Asian American Accountability

"I'm grateful to intelligent people. That doesn't mean educated. That doesn't mean intellectual. I mean really intelligent. What black old people used to call "mother wit" means intelligence you had in your mother's womb. That's what you rely on. You know what's right to do." -Maya Angelou 

 I loved when the article below points out that not being White doesn't negate the fact that people of color who are not black, ARE NOT BLACK. We straddle with some privilege in the middle. We have some responsibility and we do some, or... a lot of oppressing against Black men and women. Those of us, who are not perceived to be Black, still receive messages from society, and because we aren't Black, we're able to use those messages to strengthen ourselves and weaken others.

I'll give a seemingly shallow example:

I don't particularly like curves on myself. I like my lack of hips. I like that my breasts are smallish thanks to my running. I like that my bottom has a little bit of shape but it isn't something that would  often evoke comments. Overall, I'm not tiny, but I'm compact, and I like that. After college, I also haven't tended to dress provocatively or in a way that highlights shape. People might think that that kind of statement suggests that I don't love my body, on the contrary, it's because I own my body, I love it, and therefore, I work to control its narrative.

A lot of times, Black and Latina women, don't get to control the narrative of their bodies. If you watch any television, listen to any music, they're objectified into body parts and nothing more. The old cliched narrative of tiny waist, big ass, thick hips as if Black and Latina women were ONLY those limited things. Even when an hour-glass shaped Black women loves her hourglass shaped body, for what it does, for how it looks, for how it feels, for the vehicle it provides her mind and spirit, that pride can feel oversexualized to "society," that pride can be cheapened, her pride can feel threatening.

To compare the realities of stereotypes, Asian American women are smaller, less shapely, less overly sexualized by society... and I would venture to guess that we like "it," that we like that our bodies more easily align to white standards of beauty and acceptability. Asian women often don't want to be in the Nicki Minaj category. When I dress down, when I'm a little thinner, I feel like that presents me with more opportunities to speak my voice and get it heard, without the breasts and the ass being gawked at and getting in the way...in a sense, that's antifeminist, in a sense it's conformity, in a sense it's Southeast Asian/South American/Mayan/Caribbean/whatever people think I am BESIDES Black privilege.

It's not White, because white women can be whatever shape they want, dress however they want, be as sexual as they want (often much more provocative and sexual than women of color TO both white men AND men of color), on the dance floor, in the dating scene, in general life, and still get the benefit of the doubt that they are multi-faceted, respectable women who are just having fun. I certainly don't have THAT privilege. But I certainly have more than my Black sisters who are judged because society has implied that their body PARTS are sexualized products for consumption because they don't conform to these white based standards. They don't have as much freedom to do what these white girls do without consequence. (I am NOT arguing for consequence in female sexual expression for one mini second, but I am pointing of the hypocrisy). Kim Kardashian and Scarlett Johansson are considered the most gorgeous humans in the world because of their curves, yet every day Black women who are the same shape don't get that seem treatment, don't get that same respect, don't get represented the same way in the media...
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A more serious example:

The idea that Black men aren't present in their children's lives because more black children are born out of wedlock than other children. Besides the societal circumstances that may lead to some of these single parent households, the fact that people aren't married doesn't mean both parents aren't involved. Marriage is not the be-all-end-all of parenting. While some Asian parents don't like one another, they stay married because of the stigma of divorce, is that healthier for children? When Asian fathers work long hours and aren't able to see their children, does that imply neglect, does it imply that mothers are single parents? I would argue that this kind of hard work and perseverance is praised in the media, in society; while Black fathers, who are equally if not MORE involved in their children's lives, are seen as neglectful, irresponsible and "bad fathers" simply because they didn't get married. It's a narrative society never challenges. 
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These are just two of many examples where "people of color" align more closely with white norms for white privileges and consequently reinforce what's "bad" about Black men and women in this country.

From jobs, to schools, we forget that just because we are not the most powerful "white man," that we're also not Black. We don't have the right to chastise Black people for their "shortcomings" and "lifestyle choices" simply because we too, are people of color. I've told my family, international students, and other Asian folks a million times, it's not the same. The global robbery of Black resources (lives, families, currency, governments, natural resources, language), silencing of Black voices, and inaccurate recreation of Black stories is incomparable. While Asian Americans experienced a great trauma, there is one greater, and I think it would serve us well to recognize that, and support those efforts of Black Lives Matter rather than tearing it down, and comprising it "all lives matter." That's not the message here, the message here is that there is a huge inequality pummeling down on one group more than any other.

Usually I don't like this BlackGirlDanger because, in my opinion, it lacks nuance but Alex-Quan Pham stole the thoughts I've been thinking all my damn life out of my mouth and hit the nail right on the head with this one:This article about Asian-American accountability means everything.

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Jhene Aiko and Luke James are doing their thing musically right now.

And a few throw-backs from Missy and Busta. 

gchat

"The needs of society determines its ethics, and in the Black American ghettos the hero is that man who is offered only crumbs from his country's table but by ingenuity and courage is able to take for himself a Lucullan feast." -Maya Angelou

How true does her classic 1969 book still ring today?

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In my sleepless misery the night after Seattle's Superbowl loss, I figured out the common link among some intriguing things:

1.) Pageants
2.) Google Chat
3.) Dating

Being a wise ass, while my parents were watching young Vietnamese women parade in a line in dresses and swimsuits, I promptly informed my mother that I don't fuck with pageants because they are archaic forms of female objectification for mass consumption. Feeling empowered in my wiseassness, I also informed her that I would NEVER let my child join any kind of brainless Miss Anything because we need to focus on women's brains. My folks, as always, were quite amused by my over-the-top liberal stance about EVERYTHING and continued with their entertainment interspersed with dainty women on ads for lightening creams, diet pills, and plastic surgery. A yellow fever middle-aged man's wonderland. (I go on these rants often.) The Vietnamese are certainly catching up the Americans when it comes the capitalistic mindless manipulation of insecure people. I won't get started on their blooming film industry...

I digress. 

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I must've saw the hypocrisy between that stance and having Google Chat with the sound on ON next to me while I sleep. Attempting to salvage my female dignity, I rid myself of gchat and skype and put it in the dungeon where the facebook app already has been for 1/2 a year, and with it my constant availability for superficial relationships that enable laziness in others. As female, I have those things out of the constant internal necessity to compromise but I am a traditionalist in terms of relationship building, and in my rebellious stages I like to shoot those forms of "communication" dead. In my "rebellious" stages, if people send me an instant message when they have a damn phone, I would rather them not me send ANYTHING because it shows a lack of character (in heart and in the number of letters they type), a lack of guts. We are not teenagers. We know how to express ourselves.

And this, of course, is one of the numerous reasons I remain perpetually single and perpetually annoying to any friends I may have (ha!). We live in an age where people role out the red carpet at every single corner so people they care about can walk on them... and people don't analyze it because we're so interdependent. We do things to please others more than we do to better ourselves. The diet pills, the plastic surgery, the lightening creams, the instant reply on gchat at 4 in the morning are hardly ever for the person doing it but for society's pleasure and friends'/lovers' consumption. We want people to judge us positively. I'm no different. And so there's this constant pressure to be lax and to let things go and honestly, I think that breeds superficiality because people don't have to work for anything. Again, in my "rebellious" or... practical phases, I hold the philosophy that people should get back what they put in and a lot of people don't put in a lot these days so nothing is what they deserve back.