HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: gld@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Gary L Dare)
Subject: Re: Degrees of racism (was Re: Whites don't understand)
Reply-To: gld@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Gary L Dare)
Organization: Curious Goods (formerly Louis Vendredi Antiques)
Date: Sat, 5 Sep 1992 16:16:36 GMT

clare@nynexst.com (Clare Chu) writes:
>joe@astro.as.utexas.edu (Joe Wang) writes:
>>
>>Notice the implicit condition I was given.  Apparently, Ms. Chu
>>refuses to consider me to be Asian-American if I consider myself to 
>>be Chinese.  Let me point out something peculiar about that condition.
>
>  Get this straight, you explicitly posted that you did not consider
>  yourself AA since you consider yourself Chinese.  As I told Mr.
>  Douglas Basher already, AA is self-defined.  If he wants to
>  consider himself AA, who's to say he's not.

From any cursory-to-extensive reading of Clare's articles, one would
gather that she has described a set of experience relevant to living
on this continent (extensible to other non-Asian continents such as
Europe and Australia, as I recall Asian-descended people that I have
met from those parts) in a very literate fashion.  There are quite
significant numbers of such people outside of California, Hawaii and
British Columbia (Canada) that a first-cut threshold can be drawn at
the point of people who are born and bred on this soil, but of Asian
descent.  Other experiences such as those that our parents had when
coming over as children/teenagers, or our grandparents as adults, are
still in force with continuing waves of immigration, but for many of
us and for the purposes of history these are already givens.

For example, my father's main concern was securing additional bank
loans for business expansion while having worries in the back of his
mind of confronting a potentially-racist bank manager who will hold
dad's personal history against a clean business record.  At the same
time period, my worry was how to tell my parents that someone else's
dad was upset and screaming that "Chinks are taking over!" after his
son got cut from peewee hockey but I got in because I was one of only
three of 8 defencemen who could skate backwards ...

gld
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Je me souviens ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Gary L. Dare				
> gld@cunixB.cc.columbia.EDU		Oct 26/92: Just say "OUI!"
> gld@cunixc.BITNET			(Let's worry about the economy!)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american
From: Michael F. Kamprath <kamprath@space-grant.sprl.umich.edu>
Subject: Re: Rapid Fire (probable spoilers)
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 92 15:56:27 EDT
Organization: University of Michigan, Aerospace Engineering
X-Useragent: Nuntius v1.1.1d9
X-Xxmessage-Id: <A6DA670ADE01C4FC@sprl-mac2016.sprl.umich.edu>
X-Xxdate: Mon, 14 Sep 92 15:58:02 GMT

In article <BuKty4.8L0@news.cso.uiuc.edu> Wakako  Kusumoto, wkg0258@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu writes:
>Michael F. Kamprath <kamprath@space-grant.sprl.umich.edu> writes:
>
>>In article <1992Sep13.031437.27437@leland.Stanford.EDU> Dwight Joe,
>>underdog@leland.Stanford.EDU writes:
>>>
>>>Everyone should see "Raise the Red Latter" and _learn_ from it.
>>>
>
>>Slight correction:  "Raise the Red Lattern"
>
>Minor correction:  "Raise the Red Lantern"


I always got out in the first round in spelling bees.  I guess I have been
humbled :-)


========================================================================
| Michael F. Kamprath                   | The University of Michigan   |
|   kamprath@space-grant.sprl.umich.edu |      Aerospace Engineering   |
|   kamprath@engin.umich.edu            |                              |
|---------------------------------------+------------------------------+
|       And if a man can't change the world these days,                |
|       I still believe he can change his own destiny.                 |
|                                 --Michael Peters (The Alarm)         |
|                                   "The Spirit of '76"                |
========================================================================
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american
From: dowdy@tochtli.biochem.nwu.edu (Dowdy Jackson)
Subject: Re: Degrees of racism (was Re: Caucasians don't understand)
Organization: Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois
Distribution: na
Date: Sat, 5 Sep 1992 00:20:23 GMT

In article <23615@alice.att.com> jj@alice.UUCP (jj, curmudgeon and clueless old white boy) writes:
>In article <1992Sep2.002852.28920@news.acns.nwu.edu> dowdy@tochtli.biochem.nwu.edu (Dowdy Jackson) writes:
>>What I want is to have MY people be respected for being who we are not
>>what you want me to be so that you'll be more comfortable.
>
>Mr. Jackson, I have neither said nor implied anything about my being
>comfortable.  You have lied, and I now call on you to retract
>your lie, forthwith and without fail or delay.
>
>It is not comfortable to stand up against a bunch
>of drunk steelworkers (yes, they fight each other, too) because
>they want to beat up somebody who's different?
>
First, let me say that wehn I say "YOU", I'm not talking about YOU personally
because I don't know you. The YOU I am refering to is the general YOU as 
a group. Since this is the case a retraction isn't in order.

>You have lied, Mr. Jackson.  I have not asked that you make
>me comfortable, I have only asked that you stop spreading
>racist lies and encouraging hatred of my race.  That is not

I am not doing anything like you are saying that I am. All one has to do
is read a history book or just live in america to see that what I am
saying is true. The problem is that whites in general just won't listen.
When we talk about what we as minorities experience in this country, it is
often seen as whining to whites. This is because they don't live in our
world and therefore don't understand.
>asking for comfort, it is asking for less than the minimum that
>any human owes any other.
>-- 
>Extremism *Copyright alice!jj 1992, all rights reserved, except transmission
>   in the    *by USENET and like facilities granted.      Said permission is
>  defense of     *granted only for complete copies that include this notice.
> liberty is no vice.  *Use on pay-for-read services specifically disallowed.


Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american
From: clare@nynexst.com (Clare Chu)
Subject: More about Brandon Lee (Re: Rapid Fire 
Organization: Nynex Science and Technology
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 92 12:30:28 GMT

>In article <lb1lo6INNahn@jethro.Corp.Sun.COM> melindac@thedarktower.Corp.Sun.COM (Calling Dr. Nordstrom ...) writes:

[wanted to know more about Brandon Lee]

Apparently Brandon has been doing a media blitz promoting his new
film "Rapid Fire".  He is featured on People's magazine (the one
with Fergie and the Bald Guy on the cover), and I also saw him
on HBO giving an interview.

He was born in Oakland and lived in Hong Kong as a child, up to
when Bruce died.  His father started started training him on
Jeet Kune Do when he was 2.  After his father died, he moved to
just outside of Seattle and eventually Rolling Hills California.
He has a sister Shannon who is now a singer in New Orleans.
And he got into a lot of fights in school getting harrassed
or challenged as Bruce Lee's son.  He wanted to get into acting
and went to some school in the East (where Jay Leno went), and
then was in the short-lived Kung Fu Returns series.  But to really
make it into the films he had to go back to Hong Kong and starred
in a couple of films.

Oh by the way, Melinda, he already has a girlfriend he lives with
in L.A.  (see picture in People's magazine).

On his interview on HBO, he said that he gets to play a more
all-around character than his father does, and his characters can
have a sense of humor.  He wants to eventually move beyond martial
arts and get into more "serious" stuff.

The narrator said that because of his good looks from his Swedish
mother, he also gets to play romantic scenes.  (Gee, I thought Bruce
looked better... but then the narrator was a man).

They showed cuts from his movie of which he says that he is happy
that Tienanmen Square is part of the story.  I haven't seen the
film yet (with a 19 month old, you don't get to see any films),
but from the cuts I think it'll be better than any Jean Claude
VonDamme film (you all know that VonDamme is a ballet dancer?).
Brandon choreographed all the fight scenes himself and they don't
look like dance steps.  :-)


Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american
From: nina@panix.com (Nina Yuan)
Subject: Re: "Chinese-Americans..."
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 03:36:08 GMT
Organization: PANIX Public Access Unix, NYC

In <1992Sep9.221415.17665@leland.Stanford.EDU> underdog@leland.Stanford.EDU (Dwight Joe) writes:

>In article <1992Sep9.165911.27067@panix.com> nina@panix.com (Nina Yuan) writes:
>>In <1992Sep8.230325.4375@leland.Stanford.EDU> underdog@leland.Stanford.EDU
>>(Dwight Joe) writes:
>>>In article <1992Sep8.132644.13167@panix.com> nina@panix.com (Nina Yuan)
>>>writes:
>>>>Of course; I know of many people who are not at all ethnically Chinese who
>>>>immerse themselves in Chinese culture.  But as soon as someone who IS
>>>>ethnically Chinese expresses the slightest bit of interest in Chinese
>>>>culture, you immediately call them a "Chinese-cu racist."
>>>That's a lie.  It's very Chinese-cu of you, Ms. Yuan, to put words
>>>into my mouth.
>>And it's very racist of you, Mr. Joe, to attribute my comment to the evil
>>influences of a whole cultural system shared by billions of people who don't
>>even know that Usenet exists.

>Ms. Yuan's statement is the result of behavior that was learned; it was
>learned from, apparently, Chinese-cu culture. 

(sarcasm on, just to be safe this time)
Of course, after all, all things which Mr. Joe does not approve of must
come from that horrid thing called Chinese-cu culture.
(sarcasm off)

>By the way, Ms. Yuan's arguments might be more convincing if her facts
>were correct.  She wrote, "...shared by billions of people..."  This would
>suggest that she is referring to at least 2 billion since "billions"
>is plural.

Sigh.  You'll also notice that I said "cultural system shared by billions
of people *who don't even know that Usenet exists*." (emphasis belatedly
added)  Perhaps I should have added a smiley, but I certainly don't intend
to debate whether "billions" refers to "2 billion" or to "1 billion and 1"
people, as that would add nothing to the conversation (such as it is).

>Ms. Yuan, now _really_.  Let's not become irrational, shall we?

I'm sorry Mr. Joe, are you the person who talks about personal attacks made
on you by those horrid Chinese-cu people (with a long post to misc.legal
or somesuch group even).  Who's attacking whom?

>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.

-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nina H. Yuan
Harvard College             Panix -- Public Access Unix & Internet of NYC
yuan1@husc.harvard.edu      nina@panix.com
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american
From: gwu@nujoizey.tcs.com (George Wu)
Subject: My (gwu) opinions (Was: Re: Asian American culture (was Re: Some clarification))
Organization: Teknekron Communications Systems Inc.
Distribution: na
Date: Wed, 16 Sep 1992 00:45:27 GMT

In article <1992Sep15.080039.20673@leland.Stanford.EDU>, underdog@leland.Stanford.EDU (Dwight Joe) writes:
> In article <1992Sep15.045753.4558@oakhill.sps.mot.com>
> jpak@manute.sps.mot.com butts in abruptly:
> >...
> >Only if you're foolish
> >enough to say that culture is only defined when EVERY SINGLE PERSON partici-
> >pates in that particular thing.  That's utter nonsense.
> 
> Perhaps, Mr. Pak should repeat that statement for the benefit of Mr.
> George Wu (gwu@nujoizey.tcs.com).  He seems to think that in order
> for something to be part of Chinese-cu culture, that something _must_
> be believed and practiced by all who claim to be culturally Chinese-cu.
> Consider infanticide.  I condemned Chinese-cu culture for its inclusion
> of infanticide, but Mr. Wu claims that to be a racist condemnation
> because not every culturally Chinese-cu person practices infanticide.

     I accuse you of racism because you call for the wholesale
destruction of entire cultural system, regardless of the good elements
in that culture.  I accuse you of racism because you condemn a
particular social system based upon a fault present in other societies,
some of which you can only praise.

     At no time have I ever stated a cultural attribute is practiced by
every member of that culture.

> Go figure a Chinese-cu.

     Dwight, does it mean anything to you if a non-Chinese-cu attacks
your views as racist?  I'm a born and bred American.  (You'll note I'm
not so ashamed of my upbringing as to refuse to admit it.)  So you see,
it's not possible for me to interpret your opinions personally, as
you're attacking a group to which I don't belong.  I merely find your
views offensive to everything I was taught growing up, my *American*
sense of values.

							George

----
George J Wu, Software Engineer         | gwu@tcs.com or uunet!tcs!gwu
Teknekron Communications Systems, Inc. | (510) 649-3700
2121 Allston Way, Berkeley, CA, 94704  | Never be the first to believe . . .
From: mday@jukebox.lcs.mit.edu (Mark Day)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american
Subject: Re: Kennedys (was Re: Perceptions, Realities, Perceptions)
Date: 5 Sep 92 19:27:11 GMT
	<MDAY.92Aug26223214@jukebox.lcs.mit.edu>
	<1992Sep2.164001.9778@u.washington.edu>
Distribution: na
Organization: MIT Laboratory for Computer Science


   gwangung@milton.u.washington.edu (Just another theatre geek.....) writes:

   > mday@jukebox.lcs.mit.edu (Mark Day) writes:
   >At the risk of nitpicking, let me say that this one point isn't very
   >convincing.  If memory serves properly, Massachusetts elected a black
   >senator (Edward Brooke) who served from 1967 to 1979.  Given that
					    ^^^^    ^^^^

   >piece of reality, I might well argue that a "black Kennedy" could have
   >been elected in the 40s or 50s. 

	   Riggghhhht.

	   You could argue that.  But it wouldn't be very convincing.

I was trying to make the point that electing a black Senator from
Massachusetts is not like making contact with Martians, which seemed
to be Jim's implication.

However, I yield to your obviously superior knowledge and expertise in
the area of Massachusetts electoral politics of the 40s and 50s.  I
merely hazarded a guess, whereas you are clearly very sure of
yourself.

--Mark Day

mday@lcs.mit.edu
From: edhall@rand.org (Ed Hall)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american
Subject: Re: Listening to others' opinions (was Re: Some clarification)
Date: 15 Sep 92 19:02:09 GMT
Distribution: na
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]

Jim Pak (jpak@oakhill.sps.mot.com) wrote:
: In article <1992Sep14.063140.25443@mumbo.apple.com> tse@loonybin.apple.com (Gary Tse) writes:
: >I would say that only the fool takes the opinions of others as significant
: >in any way.  It's just a shame that so many of us are fools so often.
:  ^^^^^^^^^^
: In any way??  Surely you must be kidding.  You're pulling my leg here, right?
: 
: I'm rather glad Gary is the only person I know of who feels this way.

If other people's opinions don't matter, why even talk with them?  Why
post to USENET?  Why engage in a long discussion of opinions?

Actions, as they say, speak louder than words.

		-Ed Hall
		edhall@rand.org
From: nina@panix.com (Nina Yuan)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american
Subject: And you thought this thread had died...
Date: 5 Sep 92 01:58:40 GMT
Organization: PANIX Public Access Unix, NYC

God forbid I dredge up a subject long gone to its peaceful (or not so
peaceful) end, but in case anyone's interested, here's a letter from today's
"Dear Abby" column:

"Dear Abby:
	I enjoyed your column in which you advised, 'If you are curious
about a person's nationality -- ask.'  Here's how I stuck my foot in my
mouth:
	In 1977 I was traveling by train in France.  Seated in my
compartment was a nicely dressed elderly Oriental gentleman.  Carefully
enunciating every word, I asked, 'Do they drive as poorly in the Orient
as they do around here?'
	He replied in perfect English: 'Beats me.  I'm from San Francisco.'"
					Leroy McVay, Seattle


No comment from Abby.  No mention of any other letters she may have gotten
on this subject.

-nhy


-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nina H. Yuan
Harvard College             Panix -- Public Access Unix & Internet of NYC
yuan1@husc.harvard.edu      nina@panix.com
From: edhall@rand.org (Ed Hall)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american
Subject: Re: Asian/Asian American Conflicts
Date: 10 Sep 92 21:45:26 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: RAND Corporation.

In article <1992Sep10.185937.680@oakhill.sps.mot.com> jpak@manute.sps.mot.com writes:
>In article <1992Sep10.061313.19143@mumbo.apple.com> tse@loonybin.apple.com (Gary Tse) writes:
>>[poem deleted]
>
>Gary, nice poem, but again, what the heck did that have to do with our
>argument?  :-)

I just had to comment that I found the Walt Whitman poem (you gave the
title, Gary, but not the author) to be a nice antidote to the soul-
suffocating '90s.

However, I'm puzzled over just what it has to do with the argument as well,
except perhaps as a commentary on how we are all very much individuals,
but indivisible from each other as well.

		-Ed Hall
		edhall@rand.org
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american
From: xiong@fzi.de (Xiong Xun)
Subject: Re: "Rasie the Red Lattern"  was Re: Rapid Fire (probable spoilers)
Reply-To: xiong@fzi.de
Organization: Forschungszentrum Informatik (FZI), Karlsruhe, Germany
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 15:29:55 GMT

In article <b8s-YV#@engin.umich.edu>, Michael F. Kamprath <kamprath@space-grant.sprl.umich.edu> writes:
|> In article <1992Sep13.031437.27437@leland.Stanford.EDU> Dwight Joe,
|> underdog@leland.Stanford.EDU writes:
|> >>>But take heart, I did see a lot of Asians come out to see The Last
|> >>>Emporer and Rhasody in August.
|> >>
|> >>Hated the former; never heard of the latter.  But that's just *my* opinon.
|> >
|> >Everyone should see "Raise the Red Latter" and _learn_ from it.
|> >It says a lot about a certain culture in a Neanderthal-like
|> >nation in Asia; what it says still applies, in many respects, to
|> >todays incarnation of that culture.  *ugh*
|> >
|> 
|> Slight correction:  "Raise the Red Lattern"
|> 
|> Actually, I took it as a story about a woman who wanted to be "somebody"
|> and tried to accomplish it through marriage to a rich person (remember,
|> she dropped out of college).  She went insane because she could not cope
|> with the results of her actions (maid and third wife dying), not because
|> some Neanderthal-like culture drove her to it.  Yes, the film was set in 
|> traditional Chinese culture, where wives are killed for cheating on the
|> husband, but that happens everywhere (even here in the USA).  But that was 
|> a plot device.  The same story line could have happen in Italian, Indian, 
|> German, Mexican, or even American culture, in still have the same meaning.  
|> The culture that the story is told in supports, but is still irrelevant to
|> the story itself.  Taking this film as a comment on the Chinese culture 
|> is really, well, ignorant.
|> 
|> 
|> ========================================================================
|> | Michael F. Kamprath                   | The University of Michigan   |
|> |   kamprath@space-grant.sprl.umich.edu |      Aerospace Engineering   |
|> |   kamprath@engin.umich.edu            |                              |
|> |---------------------------------------+------------------------------+
|> |       And if a man can't change the world these days,                |
|> |       I still believe he can change his own destiny.                 |
|> |                                 --Michael Peters (The Alarm)         |
|> |                                   "The Spirit of '76"                |
|> ========================================================================

The impressions over the film are really diverging. (At least among the chinese
I know). Both of the above views are the most representative ones. I'm however 
the second one.
From: joe@astro.as.utexas.edu (Joe Wang)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american
Subject: Re: "Chinese-Americans..."
Date: 12 Sep 92 23:24:24 GMT
Organization: McDonald Observatory, University of Texas @ Austin

In article <1992Sep9.020612.23547@leland.Stanford.EDU> underdog@leland.Stanford.EDU (Dwight Joe) writes:
>For a concrete example, consider Mr. Joe Wang (joe@astro.as.utexas.edu).
>He said that he is Chinese-ge but American-ci; he identifies strongly
>with Chinese-cu culture.  From his statements, this indicates nothing
>about whether his national allegiance is to the USA; he could very
>well place his loyalty with China.  It is impossible to discern his
>loyalty unless he wishes to make it public.

You must have missed the article in which I did so.

I feel no particular loyalty to any flag or government at all.  After
reading about all the crap that governments try to pull on people once
they have their "loyalty" or in the name of "patriotism," I've decided
it would be wise to maintain a healthy distrust of all governments,
including the one that issues me my passport.

As for groups of people, I do feel an affection toward the 230 million
people who live in this part of North America and the billion or so
people who live in a certain part of East Asia.  I suppose it would be
possible to imagine a situation in which these loyalities might
conflict, but once one separates "people" from "government," then it's
hard to imagine a situation in which there isn't an immediately
obvious way of resolving the conflict.
From: tse@loonybin.apple.com (Gary Tse)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american
Subject: Re: Some clarification
Date: 14 Sep 92 06:31:40 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Raoul Duke School of Pharmacology and Journalism

In article <44729@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> kawakami@ocf.berkeley.edu (John Kawakami) writes:
>As far as my "fool" comment, what I mean is that every person is affected
>by others.  To not acknowledge this fact is foolish.  You can disagree with
>what others may say about you or do to you, but you cannot say that
>it has no effect.

You are confused between the fact of a thing and the rightness of that
thing.  I don't seek to argue that people don't listen to the opinions
of others.  Of course they do.  What I believe is that people *shouldn't*.

In your original post, you wrote:
>Only
>a fool can shrug off the opinions of others as ultimately insignificant.

I would say that only the fool takes the opinions of others as significant
in any way.  It's just a shame that so many of us are fools so often.

-- 
Gary Tse, tse@Apple.COM		"The fascination of what's difficult",
(408) 862-5452  		    The wish to do what one's not done before,
				Is the proper card to show at Heaven's door.
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american,soc.culture.asean,soc.culture.korean