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The Autodidact’s Guide to Hegemony

My post of a couple of days ago, Why I Write What I Write, was my autodidact‘s first stab at tackling the concept of cultural hegemony. I know that’s a big, complicated idea, but I think it’s pretty key, and have ever since my brief and tortured attempt at college in my early 20s helped me name the experience.

Webster defines hegemony in a couple of ways, the more useful to my mind being, the social, cultural, ideological, or economic influence exerted by a dominant group. But cultural hegemony is more than just influence. The lazy man’s … Read more “The Autodidact’s Guide to Hegemony”

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Why Reports of Diversity Going “UP” Aren’t All They’re Cracked Up to Be

A March 14 Media Matters story entitled How Chris Hayes’ Show Differs From Other Sunday Shows In One Chart offered this info-graphic to support their contention that Hayes’ weekend TV political magazine, Up, “has provided much-needed diversity“ of race and gender to television political programs.

Echoing this sentiment, Tanehisi Coates chimed in on March 18 with an article in The Atlantic, What Chris Hayes Means to the Debate, calling the Media Matters graphic “a really important illustration of Up With Chris Hayes contribution to ‘The Debate.'”

Now, I’m not trying to minimize the accomplishment indicated by the graph. … Read more “Why Reports of Diversity Going “UP” Aren’t All They’re Cracked Up to Be”

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Why I Write What I Write

I’m often asked why I write a race blog. I get why folks ask the question. I would get more looks by writing about food justice or climate change, and I know a little something about those subjects, too. Yet I write about race. Why?

I grew up in rural Hawai’i. My childhood and young adult years were spent in a community that was almost entirely made up of people of color. White people owned most of the land and dominated the economy, but in little towns like mine, they were extreme minorities and treated mainly as outsiders.

When I … Read more “Why I Write What I Write”

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More on Asian Privilege

My post yesterday about Asian privilege got me thinking about the complexities of being Asian American. Blog length articles just don’t cut it when it comes to trying to tackle that subject matter. There are always ideas that just don’t fit within my self-imposed 850 (more or less) word limit.

For instance, while I believe Asian privilege is a real thing, it certainly didn’t protect the seven people murdered when a racist opened fire on members of a Sikh gurdwara in Oak Creek, Wisconsin last August. In fact, post-9/11 Islamophobia has imposed an experience of racism on South Asians in … Read more “More on Asian Privilege”

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Challenging Asian Privilege

Remember the Asian F episode of the TV series Glee? Given it’s name, I definitely caught it. In it, the character of Mike Chang (Harry Shum, Jr.) get’s a A- on a chemistry test and his father loses it, demanding that he quit his girlfriend and the glee club. Apparently, A- is an Asian F. Mike’s girlfriend is also an Asian American burdened with Tiger parents demanding nothing less than perfect grades and money machine career aspirations.

The Glee writers deserve a little grief for this episode, but I’d go easy on them. They are, after all, no … Read more “Challenging Asian Privilege”

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Johnson: The Movie

I just returned from a week of vacation. That means I’m just catching up on the Oscars.

I was surprised to return to find that Lincoln didn’t do as well as many entertainment media pundits predicted. After all, even the likes of Senator Barbara Boxer claim to have seen it twice, and once in a White House movie night apparently intended to remind members of Congress of the nobility of compromise. Movies with that kind of gravitas generally do well in the Oscars race. But not this time. Good from my point of view because I frankly hated Lincoln…the movie, … Read more “Johnson: The Movie”

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Revisiting Blackness Is the Fulcrum

No other post on this site drew as many eyes as this one, I suppose because it speaks to a fundamental truth when it comes to how racism functions and why it has been able to survive for so long.

I’m often asked why I’ve focused so much more on anti-black racism than on Asians over the years. Some suggest I suffer from internalized racism.

That might well be true since who doesn’t suffer from internalized racism?  I mean, even white people internalize racism. The difference is that white people’s internalized racism is against people of color, and it’s backed … Read more “Revisiting Blackness Is the Fulcrum”

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Sniffing Out Racism: A How to Guide for the Uninitiated

Happy Thursday! I wrote this one a while back and thought I’d share it now as the civil war going on in the Republican Party is causing a few of its fringier elements to allow their racist roots to show. You’d be surprised at how little it takes to ferret out some people’s racist credentials and affiliations as in the case of this KKK quoting birther and now Chair of the House Immigration Reform Caucus.

Surprise! The National Review is firing another writer for racism.

According to National Review editor Rich Lowry,

“Unbeknowst to us, occasional Phi Beta Cons contributor … Read more “Sniffing Out Racism: A How to Guide for the Uninitiated”

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Immigrant Rights are Human Rights/No Human Being Is Illegal

Here’s one I wrote a while back that I think is particularly timely now. When we forget history, we risk becoming its victims.

A few years ago, a former Mayor of Portland, Oregon asked me the question, “why are immigrant rights human rights?” I responded with a clumsy jumble of words having something to do with the United Nations and about ten other things adding up to a total of about 11 too many ideas all poorly articulated.

5 minutes after leaving his office the answer I wish I’d given came to me. I ran it over in my head … Read more “Immigrant Rights are Human Rights/No Human Being Is Illegal”

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Constructing Race: The Pew Center and Asian Stereotyping

The June 19 release of the Pew Research Center report, The Rise of Asian Americans is generating buzz that is, frankly, giving me a headache.

The report summary opens with the following:

Asian Americans are the highest-income, best-educated and fastest-growing racial group in the United States. They are more satisfied than the general public with their lives, finances and the direction of the country, and they place more value than other Americans do on marriage, parenthood, hard work and career success….

Asian Americans trace their roots to any of dozens of countries in the Far East, Southeast Asia and the … Read more “Constructing Race: The Pew Center and Asian Stereotyping”