From: ac@cheshire.oxy.edu (Aileen Cho)
Subject: ...or purple
Organization: Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA 90041 USA.
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 23:45:26 GMT


  I've been pretty busy in the past couple of weeks, so it was surprising
to read a post mentioning, apparently, that people responded to the
"don't-care-if-he's-green" remark I made with admonitions to "be honest"
and "admit I'm racist" etc. etc. ad nauseam.
  Everybody has the right to their opinion, but don't label me under your
code. When I say something, I mean it, and nothing more, nothing less. 
What I meant in saying that "I don't care if he's green" is that no, I
_don't_ care what "color" he is, if he's a guy whom I like! Do you think
if I chose to date an African American who was sexy, sweet and liked the
same things I did rather than an Asian American who was a good friend but
simply not someone whose personality was compatible with mine--that I'm
"rejecting" my own race? Gee, I'm not exactly being a twinkie, I guess I'm
being more of a vanilla-chocolate layer cake. OH yes, I shouldn't try to
deny being racist or that I hate myself, after all, people who don't even
KNOW me have decided that I am, and so it must be! 
  Look, I'm no expert on race relations, and I live in LA, and I follow
the news, and so I know what's going on. But I know what I believe, and
I know how I was brought up--and I had to _learn_ that multiculturalism
is still being "learned" and debated endlessly; I had to learn to be aware
that my ethnicity is an irrevocable factor in the Real World.  Yes, I even
had to learn to appreciate my heritage.  It wasn't something I ever denied
because it wasn't something I _had_ to be aware of.  You can shake your
self-righteous and skeptical heads all you like -- but you see, when I
was in high school, the circles I moved in had faces of all ethnicities--
and you know what, it JUST HAPPENED to be that way. Chance and demographics
determined that my particular community was naturally diverse. And cross-
cultural dating wasn't a phenomenon.  It was a norm.  YOu can come over and
take a look at my yearbooks if you like.
  Oh, but wait.  We must have all been a bunch of self-hating, denying,
hypocritical betrayers of our respective ethnicities.  I forgot.  YOU know,
I don't.  Even though YOU don't know the world _I_ grew up in, and really
have no right to say why _I_ say what I say.  YOu know about my dating
habits better than I do. Oh yeah. Gee, so sorry. Yeah, I DO care if "He's"
green, after all. I mean, he might be a Martian.         

  Ain't it a funny world when people actually don't WANT to believe that
there are places and there are communities where people of different races
interact with each other according to what they're interested in and what
personality traits they look for in friends. So sue me for not having been
persecuted in my childhood because of my ethnicity. 
  I'll just get off my soapbox now and decide how I'm going to make myself
hate all Japanese, since it's my "historical duty" and be suspicious of all
those Great White Hunters who want me to be their rice girl, and run away
from all those evil black men and Latino gang members since after all, I'm
showing my self-hatred and lack of honesty by being interested in any of
them. Never mind that I grew up among them, ran cross country with them,    
went to school with them. AFter all, it's my obligatory duty to only date
Asian men, right? OH sure. 
                                   Cheers.
                                       --ac