The Fighting 44s

“My right to swing my arm ends where my neighbor’s nose begins.”
– Oliver Wendell Holmes

There is a great deal of confusion in the discussion surrounding the inter-racial debate, with legal and moral concepts being mixed or applied where they’re not applicable. There is also a great deal of misunderstanding concerning fundamental ideas of freedom and equality in advocacy.

Let’s look at Holmes’ oft-quoted observation above. “My right to swing my arm ends where my neighbor’s nose begins.” What does this mean? It means that I have the legal and moral freedom to swing my arm wherever and whenever I please, unless my neighbor’s nose is in the path of my arm. If his nose gets in the way of my arm, I have the legal obligation to stop my arm. This is a restriction on my legal freedom to swing my arm, based on my legal responsibility not to break my neighbor’s nose. Here, my legal responsibility not to break my neighbor’s nose translates to my neighbor’s legal right not to have his nose broken.

Are you free, generally speaking, to swing your arms wherever and whenever you please? Generally, yes, but the freedom is not absolute. It is restricted by law founded on moral responsibility. I want to emphasize two things: (1) your legal freedom to be an autonomous individual is not absolute, not even for something as innocuous as swinging your arm, and (2) legal rights and responsibilities are derived from moral rights and responsibilities, but they are not the same thing. A moral responsibility like, say, being a loving parent, cannot be legally enforced unless it is translated into law. They are separate, but (hopefully) related.

Note, also, that rights and responsibilities are actually opposing forces. If I am legally responsible for my arm not breaking peoples’ noses, then I must restrict what I do with my arm and accept that there are limitations to where and when I can exercise my legal right to swing it. In another example, if I am morally responsible for being a loving father, then I must restrict what I do with my body and mind and accept that there are limitations to where and when I can exercise my moral right to live a care-free swinging bachelor life. Of course, this second example can’t be legally enforced: the law allows me to be a shitty, cold, and uncaring father, as long as I don’t perform what would legally be considered abuse or neglect, which has a much higher threshold than just being a jerk. I don’t legally require you to be a good mother. Morally, I do, but I can’t and won’t force you to do anything. I will, however, criticize your actions and make suggestions.

Now we come back to my position on the inter-racial discussion. It is, for those new to these entertaining shenanigans, essentially that we all generally have the moral right to date and marry whoever we want, but that we ought to date and marry Asians if we wish to represent Asian solidarity, pride, love, and self-sufficiency.

Note, here, that this is a moral argument, not a legal argument. I am not actually advocating for a restriction on anyone’s rights, I’m not trying to impose my view on anyone, I am not trying to control anyone. I am putting forth a moral suggestion.

I would never, ever, try to actually restrict your rights to date, marry, fuck, sodomize (consensually), or otherwise express your love and lust to anyone or anything (consensually). That’s the stance of a WWII Nazi eugenicist, and I find it both ludicrous and offensive that anyone might interpret my position in this way.

So no, this is not a “human rights” issue as some have shouted. This is not an attempt to control, dominate, or oppress. I do not question anyone’s legal right or freedom here.

I am saying that in this case, as a political advocate in the public eye (not just an “internet warrior” but a real advocate involved in the community), one’s moral right to freely date/ marry is restricted by one’s moral responsibility.

Here, I say that an advocate for Asian solidarity, pride, love, and self-sufficiency has a moral responsibility to look like s/he actually believes in Asian solidarity, pride, love, and self-sufficiency.

This, and nowhere else, is where the point of contention exists, and this is where we agree or disagree.

I say we have a moral responsibility, and others say we do not.

Your legal rights and responsibilities are unquestioned and sacrosanct. It was never about limiting anyone’s legal freedom. It’s about suggesting that you are being morally irresponsible, that you are failing in your moral responsibility as an advocate for your people when you have walked away from them in your most personal, cherished, and intimate personal affairs.

I say you have a moral responsibility, and you say you do not. In my opinion, like your unloving dad, you’re not doing anything so wrong, so abusive or neglectful that I’d want to enforce some limiting law against you. You’re just being a bit of a jerk. That’s where this issue stands.

Now let’s bring it back to the real world and talk about what’s actually going on in the streets.

Every Asian-American artistic or political event I’ve ever gone to has invariably been filled with copious numbers of Asian females and their complementary white males. The two demographics seem to come hand-in-hand (literally!), and I accept this. Regardless of anything I say about moral responsibility or fetishism or colonialism, it’s happening, it’ll keep happening, and that’s fine.

(The purely social Asian-American events without political or artistic overtones tend to be, thankfully, a bit more balanced in Asian male/female composition, though you’ll always find your random skinny, fat, balding, bearded, and otherwise awkward white boys in the mix, because being there is their nature.)

My goal in expressing my position on this matter was simply to point out that the moral responsibility exists, and that failing to act with that in mind has consequences. The main consequence here is that a number of Asians out there aren’t going to trust you, a number aren’t going to want you to speak for them, and a number are going to find you callous and condescending. Similarly, a number of white people out there are going to be laughing at the people you claim to represent, and they’re going to keep snickering and telling their jokes and thinking it’s okay, because you’re telling the biggest joke out of everyone, and you’re saying it’s okay.

That’s a consequence, and if you don’t accept moral responsibility for it, that’s fine, but I’m saying it’s there.

Now, I don’t actually expect anything to change, nor would I want any advocates to either hang up their hats or divorce their mostly white, and occasionally black, spouses. I wouldn’t actually feel happy or satisfied seeing that. I just wanted to spread the awareness that there is in fact a reasoned moral basis for wanting to see Asian couples out there standing up for Asians, and that it was not merely a patriarchal ethnocentric drive.

The inter-racial disparity is a manifestation of a social sickness in the community. Our leaders ought not perpetuate the image of that sickness in their advocacy if they can avoid it.

Note that I’m talking about the disparity, not the intrinsic combination of white male/ Asian female itself, nor am I talking about any particular couples, and especially not you reading this if you’re in such a relationship, because I know yours is founded on love and mutual respect.

(I have, however, met and heard of a good deal of ignorant white males and Asian females in fucked-up relationships, where the white male feels like he has the moral right to criticize Asians, make Asian jokes, and indeed express his love of the Asian female form because it’s just “his type,” and the Asian female laughs and thinks it’s cute, or takes it all as a compliment.)

Finally, let’s take a look at the precious freedom, legal or moral, many advocates say must not be compromised, must not be limited, must be absolute and inviolate.

Legally, as we have seen, there are already lots of restrictions on freedom. I can’t swing my arm into you, park on your property, take your stuff without your permission, break a contracted promise, or scream “fire” in a crowded theater. (Or rather, I can, but then my freedom will be further restricted because the state will force me to do other, less pleasant things, as a result.) I think any reasonable person recognizes that these restrictions on freedom exist, and that they exist not to control or oppress, but, almost paradoxically, to maintain freedoms. Laws define the rights of individuals, but just as importantly, restrict the rights of individuals based on their responsibility to not violate the rights of other individuals.

I understand that advocates aren’t talking about freedoms in a truly absolute or anarchic sense, but rather, they’re talking about the bigger issues, the bigger picture, that we in the Western world have certain fundamental freedoms which ought not be limited, like freedom to marry and vote and own property and say what we like. That we have absolute, or inviolate fundamental rights.

Except that we don’t. And that’s thanks, in a big part, to the advocates.

We all have our precious rights! We all have our freedoms! One of our most important freedoms, especially if we’re advocates, is freedom of speech! We have the right to express what we wish, when we wish! Let freedom ring, until someone calls you a cunt! Or a nigger! Or a tsunami-drowned Asian! Or a little-dicked chinaman!

Pardon me? Sorry? I don’t seem to hear your shouts of freedom! anymore.

No, as a matter fact, I’m hearing quite the opposite. I’m hearing “Stop offending me!” “You can’t say that!” “Shut the fuck up!!!”

One poor Black radio DJ says one small stupid thing, which was his constitutional right to say, and suddenly you’re getting him fired from his job? You’re taking away his livelihood? You’re ruining his reputation and his career over a couple goddamn words? What the fuck happened to not restricting fundamental freedoms?

No, you don’t mind restricting freedoms, as long as you get to choose which freedoms those are, and when they can be restricted. You don’t mind telling other people what to say and do, but when you get told to do something, or in this case, someone merely suggests that you ought to do something, you go ballistic with your knee-jerk race or feminist or queer social theories and shout rights! freedoms! individualism! autonomy! as you go around taking those things away from others.

I merely made a moral suggestion, but so many of you, you love to turn moral responsibilities into legal ones (like hate speech laws), and when you can’t do that, you contact sponsors and ruin lives and careers to make your political point.

You believe in restricting freedoms, morally and legally, as much, if not more so, than I do. I just admit it.

But oh, you’re allowed to restrict the freedoms of others, you say, you get an exemption, because the people you’re restricting are in a position of privilege over you, which gives you the moral right to limit their freedom so that you can attain an equal status with them. That’s the moral justification for being able to tell someone that they can’t do something that, all things being equal, they should be allowed to do: because they’re in a position of power and privilege.

The more freedom, the more individualism, the more autonomy you have, the less equality we have. The more equal you want to make things, the more you want to level out disparities in power and privilege, the less freedom we have.

This is something advocates, particularly American ones, forget in their pathological and self-contradictory obsession with freedom and autonomy.

Don’t kid yourself that you want total freedom. You only want the degree of freedom permitted to exist at your desired level of equality. And that’s a whole different ballgame, one which does not give you the moral justification to shout “freedom!” at me when I make a suggestion that might place a moral limit on our freedom in an effort to promote some social equality. Because you’ve dedicated your life to doing the same goddamn thing.

Remember, I, and all those who agree with my position, are simply making a suggestion, are simply pointing out a moral responsibility. We haven’t tried to undermine your career or credibility or livelihood. We haven’t tried to destroy you.

It’s a lucky thing, I suppose, that you’re not a privileged Black radio DJ.

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 11th, 2007 at 9:12 pm and is filed under Features, Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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