Comments on: E-mail from Frank Chin

By: minbo

minbo — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 00:35:25 +0000

On the email, he talks about Asians and AAs. While he is OK with AA kids learning Jack and the Beanstalk, as long as they keep in touch with their Asian heritage, it is at odds with his insistence to ditch a non-Asian name for an Asian one. If the organization is an Asian activist, not AA he might have some point, but if it is an AA activist site then why do you have to reject one side of your identity to have legitimacy? It is culture and not “race” based, but rejecting a large part of your upbringing and identity because it is not “Asian” is still self-hate. As long as the name has personal significance which can be meaningfully communicated to a larger audience, I don’t really care what language it is in.

As for the 44s name, it was mentioned way back that it was deliberate and why. In line with the choice of Lopes and Tojo’s board names and their profile pics. Not going to speak for them since I don’t remember the exact details, just the general reason, but it seemed reasonable enough to me, as someone who knows fully the implications of double fours, but was raised such that it does not bother me… AA, not just Asian.

By: doppelganger

doppelganger — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 15:40:38 +0000

Yeah, like I said on Big WoWo, the word “Asian” is Greek in origin. Byron, forget English words. How about you just choose a Chinese character as your organization’s symbol: “___,” the organization formerly known as Thymos.

HeyYu,
Frank ain’t smokin’ weed. Dude, somebody should give weed to Frank so he can chill.

By: lopan

lopan — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 15:39:52 +0000

skrips, it was certainly intentional!

By: nskripchun

nskripchun — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 14:41:56 +0000

jae> hahaha!

By: jaehwan

jaehwan — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 05:25:05 +0000

3. Romeo must DIE.

By: nskripchun

nskripchun — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 05:22:04 +0000

I forgot if I left a comment on jaehwan’s original blog post or not, but isn’t the “44″ reference to “double death” intentional?

From an activist standpoint, you could always argue that the double death symbolism is in reference to:

1. -Isms such as racism, sexism, classism, materialism, colonialism, imperialism should DIE.
2. The state of a lack of an Asian American voice in the areas of culture and mainstream society needs to DIE.

Heh heh…

By: Kuroyama

Kuroyama — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 03:56:26 +0000

Living over in Japan its weird how people get weird about 4, 7, and 9. Now I do too. It doesnt freak me out completely, but I do take notice of it. Whats also weird is how sometimes that whole aversion to those numbers gets pushed aside in matters of convenience.

I dont know how much of that comes from China, Further, I dont know how much “Chinese” influence is in 44s. But I have “noticed” the name, and wondered why.

By: Heyyu

Heyyu — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 03:26:22 +0000

Is it just me, but does anyone else think that letter is kind of… incoherent? Like Frank Chin was smoking some weed or something when he wrote that letter…

By: JadeDragon

JadeDragon — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 22:37:43 +0000

And the word “Asian” should only honour “Confucian” Chinese-Korean-Japanese. Chee bye please, lah.

By: lopan

lopan — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 19:34:59 +0000

^I know. With Dialectic’s bald head, we would have made so much cash.