We like AngryAsianMan, and the 44’s are not against interracial relationships. We also like Reappropriate, who is involved in such a relationship. For the 44 founders’ official position on IR, go here. We just promote understanding IR and their social significance; we’re not against it.

And in my own opinion, Michelle Kwan is a great role model.

Oh, and by the way, that’s a pretty inflammatory user handle. We could always change it for you.

“Angry” my ass. He’s just a weak liberal who carries water for his white liberal buddies.
But I guess it’s easier and less controversial to whine A&F t shirts rather to speak out against the genetic destruction of your race.

There’s still several sections where you use language that is more to the “any perception is wrong in regards to that movie” as more of a pronouncement of judgment than a submission of your opinion. But that’s fine.

The general points still stand and the response–after all, “It’s all in your head” is never a constructive response–if you’ve ever had a doctor tell any family member that, you know full well that, while it very well may be true, it also means it’s time to find a new doctor.

I’m sorry, I can’t commend this piece. Are there knee-jerk reactionaries and those who are shadowboxing? Absolutely. This piece doesn’t address that problem except to state emphatically how much smarter you are than both that group and anyone else who happens to disagree with you.

Very briefly, I believe that political/social activist groups tend to be fairly fucked up emotionally and intellectually, and filled with fairly fucked up people; this, in turn, fucks up, or undermines, the legitimacy and effectiveness of their political/social agendas. It wasn’t always this way, but it’s become this way, partially as a result of baby boomer narcissism, which has been passed onto the boomer children, partly because all the fundamental fights have been won (having established “formal” equality but not “substantive” equality), and partly because it seems to be the nature of the beast at this point. I believe that untraumatized people with “normal” or healthy childhoods, who participate fairly successfully in meaningful productive activities (whether they be economic, artistic, spiritual) tend not to have social activism as their primary focus; it’s generally the people who have been hurt, who have been damaged, who have been stunted, whose identities require some sort of therapeutic participation - or compensation - in whatever cause they choose, who really care about these things enough to make it their primary focus.

Doesn’t this merely speak to your own privilege and circumstance? What experience do you have with non-privilege activism and activist groups? What does it mean that you are acquainted with the extreme instances of injustice on a daily basis faced by the vast majority of students of color, at least in the United States’ educational system?

I just don’t see how a piece on activism can start with the labeling of anyone in the movement who disagrees with you as “unreasonable” and “self-centered”. I called you on it at the time, and you backed off and here you go again–back on the escalator. That sounds and smells like self-absorbedness to me.

None of us are perfect activists, and I say that as a 24/7 activist, happily immersed in the beautiful struggle with little time for identity politics. I share your same frustration with activist who pose and preen and do little to improve the state of anyone’s condition. But any sort of progress for our community has to root in a genuine care for other human beings. I’m sorry, but I don’t see it in this post. “Stop being pathological” is not an empathetic response to people giving concrete examples of sexism and smacks of the “you whiny minorities have too much time on your hands” response. You are replicating exactly what you claim to be critiquing–the playing of identity games to frolic with your own ego.

Liz and I don’t have time to go to films. We have chosen two of the most challenging profession in the history of humankind and then sought out the most extreme, least compensated areas of our fields to practice after a long process of research and strategic thought. However, out of love for ourselves and our community, we chose to drop the $20 and more importantly, the couple of hours to support H and K and gave the film a good review. Then that was ignored and you told informed us that our opinions were wrong and that any critique we might have for the film on an identity path is rooted in psychosis.

There was never any implication that there was anything wrong with seeing the movie or liking it. It was simply a thoughtful discussion of the merits of the film until you chose to vilify any discussion of the gender imaging of the film.

As I read this, I’m worried. I’m not sure there’s any way to make this anything other than an inflammatory response. I’m really trying. I love you, and I have the deepest respect for what you’ve built with this site and I demand at the least that you take that at face value because I’m 100% sincere in my admiration for your work.

The initial question was merely an honest question about the utility and future impact of the site. If the response was, “It’s not my vision” and didn’t surface as a long treatise attacking any and all existing activism that many are giving their lives to ensure that it is indeed the antithesis to the problems you discuss, I would acknowledge the righteousness of your viewpoint.

However, to merely pretend that engaged, non-privileged class movements have existed and continue to exist to reject the point is naturally going to get a “WTF are you talking about–go explore a bit more!” response. I’m sorry if it is as uncomfortable for you to read as it is for me to write know that it is necessary and also painful.

As to the greater issue, I’ll reserve judgment. You still owe us a beautiful integrative piece on what activism is. I look forward to reading it.

We had one member at our site not too long ago, a female half-Asian involved in an IR, who was, to me, a prime example of a good person who completely lost perspective as she got caught up in her “feminist” agenda (I put this word in quotation marks because I consider myself a feminist, just not a crazy one, and I don’t want to denigrate the term): twice, she attempted to apply a feminist anti-patriarchy critique to articles which distinctly did not say what she said they did.

She was one of those defensive “activists,” meaning that if she’d go crazy if she didn’t have anything to complain about. She was one of those people who would leave her wallet unattended in a public place just to claim victimhood when it got stolen.

I see a lot of this in activism too. It’s the easy route to take, but it solves absolutely nothing.