From: ajh@Xenon.Stanford.EDU (Alan Hu)
Subject: Sticking Together (was Re: What is Asian ?)
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University.
Distribution: na
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 20:32:34 GMT

In article <1992Nov18.141820.5536@nynexst.com> clare@nynexst.com (Clare Chu) writes:
>In article <1992Nov17.230249.28113@oakhill.sps.mot.com> jpak@manute.sps.mot.com writes:
>>In article <1992Nov15.083520.11599@panix.com> sieh@panix.com (Lui Sieh) writes:
>>
>>>I can conceive of some plausible reasons for white people to "stick together"
>>>in today's hostile society.
>>
>>Lui, you don't have to waste your breath.  You don't need to list any reasons,
>>plausible or not.  White people have never needed "reasons" to justify their
>>sticking together.  They've been doing so throughout American history.  From
>>the moment this country was settled by European-Americans until now, and every
>>moment in-between.  They've never needed "reasons" -- they've just done it.
>>And probably always will, too.  No shame in that.
>
>  I was in the bookstore picking up an Amiga Format when I happened
>  across the magazine "InterRace".  It's mostly about Black/White
>  intermarriages and biracial children (which they define as Black/White).
>  An interesting statistic is that Whites have the LOWEST rate of
>  intermarriage in this country < 1%, whereas Asians and Native Americans
>  have 40% to 70% (yes, it's that high), Black males are around 3%
>  and Black females, 1.2%.  So Whites do stick together and have been
>  since day one.  We're the ones that don't stick together, whatever
>  they want to say about us.


Hmm, given the percentages of the various racial groups in the US,
these statistics suggest that *everyone* is sticking to his/her own
group, and that the groups aren't sticking to each other.  (That
sounds pretty gross, doesn't it? :-))  I mean, suppose whites made
up >99% of the US population.  You'd expect that outmarriage rate to
be below 1%, even if they were completely non-racist.  Since the
percentage of whites in the US population is much, much lower than that,
whites apparently have a high degree of intra-racial stickiness.  But
the same holds for the other groups listed above...

>>
	[Clare's deletion of Lui's assertion that whites have to stick
	 together in the face of anti-white hostility and Jim's challenge
	 to Lui's statement in the context of 40s and 50s racial policy
	 deleted for brevity. :-)]
>>animosity" towards "white culture."  Weren't whites sticking together even
>>then?  How about before that?  How about even earlier than that, when they
>>were taking the land away from the Indians?  Were they sticking together
>>then, or were they "assimilating" into Native American culture?
>
>  More like decimating Native American people (and the culture dies when
>  the people die).
>>

Oh come on!  How can anyone say, especially at this time of year,
that the European settlers didn't make a good faith effort to assimilate
the best aspects of Indian, uh, I mean Native American, culture???
I mean, come on, it's Thanksgiving, the holiday where we remember our
forefathers, the good Pilgrims from England, and their friendly Indian,
woops, I mean Native American, friends who helped them brave (get it?
ha ha) their first winter, and showed them how to make popcorn.  I mean,
without the friendship between the Americans and the, er, Native Americans
(got it right this time!), America wouldn't be the way it is now, with,
um, popcorn, and, um, ..., uh, turkey, and um, cranberry sauce, and um,
um, .., beads!  yeah, beads.  So like, clearly, the European settlers
adapted the best of Indian (aw, who cares, why should I deal with this
PC crap anyway?) culture...

(For the sarcasm impaired, NOT!)

Continuing on this line, though, why is there so much mythology surrounding
the US Thanksgiving, and why is it so thoroughly indoctrinated into
schoolchildren?  I mean, who gives a shit about the Pilgrims and their
first winter and how they mooched off the locals who probably took pity
on the Pilgrim's ineptitude (and probably got smallpox as thanks for
their efforts).  There's a great scene in Boyz 'n the Hood (awesome movie,
BTW) about this...

					--Alan Hu
----------
I am not Arthur Hu.  I am NOT Arthur Hu.  I AM NOT ARTHUR HU.

I am not a neo-conservative writer for AsianWeek.  I did not go
to MIT.  I do not conduct phone surveys.  I am not married.
I do not believe in Dan Quayle's family values.

Arthur Hu is a fine person.  So am I.  We are not, however, the same person.
From: joanne@hpcc01.corp.hp.com (Joanne Petersen)
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 10:27:12 GMT
Subject: Re: Re: "Asians changing names to help job prospects"
Organization: Hewlett-Packard PAITC Data Center