Rolling 2014 Thread on Race

the story is probably fictive but the idea that 20 years ago adoption people referred to their prospective child as 'asian' or 'chinese' interchangeably isn't entirely implausible

the child described as 'chinese' to describe nw asian appearance rather than filipino, malay etc etc

Yeah it's been my experience growing up at around the same time this kid was presumably adopted that most kids of East Asian descent were just called 'Chinese'

Think Millennials and post-millennials are using 'Asian' more though

The father also said this, though "...because we live in an area on the west coast where there are a lot of Chinese immigrants and Chinese-Americans have been living for generations and generations." so I assumed he should be somewhat familiar with Asian names.

I can say that a coworker in the 80s didn't know our boss's last name, Kuruma, was Japanese and not Chinese, so it is possible.

just realized I kind of assumed a couple of my new coworkers were Chinese-American so I double-checked to make sure I'm jumping to conclusions. Chen and Chang, I think I'm probably in the clear

Well it's true that there is somewhat of a geographical divide. San Francisco has historically been the site of Chinese immigration, while Korean immigration has focused on LA

Anyway (assuming this is true) he's writing from the perspective of someone who has been spending 17 years at least trying to get to know more about Chinese culture? So I'm not surprised by the ex post facto nature

Also with these matters I'm comfortable in assuming that the average white person is more ignorant w/r/t these matters than less ignorant

Chang is a very common Korean surname and Chen is a spelling variant of another xp

I know nothing

I guess a good example of this would be the brouhaha in last year's thread from J.K. Rowling deciding to name the only East Asian character in her book 'Cho Chang' w/o giving much thought to what connotation it has

whew, google and social media to the rescue

now I'm just wtf @ my coworker with a PhD having the same job title I do

Pro-tip: If Chang is not Korean then he's probably Taiwanese or HK or other Chinese diaspora

you are completely on point, as expected (thanks, linkedin)
Languages:
Chinese
Native or bilingual proficiency
English
Professional working proficiency
Taiwanese
Limited working proficiency

Yeah Taiwanese would have been my first guess based on those two names but Korean would have been second

yeah, not sure where Duh0ng is from but I haven't worked with him much

idk i can't really imagine what it would be like for this kid, but my first thought is that it must be really fucking with his sense of identity? like, what a totally weird situation to grow up fully believing you're chinese, learning the language and culture, regularly visiting the country of your supposed ancestry, only to find out you're korean???

http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/11/06/i-taught-my-black-kids-that-their-elite-upbringing-would-protect-them-from-discrimination-i-was-wrong/

what does cho chang connotate

i def got a wiff of 'white person saying ~chinese sounds~' from that when i first read it

that is the connotation, yeah

Irish girl turned down for South Korea teaching job because of 'alcoholism nature of your kind'

what does cho chang connotate

i def got a wiff of 'white person saying ~chinese sounds~' from that when i first read it

― deej loaf (D-40), Friday, November 7, 2014 3:10 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark

It's not quite exactly 'ching chong' but she just sorta took two random East Asian-sounding surnames and stuck them together

max made the point in last year's thread that a lot of characters in the book have names that are evocative of character traits like Draco Malfoy - whereas Cho Chang and Padma and Parvati Patil have names that just signify 'this character is not white'

oh lord I was going to post "ching chong" but when I tried typing it I felt too much guilt to submit post

^ But you just did anyway

you broke the ice

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/11/07/1342840/--pointergate-may-be-the-most-racist-news-story-of-2014#

This is so bad

(KTSP, not the story)

http://i1253.photobucket.com/albums/hh586/TheDailyLike/tumblr_m5rs96B18h1ryn5npo1_500.gif

More followup on that KTSP story http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/07/mayor-betsy-hodges-gang-sign_n_6120650.html

white republicans on the internet have a surprising depth of knowledge of gang signs in 2014

we made it!

https://twitter.com/DLAGPrez/status/530727433776164865

creep tv reporter wasn't "fooled" by motivated police sources if he wanted to be fooled

https://twitter.com/webster/status/530602073255972864

always down for a S/W joke

https://twitter.com/NickHannula/status/530800149963243520

Lmao

I posted this story to Facebook and one of my douchebag conservative former coworkers posted "Damn Koch brothers!"

Oh goody, they're all taking the day off from casting aspersions on Somalis.

DJP can you make heads or tails of this, or is it "lol liberals"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/11/06/i-taught-my-black-kids-that-their-elite-upbringing-would-protect-them-from-discrimination-i-was-wrong/

― 龜, Friday, November 7, 2014 3:29 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This almost reads like bad satire of Boule black folk . For someone so well educated his outlook is impossibly naive and I struggle to believe he genuinely thought he could buy and affect his way out of racial prejudice.

1. There are so many black people at Ivy League like this, it's amazing.
2. Once you cross a certain economic threshold, particularly if you have an Ivy League degree to your name, you can exert enough influence on your social contexts (and sometimes your professional contexts as well) that you can remove 95% of the noticeable racial disparity from your everyday life.

Also re: the KSTP thing, I now know why it was my parents' least-favorite local news channel.

People's faith in capitalism is p much always misplaced

It did seem like he was playing a bit of the faux-naiïf or gilding the lily - like the original target publication for this was Princeton Alumni Weekly or w/e

Like I think he knew who his audience was before writing it

xp
1. Yeah I've got relatives like that but I guess they're odd in so many other ways that it doesn't really stick out as part of a noticeable trend plus other black ivy leaguers I know aren't that way at all.

2. Its not so much a racial disparity at play here; the privilege of elite education + money can allow you to bypass a lot of systemic discrimination, but this isn't so much about 'navigating a system'. Here he's referring to specific incidents of verbal abuse and an interposing consciousness of race in daily interactions. He taught his children they would never have to deal with any of that because of their privilege and good manners. "Racial abuse is something that happens to other black people not as good, decent and rich as us, who don't play by the rules." He has essentially instilled in his kids the the idea that racial abuse occurs as a direct response to things that black people do and not because racists are prejudiced and ignorant, and its amazing that dude doesn't seem to fully comprehend why this is so harmful even beyond his sons reaction to the ordeal.

The places where I experienced the worst verbal abuse and ignorant nonsense from white people were boarding schools in the US and UK so while I scoff at his father's convictions, I genuinely feel for his son and I can entirely relate to his insecurities as a young teen trying to temper his racial identity in an environment that can potentially be hostile towards it or misunderstand it. I remember times I bristled but held my tongue because I knew my anger wouldn't resonate with the pervading experience of those around me and I'd be viewed as a pariah. That being said I never felt compelled to understand or legitimize the logic and motivations of racists. My parents didn't necessarily go out of their way to instill in me a great sense of pride but they taught me not to take the existence of racism as cause to look inwards or alter our behaviour. to that end he has to see how he's doing his kids no favours. He struggles to explain abuse to his son not because its particularly complicated or mystifying but because he has willfully blinded himself to the dynamics of racial prejudice.

Also I refuse to believe that his mother actually put chicken and watermelon in his lunchbox when he was a kid. Its stuff like that throughout that makes the thing read like an ill considered but weirdly elaborate Onion article.

http://features.columbiaspectator.com/eye/2014/11/06/studying-while-black/

It would be a shame for that article to be ignored because of the awful, awful writing.

Wow you criticized a college student for their writing. You're fearless

Wow, you sure stuck it to The Man (me), my brother in fearlessness.

I only commented on the writing because the article is very, very difficult for me to read w/o rolling my eyes at the writing, and it is not a subject I want to roll my eyes at.

But you're right, Columbia isn't known for its journalism program, is it?

I think it's a curiously unengaging article given the subject matter but I don't have a particular issue with how it's written. I'm just fatigued by confirmation that being smart doesn't matter.

Yeah this piece and the Washington Post piece really drive home the fact that respectability politics is a shell game

I don't get what's so bad about the writing?

xxxp Oh okay.