Happy Birthday Oscar Grant

xMabaitx blogs about race, racial identity, skin color, and Oscar Grant:

I have determined that my former desire to ”fit into” a certain racial or ethnic distinction has very little bearing on my own sense of personal self-worth. The greater issue rather is how the white man’s ideas of race and ethnicity consequently force unwanted social meanings upon my body.

Asian American Views on the Elections

Clair, at Hyphen Blog, gives us some links to Asian American news and views on the recent elections.

Letter to the Man Who Yelled at Me

Jeannie Choi blogs:

I am writing you this letter after much internal debate to inform you of the many realizations that erupted within me after our very brief encounter yesterday. I am writing you this letter because there is a lot I have to say to you. I am writing you this letter because after a great deal of thought, I’ve decided that you might like to know what you did, what I should have done, and what I hope can happen between you and me in the future.

First, what you did. Yesterday, as I was walking down Columbia Road, you saw me from a distance. I did not see you, because I was on the phone. But you certainly saw me. You saw me in my summer dress, walking quickly because I was late for dinner with my cousins, chattering away on my cell phone, laughing at something my friend said. You saw me. You saw my black hair, my sloped forehead, brown eyes, and undoubtedly in your mind you thought something along the lines of chink, gook, oriental, Chinese chick who doesn’t speak English. And for some reason, for a reason that I can’t understand, you proceeded to get right in my face and yell at me. And if you can’t remember what it is you yelled—Well, I do and I probably will forever:“Ching chong ching chong f***ing CHINK!”

[Hat Tip: Phil]

Racist mother goose and grimm cartoon

Angry Asian Man blogs:

Kimchi Mamas first blogged about this a couple of weeks ago… What kind of messed up nonsense is this? This Mother Goose and Grimm comic strip is a couple of weeks old, but dude, what the hell? Come on! Really? They really had to go there with the idiotic Korean dog-eating joke?

My Slanted Eyes are Beautiful

Eugene Cho, pastor of Quest Church in Seattle, blogs about the Spanish Basketball team’s picture in where they slant their eyes as an “affectionate gesture” toward their Chinese hosts:

I’m in no position to judge any of the individuals or players involved as racists.  I like to give people the benefit of the doubt and I certainly do in this situation; Truthfully, I also really like Pau Gasol and Jose Calderon as NBA players…I intend to draft both of them for my fantasy basketball teams in the upcoming season.  But having said that, I have no problems with calling the ACT racist.  While the intent may have been to demonstrate an “affectionate gesture,” let’s make this very clear: slitting or slanting your eyes is NOT an affectionate gesture.  You don’t mock physical appearance because you think it’s affectionate.

Rejecting the Model Minority Tag

A. R. Sakaeda blogs at the Chicago Tribune News Blogs

When people talk about the model minority, “model” is code for never making other people feel uncomfortable about racism. “Model” means not being like all those other troublesome people of color. It means keeping your mouth shut and your eyes lowered. It means smiling brightly and nodding along. Yes, sir! Whatever you say, sir! It means never complaining.

Members of the model minority often are used to shame other people of color. They can do it, why can’t you? If you would only have those same close-knit families. If you only valued education more. If you only worked harder. Racism is a thing of the past.

Holding up Asian Americans as a model divides communities of color, making it difficult for us to see our commonalities.

[Hat Tip: angry asian man]

That’s Racist!

Phil blogs about Chicago Cubs fans buying racist themed t-shirts to “celebrate” their first Japanese player, Kosuke Fukudome:

As you can see above, on the front of the shirt is the traditional Cubs cartoon bear face but with slanted eyes and wearing oversized Harry Caray-sized glasses. It’s accompanied by the words “Horry Cow” in cartoonish “Japanese” script. (The late Caray was the Cubs’ longtime announcer, and among his catchphrases was, “Holy cow!”) Fukudome’s name and number are on the back.

Great. I don’t know what’s worse—the fact that somebody (who is apparently “an Oriental guy”) made this shirt, or that it’s so damn popular amongst Chicago fans. What a way to welcome the franchise’s first Japanese player. That’s racist!

Support the Fight for Asian American Studies at Hunter College

Rage, at down on the brown side, blogs about the fight for Asian American Studies at Hunter College:

I’m writing this in response and in support of the righteous students and organizers at Hunter College, part of the City University of New York, who are organizing and pushing to protect and expand Asian American studies at their school. I stand with these students and urge any reader here to check out their information (here’s an article to start) and see how you can be supportive of their cause. I’ll post more information up as I get it about how allies and supporters around the nation can show them love and let them know that we stand with them in this struggle.

“Hmmmmm…Needs More White Folks.”

Alvin blogs on Hyphen Blog about the controversy surrounding the movie “21” in where a mainly white cast plays the roles of real life Asian Americans who won big in Las Vegas:

While there have not been too many complaints in mainstream media over these developments, one cannot help but wonder what the backlash would have been like if, for example, Hollywood had made the movie ‘Coach Carter’, with a Caucasian actor replacing Sam Jackon’s role, which was based on a real-life story. In terms of marketing or box office numbers, it is also puzzling why they would cast Sturgess (a relative unknown) as the lead student instead of Aaron Yoo (also in the film as a minor role), when the movie already had cast such big-name stars as Kevin Spacey and Laurence Fishburne.

If It’s A War This Honky Wants…

Holy fucking shit! Just finished posting this at my blog:

This was actually in a campus newspaper! I believe it’s an independent newspaper, not affiliated with the University of Colorado journalism department (thank God!) but it is a newspaper none the less for the UC community.

I’ll get straight to the point. Here is an excerpt from the Campus Press‘s recent Op-Ed piece titled “If it’s a war the Asians want…”:

I’m such a fool for not realizing it sooner. I can’t tell you how many times the Asians have treated me like a retarded weasel and I’ve forgiven them. But now I know that Asians are not just “a product of their environment,” and their rudeness is not a “cultural misunderstanding.”

They hate us all.

And I say it’s time we started hating them back. That’s right-no more “tolerance.” No more “cultural sensitivity.” No more “Mr. Pretend-I’m-Not-Racist.”

It’s time for war.

But we won’t attack their bodies or minds. We will attack their souls.

Than the newspaper gave a half-assed apology saying it was “satire:”

Angry Asian Man blogs:

What is wrong with this guy? Is he really asking for it? The article appeared in the opinion section of the paper’s website, is apparently supposed to be satirical… but is it really? If you ask me, the guy is trying to vent some of his own frustrations and hate with the Asian student population at his school. “The Asians.” Here’s a link to the actual column: If it’s war the Asians want….

That’s racist! It’s ugly. He goes on to outline his “plan” for attacking the Asian soul. I think he’s trying to be funny. He’s not. I’m not trying to fan to the flames here, since it’s obvious Karson is the kind of guy who writes this stuff to get attention for his pathetic aspiring journalism career. But damn, this guy is a true flaming idiot. Sadly, I’m sure there’s a future place for him at Fox News.

Jenn at APA for Progress comments:

Wow. Max Karson, a columnist at Colorado University, wrote a “satirical” piece in the campus newspaper declaring a war on Asian students. Pronouncing that Asians “hate us” (because, of course, Asians can’t actually be “us”), Karson advocates a ridiculous three-phased attack on Asian students, chock full of ludicrous anti-Asian stereotypes.

Or at least it would be ridiculous if the fantastical plan didn’t seem so reminiscent of extraordinary rendition and a mass lynching.

…

If this piece is supposed to be satire, than Karson is a terrible writer, unworthy of the energy it took to put ink to paper. But this column is not satire: it is a racism-fueled hate fantasy that should make the Asian American students of CU fearful and angry at just how intolerant their campus really is.

I urge each of you to write a Letter to the Editor of Campus Press, and CC a copy to Max Karson (max.karson@colorado.edu). Include a copy of your letter in the comments of this thread for Instant Activism Karma(tm).

Here’s a template. Edit (or just copy-and-paste it on to Campus Press) as you so desire

Joe Nguyen comments:

There hasn’t been a worst decision to run a column this bad since Asian Week ran Kenneth Eng’s, “Why I hate blacks.”

But should it be surprising that Karson is stirring up trouble? This is the same man who made controversial remarks about the Virginia Tech massacre and has a history of pushing the boundaries with his columns.

The Blogosphere and the Super Bowl

Some reaction from progressive and anti-racist bloggers:

Angry Asian Man:

Look at us. We’re mad, we’re talking about the damn ad, and now they’ve got another story about their company in the New York Times. Hell, they didn’t even have to hire an ad agency. With the announcement that they’re pulling these ads, there will now be legions of folks who flock online to watch the commercial and see what the fuss is about. All this, and now you’ve got a lot of people suddenly aware of a no-name company nobody would’ve given a crap about in the first place. Nobody’s sorry about anything here.

XicanoPwr (Hat Tip: Inteligenta Indigena):

Of course, the stereotypes and jabs aren’t always so blatant, though they can be just as unsettling. True, there are people who do think a Ghandi-like Indian accent or a Chinese “ching chong” are hilarious, but, the sad truth is, they are missing the point. When a stereotypes are repeated, those stereotype do become the norm and a frame of reference for a person’s entire cultural group and ultimately it becomes more difficult to avoid the stereotypes and clichés from our current racially biased system.

Understanding racial cues is very important, because depending how we interpret these cues will shape our opinions towards members of racial and ethnic groups. When commercials like these air, they tend to make explicit references – either by visual or auditory cues – to race, which then trigger racial thinking by activating past information held within our long-term memory about that racial and ethnic minority group. In other words, racial attitudes are primarily based on personal experiences, salient facts or events.

Bae Gang Shik:

While there has generally been some backlash against SalesGenie for their slew of offensive commercials, nobody dares mark this as racism within popular culture. In fact, it seems that in most analyses the ads are only seen as “cultural insensitive” or “inappropriate.”

I’m sick of nobody calling these sort of media portrayals as they are, Racism!

KoreanPower999:

Also, there is something disturbing in the fact that they thought it was ok to stereotype Asians in this commercial because I would doubt that they would do that for African Americans and Jewish people. They know if they did this to other groups, there would definitely be a backlash. It just tells you that it’s ok to be racist against Asian Americans in this nation and we saw it on display in the biggest television event of the year. I just shutter to think how many millions of people watched that and just laughed and thought nothing of it. We got a long way to go in this nation on the issue of race.

Ling Ling and Ching Ching??

Jenn from Reappropriate blogs about the racist panda ad that appeared during the SuperBowl:

The two pandas, named “Ling Ling” and “Ching Ching” speak in stereotypical Asian accents and grammatically incorrect “Chinglish”, perpetuating the Perpetual Foreigner stereotype. The commercial’s soundtracks include gongs and mandolins, and the writing is in that “chopstix” font that is supposed to be reminscent of Chinese. “Ching Ching” the wife panda is clearly supposed to be a manipulative laze, who sits on her ass while “Ling Ling” does the work of running the store, playing up the “shrew” stereotype of Asian wives that has become more prevalent of late. “Ling Ling” meanwhile, is viewed as idiotic — eating his (implicitly shoddy) products.

…

I am so glad I didn’t see this commercial on television. I think I might have broken the television.

Asian American Immigrants and Schooling

Stacey J. Lee, over at Asian American Empowerment, blogs about Asian American immigrants and the lack of support they get from the U.S. educational system:

Despite the growing number of immigrant students in schools throughout the country, many schools lack the expertise to adequately serve second language students. In fact, many school districts face a shortage of certified bilingual and English language learner (ELL) teachers. Although there is a significant body of research that suggests that bilingual education programs are most effective, most Asian American students who are English language learners are placed in English as a second language (ESL) classes or other English-only environments (Hakuta & Pease-Alvarez, 1992; Ramirez, 1991).

“Watch Out Now. He Gets His Money From Da Asians.”

The Asian American Studies Blog at the University of Maryland posts a blog on a few articles out there on some Asians contributing money to the Democratic party:

Without ever mentioning a word about race, the tone of most of the recent articles paints a racialized portrait of Asian Americans as corrupt, behind-the-scenes, foreign-serving donors who make illegal campaign contributions.  While there are Asian Americans who do break campaign-finance laws, we don’t hear very much about other groups and individuals who do the same thing.  Nor do we hear of the many Asian Americans who through the voting process and their political contributions hope to have a very significant and legitimate voice in the political process of the United States.

Resistance Gardens

 The blogger at wsfoft.heart blogs about a book on Japanese internees in World War II:

I recently learned about a book called Defiant Gardens, which includes documentation about gardens planted by Japanese American internees in the internment camps during WWII. I love the way that these gardens provided a transformative and life-affirming mechanism for resistance.

Minority Faculty

C.N. Le blogs on a recent study on people of color in college positions:

The study also suggests that there seem to be enough underrepresented minority Ph.D.s out there in the candidate pool, but for various reasons, they aren’t being hired in their same proportions. I’ve covered some of the challenges that minority Ph.D. students face, but for those who make it to the end, one would think that colleges would be eager to hire them to help their schools improve such dismal representation numbers.

But alas, that particular ideal doesn’t seem to match the practical realities, as this study shows. So the question is, why is that the case? I think we in academia need to take a hard look at not just institutional policies at the college level, but also the nitty-gritty details of deliberations at the departmental level and how a particular department chooses their new hires.

In other words, it’s one thing for a college to proclaim that they want to improve their proportions of underrepresented faculty, but it’s another issue altogether for each individual department on that campus to take the initiative to actually hire an underrepresented minority candidate.

“You to can be Oriental!”

Angry Asian Man posts:

Halloween is…the time of year where we see all sorts of lame, racist costumes. You, too, can be Asian for Halloween! For instance, the Asian Princess Costume, available at Target. Or how about the China Woman Costume. There’s also the Sexy Giesha Glam Costume. And my favorite, the Oriental Delight Costume: “Try out something exotic and erotic with Forplay’s Oriental Delight. This sexy, Asian inspired dress features tied-up sides, a V-Neck neckline and authentic Asian accents. Fancy fan also included.” Fancy fan? Awesome! Ugh.

“You to can be Oriental!”

Angry Asian Man posts:

Halloween is…the time of year where we see all sorts of lame, racist costumes. You, too, can be Asian for Halloween! For instance, the Asian Princess Costume, available at Target. Or how about the China Woman Costume. There’s also the Sexy Giesha Glam Costume. And my favorite, the Oriental Delight Costume: “Try out something exotic and erotic with Forplay’s Oriental Delight. This sexy, Asian inspired dress features tied-up sides, a V-Neck neckline and authentic Asian accents. Fancy fan also included.” Fancy fan? Awesome! Ugh.

Kaplan on Asia: “Dem Craz-ay Asians is a Commin’!”

Dr. Anonymous blogs about an article that Robert Kaplan wrote for the Times about Asian and its political future:

Robert Kaplan, a writer for the Atlantic Monthly, considers American imperialist concerns in Asia in the Times. The article is anything but pacific.

Here’s my favorite part:

Asia’s military-economic vigor is the product of united political, economic and military elites

Aside from the grossly sweeping nature of the statement, it may not even be very accurate, as far as grossly sweeping statements go. He wrote this in the weeks after: the Japanese prime minister resigned; Nepal’s Maoists quit the government; Pakistan is in the throws of yet another change of rule; Sri Lanka is in the middle of the civil war that does not end; Burma’s government is facing perhaps the most serious challenge to its rule since 1988, and India’s Left has threatened to pull the rug out from under the ruling coalition because of a proposed nuclear deal with the U.S.

Kaplan on Asia: “Dem Craz-ay Asians is a Commin’!”

Dr. Anonymous blogs about an article that Robert Kaplan wrote for the Times about Asian and its political future:

Robert Kaplan, a writer for the Atlantic Monthly, considers American imperialist concerns in Asia in the Times. The article is anything but pacific.

Here’s my favorite part:

Asia’s military-economic vigor is the product of united political, economic and military elites

Aside from the grossly sweeping nature of the statement, it may not even be very accurate, as far as grossly sweeping statements go. He wrote this in the weeks after: the Japanese prime minister resigned; Nepal’s Maoists quit the government; Pakistan is in the throws of yet another change of rule; Sri Lanka is in the middle of the civil war that does not end; Burma’s government is facing perhaps the most serious challenge to its rule since 1988, and India’s Left has threatened to pull the rug out from under the ruling coalition because of a proposed nuclear deal with the U.S.

Racial Tensions in Malaysia

The Cicak posts a video from a BBC interview with Malaysia’s foreign minister.  Some of the questions asked to the minister were:

Sarah Montague from the BBC asks Foreign Minister Dato Seri Syed Hamid Albar about the “rising resentment” from Indian and Chinese Malaysians about Malay rights and privileges.

1. Is it fair that it’s easier for Malays to get into universities compared to Chinese and Indians?
2. How can Chinese and Indians feel a sense of belonging when they can’t get access to top cabinet posts?
3. There are foreign investors “cashing out” of Malaysia because of privileges accorded to Malays. What do you think?
4. Is the constitutional right to profess and practice one’s religion becoming increasingly meaningless?

Ethnic Cleansing of U.S. Chinese

The Asian American Studies Program at the University of Maryland blog posts:

Recently on May 29th, 2007, author Jean Pfaelzer published Driven Out, which portrays a disgraceful and for the most part forgotten portion of American history. The book illustrates the purging of Chinese immigrants in the Pacific Northwest between 1850 through 1906, described by the Chinese of the time as “Pai Hua” — the great purging.

I Now Pronounce You Racist

Jenn from Reappropiate blogs about the recent movie I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry and it’s use of yellow face:

A lesser publicized but equally weighty concern over this film, however, is its prominent use of yellowface for Rob Schneider’s (surprisingly) uncredited role as the minister who weds Chuck and Larry. Schneider’s scenes are within a few seconds of the trailer embedded above.

Bearing a stereotypical muschroom cut, bucked teeth, jaundiced skin, and glasses reminscent of Mickey Rooney’s Mr. Yunioshi in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Schneider plays up the ‘r/l’ slurs and stilted “Chingrish” typically used to mock recent Asian immigrants.

Asian Americans and College Admissions

Anabsurdthought posts a blog on college and Asian Americans in the blog The Asian Americanists:

While Asian Americans have long been well-rounded students at elite institutions, they are still perceived to be one-dimensional. Their extracurricular engagement, perhaps, are not catching admissions officers’ eyes in the same way as those applicants of other racial backgrounds. While university and colleges are often lauded for their more comprehensive approach to determining a student’s admissions fate, few are question the socio-cultural implications of what is valued as extracurricular activities or how access to such activities may be limited to particular segments of our society due to any number of characteristics (i.e., socioeconomic status, geography, gender, sexual orientation, race).

Chelsea Handler Mocks Asians

The Angry Asian Man writes:

Is anyone else tired of this? Is anyone else sick of the fact that a “comedian” can go on national television and casually disrespect half the world like it ain’t a damn thing? Is it because she thinks we’re easy targets, and we won’t complain or get angry over something like this? Because I have to wonder if Chelsea would make similarIt’s a cheap laugh that ultimately results in way more harm than just a ten second jab on television—talk to the population of Asian Americans who have had to deal with stereotypes and prejudice on a daily basis, tacitly reinforced by “harmless” joke moments like this.