Finally Surprised Me

Since I can't sleep, I've been thinking about this experience I had this past weekend and decided to come share.

Some friends of mine and I went out. This particular group of friends is great because we always end up having real conversations, whereas with some of the other people I know they always want to talk about the same empty twenty-something nonsense. Closer to the end of the conversation, we somewhat did that by talking about guys. One of my white friends, whom I've referred to here before as my best friend in law school (BFLS), said that she thinks black men are the most attractive men in response to my mentioning that another one of my white friends (my best friend in music, BFM) thinks black people are the most attractive. And since she was speaking to two black women, she assumed we would agree with that. I guess my black friend agreed, but I didn't see her response because she was sitting beside me and I was looking at BFLS, who was across from me. Plus, I just figure she probably would agree--I can't really see her dating interracially, though we've never talked about that.

When BFLS kind of asked us if we agreed that black men were the most attractive, I was thinking, "HELL NO!" and just shook my head no. She was kind of like, "You don't?" And I could feel that the next thing would probably be to assume I thought white guys were the most attractive, because that's what so many people do, i.e. the only options are black or white. At the same time, this is a friend of mine who should know better, because I tend to carry on about white men and not in a good way. I've been doing that with her almost ever since I've known her, so 2 & 1/2 years. So I just said, "I like Asian guys."

And then both of my friends went crazy. How? I guess just out-of-this-world couldn't believe I said that or could think Asians are more attractive than white or black people. Now, with the black female, I'm not necessarily surprised. I know how most black women are about Asians, especially when thinking about blacks and Asians dating--it's weird to most. But with BFLS?!?! White females actually do date Asian males. And, though I know Asians still do experience racism from white people, I have just never seen it, at least not in real life. To me, white people generally love Asians and have no problems with dating or doing anything else with them, so this was really amazing to me. And it still is. And, you know, I'm not ever surprised by racism, but this has really caught me off guard.

I kind of want to ask BFLS what that was all about. Chances are the whole thing will get lost in the hustle to graduate and figuring out what to do about the Bar exam. But I have a hard time resisting attempts to answer questions like this. And the other reason why her reaction surprised me is I know she would have something to say if someone acted like that in response to blacks. Usually, I hate when people try to act like everyone in the US gets way more up in arms when bad things happen to black people and just 100% won't tolerate unfair treatment towards blacks while they will do so with every other disadvantaged group and sometimes even with whites--it's not true. But with her, I think it is; she would have poo-pooed someone if they had acted shocked that anyone thought blacks were hot.

And this isn't the first time this has happened, but I guess I'm more shocked because I know her better. The other time was actually when BFM told me that her fiance--white guy--said he doesn't find Asian women attractive. Now, I was really surprised at that, too, and still think about that comment in amazement. But with that comment, it's not the racism I find in it so much as...you know, I've never heard of a white guy not liking Asian women, HAHA. And with him, I think he wouldn't totally dismiss dating a black female, so that's also interesting. I'm pretty sure many Asians have these experiences as teenagers and younger with white people, but I didn't really think it kept happening after that because the majority of white people appear to grow into a point where they accept Asians as almost no different than they are.

And the funniest thing is after her reaction, BFLS got back on her liberal (though she denies being a liberal) throne and started talking about how Asian men are hurt by interracial dating. As always, she was correct and knowledgeable with what she was saying. But still, you're going to act like I told you I was going on "Flavor of Love" so that I can date Flavor Flav at the idea that Asian guys can look better than black guys, and then talk about how much harder it is for Asian guys than other guys to find women. With people reacting like that, uh, YEAH it's harder!!

I guess another thing that surprised/bothered me was this idea that one race is better-looking than another. For some reason, it seems like black men are the flavor du jour while Asian women are the counterpart flavor du jour. I'm tired of that. While I have my preferences, I know there are times when a white guy will be the best-looking in a room, a black man will be the hottest, etc. In the past year, I've gone from being interested in a lily white-looking female to a dark black female to a half-Asian/half-white female. This weekend, I stayed up all night watching re-runs of "I Love New York 2" on VH1 and just thought the black guy Buddha was the sexiest thing. She picked this wimpy white guy called Tailor Made because he would allow her to run the relationship, and I get that--I applaud her for that one, not to mention find it hysterical. But the white guy had nothing on the black one. Buddha was just sexy. I'm not one of those people who exalts one race; I see beauty where beauty exists, and it could be in anybody.

So, I just can't stand when people make a blanket statement that one race is the most attractive, or act like a couple of races are acceptable but others aren't. Part of the reason I was like, "HELL NO!" was because I was rejecting the blanket nature of BFLS's statement. In other words, no, I don't think black men are more attractive than other men--I think there are all kinds of attractive men. Generally, I don't want to date them. But I notice good-looking guys. Furthermore, I feel like this sudden fashionability of black men is, yet, another symptom of this mass movement occurring in the US entitled "White People Dying To Demonstrate We're Not Racist." I know this is not true of BFLS. She's marrying a white male, and she said she wouldn't date black men because 1) that hurts black women, and 2) she would be afraid of black women, HAHAHA. Oh, man, I love that woman! HAHAHA. Plus, you can't be friends with me unless you acknowledge your racism, which she did a long time ago. But I think some of these other women are silently self-congratulatory, thinking they are waging their own modern-day civil rights movement or some such crap with their black boyfriend or husband and a Barack Obama sticker on the car or whatever. With Asian women, who knows...perhaps white men are being "revolutionary," too, but are generally too wimpy (or shall I say too fond of white male power?) to go too low on the social totem pole.

Anyways...

Meanwhile, they've got a little problem with Asian men and black women, gasping at dinner tables when people find them attractive or completely acting like they don't exist. Yep...definitely not racist. You see, I've kind of noticed that white women who get with black men tend to not have black female friends or even associates, and white guys who get with Asian women tend not to have Asian male friends or associates, HAHA. Not all, though, but I've seen it too many times.

"If it's war the Asians want..."

People, it's time to stop reporting racism only when it happens to blacks and whites--and with blacks, only sometimes; with whites, sometimes when it's not even racism. I want to see this on the news, and, trust me, I will be contacting stations:

http://media.www.thecampuspress.com/media/storage/paper1098/news/2008/02/18/Opinion/If.Its.War.The.Asians.Want-3216954.shtml

From Thecampuspress.com: Boulder's Online Independent Voice Since 1996

If it's war the Asians want...
It's war they'll get

Max Karson

Issue date: 2/18/08 Section: Opinion

....That's when it hit me.

The Asian was so jaded by his experiences with the whitebread, brainless tree sloths of CU that even though three people had explained to him that he was trying to return the ball to the wrong court, it was inconceivable to him that we might be right.

And when he looked into my eyes, it wasn't just irritation and disgust that I saw-it was hate. Pure hate.

I'm such a fool for not realizing it sooner. I can't tell you how many times the Asians have treated me like a retarded weasel and I've forgiven them. But now I know that Asians are not just "a product of their environment," and their rudeness is not a "cultural misunderstanding."

They hate us all.

And I say it's time we started hating them back. That's right-no more "tolerance." No more "cultural sensitivity." No more "Mr. Pretend-I'm-Not-Racist."

It's time for war.

But we won't attack their bodies or minds. We will attack their souls....

And just in case you miss it, the opinion goes on to describe the racist plan for how, including (among other things) capturing Asians with nets, tieing them up, tickling them until they urinate, and giving ambiguous-looking people math problems to see if they're Asian. I'm sure it's a "joke," but I'm way past tired of the things white people seem to think are "funny," especially when it comes to racial & ethnic minorities. This is, yet, another example of racist whites playing the victim. This guy is too much of an idiot to realize that he basically told everyone that the reason Asians at Colorado respond to whites the way they do--the rather, if you ask me, innocuous way they do as opposed to the blatantly unabashed public display of racism by whites there, as evidenced and described by Karson--is because the white kids there started it. In other words, Asians at Colorado don't hate whites out of nowhere, I'm sure. Yet, whites somehow come out the victim in the whole thing and should "start a war" against Asians. It's "time to start hating them back." As always (in terms of history), whites hated first. Given Karson's response, he couldn't possibly be one of those whites who is naively mad because "racism is always wrong, no matter what."

Oh, yeah--feel free to e-mail Mr. Typical White Male, who actually has the nerve to be staff editor:

Contact Campus Press staff editor Max Karson at
max.karson@colorado.edu

Does A Fetish Matter?

I think it depends on who you ask. I'm not sure anyone would ever come out and say, "No, it doesn't matter to me." But I believe I hear/read people brush it off on a regular basis.

In my last post, I linked to Carmen's video podcasts on YouTube. In one, which I watched almost a week or so ago, if I remember correctly she lists a few of the most common myths about interracial dating. One of those myths was that people who engage in IRs have a fetish. Now, don't get me wrong, Carmen doesn't completely brush it off. She just deflects a bit by saying, "Well, most people are in relationships for the wrong reasons, and nobody ever says anything about that." Fair.

Except...how do you compare dating someone for racial stereotypes and/or more because of their ethnic background than having an interest in who they are to other "wrong" reasons? And I actually do think we make a big deal about some of the other more common reasons people "use" others in dating. The next biggest reason besides race, I'd say, is money. We talk about that all the time. How often do we hear people, particularly women, referred to as "gold diggers"? I think black women know that one really well, despite the fact that we now make more money than the men we typically find ourselves interested in, i.e. black men. How often does a male celebrity hook up with a woman or get a divorce, and we're all looking at the situation like, "This chick is after his money...how can he not see this...when will men learn?!"

Another reason, which I think is very similar to dating "preferences" based on race, is how we tend to value the most agreed-upon attractive people above all others. What the two have in common is being interested in someone for how they look rather than who they are. Often, people in these shallow relationships do see negative qualities in the attractive person but they try to ignore them because the person is so good-looking. Nowadays, we talk about the media's influence on self-perception/esteem and beauty standards as if this is a problem just as serious as the war in Iraq (sorry, but, to me, it's not...perhaps because I'm not influenced as much by the media and don't understand women crying on shows such as "Oprah" and "How To Look Good Naked" on Lifetime because they hate some aspect of their bodies). And we complain about people valuing looks over personality nonstop. People worry about their looks because of how it makes them feel, sure, but it's also about attracting others and competing with attractive individuals, especially for people who are single. Several industries make millions off this year after year.

Then there's age. Boy, do we harp on age differences. You think all of these relationships are 100% about love? Neither do I. The appeal for many people in these kinds of relationships, much like IRs, is stereotypes and the actual age. We look at couples such as Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore and wait for the day they break up. We wonder what the hell those two have to talk about, because we assume they're too different. When is Demi going to get over using Ashton for sex, and when is Ashton going to see signs of Demi being her age and run for the hills?

So, yes, there are other relationships that seem all wrong to us and, in fact, probably include at least one partner who is in it for the wrong reasons. But what are relationships anyway? To me, there's always a self-serving element. You wouldn't be in one if there weren't. We all get something out of relationships. But with the way our society makes the biggest deal of them all about race in everything, it goes without saying that when race is the reward--and then, in turn, seems like a punishment for others who are being left out--that that is the relationship where we stop and look at the trade-off and really have a problem with it. Anything that hints of racism is going to illicit that kind of reaction.

With something like age, you can't really have a group that gets left out/disadvantaged the way you can with race. And so, the thing that I've noticed is the people who brush off observations and criticisms of IR trends are usually those in the more advantaged groups. It's easy to say that those of us who claim we have no problem with IRs as long as the couple really is in love truly do have a problem with all IRs when you're among "the chosen." Of course we have a problem with IRs. And that problem goes beyond just your being an Asian woman with a white man or a black man with a white woman; it's about what these kinds of trends mean for black women and Asian men, the people sitting, watching all the same groups of people with long lines leading to their doors while we have nothing going on.

Do black women and Asian men have to be more proactive in their relationship search? I mean, is IRs to blame for every single black woman or Asian man who is single? Despite the answers to these questions, however you answer them, it's still just not a good feeling when you're the equivalent of the ugly layperson vs the media beauty, the blue collar nobody vs the six-figure executive. What some people fail to understand is there are winners and there are losers in IRs dynamics, and the majority of the people who have no complaints are the winners. Black women and Asian men have no false positive stereotypes following their groups around romantically, and we can't trade a fetish for a fetish with anybody.

In other words, a white man with an Asian fetish can meet an Asian female with a white fetish rather easily. Whatever kind of fetish a black woman may have, she may eventually find someone, but it's going to be a lot harder than for every other kind of woman and odds are pretty good that the guy doesn't have a fetish for black women, though some guys like that exist. In a way, the fetishes are besides the point; it's the result of them, the effects, the disproportionate desire for some and not others, that make some of us feel like sh!t and respond in turn. For some black women, it could be like being slapped by both the media and everyday life. Mix in racism, and it's three slaps. Sexism and the fact that women outnumber men...and, well, black women never stop getting slapped, basically. Where to go to find someone who thinks you're beautiful and worthy, for the right or wrong reasons? Just any reason?

Therefore, I find it, at least, insensitive the way some people think 1) nothing's wrong with "preferences" that exclude entire groups of people, especially when certain groups emerge consistently as more preferable than others, and 2) when the "fetish" arguments are dismissed in any fashion. If you don't have a problem with someone using you because they think people of your group are better in bed and/or because you see a benefit in that in the form of more dating partners, it being a compliment, your being able to get more dates from X race or whatever...or you just decide to be one of those people who, until someone makes it blatantly obvious to you that they're fetishizing/stereotyping you, you choose not to think they are...that's on you. I'm not going to get mad for you and, indeed, in general I'm not really mad for you.

But think a little deeper about the issue and what the fact that there are tons of relationships out there like yours means for people like me. I'm not asking you to care or to refrain from dating whomever you want; I'm just asking you to get the entire issue, so that you can stop addressing the issue as if it's not problematic at all, or is but isn't especially problematic for some just because you benefit from it even if you don't want to accept it.

I can't remember if this was in one of Carmen's videos or not, but I heard a good point recently, which is something that I've always known: just because a relationship started from a fetish or includes one doesn't mean the two aren't really in love or can't become so. I know this. I'd say my parents' relationship includes some fetishizing; how many mixed kids actually think about that or admit it, I wonder? Well, this one does. But still. Like me for me, 100%. I can't stand being stereotyped. See, my being fetishized, whether or not someone comes out and says something squarely stupid to me, matters to me. If you hint that you find my being black or being mixed especially exciting at all, I'm not interested. And can people of the same race fetishize each other? You know it. Black people say crap all the time like, "We'd have cute/light babies" and/or "Our kids would have 'good hair'." I don't want to hear that, either. Saying you want someone who understands your culture and that's why you'd prefer someone of your race is fine, understandable even. I don't see that as a fetish. But comments about how cute our kids would be because of my skin color or hair stinks of same-race racism and a "white is right," "if you're brown, stick around" kind of fetish.

What is a fetish, even? To me, a fetish is about either 1) being interested in someone and/or finding them attractive solely because they are from a particular background or have a certain kind of look, and/or 2) being interested in someone and/or finding them attractive because, due to their background, you assume/hope they have certain characteristics. Basically, you have a formula for your ideal man or woman, and race is very central to it. For example, sometimes people disclaim a white male's having a fetish because he likes Asian women who are feisty or Americanized, not the ones who will do anything he wants. But that's still a fetish because it's a specific race-related formula. It's not as if the guy likes any kind of woman who has an attitude; indeed, a black woman who acted like that Asian woman would be branded a "typical black b!tch" or unfeminine.

And point #1 is often a joke among black women, i.e. black men liking fat and/or ugly white women vs attractive black women. Very important to #1 is that a woman of that background can be unattractive by many standards, but her race makes up for it or keeps that man from noticing her unattractiveness. In other words, any woman from that background will do/is attractive. Recognition of this is very important for black women, who would otherwise start to agree with everyone else that we're not as attractive as all other groups of women in terms of the physical or personality. This is another reason why brushing off the existence of such fetishes or taking them lightly isn't a good idea.

What's important for those in the more privileged dating groups to know is if these descriptions don't fit your relationship, then don't take people's criticisms about fetishes--whether addressed towards your relationship or you, if you're single, personally. If you feel that you're genuinely attractive, for example, and a man of another race shows interest in you, as an Asian or white woman, and you hear black women discussing the aforementioned dynamics in IRs, why think we're talking about you, specifically, or even all non-black women? Or if some black women are talking about you, why let it get to you when you feel you're good-looking enough for comments about preferring ugly non-black women aren't justified in your case? Either way, just know that as IRs become more and more common, the topics of IRs and fetishes aren't going away; if anything, we'll talk and write about them more and more.

The "Raced" Individual: Oxymoron?

So, my research continues--for some reason, I've been focusing more on Asians than other races & ethnicities...maybe because there's such a wealth of information online that they, themselves, provide. In those findings, I've been consistently noting, what I think is, a huge difference between many Asians and many blacks, and I've touched on it a bit before indirectly when writing about how nobody in the US is considered "American" except whites.

That difference is the strong desire to be seen as an individual first rather than as a race first.

Now, this is certainly not to say that most blacks don't want this. I get the sense that we just accept more than Asians do that it's not a possibility. I also think that Asians come to live under the illusion, when they surround themselves with whites who genuinely seem to like and accept them, that they are finally being seen as an individual and not in racial terms. And because of those experiences, they wonder why blacks harp on race or why blacks won't work harder to achieve what they, as Asians, believe they've achieved, the assumptions being that the efforts work just the same for blacks as for Asians...and, of course, that the efforts work. Again, this is not to say most Asians fall into this category or way of thinking or that most blacks don't. You will find a mix.

I have to say, though, that I don't personally know any blacks who don't put race first. I have come across blacks online who don't seem to do this, i.e. many black gay bloggers. And then there are blacks, of course, in my environment who seem to want to fit in just as much as I perceive the majority of Asians as wanting to do, particularly Asian females. But the blacks I know are very happy with being part of a black community they've carved out, identifying with these people, referring to them as family, talking about race and bringing up race with non-blacks they speak with. In a sense, a lot of black people's worlds revolve around race, even if they don't realize it.

As I mentioned in another post, my Asian friends and I tend not to talk about race. And the other day, I thought about how interesting it is that I have white friends whom every time I'm with them, not in drive-by situations such as seeing each other in the halls on the way to classes and speaking for just a couple minutes, we eventually discuss race. And they're willing participants in the discussion. You're talking about a group that tends not to be "raced" to the extent that minorities are, i.e. have no reason to think or discuss race because they rarely are forced to have the feeling that their race matters. And yet...it's easier to discuss race with them than with another group of people that is always "raced," i.e. Asians.

I love to talk about race. I don't think anything is wrong with discussing it, noticing it, pointing out differences, identifying with it, etc. In a way, I love being "raced." But maybe this is one of the reasons I don't really have as many close Asian friends anymore as I used to. I've realized that many Asians approach race in a completely different fashion than black people do, and many perceive blacks as having a victim mentality or complaining just for discussing race. Many are tired of hearing about race; let's just get beyond it. Let's work harder to be accepted. Or let's work harder to be seen as individuals. It's such an unrealistic, confusing viewpoint to me, as a black person, but it's hard to explain that, especially when the person you're trying to find words to explain that to is completely tired of these very kinds of conversations.

For blacks who don't particularly care to be seen as individuals, or who like that in theory but feel we're always seen as black first to others...that's what I relate to. I don't fight to change it, even as a mixed black person, because I don't see anything wrong with that, in and of itself. I think the ways race is used in society are problematic, but race itself isn't. I think race is great. Yes, you read that right. And I think race is great because it allows people to be individuals. Yes, you read that right, too. I think race allows people to be different in ways that are good. That's why I love being mixed. It's not about feeling better than other blacks; it's about "this is how I'm different" or at least one of the ways in which I'm different. And blacks get to say that, because so many blacks find themselves in environments where the majority of people are white. Same for Asians and Latinos. White people are the ones who, in my mind, get the burden of not standing out at all.

And I think a lot of white people actually do look at race that way, at least sometimes. You can tell by comments they make sometimes, comments that are oftentimes taken as offensive by minorities (for example, on one of Carmen's video pods, someone brought up how people will comment "I wish I were mixed" in response to their telling someone their racial mix). And I can see that. But I think what a white person's intention is oftentimes is to get across that there is nothing much special about being white. Of course, there is--socioeconomically, at least. But physically and culturally, in some people's eyes, as well as some other ways...some whites feel like they have nothing to offer.

And not to be racist, but I agree with that. In some ways, whites just don't have anything special to bring to the table. I think that some people spend too much time not seeing what's great about being a racial or ethnic minority, putting being white on a pedestal just because it's the mainstream or it's power. I know it seems like I complain about blacks and whites, or even Asians and Latinos when talking about issues such as immigration. But when it all comes down to it, I love that we have various races and ethnicities in America and that we focus on race. I think this is why I don't understand some of the Asian attitudes, i.e. the inner turmoil of bridging being Asian with being American, wanting to be seen as American and an individual, etc.

And up until now, I've been talking about what makes a group special, but I think that the group being special, in turn, makes every individual from that group interesting and special. Whites are a dime a dozen. How many white kids can you meet who all seem to like similar things, things that are associated with being a typical white person--or, as whites describe it--a typical 20-something? This is not to say all whites in their 20s are alike, just that since there are so many whites everywhere sometimes it will sure seem that way because you'll encounter more whites who have a lot in common, a lot of similarities in addition to more whites who differ from one another. In addition to that, you turn on the TV, pick up a magazine, go to school, go to work and there they are. They're inescapable.

On the other side, how many Asian kids can you meet who truly make you think all Asian kids are essentially the same? And by this, I mean from really taking time out to get to know various Asians, not just observing from a far or applying stereotypes. One kid will be a Korean American who is in touch with aspects of her identity from Korea, visits Korea. Another will be Filipino in essentially name only, couldn't tell you a thing about Filipino culture, has an American style of dress, hair, etc. Another is an exchange student from Thailand, has an accent. You know, I always thought that "diversity" arguments when it comes to college were bs, i.e. people from different races don't learn much of anything from each other. They just come to school and segregate. But I realized it's not totally true. I've been thinking about all the interesting things my Korean/Spanish college roommate exposed me to, things that I wouldn't have learned or appreciated otherwise and certainly wouldn't have if she'd been 100% assimilated into the white American culture, was never seen/identified as a racial being and never thought of herself as a racial being.

For me, the best memories of all the universities I've attended have been race-related. Being among the first good black friends a white female from a nearly all-white area had. Getting to know and having conversations with whites who have shown me that not all whites are completely naive about race in the US. Although I didn't like it, trying Indian and Korean food because of friends and roommates from those backgrounds. Learning more about the caste system in India. Being exposed to Korean music and Bollywood films. Becoming aware that blacks aren't the only people who can be racially mixed or who experience discrimination. A desire to learn an Asian language or two.

These are some of the good things that can come from being "raced." To me, we should take the good with the bad rather than trying to abandon these identities. Honestly, now that graduation is nearly upon me, I feel that one of the last things you go to school for is to get an academic education; it's all the outside stuff that teaches you what's important. There will come a day when I can't tell you what "in rem jurisdiction" is. Heck, who am I kidding--that day is essentially upon us. But I will always have some k-pop on the mp3 player or whatever new musical technology comes through. At this point in my life, there is very little I can learn from whites about being white. That has been shoved down my throat against my will for nearly 27 years. But the rest of us are kept so alienated from each other and so in the dark about each other. White people no longer interest me, and black people no longer interest me since I know what it is to be black. You interest me, as an Asian or Latino or Native American. What's so bad about that?

To me, you don't have to ditch race to be seen as an individual. I think every person's race--even a white person--is always kept in mind in interacting. I love my white friends, but they are always to me my "white friends." That never goes away, and it has absolutely no negative connotation attached to it for me. I'll never be seen as a writer first or an activist first, and that's fine with me. It doesn't mean I'm not an individual and am never seen as one. It's just that race is a part of my individuality, a part of how I differ from other people. To people who know me or know of me, I'm not always indistinguishable from other blacks or other mixed kids. And you know what? Really, are whites you don't know always indistinguishable from other whites? As an Asian, can you really tell me that you never see a black person and think of them in racial terms first and foremost, even when they're your friend? Okay then, why would you ever think people completely look beyond race with you?

My friends have several adjectives for me aside from "black" or "mixed," as do I for them. All my friends tend to be intelligent, outgoing, interesting. Some are cute, some are attractive, some are hot. Some are like family. Some are creative, talented. Who cares that I notice what's most visually obvious about them every time I see them or every time I think about them? Sometimes, their race is incorporated in a positive way. For example, when I think about my good-looking friends, I think about what makes them good-looking, i.e. physical features. For some, some of their most appealing physical features are thought to be associated more with certain races than others. Now, is that really all that bad?

I joke to myself about how if you ask an Asian person about their ethnic background, some will get upset; ask a black person, and they'll gladly start naming off each and every ethnicity they know of...some blacks even make up stuff. I think that, despite the crap we go through for being black, we still appreciate being black and appreciate how we're different. And we don't want it to change, and we don't ever want the "culture" to die, even if refusals to assimilate cost us a better position in society. Deep down, I think the majority of us know but haven't articulated that the trade-off is worth it. But that's the thing when you compare people who came to the US for completely different reasons. If you came here to have a better life, then that's what matters more to you and you'll do whatever is necessary to get it. What people don't understand about blacks when they compare us to Asians or put our way of thinking/living down is, aside from modern-day immigrants, that's not why we're here. We didn't come here to get what whites have; we're here so that whites can have what they have.

So, if you don't think like us, fine, but make an effort to see and understand the differences in approach before you insult them. I've seen people basically refer to blacks as being people who "demand to be given the world" or feel entitled, essentially--not in these words, but that's the implication--while Asians work hard to achieve. Again, you've got to understand the difference in history. I do believe blacks have an entitlement argument, but that doesn't stop me from doing the work. Will I work twice as hard or three times as hard as whites? No. That's part of my entitlement mentality. Working harder is, to me, tantamount to accepting inequality when there are ways you can be just as successful just the same way as whites despite discrimination, i.e. starting your own business rather than working in white-owned ones trying to "prove" yourself when others don't have to and still reaching glass ceilings.

In other words, I will work hard but I won't play things the white way, and I think more and more blacks--particularly black women--are starting to catch on to this kind of thinking, as well. Other cultures, having a somewhat different history with this nation and a different cultural philosophy, are more okay with playing things white people's way in order to succeed or fit in. And these are differences that are worth exploring and discussing. But, again, it's hard to have a discussion with people who want to forget racial differences.

I have realized that if I am going to work in civil rights and not be one of those black leaders who only thinks/talks about blacks, this will be one of my biggest challenges...

Ranking Oppression: An Exercise In Futility?

For the most part, my observation has been that people universally see no use in ranking oppression, i.e. saying one group has it harder than any other. As I mentioned in regards to white anti-racists, a lot of people are of the view that inequality is inequality and such distinctions don't matter. I argue that they do matter. Here are the two biggest reasons why:

You can be oppressed and also be an oppressor. The higher up on the social hierarchy you are, the more likely you're inescapably implicated in the role of "oppressor" daily.
Our hierarchy is more complex than people make it seem, usually because talk of a hierarchy tends to be confined to race and/or sex. But the hierarchy includes race, sex, class, sexual orientation, gender, age, religion, and so on. Because of this short-sight, we tend to talk about the oppressor as white and/or male without recognizing our own ability to oppress.

Being near the bottom of the hierarchy, of course, doesn't mean you can't oppress others at times. It's just that, for example, blacks being racist towards Asians or whites ultimately doesn't hinder their progress in the world, whereas Asian or white racism does keep blacks down. This is because of relative power, i.e. relative hierarchy position. You also have to look at identity intersections. Black men can and do oppress black women, but because they are men--not because they are black. A white transgendered individual can be oppressive towards blacks or Asians, but has this power because he/she is white. Even a black person who happens to have power, i.e. usually financially, can oppress others who aren't black but are lower socioeconomic.

Furthermore, people who are in a relatively better position, whether they realize it or not, not only oppress but have stake in it. This is another one of the reasons why I don't think various minority groups will form wide-scale, effective coalitions. Asians are where they are in society partially because blacks are where they are, partially because whites use Asians in the game of oppression against blacks and partially because of their efforts. However, Asians are still not equal to whites. In some ways, Asians are accomplices in their own oppression, and oftentimes this oppression works against other minority groups.

The most obvious example is the exaltation of whiteness by many Asians. Rather than working to break down whiteness and white privilege, they do things to hold it up, i.e. efforts to lighten the skin, alter the eyes, date/marry and breed with whites, become more culturally white, etc. And in the process, many will agree with white ideals for oppressing other groups, i.e. the amount of Asians who are against affirmative action or who teach their kids that only whites and other Asians are good enough to mimick, live among, have friendships or relationships with, etc, or carry forth these lessons received from their parents/the Asian community at large in their daily lives.

Regardless of whether or not an Asian person grows up to believe in equality for all, the overwhelming majority still act out these thoughts of blacks and Latinos not being good enough to interact with relative to themselves and whites (though many of these same people draw comparisons to blacks, quote W.E.B. DuBois and other black scholars when describing their experiences in the US, listen to rap music, "steal" elements of "black culture" and support Barack Obama). You'll almost never hear them say anything that indicates they consider blacks and Latinos "American" or romantic options like they do whites, yet they want these benefits from whites. In other words, they believe they should be equal and considered good enough but don't exactly seem to extend this same courtesy, resulting in indirect roles in and support for the idea that oppression of/inequality for blacks and Latinos relative to Asians and whites is correct or, at least, acceptable.

Knowing why people from other groups "hate"--or, more realistically, resent--you helps in the quest to lessen/eliminate inequality and discrimination.
We can't make people stop hating one another if we don't understand all the reasons why they hate. For many people, particularly those from minority groups, discrimination is rooted in the idea that the other group is more accepted by the more powerful groups in society and/or the fact that the other group is perceived as more powerful or advantaged. More people know this than they realize. For example, oftentimes when I visit an Asian American message board, someone has posted a news article about a black person attacking an Asian. And the ensuing discussion usually includes at least one person "pointing out" that blacks hate Asians because of the model minority myths--usually the Asian poster is listing off the "myths" as if they are "truths" that instill, apparently, a violent amount of jealousy in blacks.

At this moment in time, you're dealing with an Asian who doesn't particularly care about the stress that allegedly being smarter than everyone else places on many Asians, the fact that certain Asian ethnicities in the US are doing better than others, the fact that whites use Asians in white supremacist games against blacks and all the other arguments more observant/analytical Asians tend to make when they discuss why stereotypes are "just as" problematic to Asians as they are to any other group.

Well...whether or not there's any jealousy there or the reasons are as stated by Asians who believe in the model minority depiction, these statements sound somewhat similar to the truth. It's not that blacks really believe Asians are better than blacks or even whites, as whites and even some blacks will have us believe, and hate Asians accordingly. Rather, it's the fact that so many people buy into the idea of an Asian supremacy of sorts and allow it to affect that way they treat/accept Asians vs the way they treat/accept blacks in society. More specifically, we're talking about white people.

To give an example...I've mentioned that my mother does not like Asians and Latinos. I remember one of my white friends asked me why my mother doesn't like Asians when I mentioned it to her, and I explained it in a pretty succinct way, considering it's more complex than it actually seems. Succinctly? It's because white people treat Asians and Latinos better than black people. Now, to me, this is a reason to hate white people, not Asians, if you're going to hate people based on something like this. It's kind of like how your man cheats on you with another woman, and, yet, you're trying to kick the woman's @ss.

Basically, my mother notices the prevalence of interracial dating among Asians and whites--particularly Asian women and white men. She's one of those people who doesn't really consider Asians and Latinos born in the US "American," so the thought is always that "these people" can come from their countries and have whites "roll out the red carpet" for them, date them, be friends with them, give them all kinds of opportunities that are foreclosed to blacks even if the Asian or Latino can barely speak English or hates America/ns, sympathize with their struggles in their native lands and/or to achieve the American dream while this sympathy is not extended to blacks, etc.

And, to top it all off, "these people" have the nerve to think they're better than blacks. Blacks, who built this country almost single-handedly while whites sat on their @sses, only getting up to rape some poor black woman and beat some poor black man. Blacks, who were born here because they were brought here against their will, rather than coming here of their own volition simply to take from the US, not to give to it. Blacks, who have been here and have been fighting for their rights for over a century, yet still keep seeing people from other nations come right on in and, immediately, they're ahead of blacks on the social hierarchy.

And you know what? I have to agree. I can totally see this pissing any black person off. People from other countries do come here and get all these advantages and acceptance while looking down on blacks and blaming blacks for their own place. Blacks did and do contribute so much to the US while whites generally get the credit. I even agree that people who immigrate to the US are essentially looking to take from the nation--that's what the American Dream is all about, in my eyes. What I don't agree with is blacks were the only ones who built the US, that other people didn't and don't contribute to the US, that Asians and Latinos born here are not more than just more outsiders who are taking from nation, or that--aside from their racism--Asians and Latinos are to blame for this.

Still, the point is: this is how some blacks feel; what to do about it? See, ranking oppression is not the divisive act. The divisive act has already occurred, and ranking oppression is all about pointing the divisive act out. To me, if you understand why tensions exist between blacks and Asians or blacks and Latinos, i.e. we don't like them because they get everything that we still deserve but don't get, then and only then can you start figuring out how to resolve the tension. I get the sense that so many people think that knowing racism and discrimination exists is enough and that we can dive right in working on the issue just based off that limited knowledge. That's not good enough.

And it's certainly not good enough to brush off other people saying, "hey, this, this and that happens to black people and it doesn't happen to Asians." In other words, trying to deconstruct privilege without recognizing your own or why you have that privilege is not going to work. Simply blaming or going after whites is not going to work just like blacks simply blaming or going after Asians and Latinos is not going to work. You have to look at everybody's role. And, as I said, anybody with any privilege has a role in oppression. Therefore, you can't be committed to equality without being realistic about the different types of inequality, who creates it, who participates in it, how they participate, etc. In other words, inequality is not just inequality regardless.
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In discussing this topic, I discuss Asians vs blacks more because the piece that inspired this topic was on an Asian site and someone had basically made the point that blacks were worse-off than Asians, to which someone responded that people shouldn't really get off into that kind of thing. My response was that there are times in which it's useful and times in which it's not. Personally, I think that when people say we shouldn't talk about who has it worse, it's usually to save themselves from facing their own privilege and, thus, feeling bad about themselves...or, if they are the less-privileged, to keep from having to think too much about how bad their position really is relative to others who are not the typical white straight male enemy that I pointed out many of us like to focus on in these discussions. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why people tend not to like the argument that immigration is bad for blacks, along with the popular idea that minorities cannot or should not be discriminatory because they experience discrimination.

Asian Males, the Media and Interracial Dating

So, I've touched on black/white and Asian female/white male interracial combinations. Let's talk about one of the least discussed match-ups: Asian men interracially dating.

Whenever I do read something about this topic, it usually puts Asian men in the same boat as black women. However, I think the Asian male case is more bleakly forecast than what's happening in reality simply because of the perceived influence of media portrayals of Asian males and the comparison to how Asian females are doing in relationships. Admittedly, I wouldn't know what's really going on. My perception just has been that, in heterosexual relationships, though Asian men are less in demand than Asian women, whites as always and now even black men, they are still able to attract white women and some Asian women, as I see Asian men with white or Asian women all the time. In queer relationships, it seems that the script is almost entirely flipped--Asian men are very much in vogue, essentially getting the same kind of attention as Asian females get in hetero relationships.

Another thing I must admit is I'm not very educated on the media stereotypes of Asian men. I can count on one hand the number of movies or TV shows I've actively watched that had Asian males in them. I do notice, though, that Asian males don't play leading roles and that they are often somehow involved in martial arts. What is this all about? Is it white racists in Hollywood? Is it a lack of Asian male actors or Asian males trying to succeed as actors? Is it typecasting?

Here's what I've noticed about how Hollywood--and, essentially, much of the US--works: you have to complain. White people hate it, but complaining seems to work for minorities in some cases. While there are many differences between Asians and blacks, one of the biggest differences I've noticed is that blacks complain, complain, complain publicly...and Asians don't. In fact, I've found that in order to find out about certain Asian issues and general sentiments/opinions among many Asians on various issues and current events affecting their group and others, it has really taken digging deep, going into spaces that are very specifically Asian...whereas if you don't know some of the things going on with blacks or how many blacks think on a topic, it's because you're not listening. With blacks, you're gonna hear it, whether you want to or not! With Asians...ehhhh...visit an Asian American message board, an Asian American journal/magazine, a blog about Asians by an Asian or a site devoted to Asian American issues.

So, when blacks aren't seeing enough blacks on TV, they let everyone know this is a problem...and then, sometimes, they demand to see a black character on a really popular show. This has happened with shows like "The O.C.," "Friends" and "Sex & the City." Oftentimes, blacks have their wishes granted...but not quite the way we wanted. For example, usually when "white" shows or movies stick a black character on, it's a black male--not a black female. And then these white writers and producers proceed to create storylines for these characters that kind of piss many blacks off, such as having the black male strike up a romance with a white or Latina leading lady rather than bringing a black female in (and worse yet, race is never an issue in these storylines), having the black character play a stereotypical role and/or meet a tragic end, portraying the black woman as needing a white male to save her or sex her up, having the black character play an extremely minor role such as the janitor/Principal/waiter or a character that is kind of like the @sshole or b!tch of the show, and so on.

Roles that seem perfectly harmless to the average white person result in all kinds of things that black people see. The black guy's a cop, but the cop is basically this nuisance to all the white characters, harassing your favorite characters unfairly rather than helping them. He's this dumb@ss who won't listen when the white characters, who always know more and are more proactive than the black cop, tries to tell him what's really going down. Ultimately, some white guy saves the day in the end, and the idiotic, useless black cop shows up a second too late to be the hero or just do his job. If you've never seen this before, just turn on pretty much any soap opera. These seem to be the only kind of black characters these people can keep on the show. Blacks in love, enjoying a normal relationship? Forget it. As soon as their contract is up--if they're even lucky to get a contract in the first place--their @sses are blown to kingdom come.

I've gotta tell ya, this is just like everything else with whites in this country--they do these racist things unintentionally and subconsciously. The average white person doesn't know anything about blacks or Asians other than the mass-produced images and stereotypes, so that's what they keep putting on TV and in movies (though because of Asian fetishes, whites tend to have more accurate information about Asians than blacks). They think they're doing something good by putting black men and Asian women opposite white characters in love stories. They think they're showing race no longer matters...which is, in itself, an ignorant thing to show since it's not true. This is not what they're showing us, though, right? They're telling us black women and Asian men are undesirable or incapable of playing lead roles (except black women who look white enough).

You can ask viewers and people in Hollywood who is sexy, and you might get a Lucy Liu or Sandra Oh on the list. You'll get the same standard black women, i.e. Halle Berry and Beyonce, but not Gabrielle Union or Angela Bassett. You'll definitely get black men like Will Smith, Denzel Washington and Taye Diggs. And, for sure, countless numbers of white men and women will make the list--in fact, all you have to do is say their first names and everyone knows who you mean: Brad, Angelina, Ben, Cameron. You'll even have Latinos (which I know Cameron is part-Latina), such as J.Lo, Jessica Alba and Mario Lopez on some lists. But how many times have you heard an Asian male counted among the hot? Aside from Jet Li and Bruce Lee, how many Asian males in Hollywood can you even think of? And by that, I mean men people know and acknowledge as Asian males, i.e. not Keanu Reaves or even Tiger Woods (not that he would make a "hot" list)?

Back to the Asian fetish thing. That tends to be more prevalent among white males, no? And white males are predominantly in charge of the entertainment industry, right? So, sure, they'll put an Asian woman on TV and have her be their sexual and romantic interest. After all, this is both consciously and subconsciously what white men want anyway. And these women are usually not all that "Asian." In fact...I'm not all that into TV and especially not into movies, but I can't help but notice that Lucy Liu plays a lot of "sexy" roles where she's always around whites and involved with white men. She's not that submissive Asian stereotype; she's the other one, the same thing Hollywood tries to do to black women every now and again. She's the sexual fantasy come to life, the f*ck toy. No doubt, once again, whites probably are off somewhere congratulating themselves for doing something good and "right" by showing an Asian woman as just as attractive to white men as white women are. So, Asian women get these stereotypes while Asian men get to either be martial artists or plain invisible, maybe sometimes breaking the mode to be that nerd-boy stereotype.

Oh, and let's talk about those nerd-boys! See, TV and movies aren't the only effed-up media. You know, it's sad when there are Asians out there who can really sing, but the one Asian to get a record deal and actually get the necessary exposure is William Hung from "American Idol." Asians have tried out for that show every season. One even made it to the top 3--Jasmine Trias. And Jasmine put out a CD (which I actually like, btw, and I usually don't like mainstream-sounding CDs that come out nowadays, so...) that, if you live on the mainland and watched "American Idol" when she was on it, you probably never knew anything about it...unless maybe you're Asian. But people in Hawai'i (where she's from), particularly the hapas and "full" Asians who live there, knew. Her music and voice were good enough to fit in with the pop/R&B that has been coming out over the past few years, but...oh, we get William Hung and Sanjaya. And then there are other talented Asians who have secured record deals here, but the record labels let them flop, like Coco Lee.

Kind of funny that the Asians they wanted to put out there were Asian males--the kind of Asian male that is "typical" in white and black people's eyes. William Hung was an engineering student at the University of California-Berkeley and totally looked like a geek. He had absolutely no singing talent. Sanjaya, while less typical of the Asian male in America's eyes, fit those stereotypes of Asian males being feminine and not having any creative abilities/talents. But, as I basically said, Sanjaya and Hung have gotten more love from "American Idol" and the American public than pretty much any legitimate Asian singer who has ever tried anything in the US. Why? It was funny to people. The Asian male is a joke to the US. They don't want to see any Asians who can sing R&B, but especially not an Asian male since there have been many Asian males who have tried out for AI but none of them make it to the top 10. Or do they?

What's the excuse for not showing Asian males as actors and good singers, other than wanting Asian females all to the white-man self and thinking all Asians can't do much more than math and science? Well, I do suspect that some of it is career selection among Asians. But that has been changing; the question is has/will the industry? Ask people who run Hollywood, and I suspect their explanation will be something along the lines of the public not wanting to see Asian males or to support their music, just like they try to justify releasing the kind of rap music they do and canceling shows that actually deal with racial issues by saying the public wants this and doesn't want that.

As someone who used to work in the music industry, all I can say is: it's a lie. The public doesn't really care who entertains them. They might care who's in their boardroom or even in their bedroom, but...make good music or good TV, and it's all good. None of us who were trying to make it in the industry as some kind of musical artist cared creatively what race someone was, and we all recognized talent when we heard it, regardless. I chased down several Asian singers, trying to get them to work with me, and I heard/interacted with Asian music producers who were intelligent and talented, not to mention had white clients. And, to me, the public does this weird thing where anyone who is a celebrity immediately becomes hot...which means get more Asian males on TV, and, like with Latinas when J.Lo first really got on people's radar with "Selena" and her own music, Asian males will probably be the new thing...both in the media and in society.

The industry has this totally new source of revitalization and trendiness, and they don't even realize it! J.Lo is the reason why I am forced to keep seeing Jessica Alba and Eva Longoria everywhere I turn around or why people care that Eva Mendes is now allegedly an alkie, and one Asian male actor or singer really could do the same thing for Asian men. Whether or not whites will get hip and cast more Asian males or if Asians will start to complain loudly enough about this issue, I think the same problems blacks experience after complaining about the media will happen to Asians, i.e. more Asian males in the media but in stereotypical and degrading roles.

Is the lack of Asian males--and the way Asian males are portrayed to date--in the media the reason for their lower position on the interracial dating hierarchy, at least for heteros? Well, I'm not a white woman, the group of women Asian men seem most interested in attracting interracially (and, for some, regardless), so I couldn't say. But I've seen a lot of talk over the past ten or so years that black women and Asian men should get together because they are the ones being left out in the cold. As I said, I don't think the situation is quite as bad for Asian men. But when I say I find Asians among the most attractive, that does include Asian men. I can't see how anyone would think otherwise of Asian men, despite the stereotypes (getting everything you know/believe about a group of people from the media is unfathomable to me).

But, as a black female, I never really think of them as realistic options because they seem to show the least amount of interest in black women of all the men from every racial & ethnic groups. I dated two Asian males roughly 10 years ago, but it's different when you're a teenager. The more conscious people become of race and racial issues, the more that seems to result in narrowminded-ness. Obviously to anyone who reads my blog, that includes me. Ten years ago, I wasn't hesitating or thinking anything of dating Asians at all. Now it just seems so impossible.

I've noticed that Asian males aren't free from the double standard I've discussed in other posts, though, i.e. they seem to feel negatively towards Asian women dating white men but they, themselves, would like to date white women. It makes me wonder, for the Asian men to whom this applies, would they feel differently if white women were as interested in them as white men are in Asian women? Although a lot of Asian women don't seem aware of/to mind/to believe that many white men who approach them have a fetish (and though some are aware and do mind, many seem not to attribute that to why guys approach them or to their fathers, if they're hapa, or their own boyfriends/husbands), I've noticed that men pretty much never care if a woman is not truly interested in him for who he is (perfect example being the way so many men try to use their socioeconomic status to attract women, essentially encouraging women to use them for money or their position in society, i.e. many white male/Asian female and white male/Asian male relationships, in fact). So, it seems, then, that white women having a fetish for Asian men would be quite ideal for Asian men.

More On Being Mixed

I found a couple new websites that have been diverting my attention away from schoolwork (if it weren't these sites, it'd be something else). Yesterday, I finally got fed up with reading about a white/Asian binary to the point where I went searching for sites that specifically addressed issues between blacks and Asians. I found a perfect site, and it has led me to so many great readings on other sites, in addition to the pieces on its own site. I'm going to comment on some points made in some of the readings I've done in connection with the site and its links.

Some Latinos Are Black
This point was also made, I believe, in response to a post on Blackprof about how Latinos do not/will not support Goodblack Obama, i.e. the two groups are not always mutually exclusive. Now...I discuss them as if they are, and so do most people. There are reasons for that.

First of all, one of the pieces I read was basically saying, at one point, that mixed blacks aren't really forced to choose black as their identity or only be seen as black because nobody makes Latinos do this or sees Latinos as black, despite many of them having mixed heritage that includes African descent. Then I saw another piece say something similar, i.e. Latinos aren't involved in the discussion of how mixed people identify, how they should identify, etc, even though they're mixed. They can get away with refusing to identify as black, so why can't mixed blacks?

These people didn't realize a couple really vital things about how society works. It really reminded me of the issue of Asians as "perpetual foreigners," and here's how: I explained before on my blog that, in general, (I believe) that when people ask Asians where they are from, they're doing so not because they don't believe that Asian individual was born in the US but because they don't know the difference between things like race and ethnicity, ethnicity and nationality, and so on. Furthermore, it is my belief that if you ask people what "ethnicity" or "nationality" means, they wouldn't really know. If they did, if you asked them the difference between some of these terms, they wouldn't know. "Where are you from" for Asians is really a very sloppily-phrased/termed way of asking "what is your ethnicity?"

Asking that doesn't mean we don't feel you were born in the US or are American, especially if you speak good English and we haven't bone-headedly commented on that to you. The answer people are looking to hear is that you're Vietnamese, Chinese, Korean, Thai, Japanese, or whatever...in terms of ethnic origin. And I'm sure most Asians know that, but they haven't made the connection to the question being more about ethnicity than nationality, not to say that I'm referring to Asians when I say people don't know what these cultural terms mean. I'm also sure that they and everyone else in the US who does know the difference among these terms has seen several times when the terms have been used incorrectly.

Well, another term that is used incorrectly all the time based on our lack of knowledge is "Latino," or "Hispanic" or even "Mexican." And I can't claim to be an expert on who is Latino or what that term means, but I know some of the ways it's used incorrectly. The most prevalent way, to me, is as a race. "Latino" is not a race, and I can't tell you how many people I've tried to explain that to and they still really don't believe me or remember. But because most people think of it as a separate race, they think of "black" and "Latino" or "Latino" and "white" or "Latino and "Asian" as mutually exclusive. But, indeed, most Latinos I've encountered in my life have looked no different from any of the white people running around the US. Racially, they are usually white, and I would bet that's the race they mark on the US Census.

But this is part of the reason why I use "Latino" and "black" mutually exclusively--more Latinos are obviously white than obviously black. And even though Latinos who look like George Lopez and Jon Secada--and probably even Tony Orlando--should send bells off in people's heads about their African heritage, it's still not obvious to most people that, hey, these guys are probably really black racially (via the one-drop rule), or at least mixed blacks, instead of just the "Latino" labels they use to evade the question of race. The other part is the racism among the Latino community towards blackness and darkness. There are plenty of Latinos who look like Lopez and Secada who refuse to identify as black or even refuse to admit to any African heritage, and lighter Latinos who know they have "black" uncles or grandparents but state very adamantly that those people are not black.

Latinos basically get a pass because of people's lack of knowledge, not because of something mixed blacks and Latinos have equal control over. Latinos merely exploit everyone's ignorance. I could never fervently disclaim being black or that my mother is black because I look too black, but because black Latinos have slightly different facial features than black people and nobody understands that "Latino" isn't a race they can get away with, in some ways, inventing a separate racial category for themselves based on mixed-race identity. They get to opt out of blackness, and they keep it their little secret. Makes you ask a question I've asked myself several times before in relation to myself: if other minorities physically could pass as another racial or ethnic group, would they do it?

"Mixed" As A Separate Race
There has been a lot of discussion and commentary about this. I saw about a year, maybe less, ago a blog post over at Racialicious about the consequences of developing a new racial category for mixed kids and identifying as "multiracial" on forms instead of as each race. I've also seen many people claim that, at least for mixed blacks, wanting a separate racial category is tantamount to wanting to move up in the world and be seen as distinct from/better than blacks. When I learned of this argument and when I read the link on Racialicious, I decided not to tell what I think about the issue. But here it is:

On a personal level, I would like a distinct racial category for all mixed people (i.e. one parent is a different race from the other), regardless of what they're mixed with. This is not thinking about benefits conferred on the basis of race or what it would mean in relation to other black people. I'm thinking about what it could mean for me. You're talking about somebody who feels incredibly uncomfortable around white people, especially white men, and alienated by black people, especially black women. So, for me, it's about personal social benefits, not hierarchies or the government. I used to think that maybe if all mixed kids had their own racial group, then we'd do like all the other minority groups do, i.e. create a culture, social and support groups, flock to each other and segregate from everyone else...only this time it wouldn't be alienating.

Unfortunately, I'm starting to see that the reasons why I'd want to be just considered mixed or multiracial wouldn't happen, most likely. I mean, there are social and support groups out there, but I don't think they're everywhere. I feel that the fact that we're not a formally recognized racial group makes it more difficult to find these sources or these people because they get swallowed into or submerged by the dominant, recognized racial groups--they don't stand out. This university is the first place I've been that I've known of a mixed organization, but I'm finding that there are still reasons to be alienated--like not being in the right program, not knowing anyone when you first attend the meetings and everyone else is already in comfortable cliques, being queer probably could still be a problem, and so on.

Frankly, I also just have a personal problem with ever using race to connect to other people. I just do. And I can't get over that. And I think, more than the fact that I'm defensive about what a group of blacks at a Black org meeting would say or do to me, or not fitting in at a Women's org that is full of white women, I feel so awkward in these environments because I'm aware that there is a racial segregation undertone that is, especially with the Black org, actually being celebrated. I think about the fact that I quite naturally have made friends in the past three years who are from African families, mixed black/Asian, mixed white/Asian, just plain ole white, just plain ole black, Southeast Asian and queer, and that's what I like. In fact, one of my white friends and I have a joke that we need to find a Latina or Latino to be our friend.

I understand needing your space because being black or gay can be alienating in this kind of environment, but, for me, being in all-anything environments is alienating. There is just never anywhere I go and feel totally comfortable/at home, not even mixed-race meetings, except home or when I'm having one-on-one time with a friend. I don't understand people who suddenly feel okay just because everybody in the place is of their sex, racial background or sexual orientation. I guess I focus more on the individual.

I've also realized that most mixed people would probably segregate even further than that based on their particular racial mix. Someone can be white and Asian, but that doesn't mean they think it's okay to date blacks or a mixed black person just because they are the product of an interracial relationship--and, honestly, their parents probably would have instilled that in them anyway like my parents wouldn't be happy about my bringing home an Asian or Latino/a. And they still might not be interested in having black or mixed black friends, or their interest might be more on finding other white/Asian kids because of the assumption that they go through exactly what they experience.

My approach to identifying racially is to identify both as mixed and as black/white French. I think the same could and should be done for forms. Identifying simply as multiracial or mixed raises the issue of denying a parent's background just as much as identifying as only black or white, or Asian or white, does, because the word "multiracial" or "mixed" alone doesn't tell you much. As far as mixed blacks trying to escape blackness or become better than blacks...all I can say is I thought this is what blacks already believed was the case. In other words, when black people talk about things like colorism...the issue of having white blood and how that benefits those blacks with white blood is implicit in the discussion. Is the problem having this formally recognized?

For some mixed black kids, I would bet snobbery is the issue. But for others, I think a lot of it is basically the situation I described for myself. And then there are other mixed black kids who don't have an immediate drop of white blood, i.e. mixed black/Asian kids. How does colorism come into play here, or is it just being exotic? With or without the formality, everything and everybody will tell you that at least mixed black/white kids are treated better by most people anyway. We're already a higher rung of people, along with light blacks who aren't mixed.

For mixed blacks who realize that, escaping black identity, at least for that reason, is not really the issue to us. We don't need a separate category to be better than you in the eyes of society nor the eyes of many in the black community even. We do need somewhere to feel totally accepted, a group of people to identify with completely and some kind of group unity or community to feel part of, and we don't exactly have this. Unfortunately, my recent thoughts shared above indicate that some of us, with a separate racial category, still wouldn't have this. This is not to say I've changed my mind on a personal level.

How I Became Aware of Race or Being Mixed
I really couldn't tell you. I have no idea. I bring it up because I've seen Rachel at Rachel's Tavern express interest in how kids become aware of or curious about race, and books about mixed kids sometimes seem interest in exploring these kinds of stories, as well. The first thing I remember is being in pre-school--maybe four years old--and recognizing that almost everyone there was white and I wasn't. If this was my first awareness of race, it was very subconscious. The other kids didn't seem to like me or want to play with me, but I didn't exactly know why. And I think that was when the brainwashing began...when I started wanting white friends more than black friends, thinking whites were more attractive, being mean to dark black girls sometimes and not liking my black mother. In other words, if my parents made any mistakes with me in terms of race, having me in that white pre-school was it. Mixed kids should always be in racially mixed environments.

And, honestly, you could say everyone needs to grow up in such environments, but there are groups of people it's more crucial to than others for identity's sake--first and foremost, mixed and transracially adopted kids; then black, Asian and Latino kids; then white kids.

I really don't know how I came to understand I was mixed. It was definitely earlier on, though, because I remember being in elementary school marking "other" on standardized tests and later seeing that a teacher had erased it and marked "black." Back in the day, you were either white, black or other on standardized tests, at least in the South. Maybe the teacher thought I was saying I was Asian...??? I know I had asked my mother if my father was white a couple times when I was really young, but I don't know around what age.

When he was six, one of my nephews started questioning race. But before that, my sister and her husband had been talking to them about color anyway. I can't recall my parents ever talking to me directly about my color. My sister's husband is black--dark. So, we have a first in our family--a dark-skinned black girl. Though my mother is darker, she's not "dark." Anyway, it seems like the kids sometimes like to compare their skin colors and say what other people's skin color is, another thing my family has never done. Twice, my nephew has indicated to me that he doesn't know or is confused about my color/race...which makes no sense to me. I am light enough to be the lightest person in my law school--and a lot of mixed black kids attend this school--and I have white features...but, to me, it's obvious I'm black, and I think it's obvious to most people.

But when he was six, he asked why my sister--his mother--was black and why I was white. Then probably about six months ago, at age seven, he and his sister were naming everyone's color--he called everyone to that point brown, as they were--and he asked me what color was I. I said I was brown, too, but I guess technically I'm not. My mother responds happily to crap like that, talking about how I look like an "Indian"--which, Native American Indian, no, Asian Indian maybe. She is happy that my sister and I are light-skinned, and she always tried to attribute my problems with black girls growing up to their being jealous of my skin color...which I guess I never really believed. My mother has tried to falsely pin, I feel, a color complex on my niece just because she noticed she's darker than others. It could be true--my mother would probably know better than I do since she's darker.

I would hate to think the brainwashing has started with them. But it probably has. They are always in white environments, except when they're at home. All of my nieces and nephews like me much more than family members of my sisters' spouses, who are all darker. I know some of it is they are not as fun. But I remember once when I was in college and I tutored at a majority black elementary school, I walked down the hall and I heard a little black girl say "her hair is so long!" in amazement. What the hell??? I have never had so many black people like me in my life, either, as when I tutored at that school--all little kids, many of them black girls looking at me with wonder. And it's probably for a sick reason.

It's Not Always About Choosing

With both a woman and a black man both running for President and being the frontrunners for the first time ever, an incessant amount of discussion, blogging, news reporting and commentating has been going on...to the point where I'm tired of hearing about the whole thing. Of course, it's not going to stop--it's only going to get worse. But one thing that really bothers me, perhaps the most, is this idea of choosing identities...and not just in the context of the election.

For one thing, take the fact that Oprah is endorsing Obama. Okay, everyone has to make this about Oprah choosing race over sex. Well, as I commented on AOL once to that argument, Oprah doesn't care about black Americans. I mean, she'll go build a school in Africa, but she'll also disparage black Americans in the process. I do suspect that race is part of the reason why she endorses Obama, but I also think it's the kind of black person he is. She wouldn't endorse just any black person because Oprah herself is not just any black person. Oprah is the kind of black person black people hate, and, indeed, most black people really can't stand Oprah.

In case you don't get it, it's the fact that she did go build a school in Africa and talks about helping blacks in Africa when there are all kinds of blacks in the US who could easily benefit from her assistance. It's the fact that she has a nearly all white [female] audience...because of the fact that her show has topics, guests and features books that basically cater to white women. So, no, we don't get the sense that she cares about or identifies with black Americans. Unfortunately, white people, being white people, can't see this and they yell "racism" towards whites and ignore that if she supported Clinton--as many seem to want her to do, or, at least, want her to have Clinton on her show--she would be doing...what? Would she being doing, in their eyes, the same thing, only this time choosing sex over race? I mean, could the woman possibly win for losing? Yet, some white people have the nerve to be angry with her over this or somehow think she's automatically supposed to side with sex.

Let's get this straight--the "normal" (read: not famous or rich) black people who support Obama overwhelmingly do so simply or predominantly because he's black. This is not Oprah's game. She has never supported a black candidate before, as far as I know and even by her own comments. She's supporting him because he's a "good black," or as I like to call him Goodblack Obama (pronounced much like "Barack," i.e. goodBLACK)...and I believe also because, like so many non-black people, she is, in my opinion, putting something new and "hope"--and for non-blacks their desire to prove they're not racist and neither is this nation any longer--above looking at political experience/longevity and who actually can beat a Republican. To me, the more I hear about Clinton and Obama going at each other, the less appealing either of them look...and the less "new" Obama looks than anybody else who has ever run for President. But, you know...the undertone of his being a change agent and taking things in a different direction relates a lot more to his race than anybody wants to admit. Suddenly, white is the face of evil and stagnation, even if it's feminine.

Even so, how would Oprah or my endorsing one or the other automatically translate into our choosing either our race or sex? First of all, Clinton nor Obama are Oprah or me. So choosing them isn't choosing my anything. Other blacks might identify with Obama solely based on race, but I don't. And I haven't planned on voting for Clinton simply because she's a woman. I just don't care that she's a woman. Honestly, if there were a white man running who had the best chance of beating a Republican into the White House, that's who I'd be supporting instead. There's not one running. And there's not a black female running--if there were, that way maybe Oprah and I could keep the public from sawing us in half, because her supporting Obama then wouldn't have to be about choosing race or sex and my supporting Clinton wouldn't be about that to everybody. The way things stand, if you're a black female you can't help but make the "wrong" choice to somebody, even if you're not making the choice they think/say you are.

And then there was this piece I read today. Now somebody's got to bring the sexual orientation angle into it! I mean, please! So what, now because I don't support Obama I've chosen sexual orientation over race? What...the...hell???? First of all, there is no way to make that choice, because none of these candidates truly care about gays or gay rights. So, much like with the example of the non-existent black female Presidential candidate, there is not the option of a solid candidate who represents us fully. You have no choice but to pick someone who doesn't care about that, regardless of race, sex or anything else. Just because other candidates might not have made that explicit, as Monroe claims Obama has...it's a silly distinction.

Second, there are so many other issues of importance than to make voting and endorsing all about one, even if that one issue is incredibly important to you. We all have to make choices when it comes down to voting in terms of having issues that don't neatly fit with a candidate's issues. Nobody is strictly partisan. I have many conservative beliefs, and yet I buck all those to vote Democratic--why? My liberal slants matter more to me, personally. I can live just fine without abortion being illegal or the right to shoot a gun at someone who invades my property, but I can't say the same about no affirmative action and high rates of unemployment.

And queers have to know that conservatives will do a lot more damage to the queer agenda in office than any Democrat--whether that person is Obama or not. And yet, much like 2004, a lot of queers will not see the forest for the trees and will refuse to vote...but will have the nerve to whine and whine and whine if a Republican gets back in office. Seeing the forest for the trees, though I can't say that I like or agree with any of the Democratic candidates, is the main reason I vote Democrat. I didn't like John Kerry, and I voted for him. If Obama somehow beats Clinton out...hey, I don't want him to be President, but I will vote for him because he's better than having McCain or Romney in office. All these minority groups who can't think beyond themselves or one issue shoot themselves in the foot ultimately.

Third, when will the dumb parallels between Asians and blacks and gays and blacks stop? I mean, sometimes the parallels make sense. But I don't think that because Obama is mixed and there used to be a law against interracial marriage that he somehow magically is supposed to get and support gay people. I get so tired of these dumb, overly-simplistic arguments. First of all, people act like mixed kids are, what, supposed to be ever-so-grateful to the Supreme Court? What do non-mixed people know about it? Many mixed kids, at some point in their lives, wanted to just be one race, and many more mixed people than that generally tend to identify themselves as one race only, as does society. It's not like we don't love our parents, but at the same time--more races more problems is a motto many mixed kids really could run around using. The major problem with a lot of these analogies is that the person raising them usually doesn't know much of anything about one part of the analogy, only seeing what's positive about it but never having to live the negatives of it. It's like white [gay] people with Brown vs Board of Education.

Second, I don't understand people's mentality on thinking being in the same/similar boat as someone else means you automatically understand or support them. Besides, Obama technically is not in gay people's boat. He was the beneficiary of an interracial marriage--he didn't engage in one, per se. As I've explained my theory several times before, it usually tends to mean the opposite because we create so many hierarchies based on differences and being treated differently ourselves. I wouldn't automatically attribute any opposition Obama has to gays to his being black, as approximately half the white population has a problem with homosexuality, as well, and so do many Asians and Latinos--facts that white gay racists conveniently like to forget or ignore.

And you can argue that being a racial minority should somehow breed more sympathy for gays on his part. It's just that, from my perspective, since being gay isn't exactly like being black, it's easy for a black person to take what's different about being gay--i.e. the sexual act--and say that makes something gross or unacceptable about it that isn't there with blackness or interracial relationships. The fact that it's similar to arguments made about blacks and interracial marriages in the past doesn't matter--it's still a different type of people wanting something that is different in some way from what these people wanted in the past. I'm definitely not saying it's right, but I'm not bothered if he can't relate to me as a queer person because I recognize that's it's not as similar as so many people would like to think. After all, white gay people don't understand blacks, and I don't understand white women, but we all had/have our struggles for equality. The bottom line--the fact that rights are involved and being treated badly based on differences--is similar, but that's about it.

And then, not dealing with politics--being multiracial is often, to other people and sometimes to the multiracial individual, about choosing one identity over another. And being a queer minority is often, to white gays, about choosing race or sexual orientation. And, last year, when I was involved with a Women's organization on campus, they framed the lack of black, Asian and Latina female membership in terms of choosing race over sex. As one black woman angrily pointed out to me, the black women were not "choosing" race over sex. If they wanted to be involved with the Women's organization, they would be. They hadn't even thought about the sex aspect, and this is often true with black women.

We don't arrive on campus saying, "hmmm, do I want to join the Women's org or the Black org? I pick the Black org!" It's not like we can't be involved in both. Many black women will arrive on campus and automatically not even think about the Women's org. While the white women are sitting around acting like this is a big problem or wondering what they've done alienating, the black women are off happy as can be at the Black org event. And if the Women's org has an event that's interesting, the black women will go--not because it's about women, but because it's interesting and personally relevant.

Another reason why it's not a choice--and this is true with sexual orientation and multiracial identity, as well--is that we already have an idea that we're not truly welcome in these spaces. In that sense, we haven't really even been given a choice, i.e. it's the black female President again. Face it, the best chance for a black woman to fit in somewhere is a black space; a queer black person, a queer black space; and a mixed person, a mixed space. Out of these three groups, mixed people probably do more "choosing" than anybody, but they probably wouldn't if people weren't asking them to so frequently. For these other people, why everything has to be a grand, indirect statement of choosing identities is beyond me.