I was on Bicoastal Bitchin’ getting my daily fix of APIA news when I saw their post on OpieRadio and their mockery of Asian Occupy Wall Street protesters. As an Asian and an Occupy protester myself, I was extremely interested.
Here’s what BB says:
Apparently, included in this “freak show” are two Chinese immigrants, one who used to work for Morgan Stanley, Citibank, and other Wall Street firms — and his friend who is there to support him and the larger movement. When one man speaks in Chinese to answer Opie’s (over-enunciated) question: “Why. Are. You. Here?OpieI don’t know what he’s saying!” (1:45 mark). After the other man translates, Opie mocks them with several “Ah, soooo
Well Opie, understand this: FUCK YOU!! Why these two well-spoken men were included in a montage with a girl in a bear costume who couldn’t answer why she was protesting or a guy speaking through a puppet rat is totally ridiculous and offensive. Why are they “freaks”…because they’re Asian and have accents? Also, did he make oinking noises at the girl at 2:20? Class act.
This video on its own is pretty pathetic. But to include two articulate people who besides being immigrants have no “freak” qualities to them is downright racist. This brings to mind Fox’s lovely football interviews (the video has been taken down and at the moment, I cannot find it) when the interviewer did the classic speak-slow-and-speak-loudly thing people somehow find appropriate to do when around non-native English speakers.
Thank you OpieRadio for giving us another reason to be ANGRY.
Mike Prysner - Vietnam Veteran. (via ambitioussurvival)
blended with a little nationalism and “American exceptionalism.”
(via fappedisco)
(Source: psychedelicmindfluid)
…I do not dig debating with young white feminists late into the night about white privilege and having other Black women in the thread have to call out the supposed anti-racist feminists for not speaking up, for yet again forcing Black women to do the exhausting work of teaching. I do not dig being told on the interwebs, –tumblr, other blogs, the Slutwalk NYC FB page–that Black women are being hyper-sensitive and divisive. I do not dig being intellectually insulted with the assertion that I simply didn’t understand “Yoko and John’s intent.” As if.
Y’all know that saying about intentions and well, perhaps you should also recognize that we are long past the point of talking about intent when we talk about racism. We should be talking about impact. (Rest in Power to the venerable Dr. Derrick Bell, father of Critical Race Theory, whom we have to thank for that little insight.) Intent is about individual relationships and hurt feelings; impact is about systems of power and their impact on material realities…”
~ Crunk Feminist Collective “I Saw the Sign but Did We Really Need a Sign?: SlutWalk and Racism” ~
(via afrolez)
Positive Racism is Still Racism: No, I’m Not A “Strong Black Woman”
This is a blog post from kittiekattie on livejournal:
You know, some people will start with the basics. Some will start with the negatives. Some will start with fandom (and when I get into that, oh the rage will fly). I’m going to start with the flip side. The positive stereotypes.
See, a lot of people ignorantly seem to think that racism only flows towards the bad things. That racism only involves when people are calling people bad names, and cursing them, and the like. But there’s a just as insidious version of racism that people seem to neglect a lot. The positive stereotypes. The “good racism.” The “Oh, you should be this, and that’s good,” racism. And the problem with positive stereotypes is that they lock you down just as bad as the negative ones, if not worse with some.
We know the one about the Asians: They’re smart, and bright, and good at math, and they work hard and achieve well, and are quiet, and blah. They get a lot of praise, in fact, as America’s Model Minority. (And this is used to hold down other races, but that’s part of the Interracial racism shtick). But what if you’re Asian and you know, you don’t want to be an overachiever, you just want to be you? What if you’re shitacular in math? What if you’re loud, and bouncy, and boisterous? What if you (gasp!) HATE anime? What if you actually open your mouth and say the shit on your mind? What if you’re not grateful to have been adopted at the age of 2 and raised in the US by Bobby and Sally Whitebread? What if you’re sick of being the model minority that comes over and does so good (because boy, those Asians are just so hardworking and smart)? What if you don’t like rice, and you don’t like sushi, and you are getting sick and tired of having people ask you how to say their name in Chinese (and what the fuck is with that anyways, because you’re Korean)? You’re just as held back by people giving you GOOD stereotypes. By people thinking that Latino men are macho and willing to take on work (any work, even dirty shit). By thinking that Black men are strong and intimidating.
And there’s the sexual ones. Not all Latinos/Latinas are hot blooded sexy masters of the bedroom. Not all black men are hung like horses and like their women big and thick. Not all black women are freaks or sexless, sassy women—some of us need hugs and kisses and gentle love too. Asian men aren’t sexless geeks or walking yaoi boys. And the Asian women get a lot of shit. You get dumb white mofos who complain that American women are too uppity and loud and liberated, and they go and try and seek out Asian women to make their little submissive wifie—and then they run into one that will cut a bitch for trying to make her into their pinkerton fantasy and they think she’s not really Asian.
As for the title, that’s me. I’m not the strong black woman. I’ve had depression at least 4-5 times in my life I can pinpoint. At one point, I attempted suicide on a near ritual basis for damn near four years. I was a cutter—and not the show off kind like some are. I wore sweatshirts and cut where no one could see, you know, because I was ashamed of my shit. I was emo before emo was cool and people thought you were just weird when you sulked around all emo and shit. I have a maelstrom of crazy in this head of mine, and not all of it is the nice crazy. Some of it is the stuff that I swear, if I saw myself on tape when I have my freak outs, I’d be scared of it. I’m getting better. But before—did I ever get help? Did I ever consider psychiatric help, even when it was free on my college campus? Did I talk about my problems, my sexual abuse, anything like that? No. I swallowed my pain and pushed it inside and I snapped under the pressure and had something very akin to a nervous breakdown.
And one major reason I never sought help? Because the message in society is that psychiatric is for those “weak ass white people” and a “real” black woman can make it without any of that shit. Because black women are strong. They don’t need to pay no one a shit load of money to talk about they problems, they just need to get up and deal with it (with Jesus, even, cause you know black women are godly like that). And so, when my mind finally snapped at the age of 16 or so, and stayed snapped til I met Brent, I just suffered under my crazy. I didn’t think I could get help.
Because black women are supposed to be strong. We’re the backbones of black society. We raise the boys to men and keep the girls in line, and take care of our men, and we’re the good parents and the care takers and the ones who take on the burdens and what does that sound like oh that’s right, that’s a PACKMULE. Black women don’t need emotions, they’re too busy dealing with REAL problems. Because you know, it’s not that the mind isn’t real or anything.
So you have generations of black women, with crazy in the mind, and no one will help us up because they act like we’re too strong to have emotions. There have been times where I cried myself sick, and people ignored me because they though I was handling it, and I was crying because I was begging people to help me, to get me out of my despair, and they wouldn’t even notice. Because I’m supposed to be strong. Strong meaning “you can do it yourself, no one cares when you cry.”
And then when I break, people look around me and go “Whoa, didn’t see that coming” when I’ve been screaming out signs the whole descent into Batshit City. Maybe if you weren’t too busy telling me what I’m supposed to do and what’s so good about my blackness, you’d have noticed that I’m hurting.
It’s just as racist to call a Latino man “macho” and “passionate” as it is it say they’re stealing our jobs and won’t speak English. It’s just as racist to say an Asian person is a hard worker as it is to say they can’t drive.
And it’s just as fucking racist to tell me I’m a strong black woman who doesn’t hurt as it is to call me a nappy headed ho.
—TashaFrom here.
SOMEWHERE BETWEEN tells intimate stories of what it is like to come-of-age as a trans-racial adoptee in today’s America, as examined through the POV of some of the 79,562 adopted girls from China.
Black Stunt: HEC says students ‘didn’t want to offend anyone’
Anthony Morgan was walking through the Université de Montréal campus on Wednesday when he saw something that stopped him in his tracks: a group of white students, their faces painted black, waving a Jamaican flag as they chanted “Smoke some weed! Yeah mon! Yeah mon!”
“It was never something I expected to see in Montreal, much less on a university campus,” Morgan told The Gazette. “Being black and of Jamaican descent myself it was just completely jarring. It was humiliating as though your race is somehow a costume for baffoonery, as though somehow I was invisible or less than a person. It was really tough to have to walk by that.”
“What’s alarming is that this isn’t someone who accidentally let the n-word slip mid conversation,” he said. “That’s obviously bad but this was an event that was planned for weeks. It’s a problem that in the hours of planning this took no one stopped to say maybe this is wrong.”
Source: Montreal Gazette
Sleepless night so forgive this post if it's all bleary and intense
(Inspired by the commentary on this post)
For the purposes of anti-racism struggles, that’s all you need to go by.
Yes, the term, “colored” is not normally associated with Asian people these days, but it was definitely used to label people of Asian descent in this country in the…
Here’s another one of those one-way calls for solidarity. “If you don’t legitimize my identity and include me in your organizing then you’re stupid.” No mention of Asians needing to eliminate anti-Black or non-Asian POC racism BEFORE being in solidarity with these communities. Or that racism and white supremacy operate differently for Blacks and non-Blacks and we all have to understand those intricacies before organizing with each other. Just, include us or you’re stupid. The fact that I am always Black and never “Other” means something. That white supremacy lynched all of us, but recorded me as Negro and you as white means something. Not that Asians aren’t people of color or victims of white supremacy, but that white supremacy oppresses us in different ways. If some Asians feel closer to white people because they beat them up less, that seems like a pretty important thing to address before making blanket demands of inclusion.
It seems that people are missing or deliberately ignoring the context of my post, which was commentary on a particular piece of commentary, not a blanket statement about intra-minority racial relations. My call for solidarity among ALL people of color was just a rhetorical turn from pointing out the fact that racism among Americans of color has been bred, born, and nurtured in a White supremacist power structure. Recognizing the fact that all people of color are oppressed by the White power structure IN NO WAY is a sort of downplaying of anti-Black racism or a call to ignore the social/economic/historic differences in our situations. I don’t think I’m being controversial when I say that (1)White racism has harmed all people of color (2) though the ways this harm has manifested itself in our communities has differed. It’s possible to acknowledge situated differences AND overall, systemic effects at the same time.
Pointing this out (1) is not meant to absolve anyone of culpability for racism, but is/was meant to (again) raise the point that Asian racism against Black Americans is not Black American’s biggest problem, race-wise. Neither is Black racism against Asians. The LA riots were a perfect example of the divide-and-conquer strategy devised by White racism—get the minorities hating and mistrusting and destroying each other so they forget about who’s actually holding the boot to their throats.
I make a point to acknowledge Asian racism against other non-Whites, but my post was specifically addressing a particular skeptical comment about whether Asians count as ‘Colored’ or not. (FYI: We do.) I’m pointing out the fact that many (black, brown, white, etc.) DON’T count us as oppressed due to circumstances that are mostly beyond our control and that the reasoning behind this stance is highly suspect. Telling Asians to clean up our act is one thing; flat-out denying our oppression is another.
I mean, when has liberation ever been bought with denials and ignorance?
I didn’t discuss Asian culpability in anti-Black and -Brown racism because my post wasn’t about Asian culpability in anti-Black and -Brown racism. It was about how potential allies among POC have tended to deny Asians our history and oppression in a way that reproduces similar White denials of the history and oppression of Blacks, Native Americans/Amerindians, and Latinos. Reread it and tell me where I say, “I’m here to discuss why Black and Brown people should absolve Asians of our racism against them.” It’s one thing to tell me I’m wrong, but it’s another to put words in my mouth before you do it.
I would like to add that one of the basic premises of the responder is wrong: that East Asians were ‘recorded’ as White. No, no they were not. The White Supremecist folk focused on Black people because they were in the same place; that is not the same as giving other PoC White status. Look at Arizona’s campaign against Brown people—have they given Black people a pass? No, but Latinos are the group there to oppress. Were the Nazis recording Arabic people as White? No, because they had the Jews and Roma for non-Whites; nowadays, with the Jews and Roma dead or gone, and Arabic peoples coming in large numbers, Central Europe calls Jews White and Middle Easterners ‘ethnic’.
To say East Asians were recorded as White because they weren’t systematically oppressed at a particular point in time and specific place by a specific group is utterly fallacious.
Fair or Not?: The Snow White Complex
Directed by: M. Hasna M.
“Fair or Not?: The Snow White Complex” is a documentary about Eurocentric standards of female beauty that are held across most (post-Colonial) cultures.
Some of the topics covered: Skin color preferences in relation to class/culture, the media’s role in exacerbating internalized racism, skin bleaching products, exoticism of dark-skinned women, and the phenomenon of tanning amongst White women.
WATCH THIS NOW. WATCH IT.
Kenza Drider, a 32-year-old mother of three, was famously bold enough to appear on French television to oppose the law before it came into force. She refuses to take off her niqab – “My husband doesn’t dictate what I do, much less the government” – but she says she now lives in fear of attack. “I still go out in my car, on foot, to the shops, to collect my kids. I’m insulted about three to four times a day,” she says. Most say, “Go home”; some say, “We’ll kill you.” One said: “We’ll do to you what we did to the Jews.” In the worst attack, before the law came in, a man tried to run her down in his car.
Since France introduced its burqa ban in April there have been violent attacks on women wearing the niqab and, this week, the first fines could be handed down. But a legal challenge to this hard line may yet expose the French state as a laughing stock.(source)
WTF!: Racist Ringtone #1 On iTunes
Try a real awesome Mordecai and Rigby ra-ha-ringtone instead. :)
Ching-chongy Oriental music riff? Check. Big gong sound? Check. Over-exaggerated mock Asian-Y guy accent yelling at you about picking up your phone and calling you “Gay” and “Carpet Muncher” and calling you a “Niggah?” Check, check, and check.
Who knew that a ringtone with a horrendous mock Asian accent could be THE funniest and top-selling comedy ringtone on iTunes today! (Well, gosh, if just doing an Asian accent makes you top in Comedy…I really should’ve taken that advice from those hack comics when I first started doing standup comedy, huh?)
For a mere $1.29 you TOO can have your iPhone have an “Asian” guy telling you that your ”Asian Sister Calling.” The “artist” is called “Ringtones!” on iTunes and “Ringtone & Ringtones” on Amazon.
I transcribed this top seller just below but it’s MUCH more enlightening if you listen to “Sister Calling” for yourself. But it doesn’t stop there! You can also hear OTHER gems from this same company like “Carpet Muncher” and “Nunchuck!” in case you didn’t get your fill of Asian, gay and black stereotypes on your iPhone. See THOSE transcribed after the jump OR listen to them yourself at the Amazon site.
I also HIGHLY suggest you notify AMAZON that this is completely offensive and doesn’t deserve a place online. I left a comment of one star as well.
Deeply Embarrassed White People Talk Awkwardly About Race
So one answer to the question What can I do? is simple: Listen. Believe.
“I had to stop talking to white people about race, because I kept getting retraumatized,” an African American friend told me about her days as a diversity trainer. “They just wanted to talk about why they weren’t racist.”
“It’s really important to recognize that race affects everything you do—and that to act otherwise is just naive,” says Julie Nelson, the director of the Seattle Office for Civil Rights (she’s white; her predecessor was an African American woman).
What Nelson says is this: If you’re white, you have to own it. None of this I’m-not-white, I’m-beyond-it-and-I’m-Norwegian stuff. White people have to see race according to the terms they actually benefit from. Not that whiteness is a monolith, any more than nonwhiteness is. As Mab Segrest writes: “Women are less white than men, gay people are less white than straight people, poor people less white than rich people, Jews than Christians, and so forth.” But what might matter, what should matter, is that whiteness is a real force that you’ve personally benefited from in one way or another if you’re white.
Source: The Stranger
