white model dressed as an Indian
black model dressed as a Korean
So one one of the seasons of America’s Next Top Model they had a photo shoot where each model was dressed as a different ethnicity for a Got Milk advertisement. My question to you, is this yellow face and black face and racist or is it art?
white model dressed as a Native American
My friend Angelina and I always make a joke that she finds broken people. She finds people that have abusive fathers and low self esteem and she kind of just, mothers them? That might not be the right word I’m looking for, but you get the jist. Its literally like they just flock to her. I was talking to her one time and I told her that I was her only friend that wasn’t broken. Her face grew confused and she kind of just stared at me before she said, “Dude…your brother died when you were 8. You might be the most broken of them all.”
I’ve never seen myself as broken. I mean, I’ve been through some shit, who hasn’t? But I never really thought it broke me. Like she said, I was 8 when it happened. And it wasn’t like he was murdered or had some terrible disease. He was 12, and he got hit by a car on his way home from summer school. The end. And people always tell me that they’d never guess that I been through anything like that. Like I’m too happy to have had any hardship in my life.
I think that’s why I’m so happy.
I learned early on that life isn’t fair. That your entire world can turn upside down in the blink of an eye. And maybe part of the reason why I’m so happy is because I know that it can end at any moment. And if I’m being honest, I get scared when things go right for too long. At the same time though, I went through the worst thing I could possibly go through before puberty. I hit my lowest point when I was still in elementary school. And guess what, I made it! I mean seriously, how much worse can life get? The way I see it, life can only get better.
I guess I didn’t know I was different until my first day of Kindergarten.
Between the ages of 3 and 12, I lived in a white bread suburbia of Everett, Washington called Mill Creek. At the age of 5 I started at Silver Firs elementary and I was so excited because I got to go where my older siblings went everyday! I didn’t have to sit in the kitchen eating my cereal and watch them leave.
I remember standing in line with my mom and all the other kids were crying and I didn’t understand. Like, hello? Didn’t they know that THIS WAS THE FIRST DAY OF THE REST OF THEIR LIVES!? Okay, I didn’t know that either but the point is that I was excited.
So I’m standing there and the teacher comes out to walk us to our classrooms and I totally left my mom and didn’t look back and I was all like, ‘yeah! toys and other kids!’ I remember she sat us on the carpet in a circle to go around and introduce ourselves and I remember looking around and noticing that no one else had skin like mine. And then it got even more weird when it was my turn and I said “Imani” and they all kind of stared at me like ‘what kind of name is Imani?’ Anyways, it was one of those things that kind of just stayed in back of my head until it was blatantly shoved in my face like…every single class photo taken. I was that random black spot in the front row.
Then in fifth grade a boy called me and my friends (a girl who was half black, half white and another girl who was literally from Africa) the N word. And I was so taken a back it was honestly all a blur. It was like..he said it, then we all stared at him and asked him to repeat himself and he said it again! Then next thing I know I’m throwing his shoe across the street and my friend is chasing him downhill on his bike. And then we all got in trouble for fighting and got detention but nothing happened to him.
I moved to Bellingham (another white bread town) when I was 12 and ONCE AGAIN I was 1 of like, 15 black kids, tops in the whole middle school. And people started calling me Denzel because my last name is Washington and a kid asked me to explain a 50 cent song to him. Which is ridiculous because I was obsessed with Blink 182 back then… but people didn’t see that. They just saw my skin.
So to the public I was just this black girl. But my family saw me differently. I’d say I was the black sheep but that’d be wrong. I was the ‘white sheep’ in a herd of black sheep (get it). I was weird because I’d rather read a book than watch TV. I wanted to learn how to snowboard so I was ‘white’. I owned a long board so I was ‘white’. I listened to more Sublime than rap so I was ‘white’. It was like in the movie when Ben gets called a coconut. I had that too except for people like me, we’re ‘oreos’.
I get what its like to feel out of place everywhere you go.
It’s weird and confusing. Like to yourself…you’re just you. You’re skin color doesn’t define you. I could describe myself with ten different words and not list ‘black’ once. It isn’t the most important thing about me. It isn’t the only thing about me. Yeah, I’m black and I’m so proud to be! I come from a culture of struggle and determination. How can I not be proud to sport this ebony skin? But I’m more than that. I’m an author. I’m an animal lover. I’m not a morning person. I’m funny. I’m a sister. A daughter. And aunt. A college student. I’m struggling. But I’m grateful.
I’m Imani Kashala Shanyce Washington.
This reading showed the history behind the racist words that have been used towards Asian Americans and it also connects them to more recent racist beliefs. From Walt’s favorite slur “gook” to the model minority myth, there have been many words and phrases with powerful and demeaning intentions aimed at the Asian American population. These all carried different messages but they all found common ground in singling out the “people from the Far East”. Oriental was used to create distance between those in Europe and the outsiders that were seen as exotic and foreign. Once the people who were seen as foreign became immigrants, however, they were all of a sudden seen as alien. So basically, if you are a tourist then America wants you because America wants a good image of having diversity and exotic displays, and if you are planning on staying, you are an alien who has come to take our jobs, steal our women, and pollute our country.
One example the book used was the anti-Chinese feelings that arose during the gold mining years in California. Much like the Japanese, Chinese people had come to the east coast long before WWII. These Chinese immigrants were given jobs on the railroads, mining, farming, and other manual labor jobs. They were discriminated against for several different reasons. One assumption was that the “arrival” of the Chinese was dropping the price of gold, even though many Chinese immigrants had already been in America and had nothing to do with the control of prices for gold. The term “coolie” was given to the Chinese workers and was used to justify the belief that the Chinese workers were “unfree and servile, a threat to the white working man’s family”. (9) Asian immigrants alike were portrayed and thought of as being more primitive than the white population, very similar to the train of thought that was used to further support the enslavement of African Americans.
As time progressed, a new model minority myth was born. It was the idea that Asian Americans are smart, good at math, quite and subservient, etc. This was falsely believed to praise Asian Americans and their success, but all it really does is create a glass ceiling for Asian Americans, take credit away from their successes, and pit them against other minorities. This belief was founded on the idea that Asian Americans were the best group at assimilating to American culture which is both untrue and extremely damaging. For example, as we learned last quarter, the Japanese American population did their best to preserve their culture during their imprisonment as a form of resistance. The later generations have also been looking into the history of their families and digging up the stories of their parents so they do not go unheard. But despite the truths, we continue to see these Asian stereotypes played out in popular culture today. In the early 20th century there were many anti-Chinese songs, some of which were in the book, and now we see things like the recent episode of How I Met Your Mother.
Better Luck Tomorrow showed that not all Asian Americans are quiet, obedient people. It did a great job portraying suburbia and the not-so-studious behavior of the group but I was expecting the movie to maybe challenge the model minority myth more outwardly. If I remember correctly, there weren’t many racist words thrown out compared to Gran Torino but it instead just relied on the audience to realize what they were showing. If somebody watched the movie without thinking about what the story of Ben and his friends was supposed to challenge, then the movie could definitely miss it’s point.
“The Wrath of Fu Manchu” by Sax Rohmer
Dr. Fu Manchu is the 1913 creation of prolific English novelist, Sax Rohmer. Dr. Fu Manchu forever twined the mad scientist iconography with the figure of the Asian Other. Situated within its historical context, Rohmer plays off of white fears of the “yellow peril”. Significantly, 1903 marked the end of the Russo-Japanese War, the first time an Asian nation defeated a European power. Suddenly Western conceptions of Asia had to be reconfigured with Asia emerging as a geographic and cultural location from which to draw on for futuristic and or alternate temporalities.
Dr. Fu Manchu is a stereotypical Oriental fiend. His genius with dark sciences, biological, and chemical posit him as a threat to Western civilization. The stories of Fu Manchu popularized the law abiding West vs. the evil Orient as an archetype in movies, books, radio, and comic books.
“Race is a mode of placing cultural meaning on the body. Yellowface marks the Oriental as indelibly alien.” (2)
“This early definition of “alien” emphasized the unalterable nature of the foreign object and its threatening presence” (3)
For me I feel as though these two quotes go hand in hand together, the reason being is that because of the way Asians look, they are always going to be viewed as an alien no matter how assimilated they may become to White America. It shows that even back in the 1920′s and further, the Asian race has always been objectified, and viewed as a threat. Yet even now, in the year 2014, Asians are still being objectified and seen as a threat especially with the recent rise of the nation of China and the threats of North Korea. When Kim Jong-Il passed away in 2011, I heard from Korean Americans and read blogs from Korean Americans who were asked if they felt sad by the passing of Kim Jong-Il, even though they had no relation to him what so ever, but because they look Korean or because they have Korean blood in them, some people have tended to assume that they are related to a corrupted leader.
“Food habits, customs, and rules are central symbolic structures through which societies articulate identity; you are, symbolically at least, what you eat.” (38)
In this section, Lee discusses about how minstrel shows caricaturize the Chinese. From what I gathered from it, I felt like it was a way for White Americans to mock the Chinese and others who were more unfamiliar to them such as African Americans as well. Luke Schoolcraft wrote a song titled “Heathen Chinee” and not only does it satirize the Chinese language, but it also makes gross assumptions about the Chinese diet.
I see this connection to the modern day culture with Asian cooking because not only am I still asked by dense people about whether or not I have tried dog but also there’s been this incredible rise in the popularity of Asian food such as sushi or pho. Even though most people come from a place of appreciation for the food, I have noticed that they tend to make assumptions about my everyday Japanese diet and am asked if sushi is something I eat on a daily basis with my family. There was one time in particular when I was riding the bus with a friend from Japan and someone on the bus noticed we were speaking Japanese, he began telling us that some years ago he had traveled to Japan and when he went, he visited Kyoto which is well known for their grilled foods like Takoyaki (octopus dumplings) and Okonomiyaki (savory pancakes), instead this young man tells us that he ate sushi every single day while he was in Japan including while he was visiting Kyoto. After that gentleman got off the bus, my friend and I turned to each other and said “mottainai” which roughly translates (within our context of use) “what a waste”. I make this connection because even though what Lee describes in the book as a terrible assumption, in 2014, those sorts of assumption aren’t too far off from what they were back in those days.
“Chinese workers were not the ideal, docile labor force the employers had hoped for.” (66)
“Within a few months, forty-three of them were summarily dismissed after rioting and attempting to murder their Chinese foreman…”(66)
“Chinese workers were themselves engaging in strikes and that many had left the plant.” (66)
Perhaps it’s the fact that I live in 2014 but so far anytime we have read historical texts about the experience of immigrants
Lisa, Bill and Ted’s Not So Excellent Kind of Awkward Adventure Slapping People
rioting at their jobs, I feel as though I have to throw my hands up in the air and yell: “Well what do they expect? If they keep treating human beings like garbage, regardless of what they look like on the outside, they are going to start a riot and get angry!” I just can’t wrap my brain around the idea of someone back in those days saying “well we need to fire the Irish because they are rioting towards unfair treatment in the factory so instead we will just bring in a different set of humans, treat them the same way we treated the Irish and then cross our fingers and hope that all bodes well.”
The logic of seeing those who were not white and equating them to not being humans is so preposterous because at the end of the day, we all have a heart that beats and we all have emotions and we all have boundaries that can be crossed.
I wish I could go back in time with Bill and Ted and slap some of these people across the face for their logic in workers rights.
“Both mark the racial parameters that simultaneously created and constrained new possibilities for relations of desire, conflating the sexual with race, class, and gender formations.” (103)
I really appreciated the discussion in the book comparing and contrasting the stories of “The Haunted Valley” by Ambrose Bierce and “Poor Ah Toy” by Mary Mote. I was mostly appreciative of it because “The Haunted Valley” was about the murder of Ah Wee who was female whereas “Poor Ah Toy” was about the suicide of Ah Toy who was male. So reading about how the two compared with each other on how the controversy with love was more problematic because of their race rather than the fact that the relationship in and of itself is problematic.
I really loved that Lee points out that “…Ah Wee has neither voice nor agency while alive.”(95) Mostly because films in this day and age still have a hard time showcasing the inner conflicts within women and only giving them the choice of wanting a man’s love, when really women or human beings in general are just more complex than that.
I also questioned whether or not Fanny’s maternal love for Ah Toy is one of the first incidences in media where white people are portrayed as the white savior. Yet it’s also interesting that after Ah Toy is adopted by Fanny, he “…symbolically shifts him from an object of exchange, a commodity, into an imagined family member.” (100) I think it’s really sad that until someone who is white takes you in as their own, then that is when mixed raced people are no longer viewed as an object. However, with our current times, there has been an issue of interracial couples, primarily between whites and other ethnicity’s, that receives criticism because the person of the different ethnicity is seen as a trophy to their white partner. So even with Fanny adopting Ah Toy into the family, he isn’t really a part of the family especially when Fanny gets disgusted by his gestures.
Throughout the first 105 pages of Robert Lee’s book entitled “Orientals” I have made several connections, the first pertaining to the film Gran Torino we watched last Tuesday in class. The main character Walt who was a tough and gruff Korean war veteran with a hard exterior, was constantly displaying his racial prejudices through his use of derogatory words. Such words directed towards his Hmong neighbors as “Gook” and “Zipperhead” were commonly used in his vocabulary when discussing the Asian community. It can be assumed through his actions that he bought into the stereotypes associated to the Asian-American community, and thus resented their community. However the biggest connection was his dislike for them due to their presence in his once white community. When the immigrants from Hmong replaced his white neighbors and caused “Pollution” to occur in his prototypical “All American” neighborhood the connection can be made between Lee’s comments on the “Oriental,” being a “Pollutant to American society. As Lee states in his introduction under the section “The Six Faces of the Oriental,” “…the pollutant, the coolie, the deviant, the yellow peril, the model minority, and the gook- portray the Oriental as an alien body and a threat to the American national family (Lee,8).” This idea as the Asian community being a pollutant to American society is just like Walt’s situation early on in the film “Gran Torino” as he blames the Hmong community for polluting his neighborhood.
I have also noticed that through American history people dislike those that are different in appearance, but also those who bring competition. As expressed throughout the reading of Lee, you see that white workers, in particular the Irish, have this extreme hostility towards the Chinese because they are willing in many circumstances to work for cheaper wages. This competition is a constant cause for discrimination and hate between different races. It was even apparent in last quarters reading in regards to the call for Japanese Americans to be interned following the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The Japanese community was becoming prosperous, and therefore financially impacting the white community therefore causing resentment. However it is odd that people direct their hostilities and hate against the race or ethnic group of which they are economically competing against, and not towards those in positions of power who are using their powers too divide the laborers and pitting them against each other for their own benefits. This thought crept to mind especially after hearing the hate the Irish workers felt towards the Chinese community and the use of the Chinese as strike breakers which can be seen in the case Calvin Sampson’s soling factory when Irish and French Canadians went on strike(Lee, 66). Furthermore both groups have been noted throughout the reading in Lee to have gone on strike in many instances. But instead of resenting each other why did they never band together? Would that have made a difference and enabled both groups to earn better wages and treatment?We will never know for sure, but it is interesting to think about, and I ask any of my reader’s to comment on this idea and give me their own thoughts and impressions on these questions.
Couldn’t resist posting a few of my brain-droppings– those things that come to mind during class, but aren’t necessarily useful to mention at the time.
Click here to view the embedded video.
I may have to add lizard and Spock to my categories…
Last week our seminar was talking about isms; is it any surprise this was the first thing to come to mind?
Click here to view the embedded video.
And finally, the trailer for the film that I really, really want to watch in class– the one which I believe defines the genre:
When the common person thinks of a pro-video game player, the idea of extreme stress and hardships doesn’t come to mind. The US Government recently accepted professional video game players as athletes. In an NPR article Alan Yu covers the story of a South Korean player who becomes recognized as an athlete and can receive a visa to travel to the United States for tournaments.
This sounds all nice and dandy yet these young cyber-athletes have schedules similar to sweatshops if they wish to be the best. Why would they want to be the best? Sponsorships, money, personal glory, or any other generic goal could be the reason. Regardless, the price of such competitiveness is steep. Long hours, injuries and unhealthy habits permeate the gaming world.
What kind of injuries could one get from sitting at a computer all day? It isn’t an uncommon occurrence for professional Starcraft players to suffer from wrist and hand injuries having to go through surgeries and other treatment. These injuries are caused by severe overuse of the hands on the mouse and keyboard for hours without break. In Starcraft in particular APM or actions per minute is an important value for a pro to be able to play optimally, a common APM for a professional is easily above 200 and can spike at much higher values. The APM is tracked by how many buttons are pressed or mouse clicks are used to control their units in the game.
Though these mostly teenagers must endure the injuries if they wish to remain relevant in competitions. In regards to age, many aspiring professional gamers will skip out on high school, fall behind on studies or just quit school all together in order to hone their skills at whichever game is the focus. To them, school is the distraction to their passions and it bars the road to success.
There are plenty of other risks that are a part of pro-gaming but it doesn’t stop all the wannabe pros from potentially ruining their future and health for the chance at a few years of limelight. The professional lifespan of the average video game superstar is extremely short, if it gets started at all. “There is always a new FPS, RTS, or MOBA, however, and as time marches on so do the preferences of the viewing public. As such, while many pros attempt to make the transition from title to title, at some point the last title which they were relevant fades from the public’s attention and now they’re faced with the rest of their lives. …Most however leave eSports as they came in; without an education and without much money, the difference being that now they are several, sometimes many years older and far behind their former counterparts from high school or college.” This quote by Kelby May from iBuypower blogs further shows the dangers of getting in the gaming business.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2013/12/15/250793493/u-s-recognizes-a-south-korean-starcraft-player-as-an-athlete
http://blog.ibuypower.com/2013/09/3298/
Erik Spoelstra is not only the Miami Heats head coach (my favorite team) but he is the first Asian American basketball coach. He is Filipino-American. Erik grew up in Portland Oregon where he played basketball in high school and college. At University of Portland he was named west coast freshmen of the year. After college he went to Germany to become a player/assistant coach. When he came back to the states he took an assistant coaching position with the Miami Heat, coaching under Pat Riley. When Pat retired in 2008 Erik took over the head coaching position and became the first Asian American to be a NBA coach and to win championships both in 2011-12 and 2012-13 seasons.