From: underdog@leland.Stanford.EDU (Dwight Joe)
Subject: Re: "Chinese-Americans..."
Organization: Miners for a Heart of Gold
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 92 22:14:15 GMT

In article <1992Sep9.165911.27067@panix.com> nina@panix.com (Nina Yuan) writes:
>In <1992Sep8.230325.4375@leland.Stanford.EDU> underdog@leland.Stanford.EDU
>(Dwight Joe) writes:
>>In article <1992Sep8.132644.13167@panix.com> nina@panix.com (Nina Yuan)
>>writes:
>>>Of course; I know of many people who are not at all ethnically Chinese who
>>>immerse themselves in Chinese culture.  But as soon as someone who IS
>>>ethnically Chinese expresses the slightest bit of interest in Chinese
>>>culture, you immediately call them a "Chinese-cu racist."
>>That's a lie.  It's very Chinese-cu of you, Ms. Yuan, to put words
>>into my mouth.
>And it's very racist of you, Mr. Joe, to attribute my comment to the evil
>influences of a whole cultural system shared by billions of people who don't
>even know that Usenet exists.

Ms. Yuan's statement is the result of behavior that was learned; it was
learned from, apparently, Chinese-cu culture.  I see nothing racist
with this comment.

By the way, Ms. Yuan's arguments might be more convincing if her facts
were correct.  She wrote, "...shared by billions of people..."  This would
suggest that she is referring to at least 2 billion since "billions"
is plural.

Further, I presume that she was referring to Chinese-cu culture when she
wrote, "...whole culture system shared by..."  Interestingly, Chinese-cu
culture is practiced by about 1 billion people; of course, there are
those Chinese-ge who don't practice it at all.

Suggesting that at least 2 billion people practice Chinese-cu culture
seems like a gross exaggeration if not altogether an out right lie.
If I recollect correctly, the planet earth has about 5 billion people.
So, Ms. Yuan is suggesting that 40% of the human population practices
Chinese-cu culture?

Ms. Yuan, now _really_.  Let's not become irrational, shall we?

>If Mr. Cheng had been Mr. Smith instead and made the same comments, would you
>immediately brand him a "Chinese-cu racist?"

As I said before, a racist is one who believes that genes determine behavior
and consequently that ethnicity determines culture.

Note that Mr. Cheng later retracted part of his position and noted that
ethnicity does not determine culture.  Hence, I retract my accusation.

As for Ms. Yuan's question, I should point out that I have called
Nazis, Klansmen, and rednecks racists for holding the belief that
genes determine behavior.  I'm sure that a number of them have
a Smith-type name.  (Note that many Chinese-cu share the same belief,
racist as it might be.)

Now, if Ms. Yuan wants a specific person, then she should point
out the Mr. Smith (on soc.culture.asian.american), who believes that
ethnicity determines culture.  And I will identify him as a racist.
Perhaps, Ms. Yuan won't, but I will.

So far I haven't noticed anyone except Chinese-cu Chinese-ge people
claiming that ethnicity determines culture and claiming that they
were "scared" by Chinese-ge who had no Chinese-cu culture.  Then
again, I don't read every post; I don't have the time.

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Copyright 1992.                                        | San Jose, California.
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