the ch!cktionary

1 Sep 2010
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Chances are, if you’re asking, it’s probably racist.

Another interesting discussion that I’d been following the past few days on robot-heart-politics’ blog: how White people feel unfairly called “racist” when they have racial preferences in dating or express a seemingly benign curiosity about others’ background.

Look, you can defend your dating preferences all you want; you can call them “preferences” instead of a fetish. If you “tend” to be attracted to a specific race to the point where you’re largely dating only people of a specific race, you are likely fetishizing something. I say this as an Asian woman who knows firsthand the irresistable allure of my “delicate” feet, my “olive” complexion, and my “mysterious” eyes. These are phrases taken verbatim from my personal dating experiences. And you know, there’s definitely a difference when I’m dating White people who don’t fetishize me. When I’ve dated or hooked up with guys who don’t have any discernible dating patterns, they don’t make remarks about me that are specific to things that have to do with my race. They don’t tell me that Eastern religion is so “peaceful”, expecting to me to understand their New Agey sentimentality, or offer compliments that could very well apply to any random Asian chick on the street.

Yes, non-White people may also prefer to date those of their own background, but their reasons for doing so are often related to wanting shared life experiences with their partners. This, too, is a limiting way of looking at relationships, but it’s not racist to date on the basis of compatibility. It is racist, however, to think that Asian features are more attractive and to assume that this is a natural preference that you just can’t help. It’s just the way you were born! Well, maybe it feels “natural” to you, but you weren’t born into a vacuum. We’ve all grown up in a world where we are fed messages all the time about what’s beautiful and what’s not. We’re influenced by sexualized portrayals of minorities in mass media. No one just is or just isn’t attracted to XYZ racial group. Even the most enlightened of us out there make assumptions about others on the basis of cues like race, gender, class, etc. And no one is immune to that.

Along the same lines, why is it that non-Whites take so much offense to being asked about their ethnic or national origin? Because it would never occur to me to ask a White person where they’re from. Me the Living, the blogger with whom robot-heart-politics was having this discussion, presented this dilemma: while speaking with a stranger at a parking garage, she detected that he had an African accent. Yet even after she gave him cash for his parking because he had only a credit card on him, she “was still nervous to ask if he was from Africa for fear of insulting him”. She writes that “we should be able to ask questions about other people without it seeming malicious/with ill-intent”. Which is fair if you’re talking with a social acquaintance, but a stranger who you’ve only known for a few minutes? No, I don’t think it’s really appropriate to ask someone where they’re from just because you’d like to satisfy your curiosity about their accent. I am asked where I’m from all the time by strangers, and you know how that conversation goes down?

Me: I’m from California.

Stranger: But where are you originally from?

Me: San Francisco.

Stranger: But what about your family?

Me: They live in Los Angeles.

Stranger: But where do YOUR PARENTS come from?

It’s annoying, it’s unnecessary, and it’s not something that I owe a stranger. I know that it might seem really natural to ask a non-White person about their background, but I can attest from personal experience that this will not haunt you for the rest of time if you don’t find out. How do I know this? Because I’ve gone through countless social interactions with White people who never feel the need to ask me where I’m from or where my family is from! And as far as I know, they aren’t squirming inside with unquelched curiosity.

You can claim all you want that you don’t judge people on the basis of race, that race is inconsequential to you, that you are friends with plenty of minorities. Even if all these things are true, it doesn’t mean that you’re not being racist when you feel the need to “place” a person on the basis of how they look or sound. I don’t ever wonder whether my White friends are mostly Irish or German or French or whatever. This never, ever crosses my mind. But people wonder all the time where I’m from and even if they’re perfectly nice about it, it still makes me feel as if there is something that will always separate me from those who are White and allowed to walk around without being treated as objects of curiosity.

1 Sep 2010
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The Patriarchy Wants A Lesson On Privilege 101

I’ve spent the better part of the morning following along in a debate between robot-heart-politics (a favorite blogger of mine) and a white, male reader of hers who “has trouble believing someone was oppressed just because they said so”. robot-heart-politics provided a bunch of studies demonstrating institutional biases against women in the maths and sciences, which the reader deemed “insufficient” and lacking in scientific rigor. What the reader wants is “a quantifiable model for white male oppression”. Not only is this impossible to produce (for reasons I’ll go into below) but it’s also highly unreasonable to expect an oppressed class to school a privileged class on what constitutes discrimination. I mean, really? I don’t expect gay people to prove to me, a straight person, that there’s actually homophobia. I don’t expect poor people to prove to me, a Harvard grad, that hunger and poverty are widespread problems. And if someone asked me, as an Asian person, to “prove” to them that racism exists, I would laugh all the way back to Chinatown. Marginalized groups are not responsible for explaining their marginalization to you. If you are actually concerned, you would take the initiative to do some research yourself instead of showing up at some oppressed group’s door step demanding a list of citations for things (racism, sexism, etc.) that are proven time and time again in the real world.

But back to why a “quantifiable” model doesn’t work:

1. No perfect model exists to measure this kind of thing and if a model like that did exist, a grad student would be the one inputting variables and determining which are important enough to include and which aren’t. And humans — especially overworked grad students — are prone to making errors, using their personal judgment, and being biased by the agendas of the lead researcher, etc. I don’t know what the White Male Reader’s academic background is, but a lot of social science is murky and vague and inconclusive and doesn’t purport to offer definite, hard answers. This is not chem lab. But as he’s already said, “But to me, if it can’t be quantified using rigorous analysis it doesn’t exist. Sorry!” Um, okay, so then a lot of things don’t exist in your mind. Can someone quantify my love for my dog versus my love for my partner? If they can’t do that, does this mean that I don’t actually have these feelings? Not everything in the world can be quantified. And even if it can and even if it bears the name of some academic journal, it doesn’t mean that it’s the Absolute Truth. (You think the editors of academic journals aren’t prone to personal biases when it comes to which papers they accept?) What you’re asking for is impossible to produce, even if the world’s leading academics work on it.

2. The “epistemological rigor” demanded by robot-heart-politics’ reader is a much higher standard than what is asked by even the criminal justice system. If a bunch of children claim abuse, say at the hands of a religious institution, do we ask them to offer airtight proof? Even if no one was around to witness said abuse? Even if they only have their memories and personal experiences? And when they come back with others who had shared experiences, do we write off all their stories as “anecdotes” that don’t prove a greater trend — that trend being that institutionally, there is a problem that needs to be addressed? At the point where hordes of people start coming forward with their own horror stories, it’s time to shut up and listen, no? You have here a bunch of folks who, yes, are citing their own anecdotes of discrimination, but who constitute such a large group that I find it hard to believe anyone could ignore that these are institutional problems. By demanding undeniable proof and refusing to listen until you receive said proof, you’re essentially telling oppressed people to spend time proving their oppression or else be taken for liars and/or crybabies.

For more on privilege, read this fantastic post by robot-heart-politics.

9 Aug 2010
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Anonymous asked: As a feminist and a queer supporter, you are (probably) a believer in minority rights. What do you think of affirmative action in college admissions? Many Asian-Americans, as "overrepresented minorities", seem to resent the practice.

Even though it’s an imperfect solution to a structural problem, I support affirmative action in college admissions. I didn’t always. In high school, I very much bought into the idea that those who have the best stats should get into the best schools. I’ve long since realized that this was a belief borne in self interest and ignorance. Brief history lesson for those not familiar with how affirmative action works: the policy was first instituted in 1965 by executive order of President Kennedy, whose aim was to stop racial bias from keeping minorities out of the workforce. Explicit quotas in college admissions have been illegal for decades and a points-based systems (which award underrepresented groups extra “points” on the basis of race) used at the University of Michigan was declared unconstitutional in a 2003 Supreme Court ruling. What affirmative action consists of nowadays is the inclusion of race as one of a litany of factors when making admissions decisions. (This is what Harvard does.) In other words, having brown skin alone is not enough to get you into college.

A lot of my beliefs about affirmative action changed when I went to college and realized that my peers grew up with all kinds of unexamined privilege. I’d hear remarks about how “no one actually needs to be on full financial aid” while partying at final club. Someone once drunkenly related to me their resentments about having to go to a high school where poor students were bused in from the other side of town. I learned that despite the University’s official stance on diversity, there were still a lot of rather ignorant members of the student body. And I thought, dude, this is happening AT a place that is extremely diverse; imagine what sort of ideas are commonplace elsewhere! Meanwhile, I’d gone from having exclusively Asian friends in high school to being a part of a peer group that resembled a Kodak commercial. My closest friends from college include: a Midwestern farm gal, an upper-middle class New England gay, a Black Southern-Baptist-turned-atheist, and a Texan Latina. There are others, but you get the idea. When I graduated in May, I can guarantee you that I had learned a ton more from the people I met at Harvard than I had from the classes themselves. And I credit them for expanding my worldview, for making me and this blog what it is today.

There are a lot of other reasons why affirmative action continues to make sense to me:

Race and class remain very much connected in America and minorities continue to suffer the disadvantages of being born into poorer families, living in poorer neighborhoods, and attending less well-equipped schools. All of these are factors which contribute to generational poverty and de facto segregation in higher education. If my readers have learned anything from my blog, it’s that social mobility in America is a myth for most of our country’s citizens. Given how unequal the playing field is, it’s unreasonable to expect minority students to succeed in a “meritocratic” system. They simply don’t have the means to compete in the first place. People talk about “reverse discrimination” and how they’re punished for being White or Asian (“I didn’t create slavery! Why should I pay for it?”) but there are all kinds of disadvantages that Black people didn’t ask for. (Helloooo racial profiling!) Those who believe most fervently in of the American Dream assume that all you have to do to get ahead is to work hard. Guess what? Someone who grew up in the urban slums can work as hard as they like; they’re still not going to get into Harvard, and even if they do, they’re the exception, not the rule. Most of their peers will likely never even breathe Cambridge air.

Say what you will about racism against Asians (certainly, it exists), but as a whole, Asians fare much better than other groups. They have the highest medium income and lowest incarceration rate of any racial group, including Whites. (Of course, this is just an overall statistic that doesn’t hold true for every Asian minority — which is why the “Model Minority” myth is not only untrue but harmful, since it glosses over the struggles of Southeast Asian immigrant groups.) I am going to be much less likely to be arrested than, say, someone who’s Black. Is that because I’m such a law-abiding citizen or is it because of how I look? I don’t think we have to conduct an shop-lifting experiment involving me, a Black guy, and your local Target in order to figure out the answer to that question. And look at UC Berkeley or Cal Tech, schools that operate with zero affirmative action. Asians comprise the majority of the populations at those schools, with Whites following closely behind. But is it actually good for the Asian students there? They might be satisfied knowing that they’re attending classes only with those who have been properly vetted for GPA, SAT score, and “demonstrated leadership”, but isn’t college also supposed to be an opportunity to learn about the world through interactions with different people? How are you supposed to do the latter if you spend your early twenties not seeing any brown-skinned people for days at a time?

Last, and most important, colleges do not owe you anything. Admission is a privilege, not a right. And quite frankly, I think it reeks of entitlement when someone rages that they’ve been robbed of their rightful spot at a school, because some “less deserving” minority took it. Look, if the school is a private institution, they can do whatever the hell they want to do, and sometimes that includes diversity initiatives that you don’t agree with. The world is an unfair place, and it’s a far more unfair place for those who grew up without the means to even pay the application fee for college. Let’s not even get into the fact that White people are also admitted for all kinds of reasons that aren’t “meritocratic”. (I’ve met athletes whose SAT scores are several hundred points lower than mine, legacy admits who share a last name with a Harvard building, the list goes on.) Personally, I’m glad that some schools have determined that a diverse student body is crucial to create a future leadership that is representative of the country’s population. It’s their prerogative to create an admissions policy that reflects these goals.

For the students who do get in, it’s absolutely to their benefit that they are exposed to a diverse peer group. As I wrote nearly three years ago on Sex and the Ivy:

I don’t value my relationship with JB because he’s gay any more than I love CK because she’s black, race — like everything else — still matters. I am positive that my relationships with people of different colors, sexual orientations, religions, etc. shape and influence my world view for the better and that I will be better off when I graduate for having known and loved people who are not mostly white, Asian, or Californian. Perhaps I would’ve met some of them (or their equivalents) anyway, but I know that at Berkeley, it would’ve been much harder to forge a bond with a tongue-ringed five-foot wonder with a Southern drawl and skin several shades darker than my own. And wouldn’t that have been a shame?

5 Aug 2010
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Anonymous asked: Hi Lena! Like you, I'm a first-generation Asian college student that does not come from a financially privileged family. As much as my parents tell me to do whatever makes me happy, I can tell that they're extremely disappointed I'm not following the rest of the Asians and majoring in Bio-this or Chem-that with grand hopes of medical school. How did your parents feel about you going to Harvard but not going pre-med?

DISCLAIMER: I don’t think that my experience is representative of everyone’s experiences. I’m only speaking for those who had strict Asian parents, a phenomenon which is deeply rooted in cultural beliefs in academic excellence and filial piety.

I love that this question was asked because it forces us to confront the very real financial restraints that prevent people from doing what they want in life. Asian parents are notorious for priding academic excellence and professional success, in part because many of them (like my own) came from impoverished backgrounds. My parents immigrated to the United States, leaving everything they’ve ever known in China behind, in hopes of a better future for themselves and their family. Naturally, they and other immigrants like them would want their children to pursue career paths offering the kind of prosperity they’ve never known. And of course, there’s the accompanying prestige of becoming a doctor, a lawyer, a consultant, etc.

So first of all, I think we should enlighten non-Asian readers on the huge cultural emphasis on familial piety. Disobeying your parents — even when you’re an adult, in some instances — is a huge no-no in Asian families. Given the sacrifices my own parents made, I certainly felt quite obligated to follow their rules. Even if I knew they were wrong, I realized that they had good intentions and were only concerned with my best interests. In my case, my interest in writing developed from a very early age, and though my mother would’ve loved for me to major in something “serious”, she realized by the time I applied to college that I was not going to give up writing for anyone — not her, not for a then-high school boyfriend who expected me to stay in California, and not certainly not for the sake of family honor. She was supportive of my applying to Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism (which she knew was my first choice), so she was so thrilled by my surprise Harvard acceptance that she wouldn’t have even cared if I majored in English (which is really saying something). So I lucked out in that my mother eventually came around, and as Monica Tan wrote very eloquently in a post for Rachel Hills’ blog:

I would encourage every Asian daughter to do what is true to her heart. [My friend] Nicole discovered when she was accepted to drama school that her parents’ threats of disownership were hollow indeed (although the occasional comment continues to slip: “You like that house? It could have been yours if you’d become a doctor”). And there must be a degree of faith that, when rebellion is done humbly and kindly, the hearts and minds of even the most stubborn Asian parents can be expanded.

Second of all, why are certain occupations so prestigious anyway? Precisely because they make people a lot of money and afford you a certain type of lifestyle. There’s nothing inherently “better” about being a doctor versus say, being a teacher or a social worker, but the former comes with wealth and social status. I don’t particularly care about the latter, but of course, it would be nice if I were making more money through my writing. The fact that I don’t make a lot of money, however, doesn’t make me think that I have a crappy job or that I’m a failure, just as earning a huge salary doesn’t mean someone has a good job. (My friends in banking, for example, have no social lives and are definitely taken advantage of by their companies.) I think everyone knows this, deep down, to some extent, but of course, even among my own peers, many of those who couldn’t score a 9-to-5 job on Wall Street feel like they somehow failed.

And last, I don’t think it’s at all reasonable to assume that everyone can or should “be whatever you want to be”. Tan writes of her friend:

But at the same time, Nicole says, “the fact that I know that it breaks my father’s heart to allow me to do this breaks mine.” So if your heart tells you that doing as your parents ask will probably make you happier (particularly where there are a lot of upsides to the life they want for you) than pursuing a path that will displease them, there’s no shame in that either.

I’m glad that Monica doesn’t just outright say that you should go and follow your dreams no matter what. Being able to pursue your lifelong passion is an enormous luxury that most people can’t afford (even if their parents are totally on board with it). The fact that I can be a writer and take my time to work on an unpaid book proposal is a privilege that I am grateful for everyday. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not because I think my writing is so fabulous that I will definitely make it, but rather, it’s that I’m willing to assume a certain amount of risk and loss (when it comes to both time and money) since I know I have a Harvard degree to fall back on. In other words, I’m gambling on the fact that I can still get a high-paying gig in public relations or marketing if I wind up not being able to find an agent or buyer for my book.

My parents recognize the advantages of a Harvard education, so for the time being, they’re not critical of my decision to write, especially since I’ve been self-sufficient so far. But my choices aren’t necessarily right for everyone and not everyone is lucky enough to be able to take the same chances. Rather than framing this as an issue of rebellion against one’s parents, we should look at it as an illustration of how financial circumstances and the market economy limit people’s abilities to pursue what they really want.

26 Jul 2010
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Why You Shouldn’t Date A “Type”

“Do you have a type? Because I don’t. I know it’s hard to believe. People like to declare that they’re type-less and then they tack on the criteria of ‘as long as he’s not a Republican.’ Me? I’ve dated a Republican.” —Sex and the Ivy (October 29, 2007)

Following up on last night’s discussion of racial preferences in dating, I thought it’d be interesting to examine the concept of dating “types”. Like many a gal before me, I grew up on women’s mags that offered specially tailored advice to girls looking to snag a certain “type” of guy. Want a “bad boy”? There’s a patented formula for seduction. Into “artsy” dudes? You should follow the game plan written by a very qualified magazine editor. It all sounds incredibly reductive, doesn’t it? But for a good number of years, I was successfully fooled into buying (quite literally) these stereotypes about men. And then I went to college and encountered a lot of different types of guys with totally different background and interests and realized that I’d been brainwashed. The Republican I dated turned out to be not so conservative in the end. Some of the supposedly liberal suitors were members of all-male elitist Harvard final clubs. And then there were all the types I thought I would be so into: the philosophers, the English majors, the tech geeks and the like.

At one point, I essentially wanted to date the hipster version of Sartre, but minus the open relationship, because my fragile ego wouldn’t be able to handle that.

But seriously, I’ve hooked up with and dated a lot of people and never have I ever felt the inclination to say, “So-and-so reminds me so much of so-and-so!” Because beyond very basic attributes like a generally ambitious nature, they’re all pretty different, and I’m better for having met such a varied bunch in my few short years of dating. If I were single tomorrow, I wouldn’t think, “This is the type of person I’m looking for”. I simply wouldn’t know! And if I did have a specific type, I’d likely be ruling out a ton of great guys or more likely, change my mind upon meeting the right person.

Take my relationship with Patrick, for example. Before we went on our first date, I was on some kind of streak with bespectacled college boys who shared my waist size and liberal sympathies. And then I wound up with a German dude who bench presses me for fun and espouses views that make most progressive Americans seem downright reactionary. How the hell was I supposed to know this was going to happen? And even if I did, could I have willed this into happening? I don’t think so. You can’t really predict these things. And you shouldn’t try. Love (and life) turns out much more nicely when you leave things up to chance.

25 Jul 2010
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Anonymous asked: You've dated white men and you've dated Asian men. Would you ever consider dating Latino or African-American men (assuming that you haven't already)?

Already have, though nothing serious has come out of those non-lationships (but then again, I’ve only had two-and-a-half long-term romances, and yes, I’m counting high school). But even if I haven’t, of course I would consider dating someone who wasn’t white or Asian. It’s not like having dark skin is a character flaw.

I’ve made the interesting observation that some of the most frequently asked reader questions I receive on The Chicktionary concern interracial dating. Roughly speaking, there are two groups of “askers”: girls who want to know about my personal experience with such relationships and guys who want to know how to effectively hit on Asian chicks. (I jest, but seriously, I can’t speak for all Asian women, so don’t submit questions like that.) It seems like there’s a lot of interest in this topic, but my totally non-expert opinion on the matter is rather simple.

I think racial preferences are completely senseless. Of course, certain factors (like the demographics of your college, for example) might make it more likely that you date a certain type of person, but controlling for that, race should never be a reason to not date someone. Given my extensive and sometimes cringe-worthy dating experiences, I can tell you that there are often bigger dealbreakers than the color of someone’s skin.

Usually, someone with a racial preference will cite an explanation like “physical attraction”, but I think this is mostly nonsense. Why? Because unless you have incredibly stringent and unreasonable criteria for potential partners, race alone is not going to make someone unattractive to you. Most of us are at least moderately shallow (which I wholeheartedly accept) and might like certain physical attributes, such as height or build, but when people say things like, “I’m never attracted to Black guys”, my alarm bells go off, and I think, “You’ve never ever seen an attractive Black guy? Like not even in a rap video?” Sorry, but I don’t buy that. You’re probably not trying hard enough and clearly have not experienced the magic of D’Angelo asking you “How Does It Feel?”.

And on the flipside, when someone says something like, “I’m only attracted to Asian women”, I’m equally skeptical, because are you seriously telling me that you can only be happy with a slanty-eyed, black-haired partner? Obviously not. And given that there are so few of us slanty-eyed, black-haired gals running around, it is not probable that you “accidentally” wound up dating five in a row.

So why is it then that so many people profess or exhibit some sort of racial bias in their partner choice? Here are a few basic theories:

the demographic make-up of their surroundings (if you go to a school that’s all-white, you’ll likely date a white person)
the desire for familiarity (as one of my Asian readers wrote, “it’s important to me that my guy and I share family backgrounds and life experiences”)
socially constructed ideas that fetishize one type of race and/or body (i.e. yellow fever and jungle fever)

All of this said, many people have a preference (confessed or not) when it comes to race, and these people include Ivy Leaguers, my blog readers, and my mother. So while I remain slightly judge-y, I am also curious and apparently, so are the people reading this. If you care to share, please enlighten us in the comments.

More burning questions? Ask them here.

10 Jun 2010
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Anonymous asked: Hi, I noticed that many Asian girls feel that they are getting stared at when they're in Europe. I always find it strange when I read this on blogs, because I live in Belgium and I've never noticed anyone staring at Asian girls, and I can't imagine that this is so different in Germany or France for example. Do you feel your getting stared at when you're in Europe?

It totally depends on the place and the situation, and I don’t know how much of this is because I’m Asian and how much of this is because I’m American/loudly speaking English. This probably doesn’t happen as much, for example, in London, since there are more Asian people and more English speakers. Maybe you don’t notice because you’re not a minority yourself? (Correct me if I’m wrong.)

It also depends on my company. When Kennedy (my petite, afro-sporting bestie) was living in Heidelberg in 2008, I spent six weeks with her and we definitely got a lot of looks when we went out together. But that’s to be expected, because how often in Germany do you see a Black girl and an Asian girl, looking approximately 15-years-old (even with make-up) and running about drunk? When I go to Germany with Patrick, there are fewer stares, but I am also more sober and less inclined to dance on tables. Either way, I don’t really care if people look and I don’t get offended easily.

Unless there’s a konichiwa shouted in my direction.

More burning questions? Ask them here.

25 May 2010
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Anonymous asked: In response to your recent entry on interracial relationships:
I am an Asian female at UC Berkeley and though I am open to dating people of any race, it's also important to me that my guy and I share family backgrounds and life experiences (...that we can travel to Europe together and both be stared at and later bitch in good-humor about it i.e.). I feel so many experiences just cannot be understood, even by perhaps the most empathetic guy, unless you've walked in similar shoes. And I most definitely did not enjoy seeing my parents as nervous as they once were for Sunday brunch with my then caucasian boyfriend's family.
Maybe those are just values of mine, but if those are important to you too, how have you overcome the issues with Patrick and the men of other ethnicities in your past?

(Anonymous is referring to this entry on interracial dating.)

I like to think that I ask the same things of my romantic partners that I would ask of my friends. In other words, if I had a friend who flaked out on me all the time or a friend who were sexist, they would probably get eliminated from the Circle of Trust pretty quickly and the same should apply to a romantic partner. But on the flip side, since most of my good friends from college come from totally different backgrounds (a good thing, I think!), then there ought to be no reason why I wouldn’t be able to have an equally intimate romantic relationship with someone who isn’t Asian or first generation American. So Patrick may not know firsthand what it’s like to be Asian, but neither do my best friends from Harvard, one of whom is a gay White male and the other a Black woman who grew up a Southern Baptist. (Talk about radically different life experiences!)

Maybe you’ve encountered people who don’t want to understand or aren’t interested in your perspective on race, but that’s not because they’re non-Asian. They could just be close-minded. I feel like there are so many differences from person to person that even if you date an Asian guy, it doesn’t necessarily mean he’s more enlightened than someone who’s White and it certainly doesn’t mean he’s not racist. For example, I’m involved in queer activism on campus and have met queer people who make really ignorant and occasionally hateful comments about those who are trans or bi. Being queer doesn’t preclude them from being prejudiced, just as being straight doesn’t preclude me from being accepting. There’s no real guarantee that someone being Asian means that they’re going to understand where you’re coming from. And if we’re going to talk cultural differences, race is much less of an issue in my relationship than the fact that Patrick is German and I’m American.

So when it comes down to it, the fact that my parents came from China and that I grew up in not-the-wealthiest circumstances and that I have slanty eyes … there are not really insurmountable barriers in my relationships with people who don’t share these experiences. Admittedly, it’s nice that Patrick can speak some Mandarin, but I think that beyond the physical ability to communicate with my family, it’s even more important that he makes a huge effort to get to know them, to make sure that they’re comfortable when they visit our home, to keep them company when I’m not around. That means a lot more to me than him looking like me or having grown up the same way. Patrick, who is essentially the physical embodiment of straight, White, male privilege, is still a million times more empathetic, knowledgeable, and open-minded than a lot of people who are less overtly privileged. Plus, he’s a feminist. So really, what more could I ask for?

More burning questions? Ask them here.

12 May 2010
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Anonymous asked: http://community.livejournal.com/ucb_anoncon/3065.html?view=14558969#t14558969

Lena, above is an anonymous thread full of UC Berkeley students procrastinating for finals. AnonCon (Anonymous Confessions) is put up every semester during finals season. This thread is about Asian girls dating white guys. It's pretty crude. As an Asian girl who has dated white guys, I was pretty irritated after reading it. I wanted to see if you had any opinions.

Reader-submitted inquiries are fun to discuss, but half the time, they make me sad, because they ask me about my opinion on something shitty that happened, and then I feel compelled to bluntly respond, “People are assholes”. Which, let’s face it, a lot of people kind of are. Especially on the Internet.

First of all, before I default to the “people are assholes” explanation, it’s rather telling that this is question is about Asian-White interracial relationships in particular. (Because what about other interracial pairings — don’t they exist?) I was born in the Bay Area/grew up in LA and considered attending Berkeley for a while (until I realized I wanted to get the hell out of California). One of the things that really turned me off about the school was the lack of diversity. At Berkeley, the Black, Hispanic, and Native American population make up 15 percent of the student body combined. And this is a public university in the most diverse state in America. So, before we even get into discussing what a travesty it is that people can’t date who they want to date, we should recognize that there are more pressing issues, like entire groups who are structurally disadvantaged and expected to compete on an uneven playing field (which is never adjusted, because that would be unfair). My public service announcement of the day: we live in a country where we are sold the idea of meritocracy from birth and it is frankly bullshit.

Okay, rant over.

I’ve actually written before on the “Why aren’t you dating an Asian dude?” topic, which gets brought up from time to time and is usually more indicative of other people’s prejudices than my own. When I blogged at Sex and the Ivy, I always used pseudonyms (with varying degrees of success) and it was pretty difficult to figure out who I was actually hooking up with or dating unless you personally knew me. And yet! There were always accusations that I was a self-hating Asian who only dated White dudes. People could just SEE through their computer screens that I was banging Caucasian cock. Clearly, that is what one does at Harvard which is admittedly a land of privilege, the close cousin of whiteness.

But surprise, Harvard is actually really rather diverse, and so is Boston, if you are one of the very few undergrads who are willing to venture beyond Cambridge in search of love, drugs, or authentic Chinese food. There’s a whole world out there, kids! And not all of it is white or rich or concerned with finishing that problem set!

I digress.

My point is that these prejudices are real, and yeah, there are definitely some women (both Asian and not) who refuse to date Asian guys and will only date White guys and will not even consider those who fall on the darker end of the Crayola spectrum. That is lame and close-minded, and obviously, those people should seriously reconsider how their sexual preferences are socially constructed (because um, they are!) but honestly, anyone that makes assumptions about my entire dating and sexual history based on my current partner is equally close-minded and needs to get a new hobby.

Preferably one that does not involve the Internet.

More burning questions? Ask them here.

7 May 2010
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What Does Feminism’s “Whiteness” Problem Have To Do With The Men’s Rights Movement?

Does the topic of this article (whiteness within the feminist movement) have anything to do with the comments under this one (the grievances of the men’s rights movement)?

I think so. First, a disclaimer: I think the men’s rights movement is terribly misguided in the way it portrays a supposed gender war in America and equally misguided in claiming that women are now so super-duper privileged that they just trample all over dudes and get away with it.

Nonetheless, many of the grievances voiced by men’s rights activists (MRAs) are legitimate, even if said MRAs have no understanding that the root cause is not an overzealous women’s lib, but a capitalist economic system that treats people as valuable only insofar as they can work.

So, what are some of the class- and race-stratified inequalities that would be valuable for mainstream feminism to address?

For starters:

Homelessness disproportionately affects poor, single men. In part, this is due to the underdiagnosis of mental illness in men (which I would attribute to the historic gender bias in psychiatry). Why does the state not take an interest in eradicating homelessness? Because people who do not work do not matter.
Poor, minority men overwhelmingly fill combat positions in the military. Why does the state not do away with unnecessary wars and prevent the deaths of its civilians? Because there is never an “enough” when it comes to accumulating resources within capitalism.
One is much more likely to be targeted by police or incarcerated if one is non-white and from a disadvantaged socioeconomic background. Besides the racism obviously at play, why does the state not do away with arrests for petty crime? A better question: why does anyone engage in petty crime? Because despite being the richest country in the world, America does not provide for all its citizens and under bourgeois definitions of legitimacy, poor, minority men are expendable.

I don’t know how earnest those MRA commenters are — and I find it extremely suspicious that the best-known MRAs are all white — but feminist discourse needs to take into account that being white, upper-middle-class and a woman still leaves you a lot better off than being a non-white man from a poor socioeconomic background. And that does not mean that gender inequality is a non-issue, but it does mean that the movement needs to recognize the extremely privileged position from which its leaders are speaking.