From: phantom@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (James Choi)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.korean
Subject: Re: A korean living in the U.S.
Date: 8 Oct 92 22:59:35 GMT
Article-I.D.: news.1992Oct8.225935.9829
Organization: Northwestern University, Evanston Illinois.

On my lack of experience in first-hand racism..

In article <1992Oct8.154534.13958@cs.wisc.edu> rchoi@thylacine.cs.wisc.edu (Ron Choi) writes:
>excuse me?  are you being facetious?  look, just the other day when i was 
>playing tennis outside, a caucasian drove by and yelled racial slurs at me. 
>it didn't bother me that much since i'm used to it by now.  don't tell me 
>you've never experienced stuff like this before.

You are asking me to lie.  I am sorry that you had so much bad experience.
I do not know what it is, but I was never called in any racial terms.
There was time I was often bullies and teased in my past.  It was when I
was in Korea.

>  do you really feel that
>everyone treats you the same way dispite your color?

God knows what is going through their mind.  I myself tend to be kind to
pretty girls.  Everyone is biased to a certain degree.  I never felt I was
judged by my race in anything that has any significance to me such as job,
promotion, etc.

>  not one day in my life
>have i ever not been aware of my race.  even if i want to forget, others will
>remind you by the way they look at you, talk to you, on and on and on...

I never forgot, and I never tied to either.

>i think you're living in a fantasy world.

Thank you.  I do live in a fantasy world.  It is very nice this way.

>  asian americans will *never* be
>accepted as main stream, just as african-americans and latinos will never be
>accepted.  

Good attitude.

>according to you we never had a racial problems to begin with.
>remember l.a. riot?

All I told you was my experience.

>remember english and korean are linguistically quite different.  just as 
>americans have extraordinarily difficult time learning an asian language,
>it is the same way for asians.  my dad never master the language, and it
>wasn't for lack of trying.

I think there is age factor and some aptitude factor involved.  Would you
hire someone who never mastered algebra for an engineering position?

>i don't know how fluent you are, but that doesn't give you the right to
>criticize others who aren't.  some people are just not gifted in learning 
>foreign languages.

I can barely communicate in English.  Yet, I feel irritated when I cannot
tell when my co-worker "did the job" or "will do the job" because of
his/her verb conjugation is rather random.

Have you ever criticized any politicians?  Any government?  Who gave you
the right?  Some people are not gifted in managing, engineering, you name
it.  So, they do not move up.  Judging people by his/her own ability is
very fair.

>>Not being able to speak proficiently also poses many problems in
>>representing the company they are working for.  So, it is natural that they
>>are not promoted.  I do not see it as a racism.  I see it as an
>>incompetence problem.  Language inability is a kind of incompetence.
>
>i guess white females lack the communication skills to be managers
>since we see so little of them in companies.  

So, it shows there are more than racism involved.  Other factor is
physique.  I have read a report of correlation on height vs position.
There is a direct correlation.  Even full professors are taller than
associate professors according to that statistics.  Apparently all fall
victim of this type of appearance discrimination.  Only non-white will
scream racism.

>to sum up, i think you're telling us that we asians do not need to try harder
>than whites in order to succeed.  i can't help feeling a sense of disbelief;
>forgive me.

As you mentioned Korean language is very different from English.  So, you
need to try harder to bring your language level to that of the natives.
Besides, this is a foreign land.  Of course, you have to try harder.  But
do not hide behind "racism!" cry for anything you fail.  There are times
when it is well deserved.

>ron choi

James Choi