From: jj@alice.att.com (jj, clueless old white boy)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american
Subject: Re: Surviving in a White Man's world
Date: 13 Aug 92 17:41:50 GMT
Article-I.D.: alice.23441
Reply-To: jj@alice.UUCP (jj, clueless old white boy)
Organization: NJ State Home for Bewildered Terminals

In article <1992Aug12.150550.10596@inmet.camb.inmet.com> lrq@fanny (Robert Quan) writes:
>
>  I've been reading all the interesting subjects in S.C.A.A. and decided
>to offer my two cents.  Hopefully, it won't stir up too much flame.  But
>then again, it's only my opinion.
Ok, and mine in reply. Hopefully my reply won't seem like a flame, either.

>    Point 1:  Why is it that the media always associate an asian as a
>              foreigner and not an American. 
That is a very good question.  While I don't have the answer, I think
there are several issues:
	1) The media doesn't "always" associate an asian as a foreigner,
	2) The media plays to the public mediocracy, and seems fascinated
by anthing "different" about any individual they report. Such differences,
from intellegence to race, are always protrayed as negative.  Positive
news doesn't sell papers, after all.  (No, that doesn't excuse their
actions, it only explains them.  Explaination != justification, after all.)
	3) Some journalists are as prejudiced as the rest of the
population.

This surely isn't a comprehensive list, but I think the sixtifour
of the issue is "greed", the desire to make a buck NOW, and damn
the future.

>              There are Orientals in this
>              country that can trace their roots back to the 1800's.  Yet,
>              when an oriental meets a non oriental, the non oriental always
>              ask "what country he/she is from" and "compliments him/her on
>              excellent English"
I beg your pardon.  This does not "always" happen.  Yes, it does happen,
but not "always" and not everywhere.  Furthermore, not all 'where are
you from' questions are based in prejudice or ignorance.  I do speech work.
I often ask people "where did you learn to speak" if I'm curious about
their particular accent, for instance, and in my case, it's a desire
to learn about one of my professional studies.  Several issues also
come to mind here:

	1) First, I'm quite sure that the true jerks stand out in
everyone's memory.  I've had people tell ME I wasn't a true american,
too, and yes, I remember them in 3D color and Hi Fi stereo sound, so
to speak.  I suspect 1 jerk has the influence of at least 100 "fair"
people in this respect.
	2) Some people are just naturally curious, and some other
people are culturally trained to regard curiousness as an insult.
This doesn't excuse the persistant, of course.

>    Point 2:  Why do American Society stereotype Asian males as nothing more
>              than wimpy and nerdy book worms.  We asian males are certainly
>              not wimpy.
Yeah, they do. I don't know why, other than to offer the obvious choices of
ignorance and greed.  I don't hold these stereotypes, and frankly,
they (no surprise) don't match my experiences with Asian males at all.

I think this stereotype is finally dying. It certainly dies anywhere that
"American Society" is exposed to asian males, as a simple education
process, I think.

>    Point 3:  Why do white men think that they are superior in looks and 
>              physique to oriental males.  It is all media developed 
>              stereotypes.
Well, I don't know as I know a single white man who thinks that. Now,
I don't tend to associate with jock and macho types, so I can't
speak from that quarter, but frankly, I think you're assuming that
white men buy the media stereotype, and I think that most regard it as
as stupid as you do.  In this, the male stereotypes are no worse than
the female stereotypes, either of the submissive asian, or of the
anexoric white woman, or of the "normal weight is ugly" nonsense.
In this, I don't think asians are the only ones to take it on the chin,
I think everyone does.  The result, in white society, at least, is that
most white people think they're ugly, and a surprising number of them
do awful things to their bodies to conform to this dumb*ss media stereotype
or that silly media stereotype.  The kinds of things I've seen white people
do in the name of vanity or conformity are no better than the "eyelid"
issue.  I don't begrudge anyone the right to do something like that,
but I am very concerned with the effect of the media in convincing people
they must do something I'd generally regard as pointless or harmful.

>    Point 4:  Why do the media make a big hype about all the Japanese owned
>              buildings and businesses.  It is well documented that the
>              British own twice as much as the Japanese in the U.S.  Yet,
>              we never hear about a British firm buying up a business or
>              building.
That's a good question, but I think I can shed some light.  The British
haven't been systematically engaging in trade practices that are designed
to put US industry out of business  and the Japanese are.  Now, this excuses
neither the lame-brained 3-month horizon that most US companies live over,
nor the incredibly jingoistic way that journalists present the issue.
My objection with media coverage here is that they are covering the
wrong thing, i.e. they're raising all this jingoistic babble rather
than discussing the real problems between the US economic market, with
it's strong anti-trust laws, and the ECU and Japanese markets, with their
close government ties and permissive attitudes toward cartels and ogliopolies.

Why do they do the jingoistic stuff?  Because it sells to the average
ignorant midwesterner, and that's all they care about. Truth?   You'll
have a much harder time convincing me that the media cares about truth
than you will convincing me that Jim Pak or Andy Shaw really likes me
a whole lot and is only defaming me out of extreme goodwill, and you
already know my position on that, I suspect.

>    Last point, what steps should be taken to correct all these falsified and
>negative stereotypes.
Whew.  I wish I knew an answer that worked.  

Some things that do work are:
	Convince those around you that you are an individual, and
not like the stereotype.
	Don't accept the stereotype, and try not to take the extreme
when dealing with it, i.e. just be YOU, not the media picture or the
opposite of it.  Ignore the extremes, and avoid them whenever possible.
	Don't accept BEING stereotype. Ever.  If you can manage to defuse
it nicely, you may well gain a friend and a fellow stereotype-hater,
so try to be constructive, but to NOT accept the stereotype. Not now,
not ever.
	Let the media know you think the stereotypes **** <expletive
deleted>.  One voice gets ignored,  but a dozen starts to make the
receptionist wonder, and two dozen just might get some reaction.
(I speak from experience.  It works. Especially with advertisors.)
	When you see a really awful example, consider some form of
action, i.e. don't buy the product.  Again, one person has no effect,
but a lot of people taking that action as individuals will make
a very large point.  If you do this, make sure the offender knows why
they lost your sale.  If they don't know, they may never change.
I'm not one to advocate organized boycotts, because we've all  seen
to many "boycott threats" based on some fringe political issue, or on
the desire to enforce some sort of censorship and/or acceptance of
ideas, BUT I think each person acting on their own makes just as much
of a dent, and raises less rancor in the process.
	Discuss stereotypes. (Like you did here.)  Stereotypes
can't stand the light of day, so LET THEIR BE LIGHT, lots of light,
all sorts of light.  Make sure that people start to recognize them,
from 'asian nerd' to 'skinny is sexy' as stereotypes, and not as
reflections of human beings.  That, I think, is the ultimate way to
success.  If enough people look at the stereotype and say
"Yawn, when WILL they learn?", you've won.  Being offended is only
half way there, being truly bored by the stereotype is when you're winning.
-- 
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