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HOT ASIAN WOMEN!

Alright, I know in Internets chronology I am a million light years behind, but how f*cking great is this “If Asians Said The Stuff White People Say” thing! Why am I NOT Jenny Yang’s stand up twin? Plus, all Dis/orient/ed Comedy needs now is a Korean American to complete its East Asian representation….

[youtube_sc url=”http://youtu.be/PMJI1Dw83Hc”]

All jokes aside, I got put on to this video from a few different people on Facebook, my friend who grew up in Utah and now struggles with this kind of nonsense in a very white area in the midwest, and Colorlines (thank you Jamilah … Read more “HOT ASIAN WOMEN!”

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What “Racial Equity” Does and Doesn’t Mean

An article I wrote responding to UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh’s Washington Post editorial, “How the Asians Became White ” ended up creating a bit of a flap. There was a flood of angry comment, most of which was deleted.

Note to readers: comments that begin with “you f**king Nazi,” or that refer to me as a “genocidal maniac” don’t ever make the queue because, well, comparing racial equity in employment to the Holocaust is not something I support. Genocide, as well, is not something to be trivialized. If you want to do something to stop genocide, I suggest … Read more “What “Racial Equity” Does and Doesn’t Mean”

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How The Asians Did Not Become White

In a May 29, 2014 Washington Post editorial “How the Asians Became White,” UCLA law professor, Eugene Volokh, argues that the claim that “Silicon Valley remains a white man’s world” resulting from a recent report on racial diversity in employment at Google overlooks the fact that 30 percent of Google employees are Asians, and in a manner he thinks is manipulative. To quote Volokh,

Google on Wednesday released statistics on the makeup of its work force, providing numbers that offer a stark glance at how Silicon Valley remains a white man’s world.
But wait — just a few paragraphs down, … Read more “How The Asians Did Not Become White”

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Blog Guest Bloggers

Growing Up To Be Like Yuri Kochiyama

She may be best known in the public eye for the iconic picture that shows her cradling Malcolm X’s head in her lap after he was killed in a Manhattan auditorium, but Yuri Kochiyama’s life and legacy stood for much more, especially to Asian Americans. Many of us learned of Yuri Kochiyama’s recent death, not from mainstream news outlets, which have yet to do her legacy full justice, but from one another. And we have had very similar collective responses: tremendous gratitude for how she influenced us, coupled with a redoubling of our commitment to the principles she lived by.… Read more “Growing Up To Be Like Yuri Kochiyama”

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Race Basics: The Trouble With White People

Despite U.S. Census projections indicating that whites will will no longer be the majority of Americans by 2042, racism will continue to be a definitive force in American politics.

Why? A growing body of research indicates that an increasing number of whites believe racism continues to plague us, but that whites, not people of color, are the new targets. That brand of racial denial appears to be inspired in no small part by the perception that people of color are taking over. And if that’s the case, white racial denial is likely to be reinforced as whites are relegated to … Read more “Race Basics: The Trouble With White People”

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Deeper Than Words: Donald Sterling’s Racism and the Model Minority Myth

By now much virtual ink has been spilled about the racist comments made by Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling. I’m not going to draw any more attention to that. Instead, I want to focus on a pattern of racial discrimination lawsuits against Sterling, and on the complex and critical role that Asian Americans play in battles over race.

More disturbing and worthy of bigger news than Sterling’s verbal faux pas are the civil rights lawsuits that his real estate business has faced. Sterling is best known for owning the Clippers, but his wealth comes from real estate investments he … Read more “Deeper Than Words: Donald Sterling’s Racism and the Model Minority Myth”

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Those Asian American anti-Affirmative Action Ads

That’s a screen shot of the most popular video circulating on the internet on Monday of this week. The video is pretty cool, but ultimately not a big deal, just some footage of a cat protecting a little kid from a dog attack. Sweet. I want a cat like that, don’t you? But if you look on to the left of the video link, you will notice something that might just be about to become a really big deal.

When you’re done cringing, you might want to read Wanted: Disgruntled Asian-Americans to Attack Affirmative Action, by Julianne Hing, published … Read more “Those Asian American anti-Affirmative Action Ads”

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Book Review: Soledad Brother

I remember years ago when I was a member of ACT-UP, a woman who joined the group reviewed our direct action plans and said something along the lines of, “All this militant stuff must make you feel manly, and I guess that feels good since you’re hated partly because people think gay men are like women. But, um, how’s that supposed to make me feel?”

I got the message, though I still struggle to live up to it. It made me look askance at the texts of the 1960s and 70s that, indirectly but nonetheless effectively, led me to the … Read more “Book Review: Soledad Brother”

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Repost from The New Yorker, “The Origins of ‘Privilege'”

Today on Joshua Rothman’s blog at The New Yorker, there is an interesting interview with Peggy McIntosh, one of the pioneers in the academic discussion of the concept of “privilege.” Here are some excerpts:

The idea of “privilege”—that some people benefit from unearned, and largely unacknowledged, advantages, even when those advantages aren’t discriminatory —has a pretty long history. In the nineteen-thirties, W. E. B. Du Bois wrote about the “psychological wage” that enabled poor whites to feel superior to poor blacks; during the civil-rights era, activists talked about “white-skin privilege.” But the concept really came into its own in

… Read more “Repost from The New Yorker, “The Origins of ‘Privilege'””
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Vijay Iyer on “Complicity with Excess”

If you haven’t seen musician Vijay Iyer‘s speech concerning “complicity with excess” that was delivered to the Yale Asian alumni, you should check out this article on the Asian American Writers’ Workshop site. It is, in a word, fantastic. Here’s a preview,

I’ve found myself right in the middle of conversations about race for most of the past 20 years. Now I’ve managed to maintain a stable and consistent presence in the jazz world; by any measure I’ve been one of jazz’s success stories, and at this point I have no bitterness; I just observe how things unfold. For … Read more “Vijay Iyer on “Complicity with Excess””