Wow, that was racist

[TimM]

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kidcolin - Honestly, Asian people get punked easy because in general we're smaller. It happened a lot more frequently when I was in high school.

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When I was in high school everyone thought those small Asians would kick our asses with their Kung Fu.

[Blarg]

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Blarg, So you're suggesting CDC should make sure he loves all Asians before he gets offended by an insensitive gesture from some white chick?

quids, Do your Asian friends think that they're relatively free of racism in 2007?

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No, that's not a good reading. I was responding to other posts.

I think the white chick was a total ass and I hate people like that.

[Rootabager]

Doesnt sound like what she was doing was racist. Just bowing to show respect to asian. She was prolly just being nice to you.

You guys are way to sensitive. You all sound like a bunch of pussies.

[Jon1000]

guids
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Why would I get ripped on if I actually cared about the stereotypcal italian portrayals, the "guido" jokes, and having people come up to me ans assuming Im in the mob, and that our women are know how to cook? How come the asians in this thread are allowed to get away with teh wop jokes?

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It's because east asians, blacks, and mexicans (I don't have much other experience outside these) don't distinguish between white people. The great majority of east asians, blacks, and mexicans I know don't subgroup white people into jews, italians, irish, etc. They are white people. Odds are it's a white person throwing these white racial epithets around. You just don't see a Chinese guy singling out an Italian.

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Blarg
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Still, I think it's notable that when it comes to prejudice, a HUGE percentage of Asians, now and in the past, really have to clean their own house before they get too carried away with feeling like it's always other people excluding and looking down on them. I've bumped into huge amounts of prejudice from Asians before, and it's hardly something that's dead and gone. Asian prejudice and ethnic rivalry is a gigantic part of their past and very much alive in the present.

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This is probably a valid point, but I'd just like to point out that most east asians in the US got here post 65 and have had little time here on a relative scale. I think some of your gripes you have with them have more to do with assimilation issues.

I would submit that the way that Haole kids are often treated in Hawaii by darker skinned hawaiians is similar to how asians feel on the mainland. But when the asians on the mainland have issues w white people, i think it's a different phenomenon.

[Blarg]

Haoles get treated infinitely worse in Hawaii than Asians do here. Haoles get literally chased, accosted, subjected to violence. As well as constantly demeaned, given stink eye, cussed at, etc. And not just a little. You really can't compare that level of violence and abuse to what an Asian encounters on the mainland.

It's also worth noting that Asian prejudice is not tied down to time at all. It's the definition of timeless. The Chinese conception of their nation as the center of the world goes back too far to account for; the "middle flower kingdom" ever was and ever will be. Japan has historically made more than clear its unapologetic ethnocentricity, and the Koreans are also commonly terrifically prejudiced. All these races can be and have been tremendously exclusionary -- anyone who doesn't think so can just try to marry into the family.

Of course, not all Asians are this way. But racism and ethnocentricity is alive and well in Asian countries and probably far further away from disappearing than is racism in America. America is tremendously heterogenous compared to those cultures, and has been for a long time. It has a history of being so that's gathered a certain weight. When it comes to getting rid of native prejudice, China, Japan, and Korea are the equivalent of undiscovered countries.

P.S.: re guids' comment, I find that it is very often true that non-whites find the idea that whites are not a unified cultural mass is surprising if not outright unthinkable. Every ethnicity has its mental ghetto, and the non-white one is well-populated with people who think of whites as a unified blob rather than understanding that Europeans have been at each other's throats for millenia -- and that not all Americans arrived here 200 years ago. The idea that all whites are the same is a laugh to most every white born elsewhere, or whose parents were.

[Jon1000]

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Haoles get treated infinitely worse in Hawaii than Asians do here. Haoles get literally chased, accosted, subjected to violence. As well as constantly demeaned, given stink eye, cussed at, etc. And not just a little. You really can't compare that level of violence and abuse to what an Asian encounters on the mainland.

It's also worth noting that Asian prejudice is not tied down to time at all. It's the definition of timeless. The Chinese conception of their nation as the center of the world goes back too far to account for; the "middle flower kingdom" ever was and ever will be. Japan has historically made more than clear its unapologetic ethnocentricity, and the Koreans are also commonly terrifically prejudiced. All these races can be and have been tremendously exclusionary -- anyone who doesn't think so can just try to marry into the family.

Of course, not all Asians are this way. But racism and ethnocentricity is alive and well in Asian countries and probably far further away from disappearing than is racism in America. America is tremendously heterogenous compared to those cultures, and has been for a long time. It has a history of being so that's gathered a certain weight. When it comes to getting rid of native prejudice, China, Japan, and Korea are the equivalent of undiscovered countries.

P.S.: re guids' comment, I find that it is very often true that non-whites find the idea that whites are not a unified cultural mass is surprising if not outright unthinkable. Every ethnicity has its mental ghetto, and the non-white one is well-populated with people who think of whites as a unified blob rather than understanding that Europeans have been at each other's throats for millenia -- and that not all Americans arrived here 200 years ago. The idea that all whites are the same is a laugh to most every white born elsewhere, or whose parents were.

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I'd agree that Haoles get treated worse in Hawaii, but my point was that this hate is more systematic and due in large part to an asian majority. When these numbers are reversed on the mainland, and you are being discriminated against by an asian for being white, it is not the same. There are different things going on socially speaking.

As far as Asian prejudice in korea, china, and japan, this was the assimilation i was talking about. These attitudes are old and often culturally ingrained and haven't had the time to go away. That's why I said that I think your gripe w/ mainland asians being ethnocentric is an assimilation argument.

And my other post which talked about 89 percent of America being white and 10 percent being black in 1965 speaks to the issue that America has NOT long been this heterogenous melting pot you talk about. It's a relatively recent phenomenon.

Of course different cultures and races exist within white America. My point is that most of them, Italians and Irish in particular, have a longer history of assimilation in the United States. So, when discussing American race relations the "American" status this history lends them is often viewed as greater than that of an asian or hispanic family that's been here for 2 generations. Even if an Italian family is recently arrived, I think their assimilation process, especially with regard to racial bias, is far more smooth. My point to guids was that american minorities see whites as a cultural block and are less likely to distinguish between them. I wrote that to say that asians don't get away w/ calling people wops, because they wouldn't subgroup white people like that. The mentality behind the goruping seems to be a separate issue.

[Jon1000]

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It's also worth noting that Asian prejudice is not tied down to time at all. It's the definition of timeless. The Chinese conception of their nation as the center of the world goes back too far to account for; the "middle flower kingdom" ever was and ever will be. Japan has historically made more than clear its unapologetic ethnocentricity, and the Koreans are also commonly terrifically prejudiced. All these races can be and have been tremendously exclusionary -- anyone who doesn't think so can just try to marry into the family.

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I do agree w/ these statements, and I could probably even be persuaded that foreign nationalism in Asians is stronger int he US than in most other ethnic groups, but again I think this has to do to more recent immigration patterns and assimilation issues than anything else. I mean, can you really discuss France, Germany, Britain, etc w/o talking about nationalistic xenophobia or religious conflict?

i think asian ethnocentrism has little to do w/ american racial bias.

[Blarg]

I don't think of my noting Asian ethnocentricity as a gripe. It's a simple acknowledgement of historical fact. Additionally, Asians are not a majority in Hawaii, unless you want to count Polynesians as Asian. Which in my experience Hawaiians do not -- they don't identify with Japanese, Chinese, etc., at all, unless it's to the extent that the Hawaiians are at least thrilled that they are not white.

Also, I don't mean it to apply only to mainland Asians. The Asians I grew up with in Guam were often ridiculously ethnocentric. Japanese there would regularly chase me out of their shops when I was a kid, etc. And there was an insurmountable, forbidding distance between some of them and the "outside world." This was less catastrophically obvious in Hawaii than Guam, but it couldn't be more noticeable, nevertheless. This is not specific to time or place; it's a basic tenet of many Asian cultures: We are Better than You. And You Cannot Come In and Are Not Welcome.

Regarding the melting pot, I think it is a big mistake -- and a telling one -- to overlook the huge gap between white cultures. It is specifically a non-white idea to look at all whites as alike. Whites have NEVER thought that to be the case, not even close. First Irish and then in their turn Italians were thought of as less than ideal and even as less than human beings of full human capacity in American history. This shouldn't be a surprise to people who know European history -- the Irish were scorned by the English who conquered them and usurped their lands, and the Italians and Spanish were derided for their mixing with African blood during the conquest by the Moors.

European history is rife with angers and prejudices clearly separating different ethnicities. It is only ignorance which could fail to see that -- an ignorance which remains common and uncommented upon among minorities to this day. It makes no more sense to many American whites to say that Irish and English are the same thing, or that Catholic and Protestant are the same, than it would to Chinese to say that they are the same as Japanese and that World War II really was a Japanese attempt to establish a sort of "United States of Asia," as the Japanese have repeatedly claimed.

I would agree that, of course, the differences in Asian appearances make it hard for them to assimilate. But I think you greatly underestimate how hard a time the Irish and Italians had. Assimilation among whites was far from smooth or immediate.

One's own difficulties make it very easy to brush aside any curiosity as to how difficult others have had it. While that has been demonstrated even in this thread by the white responders, it seems clear in the responses of non-white posters too.

This tendency to view each other in monolithic terms is an intellectual and emotional crutch that settles doubts and coalesces feelings from chaos into manageable form, but it is still tends to hobble us at least as much as buoy us up and support understanding. When one says, "My history is more important than yours," without learning that history, and "My present makes yours irrelevant," without bothering to understand the other so accused, one finds an easy out that satisfies no one and is true to no one.

[Blarg]

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It's also worth noting that Asian prejudice is not tied down to time at all. It's the definition of timeless. The Chinese conception of their nation as the center of the world goes back too far to account for; the "middle flower kingdom" ever was and ever will be. Japan has historically made more than clear its unapologetic ethnocentricity, and the Koreans are also commonly terrifically prejudiced. All these races can be and have been tremendously exclusionary -- anyone who doesn't think so can just try to marry into the family.

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I do agree w/ these statements, and I could probably even be persuaded that foreign nationalism in Asians is stronger int he US than in most other ethnic groups, but again I think this has to do to more recent immigration patterns and assimilation issues than anything else. I mean, can you really discuss France, Germany, Britain, etc w/o talking about nationalistic xenophobia or religious conflict?

i think asian ethnocentrism has little to do w/ american racial bias.

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I am not sure how you mean this, and probably would be much better off with an explanation, but if you mean it the way I think, then I don't agree. Apologies if misunderstood.

I will reference the influx of Persians into L.A. in the 80's, after the fall of the Shah of Iran, as an example. The Persians would not have anything to do with Americans if at all possible, and god forbid a Persian girl would so much as look at or talk to an American in even the most innocent fashion. Instantly a Persian guy would spring out, with a censuring look at the girl, an angry look at an American, or both.

This was the American's fault -- how?

Same with Asians in many situations. As noted, in Guam and Hawaii, growing up, the presence of a white was extremely unwelcome in Asian stores, and no pains were taken to conceal it. I was blown away pretty regularly by it, especially in Guam. The disgust for non-Asians and anger toward them was most decidedly NOT the exception. Whatever heated hatred and contempt that bore down upon me as a kid in those days, it did not come from me. I was only a kid; I couldn't have engineered that if I tried with every ounce of my being. It came from outside. The contempt and hatred was bizarre, unbidden, and unsettling.

At the same time, the Asian kids NEVER associated with the whites. After school, it was straight back home they went. Day after day, week after week, year after year. Was this their choice? Probably not. But their parents were doing everything they possible could to ensure that it would be their choice when they grew up; that the ethnocentricity would go on and on and on and on; that the curse they laid upon their own children would never end.

It was sad actually. I met many Japanese, especially, who seemed terrified to speak up in class, and spent much of their time alone in school because they outright refused to speak no matter how patient and kind everyone was. You just couldn't get most of them to budge. Eventually you gave up. What choice did you have? How long were you supposed to keep it up? They were probably as trapped as I was. And there was not a damn thing I, or anyone else, could do about it. Their parents had already decided. Yeah, it definitely was very sad. As far as I know, everybody liked every single one of them. As far as we knew.

[Jon1000]

Asians are most certainly the majority in Hawaii. Asians outnumber native hawaiians by like 2-1 according to the US census bureau. Probably more depending on how you count the mixed bloods.

I agree Asians are ethnocentric, but it's definitely specific to a time and place when you talk about why American discrimination against Asians is different from American discrimination against Italians.

As to the melting pot, I do agree my description of a previously homogenous US is pretty wrong and telling. BUT through the lens of recent assimilation leading to different bias, it still holds true. Culturally speaking, Irish and Italians as full citizens have been a part of the US for a far longer time than asians and I don't think you can ignore this fact.

Culturally speaking it doesn't make sense to lump all of white america together, but in the privilege they have in blending in better b/c of longer history in the US and physical similarities, it does. I'm not trying to belittle the Irish and Italian assimilation experience, only outline that it is at its conclusion and the Asian one is not.

This is not a case of "my present makes yours irrelevant." It is a case of my present is more striking at this time because of both cultural and historical context.

i don't know how i got so far from what i originally wanted to talk abotu in this thread but whatever. i have thoughts on the topic.