Weather for Headphones: The Only Thing to Fear is YourselfThe personal blog and website of Chungyen Chang, a Kentuckian native, writer, and poet. A diary of thoughts from college life and beyond. |
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Home > Perpetuating and Ending the Race Myth.Perpetuating and Ending the Race Myth.< I have a confession to make. | Home | rivers > A long time ago - well not so long, just a couple of hundred years back - some white men decided that they would start a rumor. A terrible rumor. They said that black people were inferior. At first, it was just some bad gossip, and then African slavery rolled along and suddenly the white man had justification for chaining people up, making them shit on themselves in ships, and greasing them down like hogs for the auction block. Fast forward a few hundred years later, and there was a war over those chains. A few years after that war, the white man was still telling this bad rumor. The black man, the negro, they said, was mindless. They were savages, bred in the jungles of Africa and driven by animalistic desires. They used this myth, the race myth, to justify separate bathrooms for "Colored" people and for White people. Then a bunch of the "savages" got together and decided they would get angry. And they did. But they did it without throwing a single stone, and the white man in the white house said, "okay, 'seperate but equal' is wrong". And things got better. Fast forward to today. Racism is still around, we've just learned to hide it a little better. But last week we elected a new president, and he's black. People are still whispering names - dirty names, ignorant names, hateful words - under their breath, but for now, they've retreated back to their caves to lick their wounds. Yet this same election which has already brought about so much change was also the same election in which a massive population - the 10% in the United States who are Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Trangendered, or Questioning - was marginalized and reduced to a statistic. Someone - a whole lot of someones - decided it was okay to put the Gays in the back of the bus. I've been listening to this song recently. It goes: Sleeping is giving in, -Arcade Fire, "Rebellion (Lies)" Photo by sleepycat Yesterday someone said something to me, and it was based on another race myth, one that we don't often recognize, because there aren't many people here to recognize it. There is an Asian Race Myth. Rice eating, karate-chopping, peace sign flashing, KAWAII puffy cheeks, anime, manga, samurai seppuku gaijin HAI konichiwa domi arigato delicious sushi "fascinating", "unsual", "different", "strange", the exotic east, tight pussy, small dicks, squinty eyes, black hair, sexually inadequate/repressed/predatory men, Fu Manchu, kimonos, dojo, Jackie Chan, Kung Fu, bruce lee, dumplings, chopsticks, ching chong chinaman, chink, harajuku girls, gwen stefani, buckteeth, "me so solly" BULLSHIT. Hey look! There are more countries in Asia than China or Japan! They're all have their own, distinct cultures. They look different, they eat different foods, they speak different languages, they live in different places, they believe in different things. They are all different. If I fit some quality of the race myth, if I become a social statistic, am I marginalizing myself? If a black person listens to rap music, are they a social statistic? If a mexican eats tacos, is he a social statistic? If an Asian person eats rice and digs railroads, are they a social statisic? Or are they just people? Am I just being me? Why should I allow what other people think influence my decisions? I've thought of taking karate lessons before, but the idea of fitting into that stereotype has stopped me flat. I once took ballet, but I stopped because I hated the way I felt - like a stranger, like the odd one out, like someone who didn't belong. But now that I think back on it, I loved it. I listen to music that a lot of people have never heard of, but I don't share it because I'm afraid that they would think I'm weird, or strange, or different. I've thought about majoring in Asian Studies, but I have this big fear of getting stuck among all the Japanophiles, the people who speak pseudo English and their huge, lifelong dream is to travel to Japan, because it's so "fascinating" or "different". If there is one thing that I've had enough of, it's people who make assumptions and think I'm something I'm not. And honestly, there's something cruelly ironic about an Asian studying Asian Studies. I might as well cut myself open and take a poke at all the organs to see how they work. But then that gets into the question of whether or not I am really justified. Yes, there are tons of people who have an extremely narrow scope of Asia as just Japan, and the cute anime and the KAWAII and the bullshit Japanese schoolgirls and cosplay. But I am an Asian American, and I have a responsibility. I am a minority in this country, and so I am now in a position of power to represent all Asian people, regardless of which specific country they are from. If anything, the potential of having people with positive stereotypes about me should be an incentive to go into Asian Studies, because I have the ability to challenge those stereotypes and change minds. So do I fit into the streotypes? Yes. Am I a statistic? Yes. That's okay with me, because that's who I am. No related content found. Comments on Perpetuating and Ending the Race Myth.2
Hi there :) I just stopped by here to ask if you would like to sponsor the contest I'm running on my blog. It will be great to have a part of the contest titled as "Christmas n NEW YEAR Bash!" and even sponsors can participate in the contest. Please PM back and let me know :) Thank You.
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Racism is an issue only if you allow it to be. Every race gets it. Every class gets it. It's when we allow ourselves to be victimized that those that aren't as open minded win. ;)
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I think we are all a statistic. Im a Gay, Greek, Jewish, Immigrant. I know how people we deem as "the whities" taxonimize all "us", "us" being the rest of God's creatures. Were poked, proded, catgorized, named, and set on the museum shelf, like flowers in a hot house. Whether we fit into the stereotype or not, i think, makes little difference, were still going to be seperated, by native origin, language, religion, colour, sexuality, or even diet. Is it human nature? I dont know. we all do it, but it doesnt make it right, i catch myself doing, saying "well youre not Jewish, you wouldnt understand" or "its a Greek thing". so maybe, we do it to orselves too, section ourselves off from the rest to make us feel more special. Do you know, there is more genetic difference betwen two fruit flies from the same batch of eggs than there is between men from China and men from Ethipia and men from Greece and Germany? In total, were all the same species. Race is a social construct, just an idea held to make war and murder and slavery and hate justified. Do we worry about other myths, like the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth-Fairy? The only way to get rid of prejudice, is to deconstruct this whole race thing, board by board, untill everyone sees, no matter the colour, the eyes, the hair, the food, the language, the religion, were all the same, all descended from a handfull of post-Toba Africans who got lucky. My GiaGia used to tell me "Our God is in the rain, in the sea, in the stones, in every cell of everything, every atom. we are all God, my child, we just have different wrappers, the contents are the same"
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Chang:
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These kind of stereotypes become so normal I think many people just don't realise what they're saying. I get mad when I hear racist remarks, that seem so obvious to me but just are normal for many. I am White British, probably what is considered as the standard image of a British person. But after studying the history of immigration in this country, what does a word like 'British' really mean? To be honest I think we are all completely mixed anyway, and that I am British as much as second, third or even first generation immigrants. Especially when 'British' is a complete mixture of different groups throughout history. I feel like I am going off on a bit of a tangent, but in short - great post :)
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You're just allowing racism to work if your decisions are influenced by a fear of adhering to a stereotype. It's not like you'd learn martial arts specifically because of being Asian, that's a non sequitur. That's like if people said I despise the "people's republic" of China, so I must be a racist like other white people. If anyone jumps to a conclusion like that it's easy to defeat them and make them feel like an idiot, which they probably are. Do what you want, not just what people don't expect you to.