AA feminist issues. In my estimation, the average American would not be able to name a single AA male author or current media personality, but they would be able to name quite a few AA female authors and personalities. While AA feminists may or may not associate themselves with these personalities, these personalities certainly present themselves as AA feminists and become symbols of AA female representation. In either case, there is no “proof” of anything, just speculation.
5.
“I agree that this is about reciprocation. But I feel APIA feminists have done a very commendable job combating emasculation stereotypes. Most APIA feminists that one reads will discuss stereotypes, universally, including criticizing stereotypes faced by APIA men. What APIA feminists can’t and won’t do is subjugate their own identity, politics, and sexuality in favour of a bandaid solution to the problem of the emasculation stereotype: finding the first APIA man they can and fucking them until they feel better. If the reason why the IR disparity is a concern is that it perpetuates the emasculation stereotype in mainstream American culture, than reciprocation should involve combating the source of those stereotypes, themselves.”
The “fucking them until they feel better” comment is cruel and unnecessary, but I understand where it’s coming from, given the vitriol that Jenn has been reading. In any case, as I say, it’s not about subjugation at all, but symbolism and political representation. Also, the perpetuation of a negative stereotype is a lesser consequence of the “IR disparity.” The primary concern is the existence of the IR disparity itself, which is a pathological distortion of AA sexuality caused by racism and colonialism. (The phenomenon itself is also complex, and I do not “lay it all at the feet” of any one group, as it has multiple causes.)
6.
“Perception is not reality. That’s the whole point of combating stereotypes. If perception were reality, than why should anyone combat emasculation stereotypes or the model minority myth? We would be embodiments of how others perceive us and those stereotypes would be realistic descriptors of who we are.
“It’s not my problem if someone incorrectly perceives my life in a certain way. They are the problem for assuming they know more about my life than I. Don’t blame the victim of stereotypes: it isn’t the responsibility of Asian Americans to fail out of school because bigots perceive us to be “whiz kids”. And, it isn’t the responsibility of Asian American women to change who they are because someone else thinks that the reason they do it is because they are actively shunning Asian American men.”
My stance on stereotyping in general can be found here. Briefly, I believe that stereotyping in itself is not a bad thing, as it’s a natural part of human cognition and stems from the ability to make generalizations by recognizing patterns, a necessary trait for survival. Stereotypes become bad when they are misused or distorted by colonialism and racism.
I agree that it is not your problem if someone incorrectly perceives your life in a certain way, but if you stand up for a certain group of people and a certain set of ideals, then it’s a problem for those people and those ideals.
Rather than pitting perception against reality, which is a false divide, since reality is composed of subjective perception and objective fact (every manifestation of the universe has a subjective and objective component, but that’s a philosophical discussion for another day), I would say that it is a reality that advocacy involves combating perceptions. If the powerful majority really, truly perceived us as equals, then we would be able to act as equals, and we would be treated as equals, and there would be no need for advocacy. The very act of advocating implies that inequality exists, and trying to act as though we were all “equal” in the face of that inequality undermines the advocacy itself. If you, as a leader, a representative, as a symbol, are content to perpetuate negative or harmful perceptions, what exactly are you fighting? You know the ignorance is out there. Isn’t that why you started to advocate in the first place? How can you now act as though that ignorance of perception doesn’t have a harmful effect?
Also, the “don’t blame the victim” argument when applied to stereotypes is simplistic, and probably even harmful. Mocking, disrespecting, or disregarding someone with a stereotype is a mental, not a physical phenomenon, and cannot be compared to something as blunt and obvious and heinous as, for example, rape, where blaming the victim is an abhorrent patriarchal tendency. Something like the “model minority” stereotype was not exclusively a product of colonialism and racism. It also has roots in actual behavior and values, and it continues to be “perpetuated” or “realized” by many 1st generation immigrant families (for understandable reasons). Yes, an AA male or female can have a “colonized” mind and consider white males and females to be “above” or “more desirable” than their AA counterparts, and much of it can be traced back to their upbringing and environment, but this does not absolve him or her of responsibility for his/her thoughts and choices. This creates the very real risk of a culture of victimization, which I believe is propagated in certain advocate circles.
Finally, remember that by making decisions which take social, political, economic, and power structures into account, and therefore by “reacting” to them in some way, you are not “giving power” to those structures because the power is already there, and it’s better to make a decision which accounts for it than one that doesn’t. Using the reasoning that one ought not “give power” to stereotypes and distorted social structures when making life decisions, I can also say that participating in racial/ gender/ sexual activism is also “giving power” to those structures, and that we should simply go on and live our lives, treating everyone “equally,” and that would be the best form of resistance of all. That is what we now call ignorance.
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Ike
4:31 pm | Jul 18, 2007Thanks for taking the time to write this article, D. This is the logical and balanced viewpoint on interracial dating that I was looking for a year ago when I first stumbled upon The Fighting 44s.
atlasien
4:46 pm | Jul 18, 2007“It’s very hard to chip away at heterosexual white male power when we are making love to the heterosexual white male.”
Which implies that making love to the heterosexual white female doesn’t create the same issue.
For all the sex-neutral language you start using halfway through, you’re totally ignoring that “you are who you screw” gets applied to women 99x more than it does to men. The burden of advocate purity is, in practice, on the woman, not the man.
I accept the fact that my personal life is part of a political matrix. I am not prepared to accept a judgment that I don’t have a right to actually TALK because I’m not pure enough. I constantly strive to be honest and consistent in everything I do, and this contradiction is just too much for me. It’s complete bullshit. I’m not prepared to get in a conversation with people who tell me I don’t have the right to talk.
Dialectic
5:17 pm | Jul 18, 2007D: “It’s very hard to chip away at heterosexual white male power when we are making love to the heterosexual white male.”
A: “Which implies that making love to the heterosexual white female doesn’t create the same issue.”
No, it doesn’t imply that. It does imply that there is a power disparity between males and females. This is why “feminism” exists as a broad social and political movement, and “masculinism” does not (the lack of which, incidentally, harms minority males). I use that term not to imply that going out with a white male is “more wrong” than going out with a white female, but to emphasize that straight white males are on top, and that distorts EVERYTHING below in UNEQUAL ways across genders.
In addition, you seem to have taken that one sentence and interpreted it completely out of context. I was referring specifically to heterosexual white males because heterosexual white males are at the top of the food chain. They are not up there on an equal footing with heterosexual white females. That is, in large part, why feminism exists.
A: “For all the sex-neutral language you start using halfway through, you’re totally ignoring that “you are who you screw” gets applied to women 99x more than it does to men. The burden of advocate purity is, in practice, on the woman, not the man.”
I’m not “totally ignoring” this at all. I sense in your tone that you’re angry with me, and that makes me genuinely sad, because I don’t think I’ve given you a reason to me angry with me. I sensed this in your response to The Economist article I posted earlier on marriage as well. I think you’re reading an attitude into my piece that is not there. I’m very, very well aware of the small section of the AA male population that believes the “burden” of advocate “purity” (not my wording) is on the female, when it’s really on both.
Remember, also, TWO things:
1. This debate occurs along a GENDER DIVIDE, and as such, a majority of the time, AA males believe advocates should marry/date their own race, whereas AA females believe that this suppresses freedom, and they should be free to date all. As such, an argument like mine which states that an advocate ought to marry what s/he advocates for will ultimately address mostly heterosexual AA females. It would be disingenuous of me to write in a totally equal “essentiailist” way because Asian males have a different set of sexual problems which aren’t often associated with dating and marrying lots of white women because the racist/colonialist context doesn’t enable it.
2. I just had a very pleasant discussion with some white female colleagues about this, and they brought up the “mention white females” point, too, when I talked about how advocates are ultimately chipping away at the straight, white, healthy male power structure. And again, yes, there is of course a point, as the straight, white, healthy, female is also powerful, but she is number two. All of this discussion, all of this advocacy, occurs in the CONTEXT of the straight, white, healthy, male-defined power structure, and the number one dog likes females, not males, which contributes to our AA gender divide, and again, distorts power and privilege down the line (or hierarchy, or whatever you want to call the power structure). This necessarily has a distortive effect on the discourse, as we will tend to focus most on areas of pathology as a response to straight white healthy male dominance. This results in a focus on Asian female exotification (”white guys love her and she loves them!”) and Asian male emasculation (”nobody loves him and he loves nobody!”) Believe me, I would be happy for Asian females to criticize large numbers of Asian male advocates for “dating outside” for colonial and racist reasons, but it’s not happening to nearly the same extent! Instead, they’re probably getting really good at Halo and finding free Japanese porn on the internet, bless their souls.
To use an example of white male patriarchal distortion, AA males desperately need some form of AA “masculinism,” but that doesn’t exist, because of both white male patriarchy and Asian (not Asian-American) male patriarchy, and if it did would be heavily derided by mainstream culture, the same way something is negative because it is “gay.” When an AA female stands up and says that she loves her males and damn racism and colonialism and white patriarchy, and then goes home with a white male (who could be very loving and compassionate and aware of post-colonial critiques, as I’ve known several), all of what she says is undermined because of what that coupled symbol represents. When someone comes up and says, “Look! Even the woman who loves Asian males is going home with a white dude!” There’s no response for the AA male but to hang his head or get really angry. That’s the political reality.
A: “I accept the fact that my personal life is part of a political matrix. I am not prepared to accept a judgment that I don’t have a right to actually TALK because I’m not pure enough. I constantly strive to be honest and consistent in everything I do, and this contradiction is just too much for me. It’s complete bullshit. I’m not prepared to get in a conversation with people who tell me I don’t have the right to talk.”
Again, I have not used an issue of “purity,” and I won’t make a statement about whether a charged word like that applies. Nor did I say anyone who wasn’t “pure AA” or living a “pure AA life” couldn’t talk or stand up for AA rights. I did say, however, that if we put ourselves in a position where we become a symbol for something, and our lives undermine the message of the symbol, then perhaps we ought to stand for something else. In this case, we could even stand for something greater, like human rights and human friendship. “Asianness,” however, is intrinsically an ethnocentric idea (which is necessary for proper healthy development of ethnic Asian minorities) and as such, an ethnocentric discourse applies when one is advocating for an ethnic identity.
I’ll write more on this in a later feature, but briefly, I feel that in the rights advocates’ great excitement to treat people equally and encourage diversity of universal acceptance, they have also trampled all over the differences they are trying to respect and preserve. There is no point, for example, in having an Asian student “club” which helps AAs discover and develop their Asian identities if whites are permitted to participate on an “equal” footing. The club must intrinsically favor Asians because it exists to serve the growth and development and self-discovery of Asians. Whites generally don’t need groups like this because society as a whole serves their growth and developmetn and self-discovery.
I hope that I’ve been reasonable in what I’m saying, and I don’t want you to be angry with me, because I like and respect you/ your persona.
I feel that there is a trend of uncontextual “hardline” equality which is actually harming the various rights movements which needs to be addressed. Ultimately, we can’t treat males and females “the same” if they are in different positions of power, and their actions have different implications, and when gender intersects with race, sexual orientation, religion, disability, etc., it requires a more nuanced and sensitive approach than the typical advocate arguments can provide.
(There was, incidentally, a debate on our forum a couple years ago about whether an AA advocacy organization could be led by a white person. I said that while white people could certainly contribute and be part of the organization, one could not be the leader or representative face, for similar reasons as I laid out in my article. These organizations exist precisely because the straight white male can get pretty much whatever he wants. If he can get whatever he wants even in organizations which are opposed to his power, what’s the point of the organization? Then you have an organization for humanity, not for Asians. Or from an outsider’s perspective, if even the Asians can’t stand up and represent themselves, why should anyone take them seriously?)
evil_FUX
5:21 pm | Jul 18, 2007^Hmm, I can see how you can come to the conclusion and good points. But I think he was using that as more as a generalized example than a dig at women.
Dialectic
5:36 pm | Jul 18, 2007Thanks, e_F. I also appreciate Atl’s point. I feel, however, that the deconstructive analysis she applies both to my article, and the earlier Economist article, is unfair, because it’s finding a patriarchal bias that isn’t there. My awareness of gender and race issues is on record, and has been since we started this site. I don’t think I have an unconscious bias toward possessiveness of Asian women or shifting the burden of correcting a socio-sexual pathology onto solely Asian women, as I’ve chastised Asian males many, many times for their own ignorance and sense of patriarchal entitlement.
Dialectic
5:57 pm | Jul 18, 2007This comment is addressed to no one in particular, and I’m using a general “you” (because it’s more dramatic). I want you, the reader, to understand that speaking for someone, representing someone, becoming a symbol for someone, carries moral responsibilities which outweigh, limit, or supercede your own personal considerations. Every true leader understands this, or comes to understand the consequences of failing to understand this.
Please understand that advocacy is ultimately about shifting power, and shifting power is about changing the balance of who’s winning and who’s losing. Winners don’t need social advocates, because they’re winning. Losers need them. So everything an advocate does should shift the balance closer to the winning end.
What happens, then, when the people you are advocating for get mocked because of your actions? (regardless of whether we’re dealing with inter-racial relationships or something else entirely) They’re already losing, and now they’re made to feel more like losers. Even if the mockery cannot be morally blamed on your actions, even if it’s the result of the ignorance of the majority that you are not personally responsible for, you knew the ignorance was out there, didn’t you? That is, after all, why you are advocating in the first place. The ignorance of the majority makes losers of the minority. And you’re doing something to perpetuate that ignorance, and that feeling and perception of losing
But forget even the mockery. What if the people you’re advocating for don’t want you to advocate for them? Coming back to our particular case, what gives an AA, male or female, the right to say that s/he speaks for all AAs when some segment, possibly half the population, doesn’t want you to speak for them because of the way you are perceived? Where does that put you morally then? Where does the moral right come from?
How can you speak for me when I don’t want you to? And more than that, how can you speak for me when I think you’re actually hurting me?
theme
6:38 pm | Jul 18, 2007LOVE IT LOVE IT LOVE IT. Intelligent, eloquent, no anger, no bitterness, just logic and love. You summarized the frustrations and anger of the modern day asian american male but you have the patience and the education to express it without putting down anyone in the process.
Props to you D.
Dialectic
8:41 pm | Jul 18, 2007Thanks, theme.
Politics, put yet another way, is about pain. All politics are power politics, and power is distributed unevenly. Those who don’t have power suffer. They fight to feel less pain.
With regard to the frustrations and anger of the politically-aware Asian male, I suppose we can summarize it like this.
“How can you speak for me when you’re hurting me? How can you speak for me when I see you standing there, happy, oblivious to the fact that you stand hand-in-hand with the representation of the person who mocks me, trivializes me, humiliates me, daily? How can you possibly speak for me? You’re hurting me.”
On a personal note, just last week, this 34 year-old, very privileged, very wealthy, very out-spoken white male in my working group made a little dick Asian joke at my lunch table. Best part, of course, is he’s married to a Chinese woman. I hit him back, said something I barely remember about lumpiness and flaccidness, and then a third guy, a nice guy in our group (also white) playfully diffused the situation off my joke, but still, it pissed me off. (And before anyone talks about how I shouldn’t have hit back like that and taken it with more grace and compassion, that’s not how you deal with bullies and alpha-males, and that’s certainly not how to maintain respect or self-esteem.) This shit happens to Asian males all the time. How many Asian females, I wonder, have their race or their sexuality insulted by white females dating Asian males? How often does that happen?
There is no symmetry in Asian American sexual politics because of the distortions caused by straight white male patriarchy. I am not placing any burden wholly on AA female shoulders because it is NOT WITHIN MY POWER to do so. Step-by-step:
1. White males are on top.
2. White males get what they want.
3. For the purposes of this discussion, white males get Asian females. (I won’t go into the complexities of the causation of the “IR disparity.”)
4. The best way to address this racist, colonial distortion is to make the people involved aware of what is happening. The majority of people involved would be white males and Asian females.
This is NOT to absolve AA males of any responsibility to be compassionate or wise or caring or racially aware as well. This is simply saying that in the case of a social sexual distortion, the only people who can stop it are the people who are participating (consciously or not).
Especially after last week’s episode, which actually upset me for a day or two even though I got him back (This is the damage this kind of racism does. Thankfully I had a great workout that evening.), it has taken a great deal of consideration and introspection to write this article and these responses.
I hope that people take my words in the spirit that they’re given.
Vahz
10:57 pm | Jul 18, 2007Very very well done, D.
I owe you a lobster dinner and a drink.
kwak76
11:29 pm | Jul 18, 2007A very fair and well done feature.
howstrange
12:39 am | Jul 19, 2007thank you D.
jaehwan
1:59 am | Jul 19, 2007Hey D,
Great post, and way to show up that fucker in your working group.
The ONLY part I would disagree with is (unfortunately) the essential part:
“So essentially, the stance of the Fighting 44s is this: date and marry whoever you want if you’re a regular person, but if you’re a racial political advocate, if you’re putting yourself out there to stand up for Asians, then [b]you should probably go out with an Asian, because otherwise you’re undermining the message[/b].”
I’m married to an Asian woman, and I think it’s great when advocates marry Asians, but I don’t think people really choose. Yes, it undermines the message when you have a roomful of Asian advocates marrying no one but whites, but who really has control over that? Even though whiteness seems to be a big plus when it comes to attracting certain Asian women, the bottom line is that no one really chooses who they fall in love with.
I’ve got Asian female friends who are married to white guys, and they all contribute in their own ways to help the cause. Some of them contribute a lot, even more than those who marry Asians. ALL of them also understand what we Asian men go through (it seems to be a criterion I have in choosing friends…). Yes, it doesn’t have the same kind of appearance as it would if they were married to Asian men, but it is what it is, and you learn to accept it.
Think of the opposite argument–what would you tell an Asian woman like Jenn who wants to speak out, even though she’s married to a non-Asian? Would you tell her just to sit down and not speak? She may not look the part, she may not be in close contact with Asian men…hell, she may not even be attracted to us. But does that mean she can’t contribute? I’d say that as long as she has the ability to listen to different perspectives, she can still contribute quite a bit. (And actually, I think the real life Jenn does contribute quite a bit through her blog.)
Scowl
2:16 am | Jul 19, 2007This is pretty much the best statement on the issue of the IR disparity that we AAMs have got, but you know that nobody’s going to get it, which is a fucking shame.
D, it’s cool for people to re-post this on other forums and sites, right?
Scowl
2:19 am | Jul 19, 2007Seriously, anytime an AAM is going to write anything about IR, just tack this part from Juliah Oh’s article on at the end:
“All of this is by no means a call to excuse chauvinism and misogyny within the Asian community. Nor is it an indictment on all Asian women. It is not even a call for Asian women to suppress their angst for the benefit of unity, for the façade of solidarity can and will easily crumble. It would be foolish to deny that sexism exists in the Asian American community, or to deny that there are Asian men who degrade, abuse and exploit Asian women. To my sisters who have been victims of misogyny and/or abuse by the hands and minds of Asian men, I hear you. There are indeed issues that we need to confront our brothers with. I only wish for my fellow Asian sisters to rid their biased notions against Asian men, to realize that they are not our enemy. I only wish for my fellow Asian sisters to realize that we are in this fight together, and I ask that more sisters extend both a literal and a metaphorical hand to our Asian brothers.”
If you don’t add that in, you’re fucked.
JadeDragon
2:42 am | Jul 19, 2007This is a great article, D. You’ve written what my incoherent thoughts are on inter-racial dating, and you’ve done it in such a way that it’s evenly-balanced and flows beautifully. I’m going to print this out and stick it on my office wall, but I doubt that anyone there would understand it.
theme
5:34 am | Jul 19, 2007Jaehwan…man, why did you write all that stuff? It’s like you just took a piss on everything D was talking about. The worst of it is that although you say you disagreed with D on some parts, the argument you presented actually shows that you’re not disagreeing with him at all. It was a compassionate article that for once didn’t demonize Asian females or Asian males so the fact that you even brought up all those things just seems like you wanted to get a word in for no apparent reason. It was a great article, leave it alone for x sake.
taijian
6:37 am | Jul 19, 2007One of the few articles I’ve seen about the subject that did not resort to emotionally attacking or putting down anyone, given that this is such a highly charged topic. I’m afraid some still won’t get it, but D was talking about being congruent when you want your message to be taken seriously.
Scowl
8:43 am | Jul 19, 2007Come on, guys, no one’s saying that you don’t get to talk if you’ve married white. Where do you people keep getting that from??? What D is saying is that you have to realize how it looks if you’re with a white person and you’re speaking on issues that affect the AA community as a whole, and WHY YOU SHOULD UNDERSTAND WHY SOME PEOPLE WOULD FEEL LIKE YOU ARE BEING HYPOCRITICAL AND HURTFUL TOWARDS THEM.
More importantly, these disgruntled individuals, no matter how pathological they may be, might actually have a valid reason for feeling the way they do.
lopan
9:53 am | Jul 19, 2007Scowl, feel free to use the “Share This” button/ tool above to spread the word on various social bookmarking sites. (i.e. Technorati, DIGG, etc.)
Dialectic
11:14 am | Jul 19, 2007Yes, Scowl, please do share this.
Jaehwan, I completely understand your point, and as Scowl, Theme, and Taijian say above, I’m not saying they can’t contribute. I never said anything about not being able to contribute. Nor did I say one should consciously control who s/he falls in love with. I did say that if you’re going to put your neck out, do the talking, and don’t walk the walk, you are going to be hurting people, and when you ignore their comments, you’re going to be hurting them more.
You’re also going to be hurting your own message, because again, you’re not walking the walk.
I can talk up Priuses all I want, but if I drive home every night in a Hummer, what does that say about me, and what I really believe?
If I marry a white woman and talk all day and night about how hot and smart and sexy Asian women are, what does that say about me, and my dedication to my words?
And if my response is to tell people who may have been mocked and derided their whole lives by both whites and Asians to accept it and get over it, what does that say about me, my compassion, and my understanding of my people?
I’m not trying to silence anyone, man or woman, and I’m not trying to control anyone’s sexuality, man or woman. I’m saying there are consequences to words and actions, and ignoring them or trivializing them to promote your own agenda (and it is “your own” if a vocal number of people don’t want you speaking for them) without taking into account the wishes of others or the harm you’re doing to them, that has a negative effect.
And harming others, is that proper advocacy?
jaehwan
1:29 pm | Jul 19, 2007D, Scowl, and Theme,
Mea Culpa, I need to apologize for that last paragraph in my last post. Between having that discussion on Jenn’s blog, having that discussion in real life with a project that I’m working on, and getting woken up at 5 in the morning every morning by the little one, it’s easy to drift into irrelevant topics.
Also, I want to clarify that I’m not tearing D down. I thought it was a great post. I guess I’m just posing some questions that I and others might have.
By the way, this is a very interesting discussion.
So now that I’ve had four hours of sleep before waking at 5 again, let me clarify what I did mean: my main issue is with this sentence: “if you’re putting yourself out there to stand up for Asians, then you SHOULD PROBABLY go out with an Asian, because otherwise you’re undermining the message.”
Here are my feelings:
1. Starting from general to specific, I don’t see an AF dating a WM and being an advocate as necessarily “undermining the message.” I agree that those who marry AM can make a stronger statement. So if we’re measuring positive impact, let’s say we start at 0. If that AF is an advocate, add 3. If she’s a vocal advocate, add another 3. You’re now at 6. If she’s married to an AM or dates AM, add another 3. That AF in an AF/AM relationship can achieve a 9. So in terms of impact, the AF married to an AM can actually have more positive impact than one who is married to a WM, but an AF married to an AM can still reach 6.
Does this make sense? Do you agree?
2. I am uncomfortable with the “should probably” part of the sentence. I agree with Maogirl–when you cross that racial line, race is always part of the attraction. Yet who really decides what is attractive? My reading of that sentence and several that follow (and I may be misreading) is that dating/marriage should be part of advocacy before the fact.
AFTER the fact, you can say that Susie Chang-Smith would be a much more powerful advocate had she married Asian, and you can say that the reasons she would be more powerful is that her Asian marriage gives her insight into the Asian male condition. And you can say that people will gravitate to her more because Asian men see through her marriage that she doesn’t have the Tan-Kingstonian antipathy towards Asian men. That’s totally valid.
But back when she was Susie Chang, I would never feel comfortable telling her that she “should probably” marry anyone based on race. It’s just not my business.
3. People have different levels of comfort.
What if I have an AF activist friend, who says that she really feels bad for AM, and that she really wants to help AM, but she just doesn’t have that attraction (Jaehwan ducks as people throw things at him)? What if she says that it’s probably because of the media on which she was raised, but that there is nothing she can really do? What if she says that she still wants to help AM and still wants to help our cause? She is being honest. Can I ask for anything more?
D, you wrote: “And if the person you love, trust, and most relate to in all the whole wide world, is not Asian, and you’re an Asian activist, then that is a symbolic statement to the world that you don’t actually stand for the advancement of Asian interests in opposition to colonial racist interests, you stand for some broader human interest that takes you out of the Asian advocacy sphere. ”
Take Vicki Shu Smolin, for example, the OCA President who led that campaign against the JV and Elvis show. I’m guessing she married white from her last name, but she was the one spearheading that effort. Would you say that her choice took her “out of the Asian advocacy sphere?
Sure, if she were spearheading a campaign to include more positive AM in the media, her position would probably be more powerful had she married Asian. But I think that saying her marriage is a symbolic statement that she doesn’t “actually stand for the advancement of Asian interests in opposition to colonial racist interests” is a bit strong.
Again, not trying to tear anyone down, just trying to help refine and debate.
4. (Because we’re the fighting 44’s…)
You wrote:
“I can talk up Priuses all I want, but if I drive home every night in a Hummer, what does that say about me, and what I really believe?
If I marry a white woman and talk all day and night about how hot and smart and sexy Asian women are, what does that say about me, and my dedication to my words?
And if my response is to tell people who may have been mocked and derided their whole lives by both whites and Asians to accept it and get over it, what does that say about me, my compassion, and my understanding of my people?”
I agree with you 100% on this. Part of advocacy is treating people with respect, and if Susie Chang-Smith marries a white man and then talks like Asian men are the hottest and smartest people around, she’s:
a)Probably being disingenuous
b)Definitely not understanding Asian men. Susie wouldn’t be talking like this if she knew what Asian men went through.
I think it’s just a matter of being honest and respectful. As a straight man, I can be a gay rights activists. But if I try to act like I’m down with the cause by pretending I’m also attracted to men, I lose. If I start saying things disrespectful towards gay men, then I clearly don’t understand them, and I lose. Honesty and respect speak loudly.
So, theme, you’re right, D and I actually agree for the most part. I hope this adds to the discussion…
Dialectic
2:08 pm | Jul 19, 2007Thanks for your thoughts, Jaehwan. I’m not going to go into a deep dissection of your points because, in my opinion, they’re addressed by my piece and my responses. As I see it, you make three broad assertions, all of which I have considered and appreciate:
1) You can still do more good than harm, even if you say or do things that might contradict some aspect of what you’re fighting for.
2) I don’t have the right to tell anyone what they should or shouldn’t do in their personal life.
3) There are some things you can’t help, and we should just accept them.
My responses:
1.
I fully acknowledge that you can do more good than harm. Further, I assert that “more good” is hard to measure, and that any quantitative analogy ultimately fails because the quantification of values is inaccurate and simplistic. What is essentially happening when we say that someone is still doing good is that this person would be advancing one “cause” while hurting, or propagating hurtful imagery and feelings, in another. So while someone, say, shouts down racist radio broadcasters or politicians and makes them apologize, at the same time, this person is perpetuating a symbol of sexual colonization and distortion.
Has this person done good? Of course, and I appreciate that. Has this person also perpetuated a bad symbol? Yes. Is this person still hurting people? Yes. Do I ultimately trust this person when push comse to shove? No, I do not.
Why? We’ll start with an obvious example. The gentleman at my lunch table last week said that the women I’ve had sex with would have felt it more if I were white. He is married to a Chinese woman. I am going to assume that she doesn’t know that he makes these jokes and that these things rise to the top of his head and come out of his mouth. So let’s say I tell her about these things. What do you think she would do? What is reasonable for her to do? Why, reasonably, she would become cross with him, tell him that he ought not say these things, and then go home, kiss, and make up. She’s not going to divorce him for this, nor should she, and she is going to work through this for the sake of their love and their bond. Her husband drew the line, and right there, she picks which side she’s going to stand on. She is going to pick family over acquaintance, husband over strangers, love over struggle. She picks her white man over her “people.”
Okay, so how about a good, sensitive, caring white person who would never say such a thing to me. I acknowledge that there are many of them, and that they are beautiful people. Ultimately, the same argument applies. At some point, for some reason, this white person’s Asian spouse is going to have to choose, or make priorities between, his/her family and his/her “people.” And this will inevitably generate internal and possibly external conflict. This person will choose his/her family, his/her spouse, over his/her people, and I therefore cannot trust his/her loyalties and his/her morality. This conflict does not present itself to one who has married an Asian spouse. I know that this white spouse has the POWER to draw a line and have his/her Asian spouse pick the side of the line he/she loves and considers family, and that would be the white side. Now, my trust in you to act for my benefit is gone.
It ain’t worth a divorce just ’cause you said Jaehwan has a little dick!
And before you ask, well, what if the situation goes the other way, and the white person (or whatever other non-Asian ethnicity) chooses Asians over whites (or their ethnicity)? Doesn’t that balance things out? No, it doesn’t, because this is about trust and loyalty in a power game, as well as the perpetuation of a social-sexual sickness (even if the relationship itself is loving). That trust is gone.
2.
I don’t have the right to tell anyone what they should or shouldn’t do in their personal life.
I use the world “should” because I’m pointing out consequences. Everyone has “shoulds,” Jaehwan. No one is absolutely free, nor should anyone be absolutely free, because then you have rights without responsibilities, you have freedom WITHOUT equality. Aren’t we telling white people that they SHOULD respect us and give us a break, even though they’re in power, and they earned that power through innovative exploitation and hard work? Aren’t we telling our kids that they SHOULD work hard, that they SHOULD marry someone who works hard, that this person SHOULD have the same values as they do? Aren’t we telling people that we SHOULD strive for equality despite the fact that people are very distinctly not born equal, socially, intellectually, economically, or physically? Fighting for equality is antithetical to advocating for pure freedom.
I’m just saying, you probably should do THIS, if you don’t want THAT to happen.
And isn’t that FUNDAMENTALLY what advocates do? “You should do this instead of this.” You have the right to tell me, and that radio DJ over there, and that businessman over there, what to do, but I, who you are representing, can’t make a suggestion on what you should be doing? Does that make sense? The radio DJ’s just doing his job; his little racist jab doesn’t even mean anything to him on a personal level. What you’re doing to hurt AAs, marrying that white spouse, means everything in the world to you on a personal level. And I shouldn’t say something about it? Hmm.
That radio DJ, his comment is on the air and gone. Who you choose to spend your “personal” time with, you’re going to walk in public with that person, aren’t you? You’re going to show the world who and what really matters to you, aren’t you? And this is somehow less relevant, it somehow matters less than the comment of one radio DJ at one time? When you’re in what’s hopefully a happy relationship which will last for the better part of your life? I’m supposed to care more about what you did about a one-liner from a radio DJ? Is the personal/public divide that straightforward?
Sure, no one’s personal life is my business, but when that personal life becomes public and threatens to hurt me? Is that not my business anymore?
3.
There are some things you can’t help, and we should just accept them.
This is essentially a “get over it” argument. The perpetuation of a sick social-sexual phenomenon (even if the specific relationship is healthy), and the pain, humiliation, and hypocrisy associated with it, are hard to get over. They’re hard to accept. Ultimately, this argument ends up with, “Racism? Sexism? Systemic discrimination? Get over it. Go out there, work hard, make money, take what you can get and don’t think about the rest.” I could say the same thing back to the advocate: hey, these problems exist, just accept it. Overall, the SYSTEM ITSELF is a net-benefit system, so why are you complaining?
Ultimately, points 2 and 3 are addressed at length in my feature and in my previous responses here. Point 1 is a good one, but then hey, we can carry it further and ask, hey, why should we be able to criticize anything at all if we’re getting a net benefit out of it? And further to that, what if you care more about the issue that’s being hurt more than the issue that’s being helped? Is it that easy to measure a net benefit?
Finally, these are all just words. I’m not commanding or making people do anything, nor would I if I had the power. I’m spreading awareness. Advocates will do what they will, AA males and females will do what they will, and consequences will ensue. If things continue to go as they have been going, one of those consequences will be the perpetuation of the gender divide, and political mistrust.
nightshade
3:50 pm | Jul 19, 2007I think this piece, and the ensuing debate, is so important in helping us untangle our thoughts and emotions about the topic. It’s very hard to keep the dialogue logical and anger free when it comes to sex, love, relationships, and marriage–even harder when one examines these topics with race, ethinicity, class, and gender in mind.
Thanks, D, for taking the time to write this. And thank you to everyone who is debating and making this a dialogue.
I will now go back to my version of Halo and free Japanese porn–Facebook.
lycheng
4:16 pm | Jul 19, 2007Great article D, and even more awesome debate here in the comments section. As much as we discuss the IR issue ad nauseum, it’s refreshing to see it revisited in a different light every once in a while.
Taking a cue from Jaehwan in trying to refine the debate, I think it all boils down to symbolism versus action. If I understand you correctly, D, you believe ultimately symbolism trumps action when we’re dealing with identity politics.
You might say, marriage is action too; so when someone chooses IR, they are taking an action against their “own people”. Well, that’s true, but marriage and dating are also viewed as a thing of taste and personal preference. The personal is *not* always political. No doubt it *can* be viewed as an act against one’s own identity group, but do we really know that person’s dating history? Do we know if she/he only dates exclusively someone outside her/his ethnicity?
Finally, choosing a mate/spouse is a fundamental human rights issue. Let’s say that gay people are not born gay, but choose homosexuality. That still doesn’t mean we should tell them to stop. Doing that would be oppressive, wouldn’t it?
Of course, I’m not saying we can’t ask an AA activist engaged in IR if they have concerns about the perception people on their own side might form. I’m just not comfortable in having a IR litmus test for activists.
Dialectic
6:13 pm | Jul 19, 2007“Taking a cue from Jaehwan in trying to refine the debate, I think it all boils down to symbolism versus action. If I understand you correctly, D, you believe ultimately symbolism trumps action when we’re dealing with identity politics.”
I’m not sure that I ever say or imply that. I say that you are a symbol, a symbol for a people and for a set of values. I say that you can take actions that support those people and those values, or you can take actions that undermine those people and those values. And I’m saying that saying you love Asians while showing that you, in fact, love a white person the most, undermines Asians. That action of being with a white person undermines your function and your other words and actions. I don’t say that it negates, but it adds a bit of a hypocritical flavor, doesn’t it?
“You might say, marriage is action too; so when someone chooses IR, they are taking an action against their “own people”. Well, that’s true, but marriage and dating are also viewed as a thing of taste and personal preference. The personal is *not* always political. No doubt it *can* be viewed as an act against one’s own identity group, but do we really know that person’s dating history? Do we know if she/he only dates exclusively someone outside her/his ethnicity?”
You seem to be mixing up quite a few issues here. First, personal/political is a false distinction. If you’ve read my responses, you can see it’s also an issue of power and trust. Your closest relation in this world is white. Regardless of how compassionate and kind and understanding you both are, your family is white. There is no going around this. I repeat what I said above: how can I trust you to act for my benefit when, if you love your white partner, it would be reasonable for you to act for his/her benefit if and when our interests conflict?
Secondly, the specifics of the situation, the person’s dating history, the characteristics of the person and the partner, are not relevant. They could be awesome awesome people. It doesn’t matter. The more awesome they are, the more genuinely loving they’ll be toward one another. The more genuinely loving they are, the more they’re likely to support each other no matter what. The more likely they are to support each other no matter what, the more likely their interests will at some point run directly counter to mine, because my interests are Asian.
(I’m using, “you” and “I” as rhetorical tools and not as references to the actual you and I.)
“Finally, choosing a mate/spouse is a fundamental human rights issue. Let’s say that gay people are not born gay, but choose homosexuality. That still doesn’t mean we should tell them to stop. Doing that would be oppressive, wouldn’t it?”
This is not relevant to the argument.
I love human rights. So do, for example, human rights activists. So would you be okay if a human rights activist married a dictator? S/he would have that right, after all, I’m not denying him/her that right.
Your example would be relevant if I was not born gay, and I advocate for how awesome straightness is, and then I chose homosexuality in my private life. What does that do to my message?
What would be even more relevant is this: let’s say that I’m “gay,” not bisexual, but pretty strongly gay, and I talk about how awesome being gay is, and how gay people are beautiful and we ought to be proud of our gayness, and then I marry a heterosexual woman, perhaps to start a family without adopting or artificially inseminating, and spend a great deal of my personal time with her, does that not create a bit of a conflict of interest? And if you were to tell me that perhaps I shouldn’t be such a public speaker for gay awesomeness when I’m married to this straight woman, are you oppressing me?
“Of course, I’m not saying we can’t ask an AA activist engaged in IR if they have concerns about the perception people on their own side might form. I’m just not comfortable in having a IR litmus test for activists.”
I’m not sure that this is a “litmus test.” I am sure, however, that a feeling of betrayal from some portion of the population that the advocate claims to represent, ought not be ignored, trivialized, or dismissed as bigoted, misogynistic, and insecure. I am sure, that an AA activist engaged in IR, particularly with whites, hurts AAs.
All of this academic discussion aside, let’s always try to bring it back to what’s real.
You’re Asian. I’m your advocate. We worry about Asian issues, which include self-esteem and sexual problems in both male and female populations. I stand up on my podium, and I tell you that I have your back, that I know what it’s like, that I will fight for you, and that you are good, you are beautiful, you are desirable, you are worthy of not only my respect and love, but everyone’s respect and love.
Then I get off the podium and give my white partner a big hug and kiss.
Are you an asshole for thinking that maybe some part of my message, some part of me, can’t be trusted as reliable after I kiss my white partner? Are you insecure because you might find my words a little condescending? Are you trying to own me? Are you oppressing me by expressing that you feel a little hurt, a little condescended to, that I might not be the best person to speak for you?
Ike
6:16 pm | Jul 19, 2007*This post addressed to the hypothetical “you”.
I don’t buy for a second that people can’t help who they fall in love with and marry.
1. People are most likely to date and marry people in their social circles. If all your friends are white or dating/married to white men, guess what the odds are?
2. Just as you have lots of friends (and you DO have lots of friends, right?) there are a lot of people who would be compatible as your significant other. Which relationships you choose to cultivate show what you value.
Dialectic
6:36 pm | Jul 19, 2007Alas Ike, love trumps free will, but only for the pro-advocate-in-IR camp.
You “can’t help” falling in love, but you say I “can help” falling out of love?
Because falling out of love, that’s what feeling betrayed is. And that’s what all these pro-advocates-in-IR are saying.
You are big for following your love, but I am small for wishing you would show the love to me that you say you have for me.
What these advocates are saying to me is this:
“I love you, but I won’t touch you.”
jaehwan
7:29 pm | Jul 19, 2007D and Lycheng,
Thanks for your responses. I would like to hit some of those points because I do think it’s important to discuss them.
1. Fuck, fuck, fuck, D. That story about the gentleman at your lunch table nearly made my heart cry. I live in the Portland bubble where we don’t have to deal with that kind of bullshit. My district is represented by David Wu, we had Gary Locke up north, and Asian men here are more equal than anywhere else in the world (our disparity exists, but it isn’t nearly as bad as other places; it’s not entirely uncommon to meet white women with the last name “Chang” or “Cho.”). Shit, your post brought me back to my New York days when I had to deal with that bullshit all the time.
So yes, I guess I can see where it could hurt you. And it does–with the JV and Elvis show, the DJ JV legitimized his cracks at Asian men by having his Asian wife speak out against the OCA.
So I will actually agree with you that it can also serve to undermine Asian male humanity.
2. Regarding “shoulds…”
Regardless of how it undermines our struggle, I don’t agree with the litmus test, as lycheng calls it. I think that personal freedom is a human rights issue, and I don’t feel comfortable saying that any one “should” make decisions as personal as choosing a partner based on race.
You mentioned a human rights activist marrying a dictator. D, that’s evaluating someone based on actions. Actions are different from race. A human rights activist shouldn’t marry a dictator, the same way an environmental leader SHOULDN’T marry someone who doesn’t drive fuel efficient cars, and civil rights leaders shouldn’t marry someone who doesn’t support legislation that helps promote equality. “Should” Asian American leaders marry Asian? I can’t say that I have any right to think that they “should” make that decision on anything other than personal preference. Being white isn’t an action; it’s a race.
Let me quote Maogirl, who was speaking about Asian people dating ‘philes:
“but to be honest, while i recognize the racism and general nastiness inherent in asiaphilia and yellow fever, i don’t understand why people put such criteria on interracial relationships.
i mean, for the people who are all like, “interracial relationships are only cool if there isn’t any fetishes involved, etc.” — why? what gives people who are in intra-racial relationships the right to place conditions like this? it’s like straight people saying that only gays who REALLY love each other and are COMMITTED to each other and will never divorce can get married, while straight people can go ahead and just marry for all sorts of idiotic reasons. ”
Different topic, but same conclusion, in my opinion. You can say that IR perpetuates a colonial mentality, but I don’t see how you can place criteria on it by saying they “should” date this person but not that person.
3. “There are some things you can’t help, and we should just accept them.
This is essentially a “get over it” argument. ”
Okay, D, I’ll say you’re partially right on this one. For me to answer this though, let me backtrack a bit (and please feel free to disagree):
One reason why you and I and many others disagree with atlasien’s Kingstonian deconstructionist approach to this issue is that it takes ideology and pushes it. There’s no analysis involved, it’s just ideology. In other words, “let’s just break down the patriarchy”…whatever that means. You say, “But…” and the Kingstonian cries out, “Sexist!” It’s almost like a religion.
Atlasien doesn’t accept that Asian men have significant issues when compared to Asian women (and atlasien, please feel free to correct me if I’m misrepresenting your viewpoint.). She doesn’t accept that there is a problem when Asian women like Kingston use the media to slam Asian men. She doesn’t accept (and Jenn doesn’t accept either) the truth that Asian men face barriers in the media that AF might not have. And it pisses off people who are realists. It’s like, “Why can’t you see what is so blatantly obvious?”
I take a very Buddhist approach to this. I think the main mission is to get people to be able to accept it as a problem. Yes, accepting it is more important than changing it. A lot of people don’t accept it(see Oliver Wang on that reappropriate board), and THAT is where most of our disagreements come from.
I was reading this book on women in sales. The author said, “The best thing to do about sexism is just to accept it and move on, because you’re not going to change it overnight.”
I’d agree with that sentiment. You’re not going to change it. The inequality has always been something that you just have to learn to deal with because it’s unlikely that you can change it overnight. The main problem, in my opinion, isn’t the fact that the disparity is there. The main problem is that AM issues get pushed under the rug to make room for the supposedly poor and oppressed Kingstonians who attack Asian men and hold up white men as models.
That being said, I’m not saying just “get over it.” Asian men NEED to discuss it, and Asian women NEED to discuss it as well. We NEED to be heard because it’s obviously something the affects ALL of us.
4. (From your response to lycheng)”You’re closest relation in this world is white. Regardless of how compassionate and kind and understanding you both are, your family is white. There is no going around this. I repeat what I said above: how can I trust you to act for my benefit when, if you love your white partner, it would be reasonable for you to act for his/her benefit if and when our interests conflict?”
They aren’t necessarily in conflict. We run an Asian American group, and we have white members, as does the 44s. One of the more eloquent contributors to the 44s was Xian. He’s half-white, and he married a white woman. Is there a conflict of interest? I don’t think that there necessarily has to be. She supports him, and he supports Asian interests.
5. “We worry about Asian issues, which include self-esteem and sexual problems in both male and female populations. I stand up on my podium, and I tell you that I have your back, that I know what it’s like, that I will fight for you, and that you are good, you are beautiful, you are desirable, you are worthy of not only my respect and love, but everyone’s respect and love.
Then I get off the podium and give my white partner a big hug and kiss.
Are you an asshole for thinking that maybe some part of my message, some part of me, can’t be trusted as reliable after I kiss my white partner?”
D, point taken and agreed–it is hypocritical, and intermarried AF activists need to be aware of the public sentiment and image before doing this. It’s kind of like a white guy getting up before a podium and speaking ebonics.
That’s part of my first original point about adding bonus points. A “9″ could handle that role better than a “6.” It’s just the way the dice fall.
theme
7:50 pm | Jul 19, 2007I think you’ve done a great job in bringing peace of mind to a large portion of the community Dialectic. The best part is not what you did, but the manner in which you did it. To be able to pull it off-with the respect and fairly balanced point of view-it is something that you very rarely see. In fact, it would not be an exaggeration to say that I’ve never seen it done before.
Ultimately I think you’ve answered everyone’s questions and concerns that have been brought up and it’s now up to them to fill out the rest to suit their understanding. There are other questions still to be raised but a lot of them are subjectively based and need not worth be discussed. They are for the individual to decide but if most of us can agree at least 90% of the time and with the main points, then I people should back off a little bit.
theme
7:59 pm | Jul 19, 2007“They aren’t necessarily in conflict. We run an Asian American group, and we have white members, as does the 44s. One of the more eloquent contributors to the 44s was Xian. He’s half-white, and he married a white woman. Is there a conflict of interest? I don’t think that there necessarily has to be. She supports him, and he supports Asian interests.”
I know Dialectic will do a better job of clarifying this again but he already explained this here:
”
No, it doesn’t imply that. It does imply that there is a power disparity between males and females. This is why “feminism” exists as a broad social and political movement, and “masculinism” does not (the lack of which, incidentally, harms minority males). I use that term not to imply that going out with a white male is “more wrong” than going out with a white female, but to emphasize that straight white males are on top, and that distorts EVERYTHING below in UNEQUAL ways across genders.
In addition, you seem to have taken that one sentence and interpreted it completely out of context. I was referring specifically to heterosexual white males because heterosexual white males are at the top of the food chain. They are not up there on an equal footing with heterosexual white females. That is, in large part, why feminism exists.”
Scowl
8:03 pm | Jul 19, 2007I don’t know if I’d say that it’s symbolism vs. action so much as it is a conflict of interests.
If you’re an activist for the AA community, if you present yourself as such, you are ultimately fighting to tear down the white male power structure whether or not you want to admit it. If you become involved with a white male, you become connected to that power structure. In some sense, you are a part of it unless you are willing to sacrifice your relationship for your cause. The conflict of interests is apparent.
This same principle applies to Asian men with white women, but not to the same degree because men and women do not hold equal levels of power. And no, I’m not saying that it makes it okay for Asian guys to fuck white girls. I would hope that it wouldn’t be necessary for me to explain that to anyone here.
Now, having a conflict of interests doesn’t mean that you can’t get anything done. It doesn’t make you a race traitor, and it doesn’t excommunicate you from the community no matter how many rabid crazies say so. It does mean that you will continually be challenged on it and you will have to weather the storm if you want to continue on your path. Such are the consequences of your actions. Once your choice is made, you’ll just have to live with it. Everything you do has a consequence. Everything. This is a rule of life, and being an activist doesn’t give you a special exemption.
The bigger problem, as I see it, is when this conflict of interests is denied and dismissed as pure fantasy concocted by the other side as a means of control right off the bat without any kind of critical analysis whatsoever. Those crazy Asian guys do take some blame for this, but I also see an effort, perhaps even a subconscious one, to escape consequence. I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to say that people in general will try to escape the consequences of their choices if they can, and I can’t blame anyone for not wanting to deal with such a volatile issue. But until we do work it out, it will always be there to separate us.
It’s not as simple as just being something that AAMs need to get over. There are plenty of things that we do need to deal with on our end, but bridging the gender divide will require a joint effort. Way too many people on both sides have the attitude of, “I don’t have to deal with it, it’s your problem, not mine.” But if we’re all in this together, then don’t my problems also become yours, as yours become mine?
Scowl
8:07 pm | Jul 19, 2007Damn, in the time it took me to type up my comment, you animals have already added a whole book!
jaehwan
1:26 am | Jul 20, 2007D, you’re famous. A whole reappropriate post dedicated to your 44s post above:
http://www.reappropriate.com/?p=777
maloy
2:03 am | Jul 20, 2007great, my spies tell me that you guys were quoting me out of context and i was right. jaehwan, dude, i think you’re pretty cool but you’re misusing my statement. motherfucker, i can’t believe i’m being drawn into this, IR is one of the most boring and annoying topics out there. i honestly don’t understand why people are arguing with D over this. it’s so fucking self-evident.
———-Regardless of how it undermines our struggle, I don’t agree with the litmus test, as lycheng calls it. I think that personal freedom is a human rights issue, and I don’t feel comfortable saying that any one “should” make decisions as personal as choosing a partner based on race. etc.
Different topic, but same conclusion, in my opinion. You can say that IR perpetuates a colonial mentality, but I don’t see how you can place criteria on it by saying they “should” date this person but not that person. ——-
as a matter of fact, i agree with D on this issue. i wrote this as a specific response to the smug attitude that a lot of interracial couples in “acceptable” relationships — or intraracial couples — have towards asiaphilia. it’s like, “oh, my spouse isn’t a phile because he doesn’t do this or that” which, to them and to others, somehow makes their relationship more valid when the main point i wanted to stress was that REGARDLESS of whether your interracial relationship is based on fetish or love, you are perpetuating a colonial mentality and the idea that “white is right.”
and if you’re an advocate for asians, you can’t be trusted, that’s the bottom line. think about it: if i were to talk all this shit about being pro-asian and loving all that is fermented and made of cardboard, and then i end up marrying a gweilo — don’t you see? at that point, i’ve already made a choice and it ain’t asians. i may not help falling in love with a gweilo, but i can make a choice whether or not to be with him. you may say it’s all about “personal freedom” and “human rights” — jesus, you people are so fuckign american — but that comes second, if you are an activist.
that’s the harsh truth. if you reall want to make an impact and to make changes in the world, you have to sacrifice something. i don’t get how all these activists can be so selfish and giving at the same time. fucking retards.
lycheng
2:14 am | Jul 20, 2007Thanks for your response D, Jaehwan and Scowl. D: You’ve written so much on the subject now that it probably feels like you’re just repeating yourself. I want to thank you for your patience.
I want to also echo the sentiment that we agree more than we disagree. I, like many AM have been rejected by AF simply because I was Asian. D’s encounter with the racist penis joke is, unfortunately, a common occurrence. It’s so common that sometimes I think we should have a thread dedicated to listing good witty comebacks to those jokes.
I think I need to explain my use of the term “litmus test”. If you look up the phrase, you might find it described as a “single indicator”. I have to apologize here because my usage is more nuanced than the dictionary definition.
Let me set up a hypothetical situation where you’re asked to elect the president of an AA activist organization. This scenario is different than Jaehwan’s because I’m not quantifying the “worthiness” of a particular AA activist. I’m asking you to compare qualitative factors.
Case 1: The choices are between two Asian Females. Both females have equally proven they can be a strong leader. Based on their activist experience, there’s no reason to choose one over the other. Now, what if one Female has an Asian Husband, while the other has a White Husband? Would you use the racial makeup of her spouse as the discriminator?
I know D would say, yes, and so would I. No difference here. The purist would say that we both used an IR litmus test. That might be true in a literal sense, but functionally, it wasn’t a litmus test because the choice forced us into using IR status as a deciding factor. The usage of litmus test implies a single discriminator to be used when there are multiple factors to consider.
Case 2: Candidate 2A is an Asian Female with significant AA activist experience, but with White husband. Candidate 2B, on the other hand, is an Asian Female with less AA activist experience than candidate 2A, however, 2B has an Asian husband.
Which candidate would you choose? If D seems to be making the argument that we should always choose 2B. If this is the case, then under the usage conditions described above, you have used an IR litmus test. That’s because there was another deciding factor, experience, which was active in the selection criteria.
So D, did I interpret you correctly?
Finally, let me clarify the “gay” analogy. I said:
“Finally, choosing a mate/spouse is a fundamental human rights issue. Let’s say that gay people are not born gay, but choose homosexuality. That still doesn’t mean we should tell them to stop. Doing that would be oppressive, wouldn’t it?”
And you said:
“Your example would be relevant if I was not born gay, and I advocate for how awesome straightness is, and then I chose homosexuality in my private life. What does that do to my message?”
If someone was not born gay, and was an advocate of how awesome straightness is, and then ends up choosing homosexuality, then yes, that would be hypocritical. That’s because homosexual identity is an identity of action as well as sexual preference (assuming being gay is a choice). In other words, the gender of one’s partner is the defining action of a gay activist, and therefore, it should be a factor when gays choose an activist.
I’ll end with Jaehwan’s quote:
“Should” Asian American leaders marry Asian? I can’t say that I have any right to think that they “should” make that decision on anything other than personal preference. Being white isn’t an action; it’s a race.
Dialectic
11:26 am | Jul 20, 2007Lordy I can’t believe I’m making another response, but since Lycheng brings up a “new” point in this discussion (one which we discussed a couple years ago), and since he’s such a great bloke, I feel as though I should address it.
(I’ll also delete my last “concluding” post and re-post it in another Feature.)
Lycheng, speaking under your hypothetical situation for a moment, I don’t know that it’s a “litmus test” because I’m unaware of the implications of that term as used in regular North American English. I don’t know if it has good or bad connotations, or whether it evokes certain images which I may not agree with.
I DO know that the way I’m describing it, and the way the people who agree with me are describing it, it’s a JOB REQUIREMENT.
As in, if it’s not on your resume, it makes you a weaker candidate. And for some people, like me, it’s a make or break requirement.
Do you know what your argument sounds like? I told this to Xian a couple years ago, and he HATED what I said, but it’s true: it’s an IDENTICAL argument to the one proposed by white anti-affirmative action activists.
If I have an Asian who is “less qualified” and a white who is “more qualified,” I SHOULD NOT BE FORCED TO CHOOSE THE ASIAN.
Guess what, that’s a fine hypothetical, but that’s one small drawback of instituting these race requirements, and I question how often it happens.
The more RELEVANT question is, what if I have two candidates who are “equally” qualified, is the person they are with relevant? How does it affect the message, how does it affect that person’s ability to do his or her job?
And all other things being equal, it weakens that person and that message every time.
But hey, why should I be “forced” to hire Lycheng when Jenn Fang and Time Wise are knocking down my door being discriminated against?
lycheng
11:58 am | Jul 20, 2007Thanks for taking the time to address my last point, D. Now I fully understand you. Because of past injustices, you want to establish an affirmative action policy in hiring Asian American Activists. Looking at it from this point of view, your criteria for leadership selection is not a position against Feminism; it’s an attempt at a concrete solution to the injustice.
Personally, I’ve always had some misgivings about affirmative action. But I’ve somehow managed to convince myself that its probably the quickest way to institute systemic change in society.
Dialectic
12:37 pm | Jul 20, 2007Lycheng, it’s important that we understand that the very action of forming an advocate group is a form of Affirmative Action (we call it Employment Equity in Canada, and we have a much less in-your-face form, incidentally).
Because the rest of society leans in favor of whites, we create an organization with the specific intent of leaning in favor of Asians.
That is at the essence of Affirmative Action, or Employment Equity.
We are curbing someone’s rights to facilitate a truer equality.
Remember, the playing field doesn’t start out racially equal, and then Affirmative Action comes in to tip the balance in our favor. The playing field starts out with the JOB REQUIREMENT of whiteness: being white makes you BETTER FOR THE JOB. Affirmative Action tries to take that unspoken, unofficial but SYSTEMIC “requirement” away.
Advocacy IS Affirmative Action in society. It corrects the inequality in social mechanisms that aren’t fostering equality by themselves.
And advocacy, like Affirmative Action, is a blunt instrument. It is clumsy, and it is imprecise, but it is a necessary first step, a tool to use until the equality we’re striving for is reached.
Hey, once Asians, male and female, are over their sexual hang-ups, and once whites stop exotifying Asian females and emasculating Asian males, I am ALL FOR having Asian leaders be with white, black, or purple people.
But until then? We use advocacy, we use “affirmative action” to curb rights and facilitate a truer equality.
jaehwan
3:39 pm | Jul 20, 2007Maogirl,
Awww man! I got busted. Sorry for quoting you out of context. I probably should have known your position from all your other posts and conversations. For what it’s worth, it’s nice to hear from you, and I’m glad your spies ratted me out.
Lyncheng is correct; we all agree more than we disagree. We all agree that the IR lessens the ability of an advocate. We all agree that it has the potential of increasing oppression (and I haven’t read through your new post yet, D, but I will). All we disagree on is the “should.” I still think personal choice takes precedence, since, as MG mentioned, I’m “fucking american.” (To clarify context, that would be “fucking” as an adjective, not as a verb.) Yes, it weakens the advocate, but it doesn’t necessarily make one a hypocrite. I’m still in lycheng and xian’s (in absentia) camp on this one.
D wrote:
“I DO know that the way I’m describing it, and the way the people who agree with me are describing it, it’s a JOB REQUIREMENT. As in, if it’s not on your resume, it makes you a weaker candidate. And for some people, like me, it’s a make or break requirement.”
D, I don’t want to drag you further into this (I know you were trying to get out before lycheng drew you back in), but I think you really need to specify what job you’re talking about. Let me illustrate by example:
1. Vicki Shu Smolin organized that campaign against the JV and Elvis show. She is (most likely) married to a white guy. Was a non-IR a requirement for the JOB she had to do? No.
2. Ronald Takaki and Iris Chang published books about Asians in America. They are (or were, in Iris’s case) both married to white people. Was a non-IR a requirement for the job they did? No.
3. Hong Kingston wrote the intro to Marguerite Duras’s “The Lover,” where she described Asian men by saying some inane shit like, “I love their hot, hairless bodies.” It read like porn. It was absolutely disgusting, especially since Kingston is a 60 year old hag who looks like the wicked witch of the west. (Imagining that old, racist hag having sex gave me nightmares for a whole year. Shell shock. If you need a way to destroy advocacy, that definitely is the way to do it.)
Was a non-IR a requirement for the job? Abso-fucking-lutely yes. Kingston has no authority to speak about AM in sexual terms, especially since she’s spread so many negative stereotypes about us in her other work. The fact that she’s married to a white man is definitely crucial. It makes it more asinine, and it makes her appear hypocritical, since she’s not “walking the walk” while “talking the talk.” In a different racial context, it might not matter, but for Asian Americans in our era, it definitely does.
I don’t know if Takaki, Chang, and Smolin are necessarily “talking the talk” since they’re not addressing the sexual issues. There is a level of advocacy which AAs in IRs can’t achieve. But they can do other things.
Ike
4:22 pm | Jul 20, 2007On sacrifice and selfishness, some crap I thought up while showering:
Everyone is selfish. Why are we activists? So we can be equal. So we can sleep at night. Because we love our families. Etc, etc.
Why do we have relationships? Because we want to feel loved. Because we want to love someone. Etc, etc.
This is essentially a choice between one person you do know, who loves you, and many people you don’t know, who may or may not give a shit about you.
I’m not as militant as Dialectic, probably because I’m younger, and probably also because I’m female. I agree with jaehwan’s previous post that not being in an IR is not always part of the job description. I also acknowledge that different people draw the line at different places.
It’s entirely possible to do something for AAs while being married to a white man. But you have to accept that other people WILL see you as a sellout. If you want to marry someone who is not Asian, prepare to take some heat for it. If you want to ditch your white lover for the sake of AMs, you’ll probably take some heat for that as well.
It’s like the story my grandpa tells. There’s an old man and his grandson going to market, and the boy is riding the horse while the old man walks. Someone passes by them and remarks that the boy has no respect for his elders, and upon hearing this, the old man takes the boy off the horse and rides it himself. After a short while, someone else remarks that the old man doesn’t care for his grandson - how could he let the boy walk while he rides? So the old man decides that both of them will ride the horse. Not long after, another person remarks that they are mistreating the poor horse by making it carry two riders, so the old man and the boy both get off the horse and walk. And then some guy passes them and says, “What id