A QUESTION FROM A COMMENTOR

Kai, a fellow blogger (http://www.kaichang.net ) recently asked some questions on my post, https://kathmanduk2.wordpress.com/2007/10/07/of-john-cougar-mellencamp-black-men-and-black-women-in-white-america  concerning the images and comparable invisibility that Asians had in common with black women. Here is his comment:

“True and beautifully said. As usual.

This is a tangential question, but I figure I should ask you now, not with any snark but honestly, what you think about representation and attention paid to anti-Asian racism and hate crimes in this country, especially the recent wave of murders of Hmong and Vietnamese people. The studies I’ve seen suggest that Asians are actually the most proportionally under-represented group in US politics and media; is there any common cause at all between the invisibility of black women and the invisibility of Asians? Or is some of this rhetoric a set-up for competition for the master’s crumbs? I certainly don’t expect a Mellencamp song about Asians or any CNN specials about the murder of Hmong or Vietnamese folks (though maybe I should), or about Asians in general (can you name an “Asian Al Sharpton”? an “Asian Oprah Winfrey”? an “Asian Halle Berry or Denzel Washington”?), but I was just curious, as a longtime fan of your writing, how this figures into your worldview and how I can best think about these issues. Also, do you truly believe that this whole struggle is insurmountable and hopeless, as you often imply (”not holding my breath” appears to be one of your favorite phrases, plus variations)?

Thank you for all you amazing work.”

Asians and Asian-Americans are not as highly profiled in the media (especially in a negative light) as are black Americans.  Unlike black Americans (who are given a degraded status of criminals, lazy, non-hard-working, welfare cheats, drug users and drug sellers), Asians on the other hand, are given the notorious “Model Minority” honorary white status of acceptance in the eyes of white people. Asians are looked upon as more industrious than blacks, more intelligent than blacks, more patriotic than blacks, because many Asians do not march or speak as loudly against racism as blacks do. Because Asians do not rock the proverbial boat, they are looked upon as complacent and apathetic in the face of racism and in their silence in not attacking racism in ways that black Americans have become very skilled at.

Black Americans and Asians do have a history of facing racism in this country, but, there the similarities end.

In the history of black people, there is the history of a long and continued struggle of resistance against savage brutaltites that would have destroyed most peoples. In black people’s history, there is the fight against torture/castration/immolation/lynching of black men; of legally sanctioned mass brutal rapes against black women/domestic-slave wage employment of menial labor, where black women had to become breadwinners to supplement the already meager earnings of their black husbands; the long and defiling history of racial stereotypes that economically, socially and psychologically sought to destroy black people generation after generation.

In the Asian community, there is no equivalent of the horrors that black people have suffered. But, Asians are still invisible in their own way in the eyes of white-run America.

“What do you think about representation and attention paid to anti-Asian racism and hate crimes in thic country, especially the recent wave of murders of Hmong and Vietnamese people?”

Hate crimes against Asians are not given high priority in the minds of many Americans, and part of that reason is how Asians and Asian-Americans are perceived in this country.

Asian-Americans are not looked upon as true Americans. In many people’s minds, Asian-Americans remain the forever foreigner, forever gaikokujin.  Asian-American and Asians  have long been concerned about representations in the media, an issue often overlooked by non-Asian Americans. This concern stems from the difficulty in many people not distinguishing between Asians and Asian-Americans, and the distinctions between citizens of Asian nations and their citizens or citizens of the United states who are of Asian ancestry, have remained largely unaddressed or unarticulated. In many people’s eyes, Asians still are not U.S. citizens, even after decades and generations of living in America. The conflation of Asian-Americans and Asians, due to historical discrimination, raises important concerns because of the misunderstandings that come from lumping all Asians together as one amorphous group.

During WWII, in the internment of Japanese-American citizens, Japanese-Americans were seen as Japanese and not as Japanese-Americans, and therefore, not to be trusted as loyal to America. This “confusion” and doubt of the Japanese-Americans loyalty toAmerica, led to their being imprisoned in concentration camps. They lost considerable property, and civil rights that were guaranteed by the U. S. Constitution. However, having U.S. citizenship did not guarantee their rights of due process of law nor rights of property.

The powerful media stories during that time played into and reinforced anti-Japanese fears, as well as anti-Asian fears, especially in California, since it was a state on the West coast, nearest from Japan to the East.

But this historical memory is not the only one reason for a continuing fear of an “Asian Yellow Peril”. Nor was the Asian Exclusion Act the only sign of anti-Asian racist fears and demagoguery and the continuing concern about media images of Asians and Asian-Americans. In America, hate crimes against Asians and Asian-Americans are increasing, especially crimes against Southeast Asians such as the Hmong. This violent context forms an important backdrop against which we must read these media images. We do not live in a society that is race blind. Hate-based violence against all Asians is based largely on appearance.

“They all look alike.”

“They all think alike.”

Many people do not say:  “Hey, that person is a  Cambodian, or Korean, or a Laotian, or a Thai.” Many people simply put all Asians into a monolithic group of like-minded thinkers, like-minded believers, of a like-minded hive. In order to understand the media images of Asians one must understand the historical construction of Asian images in the media. Stereotypical images such as:

-“Orientals”

-“Asiatics”

-“Others” with deviant sexual activities, stemming from European’s projection of their cultural anxieties onto these “others”.

In the Western mind, Asians exist as a people population of a  mysterious “Orient”, Near East, Far East. Misunderstanding of Asian culture and traditions in the U.S. has led to threatening and prejudicial perceptions of all Asians, native-born, and foreign-born. These differences have led America to view Asians from a distorted lens of “foreign otherness”, not quite American, “maybe too much Japanese-,Vietnamese,-Cambodian, or Hmong. Never all American.

In the various forms of media, TV and movies especially, the representations of Asians far overwhelm the images of Asians. Rarely do we see media images of Asians:

-doctors, lawyers, teachers, etc, played by Asians

In the U.S. the notion that “they all look alike” has led to the long-lasting perception of all Asians as an “Other”, of Orientalism, as I discussed previously. In the last century, the fear of a “Yellow Planet”, spread the mass fear of a “yellow peril” propaganda that created enormous anti-Asian sentiment that led to numerous legal, social, residential and economic sanctions.

These negative representations were sometimes specific to a particular subgroup of Asians, at other times, it was generalized. Fears of the impossibility of Asians being completely integrated into American society formed much of the rhetorical discourse leading to severe restrictions on immigration, land ownership, naturalization and interracial marriage. In present-day America, these discourses have changed, although some of the older forms of Oreintalism remain, while others lie dormant with the potential to erupt. But, two of the dominant forms of contemporary Orientalism definately still remain with us till this day—-the construction of differing sexualities and the rise of the model minority.

Sexual stereotypes  of Asians has a long history of deforming constructions in the media and American society at large. Fears of large numbers of Asian immigrants, Asian intermarriage with whites, and Asian domination (economically), led to the passage of many laws restricting immigration from Asian nations, as well as anti-miscegenation laws. Hollywood movies forbade images of IR sexual relations or romance between whites and Asians. Filmmakers were able to sidestep some of these regulations by using white actors in “yellowface” (“Think Fast, Mr. Moto”, “Charlie Chan”, “Fu Manchu”, etc.). Earlier fears of Asians as sexual demons out to corrupt white purity, gave way to more tamed down, domesticated representations of Asians as either asexual eunuchs (Asian men) or as sexually available sexpot hothouse “Flower Drum Song”/”Miss Saigon” (Asian women).

In the present media of movie representation, images of Asians (like the images of black Americans) are racialized and sexually gendered. In many movies, the white male is represented as the chivalric, ultra-masculine male; Asian men are represented as weak and effeminate. This is a cinematic convention, that runs throughout many movies of the present era. These distorting stereotypes of Asians continue unabated even until today. As to be expected from such a long history in cinematic representaton, the asexual Asian male has become a staple of media stereotyping:

-the Asian fool; the un-romantic lead, opposite the romantic white male lead; the sidekick; the best/buddy/friend who, like black males in the movies, never has a life except to live through the vicarious joy of white male lead chaaracters; the devaluation of Asian masculinity (effeminate/asexual).

The non-sexual Asian fool stereotype reigns supreme in many forms of media representation, especially in the celebration of the non-sexual Asian fool in the celebrity status of William Hung. Emil Guillermo, an Asian-American columnist, argues:

“You certainly wouldn’t see them glorify a black man who couldn’t sing and dance on American Idol. Nor would they prop up a clumsy, tone-deaf white person. Certainly, there’d be no shortage of worthy candidates for Hung-like stardom. Regular American Idol viewers know tons of good singers have been rejected and abused by the show’s Simon Cowell. The difference here? Hung is Asian-American. And the accented -foreigner gag is still considered acceptable shtick in modern comedy—at least when it comes to Asian-Americans.

“Can I get an “Ah so”?  (1)

Asian women fare no better. The sexuality of Asian women is clearly marked as different from white women. Asian women are shown as overly sexual, erotic, exotic, submissive and a good wife. These stereotypes have led to the “Caucasian male’s preference for Asian women”:

“In the American popular imagination, Asian women are depicted as ultra-feminine sexual objects for white men, and that sexual formula leaves Asian men literally out of the picture.”   (2)

Asians are see as non-threatening, as silent, go-along-to-get-along people. As an ethnic group, they have become unseen as being capable of facing hate crimes.  They are looked upon as the ethnic group that is considered as having “arrived” moreso than black Americans. And ironically because of this white acceptance of Asians (Chinese, Japanese) many people think that all Asians are accorded white status protection as Honorary Whites, but, this is not often true for all Asian/Asian-Americans as some Hmong, Vietnamese can attest to.

The effects of the Model Minority Myth, a recent media stereotype, has emerged that constructs Asians as better than other minorities, especially black Americans. Never mind that black Americans have been in this country for centuries and time and time again have attempted through tremendous odds and huge loss of life, to try and pull themselves up by their bootstraps, only to be beat down and almost literally annihilated bya racist society that during Reconstruction and segregation refused to allow black people ascendancy in this society the way white-run America has to some extent allowed Asian America. This emergence of the myth of idealized Asians of the model minority has its origins in the 1960s, quite a significant departure from an earlier take decades before of a  view of Asians as negative demonic others. The main point of the rise of the model minority Asian stereotype in which Asians are presented as smarter, more hard-working than other minorities coincides very neatly with fears and concerns raised by the Civil Rights Movement. The Civil Rights Movement challenged America on its racist system of inequality. The construction of the model minority was not created or promoted by or for Asian-Americans. It was a media image created to give a comforting fallacious vison of  America as a country in which anyone who was willing to work hard could succeed. Black people worked hard, they obeyed the law, they upheld the laws both locally and nationally, but, nothing was ever good enough in the eyes of whites, especially when a black person was bettering themselves and running a business better than a white man. When black people were ascending and working their way up, white America did all it could do to crush and destroy any social or economic aspirations of black Americans. For white-run America to lie and state that Black America is and has been lazy and not hard-working is one of the biggest and most hateful racist lies ever conceived against black Americans. In the midst of the Civil Rights Movement, U.S. News & World Report wrote:

“At a time when it is being proposed that hundreds of billions be spent to uplift Negroes and other minorities, the nation’s 300,000  Chinese-Americans are moving ahead on their own—with no help from anyone else.”  (3)

Of course its easy to “move ahead on your own—with no help from no one else” when you have not just come from two generations of legalized slavery, legalized segregation, legalized mass racial pogroms, legalized racially restrictive covenants, and legalized perversions of economic disparity when Affirmative Action was white.

And it certainly helps a lot when you do not have the heel/boot of the oppressor on your neck doing everything he can to keep you down legally, socially and most importantly, economically. Focusing on the Asian Confucian ethic and hard work (as if back Americans are strangers to hard work—hell, they did hard forced free labor work in this country—known as slavery—as they were more than eager to do hard work on their own for paid labor, and contrary to all the white lies, there was, and is, historical proof that blacks did much hard work to uplift themselves from the vestiges of slavery and segregation, but, were attacked and torn apart at every turn by a racist white America), took the heat off of America’s racist double standard in her racist mistreatment of her black citizens.

And still does.

Focusing on the chraracteristics of Asian-Americans which they were in large part allowed to keep intact—their culture, their religion, their racial lineage (no history of mass gang rapes of Asian women in America for over 450 years,  like that which black American women suffered), no history of the most worst and vicious stereotypes known to any one group of perople—-focusing on the strong intact families that Asians were allowed to keep, had deflected attention away from the social and structural constraints that led to inequality in the United States. Focusing on the characteristics of Asian-Americans allowed the media to ignore the multiple and complex ways in which American society was segregated by law and custom, during this period. During the 1960s, Asian-Americans in California did not face the same barriers as black Americans in the South did. Even in the American South, Asian-Americans were given a choice to choose either solidarity with white Southerners, or solidarity with black Southerners.

They chose instead to ally themselves with whites.

A more in depth analysis of these different historical experiences would certainly be helpful in understanding the Civil Rights Movement, as well as give a deeper understanding into the ways these different experiences have stratified racial and ethnic groups all across American society. But, that discussion, has been derailed in favor of invoking an idealized stereotype of the hard-working, family-oriented Asian-American, at the expense of black Americans.

The biggest thing that one can come away with from this model minority myth/lie, is that these practices of driving a wedge between blacks (lazy, non-hard-working, not family-oriented) and Asians (strong work ethic, family-oriented), creates and reinforces the notion/lie that the contemporary system is based upon a system of merit. That it is a meritocracy that we all live in, in which those who are more meritorious (more intelligent, harder working, more industrious—read: Asian), are rewarded, and those who are not meritorious (less intelligent, lazy, non-industrious—read:  black Americans), are not rewarded. In blunt language:  people earn (or do not earn) what they deserve. People (black Americans) no matter how hard they work, no matter how law-abiding, will never measure up in white-run America’s eyes. People, no matter how lazy, unintelligent, non-hard-working (Asian) will mostly be given the benefit of a doubt, will never, on a scale similar to black people, always have their intelligence, validation as human beings who contribute to this society, questioned, scrutinized and devalued on a constant daily basis.

Media representations of Asias are no longer the dragon/demon types of the past. Media representations of Asians today are of the asexual Asian male, even if he is considered smarter than the white man or black man. Media representations of Asian females are still of the demure, exotic serene lady-like delicate flower, but, nothing like the hated slut/Jezebel/wanton/lascivious/immoral-whore stereotypes that all black American women face.

One must honestly ask of themselves the following questions:

“Whose interests do these stereotypes/media representations serve?”

“In what ways do they continue to reinforce the status quo?”

“How might dominant groups benefit from this deflection of attention away from the existing racist social structure?”

“Who stands to gain the most from this pitting us (blacks, Asians) against each other?”

“Who stands to suffer and lose the most from this evil wedge that has been driven between us (blacks, Asians)?”

These are serious questions Asians need to ask themselves if they wish to seek and have common ground with black Americans.  These are serious questions black Americans must ask themselves as well. The wide chasm that has been created by white supremacist manipulation keeps blacks and Asians from seeking solidarity with each other,  only continues to keep the economic, social and political interests of America in the hands of whites. The powerful ideologies behind these representations continue to serve the interests of white Americans whose families, work ethic and cultural beliefs do not come under any of the media scrutiny in the discussions of race, class and gender in white-run America. White people are, and remain, the major beneficiaries of these racist, favored racial heirarchies between black and Asian Americans.

Asians are attacked via hate crimes in America. But, unlike black Americans, they face nothing of the vicious sadistic race hatred that still dogs black Americans more than 450+ years later.

“Is there any common cause at all between the invisibility of black women and the invisibility of Asians? Or is some of this rhetoric a set-up for competiton for the master’s crumbs?”

Of course this is competition for the master’s crumbs.  Interethnic conflict and tension are just more examples of the legacy of racism and its skin-color preferences (light against dark:  Asian pitted against black American;  different racial ancestry:  Asian immigrants as opposed to black slavery ancestry) that originated in the genocide of Native Americans and the chattal slavery of Black Americans of African ancestry. People of color today have to fight each other for smaller and smaller scraps of a stale, maggot-infested rotten pie that was half-eaten and then thrown away by the white master. People of color fight against each other for a smaller piece of political, social, educational, economic piece of the so-called American dream. That dream has become a sewage waste water treatment plant nightmare. Black Americans who have put so much into this country which has sought at every turn to destroy us, see non-blacks receive acceptance in so many ways that black Americaans have never, ever received from white-run America. Asians may face stereotypes, but, they are nothing like the hellish forms of degradation that have been a living hell for black Americans for nearly 500 years. And that many non-blacks reap the gains and benefits of the social resistance of black people against savage inequalities, that blacks are on the outside, looking in at many non-black people who in the end are treated better than black citizens because white Massa will stomp those people if they show any alliance with black people, certainly alienates black people from the many Honorary Whites that the white race grab and latch onto to use against black people for the benefit of white people and non-black people, at the expense of black people.

It is because of black people, mostly, that many Asians (native and foreign-born) have the civil rights and access to being allowed to be in ways that were never afforded to black Americans.

White supremacy infiltrates and poisons everything, and everyone in America. There is no escaping 500 centuries of racist bullying, brutal race hatred. White supremacy engulfs everyone like a polluted, Sarin gas cloud that destroys everyone in its wake. A toxic stultifying poison-gas cloud that affects the behaviour of every individual, every neighborhood, every city, every county, every state. Asian-Americans have very effectively been used to put down Black Americans who according to Massa, don’t, and never ever will,  “measure up” to white-run racist America’s standards. This wedge driven between black and yellow allows power—economic, political, educational, etc.—to remain in the hands of whites and it continues to allow whites to hold onto and continue their self-serving agendas.

The real, big, major challenge for Asian-Americans will be to see if they will in large numbers finally start to see this racist hatred for what it is, if they will see through this powerful “Veil” of white supremacy, and in large numbers, finally reject this lie that color of skin and the quality of a person’s character and intelligence are linked.

It remains to be seen if Asian-Americans will tear apart and fling into the garbage can the myth/lie of the model minority, and truly embrace the brotherhood of their fellow black Americans as fellow citizens, as fellow human beings, the white man, the white race, notwithstanding.

As for common ground between the invisibility of Asians and black women.

Black American women have their particular invisibility that does not have the same image/media representation that affects Asians/Asian-Americans. Black American women’s  invisibility is more ravaging than the invisibility that Asians and Asian-Americans face. They should have common ground with each other since both groups face disregard for their efforts to tear down the negative and positive stereotypes that harm both groups in their unique ways. Until Asian men can look at the beauty of black women as women desirable just as much as an Asian or white woman; until Asian women and men can look at black women and men as the ground-breakers of civil rights for all Americans, and not as the evil enemy as the white race has painted and caricatured black people as, this will continue to be a wedge preventing the  coming together  of any kind between blacks and Asians.

Until black women and Asian men in particular, realize that they face the most hated and debilitating stereotypes of all racial/ethnic groups, then reaching common ground, and rapport with each other, will be a long time coming. I see more common ground between black American women and Asian men where they should form business coalitions, social coalitions and political coalitions with each other. If that means having business functions, cruise ship functions that meld business and social needs together that strengthen the political, economic and social clout of black women and Asian men, then it would be an idea whose time has come. If it means facing the ire and wrath of black men, white men, white women and Asian women, then it will be wrath that will have be to faced. Black women have suffered horrifying hells, Asian men have confronted numerous emasculating stereotypes, and black women, and Asian men, only have one life in this world. People are going to think whatever they will, and nothing will ever please all people. You die trying to please evey damn body all the damn time.

Black people and Asian people can have more common ground with each other, but, it depends on how long they will each continue to allow white supremacy to keep them apart from forming a powerful alliance.

On the other hand, invisibility is not the same across the board for all racial/ethnic groups in this country.

Remember, there is still a racial heirarchy in America, with white at the top, black at the bottom, and all other groups in-between.

Invisibility for Asians pales in comparison to the invisibility that faces black Americans.

Especially the invisibility of black women.

Asian men are not looked upon as bestial rapist beasts, the way black men are stereotyped.

Asian women do not face the “bitch”, “ho” insult that faces black women.

Yes, blacks and Asians are invisible in American society, until someone needs a scapegoat to blame all the ills of America on, and most often, that someone often happens to be black Americans. The heat, the fire, the hell of  the burning house often falls upon black people more than any other racial/ethnic group in America, and many non-black groups seem all too happy that the hells the white race could be dishing out to them instead continue to fall upon black citizens. Yes, Asians and blacks do not share the same history, but, that does not mean that Asians should be smug and complacent with the fact that they could be, but, are not, suffering the types of hells that blacks face, if only because many are too afraid to rock the boat and upset the almighty Massa white man just to keep the burning heat of white-run America’s hell off themselves.

 It is understandable how black people feel that white-run America shows favouritism between different racial/ethnic groups. That’s the way of white-run America; the old hated divide and conquer tactic. But, to expect black people to blithely think that everything is alright in America after practically every group has dumped on and used black people’s work and legacy to get ahead of black people, cannot help but have left a lot of mistrust in black people towards non-blacks. Black Americans cannot help but feel threatened and alienated as the struggle for political representation, gained at the expense of so many countless sacrificed black lives, is being cut back by the declining urban economy and immigrants/non-blacks are all eager to get a share of a shrinking, stale, rotten pie. A pie that so much black Americans put so much into, only to not be able to get anything out of it for all the hard bloodshed they have suffered to get to that pie.

There is invisibility. And then there is invisibility.

Until  Asians seek to form a cohesive unit of solidarity with their fellow black citizens, and break free from fear of  “What would Massa think?”,  don’t figure on much common ground occurring. Comes a time in one’s life where you decide what will it be?

“Do I die on my knees, begging and cowering like a dog, because I fear the rage of Massa?”

Or.

“Do I stand and fight against the evil of white supremacy? I will die someday. Better to die fighting and standing than to die groveling and accepting the crumbs that fall from Massa’s table.”

We all will have to answer for everything we do in this world. What we do.

And what we do not do.

 “Also, do you truly believe that this whole struggle is insurmountable and hopeless, as you often imply (“not holding my breath” appears to be one of your favorite phrases, plus variations)?”

I do not consider things as hopeless and insurmountable.

I am a black woman born and raised in America.

I come from a long line, a race of women who have survived sick,  depraved, perverted hells that would have destroyed other people. Black women did not survive unspeakable acts of abominations just to become flighty and casual about this country, this world we live in.

As a black woman I have developed a pragmatic, realistic outlook on life, and in that sense, I am both an optimist and a pessimist in how I live my life. I get up and prepare to meet the day, go to work,  live, be happy, but, most of all, I am always ever mindful that this country has sought to destroy black people for over 450 years. We black women, and I will say black women, since it is to them my blog is dedicated, did not survive horrific acts of vicious male hatred, degrading slavery and humiliating Jim Crow segregation to let our guards down and think that everything is now all peachy-kee.

As a black American woman I have learned to trust, and verify.

As a black American woman, I do not have a history of the luxury of being casual, flip or nonchalant about life in America. As a black American woman I know that this country still has in many ways, the destruction of my people uppermost in its mind. American has not stopped her continued desire for the destruction of black America, and I never lose sight of that fact.

America treating her black citizens as fellow human beings?

I’ll believe it when I see it.

America according all women respect and recognition for their womanhood, regardless of race or ethnicity?

I’ll believe it when I see it.

America ridding herself of the pernicious hated racial heirarchy?

I’ll believe it when I see it.

America eradicating the worship of whiteness that soars and excels at the expense of blackness?

I’ll believe it when I see it.

I am an optimist and a pessimist.

As an optimist, I still do believe in America, even with all that she has done to my people.

As an optimist, I will  put my money down on that counter, pay for my plane ticket, and board that plane called “America” as I do every day of my life. I will fly along with every other race/group in America on that plane, knowing full well, that America has never accorded me full humanity the way she shows so much favouritism towards some other groups. But, just the same I enjoy my flight on that plane, and work and put my effort into that plane called “America” even if She does not often care or fails to acknowledge my accomplishments or contributions.

But…………..

Even though I may still believe and work towards a better more inclusive America, I never fail to lose sight of the hard facts that America has not respected, and still does not acknowledge my humanity, therefore, as the pessimist, I bring along my parachute. My parachute called Reality.

So, pardon me, while I fly along on that plane called “America” as I hold onto, maintain, and keep in proper working order, my parachute.

Peace.

REFERENCES:

1.  Emil Guillermo. (April 6, 2004).  “William Hung: Racism,or magic?” San Francisco Chronicle”.

2.  Peter Feng. (1996).  “Redefining Asian American masculinity:  Steven Okazaki’s American sons.’ ” Cineaste, 22(3): 27-29

3.  U.S. News & World Report.  (December 26, 1966). “Success story of one minority group in U.S.”  73-76.

LINKS:

http://academic.udayton.edu/race/04needs/income02.htm