From: clare@nynexst.com (Clare Chu)
Subject: Re: Perceptions, Realities, Perceptions
Organization: Nynex Science and Technology
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 92 12:41:52 GMT

In article <23569@alice.att.com> jj@alice.UUCP (jj, curmudgeon and clueless old grouchy white boy) writes:
>In article <1992Aug27.123140.7299@nynexst.com> you write:
>>In article <23537@alice.att.com> jj@alice.UUCP (jj, curmudgeon and clueless old white boy) writes:
>>  Wow, what a town.  I guess there is no such thing as a monolithic
>>  "white" group either.   This is a great topic for the soon-to-be
>>  created soc.culture.white.american.
>Well, I'll second the "...what a town" remark.  It's a wonderful
>place to be gone from.  Now, as far as "white" groups being
>monolithic, THAT is my point.  Thank you for acknowledging it.
>As far as soc.culture.white.american, not a chance.  Someone
>wanted to create such once, they were very much harassed both
>on and off the net.  It is quite clear from prior history that
>while it's ok to have a "foo only" group, foo can never
>equal white.  Sorry, but that's the history.
>
  That's pretty unfair.  It just makes people think "whites"
  are this monolithic all-powerful group and that they don't
  need a newsgroup to discuss anything.  I suppose the rationale
  was that all the comp.* talk.* rec.* alt.* groups are
  "white" groups?  I've heard the arguments too.  Like you
  people (how'd that sound? :-) ) own everything anyway.
  Why do you need to talk about any social issues?  I guess
  they feel that soc.culture.usa "belongs" to white Americans.
>
>>  Sounds like a real suspicious town, with people drawing lines
>>  along all sorts of real and imaginary boundaries.
>Well, like I said, the best way to deal with this town
>is to be gone from it.
>
>The boundaries aren't imaginary, though, I have no idea
>what you mean by that, once these people make a catagory,
>it's altogether too real.

  What I meant by imaginary is that once someone becomes
  paranoid because of real boundaries, they start imagining
  all sorts of barriers that don't exist and they basically
  get themselves down.  I'm not talking about you.  I'm
  talking about the fact that some people sort of "give up"
  and believe the real boundaries and let it extend to
  believing that their situation is hopeless.  You obviously
  didn't do that, since you were able to keep faith in yourself
  and rise up out of there.  But I'm sure there are a lot of
  oppressed townfolk who just sat there and believed in the
  "drunk mick" stereotype and ended up fitting it.  That is
  very very sad, indeed.
>
>Of course that's what happening.  To this kind of wannabee
>elite (I don't mean the asians here necessarily) money is what
>talks.  Money had how much of it you can control  In that sense,
>the PROFESSIONAL asians rank high on the scale.

  Sounds like Joe Wang's social elite.  
>
>Well, they are certainly some of the real centers of the
>country club set.  Dunno why, but they are.  They are
>mostly not great golfers (that's what country clubs are
>about in Trumbull County), but they seem positively popular
>in the golfing set.  You figure, I'm not even going to guess.

  Well like you said, "Money talks".

>Um, the "elite" in this area isn't the "ruling elite" we were
>talking about a few days ago.  They're petty wannabes.  And
>"petty" is VERY true.
>
>>  Class can overcome race to
>>  some extent.  But it doesn't mean that your whole race
>>  is accepted.
>Absoutely. That's the point, isn't it?  This town cares
>more about class than race.

  But as long as your race has to overachieve to get minimal
  acceptance, we're still not talking about total equality.
>
>YES. THAT IS MY POINT!
>>   Just the selected individuals.  Can anyone
>>  see the difference here?
>WHAT DO YOU THINK IS THE POINT I'VE BEEN TRYING TO MAKE,
>ANYHOW?  Class, in this case, has far overcome race.

  It hasn't overcome race EXCEPT for those selected individuals.
  That's my point.  It's a tokenism.  What good is it for you
  to be a sell-out and be accepted when people who look like you
  are still being spit on?  Perhaps to a lot of people, that's
  good enough.  Because I've got mine, who cares if you've got
  yours.  But to me, it's not enough.  I don't want to be a card-
  carrying token where people accept me because I speak perfect
  English and have a professional degree but spit on my cousin
  who's not.  Similarly I feel you agree in that while you can be
  accepted because you're a professional, but your cousins
  are still called "drunk micks".  That's unfair and it doesn't
  mean that your class has erased prejudice against your cousins
  to any extent.  It's like all the people who worship Michael
  Jordan as a great basketball player but don't want African
  Americans living in their neighborhoods.  No matter what the
  achievements of a selected few individuals, there is still no
  equal treatment of their race.
>
>"Your mommy is a mick, does she drink all day", "all those
>german women are fat", and so on.
>
>Standard fare...  Phoey.
>
>THAT IS THE POINT.  Class overcomes race in some places. Such
>places are nasty places, perhaps, but CAN YOU SEE MY POINT?
>CLASS OVERCOMES RACE.  IN SOME PLACES. (Please, I'm quite
>sure it's otherwise in some places, too!)

  ONLY FOR THOSE INDIVIDUALS.  Not for their whole race.
  And those individuals better make damn well sure that
  when they encounter a racist mob that they have their valid
  i.d. cards or something.  Don't you see how tenuous their
  claim to acceptance is???  If they lose their i.d. cards
  or people knowing that they're professionals, and they're
  faced with a group of baseball wielding unemployed autoworkers
  they can still be killed on the basis of race, even if it
  was "mistaken identity".  Like I said, even if one of us
  (Black, White, Asian, Hispanic, Native) is oppressed 
  we all are.  Mobs don't stop to ask questions and verify
  identity.  If it's a <sub any race you want> face they're
  looking for to beat up, anyone visibly identified as satisfying
  that criterion will be beat up or killed.  Ask people who
  were caught up in the L.A. riot.  Or the white motercyclist
  who was killed.  Did they bother to ask him if he had any
  Black friends?  Did you know he was on his way to helping
  out a Black friend whose car broke down when he was killed?

>Now, I don't think that Ashtabula in ITSELF is the center
>of infection...  No, siree.  I think you have to go south from there
>a ways.

  Thanks for telling me where it is.  People on both coasts
  will say, "I'd like to live in the MidWest", in a wistful
  manner of idealism.  Cheap houses, friendly caring neighbors,
  traditional family values...  Maybe you should write that
  expose, really!
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american