atlasien
Mar 12th, 2007, 02:25 PM
This has a question at the end...
I have noticed that African-American people complain about themselves much more than white people. There are few white people that make a living criticizing other white people. Usually, they are academics and also have to teach Comp or Social Studies 101 in order to get by.
On the other hand, books, essays and columns criticizing African-Americans are very prevalent.
These are the kinds of self-critiques:
1) constructive critiques, both formal and informal. For example, a black person might complain that many people in their community don't understand credit very well. They think about the root causes and ultimate effects. In response, they support organizations that provide financial education classes and seminars for African-American children and adults.
2) venting critiques. These critiques don't serve any social purpose but they do help the person blow off steam. For example, the black person might be irritated with bad behavior by their friends, neighbors or relatives but feel restricted about complaining around white people. In a safer environment they vent about it. A lot of black comedians have acts built around this venting.
3) counterproductive informal critiques. This is the fatalistic repetition of negative stereotypes in the form of truisms. "black people don't do well in school" "black people get into fights" and so on.
4) counterproductive formal critiques. Often done by black conservatives for a white audience. These critiques blame social problems entirely on the individual without offering any realistic way of educating the individual on how to overcome them. They often tell other black people that they just need to act more like Asians, or like black immigrants. Other versions are done by black people for a black audience. They offer a varying mix of productive, venting and counterproductive "we've just got to do better" critiques.
My question is... how do you see Asian-Americans complaining
about themselves? More productive? Less? Different because of the more fragmented ethnic identity? Eerily similar in some regards?
Personally, when I first went online many years ago I checked out a lot of Asian internet sites but got turned off really quickly because so much energy seemed dedicated to unproductive complaining about other Asians. On the other hand I may not be innocent when it comes to this. It's also very difficult because in order to puncture the model minority myth, we have to get across the fact that some Asians are actually poor and ignorant (in more articulate ways of course, but that's the basic message).
I have noticed that African-American people complain about themselves much more than white people. There are few white people that make a living criticizing other white people. Usually, they are academics and also have to teach Comp or Social Studies 101 in order to get by.
On the other hand, books, essays and columns criticizing African-Americans are very prevalent.
These are the kinds of self-critiques:
1) constructive critiques, both formal and informal. For example, a black person might complain that many people in their community don't understand credit very well. They think about the root causes and ultimate effects. In response, they support organizations that provide financial education classes and seminars for African-American children and adults.
2) venting critiques. These critiques don't serve any social purpose but they do help the person blow off steam. For example, the black person might be irritated with bad behavior by their friends, neighbors or relatives but feel restricted about complaining around white people. In a safer environment they vent about it. A lot of black comedians have acts built around this venting.
3) counterproductive informal critiques. This is the fatalistic repetition of negative stereotypes in the form of truisms. "black people don't do well in school" "black people get into fights" and so on.
4) counterproductive formal critiques. Often done by black conservatives for a white audience. These critiques blame social problems entirely on the individual without offering any realistic way of educating the individual on how to overcome them. They often tell other black people that they just need to act more like Asians, or like black immigrants. Other versions are done by black people for a black audience. They offer a varying mix of productive, venting and counterproductive "we've just got to do better" critiques.
My question is... how do you see Asian-Americans complaining
about themselves? More productive? Less? Different because of the more fragmented ethnic identity? Eerily similar in some regards?
Personally, when I first went online many years ago I checked out a lot of Asian internet sites but got turned off really quickly because so much energy seemed dedicated to unproductive complaining about other Asians. On the other hand I may not be innocent when it comes to this. It's also very difficult because in order to puncture the model minority myth, we have to get across the fact that some Asians are actually poor and ignorant (in more articulate ways of course, but that's the basic message).