We can complain about how bad ignorance in the Asian American community, but fact remains that you could only come up with two that fit the worst case scenario. We get some majority fuck who comes in and personifies that relatively frequently. I can’t swing a dead cat around without hitting some insincere middle school debate warrior standing on his “my mommy says my opinion is special” soap box when I venture into the academic community.

So I’d like to take a more positive approach on everything–after all, we seem to have no more dysfunction than most artificial communities–We have Chao and Malkin and that dude who made the case for torture, but that’s not bad for a whole community.

That’s exactly what I’m suggesting. I don’t know that it’s a teacher’s or a business approach. I’d argue that it’s an urban teacher’s approach where you support those interested in promoting their own and others’ learning in a respectful, loving environment and leaving the door open for the rest.

However, remember what we are suggesting here–”trying to convert the misguided is a dead end”, being complicit is self-defeating.

Being snide and disparaging is worse than a dead-end–it won’t matter a lick to those who are “misguided”, but it will definitely give thoughtful open-minded fence sitters a reason to ignore us as well and group us in the “misguided” section, perhaps correctly.

Think of it this way. We’re teaching the honors section. There’s a remedial section–or maybe I should say truant section–which caters to the kids who don’t want to study. This truant section definitely needs to exist, but so does the honors section.

I don’t think anyone here is being snide and disparaging. If I say that Kingtonian feminism is bad, it’s because I think that Kingstonian feminism is bad, the same way I think that global warming is bad. If I say Kingstonian feminism’s main issue is their ability to fuck white men, it’s because every incarnation of the movement has been exactly about that. (As Jade points out in her new post, it’s always about sex.) I’m not trying to be rude or disrespectful; I’m just pointing out something that I think others should notice. I think it was maogirl or nightshade who first pointed this out this “protest to fuck the white man” routine, and I’m returning the favor to others who wonder why Kingstonism has been such a remarkable failure. I think sometimes we need to draw the line by saying, “This is what and why I think this is the best course of action, and this is what I don’t like, and I’ll tell you why.”

Finally, I do think it’s important to draw a distinction between someone who is “misguided” due to real personal experiences, but at least partially open-minded to new ideas and with noble goals and someone who is in the discussion for the sake of self-indulgence.

Both are problematic, but the second is a pathologically insincere saboteur who needs to be removed immediately. The other needs to be supported, and offered alternatives in a non-condescending fashion that validates their experiences, but incites them to grow.

I agree with you, but the latter example is extremely rare. Really, how many of these Kingstonians are purposely in it for the sake of self-indulgence? Sure, there’s Margaret Cho, and then there’s that chick from 8Asians, but they really are rare. All Kingstonians are all self-indulgent, but most of them want to be effective activists, they just don’t know how, and their prejudices against Asian men effectively kill their ability to engage in meaningful dialogue.

That’s why I say that we need to leave the door open, but let them know where we stand. They’ll respect you for telling them the truth.

Actually, Xian, let me ask–are we in agreement? It seems that we are…I just think it’s a difference in personal style, right?

However, remember what we are suggesting here–”trying to convert the misguided is a dead end”, being complicit is self-defeating.

Being snide and disparaging is worse than a dead-end–it won’t matter a lick to those who are “misguided”, but it will definitely give thoughtful open-minded fence sitters a reason to ignore us as well and group us in the “misguided” section, perhaps correctly.

Finally, I do think it’s important to draw a distinction between someone who is “misguided” due to real personal experiences, but at least partially open-minded to new ideas and with noble goals and someone who is in the discussion for the sake of self-indulgence.

Both are problematic, but the second is a pathologically insincere saboteur who needs to be removed immediately. The other needs to be supported, and offered alternatives in a non-condescending fashion that validates their experiences, but incites them to grow.

Let’s be real, in mainstream America, individuals are individuals, but there are a lot more folks with privilege in the latter group than minority folks working out their baggage….

So you can use it, but for the sake of understanding, you’ll have to define it every time you do. That’s why I rarely use the term “racist;” I just usually say whatever it is “differentiates between races.” “Racist” has a value judgment.

I have the same complaint with Jenn. I don’t understand who she is supposed to be writing for. Anyone who needs to hear her message won’t be interested in listening to that message, especially the way she packages it.

I think we need to define what a “fake activist” is. I think a lot of times, people aren’t “fake” as in being intentionally bad people; they’re just misguided. Natalise, for example, is a good example of a fake feminist. But in her defense, I don’t think she’s being malicious. Why else would she make the video? I think she’s just misguided by the same Kingstonian narcissism that D describes.

You brought up Jenn, and I think Jenn is a another great example. Per AsianBGirl/Ramona’s request, I called her and spoke with her on Thursday. I think Jenn’s a great person. I really like her, I respect the effort she puts into her activism, and I regret that she took my comments personally. I like James too. I think he’d be a great guy to have a drink with. He’d also be a great guy to see drunk.

However–and again I hope Jenn doesn’t take this personally because I really do like her–her problem is not the packaging; it’s the message. Whenever you bring up anything with Jenn that has to do with Asian gender–whether we’re talking men OR women–she responds with the “privileged” or “sexist” argument that D describes above. You’ve been on the tail end of this, as have I. It’s not the packaging that’s wrong. It’s the message. It’s based on a lack of respect for logic and the predominance of narcissism.

It’s a Catch-22. Jenn says, “I want Asian men to talk about sexism,” which is fine, but the minute an Asian man opens his mouth to express a real opinion, the “AA feminist” response is “You’re sexist and privileged and wrong because you’re sexist and privileged.” Logic doesn’t matter.

Again, I need to stress that I don’t think she’s being malicious, and I do appreciate her effort. But the more traction her “movement” gains, the harder it will be for Asian Americans to progress.

I think, Xian, that we need to take a businessman’s approach rather than a teacher’s approach. (And I know we come from different fields.) We need marshal the people who do not follow the Kingstonian approach, and we have to encourage them to lead. Acknowledge the Kingstonians, and definitely engage them, but let the them follow later. Trying to convert the “misguided” feminists is a dead end. In their mindset, your opinions matter less because you’re an Asian male with an independent position. They’ll acknowledge you if you agree with everything they say, but why bother?

As you’ve mentioned many times, we have to win. Trying to lead people who won’t listen no matter what, I believe, is a step in the wrong direction. Why beat ourselves up in converting stubborn Kingstonians when we can spend that time finding people who take a more interdependent approach?

I have the same complaint with Jenn. I don’t understand who she is supposed to be writing for. Anyone who needs to hear her message won’t be interested in listening to that message, especially the way she packages it.

The man who is the head of the service learning initiative in Chicago says that you teach other teachers who are interested so the movement grows slowly, and then when you are wildly successful, you will be modeling for the skeptics and the movement will grow exponentially.

So I’m really not too interested in the fake activists on any side of the ledger. Their masturbatory self-congratulations are not really part of the equation at all, and the only net negative they have is the dispersion effect they carry with them.

Which is working on us as we spend most of our time discussing them.

It’s the same way in true activist organizations–if they really want to be inviting to sincere minority folks of all kinds, they cannot be predominantly ethnic majority.

That then creates the dynamic that occasionally (or frequently) you’ll have an aversive bigoted majority person who wanders into the folks and calls you racism for now bowing down to their superior knowledge and position which of course exist only in the mind of the beholder.

Tough shit. They aren’t going to help anyway–give them one solid, sincere, loving chance, and then toss them out on their ass.

Thanks to the leadership here, we tend to do this much better these days at the 44s. A few of us will go all empathetic and give them a chance–they hang themselves with their own rope, and then everyone tears them to shreds.

That’s fine, but the much of the rest of the time we seem to spend debating each other esoterically.

We still progress ideologically more than many other online arenas, but that’s not enough IMHO.

Love the article.

Xian,

Love the response.

I haven’t seen H&K, so again I come half-prepared. I would like to comment on the paragraph below:

Xian wrote:

Before responding, I thought I’d just point out that I don’t agree with this. The acknowledgment of evidence of sexism is merely that. It is like acknowledging that you have a flat tire or that the sun is up. It involves more complex tools, but I’m not making a value judgment. The sun being up is bad if you are a vampire, and good if you are about to go into night madness. Sexism is not evil, it is merely something that often has negative effects both to the actor and the society they act upon.

I agree with your definition when you use the term “sexist,” Xian, but I think Dialectic was referring to the way in which most other self-described Asian American activists use the term. The world is full of “fake activists” or “misguided activists” who use the term exactly as D describes. They’ll use the term “sexist” or “racist” as a way of vilifying the other speaker–not even vilifying just the comment–and trying to win the argument through a thinly veiled ad-hominem attack.

I think it’s one of the biggest problems in Asian American activism is this anti-intellectual ad-hominem approach to debate. D is right. Look at those typical self-described “Asian American feminists.” Have you ever tried to talk to any of them? If you have, most likely the first thing that comes out of their mouths when you say anything of substance is “you’re sexist.” They normally don’t use the term as you describe above; usually they use it as a means of ending a conversation, as D describes. “You’re sexist” means “your opinion doesn’t matter because it’s all about me.” That’s narcissism. Logic goes out the window, and you wind up with no progress.

So while I agree you use the term as you described, I’d say that most other people use it in the way that D describes.

Before responding, I thought I’d just point out that I don’t agree with this. The acknowledgment of evidence of sexism is merely that. It is like acknowledging that you have a flat tire or that the sun is up. It involves more complex tools, but I’m not making a value judgment. The sun being up is bad if you are a vampire, and good if you are about to go into night madness. Sexism is not evil, it is merely something that often has negative effects both to the actor and the society they act upon.

Everything else, up to the personal examples, I agree with entirely. I still ask what the function is. I also ask why we continue to use such overgeneralizing language. I was not using “privileged” to shut you down, but to point out that overgeneralization just demonstrates that you need to experience different activist movements.

So yes, saying “You are privileged and couldn’t understand” is fallicious and hopeless.

However, that does not preclude one from meaningfully pointing out how privilege has led to ignorance. I’m not arguing that privilege is preventing people from understanding the beauty of whiny identity politics; I’m arguing that privilege is preventing you from seeing that most activism takes place outside of elite circles and have little of such influence in them.

So if you are not running into good activism, you need to touch better activist movements rather than complaining about activism in general.

See below:

This is intense narcissism, this is what activism and social studies currently encourages, and this, along with the correlating hyper-fragmentation of interest groups (race, sex, sexual-orientation, disability, class, age, etc.) is what has crippled social activism today from the inside, and destroyed its credibility in the eyes of a large segment of the population.

This is not what activism encourages. This is what whiny fake activism promoted by those more interested in appearing thoughtful and liberalish than actual social change. It sucks, but if people are really being turned away from actual community improvement by it, they need to stop looking at the shiny lights and ask themselves what they really care about.

What was supposed to be noble, and sensitive, and compassionate, comes across now as repetitive adolescent whining, and many people don’t want to hear it anymore.

My adolescents don’t whine, and so people should listen to them instead.

I don’t think I did that; I described a particular type of thinking as unreasonable and self-centered, one that I have seen all over the place in schools and online. I’m also not sure when you “called” me on it and when I “backed off.” I don’t recall “backing off” of anything, unless you mean I just didn’t respond, and that’s generally for one or two reasons: 1) I feel I’ve said everything I need to, and 2) I didn’t have the time.

Backed off was not meant as a insult, merely a respectful recollection–I thought we had had this discussion before. I don’t have time to look it up, but I’m happy to back-off either way. I could certainly be misremembering and it’s not really a key point. I apologize sincerely.

I’m talking about where the general discourse is now, what people consider activism to be, and the many psycho-social problems which plague it.

Fake activists and non-activists consider activism to be this. I don’t see many of them and the ones I do see I try to avoid. I don’t think these problems plague activism nor do they affect it much. I think anything broken by fake activists would be quickly fixed if people simply ignored them and worked to improve their communities in an empathetic way.

I think “vilify” is a strong word; I simply gave my opinion that anyone who was made really uncomfortable by the gender depictions, or who felt “isolated” in their horror, should get a clue.

Well, literally it’s a might bit strong, but as I said above, I clearly was making no judgment and was encouraging people to see the film. But to tell people to get a clue because they identified what they thought to be sexism doesn’t seem to be empathetic or discussion starting. That being said, uncomfortable or isolated in horror don’t really describe my state. Obviously, it didn’t hamper my overall enjoyment of the film.

Two of the most challenging professions in the history of humankind”? You don’t think there’s a bit of narcissism in the tone and content of this paragraph? Is your self-sacrifice relevant to a discussion of the legitimacy of the accusation of sexism in Harold and Kumar? What if I had gone through great self-sacrifice to take the time and energy to go to the movie and give the opinion I gave? Would that make my position any more legitimate?

No, that wasn’t the point. I’m sorry–I should have thought how that could be received. I was merely pointing out that we are about as pro-the idea of H & K as a couple could possibly be. The tone of the paragraph was merely to emphasize that it wasn’t like we go to 100 movies a year and were stumbling on to some horrible sexist flick.

It was to demonstrate that we did something we don’t normally get a chance to do (go see a movie) because of how much we believe in the project.

As to the “two of the most challenging professions” it was tongue-in-cheek kidding on the square. I hope it came across as narcissistic as that was certainly the intent. It’s the same way my top student and I greet each other in the hall with an over-emphasized “OF THE YEAR!” to mock our own potential hubris over winning the district wide service learning awards this year. (The most competitive awards known to mankind…is little Milo)

Well, hopefully pt. 2 will begin to satisfy what I “owe.”

Great! Look forward to seeing it!