What Is This?

It's been a while since I've written in my blog. I've been thinking about it quite a bit and even started a post last week, which, for some reason I can't recall, I decided to stop. I think two things about that 1) I am not in the mood to discuss anything of any significance to me or otherwise. A lot has been going on lately in the world, and I have a list of topics that I have wanted to post entries about. But, physically and mentally, I haven't been in the mood; and 2) I was trying to be good with regards to school. I was trying to complete more assignments, attend more class. It worked, kind of, for about a week. Now I am back behind--probably more behind now than I have ever been in law school.

Sometimes, I enlist other people to help me stall. Today--well, Tuesday--I called my mother, and we talked for hours. For some reason, I don't mind the discussions about society with her, but I do mind--for right now--writing these thoughts in my blog. Anyway, I talked to my father also...after talking to her for hours. And then my mother said to him (concluded on her own) that I am trying to get out of doing my work. Basically, it was kind of true. I have a problem with reading everything for a week, then turning around the next week and doing the same. I run out of steam. I can't consistently be good.

I remember that the post I started last week was somewhat about Angel. Even though I can't come write in my own blog, I have been checking my ex-friend Jen's blog--excuse me, journal--every day and reading her entries, which are long like mine but in a much more personal way. Her journal is very interesting, even though she and I are entirely different people. It's an escape. There's nothing academic in it; it's all about these different guys she's juggling. I like that it's mindless like that, whereas I usually don't want to read other people's personal stuff unless it somehow relates to something about race, sexuality, sex/gender...i.e. identity in society and how that affects someone. But then, her journal is also not mindless because it's her way of working out her personal romantic issues and her thoughts/feelings.

I guess that's part of what made me think about Angel. And I think another reason I stopped writing that post is because I can't articulate those thoughts. I stop now and try to think of what I feel, and I can't exactly put my finger on it. I guess I'm confused about how I feel about her and what our relationship is. I'm also really hesitant to share any thoughts I do have. For the second time, I just wrote something and took it back. Bottom line, we're friends and I'm really happy we are, and I don't want that to change. But she's not like my other friends are to me, and I can't figure out exactly why. I feel like there's something(s) weird about us, not to say between us--we've always felt really comfortable with each other. It gets me confused every time.

One thing I did want to mention, though, and I'm glad I remembered--so, she has always been there for me, even when we barely knew each other. Sometimes, I wonder how much that has had to do with race. By that, I mean I have wondered if one of the reasons she took an interest in me is because I'm black and she knows what the legal profession is like for "women of color." Now, the racial question is not what is weird to me about us. I think there should be more people in the legal field like her, if this is, in fact, one of the reasons why she became my support system, and then law firms wouldn't have to have meetings about why they can't retain black associates and why they don't have black partners. Plus, I know we also clicked early on for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with race. We just naturally like each other.

It's just interesting--normally, I'm watching people "click" with each other right away. Usually, they are both--or if there are more people, all--white, and I'm the one left out. This summer, I got to have that. Other people were left out. I know there were other people at work that Angel considered to be her friends, or maybe just one other person in particular. But there wasn't anyone else there who understood her like I do, and vice versa. You see, Angel decided she doesn't want to be a lawyer anymore. If you're one of these lawyers in an office full of lawyers who are happy with what they do...well, no, no one else there gets it. If you read my blog, you know I get it. I haven't practiced law yet--and would like to never practice it--but she didn't have to tell me why she didn't want to practice law anymore. We did talk about it some, but as soon as she said she was leaving the practice...I knew...and it didn't take that much for her to realize I knew. I think that was when we first started finishing each other's sentences, and then every time we talked to each other...we were finishing each other's sentences...and she had first told me about quitting, I think, the first week I started work. I guess the support system hasn't just been one-way.

I also guess one of the reasons why our relationship is so confusing to me is because it didn't take long for there to be so many levels of it, so much complexity. Everything went fast, and I don't know how to figure out what it all means. You know, you think that it takes time to build up certain elements of any kind of relationship. But, with us, it feels like all those elements just came with the relationship. For example, I don't trust people, but I would bet my life on her and would have even a few months ago...at which point we'd only known each other for a few months. And when you've been hurt really badly, not even that long ago, you don't know how to tell good people from bad people, which makes you act a certain way. You have your guard up. And yet, I never had any question in my mind that Angel wasn't LA Girl. She is the anti-LA Girl. If we're just friends and if we're always just friends, that friendship is more than anything else I've ever had with anyone else.

And that's about as clear as I can make this.

A Different Story

I believe that when it comes to comparing the achievements of various racial groups, you hear the same stories and arguments over and over again. You know what they are, I think. Asians work harder, and blacks should be more like Asians. The failure of blacks is their fault--just look at Asians. Better grades, better test scores, better colleges, better jobs, better incomes. Asians do as well as, and in many cases, better than whites. So other minorities can do it, too. And I realized that my story growing up doesn't look anything like these stories and arguments. The following is, I think, why I've never really bought into the idea that Asians are smarter than anybody else:

I grew up mainly attending racially mixed schools, which I think is the best you can give any minority kid. However, my schools never really had that many Asian students until I reached high school. The funniest thing about that is high school was the first time during my education in which I attended schools where there were more than seemingly a few Asians and Latinos there, but it was predominantly a "rich" white high school in a "rich" white area. The other schools I attended were not in that area.

Thinking back, high school was the first time in which I had friends from all races, though not really Latino friends--I knew Latino kids, but we weren't really friends. I had Asian friends, one of them being my best friend I mentioned in this post. I didn't care much about race then, and that was probably the last time I could say anything like "I don't see race." So here I am, realizing things now that I never thought about or realized back then.

For one thing, I've been thinking about all those advanced classes I took. I was essentially one of those kids who was in Honors and AP everything. I woke up this morning, thinking about the racial demographics of those classes. To understand what they mean, you need to understand what the demographics of the school were. Now, the school was a white school, but with a decent percentage of minorities. Blacks probably made up the largest minority group, then Asians. There were enough blacks and Asians in the school for neither group to really feel alienated. If a black or Asian only wanted black or Asian friends, they could easily have that--indeed, many did--and didn't feel like it was out of necessity, racism or feel they were lacking in the number of black or Asian friends available to them. But those Honors and AP classes, however...let's just say that any Asian in any of those classes was definitely having that "I was the only Asian in the class" experience. In fact, you could find more black kids in those classes than Asian kids. At the very least, I was usually able to say there was one other black kid in the class besides me.

Asian kids generally couldn't say that. As a matter of fact, Asian kids were almost completely absent from those advanced classes. This morning, I tried to count the Asian kids I could remember in my classes through all 4 years of high school...I came up with 5. And four of those kids were in more than one of my advanced classes, but never in more than two. So that means that when I saw Asians in my advanced courses, it was basically the same 4 Asians. To be fair, I must admit that there was a Korean girl in my freshman Honors Biology class...but she moved to Texas during the school year. And then there were three other Asians I can recall who took advanced classes, but just happened to never end up in any of mine--two of them weren't in my graduating class in school. An interesting fact is that, except for one, the Asians in my classes were Asian females (out of all the Asians I remember in advanced classes, two were male). And the one Asian male only showed up in advanced classes after transferring to our high school from another school. He was very open about having a 2.9 GPA.

Everyone else in these advanced classes tended to be white kids. There were two advanced classes I had in which Asians weren't having "I was the only one" experiences. If you remember, I mentioned in this post a story about these two Asians whom I asked where they were from when we were in high school. We had AP US History together, and it was just the two of them until the Asian male mentioned above transferred to our school and landed in our class. Well, one of those Asians--the one whom the other Asian and I both questioned about her ethnicity--also happened to be a transfer student that year. She stood out to me on the first day, and I think she did because I wasn't seeing Asians in my advanced classes. I was the first one to speak to her, admittedly because I thought she was really pretty, but also because I could tell she was new. The only minorities in the class, originally, were me and this one black girl, plus those two Asian girls...and the four of us became friends. Then the pretty Asian girl and the Asian male showed up in AP Economics with me, which also included my best friend who was Korean, a black female friend I had made in Honors Spanish and a black male.

Every other advanced class I took, the Asians in them were the only ones. I was friends with this one Chinese girl, whom I met in Honors Spanish. She and I ended up in AP European History together the next year--we were the only minorities in that class. I don't think she ever felt out of place, but who knows? Our high school never really felt like that kind of environment, though--where we felt racially out of place. And this with it being the South. But AP European History was kind of awkward for me, though, because it was the only class, other than Honors Biology--which was also awkward--in which I was the only black person. In AP US History, the pretty Asian girl and I had the lowest grades in the class for a while, and everyone knew it--that was awkward, too, but she and I kind of bonded over that.

And that's the other thing I have been thinking about--while my Asian friends had parents who were relatively strict and, for lack of a better word, pushy...they didn't really seem like the kind of Asian parents you hear about, i.e. they "weren't that bad." So, the Asian guy did have a 2.9, and the pretty Asian girl was a bit of an underachiever. And I didn't think much of it. It wasn't like, "Wait--they're Asian. They're supposed to be doing better...?!?!" I probably knew what Asian parents could be like more intimately through my Korean friend. Her grades were good but not 4.0, and that didn't seem to be a huge problem. There wasn't really pressure about what kind of college to attend, but she knew that she was only allowed to study areas such as business or medicine. Although she never wanted to say it, I could tell I wasn't really allowed at her house...but a white classmate would have been. I knew that the pretty Asian girl had a lot of responsibilities after school and couldn't even so much as talk on the phone without doing it behind her parents' back.

My Chinese friend and her brother were under a lot of pressure, and I don't know how much of it came from their family. I always had the feeling that she didn't feel smart enough and that making the grades she did in her Honors classes was the result of a lot of hard work. One of our white classmates in AP European History was basically tutoring her in Honors Algebra II. She seemed stressed a lot of the time and got meaner as time progressed. Her brother was stressed out because he was earning a 'D' in AP Biology. His career choice was doctor, as was their older sister. But my friend, not having the aptitude for that, was thinking law...which never made sense to me given her personality.

Dude, I just remembered that I used to make fun of her last name to her face. Holy crap, I was one of these people these Asian college students complain about in these stories I've been reading! Noooooo...I didn't really do that!!!!! But...yeah...I really did. But I've also been remembering other racist "jokes" a white friend of mine and I had about Asians and Latinos. I can only speak for myself in saying I didn't know what the hell I was saying--it's the kind of stuff that it takes age or someone telling you to understand what's wrong with it. Ugh, and I'd been all proud of myself, thinking that I'd never said anything racist to Asians. Another thing I did--my white friend and I--is called the Chinese girl an airhead all the time.

This brings me to another thing. I've said that I don't get the harm in the "smart" stereotype about Asians. But that's not true--I do and I don't. I get the pressure it brings, and, obviously, the Chinese girl was under a lot of pressure...and being called names by us probably wasn't helping if she really did already feel overwhelmed and insecure. What I figured out that I don't understand is why allow it to be pressure. Why does it matter if white people label you smarter than everyone else? Why does that mean you have to work hard to live up to that? It's one thing when your parents are pushing you. It's another thing when it's society. And I've pretty much always just been kind of like, "f*ck society." Still am. Heck, with law school, I'm like, "f*ck parents," too, especially since they're not even paying for law school. I don't want all 'A's anymore (my mother acts like I should be getting all 'A's, which just goes to show how little she knows about law school), and I'm not going to work hard for them anymore. Once again, this is a case in which there's a part of me that gets why what society thinks matters, especially after doing some of the readings I've done, and then another part that still feels like Asians should be able to just let that go.

And speaking of working hard...although some of the Asians I knew worked hard in school, some of them didn't. And I don't know why I said "anymore" in reference to myself, because I've never worked hard in school. I was always one of those kids who simply got good grades, even in college, and that's just not how law school works. I made the conscious choice that law school wasn't worth my working hard. Since everyone loves to point to Asians and say they work hard, then point to blacks and say they don't...let me just say that I believe in working hard when it's necessary and not working hard when it's not. I don't think it's necessary in law school for me to work hard, being that I'm at a top 10 school and I don't really even want to be a lawyer but can still find a job in the legal profession with the kind of grades I have. Had I needed to work harder in high school or college to make the kind of grades I did, maybe I would have. I did find it necessary for me to work hard to achieve the kind of LSAT score I wanted, and I have never worked harder academically in my life. And after that was done, I gave my absolute all to putting together the kind of application packages necessary for getting admitted to the best law schools in the nation. It's in me, and I pulled it out when I needed to--and that paid off better than I expected.

You can call it whatever you want, but I call it efficiency. If you work hard all the time, even when it's not necessary...a little something called burnout happens. You can also lose your mind from hard work. Stay with me on this. I think this is a side effect of the whole "smart" thing with Asians. Some commit suicide because of the pressure or the embarrassment they feel they've caused their parents. According to my mother, some completely freak out and have breakdowns, not to say that students of other backgrounds don't do this. But my mother does work at a university, and she has apparently seen this more in Asian students than others. To me, it's not worth it. Keep your sanity; you can still make it just fine in this life.

Honestly, the point of this post is not to totally disprove people's ideas about Asians--it's to take away some of the universality of their applications. I'm actually wondering if a regional difference exists in the US among Asians, in combination with the other differences such as ethnic background and immigration vs American-born status. I don't think that the Asians I knew growing up nor the ones I met in college were pushed that much more than other kids, and pretty much none of them were gunning for top schools. Indeed, very people from my high school went on to anything better than local schools as opposed to Ivies and UC-system schools that everyone seems to think Asians attend or are ready to commit suicide over if they can't get admitted. And some of them could have gone off to those schools but didn't and, in general, didn't even apply to those kinds of schools. Off the top of my head, everyone who did go on to top colleges from my high school...was black...although I'm sure there are some white kids I'm forgetting. But they generally weren't Asian.

Next to last point--I get tired of hearing about how black kids allegedly get picked on by other black kids for doing well in school. I don't know where these schools exist, or if this might be another possible regional--or maybe even urban v suburban--difference...but my doing well in school and being enrolled in all advanced courses was one of the reasons why I ended up popular in high school. I'm mentioning this because on one of the Asian websites I checked out a few hours ago, one Asian was telling this same old story about how blacks allegedly get picked on for working hard and valuing education. Some people might tell those kinds of stories in an effort to be helpful or sympathetic towards the gap between blacks and Asians in achievements, but really what it does--other than unfairly generalizes and oversimplifies--is fuels the racist argument by many and the racial war between Asians and blacks that, look at blacks, they don't care about education and don't work hard but Asians do. And yet, I don't think I've ever met a black person who has gotten picked on because they performed well in school. Because they didn't have enough black friends, spoke a certain way or lived in a certain area--yes. Academics? No.

And speaking of the racial war between Asians and blacks--I've been detecting some Asian supremacy comments on the net. Like I said, Asians and blacks could be friends where I grew up. Just because some blacks in some places attack Asians doesn't make that cause for Asians to feel it's okay to hate blacks and write as much online. And these blacks who attack Asians don't go to show that blacks are jealous that Asians are "smarter" and make better grades and don't need handouts and all this nonsense. Maybe those particular blacks are, and maybe they're not. But it doesn't apply to all or even most blacks. Most blacks I know would be with me in arguing that, hey, Asians aren't smarter than anybody else. Rather, there are some Asians who are smart and some who are not, just like you have in any race. There are some who work hard and some who don't. Some go to Harvard and Berkeley, and some don't go to college at all. And, apparently, you have some Asians who grow up in the kind of environment that Americans, particularly whites, tend to attribute to and praise Asians for and some...not so much.

And these are environments that, incidentally, a lot of Asian kids grew up resenting and still, as adults, while understanding some of it a lot better and even valuing some of it, would totally reject some of it and wouldn't apply some of it to their own kids. As this happens more and more, will we see a decline in Asian success? And, if so, what will racist whites and racist Asians have to say about that? If not, will these people finally have to admit that Asian success is not just about Asians being the "model minority" but maybe also somewhat about light vs dark, fighting to assimilate vs fighting to maintain non-white identity, variations in the degree of racism experienced by various groups, having the choice to come to America precisely to achieve for self/family vs being forced to come to America so that someone else can achieve and then being "stuck" here because you know no other land...and so on?

Disengagement

I promise to get back to my discussion on interracial dating beyond the racial binary soon, but a detour for now--I finally want to talk about the class I'm taking this semester on queer minorities.

I read something interesting last night--something about how law students experience more emotional stress than even medical students...which is interesting, considering I figure medical school is a lot more difficult, time-consuming and stressful, hands down...not to mention the fact that the white kids in law school--particularly the white males--seem to enjoy it, on some sick level. But whatever. Anyway, the article, at some point, mentioned how some students become "disengaged" from law school, as if that's a bad thing or as if that leads to their unhappiness or increases it.

Something hit me with that. "Disengaged." Totally me. You know, this summer helped me a lot. Even though I didn't like my job, I ended up feeling happier than I've felt in a long time, and I knew that was because I was away from law school and because I'd met my friend Angel. And I think one of the reasons I really dreaded coming back here--to the point of nearly completely putting off getting my class schedule together and waiting until after everyone else had moved back to campus to come back myself, and so on--was because I feared that all the progress I'd made this summer in my demeanor would turn around...and it has. If I hadn't met Angel and we weren't e-mailing each other on a regular basis, then I think that right now I'd feel incredibly similar to how I felt last semester--super depressed.

But, in all honesty, I find my disengagement from school--i.e. skipped classes, not caring about the material, not having enough credits right now to possibly graduate at the end of next semester like I'm supposed to and all those kinds of things--to be a coping mechanism.

What does all this have to do with that queer class? Well, I thought that getting away from the law school and taking classes outside of this program would help. What this class has cleared up for me is I'm not solely disenchanted with law school. I'm fed up with school, period. I'm tired of academia. And I find myself wondering if attending a "less prestigious" school, perhaps where the kids aren't quite as nerdy and hyper-into the material, would have made a difference. I mean, because that's really what I'm tired of. I'm tired of being around people whom I need a dictionary or thesaurus, or have to think really hard, to understand them. I'm tired of reading assignments that are like that. I'm tired of people wanting to talk about ideas that relate to whatever their field of choice is incessantly.

And, you know, I don't want to be insulting towards people who have these passions and this intellect by calling them "nerds." I understand that what's really going on is I'm lost right now and don't have the passion for anything. I know that my greatest wish is to be somewhere on a deserted island, not thinking, not analyzing, not researching, not having intellectual discussions. I just want to be. Those works by famous GLBT writers of color seem so overrated to me right now. I'm not in the frame of mind to read works that are written the way they write them. I mean, Audre Lorde is okay...and they all make points that I agree with, when I have the strength to have the desire to even understand the points they are trying to make. But I'm just tired of this kind of stuff. I'm tired of reading stuff that goes as if these people feel a strong need to prove how intelligent they are when they write. Not saying Audre Lorde reads like that, and that's honestly one of the reasons why I can even say she's okay.

And you know what else about all this? I remember I wrote months ago somewhere in this blog that when it comes to issues of race and sexuality...I just, for whatever reason, care more about race than I do about sexual orientation. And I so feel that right now. And the works in this class always seem to bring up how some people "rank oppression" and there's this tone with it as if that's completely wrong. But I just don't think it can be helped, or that it's always done mindfully.

I remember writing in the post about animal rights activists that some people just have their issues that they care about over others. And that's me. And I thought about it last night, and I think that's because race has always mattered in my life but sexual orientation has almost never mattered in my life. These "I felt like something was wrong with me" sob stories are not mine, because my story is really different--I never felt like that, even when I was well aware that I liked a girl romantically and sexually. It has always been a non-issue for me, until the past couple years. Thus, issues surrounding sexuality are just not my passion. Of course, not much right now is my passion. I'm all out of passion, and I do think that is, in large part, thanks to law school. But if I had to say anything was of interest to me, it'd be race.

In this class, being that it's about queers of color, sure, we deal with race. I think the problems are, for me, that of 1) tell me something I don't already know, and 2) why can't you just write this in English? Don't tell figurative stories. Don't write poems. As bad as this may sound, don't intertwine your native language with English, especially if you're, in some sense, trying to educate "others." Don't use field-specific or academic words. I mean, you want "others" to understand you better, but you throw up all these road blocks along the way. Just spit it out and get right to it in a way that even the most lay layperson could get.

I think maybe I've simply been in school too long. I also know I have a bit of a free-spirited nature. And school is too controlling, especially considering that we're now in our 20s and 30s. They want to insist you attend class, assign you seats, force you to participate and all that junk. I'm tired of that, too. And it's like the more a professor begs us to come to class, the more class I miss. I'm rebellious like that all of a sudden.

Then there's the fact that I have this sneaky suspicion that the majority of the people in my class aren't queer. I certainly don't feel like the majority of them are "of color." And, yes, there is something very disappointing about both of those things. It's like you can't win for losing at white universities. You can't go anywhere and have the majority of the people who show up be minorities. Now. I realize that this is one of those times when race is playing tricks on me. I know that there are people in that class who "look white" but identify as some ethnic minority, such as Latino. Still, that's not comforting all the time, is it? Sometimes you want to look around and see other shades of brown besides yours. I don't get that from this class.

And there's always something irritating to me anytime you have people from the privileged group speaking "knowledgeably" about groups to which they don't belong, especially when the group is nearly composed of all privileged people--not to say that everyone is either privileged or they aren't; there's definite overlap, but go with me on this. Here, I'm not really talking about race/ethnicity so much as queerness. Either way, it's like you're having a discussion about people, saying what they're like and what they go through, and those people aren't even there. They aren't included. To me, there's something poignant about that. Just think--it's a white university, naturally, a hetero university. You're talking about the invisibility and the alienation of queers and minorities, and especially queer minorities. And look around--the fact that they aren't around just kind of proves the point, especially in a class that is about them.

Needless to say--and although this may disappoint some of you, because it further maintains invisibility and alienation--I am rather disengaged when it comes to this class, as well. And that's the thing. I am so disengaged that I can no longer care at all about how my actions or inactions affect the whole picture, i.e. serving to make blacks look lazy, unintelligent, or keeping black queers invisible. Not that I ever cared that much, but the thoughts do cross my mind sometimes when I'm, for example, doing my very nearly daily mental coaxing for why I need to get out of bed and head to class.

And I'm also tired of everywhere you go in academic environments, there's all this cliqueyness. Everybody knows everybody else, nobody makes the effort with the ones they don't know. And when you're as disengaged as I am, you're not going to make the effort with those cliquey people. Like I said, mentally, I'm on my own island far away from school. Since I'm far from the only person in law school--even my law school--who is like this, I suggested to a friend that this should be an organization at our school. Those of us who are just not feeling this should identify each other and get together. Eff all that cliqueyness. Eff all the nerdy convos and the "what are you doing after graduation"s and crap. Let's get together and talk about nonsense and pretend we're a lot less intelligent than we actually are.

I need well-roundedness and balance in my life, and that is what I'm not getting--and that's what makes me fight for it by disengaging myself. Those people in the program that the queer minorities class is offered in are even more hardcore than the law students, too, it seems. So there's no escaping around here. There's like this really big shift, it seems, between the way students are in undergrad and the way they are in grad school. And for a lot of these people, they went straight through. So what the hell happened?!

Blast From The Past

Although I have an AIM screen name, I try not to be on it that much these days. I have enough to do, what, with all these season premieres on TV, the novelty not having quite worn off on the "new" mp3 player I bought a few months ago back in Chicago, this blog, my cultural reading...oh, and school, of course. Plus, the biggy--I've kind of been trying to avoid Nikki.

Well, I signed on today when I woke up. The majority of my list is people I don't talk to and haven't in a long time. One such person is a "woman" (I don't really think, nowadays, "woman" is the correct term for any 20something, just based on how the majority of us seem to act) who used to be my best friend in high school and most of college. Guess her background? That's right--Asian. Korean. Or Korean American, if you're into that (and some other time, I will explain why I am against attaching "American" to our identities, and even why I deplore the labels "African American," "Asian American," and so on). Interestingly enough, I've been thinking about her quite a bit lately. In fact, just last night, I was. And, admittedly, I've been fighting the impulse to send her an e-mail or IM, just out of curiosity.

Well, now I know I don't need to do that. The version of AIM I have lets you know when anyone on your buddy list has updated their profile or journal. No matter who it is, I click to see what those updates are. Turns out...my former best friend has a journal. Total opposite of mine. Reminded me exactly why we stopped being friends.

You could make a TV show out of where I grew up. It's a place where you think you know people but you really don't. Well-off, religious, Republican, seemingly wholesome and intelligent people with a lot of secrets that, once revealed, indicate that these people are not who you thought they were at all. That's one of the things that came between--I'll just call her--Jenny and I. In high school, Jenny seemed like this awkward, insecure nerd. And not because she was Asian, but just because that was how she was, at least on the surface. And then we got to college, and she started telling me more and more things that I never knew about from high school...and started showing more of who she really is.

Long story short--and not to be mean--Jen Jen's a whore and was in high school, too. I mean, she just is. And her journal--wow. It's all about guys and her sexual escapades, to put it very mildly. Every entry is about a different guy.

To be clear, we didn't end our friendship because of her hypersexuality or the fact that she talked about guys all...the...time, although it wasn't as if I wasn't judging her in my mind nor totally sick of hearing about white guys and sex. I ended it because along with the revealing of her true self came judgment of me for being how I was. There was always this "you should do this" and "you need to do that." And it started getting out of hand--everything from how I looked to the career choices I was considering. And so I finally was just like...I told her what was bothering me, which is something girls just don't do--but you know I'm not the typical girl--and then made it clear that our friendship was done. She apologized and said she didn't want our friendship to end. But I stood firm, because I was tired of it. That was the beginning of me not putting up with certain kinds of people, namely, those who think I'm supposed to be a certain way because I'm a woman or because I'm in my 20s.

Jenny, after reading her journal, is probably a typical white 26-year old female. And that was another thing that always irritated me about her, even though back then I was too young and lacked the knowledge to be able to put my finger on that. She's "Korean American," but she's too white. All she liked was white guys. And it seems like that's still the case. Culturally, it seemed like she always wanted to fit in with whites, and it seems that now she does. And she seems very comfortable with that. But after reading some of her entries, I have questions that relate to the issues I've been discussing recently in my blog.

Again, not to be mean. First of all, I've noticed that when someone says they have a preference for a particular race or that when they say something such as "Asians are attractive," people interpret that as if you mean to exclude everyone else or as if you think all Asians are hot/exotic. And if you've been reading my blog lately, you know that I've said I find Asians attractive. Okay--Jenny is not attractive. At all. And no matter how "white" she tries to look, it's just not happening. I've seen plenty of gorgeous Asians, and she just is not one of them. Yet, she attracts the attention of so many white males. And she seems to think this is simply because she's now got it goin' on. Now, I know that physical attraction is an individual thing. But. Let's just say that if Halle Berry weren't a celebrity and was just like you and me and out in public...she wouldn't get anywhere near as much attention from white or black men as Jenny or probably other Asian women do, I don't think. All I'm saying is I'm suspicious, and I wonder if Jenny has sense enough to be, too.

And let's go back to her seemingly exclusive interest in white guys, because it flips the script on what I've been writing about. People wonder more and more nowadays what's up with white guys and Asian women? Well, how about what's up with Asian women and white guys? Because the attraction does actually seem to be mutual. In fact, I could count on one hand the number of Asian women I've known who haven't "preferred" white guys (and to be honest with you, I think those chicks are sketch, too, i.e. I wonder if they are being honest about that. And I would say the same is probably true in Asian queer females). Thinking about that, I wonder if that's some of the reason why I don't hear more outrage from Asian women over how white guys think of/describe them or the fact that there can be an endless stream of white guys approaching them.

And this is not something that got my attention just now with Jenny. At my school, the Asian friend I mentioned in my last post--the one who was asking me questions about being black in the South--always has white guys following her around. And, frankly, it makes me laugh, because the white guys are so obvious about their interest. One time in particular actually made me stop, stare at the scene and laugh out loud--this being after a very depressing final in a law course, too--because immediately after the exam...Karen found herself surrounded by white guys trying to talk to her. Now, this woman, Karen, really is gorgeous. But, um...these same white guys that I see following Karen? I see them following other Asian women around the law school also. Doesn't that just make Karen--or Hari or Kim or any of the others of them--stop and think? Do they even notice? Or maybe they do and are not only fine with it, but embrace it? Last I talked to Karen, she had a boyfriend, whom I'm pretty sure is white. Nothing wrong with liking a white guy, but...

See, I have a test that anybody, regardless of race--but especially those who are non-black--must pass before I seriously consider them dateworthy. It's a racial test. They don't have to know anything like when Dr. King was murdered or the "I Have A Dream" speech by heart. They don't need to have read "Malcolm X." Even if I liked white guys predominantly, imagining myself as an Asian female, he just couldn't be any ole cute white guy who gives me the time of day. He has to be a white guy who isn't stereotyping me and just looking to be with an Asian woman sexually--which I also thought about with Jenny after reading her posts about having "friends with benefits"-type relationships with white males. Psssh!

My test gets at these kinds of things, and I have eliminated many a white guy in the past...usually because they all seemed to have this exclusive thing for mixed or light black females. Mixed or light black females...hmmm. White but not too white, black but not too black. And negative stereotypes abounding about white women, and "real" black women not being all that attractive. Now, I'm racist and all, just like everybody else in the US, but there are certain manifestations of racism that I simply won't put up with. The "you're lighter and, therefore, prettier than other black women" is definitely high on the list. That's a false positive.

And Asians should know all about false positives. I mean, so many of the stereotypes about them are false positives, according to the stuff I've been reading. I'm still not sure I see completely what's wrong with people assuming you're smart, even if you're not--I get that one all the time and I just roll with it--but some of these other "compliments" you just have to learn to see right through, such as the one about Asian women being nicer than white women (and, therefore, nicer than black women, too). This is why I like my Asian chicas out there who kick @ss...literally. See, in men-speak, "nice" means you keep your mouth shut, you don't challenge men, basically do as you're told and what they want. It should instantly be like, "You don't know me, yet you're so sure I'm nice. Interesting." Click-uh.

I was going to write something more--I think I had another story to tell--but I just can't remember. I'll save it for later, perhaps. But, look, I do want to mention that this blog is not shifting away from its larger focus and, no, I'm not developing an obsession with Asians. Since it's harder for me to write now, I figure that when there's an issue on my mind and I have some thoughts about it, it's better to come write about it than leave my blog post-less. Incidentally, I would love to write more about "other" GLBTs of color, but I don't know a lot about them.

This is why I ordered this one book about Asian GLBTs, which I have not had much time to look at yet--but the bit that I have has been a little disappointing. In fact, pretty much all the Asian books I have right now are disappointing--the books I read about Latinos were a lot better in terms of explaining various Latino mentalities when it comes to race in general and race as it affects their existence. With the Asian books, there seems to be a lot of "I got called names" and "I wanted to be just like everyone else" with "everyone else" always meaning "white." Asian stories are pretty much exclusively vis-a-vis white people, just like blacks do a lot of the time--blacks talk about the US in terms of black and white, and Asians seem to talk about it in terms of Asian and white. I guess I get to see what it's like to always be left out of a racial discussion, as if your race just doesn't exist or just really isn't even worthy of a mention, but...it's really hard to understand Asians or identify with them, much more so than with the Latino stories I've read, because their difficulties don't resonate with me nor do they include me.

Where Are You Really From?

I just saw this video on YouTube that I must comment on. Actually, it goes well with something I just read, as well...or, rather, some of the points that, if I remember correctly, were made in this blog post. As always, when I'm sitting here reading blogs and searching for cultural insight on the net, there's "homework" that's getting neglected. Still, I had to stop and discuss this here.

About 6:30 mins into the video, the guy starts talking about how Asians get asked where they are from and expressed his dislike for this question. He mentions this in relation to this book he was reading for class by Frank Wu, which is actually a book that about a week or two ago I was looking at ordering online. Many Asians interpret this question as their being seen as the "perpetual foreigner." And this is actually exactly what I was thinking of when I wrote in my post about my attraction to Asians and Latinos that Asians don't appreciate being thought of as different.

Now, to tell another side of the story...this is definitely something I've done before. And it's the response I've gotten from the Asians I've asked--or have witnessed from Asians when they've been asked by others, even including other Asians--that has taught me 1) not to ask that question again, in any form, and 2) many Asians in the US just want to be thought of as and approached as Americans. My thing was...when I've asked this question, I think it was always while I was in high school. So I was asking something like "Where are you from?" most likely and really meant "what is your ethnicity?" but at that age didn't really have the words for that. (Edit: And a lot of people who don't really know the difference between things such as race, ethnicity, nationality...nor what any of those aside from race mean...still don't have the words for that. I do think when people ask "where are you from?" they mean "what is your ethnicity?")

And every Asian I've ever asked that--every...one--didn't want to answer the question and wouldn't just give me a straight answer. Even in high school. One was obviously irritated that I wanted to know and asked why I wanted to know. Another one was like, "Where do you think I'm from?" Interestingly enough, the Asian who was irritated that I was asking her about her background was actually with me in wanting to know what this second Asian's background was and was trying to figure it out, as well.

See, I don't think the question is generally asked to single Asians out or imply they aren't really Americans, although I have no doubt that Asians aren't really thought of as Americans. I just don't totally think raising the question is an example of how the rest of us tend not to think of Asians as "real" Americans. Whenever I've wanted to know an Asian's ethnicity, it wasn't an example. I just think it's interesting that there are so many people from different backgrounds here and would rather not be one of those people who calls all Asians "Chinese." I know there are different ethnicities among Asians, and I simply like to know about people's backgrounds--and not just with Asians. I don't mean to make it seem like I'm exoticizing Asians. The thing is I wouldn't come right out and ask most white people what their ethnic mix is, because I know most white people don't value anything but whiteness and American-ness. If you asked them, they'd think you were crazy. Furthermore, there's a better chance that a white person wouldn't even know what their ethnic mix is.

When I realized that many Asians would also think you are crazy, though, and that some value American-ness over being Asian (not to say that all Asians who hate the question are like this), that didn't take away the desire to know, nor the attempts to figure out "what they are." And I'm not saying all this to make it seem like they are objects or spectacles to me, because from some of the books I've been reading on Asians and mixed-race people...this is how they take questions such as "where are you from?" and "what are you?" even though I've never taken these questions when directed at me in these ways. The following is going to sound ridiculous, but I'm telling it just to illustrate how much we all care about race and categories and knowing.

When I realized Asians didn't like the question, I stopped asking it. Instead, I did what I do with white people. I learned what kind of names signal which ethnic group. I learned to match certain physical features with certain Asian ethnicities. If they didn't want to answer the question, that wasn't going to stop me. This hasn't changed, either. When I realized my friend and former boss Angel was part-Asian, I was dying--and I mean dying--to talk to her about it. We still haven't talked about it. And probably the first thing I really wanted to let come out of my mouth is "what are you?" or "what kind of Asian are you?" But I'd learned my lesson, so...with her being biracial and my not having ever heard her last name before...I did the only other thing I knew to do. I looked it up online. Yes, I really did do that. I really wanted to know just that bad.

And what for? I just...did. And I do the same thing with many "white" surnames. There's just some strange, inexplicable comfort I get from knowing "what" people are. And then I have also been fighting the desire to do something else that I also know is "wrong"--ask her questions about what it has been like growing up part-Asian, especially in the 70s and 80s. It's "wrong" because so many minorities don't like to "teach" or get tired of the expectation that they are supposed to be "teachers" when it comes to their backgrounds and cultures. Instead, I'm supposed to do the work myself to learn something...which is fine and understandable. But sometimes I just want to hear people's individual stories, too, and compare what a real person says to what a book says. And I honestly hate that there are boundaries about this kind of thing, especially since I don't care when people do any of these things to me. I actually enjoy it.

People have asked me where I'm from, which of my parents is white, how I identify culturally and how much I know about being French, how did my parents even meet, and so on. I know, as far as the "where are you from?" question, it's kind of different when a light-skinned black person is asked that. It's not as if anyone is seriously thinking I'm from Africa, although there are light blacks there. Essentially, even though blacks are not considered American, either, we don't have to wonder if we're being thought of as "perpetual foreigners" if that question is put to us. But, for me, the question still has always been asked with the assumption that I am from another country. One guy thought I was from an Asian Indian nation. Latinos have told me that I look Latina. One of my professors asked me after I said a French word with a French accent, and I told him that, yes, I am part-French but, no, I'm really from the states.

I remember when I first started law school. This Asian female approached me and started talking to me. We hadn't known each other for even 30 minutes before she started asking me questions about growing up black in the South. I thought--AWESOME!!!! I still think that woman is awesome! Those are the kinds of conversations I like to have with people, especially when we've just met--not the same boring getting-to-know-you questions. With Angel, I feel like, okay, I have to wait this out. I have to wait until we're better friends before we talk about these things. And I just think that's so boring. Especially since she's one of the few biracial people I've ever been friends with. Finding out she is biracial almost instantly brought up so many questions, not really because she's biracial or part-Asian and, therefore, a spectacle...but because, hell, I'm biracial. This could be a good bonding point for us, not to mention some very interesting conversations for us to have and an opportunity to learn something.

I just see this so differently than so many people. I think the questions I've mentioned here, questions that many people hate to be asked...to me, it's another way in which our society just closes down when it comes to race when talking about it could actually do a lot of good...and, in fact, sometimes the questions are asked in a good way to begin with. Instead, I'm in a position where I have to balance making sure that someone knows they are my friend and I like talking to them because they are awesome vs. their possibly thinking I'm interested in them because of race or am trying to objectify/alienate them in some way.

Then again, I'm someone who doesn't at all just want to be American or just thought of as American. I have never had the desire to just be "like everyone else." Maybe I always knew I never could be that. I'm just so happy to be different, and I don't understand why no one else seems to agree with me on that. Why do we always have to act as if everyone is the same? Rather, why do we always have to say everyone is the same and then do things that indicate that's not really what we think--such as, as the guy discusses in the first half of his video, segregate our friendships? Why can't we just be real about this?

Another Thread

This thread raises a point that I usually find myself trying to make to people about interracial dating. What I find interesting here is it looks like 1) a white woman is raising this point, and 2) a lot of non-blacks (which, I noticed blacks are most often left out of dating preferences whenever I look at profiles online) agree. It's a great thing to point out because people seem to take any interracial dating today as a sign of progress, that everyone is looking past race in general and that because someone will date one race that differs from their own they are open to all races different from their own. It's incredibly naive.

Anyway, this fits in with the discussion topic I've been having on my blog lately about some men's "preference" for Asian women. Especially note the comments by Asian users, such as "LittleBeachDream" and "SadRider." The discussion makes so many points I countered when I discussed my interest in Asians and Latinos, such as the innate attraction theory (see comments by "taldarhan") and applying general "positive" stereotypes/impressions of a group of people to individuals (see comments by "moxie2185"). I must say, I find "girlwonder67" brilliant. Her responses are pretty much exactly how I would respond.

A Bad Name Pt. 3

For background, see "Why I Like Asians and Latinos," Pt.1 and Pt. 2.

I'd like to request that, if you're sick of the black/white interracial dating discussion, you indulge me at least just this one time. This time, there will be a bit of a queer female perspective on black and Asian women, particularly in relation to traditional stereotypical opinions about these women.

Being in law school, I see black women all the time who are quite date-able. Unfortunately for me, they are hetero. But, potentially, fortunately for men, they are hetero...and oftentimes, available. I'm talking black women who I couldn't imagine jumping up and fighting and getting loud, as Snipes put it. I don't know about how "mean, aggravating and unkind" these black women would ever be towards a man. Most of these women are ones that pretty much every black male at our law school has spoken to way more than I have, so they should be able to answer that question better than I would. But their first and second and third opinions of them from class and organization and social interactions should be similar to mine--these are generally intelligent, decent-to-good-looking, articulate, well-behaved, well-mannered, logical, non-sensitive (i.e. feelings aren't easily hurt/aren't easily upset) black women.

Do men pay more attention to these black women than stereotypical black women? Hell, no--if anything, these black women have more of an uphill battle when it comes to finding a man than any other kind of woman, including "ghetto" black women with attitudes. Why? Well, for one thing, the problem with stereotypes is, no matter how much you claim you don't rule anyone out because of them or don't judge everyone according to them, they are likely to make you see everyone from that group of people you apply it to in the same way. In other words, stereotypes make you look right through just about everyone from that stereotyped group. I wonder how many of these black males at my school have looked around and thought, "These are a different kind of black women. When I say, 'I would date a black woman if I could find one who is like XYZ,' these are the kind of black women I was talking about!!"

That's why I don't tend to buy those kinds of qualifiers when men (and queer women) discuss their racial "preferences." Like I said, these black women are generally either just as single as the day is long...or...a white guy recognized that this was a black woman who "wasn't like those other ones" (which is still pretty offensive) and asked her to be his woman. Around here, more white guys see what none of the black men are willing to about the kinds of black women who attend prestigious white universities, particularly in graduate and professional programs. It's possible that the black women here who are dating white males were just as discriminatory towards black males as many black males tend to be towards black women (because I've seen many black women say that they "prefer" white men because black men are XYZ negative thing)...but, from many of the discussions I've heard and/or been told about involving black women here, I think most of them would still prefer a black male.

Now, Snipes says that black men don't want to come home and have a fight with someone who is supposed to help him. Well, what I've observed in heterosexual relationships is 1) many times when a black woman is "starting a fight" with a black man when he gets home, her points in the argument are so valid. The guy just doesn't want to hear it. Point taken about working hard all day and you want to relax when you get home. But the same goes for the black woman. She works, and she wants to relax. She doesn't want to have to tell a man something he should take a lot better than he does and, oftentimes, something that makes total sense and he should already know; 2) when the black woman is trying to tell a black man something, usually it is an attempt to try to help him. But he feels like she's trying to be controlling or nagging or "be the man" or act as if she knows more than he does. This is what I mean by men not taking things as well as they should.

I've got to say, though...as a queer woman thinking about how I would approach a black female romantically, I will say that sometimes black men make some really true points. I generally don't agree with the actual relationship dynamics that black men describe with black women and the relationship dynamics they seek with "other" women. As mentioned in Pt. 2 of this discussion, I find it flat-out chauvinistic, and I think black women are generally very correct in their "fights" with black men, even if they aren't approaching the man in the best way (however, with most men, it simply doesn't matter how you approach them--they just...don't...want...to...hear...it). However, comments that black men have made about what it's like to approach black women, I agree with.

For those who don't know, I have never, myself, dated a black woman. I think there are far too many reasons for this to explain in depth why. Still, I want to make clear that when I see a black woman, I can usually tell relatively quickly what kind of black woman she is. So there's none of this "black women have an attitude" or "black women nag and are confrontational" stuff. If you really take the time to observe a woman and speak to her, you can figure out whether or not she's the kind of woman you might be interested in getting to know.

One of my problems--a problem that men don't have, so this is no excuse for them--is the sexual orientation issue, i.e. how to tell when a black woman is queer and is receptive to a queer woman approaching her. Then there's also the fact that I simply refuse to approach women. I won't do it. Either way, there's an extra complication with approaching black queer women than with other queer women--black women aren't as "out" as other women are, especially not feminine black women. The black women whom I've known to be queer have almost always been the ones who are not feminine and essentially advertise their queerness by the way they look and carry themselves. I like the feminine women, so this is particularly a problem when it comes to finding a black woman to date. There's also this stubborn resistance on my part to just go up to women that causes a problem.

On the flip side, I've been out with two white women and one Asian woman. I was a teenager when I met the Asian female, so that was a time period in which I really didn't understand or think that much about race. Therefore, race wasn't the appeal. Heck, at that point, I didn't really even realize I was queer. So I definitely wasn't rejecting black women. I would also say that I was in a different frame of mind racially when I dated the white women. I'd just gotten out of college, and I didn't really start thinking about race in a meaningful sense, though I started to feel more uncomfortable with whites, until maybe a year before I started law school or around the time I started applying to law schools. I also don't think that this discussion of racial preferences and why was happening when I was seeing these women, so I had just never really thought about it.

Well, I've thought about it now, and this is what I've come up with in relation to me:

-I'm scared of black women.
And it's not because of how I think they'd behave in a relationship setting. It has a lot to do with how they treated me growing up and a lot of the comments black and white men have made about what it's like to approach a black woman to even ask her out in the first place. See, I do think there's a difference between many black and "other" women here, but the following is certainly not uniformly applicable and applies to different kinds of women in, albeit maybe with a slightly different scenario, too.

I think black women are more straightforward. I like straightforwardness. But I don't particularly care for the following nightmare-like daydream that I think I share with the majority of hetero men: Picture a nightclub or bar. Tons of people. A beautiful black woman is surrounded by a group of black female friends. Dammit, why do they have to come in packs?!?! You get up your courage anyway and you approach her. You're trying to be decent with it. You're simple, just say hello, she looks nice this evening, you'd like to buy her a drink, maybe get her number. She looks you up and down, mentally (and maybe even vocally) checking out your hair, your clothes, your overall appearance--and mentally (or vocally) talking sh!t about it. Then she says loud as hell: "HEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLL NOOOOOOO!!!!!!" People burst out laughing. The WHOLE...DAMN...CLUB heard and saw that! You're embarassed as hell!

And I don't mean to sound like Bill O'Reilly here ("motherf*cker, I want some tea!" or whatever-the-hell dumb thing it was he said black people allegedly scream out in restaurants). I'm not saying black women do this; I'm saying it's the nightmare some of us envision when we think about approaching them because so many black women are so direct. And I've seen/heard stories of black and white men going through things like this with black women...some of the stories not even being in the context of a man approaching a woman (one guy wrote on a message board that a black woman told him to get his white @ss out of her way...which I thought was funny as hell--I think black women's blunt speech is hysterical--but...then I don't want a black woman saying anything like that to me).

See, I've said before that I view white women as shallow. And I think black women are, too (and, as I will discuss another time, some Americanized Asian women seem to be...there are just all kinds of shallow women). You noticed how I mentioned in that nightmare the black woman just looking at you like you're ridiculous--blatantly--because of various aspects of your physical appearance. I mean, I think that might be the difference. "Other" women seem to hold their negative assessment of you back a lot more. They might talk about it with their friends or laugh at you after you leave. But they don't have the guts that black women do, which, on some hand, I really do have to give to black women. A black woman will let...you...know...that you're crazy as hell for approaching her. And, many times, will do so loudly/in front of people. Not all black women--probably, for sure, not the black women at my school--but...it's a scary enough scenario to make me not even try my luck unless, perhaps, we have become friends. I certainly wouldn't cold-approach a black woman (or, in actuality, any woman, but especially not a black one).

Men also talk about the standards black women have, and I somewhat agree there, too. I think black women are a bit unrealistic. Many overrate themselves, physically, and/or have ridiculous ideas about what a man should be like and what he should do. I don't really know how this translates into what black queer women expect from other black queer women. But not all black women share the same standards. The weird thing I've noticed is different black women will have their different must-haves, and it's as if it's the most natural, common-knowledge must-haves in the world to them. For example, there might be a woman who, in her mind, insists that a man is supposed to pay every time, even if they're not dating. So, she's out with a guy-friend and he doesn't make any move to pay for her. Oh my word, get ready to watch her dramatically huff and puff with disbelief over how the hell could he not know that, even though they are just friends, he is supposed to be paying for her. I know some black women like this, and some of them do attend this law school. It's a really tricky, picky system, navigating black women's standards.

Now, if a black woman is insisting on someone with an education, a job, their own place, no criminal record, put family first/respect their mothers and those kinds of things...I really can understand. It's some of this other nonsense that I've had my straight black female friends spout off to me or those black women who come out with small halter tops on, big stomach hanging out, big booty bursting out some spandex pants, face to'e up from the flo' up and thinking they are drop-dead gorgeous and deserve only a black male model as their man...that kills me.

-The false-positive characteristics men associate with Asian women
When I meet cool Asian women, I don't attribute their awesomeness to their race. That just doesn't make any kind of sense to me. And what I noticed from reading white men's opinions of Asian women on those forums--smart, nice, polite, subservient, respectful, classy, graceful, physically youthful/beautiful, and so on--was that my friend Angel actually does fit a lot of these descriptions, if not all, of Asian women (and not that she's submissive, but she is a bit of a pushover, I've noticed, or at least puts other people first a little too much). Never once did I think any of these things had to do with her being part-Asian. On the other hand, I have an Asian Indian friend who is very in-your-face--that's why we're friends (the "good girls" like Angel, I don't normally like; I like strong, fiesty, outspoken women). I guess you could consider her Americanized (but, then again, so is Angel), but she's also close to her Asian culture (probably more so than Angel is). I just attributed Angel's being like she is as part of her natural, individual personality, just like my other Asian friend's personality as being just who she naturally is.

I thought all the negative points about white women were really interesting, because, clearly, black men don't agree. And I probably think more negative thoughts about white women on the whole than other races of women...but the truth is, white women are probably also the most diverse group of women when it comes to personality (for many reasons, but probably mainly because there's less pressure on white women to be a certain way because of race than there is for other women).

So, on some level, I was really shocked and just thought those men were at the ultimate height of ridiculousness to 1) say that Asian women have all these good qualities, and then 2) act as if there aren't going to be a lot of white women out there who have those, as well. I talk crap about women my age a lot, and usually when I'm disgusted with women my age that disgust is directed towards the things young white women do. But I think the uniformity is there less than I make it sound like I believe, and I believe that age results in sameness among a group of people more than, perhaps, most other identities. I know that I could meet an amazing woman my age tomorrow and be interested in her. But I don't know that these men who "prefer" X race of woman over Y could say the same thing in terms of race.

I've noticed that at universities I've attended, Asian women have been...very much not like white guys seem to think they are. My mother says a similar thing about the Asian women who attend the university at which she works. And, of course, there's diversity among Asian women, even at schools. So I've met Asian women who are nice (the female definition, not the male definition that means they just do whatever a man likes). But then there are these ones who are just really snobbish. They walk around as if they are barbie dolls, everything has to be perfect--hair, outfit, makeup, etc--they're rude/arrogant and think they're better than everyone else, except perhaps whites (and sometimes, even them). They just look and act like mechanical dolls. The materialistic stereotypes that I saw some white guys mention...well, since these kinds of Asian women act like they can't acknowledge blacks, I wouldn't know from interacting with them...but from observing these women, I'd say that's applicable to these kinds of Asian women.

Final thought--there's this stereotype of Asians caring more about family. There's this direct opposite stereotype for blacks. And, yet, I've never met anyone who is the way I am about their family. I want us all living in the same city. I would be happy to have my parents living with me as they age. I worry about being able to make enough money to take care of my parents when they stop working or if they become sick. And if my parents told me they didn't like someone I was dating, I wouldn't date them. Seriously. Most other people in my family are very family-oriented, as well. It seems like someone always cries at some point whenever one of us leaves after a visit, including (and especially, actually) my sisters' kids. My mother cries. I cry. My sister really wanted me to live with her when I was working in Chicago this summer, and when I got sick while I was there she wanted me to come to her house so that she could take care of me. I'm almost 27, people, haha. But this is what we're like.

Most other people I tell about my family thinks they're ridiculous. Angel is probably the only person who has never acted like anything I've told her about my family was crazy (and I have, at least, two other Asian friends besides her and have had others over the years), but I do know from speaking to her that her family is not as close as mine is. After all, she has a brother who has never met their other brother's 2-yr old child, which is something that could never happen in my family. My sister who lives in Chicago had her last child after moving there, and my mother and I rode the train to Chicago for his birth. Her children know us; it's not like strangers visiting when we come. They are really excited. We saw my mother's sister all the time when we were growing up, but we weren't really all that excited about it...especially since if she was coming to our house, that meant we wouldn't be sleeping in our own beds. My sister's kids, on the other hand, don't care if we take their beds. They don't get to see my other sister's kids that often, but they have stuffed toy animals named after them and like to play with them when they come south.

Anyway, I'm not finished reading the different threads, and I'm sure I saw comments on them that I wanted to point out that I have forgotten about. In particular, I realize that I need to explain more why I see the stereotypes of Asian women as false positives. So, anticipate Pt. 4 soon.

A Bad Name Pt. 2

See Pt. 1 here

So, of course, what black men think about black women and interracial dating is discussed ad nauseam. Still, I've got some more homework for you in preparation for what will hopefully be my next lecture, so to speak. Too many late nights this week with some big, boring textbooks just have me too exhausted to think about what I've been reading lately and comment on it/make points.

Now, this here is a discussion forum for blacks in which this guy includes an excerpt from an interview Wesley Snipes did in which he made rather typical comments, yet in, perhaps, one of the more cryptic ways I've ever see, about black women vs "other" women. Since his cut/paste of the excerpt didn't run all the way, I'm going to include the full discussion here below. Before I do, two points:

1) How many more times do I have to read someone butcher the spelling of the word "woman"?????? I mean, and this time in a magazine with professional editors!! Everytime I see mistakes in books, newspapers and magazines, I get pissed. Mainly because these are jobs I'd never be able to get but would certainly perform a lot better.

Okay, so that had nothing to do with the issue at hand, but still...! I just feel like, hey, we learned the difference between "woman" and "women" in the first grade, and now everyone in this country should be able to use the correct one. And don't even get me started on when I see it spelled in some really off-the-wall way...like "wemon"...

2) The one quick observation that I don't need all my brain cells to make about all these discussions (which is good, since I currently don't have all my brain cells), other than the fact that these men are just being chauvinists, is that men seem to be consistently associating subservience, dependence and submissiveness with femininity. I find this incredibly interesting, mainly because I think that the men and women who participate in these discussions completely miss that this is something that they really are not agreeing on.

It actually really supports this idea that I once expressed on an AfterEllen discussion thread that, I think, had something to do with why black lesbians are always labelled "butch," which was that white women (and Asians and Latinas) are more feminine than black women in society by default, and not just when homosexuality enters the picture. I argued that the skin color, our body builds, the way we carry ourselves, our attitudes and perceived "attitudes," as well as the stereotypical images in society of good looks when one is dark only being associated with men ("tall, dark and handsome) vs good looks when one is light being associated with women (Snow White)...these are among some of the things that result in men immediately, without even knowing anything about a black woman, seeing her as lacking femininity or not being as feminine as "other" women. This also, I think, helps explain why we see more black men attracting women of all races vs black women's general inability to attract men of any race. In other words, black men can be hot; black women can't. Black men are dark, and that's fine...for them...but not for a woman.

A lot of discussions that happen between men and women, as I remember arguing in one of my posts this summer in relation to what men mean by "intelligent" in reference to women, consist of men defining common terms in a totally different way than women do. Here we are again, when it comes to definining what's feminine. Men define femininity the way women do and then some. To them, it's not just about looks, is the way I'm understanding it...not that it's all about looks to women, either. But men include characteristics of femininity that women today just would be unwilling to agree with. In fact, I think a lot of women would be with me in finding what many of these men on these forums seem to think of as feminine...appalling. And that's basically why I can't see why Asian women and white women don't find the way that many white and black men describe them--and, as a result, why many of these men approach them--as offensive.

Well, I wrote more than I thought I could. More coming soon, I promise. ;)

On the personal level, Snipes, a divorced father of a "precocious" 8-year-old son, Jelani, says he enjoys spending time with "spirited" women. "Either the hot-headed ones or the ones who just think they're divas," he explains. "I like them because they have spice and creativity. I like a woman who reads. I think a number of my relationships [ended] because she didn't read and we didn't have anything to talk about.... But I'm not into the ones who want to jump up and fight and get loud. That's not my flavor."
The Asian model and restaurateur he introduces as "my lady, Donna [Wong]" has been Snipes' companion for the past year and a half When asked if he dates Black women, he says: "Primarily all of my life I've dated Black women.... Oh, most definitely. Oh, my God. Mostly. But it just so happens that now I'm dating an Asian woman. It's different. Different energy, different spirit, but a nice person." He says he is not ready for marriage; nor is Donna. "She's got to learn to deal with the love scenes in the movies first," says Snipes as he chuckles. "Got to get to a place where it's very comfortable."
Wesley says he realizes that there are Black women still who get an attitude about Black men with Asian, White or Hispanic women. "I know we've all been hurt, and we're all very wounded," he says, addressing Black women. "We have to acknowledge that, both male and female, in the Black experience. We're a wounded people. And we want to possess and we want to own. We don't want to compromise. We feel like we've compromised enough. But in any relationship you have to compromise. There's no way around it. And I say to Black women also, Brothers who are very, very successful, or who have become somewhat successful, usually it's been at a great expense, unseen by the camera's eye...
"He doesn't want to come home to someone who's going to be mean and aggravating and unkind and who is going to be `please me, please me.' He doesn't want to come home to that. He doesn't want to come home to have a fight with someone who is supposed to be his helpmate. So it's very natural that he's going to turn to some place that's more compassionate....
You've worked hard and you deserve to come home to comforting. And usually a man who has that will appreciate it. Because I've never known one cat, all those cats I've hung out with and still hang out with, who found something that they really, really like and didn't go back to it. They all go back. It's very simple."
When asked for clarification, Snipes emphasizes that he is not saying that a Black woman can not be that type of woman a man wants to come home to. "Not at all," he declares. "Absolutely not. That's the point. I want to come home and I don't want to argue. I want to be pleasing, but if I ask you to get me a glass of water, you're going to say, `Them days is over.' please. Come on," Wesley says. "A man likes that. I don't know why. It's been that way forever. It makes him proud, you know, like when the guys come over and your lady comes out with a tray of food and says `I made this up for you.' And the guys are like, `Oh man, you've got a great women.' And the man says, `Yeah, I do.' A man will appreciate it when you're kind and when you're nice.
"For successful women, it's hard," he continues, obviously quite comfortable and articulate on the subject of relationships. "The competition is fierce. And if he's a man of success and power who happens to be handsome, of course you're not the only one who thinks he's handsome. But you don't have to punish him because of that once you get with him. Don't punish him because somebody else likes him."
Continuing with his openness, Snipes says he's had his heart broken more than once, and at times by Black women. "Most definitely. Most definitely," he says.

You Give White Guys A Bad Name

To continue on a bit with my prior post about my attraction to, particularly, Asians, and interest in learning more about them. I've been doing a lot of reading, especially online--in fact, I should be reading for school right now but have been on Asian message boards, which actually led me to other messages boards that contain the ignorant opinions I'm about to share with you--and if you really need proof of how out of hand racist ideals are in our society, all you need to do is get on the internet and witness the comments people make when they think they're anonymous. Here's some sick reading about white guys and their seemingly growing interest in Asian women. All I can say is if I were an (hetero) Asian woman, I just wouldn't feel that I could trust a white man to be interested in me for me.

"Why Do I See More Caucasian Men Dating Asian Women?"

"Liking Asian Girls"

In the near future (I hope), more coming up on issues beyond racial binaries, including addressing some of the opinions in these threads listed above and some of the ideas we've been discussing in my class about gays of color. This semester is just awful for me (how is it that as a third-year law student, I have more work than I ever did in my first year of law school? For those who don't know, this is supposed to be the year they "bore you to death," not "work you to death"). Meanwhile, my "friend" Nikki, who I find more and more annoying because of her racial naivete, has--and I should be more sensitive about using this word, but I will somewhat jokingly do so anyways--"stalking" me because, apparently, she has nothing to do in school and acts as if I'm not supposed to, either, and should just be taking time out to entertain her (that kind of sh!t irritates me, which is not good sense I have been irritated with her enough as it is). More and more, I rethink my boundaries when it comes to age and just find myself not wanting to have anything to do with most people my age and certainly nothing to do with anyone younger than I am, such as Nikki. I really value the two older friends I have right now.

Back to those discussion threads I listed...I mean, it's not as if we haven't all suspected something like that going through white guys' heads as far as Asian women are concerned...but when you've very nearly offended me and pissed me off with ignorant crap, especially when it doesn't directly apply to me (and because, if you're going to realize anything about me, it's that I don't really get offended about things the average person would, or about much of anything), then you've really done something. But I have felt a similar way in regards to somewhat similar ideas, particularly that of being more submissive and/or "nicer," that black men have had towards white women. I'm kind of offended for these women.

Why I Like Asians and Latinos

If you look to the right under the section with suggested reading for people just finding my blog, and you see the post about Asians and Latinos and whiteness, you'll notice if you click on it that near the end I resolve to learn more about other cultures. I am particularly interested in why so many who are not black or white feel discriminated against and/or resent whites in much the same way blacks do. Since then, I have been on that quest, not just focusing on that question, and some interesting things have come out of it, though I still can't say that I understand these people any better at this point. I am far from done, though.

For whatever reason, I have been thinking more about interracial dating outside of a black/white binary more and more lately. One thing that has always bothered me about interracial dating, especially for me, is not really knowing whether or not race is the appeal. So when trying to find out this kind of information from a perspective mate--and pretty much never being able to get a real answer--I have been irritated, not to mention suspicious. I don't think I've ever heard a real answer from people who "prefer" one race or people who claim to "date everybody" as to what the appeal is. By "real," I mean an answer that shows someone has actually sat down and thought about why they are attracted to the people they are and/or isn't just trying to pretend like race is no big deal. I think for anyone who dates interracially, race is one of the appeals because race affects what someone looks like...and physical attraction is pretty much always a factor. So this is something I acknowledge.

Being that I find it irritating when someone can't clearly answer a question such as "what do you like about black women?" I have been trying to figure out why I seem to be more attracted to Asians and Latinos than blacks and whites. And although it's not, by any means, required that I explain myself...so many people demand it in some form, and I do think it would be good for someone to articulate interracial attraction, at least from their own experience. So, here goes:

It might seem odd that I am attracted to groups of people that I don't understand or know much about. However, I've come to the conclusion that, for me, that's probably the actual reason why I'm attracted to them. Some people argue that their interracial attraction is innate, or make arguments that basically sound like that. Mine definitely isn't. I didn't really start having this attraction until mid-way through high school. For me, I meet someone and they are a trigger. So, when I was in high school, I met this guy who happened to be Asian, and we liked each other. Immediately after him, I dated other Asians. During that period of time, I was learning more about Asian culture and participating in their chatrooms, websites, etc. I would say he triggered that interest, and for a while the majority of my friends were Asian. Those experiences have stuck with me, and I know enough about Asians to surprise anybody who meets me--even other Asians--just for the simple fact that blacks aren't supposed to be interested in Asians...thus, aren't supposed to really know anything about them other than the "smart" and "submissive" stereotypes.

I met the first Asian guy, also, right after I became disenchanted with whites, and I think that makes a difference. I talked about in one of my posts last month or the month before how when I started learning more about white vs black (and, honestly, white vs everyone else in the world) history, it just changed how I felt about whites and they were no longer the race I was most attracted to. I can't be sure, but I think I might have been more attracted to whites for a while because that's who I was around most and that's always who I saw in the media, i.e. brainwashing. Being around Asians more was great to me because I was learning something new and experiencing a different kind of people. I learned in the process, though, that a lot of Asians--unlike blacks--don't really appreciate being thought of as "different," whereas I, personally, think that's a compliment and a good thing. So I didn't understand it for a long time. That's not to say blacks like being thought of as different, just that we don't fight it. The majority of us will tell you in a second that blacks aren't like anybody else, especially if you're trying to imply that we are.

With Latinos, I simply did not grow up around any. My schools were pretty much always a mix of whites, blacks and Asians.

I don't want this to seem like a "they're exotic" explanation, because I've never thought that. What it really is, I think, is the fact that every time race comes up, it's the black/white binary. I think I've been sick of that, even though I definitely participate--it's hard not to, given that black and white is really what I know about...the former because that's what I'm considered to be, and the latter because it's shoved down everyone's throats in this country. But being that I get bored easily, I am sick of "black people" and "white people," i.e. in terms of hearing about and being around them. I know "all" there is to know about them. You can't go anywhere, it seems, without white people being there, and it seems like blacks are always trying to be where white people are, if for no other reason than that it's our right. It's just boring to be bombarded with the same images and the same dynamics all the time.

So I like to think of it not so much as exoticizing Asians or Latinos as just...well, unfortunately, maybe it's "curiosity." But I don't think it's the kind of curiosity where you try it out once and then go back to your own race, with no intention of ever getting serious with someone who is of "that" background. It's just some kind of pull to those that don't get the spotlight, which has always been my nature--I have always preferred things that other people don't and get annoyed with things that other people do prefer, from songs and singers to, apparently, people. Racially, it's obvious to me that whites do prefer Asians and Latinos, but I think they prefer them as an extension of whiteness, even within the "exotic" stereotype. I mean, Asians and Latinos can look "exotic" and practice aspects of a culture whites find "exotic" all they want...but they are still somehow enough like white people for white people to be okay...that is, of course, unless they're not, i.e. they show too much racial/ethnic consciousness. You can be different in any way, just not that one. I want the conscious ones.

But I also just find Asians and Latinos physically attractive. There are people of all races who are physically attractive. But there's this theory that people tend to prefer those who "look like them." For me, that would actually be Asians (particularly the "brown" ones), Latinos and mixed or light blacks, because we have the same skin color and similar features. Lo and behold, those are the groups of people I do prefer--Asians (particularly the "brown" ones), Latinos and mixed or light blacks. I am attracted to some color, but not "too much." For some people, it's the contrast of color that plays a role in attraction. I just happen to be happy with the color I am, not to say that those who prefer a contrast don't like their color.

Usually, when I'm wondering about why someone has an interracial attraction, I'm wanting to be reassured, even if it's not my business, that what is true for me is also true for them. For me, it has nothing to do with who I think might be like me. Knowing my personality, not many people in this world are going to be like me. Usually, when I find someone who kind of is, they are actually white or "white-washed." And yet, I find a lot of "hot" white women in Hollywood to be very overrated.

It's not about black women being bitches and white women being more approachable and Asian women being submissive and Latinas being spicy. That's all crap. I find it irritating that a lot of the time when people try to talk about their interracial attraction, they want to attribute personality traits and/or life experiences to an entire group of people. And I know they think they're being complimentary. I've seen white women say, for example, that they admire black men's strength, black men go through yada yada in the US, etc. Similarly, white guys will talk about black women's strength. I just have a problem anytime your attraction to an individual is rooted in something associated with a group. Then when that individual turns out not to fit that stereotype you've placed on them, you don't understand it or you're disappointed or you think they're not being who they are or are supposed to be. That's just not what I want to be liked for, and, in turn, I don't like people for that and don't eliminate people based on that.

It's also not so much about just being open to everyone. I am, but I require a certain social consciousness level, too. And then I'm also willing to admit that certain features that politically correct people don't want to attribute to racial differences...you know, because "race is a social construct," which I actually am not exactly convinced of...are part of attractiveness, albeit individual-preference attraction and not universal attraction the way a lot of people try to make it seem.

In other words, as I said before, race has something to do with the way someone looks, so you can't entirely say you "don't see race." One of my white friends has said that one of the things she likes about black men is the skin color, which is, as I essentially just said, one of the things I like about Asians, Latinos and mixed/light blacks. To me, brown-ness is part of what makes someone attractive, as well as some of the physical features traditionally associated with the racial makeup of these people.

I also know that, for me, physical attraction isn't always the first attraction to a person, which is probably the only time I can honestly say race has nothing to do with anything--which is also probably the best scenario. To give an example, when I met my latest crush, I didn't notice her physically at all--probably because she was my boss. I mean, obviously when you meet someone, you notice how they look. But there's not always a judgment on it, or, rather, the judgment might not always relate to whether or not they're physically attractive. I think my take on Angel was she was nice, approachable, easy to talk to, laid-back--fleeting personality observations that we tend to make about people we haven't known long enough to really be doing so. This was in contrast to my other boss, who was more no-nonsense and intimidating.

Then the more I talked to Angel about topics that had nothing to do with work, the more it made me pay attention to who she was outside of being who I worked for. Then I noticed she was attractive. And the more I thought about it, the more I thought that the mix of Asian and white came together quite nicely, in her case. That's not to say that mixed Asians look better. That's to say that it's one of the things that affects how she looks, and in a good way for her--not necessarily for others, despite the stereotype that mixed people look better than everyone else. We don't always, just like not all whites look better than all minorities and so on. Anyways, with Angel, it was the fact that we got along so well and she had a great personality that made me notice her, not that she was Asian. So sometimes, there's that, too.

I hope this post kind of makes sense. I feel like discussions like these really could, at least, put a dent in some of the hostility surrounding interracial relationships, because I think one of the main issues is we just don't understand why some people do it...another issue is also that we make immediate assumptions about why someone does it or why they are attracted to someone else. It's to interracial daters' benefit to find a way to articulate what's going on in their head, even though that shouldn't be required.