From: underdog@leland.Stanford.EDU (Dwight Joe)
Subject: Re: Media Stereotypes: The Solution
Organization: Miners for a Heart of Gold
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 93 21:50:42 GMT

Legend -
   -ge = ethnically speaking
   -ci = sense of citizenship
   -cu = sense of culture


In article <1803@rwja.umdnj.edu> jpark@rwja.umdnj.edu (John Park) writes:
>garyt@tekgen.bv.tek.com (Gary Terusaki) writes:
>>Did any of you see the premier of "Space Rangers" on TV?  Okay, it's not
>>Star Trek, and it's kinda trashy.  But, bear with me.
>>One of the characters in this interplanetary cop show is an Oriental like
>>alien played by Cary Hironaka(?).  Like most portrayals of cops assigned 
>Other Oriental - like aliens in the more popular show, Star Trek TNG, are:
>Romulans, with their stereotypically asian bowl-like hair cuts (black hair

The analogy is 

       Feds (folks in the Federation) = Americans
       Romulans = Chinese
       Klingons = Soviets  (a little out of date now)
       Vulcans = Japanese

>color), and their Oriental style costumes. - The Vulcans do not have Oriental

Note how this conversation has been twisted by the poster.  This newsgroup
is about Asian(-ge)-Americans-ci.  The original thread of conversation was
about Oriental(-ge)-Americans-ci in the media.

Now, Mr. Park takes a film analogy that deals with Orientals-ge from Asia,
_not_ Oriental-Americans-ci, and uses that analogy to bludgeon White-ge people.
By the way, Oriental-Americans-ci _are_ represented in Star Trek:
Oriental-Americans-ci _are_ Americans-ci and are represented by the Feds.

>costumes.  Ifn fact, the "good" oriental-like vulcans are hardly ever
>mentioned in the new series.  The Romulans are a militaristic "Empire"
>antagonistic to the Federation, the "goodguys."

Again, Oriental-Americans-ci _are_ Americans-ci and are represented by
the Feds.  The Feds are portrayed as good guys; hence, Oriental-Americans-ci
are portrayed as good guys.

(Aristotelian logic, by the way)

>...

However, the Romulans and the Vulcans represent the groups in Asia; they
have _nothing_ to do with Oriental-Americans-ci, who live in the _USA_
and are _Americans-ci_.  Oriental-Americans-ci are not Chinese-ci.  They
are Americans-ci.

(But, it's true that some of those Oriental-Americans-ci are loyal to
China and not the USA ...)

Yes.  Vulcans are the good guys.  Yes.  Romulans are the bad guys, but that's
historically accurate.  Consider

     Chinese records add cannibalism to 1960s horrors
     By Nicholas D. Kristof, New York Times
     San Jose Mercury News, January 6, 1993, pages 1A and 5A

     Beijing--Newly disclosed confidential government documents show that
     China's Cultural Revolution plumbed previously unreported depths of
     savagery.
          The documents, prepared by local government offices in the 1980's,
     two decades after the events they describe, offer a record of how Red
     Guards and Communist Party officials in one province not only tortured
     their victims to death but also ate their flesh.
          At some high schools, students killed their principals in the school
     courtyard and then cooked and ate the bodies to celebrate a triumph over
     "counter-revolutionaries," the documents report.  Government-run
     cafeterias are said pto have displayed bodies dangling on meat hooks and
     to have served human flesh to employees.
     ...

     The incidents reported from Guangxi were apparently the most extensive
     episodes of cannibalism in the world in the past century or more.  They
     were also different from any others in that those who took part were not
     motivated by hunger or psychopathic illness.
     ...
------------------------------------------------------------------+------------
Jinsei no imi wa nan desu ka.                Sister, can you      |   \|  |`
Shitte itara oshiete kuremasen ka.           spare a coin?        |    | -+-
                                                                  |   /| / \
Copyright 1992, 1993    Disclaimer:  1 + 1 = 3                    |
------------------------------------------------------------------+------------
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american