From: clare@nynexst.com (Clare Chu)
Subject: Re: What does Arthur Hu mean to *me*
Organization: Nynex Science and Technology
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 93 14:04:39 GMT

In article <1993Jan6.205049.16496@cbnewse.cb.att.com> ronaldd@cbnewse.cb.att.com (ronald.h.davis) writes:
>In article <SHAW.93Jan4223234@au-bon-pain.lcs.mit.edu> shaw@au-bon-pain.lcs.mit.edu (Andy Shaw) writes:
>>
>>His grasp of scientific method, and statistical analysis is shockingly poor
>>-- in fact, as a fellow MIT alum, I would say *embarrassingly* poor.  He
>>displays a rather vulgar, prejudiced, and astoundingly stubbornly ignorant
>>view of African-Americans, Hispanics, and non-{Japanese/Chinese/Korean}
>>Asian-Americans.  He has expressed opinions that members of those groups
>>tend to be stupid, dirty, lazy, violent and have criminal leanings, and has
>>blithely misinterpreted megabytes of data to support his beliefs.
>>
>>He shows me the end of the road when the model minority myth is followed:
>>aggravation of other minority groups, and a continuing second-class status,
>>both externally, as well as internally, in one's beliefs about one's
>>self-worth.
>>
>the odd thing is, i get the impression that a lot of asians are on that same
>road, especially the japanese.  i'm not making an all-inclusive statement of
>all asians but i sometimes get the impression that asians come this country
>and try to prove to white people that they can be just as racist as they think
>the white people are.  it comes across to me as a "the enemy of my enemy is my
>friend"-based rationale to curry favor with white people who they fear would
>otherwise be hostile to them directly.

  I tend to agree, except that I don't think the "prejudice" is necessarily
  learned here in America.  Recently I've come to notice a lot of my
  South Asian colleagues making un-PC remarks about Blacks, Hispanics
  and "Orientals" and not thinking anything was wrong with what they
  said.  In fact it was the White PC-Police here that protests and
  gives them a hard time.  So I don't think they're necessarily trying
  to impress the whites.  It was pointed out that they are even prejudiced
  within their own groups.  For example, you can tell by the last name
  what caste and ethnic group a person is and decide to talk or not talk
  to them.  My husband (medical resident) works where a lot of South Asian
  doctors and nurses work, and they are constantly complaining that this
  doctor is prejudiced because he's from this group and so on.  Of course
  to a white person, they all look the same, but within their own groups
  they have a caste hierarchy and an ethnic breakdown.  I've already posted
  where this same person said that he didn't want to hire this "Oriental"
  because he didn't like his accent.  So the white PC-police said, how about
  your accent?  Then this person says, "hey I can understand my accent, but
  I can't understand his, and it is a work problem when no-one can understand
  his accent."  Notice how it went from "I can't understand" to "no-one
  can understand."  From a prejudiced background, you can expect them to
  come to America and add on some new prejudices to reflect the new conditions.

  Meanwhile the East Asians also have their homegrown prejudices between
  the different countries.  So it is only an extension of prejudice to
  add on prejudice against Blacks and Hispanics.  If people weren't already
  prejudiced, they'd probably not pick up new ones.  I know that I don't
  pick up any new prejudices.  For example, if the Bengali guy tells me
  that he doesn't like Sikhs, it doesn't influence me in any way whatsoever.
  To me they are all just another person.  I could care less what caste
  they're from.  If they tell me they're Brahmin it doesn't make me think
  any higher or lower of them.
>
>it all seems pretty stupid to me, but it's a problem that i've noticed enough
>in the way asians deal with black people that i presently don't go out of my
>way to be friends with asians that i don't know; mainly because its just not
>worth the hassle of dealing with the potential crap.  this was *definitely*
>not the case in the past; when i went to mit some of my best friends *really*
>were asians, mostly or chinese origin.  maybe, for this reason i'm less negative
>of chinese people than i am of japanese, koreans, and vietnamese.
>

  It seems to me that the longer the Asian American's family has been in
  America, the less prejudiced they are against Blacks and Hispanics.  Perhaps
  your experience correlates to the fact that most of the Japanese,
  Koreans, and Vietnamese you meet are recent immigrants.  Also, are you
  sure they are Asian Americans, or Asians that are studying here.  Asian
  Americans usually have gone to elementary school, jr. high, high school
  here and have experienced prejudice first hand.  I don't think 3rd generation
  Japanese-Americans are very prejudiced in my experience.  However my
  Japanese roommate (from Japan) was prejudiced against almost anyone except
  for other Japanese (of the highest caste) and whites.  She called the
  campus police because a Black student was sitting in his car waiting for
  his girlfriend in front of our dorm.  When the campus police called back
  I told them to forget about it, but they still went and harrassed the guy.
  She also said that Koreans were all stupid and deserved to be conquered.
  What I'm trying to say is that you should distinguish between Asians
  from Asia and Asian Americans.  Not all Asian Americans are recent immigrants
  who come here trying to impress the white man.

  As for Arthur, I don't know what his excuse is.  I don't know if he was
  born here, or came here for college...
Xref: sparky soc.culture.african.american:13779 soc.culture.asian.american:11517