Windowbreaker
People of color shouldn't have to fight amongst ourselves for crumbs tossed out by the larger society.
I was once at SF State at the Ethnic Studies Program, and an African American woman came in and got offended by the fact that the three people working the office were Asian. Our very presence was somehow offensive to her.
"What's with all these Asians?!"
She kept going on and on about how she didn't see no Asians during her days in the Civil Rights Movement. She couldn't see past our eye shape and recognize that we were on her side.
I think that is what a lifetime of dealing with bigotry and discrimination can do to you. When you cannot recognize friend from foe and you recognize race instead of the merits of one's behavior, then you are mentally colonized and racism has an outpost in your head.
A person of color can still have a piece of white supremacist ideology lodged in his or her subconscious. Not every Asian is my friend and not every non-Asian is my enemy.
You have to prove your worth, which is why you should live honestly and be a role model. People should be judged by behavior first.
Comments
The "We got ours, go get your own, we're not helping you" attitude is counter productive once you realize that we're all in it together. It's easy to take a self interested view because the immediate goals are different for each group. Yet, the macro view is that we're all trying to achieve the same things in life: respect, equal protection of the law, opportunity, happiness, etc.
One would think that being a marginalized minority group would foster greater empathy. I remember a long time ago, as a kid, that I went with two of my older siblings to the American Folk Festival on the national Mall here in DC. We walked into one of the tents housing some Native American exhibit and an kind and elderly Native American came up to us and talked a lot with us, explaining Native culture and customs.
This was the summer time and our skin was tanned and being the early 1970's, our hair was long. I've always wondered if that man thought we were city Indians because he certainly was treating us differently from others wandering thru the tent. City Indians, the ones who left the reservation for the city and grew up not knowing a damn thing about their heritage. Or maybe he did know we were Asian but wanted to desperately share his culture with someone so it wouldn't die out. I dunno.
But I've always had an affinity and a deep sympathy with Native Americans---possibly due to reading and finding out their horrible history at a young age. And then there is the feeling that maybe we were somehow genetically related, some distant Asian cousins. Anyway, at the very least, we cannot let the harsh effects of racism take away our sense of compassion, our humanity, for another human being also being marginalized.
just my two cents.
The story assumes that all blacks support Senator Yamaoka because he is Democrat, charismatic, and non-white. All the racism in the story comes from the whites. The most powerful black in the fiction is the NY mayor, and he opposes the senator at first because of personal vendetta, not race competition. There's no one like Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson there.
Living in Australia for some years, I did not experience any serious form of racism, but I did think that some Asian-Australians might look down upon me as a FOB. I heard South Asians complaining that Australians treat East and Southeast Asians 'easier', and in Australia some fellow countrymen/women had said to my face that a Chinese should stick to study Business or IT.
Yeah I know what you mean about having an affinity and a deep sympathy with Native Americans. I think a lot of people of color who become aware of the mechanisms of racism start to sympathize and identify with other people of color. We start to realize that we're in the same boat.
A lot of race conscious Asian Americans identify with the Black Power Movement and it's ideology. Blacks who grew up with Bruce Lee were some of his biggest fans.
As Asian Americans, our experience with racism and prejudice is not the same as other people of color, but there are parallels.
@Mario,
I've never read Eagle, but I should definitely check it out.
All I can say about Australia is that it has a reputation of being a racist, white supremacist country. Almost everybody I know who's been in Australia has had a hate incident there.
Remember, Australia was a penal colony for the British. Not only that, but the white Australians hunted many animal species to extinction. White Australians also exterminated the Tasmanian aborigines through war and disease: The Black War.
"...bounties were awarded for the capture of Aboriginal adults and children, and secondly an effort was made to establish friendly relations with Aborigines in order to lure them into camps."
I call bullshit on your post, ""Mario""
You sound like a white troll....
Never experienced racism? lol roflmfao!!
Youre full of it.
when I have time, i like to lurk here :) and feed the trolls lol
It's bad enough that some older AA's pass along this weird ethnic disdain for other Asian groups to their kids. Like in the short film. There's an older colleague of mine who was born in Hong Kong and emigrated to the US when he was in his 20's. He's about 60 now. Lives in Dallas, almost is too readily accepting of that Texan way of life (ie, white). He still calls Japanese people "japs" and that bothers me.
We have different interests and goals as individual ethnic groups, but as Asians living in the US, we are ALL in it together.
Today's Wash Post had an interesting article on hispanic activist groups alligning themselves with black activist groups when it comes to immigration issues.
"Last year, La Raza and the NAACP launched their first joint ad campaign in support of overhauling the health-care system. The Urban League joined with La Raza and the National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development in a program to stem home foreclosures in minority communities.....Tony Asion, executive director at El Pueblo, put it this way: "If we don't stick together, then we both lose."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/19/AR2010031902266.html
I know sometimes there are wedge issues between minority groups, but I think we have a lot more in common. I like the idea of coalition building. An attack on one is an attack on ALL of us.
Of interest is that the National Coalition for Asian Pacific American development is involved as well.