From: fester@island.COM (Mike Fester)
Subject: Re: Caucasians don't understand
Organization: /usr/local/rn/organization
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 14:51:55 GMT

In article <25494@dog.ee.lbl.gov> yjhbhc@dante.lbl.gov (Joe Huang) writes:
>In article <1992Aug14.155011.2853@island.COM> fester@island.COM (Mike Fester) writes:

>>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". 

>I feel compelled to make a comment here. Being an expatriate American 
>gives some, but definitely not all, of the experiences of a native-born
>or an immigrant Asian American. (1) you go abroad as an adult armed
>with the knowledge of your differences, (2) unless you threw away 
>your passport and renounced your citizenship, you are buffeted
>emotionally and, in a crunch, physically, from whatever unpleasant
>incidents that may occur, (3) you do not "invest" heavily into that 
>country (like citizenship, language, culture, attitudes) only to 
>find yourself less equal because of race, and (4) reality being what 
>it is, Americans abroad are treated better than foreigners are 
>treated here.

While I went abroad as an adult, that is NOT true of at least 3 of the friends
to whom I was referring. All of them had fathers who travelled (no, not Army
Brats) all over the world. One of my friends was raised mostly in Nigeria, Leb-
anon, (before it all fell apart), and Abbu Dabbis. He had none of the 
"advantages" you mention. 

As for the advantages in a crunch, my friend and his father were attacked by
men with machine-guns both in Nigeria and in Beirut. They survived unharmed, 
however, they assuredly did NOT, Mr Huang, find themselves "buffered" from
"whatever unpleasant incidents that may occur". 

And of course, my Indian relatives have their own stories to tell.

>Speaking of the healthy optimism of expatriate Americans, my 
>experiences from living in Korea and Japan are that Americans whine
>as much as anyone when the shoe is on the other foot. Despite the
>advantages I mentioned above, a constant thread among my American 
>acquaintances was how they were never quite accepted, how they were
>stared at or singled out, and how the XXX were all racists deep down.  
>When I mentioned to one friend that he was getting hypersensitive 
>about trivial slights, his reaction was "well, you don't know what 
>it's like, because you look just like one of them.." (sound familiar??).

Sounds rather like you agree that some of us HAVE been discriminated against.
And actually, I've never complained about it. After all, it *IS* their country.
I *HAVE* however, noted it.

>Among my Peace Corps coworkers, I've seen the whole gamut from 
>complete immersion to total freakout, and keep in mind that was 
>a volunteer two-year assignment with the State Department behind 
>our backs.  So, it's hard for me to swallow that Asians are 
>"whiners" and whites are healthy optimists.  It's seems more 
>accurate to say that white Americans have an optimistic view only
>about their own racism, but not about that of others.  

However, *I* never indicated that Asians were "whiners" and that all "whites
are healthy optimists". Note the "some of us" at the top. At least in my post,
you were NOT asked to swallow anything.

>As for the level of racism, it seems strange to congratulate 
>the "U.S. and a few European nations" for being less discriminatory
>in light of past history and the continuing racial tensions in 
>these countries (I hope I don't need to go into gory details). 

"Congratulate"? Hardly. Bear in mind however, that the two other nations you 
mention above have no laws at all protecting anyone against discrimination
on racial grounds.

>From my travels, I frankly cannot say that there is more or less
>racism in these "enlightened countries" compared to elsewhere.

IF you are discriminated against in this country, you have recourse to legal
action to try to correct what you feel to be an injustice. This is NOT true
most other places, as you no doubt know from your travels. Perfect? No. But
it IS better than nothing. 

Mike
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