From: shaw@whopper.lcs.mit.edu (Andy Shaw)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american
Subject: Re: Caucasians don't understand
Date: 15 Aug 92 03:21:00 GMT
	<1992Aug14.155011.2853@island.COM>
	<1992Aug14.221158.2273@CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU>
Organization: MIT Lab for Computer Science, Cambridge, Mass.

In article <1992Aug14.221158.2273@CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU> ajh@Xenon.Stanford.EDU (Alan Hu) writes:
   In article <1992Aug14.155011.2853@island.COM> fester@island.COM (Mike Fester) writes:
   >In article <1992Aug12.183617.21725@inmet.camb.inmet.com> lrq@fanny (Robert Quan) writes:
   >>
	   [Robert's assertion that white people cannot fully understand
	    the Asian-American experience deleted.]
   >
   >There are, however, some of us who have lived in other countries, and have
   >friends who have lived in other countries. Outside the US, and a few European
   >nations (though not, by any means, all), discrimination on the basis of race,
   >creed, color, sex, etc, is not only the norm, but legal. Some of us, Mr Quan,
   >HAVE been on the receiving end, yet we still maintain "an optimistic view". 
   >Some of us have grown up, spent large amounts of time, or have or currently
   >live in "predominantly minority" (boy, I love THAT phrase) neighborhoods.
   >
	   [Assertion that some white people have family ties and
	    have done volunteer work for minorities deleted.]
	   [Defense against hypocrisy charge deleted.]
   >Mike
	   [.signature deleted.]

   I've heard the I've-travelled-a-lot-and-lived-in-places-where-discrimination-
   is-against-the-white-people-and-it's-a-lot-worse argument a lot.
   (Coincidentally, always from white males.)

I think this has got to be Clueless White Boy Statement #8 (#7 being the
"ORIENTAL vs. Asian" question, and #1-6 being Jim Pak's original list in
reply to some of the usual "Quit whining you loser Orientals, it's none of
your business if we take your women").
 
Alan handles it well, but I'd like to add a point.

   The fundamental point he misssed, though,
   was that he was *travelling* in a *foreign* country.  For Asian Americans,
   however, we are not travelling anywhere.  We are not in a foreign country.
   We are at home.  This is our only country.  And yet we are not accepted.
   (We can no more go "back" to Asia than white people can move "back" to Europe.)

   My friend Mike, no matter what treatment he received in Asia, always knew
   deep in his heart that his journey would end, that he'd return to the
   comfortable white suburbia of his youth, that he wouldn't have to deal
   with systematic, institutionalized racism.  Sure, he might feel a little
   uncomfortable driving through a neighborhood here or eating at a restaurant
   there, but that's not a crushing, omnipresent factor.

   For Asian Americans, there is no return to a safe haven.  This is our
   country, and this is the haven we must make safe.

Even in foreign countries, white foreigners are often treated very well,
because they are automatically assumed to have some sort of power, whether
it is economic, diplomatic, military, or just some magical power emanating
from their skin that causes them to be some sort of super-human.  Mike
Fester whines about being white in Japan: although there are quite a few
annoying things that whites will experience in Japan that they won't
experience in the US, I would _definitely_ not say that being white in
Japan is even _close_ to being the same as being Asian in the US.

If that were so, half the TV commercials in the US would have beautiful
Asian people enjoying their incredibly luxurious lifestyles, and all the
white people would be dying to be Asian.  If that were so, everything
trendy in the US would be represented by hip, cool, Asian people.  If that
were so, everyone in the US would be learning Japanese, Chinese, and Korean
for 9 years of their life, practicing it on helpless Asians they meet on
the train in an effort to look "cool" and "international".  If that were
true, all the fashion in the US would be modeled by Asian fashion models,
and white fashion models would earn 1/4 to 1/5 the amount of an Asian
model.  Everyone would be watching Asian soap operas, Asian movies, Asian
"I Love Genie", "Brady Brunch", "Rin Tin Tin", and "Beverly Hills 90201".

More than 80% of white people in Japan can't speak a decent sentence of
Japanese.  Whites in Japan often act like boors, and expect everyone to
speak English for them and wait on them hand and foot.  The biggest "white
ghetto" in Japan is Roppongi in Tokyo, which is one of the most expensive
areas in Japan, and probably the hippest as well.  If that were so, Asian
men would be coming into the States and fucking their way through dozens of
"white cabs".  America would be occupied by a foreign military from Asia.
White people would ask random Asian people to stop and have their picture
taken with them to look cool, and white people would stop random Asians
with babies to ask if they could take pictures of the babies.  White
schoolboys would dare each other to rush up and just touch Asian goddesses
who they see walking down the street, or maybe if they really have balls,
to dance around them acting like morons.

All of the US would have spent the last 45 years in a desperate attempt to
become more "Easternized".  Every single traffic sign in the US would be
written in both an Asian foreign language and English.

And of course, all the electronics and automobiles in Japan would be
American, but that's a story for another day and place ...

It's true that white people living in Japan experience _some_ of the
problems that Asian-Americans in America do: for instance, the assumption
that they can't speak any Japanese.  However, considering how _AWFUL_ the
Japanese is of 99% of whites (and I am not exaggerating about 99%) I am
only sympathetic to the cases where Japanese people stubbornly refuse to
speak Japanese and continue to speak (so-called) English even after some
proficiency in Japanese has been demonstrated by the white person.

Another annoying area is the incredible objectification of whites as
beautiful, rich, smart, powerful and everything desirable.  Obviously,
that's not true, and it's annoying to be sterotyped in that way and treated
like an object.  But that's not exactly the same as the objectification
Asian-Americans receive in the US.

White people living in foreign countries is not exactly the same as
Asian-Americans living at home.  I agree that they experience some of the
same kinds of problems, but the overwhelming power that whites hold in the
world give them a natural advantage anywhere in the world, even in
countries where they are a small minority.

-Andy