Jade, I really meant no offense. Communication is sometimes difficult over the internet.

I spoke to the Fallout guys earlier today; if we want to do a podcast, they’ll host/lend us their equipment. Let’s do it in a couple of weeks if that’s cool. When we do it, maybe we can reference the points in this thread so that nothing gets passed over.

The alternative, of course, is to do a private convo. But I’m thinking that the podcast would be cool since we’ve got tons of readers who never post and may want to hear what happens and benefit from any knowledge that comes of it.

Xian, I got slammed again this week with all the events, etc., but I really will try to call you this week, now that most of the work is over (still counting and paying bills though :) ). Looking forward to August!

Please don’t bring up the Holocaust deniers again to try to prove your point here, because this isn’t about denying the slaughter of millions of people. This is about academic discourse, which is different from VIOLENT OPPRESSION.

The other thing that separates our line of reasoning is I don’t believe in Truth. I believe that there are facts, and that we’re in a constant state of gathering evidence and refining our viewpoints. I mean, you can’t possibly believe that your thinking now has reached its absolute limit.

When it comes to Asian-American representation, infighting is not helpful RIGHT NOW because many Asian-Americans can’t even agree on what it is to BE Asian-American. Sure, you have a group that enjoys good turnouts at events and comprises members who agree on many things, but it’s not the same for those Asian-Americans who couldn’t be bothered to read up on Asian-American history or attend such events because they can’t identify with any of that yet. If they feel no connection with the “movement”, then how is infighting even a positive thing?

MG was right: nothing can go forward until you manage to find something that most Asian-Americans can identify with and can be passionate about.

Also, I have to take offence with the tone you use here, Jaehwan. Why do you always make it sound like you’re right and we’re wrong all the time?

I think you all would see my perspective a bit more clearly if we spoke rather than typed, so in the spirit of dialogue, I have a proposal–let’s do a 44s podcast on activism. You still might not agree with me afterwards, but at least you could hear my perspective and ask my questions/challenge me on where you think I’m wrong. Who knows? Maybe I’ll change my views after talking.

This paragraph really grates.

Sorry about the spam blocker…it’s a bit aggressive at times (or else it’s racist…who knows?), but the system should recognize you going forward.

The $2 million is definitely also a slap on the wrist, especially given the fact that he was a cop. I’m all for equality. If someone gets an increased penalty for assaulting a cop, a cop who abuses that additional legal and social protection afforded by his authority as a cop should get increased time for crimes he commits. It’s only fair.

You’re also right about our need to decolonize. That was exactly my point when I mentioned in the original post that Chin and Chan’s essay was written 35 years ago. We Asian Americans have an intellectual foundation to understand the status quo in order to make changes. A lot of the stuff we discuss here has been discussed before, and many of the solutions are already out there. Why haven’t more of us embraced it? Why don’t more of us use our minds for the purpose of progress?

I cited Santa Ana and Wong because I think therein lies the reason. It wasn’t a “Gotcha” moment; it was just pointing out my theory on why we haven’t embraced intelligent thinking and why we’re still in the same place 35 years later.

I think JD, Shades, and Xian are making the same point, so I’ll address it briefly and then make a suggestion.

I’m against infighting too, but I think any movement for change is going to generate some sort of fighting. Gandhi, Malcolm, Lincoln, Sun Yat-Sen, and Martin–they all pissed their own people off. Some of them pissed people off so much that they were killed for what they said. The alternative is not to piss people off, and the only way to do that is by not saying much OR saying what people are already saying, which, in my opinion, is the tactic that many have been taking for the past 35 years.

I also somewhat disagree with the statement that we can’t afford infighting. Regardless of their race, if someone is taking something away from you–be it money, property, or a tradition of intellectual understanding–I think you have a right to fight. Or at least question. One reason why Thymos was successful in raising so much money and generating a turnout for our last event was exactly because we were fighting for what’s right. Sure, we would’ve have a larger turnout if we had screened “Joy Luck Club” instead of “What’s Wrong with Frank Chin,” but then what would be the point? By taking the more acceptable path, we’d alienate those who really want change.

With respect to empathy, I’ve read books by Pat Buchanan and Victor Hanson Davis and others, guys who all have views which I find, at some level, repugnant. As long as they’re telling the truth, I’m cool with it. For the most part, these guys are very truthful; they interpret history differently, but the facts are the same. Buchanan is old school when it comes to race, and Davis is selective when it comes to analyzing cultures, but I empathize with where they are coming from.

On the other hand, I’m not cool with academics who stifle dialogue and shy away from history, which is the only reason I brought up the Kingstonian thing again. Hey, if these people were not ruining Asian American studies, they wouldn’t have the power to stifle dialogue, and I’d have less of a problem with them. All these cool essays like “Racist Love” would be part of our own understanding. But it’s not. And I think it’s fair to challenge the status quo.

I think you all would see my perspective a bit more clearly if we spoke rather than typed, so in the spirit of dialogue, I have a proposal–let’s do a 44s podcast on activism. You still might not agree with me afterwards, but at least you could hear my perspective and ask my questions/challenge me on where you think I’m wrong. Who knows? Maybe I’ll change my views after talking. Alternatively, we could all just do a private conference call on this topic.

What say you all? It may or make not work, but maybe it’s worth a shot. From my own perspective (and this again is my opinion only), we’ve had 35 years of the non-progress or slow progress, and I’m willing to do what it takes to take our efforts to the next level.

This guy is a serial sexual assaulter/harasser and should be sitting in jail playing the role of girlfriend to some guy named Bubba for a long, long time. California’s infamous SuperMax prison system would be a good place to lock up this guy. Former cops are not exactly the most beloved people in prisons.

As for Chin et al.’s “Racist Love” essay, their point is that racist stereotypes often come in
binary pairs. Thus, for Asians, there is the menacing Yellow Peril stereotype as embodied by Fu Manchu. And there is the stereotype of Asians as docile and obedient, as embodied by Charlie Chan. The former is an example of Racist Hate, while the latter is Racist Love. Similar examples can be found with other minorities.

Beyond this, the essay talks about the function of these stereotypes and how Asian Americans internalize them. Simply put, the purpose of these stereotypes is to provide a “model of behavior” that minorities implicitly should emulate–thus upholding America’s racial caste system in which White is Right: “If the system works, the stereotypes assigned to the various races are accepted by the races themselves as reality, as fact, and racist love reigns.”

Asian Americans, Chin et al. believe, often accept the legitimacy of this belief system and embrace it as their very own. As a result, Asian people live in a kind of identity nether world in which they accept “white standards of objectivity, beauty, behavior, and achievement as being morally absolute,” yet they can never fully live up to these standards because as they are not White.

For academics like Sau-ling Wong, the work of Chin and company in general reinforces mainstream American sexism or homophobia, even as it opposes racism. Their essay, for instance, talks about these issues from an Asian male perspective and does not address how this system of White male supremacy uniquely impacts Asian women.

What’s interesting to me is that the situation described in “Racist Love” is still relevant to this very day, over 30 years after the publication of the article.

These ideas about Asians as either exoticized sex objects (if you’re an Asian woman) or as emasculated sexless objects (if you’re an Asian man) continue to pervade popular culture and consciousness, though often in more subtle form. Not only that, some Asian Americans tacitly internalize these identities or at least are loath to challenge them.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

There are many reasons for this problem, but one primary factor is that Asian Americans as a people have yet to complete a process of what Ng?g? wa Thiong’o called “decolonizing the mind.”

For as long as you accept the “colonizer’s” definition of who you are and what your identity and culture represent, you ain’t free.

But this is the answer to your own question. Why haven’t we embraced this visionary perspective?

Because we spend our time and energy winning arguments with each other rather than identifying our commonality, and shared grievances and fighting for their resolution.

Why did you need the last series of “AHA! GOTCHA!” paragraphs?

“Sick, racist infatuation is rooted in the same white supremacist agenda that drive racial hatred and antipathy!” was a fine point. Why not go to the next step rather than use that brilliant point to simply go another round on some perceived traitors (not really here) in our midst?

I can’t speak for you, but my belief on the next step is this:

We need to publicize the point-of-view that racist assaults are driven by the same exotification impulses that surge from the society’s white supremacist foundation. These assaults, more than anything are symbols of the commonality we share–whether exotified or emasculated–not only with other Asian Americans, but all of those marginalized and oppressed by social institutions.

I have to agree with Nightshade on the fact that you can’t afford infighting at this point. It just makes people within the organisation(s) angry and alienates those who would have joined and/or been supportive in the first place if not for that sort of stupidity.

I really don’t want to say too much anymore because I get angry trying to articulate what I think, but seriously, Jaehwan, while you may know things on an intellectual level and your heart is in the right place, you have very little empathy for things you don’t agree with, and that makes for bad dialogue.

Also, the leap to Wong and Santa Ana is being responsible for the fact that the term “racist love” not catching on–I’m not sure if I understand the connection.

It is exactly this kind of infighting, where one educated group within the community insists that another educated group within the community, is some specific terrible thing (misogynist or self hating) that detracts from any forward movement with the academic community. It is not to say that people should call other people out for being wrong, but so much energy is being spent on accusations. We don’t have the luxury to do this yet. Sure, white academics can do it all they want, because they don’t have to spend each day reaffirming their identities.

This is why I believe that we have to build upon the work of all Asian American academics, instead of refusing to acknowledge the role they have played in shaping the way we read and see the world.

As for the whole rice chaser bit–well, the man isn’t just a rice chaser. He’s a potential rapist and someone who gets off having power over women. In this case he’s exercising power over Asian women.