From: jj@alice.att.com (jj, clueless old white boy)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american
Subject: Re: Hoyt Sze's "Parting Shot"
Date: 20 Aug 92 14:37:35 GMT
Article-I.D.: alice.23496
Reply-To: jj@alice.UUCP (jj, clueless old white boy)
Organization: NJ State Home for Bewildered Terminals

In article <9208191246.AA07235@dawn400a.hpl.hp.com> rw@HPLB.HPL.HP.COM (Russil Wvong) writes:
>Thanks to Judy for posting Hoyt Sze's article.  I strongly disagree with
>the ideas expressed in that article, though.  To summarize Hoyt's ideas:
>
>1. Equal assimilation is not possible.  Assimilation requires destruction
>   of Asian American culture, and adoption of white culture.
>2. Preservation of Asian American culture is important.
>3. Material wealth is not important.
>4. American society is ruled by white people.
>5. We need a unified Asian American community, similar to the African
>   American community.
>6. There is no middle ground.  It is not possible to
>   assimilate into American society (e.g. through marriage) and remain
>   within the Asian American community.  

Hmmm, well, I'm going to have to respone to Russil's summary, since
it seems we didn't get the original here.

I find much of Sze's rhetoric flawed, in the same sense that I find
a lot of revolutionary rhetoric flawed.  First, let us start with point
6.  This, simply stated, is the fallacy of the excluded middle.  This is
a classic starting or ending point for people speaking to crowds
(Barbara Bush speaking to the old hitler youth last night comes to
mind.  Were there any asians or non-whites anywhere in that building,
and was there a single non-blond with the exception of Marilyn Quayle.)
Of there is a middle ground to everything short of being vaporized by
a nuclear weapon.  Sometimes society won't want to admit it, sometimes
society won't want to allow it, but it generally exists.  Number six,
as stated above, both claims for the rule of the excluded middle,
and calls for the Asian American community to enforce it.

Number 5 is flawed on several counts.  First, I'd have to giggle
at the thought that the African American community is unified.
Second, what does anyone need it for?  I can't see any reasons
given, other than outright proof by blatant assertion.

Number four is under discussion here currently.  The point is that
WHITE people don't run this country, the "Ruling Elite" do,
and while they're white, most whites stand the same chance
as any minority, i.e. about 1 chance in ten million, give or take
an order of magnitude.

As to "material wealth is not important", well, for some people
that's true, but how Sze can speak for an entire race is beyond me.
Furthermore, how he can say that when many who he would speak
for seem to feel quite otherwise is more than presumptious, it's
downright close to a falsehood.  I'd expect Asian Americans to have
no less of a distribution of people than any other group.  Perhaps
he'd LIKE this to be true, why then would he want to condemn his
group to poverty, other than in order to provoke hatred and
violence?

As to preservation of a culture, I'd say it's up to the culture.
I'd hate to see America become homogenized.  I think of the
"melting pot" as a stew, where lumps of this and that
combine to make something better than any of the parts,
with each taking a bit from here and there as desired.
In that model, at least, there's no need for a culture to
disappear. 

And to number 1.  It's back to the fallacy of the excluded middle.
He's done well here, he's used it twice.


Having read the summary (but not the original, since it never arrived)
I have to conclude that racial harmony is not either an important
consideration for Sze nor a desirable outcome.  How this will help
Asian-Americans is beyond me.  The results of causing wars, civil,
national, or international, is beyond any dispute.  Everyone
looses in war.

If Wong's summaries are wrong, well, then, consider this
addressed to the summary.  I don't have the original to read,
and I have made that quite clear.
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