From: shaw@au-bon-pain.lcs.mit.edu (Andy Shaw)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american
Subject: Sex, Power and the Decline of the White American Male [LONG]
Date: 5 Oct 92 01:41:05 GMT
	<1992Sep30.124428.8015@nynexst.com> <2186@usna.NAVY.MIL>
	<1992Oct2.143915.14405@midway.uchicago.edu>
Distribution: na
Organization: MIT Lab for Computer Science, Cambridge, Mass.

In article <1992Oct2.143915.14405@midway.uchicago.edu> shou@quads.uchicago.edu (roger colin shouse) writes:
   In article <2186@usna.NAVY.MIL> wdw@math2.sma.usna.navy.MIL (Wm. Douglas Withers -- math  FACULTY <wdw@sma.usna.navy.mil>) writes:
   >I am not Asian-American, but I have been following this group for a while
   >trying to get some insights.  Now from the commentary on the Montel Williams
   >show and from other remarks made here recently I get the impression that
   >there is frequently some resentment on the part of Asian-American men
   >towards Asian-American women having to do with interracial relationships.
   >
   >Why should there be such a sentiment? Then again, am I misreading something?
   >Anyone care to enlighten me?
   >-- 
   >Els Withers                   email: wdw@math2.sma.usna.navy.mil
   >Department of Mathematics     phone: (410)267-3192 / fax: (410)267-4883
   >United States Naval Academy
   >Annapolis, MD  21402-5002     Senri no tabi mo ippo yori...

   I'd like to second these sentiments, except I won't be so diplomatic
   as to use the term "enlighten" here.  This is the 20th century.  These
   are the 90's.  Anyone can date or marry anyone they damn well feel like.
   The fact that there are more interracial relationships is a good thing.
   It means that the significance of racial and ethnic boundaries is
   breaking down.  Is is possible that much of the opposition to such 
   relationships comes from people who can't get a date?  

Well, we seem to be having another rash of "indignant white men with
persecution complexes who date/marry/covet/desire Asian/Asian-American
women and have no compunctions about denigrating Asian/Asian-American men
for being dateless/sexist/unattractive/whiners while denigrating white
women for being loose/unloyal/uppity/demanding/materialistic/crazy etc.
etc.  etc."

Frankly, as Alan has stated in his FAQ, this is tiresome but seemingly
unavoidable, and even his rather mild, non-confrontational FAQ hasn't
settled people down to the extent that might be expected.

<pause>

Well, I hope that no one expected me to try to settle things down.

<pause>

First of all, before we get too carried away, let me _agree_ with these two
and state uncategorically that anyone of the legal age should be able to
date or marry anyone they want to, as long as both parties are agreeable
and informed, and I'll even go farther than Alan and say that even if it's
an "unhealthy" relationship, those people should have the right to do
whatever their little hearts please, including making themselves miserable.

After all, it's their lives.

I think that the real issue is, once again, power, and the implications of
sex with regard to power.  For men, having more power means having greater
access to sex -- that is one of the benefits of having power: you become
more attractive to a greater portion of the female population.  That
doesn't necessarily mean that powerful people have more sex, but powerful
people have more access to sex.  That power can come in many forms:
economic, political, physical, social, and physical beauty.

One of the characteristics of race is that in _any_ society, being of a
certain race is associated with a certain degree of power.  All things
being equal, being white in America is an advantage to being Asian.  In
fact, being white can be an advantage in certain ways in most countries in
the world, because of the power (economic, political, military, cultural,
etc.) associated with white skin in most countries in the world.

The funny thing is that this power thing isn't symmetric with regard to
males and females, even in the (supposedly) relatively non-sexist US.  Even
in the US, women are regarded, and regard themselves as property and the
mentality is that the best strategy in life is to pursue the most powerful
man one can hope to marry -- a woman's self-worth is often defined by the
man that she marries or dates -- all you have to do is look at the cover of
any romance novel or read Cosmo or watch "Pretty Woman" again.  As one of
Clare's black female friends articulated, "the best thing you can do for
your child is to give it a white father".

At the current time, there is a general perception that AF/WM relationships
vastly outnumber AM/WF relationships.  Naturally, this is rather
discouraging to Asian males, since this is interpreted as saying Asian
males have little power, and are thus not chosen by white females to the
degree that Asian females choose white males.

However, what if that were to change?  What if Asians (as a whole) were
perceived to be more powerful than whites?

That's not as far-fetched as it may sound.  As I mentioned in a previous
article, some Japanese businessmen are already starting to treat the US as
a third world country, and looking at cute, young, blond, California girls
the same way that American GI's historically are used to looking at girls
in relatively poor Asian countries.  And some of those "All American" girls
are looking back in the same way those poor Asian girls did -- a chance to
mingle with power, have a lot of money spent on them, and be near the
future, the cutting edge, and the exoticism that they can't get at home.
These women have a taste for these men, so to speak, and we can be as
dismissive or contemptuous as we like -- they exist.

Although Japan is still a white-skin-worshipping country, Japan has become
sufficiently powerful that it's becoming possible to view white men as
having less power than Japanese men.  (Although this is partly slowed down
by the fact that an unusually high number of whites in Japan are highly
paid expatriates, and not representatives of whites in the world -- an
"elite" group of whites is compared to a "normal" group of Asians.)

Yes, it's true that all of the "lifestyle" commercials in Japan still show
white couples living luxurious "Western" lifestyles, but as Japanese are
more exposed to the world outside of Japan, I think that they are realizing
that their inferiority complexes are rather unfounded.  We're at the cusp
right now -- as the former prime minister of Japan, Noboru Takeshita put
it, American GI's can no longer afford Japanese bar girls, and must stay on
their ships and fuck each other.  Which is not exactly true, but the key is
that he was _able_ to tell that joke, and expected people to believe it and
understand it.

As an American, I'm offended by Takeshita's joke, but knowing how most
Japanese think, "American==white", so he probably wasn't talking about me,
he was talking about those overbearing, rude, dirty, white and black
gaijin.  I'm just an anomaly from an even lower-class third world country
who has some delusions or pretensions of being "American", since I'm too
stupid to see that America is headed to hell in a handbasket, not to
mention too stupid to know that I'm yellow, not American.

Anyway ...

That's Japan; this is the US ... right?

Yes, and no.  Although I don't see Asian-Americans becoming more numerous
than whites in the near future, I do see the possibility of becoming more
"powerful".  Because of the racist immigration laws which were repealed in
the 60's, the group of Asian-Americans in college right now are the first
major wave of Asians to go through college in the US.  We are at a unique
point in history -- nothing like this has ever happened before in the US.
At the same time, America's power in the world is declining, and the power
of an Asian country (Japan) is rising, while internally, Asian-American
students are coming out of the pipeline at the most elite colleges in the
country.

I look at MIT now, and it's pretty different from when I was a freshman --
every year since I've arrived here, I say "Wow, there are so many Asians
here!"  And they are coming in stronger, more sure of themselves and their
identities, and more self-confident than when I arrived.

I believe in the possibility of the relative decline of the white American
male compared to the Asian American male -- this is not dogma, or bluster,
or envy speaking, this is looking at the facts, and the evidence around me.
It sure as hell hasn't happened yet, but the first batch has just come
through.  Let's wait another ten years, and then see who's complaining, and
who's saying stuff like "everyone has the right to date anyone they want".

I forsee the possibility of the Asian-American minority in the US becoming
something like the Chinese minority in countries like Malaysia, Thailand,
or Vietnam -- a sort of resented and relatively powerful racial elite,
limited by being a numerical minority, and perhaps feared and respected on
the basis of their skin.  (Perhaps someone who knows more about those
countries can elaborate on the race relationships there.)

There are a few things that will possibly prevent that from happening.
First of all, if Asians assimilate in the manner, and to the extent that
Jews, Irish, Italians, and Eastern Europeans did in the past century, then
we will be absorbed into the whole -- quite frankly speaking, this is not
our choice, but the choice of the white majority.  If they relent, then the
forces for assimilation are probably too great to have any heroic
"preservation of the culture" arguments from being effective -- we'll just
become like the Irish and the Italians, which suits me fine: that's
certainly better status in this country than we have now.

Secondly, the effectiveness of sexual equality may change sexual dynamics
by making more and more women (of all races) in this country realize that
they are not property, and thus allow them to make their sexual decisions
based upon a more realistic view of their self worth.  In that case, I'm
not sure what's going to happen, but I'm not sure how realistic this is in
the near term (within 10 years) anyway.  Racial assimilation seems a hell
of a lot more likely to me than women and men believing in sexual equality.

So basically, what I'm saying is that things could change in weird ways,
and that we're at a weird point in history.  Asian men may become more
attractive than white men in the US, for various reasons.  Please note that
I'm not saying "I'm better than you", but I'm looking at the facts and
possibilities -- whites are not in any shape, form or manner, "better" than
Asians now, but it is clear that being white is a big social advantage
right now.  In the future, if being Asian becomes social advantage, that
won't mean that Asians are "better" than whites.

But at least I won't have to put up with a lot of the bullshit I do now.

-Andy

PS: Don't take me _too_ seriously, since I also believe that
Asian-Americans are going to make it to the NFL and the NBA.

PPS: Go Eugene!