From: underdog@leland.Stanford.EDU (Dwight Joe)
Subject: Re: "Chinese-Americans..."
Organization: Miners for a Heart of Gold
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 92 22:55:48 GMT

In article <1992Sep10.033608.937@panix.com> nina@panix.com (Nina Yuan) writes:
>In <1992Sep9.221415.17665@leland.Stanford.EDU> underdog@leland.Stanford.EDU
>(Dwight Joe) writes:
>[stupidity deleted to save bandwidth]
>>Note that Mr. Cheng later retracted part of his position and noted that
>>ethnicity does not determine culture.  Hence, I retract my accusation.
>
>That's nice.  Incidentally, I apologize to all the other members of s.c.a.a.
>who are wading though this little discussion (if indeed anyone is reading
>it); my originaly purpose in responding to E. Cheng's post was to point out
>to him that most people on s.c.a.a. were not "accusing" him of anything, not
>to get into an argument with Mr. Joe.

The original statement made by Mr. Cheng is racist.  A racist is one who
believes that genetics determines behavior and hence that ethnicity determines
culture.  Anyone who feels "scared" that, say, a Japanese-ge is culturally
Western with no Japanese-cu culture is a racist.

Here is the original quote from Mr. Cheng.  Note that Ms. Yuan does not
feel that this is a racist comment by Mr. Cheng.  I believe otherwise.

   In article <edcheng.1dl2@terapin.com> edcheng@terapin.com (Edmund Cheng)
   Wrote:
   ...
        I know many Chinese-Americans... Some which have no Chinese "culture"
   in them.  The only thing that distinguishes them from any caucasian is their
   last names and their faces.  This scares me.
   ...
                        -Zheng Yip Wing

The alternative culture, which Mr. Cheng suggests, selected by some Chinese-
Americans (who have no Chinese "culture") is Western culture.  He says that
this fact "scares" him.



A morally equivalent but opposite statement would be

        I know many Chinese-Americans... Some which have _only_ Chinese
   "culture" in them.  ... This scares me.

This statement is morally equivalent because, again, the intent is to
say that someone is "scared" by the fact that individuals of an ethnic
group are choosing a particular culture.



Let's make one more substitution to create the following:

        I know many European-Americans... Some which have _only_ African
   "culture" in them.  ... This scares me.

Here, we have the obvious racist statement.  In order to be consistent,
since Ms. Yuan believes (as she claims) that the original statement by Mr.
Cheng is not racist, then Ms. Yuan also believes that this statement is
not racist.

I beg to differ.  Both statements are extremely racist.  Many Chinese-cu
people agree with the first statement and are extremely racist.


P.S.

-cu = in the sense of culture
-ci = in the sense of citizenship
-ge = in the sense of genetics (i.e. ethnically speaking)

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