blackamazon:

zuky:

Esoterica: dumbthingswhitepplsay: ribcagerebel: so-treu: bankuei: tabulanonrasa:…

dumbthingswhitepplsay:

ribcagerebel:

so-treu:

bankuei:

tabulanonrasa:

the entire discussion on “Asian Privilege” and “privileges that Asians have,” is, from my perspective so far, completely dismissive and silencing of Asian women. and i’m still only speaking from a…

I’ve often seen calls for nuance and deeper context when faced with these impossibly challenging inter-racial-community discussions, so for whatever it’s worth, I’m just gonna jump in here to try and add a bit of that.

A succinct phrase which I’ve been seeing lately on tumblr (including in this thread) is “Anti-Blackness is the fulcrum of white supremacy”. It’s a good one and I believe it to be true. That’s why racism against non-Black people of color sometimes falls back on anti-Blackness as a defining source of derision: Arabs are “sand n——-s”, Asians (especially Filipinos during the US invasion) are “yellow n——s”, etc. Blackness operates as the baseline of racist oppression and both oppressor and oppressed measure other forms of racism against it.

Since these other forms are to some extent offshoots within white supremacism, adding nuance to the picture also means looking at variations and differences in differing racialized contexts. This means grasping that racism operates along more than one dimensional axis. Certainly, we can make an overall assessment that Black US Americans have it worse than Asian Americans on the whole when you take it all in; but we can also add more dimensions to that picture. 

I would say we HAVE to. For any real acknowledgement or WORK we HAVE to . The dimensions ( to me) are often adaptations to tactics and strategies and theories implemented as a response to hegemony. The virus adapts to the antibiotics. It creates new forms , so yes THIS section may have become treatable( not treated but treatable) but I promise you . PROMISE you somewhere in the back something else got swapped. 

For example, as many others have pointed out, when it comes to the police and the prison system, we can hardly even begin to compare the brutality and multi-generational life-destroying injustices faced by Black folks compared to Asians. When it comes to economics, once again there’s really no comparison as Asians are making money almost in pace with white people, whereas unemployment, unequal wages, and subpar housing continue to attack Black communities.

Turning to the sphere of US democratic politics, Blacks have far more power, representation, and organization than Asians, who remain severely under-represented and practically voiceless. Obviously the election of Barack Obama hasn’t undone racism by any stretch, but I think we can probably agree that the US is nowhere near ready to elect an Asian American president (imagine the birthers then!). 

This is a true thing. It just is and a good bit of it came from Civil Rights organization. And it’s something that real REALLy isn’t talked about. And it needs to be because and here is where I get intersectional with t. The effect of that increased US DEMOCRATIC POLITICAL power hasn’t done WHAT IT WAS PROMISED AND ASSUMED to BE DOING for larger economic, and social issues LIKE THE PRISON SYSTEM , WAGES EDUCATION. And that’s a huge as hell INTRA-RACIAL class issue, occurring SIMULTANEOUSLY with the INTER RACIAL issues. 

I think that the ECONOMIC PERSONAL gain in terms of MIDDLE CLASS asian populations ( because once again races can have economic classes  ) have something to do with this power and political condition . HMMM WHAT DOES THAT SOUND LIKE?

Then there’s media and culture, where Blacks (despite remaining largely subservient to white-controlled conglomerates) have thrived and in certain spaces set the standard for all artists, for example in music; less so in TV and film; more so in literature. Asians have barely even broken into those spaces at all. In the related field of professional sports, obviously Blacks have more than flourished, whereas Asians are largely blocked (go Linsanity!). 

The refusal to grant Asian/American athletes athleticism in ANYWAY SHAPE OR FORM . It’s ALWAYS ” cunning,practice, robotics , culture…” . Jeremy Lin example , there are videos of him playing flag football , where he CLEARS THE HEADS OF HIS COVERAGE to catch the ball. He is 6’2/3 and can dunk EASILY. I read an article about who he must of practiced that.  Folks do realize that fast twitch muscles DON’T WORK THAT WAY. There is a reason the jump shoes have been rebranded as muscle exercisers? You can or you can not 

And Black people are the mystical standard to be BEAT but not markers of excellence. Ahh the rant I have on percentages and sports stats and their upsurge upon integration as ways of taking back sports and how it relates to the obsession with the numerical valuing of bodies of color and bodies in association with bodies of color.

Oddly enough this is one arena where the stereotypes around intelligence are phrased the same. It’s never smart for a Black/Asian player , it’s cunning etc . Usually implying some sort of malevolence or danger.

When it comes to sexuality, we’re all fucked (hardy har, I had to get stupid for a second in this heavy terrain). Black women face the desexualized mammy stereotype alongside the hypersexualized jezebel archetype. Asian women have to deal with “me love you long time” and yellow fever and fetishization. Black men confront expectations of hyper-masculinity to the extent of criminalization. Asian men face emasculation. It’s not a pleasant picture.

*shivers * Yeah……. I would love , love love on wish list love to get together a group of reasonably conscious folks of color and talk bout how this plays towards giving certain classes and stratas leeway in some egregious shit sexually and romantically in dating ESPECIALLY in New York. There was book on it recently , but WOOOO! the stuff you see/hear/observe going to a bar, working with 20-40 year olds….

I could keep on going, but you get the point by now. Nuance means seeing more than one dimension and being able to simultaneously hold seemingly contradictory concepts in mind. Anti-Blackness remains the fulcrum of racism (and don’t get me wrong, I’m trying to be mellow here by not taking down some of the Asians who are pissing me off in this convo, simply because I don’t have time and I think what I’m saying here is more important); but you can look at these different contexts and dynamics and see that some spaces lean one way, some spaces lean another way, and that’s just how it is.

biyuti:

(I know I’m not supposed to post from work…but…)

The absurdity of decrying the conditional/relative privilege that Asians have while simultaneously pointing out one of the biggest… just. Gets me.

Because how does your brain process something so absurd?

For all the problems that Asians do have and experience, the fact that we are not criminalized for existing, that police don’t harass, stalk, and attack us, that we aren’t put into prisons, means that we clearly enjoy a certain level of privilege that Black and/or Latin@ and/or Indigenous people don’t.

Because for all that I don’t trust the police in their function as a tool of white supremacy, I have never, ever feared for my life because of them. I will not be shot for walking while Asian, even if my hand is near my waistband. I wouldn’t even be stopped and frisked, if I lived in New York.

If this is not a privilege, I’m not really sure the word as meaning anymore.

(Source: biyuti)

Asians are people of color, and we too have struggles.

jhameia:

vogueflo:

It upsets me when people forget that Asians have had a nasty history in this country and think that we have it all grand and dandy.

White people did not want any of us in this country for a long time (see: Chinese Exclusion Act), and any recognition of our culture comes in the form of wildly distorted appropriation, like “Chinese” takeout and the appropriation of Asian languages’ characters (because they look “cool”).

And hey, we all look the same, and all Asian cultures are pretty much the same even though they are all distinct and unique from one another.

We don’t get taken seriously unless we are smart, and god forbid if you can’t speak English. Kids think it’s okay to make squinty eyes at me and yell, “Ching chong chang chong” and “Ai-ya!” at me. I’ve been looked on as a communist who wants to take a gun and shoot all the white people in this country. The expectation of society is that either we are making great advancements in science or we are running laundromats and nail salons.

Asian actors and celebrities are far and in between, and the actors usually only play stereotypically Asian roles or roles in Asian-centric films. There are painfully few Asian politicians and leaders in the Western world, because while we are a majority in number in the world, few of us actually have a voice that matters.

The U.S. doesn’t give a shit about Asia unless it’s doing well economically, and even when it’s doing well economically, Asians are suddenly a threat to the U.S. as a superpower. People don’t like to see Asians as anything more than complacent, pale-faced geishas doing things for my “famiry honor” or a militant Red Army soldier. It’s either those or we, especially the women, are a fetish, like feet and BDSM. 

Severe human rights violations are occurring in Asia as we speak, but no one in the West bothers to know about them because it’s only Asia. Sure, go ahead with the Asian jokes, but the fact of the matter remains: we are still largely regarded as foreign. We’re either flat-out ignored, not taken seriously at all, or unreasonably feared.

I am a person of color—and for other people of color to act as if the struggles of Asians like myself are not as valid as their struggles is insulting and harmful. Go ahead and piss at me all you want for being wrong about other shit, but don’t you dare act like Asians are somehow just white people with a golden tint.

I don’t know where this is coming from, but I feel its truth.

But I want to remind my fellow Asians (especially us overseas Chinese) that sometimes our own communities are whack, and we are liable to drink the whiteness kool-aid, and believe and enact racist foolishness towards our darker-skinned kin and friends, especially black people, with whom we have shared several moments of solidarity with. It doesn’t make our histories as POC any less valid when we behave heinously; it’s just another imperative we should be aware of.

(That is not a conversation for white people to gawk at, though, so fuck the hell off very much thank you.)

We need to be careful with each other so we can be dangerous together.

(Source: fluterr)

Why Chinese Women used to Bind their Feet

jhameia:

fuckyeahchinesemyths:

I love Chinese culture as much as I am Chinese, but sometimes it can be really fucked up. Take this for example.

I mean, what the shit is that, yo? This is an awful practice, but Imma tell you why we do it.

Yes, we Chinese people can be as pervy as they come.

So let’s turn back the clock, and it’s like, the Southern Tang Dynasty. Yeah see, there was this this poet-king guy called Li Yu, and man, that dude was as pervy as they come. I mean, lotsa poets are, y’know?

Anyway, there was this palace maiden called Miao Niang, and man, could she dance! She danced sooo well, Li Yu was all, “Hey, can I like totally bind your feet, ‘cause I think if I did, you would like, dance better.”

Miao Niang said yes. She freakin’ said yes.

Everythin’ pretty much went downhill after that, ‘cause this Emperor was totally about his fetish for wimminz with small feet, and he got all hot with lust when he saw her dancing in a gilded wooden lotus decorated with pearls and precious stones. Since then, bound feet became the ideal and the term ‘golden lotus’ means bound feet, and ‘lotus gait’ referred to how them ladies walked with bound feet, and the men thought it was like, an ideal way of walking.

More like ideal way of preventing women from running away from their aggressors.

Soon, all the palace maidens and errbody in the kingdom wanted their feet bound, and many people started sayin’ shit like, OMG, a woman’s figure would improve if she had like, bound feet, her waist would be more slender, her breasts and hips bigger, and they would totally be more shapely. (Bullshit. There was no scientific basis for this claim, whatsoever.) 

This fetish was shared by like, so many men, and this tradition just like, went on, dynasty after dynasty. This dude, Li Li-Weng, this poet of the Qing Dynasty, and this fetish made him feel horny, and he went sexing the wimminz in Dadong and Lanzhou (in Gansu province) ‘cause their feet could be held in a man’s hands.

Sick bastard.

Even the Manchus liked bound feet. Since Manchu women totally didn’t have to taint themselves by binding their feet, (y’know, ‘cause practicing stuff that was Chinese would make them impure,) Emperor Qianlong would head to Yangtze to sex these women up, and Xianfeng would have concubines with such feet.

But finally, in 1911, when there was no more dynastic rule, bound feet were like, finally abolished - woo! It was part of the emancipation of women in China, but obviously the men who liked this fetish complained.

But seriously. How is this hot? There were a shit ton of health issues related to this.

These sort of feet would have really soft bones, ‘cause they would be broken when the girl was a child. The bones would heal, and then they would like, be totally broken again so they’d be like, real soft, and would break really easily.

These feet would also be prone to infection, and though the toenails would be trimmed, they would become totally ingrown, and then the infection would start and the nails would be infected. Gross. It got sooo bad that the toes had to be pulled out completely. Sometimes no blood would flow to the toes, so the girl couldn’t feel her feet at all, so she wouldn’t know if her feet were injured or not. This meant like injuries would get worse and worse, sometimes leading to gangrene. Ugh.

Sometimes, the infection got to the bones, and the toes would drop off, which was even worse, but then errbody thought it was a good thing, and they would bind the poor girl’s feet more tightly. Sometimes, to make that happen, glass or tiles would be put in to cut the feet so that there would be infection. Ewwwwww. These infections could also cause low blood pressure and lead to death, what we now call septic shock. Ugh.

So yes. Binding feet was like, a hundred shades of suck and so not progressive for women, and lotsa Chinese writers now realize that they were wrong. This is one of the great mistakes of Chinese culture, errbody was all, hey, let’s make our wimminz like ornaments ‘cause they’re inferior to men! Cue facepalm here. 

But what we can do is celebrate them awesome women of Chinese history AND culture, ‘cause they are so important and have like, contributed a lot to society.

Not to mention that even women who did hard labour couldn’t escape this sick fetish, and would have to perform their chores with their feet fucked up like that. And they did it! So women being fragile and shit is all bullshit, ‘cos these women were working on farms with broken feet and still got shit done. 

Is also why some folks believe the Cinderella story actually got its start in China, because in some of the re-tellings the stepsisters cut off their toes to fit into the tiny glass slippers, and why would you cut off your toes to… ooohhhhh.

Yeah. 

jhameia:

outspokenviews:

Esoterica: The other thing that hurts about this Jenny Hyun thing

satifice:

jhameia:

I know I was gonna go all STOMP THE BITCH and UGH EAST ASIANS WHY U SO RACIST LIDDAT and RARR DIAF but the other Big Thing about this is that

there is already so much tension between black and East Asian communities, and black and Asian communities in the first place. I’m thinking anti-black bullshit like the horrid racist against Lou Jing in 2009 and other personal things I’ve seen people say on the ground, like an aunt in England criticizing black people during the London riots and my mom reacting really negatively against the idea of my dating a black (and NDN) person. 

Incidents like these hurt anti-racism. How can Asians ever expect black people to trust them when so many Asians are willing to spout anti-black racism? And without that trust, what, really, is the potential for a black-Asian alliance to fight racism? 

And when everyone else just keeps silent, from corporations to Asian k-pop fans, it’s just another message to black people that our yellow skins are more important and we really didn’t care about this anti-racism thing after all, because fighting it in our own communities by ourselves is just too damn difficult. Because omg we can totes do it ourselves right? We can totally find our own theory of resistance and enact it, and totally ignore the long Asian-black history of sharing resistance modes. We can disavow our histories of racism that’s intimately intertwined with blackness because we are Asians therefore have Our Own Unique Historical Experience with white supremacy and we can totes do it ignoring what black people have done for generations. 

But of course when we’re accused of anti-black racism, we Asians also have our own black friends right? Those friends are only there when we’re accused of racism, OH NO, WE DON’T HAVE TO SAY ANYTHING WHEN SOMEONE DECIDES THAT IT WOULD BE A GOOD IDEA TO ERADICATE OUR FRIENDS FROM THE FACE OF THE PLANET.

But hey, assimilation, it is awesome, we can prove that we can consume black culture and cast aside black people along with the best of ‘em (whites).

Except, we never had to prove that. The way racism is set up, we never had to prove that this was doable at all. All we have to do is just participate in it, and it doesn’t prove diddly-squat except to reinforce the idea that the world thinks black people are inferior. So here we are scraping for attention and the embrace of white supremacy and waiting for accolades and the money to roll in for being the Model Minority, good Asian, good! and the only satisfaction we can possibly get out of this? Is that we managed to prove ourselves just as genocidal, just as colonial, as the white people we complain so much about and yet whose ranks we would desperately like to join. 

Well that’s great Jenny Hyun. I’m glad that you managed to get yourself some new friends and followers who adore you for being “so brave” in “expressing your opinion”. 

Thanks for eroding further the trust black people could have had for Asians in fighting racism, thanks for taking a shit on any solidarity we could have had, thanks for kicking aside the long history of black-Asian alliances, thanks for participating in white supremacy efforts to divide POC.

In short, thanks for nothing, you racist little fuck. I hope you get cast aside and drug in the dirt and insulted like you just did AN ENTIRE RACE OF HUMAN BEINGS. 

This is the response that I wish I had had the time and energy to write. 

Indeed, thanks for making it so that those Asians who don’t hate Black people will have to work harder to prove ourselves trustworthy. 

Black people deserve so much better than this. 

[TLDR; My story rant of seeing and hearing black hate while growing up in an asian family]

Vietnamese person here. My parents immigrated from Vietnam to America to escape the rampant communism over there. They are literally boat people. What I noticed since I was young, was that my parents distrusted a lot of colored people who didn’t have stereotypical asian slanted eyes. You know how parents would sometimes give meaningless threats to get us to do stuff? Such as “buckle your seat belt or the police will get you!” or “If you don’t eat your vegetables you’ll never grow up!” Well my parents use to tell me that if I did something bad a  mỹ đen would get me.  Mỹ đen is usually a derogatory term for an american black person. Which is weird as shit considering the a lot of south east asians are dark or tan.

Seriously, they would tell me shit like “If you don’t take a bath a black person will get you” “Don’t talk to that black person over there!”

They treated black and hispanic people so different to how they treated white people.

“Little white girls party? Of course you can go!” “Staying at your white friend’s house? That’s fine!” “Little black girl’s party? No you can’t go! You don’t know what those people will do!” “You’re at your hispanic friend’s house? Come home right now!”

Even my older sister is openly racist. If she wants to say something bad about a colored person she usually says it to me in viet so that they can’t understand. It’d range from making fun of a person’s nappy hair to how much darker their skin is compared to lighter skinned black people. While watching a movie a light skinned black person was one of the supporting characters and she turned to me and exclaimed “Why can’t all black people look like that?!” I wanted to slap her, but instead I was just like “Are you fucking serious?” 

I confronted my mom (my dad is a lost cause) about it when I was a preteen. She had another kid with my step father. I have a little brother named Daniel. He’s 6 now and I know he’s soaked up some of the racist bullshit spouted by my mother because she didn’t know any better. I remember him asking me to show him the spider-man comics I bought. They were the ones with Miles Morales, a hispanic/black super hero. After I let him see it he turned to me and said he didn’t like it. When I asked him why he told me “I don’t want spider-man to be black!” I was shocked. After he saw my reaction he tried to assuage me by smiling and saying “Just kidding, just kidding! Spider-man can be black!” Now my mom uses the word stranger to scare my little brother from doing things, but I can’t be with them always to monitor my mother’s words.

Fuck all this asian/black hate. Fuck Jenny Hyun. 

Anyways I also wanted to say that if you are black and you ever hear asian people saying a word that sounds like me-dang then they’re probably racist assholes.

#asian people against Jenny Hyun

It’s an on-going effort, and good for you to start your little brother on it young. Don’t give up. Ask him difficult questions on why he doesn’t want Spiderman to be black. Make him think really early. Get him out to get used to non-Asian POC. It won’t confuse him. It’ll give us a hope of one less Asian racist later on when he grows up. 

But don’t individualize this issue. Jenny Hyun isn’t just some random racist asshole; she’s a product of a whole system and culture of racism that affects our world. She’s hired by a big corporation that tolerates her hatred because they see no way her racism could hurt them, like it hurts black people. In fact, I’d say her employers (and everyone who willingly associates with her) accept her hateful bigotry, because it’s damn acceptable to hate black people generally. Your family members aren’t just random racist assholes either. They grew up thinking hating on blacks and Latinos are acceptable, and they’re living in a country openly racist towards them so why should they change? And it takes constant effort and constant education to challenge them. 

But we gotta start at home whenever we can.

Intra-POC racism is pernicious.

Jenny Hyun, songwriter for SNSD & Chocolat, is a racist psychopath

jhameia:

anedumacation:

luckythinks91:

deliciouskaek:

yunballs:

TW: racism.. seriously. 

dj-edison:

ancientrelic:

Jenny Hyun, who is a songwriter for SNSD & Chocolat and is an artist herself, recently went on a racist rampage, outing herself as a bigot and mentally unstable as well.

While the title is harsh, I assure you she deserves every bit of it after her Twitter rant laden with racism towards black people.

Yes, you read that correctly, she actually did call for the genocide of black people, which I don’t even know how to explain in words because it’s so fucking insane. Frighteningly, that’s only one of many out-of-this-world racist statements that she makes throughout the tirade.

Ironically though, she’s angry that people aren’t respectful of Asians, so suffice to say, she has difficulty understanding what actions earn respect.

What the fuck was going through her head when she wrote this shit?

“You know what will help Asians earn respect? An Asian version of Adolf Hitler … played by me!“

Wonderful. Way to carry that torch, you insane fuck.

So what sparked this rant?

Floyd Mayweather‘s tweet about Jeremy Lin.

Jeremy Lin is a good player but all the hype is because he’s Asian. Black players do what he does every night and don’t get the same praise.

So yeah, she suggested the genocide of black people because a fucking boxer who is black suggested that Jeremy Lin is getting hyped more because he’s Asian and not black.

What Floyd Mayweather said is wrong, and his dislike for Asians is well documented, going back to his racist rant against Manny Pacquiao. However, being racist back (and disturbingly so) certainly isn’t the answer.

Oddly enough, Jeremy Lin himself is an example of how you break down walls. By putting in the work, performing like a fucking bauce, and setting an example for those that follow. Not by going on Twitter and blabbing on and on about vapid bullshit like Jenny Hyun just did.

What does she think she’s accomplishing by making Asians look bad by launching into a racist tirade on Twitter and then saying she doesn’t regret her words.

Delusional. Ignorant. Racist.

—–

Needless to say, Jenny Hyun crossed the line. She crossed the line in a gigantic way.

Worse yet, she’s a public figure. Maybe not a popular one with influence, but somebody who makes money selling music and who puts herself out there to the people at large. The fact that she felt completely comfortable expressing those thoughts, especially given her chosen career path, is disturbing.

Personally, I’m fucking disgusted by her and I feel fucking embarrassed that she attempts to speak for me as both an Asian and as an Asian American through her bigoted verbal diarrhea that she tries to prop up as logical truth telling.

It’s a complete mystery to me why anybody of any race continues to support her or employ her. To look the other way in regards to this overt display of hatred is to condone it through inaction, so I sincerely hope she has to answer for her words.

If only she took her own advice.

————————————-

Let me give out some advice…to Floyd Mayweather and Ms Jenny Hyun..

You want respect and consideration? Learn to give it. People do and say shitty things to you….does not justify you saying and doing shitty things back…especially when it affects other who did not do shit to you

People like Mayweather and Hyun like to use individual examples of people being shitty…as an excuse to be ignorant and racist. Because then they can use their perceived victim hood as a shield and justification for their bullshit. So they can conveniently ignore all the rest of the people who don’t fit into their racist viewpoints. But look at what I SUFFERED!! 

Ms Hyun is conveniently ignoring all the prominent, and well known and everyday African Americans that stood up for Jeremy Lin when Mayweather acted the fool and told him to sit his ass down. And all the black people that support him and will continue to support him. But no…a few said some bad things..so that justifies calling for the eradication of their race. But I’m going to be a better person here…I’ll pray for you Jenny. Just like I pray for Mayweather’s foolish ass. I hope God continues to work on you. Bless.

I’m going to take a break. Whitney’s funeral is about to start and I’m about to watch…even though..you know her death isn’t “much of a loss”..her being part of such a useless race and all.  

I’m out.

wow. WOW.

“eradication of one toxic family is what this world needs”

“black people have advanced because of white people”

“you sub-human… APE.”

i am a fucking loss of words, rn. wow. WOW. 

Post-racial, everybody!

oh.

This bitch can take all the seats.

Christ almighty there is nothing worse than a racist Asian. 

What’s with the anti-blackness, people?

Bitch takes a SEAT?

BITCH CAN KNEEL ON THE FUCKING FLOOR! Kowtowing her forehead to the ground. UNTIL IT BLEEDS.

(Source: asianjunkie.com)

The funniest thing was when at the close of the Spanish-American War the United States paid poor decrepit old Spain $20,000,000 for the Philippines.

It was just a case of this country buying its way into good society. Honestly, when I read in the papers that this deal had been made, I laughed until my sides ached. There were the Filipinos fighting like blazes for their liberty. Spain would not hear to it. The United States stepped in, and after they had licked the enemy to a standstill, instead of freeing the Filipinos they paid that enormous amount for an island which is of no earthly account to us; just wanted to be like the aristocratic countries of Europe which have possessions in foreign waters. The United States wanted to be in the swim, and it, too, had to branch out, like an American heiress buying a Duke or an Earl. Sounds well, but that’s all.

-Mark Twain, Interview with the Baltimore Sun, May 1907

(Source: ellobofilipino)