From: jpak@oakhill.sps.mot.com (James Pak)
Subject: Re: Oriental bias against Indians ? How true ?
Reply-To: jpak@manute.sps.mot.com
Organization: Motorola Inc.  Austin, Tx.
Distribution: na
Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1992 02:03:51 GMT

In article <1992Apr16.181906.1834@nynexst.com> clare@nynexst.com (Clare Chu Ayala) writes:
>>Well, Clare, let me give you some advice.  Not *all* people are out to flame
>>you.  Why dwell on this "flaming" issue?  It's self-defeating.  There are
>>plenty of "nice" posters in the sea, etc etc.  See what I mean?  How many
>>people did it take to flame you before you started trotting out the frowny
>>face?  Just one!  See how a few negatives (flame) can drown out many positives
>>(other posters who like what you write)?  Not that easy to ignore the negative
>>reaction all the time, right?  Same here, but for different reasons.
>
>  I did not say that *all* people are out to flame.

I didn't say you did.  I was trying to make a point by responding to your
complaints of negativity in this newsgroup the way *you* responded to my
reaction to Tim's (and George's) story.  So why does my negative attitude
toward the way those women responded to them deserve a "not all XXX are
prejudiced toward Asians" remark and some advice from you over my alleged
lack of self-esteem, yet your negative attitude toward this newsgroup not
merit the same?

Geez, I wasn't giving you real advice, just turning your comments around on
you to make a point.  And I can see you didn't like it very much either.

>  As for the frowning face, it has to do with having to kill all
>  the Dwight Joe articles, and the gadzillions of flames to get to
>  any social topics.  This is under the (soc.) category, not
>  the bash someone's culture category.  

Look, if it'll help straighten anything out, my original question about the
frowny face came because you put it at the end of a sentence where you talked
about wanting to keep up with other AAs are doing, or something like that.
Here's the quote:

    ...This is the only newsgroup where people have flamed me.  I don't know
    why I bother, but I guess I do want to keep up with what other Asian
    Americans are up to.  :-(

OK, I parsed your sentence such that I thought your frown was a reaction to
"keep up with what other AAs are up to".  I wanted to know why that (keeping
with other AAs) merited a frown.  I didn't realize *then* that the frown
belonged to the previous sentence.

>So I'm not concentrating on any "flames", just noticing that it is ONLY in
>this group, that seems so unfriendly to Asian females.

And in what other group in USENET would the AF/CM thread go?  Nobody's going
out of their way to bash you or any other AF *just because you're an AF*.
They're disagreeing with your statements.  If an Asian guy says he experienced
negative reactions from XXX women and it's probably due to race, and you dis-
agree, then you might get an unfriendly reaction back from others who know this
story pretty well.  If that means they're unfriendly to you because of that,
then so be it.

And I disagree that this group is so "unfriendly" to AFs anyway.  I've read
plenty of times where people were darn near begging for female input into this
group.  Somebody even crossposted a question to about 7 or 8 newsgroups just
to ask for women's opinions on something.  Where's the unfriendliness in that?

> You guys are always categorizing us as "stuck up", "traitors", "only want
               ^^^^^^
> CM", "look down on AM", etc. etc.

Always?  Who's categorizing now?

> And then when we say anything, you pick apart
> anything that is posted that goes against your preconceived
> notion of the world.

If an argument doesn't make sense or leads to a possible misunderstanding or
it's just plain wrong or whatever, then hell yes, it's a candidate to get
picked apart.  You think this is unique to this newsgroup?  If I feel like
arguing against some statement I felt was unclear or wrong, I have to let it
go just because an Asian female said it?  Is that the way the female posters
want to be treated here?

> You don't treat us in a friendly manner, how can you expect us to go out
> with you?

Another blanket statement.  How do you know how I treat other AFs in my life?
How do you know I "accuse" them of anything?  *In this newsgroup*, I will argue
against anybody who I felt made an unclear or incorrect point on a subject I'm
interested in, and I'm not going to pull any punches just because that person
is a woman.  What, should I hold a double standard instead?  If I disagree with
what a man said, argue it, but if it came from a woman, let it go.  Is that
what you want?  Is that the formula for success with women?

And one more thing.  This newsgroup doesn't exist for me to try to get dates
from it.  It exists for discussion; if the discussion gets heated, then so be
it.  Therefore, I don't particularly care which women I do or don't "treat"
in a friendly manner here, and I also don't care for the old "if you were nicer
to us, we'd have gone out with you" line.  I'm not a child who has to be mani-
pulated that way, and neither is any other Asian male here.  If I've got to be
phony-nice to get respect from women, then I'm not interested anyway.

>And when I say that I've experienced this and that, you say it's not valid
>because it contradicts your perceptions, or the 90% of the cases (whereever
>that statistic comes from).  I'll just state that in my personal
>observation I don't see AM getting less dates than anyone else.

OK, point taken.  And if some person came in here while there was a thread
about racism going on and said, "You know, I don't see any racism where I am,
would you stop complaining about it?", then people are very likely going to
respond to that.  No, it doesn't negate that person's experiences or view-
points, but people will respond because they don't want it conveyed that just
because X number of people don't experience racism personally, that it somehow
doesn't exist.  Same goes for this argument.

Jim
-- 
(Do not listen to the address on the header.  My correct email address is: )
jpak@manute.sps.mot.com  or  ...!cs.utexas.edu!oakhill!manute!jpak