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ASIAMS.NET |
ASIAN AMERICAN ISSUES
The White Stuff: Whiting Wongs & Wonging Whites
hey're our neighbors, buddies, allies, enemies, clients, bosses, employees, lovers and spouses. Many of us have more daily contact with Whites than with other Asians. Consequently, we often feel we know them better than they can ever know us. Maybe that's at the heart of our frustration as Asian Americans. They are as ubiquitous and pervasive as the air we breath while to them it seems we are eternal curiosities, outsiders, exotics.
Bridging the gap?
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And so we sometimes find ourselves lashing out with nasty generalizations about the people we blame for all that seems wrong with American society and, more specifically, our place in it. They are ignorant, shallow, boorish, smelly, sneaky, treacherous, malicious, dumb, weird -- in short, all the labels we feel have been so unfairly slapped on us.
But even as we hurl such epithets we cannot forget the countless acts of kindness, warmth, generosity, friendship, passion and love that we have enjoyed from these very same people. As our anger and frustration subside, we recognize that our fates are inextricably intertwined, not merely in sharing a world, a nation, a society, an economy, a culture -- but often in sharing even our most intimate lives. One in five of today's Asian American marriages are to Whites. And contrary to the imbalance of the past, the ratio of new AM/WF marriages to new AF/WM marriages is steadily approaching unity.
So we naturally have a strong interest in decoding the other side of the equation. Understanding is a two-way street. Fortunately, there are Whites who have enough interest in us as individuals to share their perspectives on us and on their interactions with us. This page is for those who -- as corny as it may sound -- have chosen to serve as bridges.
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Discussions posted during the past year remain available for browsing.
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WHAT YOU SAY
[This page is closed to new input. --Ed.]
(Updated
Wednesday, Jan 22, 2025, 06:38:55 AM)
"I WISH I had the same complaints as, say, Asian Dominatrix. Perhaps familiarity breeds contempt, but the racism Asian Americans complain about doesn't seem as insidious as racism here. The racism you guys complain about is MILD!"
I wish I had the same compalints as say, Krastavista in Australia. As far as Asian Dominatrix, I would have exchanged all the problems she has for the problems I had during apartheid in South Africa. I am Asian who grew up in South Africa during the apartheid years...ever heard of Hendrick Verwoerd...He was the architect of apartheid in the 1960s. I was in middle school by then. My grand mother worked as a part time maid and washed white women's and white girl's hairs...they would not employ black women for washing hair or for massage..it was the Asian women's forte...as supposedly black women did not know how to wash the white woman's hair. She washed the hair of college women at the University of Natal at Pietermaritzburg, located in the province of what is today Kwazulu-Natal. I was a little playful and did not take my studies seriously. So, when I was thirteen, she took me with her to some white people's homes, where I met some of her apperentices. These apperentices were Asian females in their teens and the way they were treated by the white women and girls put the fear of God in me and my grades began to improve. My grandmother made it clear that I would end up as a maid if I did not take my studies seriously. I eventually ended up in the anti-apartheid movements and had to flee the country for nearly twenty years, before I returned in 1994 after Nelson Mandela got into power. However, I am sorry to say that there are still some Asian girls who wash the white females' hair, mostly due to poverty.
"Me? Sensitive? F*** no, one of my friends is a white nationalist! I can hardly believe it myself. We have to avoid a lot of topics when we talk. Some of the things she has said in the past has made me thoroughly disgusted with myself for still being her friend, but I guess I've known her for ages and it's the force of habit. I've been giving her books to read, but all she says about them, after reading half of the introduction, is that she "disagrees" without being able to articulate exactly what she disagrees with. Probably because, like most white nationalists, she doesn't get through many books."
I have run into several white nationalist (supremacist) women in South Africa...most of them are Afrikaaners, but several were also of British orign. Many Afrikaaner women and girls have told me that "my kind" is good for washing "our" hair and beyond that we did not have enough brains to handle computers or perform well in mathematics. "Your brains are much smaller than ours" they would say. I was spat on by Afrikaaner girls and was hit with baloons several times. I was also regularly called the derogatory term "coolie" by the white girls. My African acquaintance strayed into a white area sometime in the late 1960s and all of a sudden she was surrounded by white girls, who asked her for her pass. The pass was the book given to every non-white person to control the movement of non-whites in white areas. She did not have any. So, they gave her two choice: she would be turned in to the police or she could become white like them. The frightened girl took the second option. They then stripped her naked and brought some white paint and painted her white and made here run around the small white town as they jeered and called her the k word. If you do not believe me read the following attachment. It still happend today.
http://iafrica.com/news/wcar/793146.htm
So, no...you Asian women in Australia would never convince me that you had it worse than we ever had here in South Africa. Good Luck and keep in touch!
South African Asian Female
Sunday, June 16, 2002 at 18:19:58 (PDT)
"I guess people just need to find themselves in traditional values while encountering western new influences to feel the pride and confidence."
if anything, the mainland chinese are probably over-confident about the chinese heritage since china is the world's longest continous civilization and historically asian culture means chinese culture with it's influences. what happened is that china closed off it's borders to outsiders and stopped the influx of new ideas and knowledge. maybe those who gripe about aussieland will have this thought for comfort that historically those states that became ultra-nationalistic and closed off their borders tend to stagnant and fall behind the rest of the world. for this reason US is the world's leader in technology and wealth because so many immigrants (particularly asians) come to build her technology and science and arts. however, there are critics who claim that US is engaged is a sort of "imperialism of the inteligensia" by robbing developing countries of their talents and importing them here.
villageidiot
Sunday, June 16, 2002 at 17:04:42 (PDT)
"It is expressed in terms of Asians being a "threat" to the Australian "way of life"."
If this is the case why are so many white Australians working in Singapore? Perhaps they did not get jobs back home?
"The "debate" abounds with negative, essentialist characterizations of "Asian cultures", arguments that "Asian gangs" prove how inherently degraded "Asian cultures" are and therefore how "incompatible with Australian culture" they are."
True. Australian and western cultures are too weak...in the US I read from these boards that in some cases that a dog may be more acceptable as a daughter than an Asian daughter-in-law. Asian gangsters were hung by Mr. Lee Kuan Yew in Singapore. Perhaps the Australians do not want to do this, because the Asians in Australia would demand that they hang the white gangsters too. A person such as Pauline Hanson would have been silenced or executed a long time ago in Singapore. Gangsters of any form are a sign of a decadent and decaying society. Perhaps Australia needs a few Singaporean advisors from the Ministry of Justice. Asian culture is what they need.
"that migrants take jobs from Australians and form ghettoes."
More white Australians are taking jobs away from Asians in a number of countries including Japan, HK and Singapore than the other way round.
"but the racism Asian Americans complain about doesn't seem as insidious as racism here."
Because in the state that matters most, whites are a minority...California, and in the states which matter the next...Texas and Florida, whites are fast becoming a minority. When whites become minority, racism of the kind you describe declines although "glass ceilings" and other problems would remain for a little while longer.
"Me? Sensitive? F*** no, one of my friends is a white nationalist! I can hardly believe it myself."
You are crazy. Why do you keep company with a low life, white trash? Someone who may harm you physically in the future. I would avoid her like a plague. She sounds like someone who would wipe her nose on you!
"Thankfully, Australian universities are breeding a fairly recent crop of intellectuals who produce very good critiques of Australian political and social culture. One of my favourites is "White Nation" by Ghassan Hage - he gets right to the core of the whole ugly matter."
To be successful in the globalizing world, Australia has to keep an open mind. Otherwise it would get economically wiped out by the likes of Singapore and the United States. Perhaps the so-called environmentalists
and white nationalists want to go back to living on tree tops as their ancestors did back in Europe.
Singaporean in the US
Sunday, June 16, 2002 at 14:09:05 (PDT)
"I'm patriotic to Australia, but it seems quite impossible when, in mainstream discourse, patriotism equals defending White Australia against "Asianisation". How the hell am I meant to be patriotic when my own country is trying to defend itself against me? Do Asians in the US feel the same way?"
US used to be that way and still there are several pockets where Congressmen believe that Asians really do not belong in America, even those who were born here and have lived here for six generations. One such congressman is from the Colorado sixth District (his name is Tom Tancredo) who has implied that Asians do not really belong at least in Colorado if not the entire US. But such attitudes are not widespread.
You talk about Australians defending themselves against Asians...that is why Australian unemployment rate is close to 7% even during boom times while the US unemployment rate is at 6% in a recession. Corporations do not want to invest in xenophobic countries. I find it interesting that anti-immigrant and anti-Asian bigotry has led to white racist parties getting a share of power in many white-majority countries after September 11, and guess what? The primary victim of 9/11, the US has not shared in the increasing anti-immigration and anti-Asian views of Europe and Australia. If anything, the pro-immigration Democratic Party is likely to gain a few seats in the mid term elections, if not the outright majority in the US House of Representatives....and whatever one might say about President Bush and some of his "not so bright" advisors, they have kept their cool and have basically ignored the racist, xenophobic wing of the GOP which is led by Congressman Tom Tancredo. But, perhaps Bush wants to get re-elected in 2004.
Economist
Sunday, June 16, 2002 at 13:49:45 (PDT)
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