From: joe@astro.as.utexas.edu (Joe Wang)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american
Subject: Re: Perceptions, Realities, Perceptions
Date: 27 Aug 92 21:15:46 GMT
Distribution: soc
Organization: McDonald Observatory, University of Texas @ Austin

In article <SHAW.92Aug26002432@whopper.lcs.mit.edu> shaw@whopper.lcs.mit.edu (Andy Shaw) writes:
>That does not
>diminish my experience _now_, nor that of the group of people who have
>common experiences and common interests.  There is nothing "icky" about the
>fact of life that YOU and I have a hell of a lot in common

But it's not a fact of life that we have very much in common.  It's
starting to become quite clear that your life and my life have been
quite different, and as far as life experiences go, I probably have
more in common with this "jj" fellow than I do with you.

Because we've led different lives, we naturally have different
perspectives on how to combat racism and discrimination, and we
naturally have different perspectives on the nature of American
society.  

I suppose that what I'm asking is for you to realize how different you
and I really are, and the fact that there is very little that you and
I share that would form the basis for any sort of identity.  I'm also
asking that you not think less of me because we'll likely find
ourselves 180 degrees apart on most issues.  In particular, don't
accuse me of "selling out." 

>But those are the facts, and you and I (and Arthur Hu and Dwight Joe and
>Judy Tseng, etc.) are bound together by forces that we do not necessarily
>like or want.

I don't think that we (you and I) are bound nearly as tightly as you
think we are.

This is what I am afraid Asian-American activism will lead to.  Right
now, AA's make up about 30% of people at MIT, about 10% of people at
Harvard, etc. etc.  In about forty years, it's quite likely that about
30% of Fortune 500 CEO's, doctors, lawyers, researchers, etc will be
AA, even though the population is <10% AA's.

I leave as an exercise to the reader, what an unscrupulous politician
could do if the economy suffers a downturn and if as a result of AA
activism, the country sees AA's as "one of them" instead of "one of
us."

>You seem to believe that we as a tiny minority are all inevitably weak and
>worthless, and that we need someone to take care of us. 

I believe that if the game is ever "us vs. them," "we" will lose.
It's better to be one of "them" than to be one of "us."  You seem to
think that this is impossible without losing "self-respect."  Fine, we
disagree.

>If you take shit from anyone, they will lose respect for you.  If you bash
>them back, they will not necessarily like you, but they will respect you
>more.  

If you bash them back and in the process hit thirty potential allies
who had nothing at all to messing with you in the first place, I call
that a bad deal.....

>If I am off target, maybe you can explain why you've never publically
>chastised or criticized anything from anyone white.  

It seems that Lui Sieh and I have reasonably similar backgrounds and
in this case we seem to mostly to be in agreement.  If you are trying
to accuse Lui Sieh of being a "white sycophant" with no
"self-respect," then you are going to have to make the same accusation
toward me, and there is NO WAY IN HELL, you will be able to make it
stick.

This is getting way too personal.  I simply ask that you accept that
different people have different backgrounds even if their DNA type is
identical.

>In the near term, I am extremely cynical and pessimistic: I have a decent
>idea what life is going to be like in the near future from my experiences
>from the near past.  In the long term, I am extremely optimistic, because I
>know how much better my life is than my parents' were at my age. 

Interesting.........

Actually I'm the opposite.  In the near term, I'm optimistic.  In the
far term, I'm very, very worried.  There are just too many
disconcerting trends to make me think that my children will
necessarily have a better time in the United States than I had.