From: srin@cs.utexas.edu (Srinivas Nedunuri)
Newsgroups: alt.culture.us.asian-indian
Subject: Re: White Guys Superior?
Date: 27 Jul 1992 21:34:41 -0500
Organization: U Texas Dept of Computer Sciences, Austin TX
NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.utexas.edu

In article <4475@dove.nist.gov> hira@cme.nist.gov writes:
>A friend of mine, asian american female, heard these comments from whites
>who thought that they were superior dating partners. I thought that it might 
>be interesting to the rest of y'all, particularly with the thread of dating.

>	{...nibbles of conversation deleted...}  

>  No, not all comments came from white men.  And I don't personally blame any
>  of these people for making their misguided comments.  This whole "white men"
>  syndrome is pervasive across our society and these people just picked up on
>  it. ("lighter, brighter, closer to whiter" is better.)  After all, if
>you could
>  associate yourself with the head honcho, why would you chose otherwise?
>  And in America, the wealth and power are concentrated in the hands of
>white men.  
>  I have relatives tell my parents to move to a white neighborhood to get the
>  kids acquainted to white culture, because the real world is ruled by whites.
>	{...some comments deleted...}
>----------------------------End of her
>Comments--------------------------------------
>
>Just food for thought.
>
>Ron

Sounds very familiar to me. This kind of reasoning has pervaded Asian thinking
for a long time. I guess it goes back to the colonial experience that most
non-white cultures have experienced and still occupies the collective 
consciousness of most Asians. Perhaps the most endearing result of colnial rule
was the lesson that if you want to be head honcho you'd better be white. 
Colonialism may be over but its legacy is still in the minds of many Asians.
Hence the desire to conform to the model minority myth. The idea here is that
if you dont make a fuss, whites might just "let you in". The problem is of
course that whites are aware of this mentality and (many) treat us accordingly. 
Hence the conversation above, which BTW is IMHO only expressing openly what many
whites (even "liberals") subconscously feel. (I am referring more to the 
public at large than to certain insulated enviroments such as universities.)
In the minds of many whites is the feeling that Asians are unassuming,geeky and
generally ignorable. Like all stereotypes this opinion does have a ring of
truth to it. And as long as Asians continue to conform to their own self-
imposed stereotype this attitude among whites will only continue.

On a similar vein, there have been various comments about how "its easier"
(from a dating point of view ) for Asian women than for Asian men. This 
in fact almost follows logically from the general widely held views that
whites have of Asians. Since Joe Public is interested in a "submissive"
woman its only natural he would expect to make it with any Asian woman that
appeals to him. Jane Private, on the other hand, is looking for a "powerful" man so there's no way an Asian geek would fit the bill. In fact I would be very
surprised if it were otherwise.

--s;

Newsgroups: alt.culture.us.asian-indian