Lu Xun huo! The Voice of Asians & Asian Americans

Sheridan Prasso Takes on an Elephant: The Asian Mystique – An Important Book That Boldly Tackles Uncomfortable Realities (well, almost)

2005-10-09T02:59:00.000-04:00

Sheridan Prasso Takes on an Elephant: The Asian Mystique – An Important Book That Boldly Tackles Uncomfortable Realities (well, almost)

A Book Review by Lu Xun

The Asian Mystique
By Sheridan Prasso
Public Affairs, 2005
437 pages (with Index and photos)
Can be found in most bookstores including Amazon.com

There is a passage buried toward the end of Sheridan Prasso’s (mostly) wonderful new book, The Asian Mystique, that seems to have escaped the attention of most of the reviews (which have generally been positive) that I’ve read of her book. In contrast to the journalistic and/or scholarly approach she takes to the issues dealt with in The Asian Mystique, the passage in question provides a rare glimpse into the author’s own personal experience with the issues tackled in her book.

On page 393 of The Asian Mystique (in the middle of the Epilogue), Sheridan describes one situation she dealt with as the Asia Editor of Business Week. She and others on the editorial staff were discussing what photo to use for a cover story on Coca-Cola’s expansion into Asia. The photo under consideration was that of a young Chinese woman “sucking suggestively on a straw protruding from a Coke can.” A female assistant managing editor – presumably, still young, somewhat naïve as to the ways of the publishing business, and full of idealism about the depiction of women – objected to the photo as being “too come-hither”; too obviously playing on the over-eroticization and objectification of Asian women.

Ms. Prasso was the only other woman in that meeting. Sheridan knew that the other female editor was correct. All eyes turned to her. “It doesn’t bother me so much. I guess it sells magazines,” said the grizzled veteran of Asia and the publishing business. The woman who earned a master’s degree from Cambridge University in the study of people (Social Anthropology) all of a sudden became one of the guys. One of the guys that took Cathay Pacific or Singapore Airlines for the easy-on-the-eye (and easy-in-the-sack) stewardesses. One of the guys that felt a cushy Asia assignment was one big exercise in droit seigneur, 19th century colonialist style.

I’m not a psychologist and I can’t say for sure whether incidents like this or the no doubt numerous similar incidents planted the seed in her mind for what eventually became this interesting and important book. Notwithstanding, if writing The Asian Mystique was some sort of penance or atonement for helping to perpetuate what Sheridan calls ‘the Asian mystique,’ then she seems well on her way to achieving absolution because Ms. Prasso tackles the racist sexual stereotypes about Asians – and the consequences of such ideas – in a refreshingly forthright manner.

There is much to praise in her new book. As far as I know it, it is the first popular and serious book to sincerely take on the eroticization of Asian females, the emasculation of Asian males, the role that Whites (especially men) have played in creating and perpetuating such harmful stereotypes, and the results of such prevailing attitudes. All of that is mostly dealt with in the first half of her book. The second half of her book, which continues to touch upon those issues, diverges from the first half of the book by becoming a travelogue of sorts chronicling the lives of female prostitutes in Thailand, Philippines, and other parts of Asia; housewives and geishas of Japan; young female professionals and students in China; and the aforementioned Cathay and Singapore Girls.

Although the vast majority of The Asian Mystique deserves praise, there are parts of Sheridan Prasso’s book that deserve some criticism. In spite of some flaws in her book, I would still highly recommend her book because the positives far outweigh the negatives.

Much to praise …

The most praiseworthy aspect of this book is that Ms. Prasso takes on the proverbial ‘elephant in the room.’ In the case of Asians and Asian Americans (and Asian ex-pats outside of Asia), the ‘elephant in the room’ is the racist sexual and gender-based stereotypes about Asians. These stereotypes can be broken down into the following factors:

(a) Asian women (and, literally, girls) are treated as servile, sub-human – e.g., as Ms. Prasso points out, the commonly used term by White men for Southeast Asian women are “LBFMs,” Little Brown Fucking Machines (not humans, but machines) – playthings tailored made for the sexual pleasure of White men. Whether Asian women are depicted as coquettish Madam Butterfly/school girl/mail-order bride characters that are simultaneously ‘innocent’ yet hyper-sexual, and/or are depicted as Dragon Ladies that must be tamed by White ‘knights’ (and, as the book points out, the depictions are not seen as being mutually exclusive), Asian women are products of what one person on ModelMinority.com pointed out as White men’s attitudes about Asia: “Asia is a giant factory for women.”;

(b) Asian men are treated as servile, sub-humans that fit either or both of the two following categories: (1) Emasculated, ineffectual eunuchs and/or penis-less coolies that only exist as cheap (non-sexual, presuming they’re straight) labor for White men and/or as quasi-pimps that giddily ‘tolerate’ their sisters and daughters being used as disposable sex toys by White men; and/or (2) Sinister, conniving, perverted ‘Fu Manchu’ characters that are plotting to sabotage the White man’s world, take over the world, and beguile unsuspecting blonde White women into their malevolent underworld. Asian men can’t compete for Asian women much less any other sort of women in the face of the ‘obvious’ superiority of the White man and if we complain about it then we are somehow whiney or even racist even though the facts and logic seem to indicate that it’s actually Whites who are far more deserving of the tags of racism and being whiney (especially when they don’t get their way with Asians or other non-Whites).; and

(c) All of these stereotypes, racist propaganda, and prevailing realities, all lead to a staggering disparity in interracial relationships when comparing Asian female/White male couplings to the opposite type of coupling in both Asia and in the ‘West.’ [As I’ve pointed out elsewhere, and as Ms. Prasso sort of does as well, the real numbers are far worse because the available statistics only cover marriages and not cohabitation or dating.] As Ms. Prasso admirably attempts to point out, these racist sexual and gender stereotypes also play negative roles in non-sexual/non-romantic interactions between Asians and non-Asians. For example, in business relationships, White men are taken aback by the fact that Asian men may actually want to get the benefits of a deal rather than handing over everything (along with a back rub by their Asian sisters) to Mr. White.

The Asian Mystique does an almost encyclopedic job of forthrightly dealing with all of these issues. That alone is to Ms. Prasso’s eternal credit.

Besides the groundbreaking work (at least for a serious White ‘Asia hand’ – a somewhat high-handed term, but oh well) in exposing the proverbial elephant in the room, Ms. Prasso’s chronicling of the degrading, humiliating, and, frankly, disgusting treatment of Asian women involved in the sex ‘tourism’ industry that mostly caters to White men should raise our consciousness to the important issue of the dehumanization of our Asian sisters. It’s clear that parts of Asia have sadly become a playground for perverted sex abusers (including the abuse of Asian girls who are clearly under-aged) from the inscrutable Occident who are doing things they would be arrested for, or at least publicly shamed for, if they behaved similarly in the ‘civilized’ West.

But, frankly, perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised by what Sheridan reveals in her book. When a group of ‘civilized’ University of Virginia students this spring launched web-based groups like “People for the Propagation of the Asian Fetish” and “Americans for the Increased Importation of Asian Women” with mottos like “bang out Asians. Bang hard or go home. Yes, even the ugly bitches”; “I can’t help if my dick likes the taste of Teriyaki sauce. Or soy.”; and “we believe Asian females are one of our country’s most valuable assets,” perhaps we shouldn’t wonder whether even the most upwardly mobile Asian females aren’t caught up in the same sort of cesspool that their sisters in the slums of Thailand and the Philippines are caught up in (but perhaps with less justification for their worship of Whiteness).

Another service that Sheridan’s book provides is that – while it fairly apportions plenty of blame to White men – it also points out the existence of what I call ‘White worship’ among Asian females in both Asia and in the West. What I mean by ‘White worship’ is the idea that somehow being White confers some sort of superiority, security, or upward mobility. In that sense, ‘White worship’ is not confined to the Asian community (e.g., the debate over the role of skin tone among African Americans and Africans). In an ideal world, I hope we can value each other as fellow human beings without this sort of nonsense. Regardless of that hope, Sheridan is right to put some of the blame for the current state of affairs onto Asians (mostly females) that irrationally over-value Whiteness, European features, and being with White men. This ‘White worship’ is akin to some sort of quasi-messianic religion where the expectation seems to be that Whiteness will somehow bring all kinds of imagined benefits. The reality is that these Asian women are worshipping false gods and false messiahs. Perhaps the facts and analysis in The Asian Mystique may open people’s eyes to that. Sadly, it probably won’t.

… But deserves some criticism

Although I am generally supportive of this book, I think this book does have some flaws that are worth addressing. Having said that, in fairness to Ms. Prasso, even her flaws seem to be born out of sincere intentions. Thus, any criticism of The Asian Mystique should be tempered by that idea.

As an Asian American man, I am both grateful to, yet slightly peeved by, Ms. Prasso’s sincere attempt at defending Asian males. She devotes at least one entire chapter (and really more than that) to trying to point out racist propaganda directed against Asian men and makes some attempts at redeeming Asian male honor. Her almost encyclopedic analysis of the defamatory treatment of Asian men – ranging from Fu Manchu to Long Duk Dong – deserves the highest praise. She also points out how Asian male entertainers – usually martial artists – who are seen as virile sex symbols in Asia are reduced to comic asexual caricatures when they come to Hollywood.

However, I take issue with some of the things she says in a confusing part of her book where she seems to be justifying stereotypes against Asian men (or perhaps she is just trying to be fair and balanced by trying to show where the stereotypes might be coming from … who knows). She suggests that Chinese men wore feminine clothing that inspired the (in)famous qipao (cheongsam in Cantonese), the stereotypical attire of ‘China Dolls’ and ‘Dragon Ladies.’ This left me scratching my head because Scottish men wear kilts yet no one questions their manhood or thinks it is a basis to question their masculinity.

Sheridan also points out silly trivia like the availability of male ‘cosmetics’ by a Japanese cosmetics company to suggest effeminateness on the part of Asian men. I can assure her that I have never, and do not plan on, wearing cosmetics. Also, considering the prevalence of White men who are ‘metrosexuals’ (e.g., Ryan Seacrest) and probably use cosmetics, it seems more logical to accuse White men of tending to be ‘feminine.’

Sheridan – who, to her credit, criticizes the unfair and ridiculous depiction of Asian men as being gay (when they are no more or less likely to be gay) by media outlets like Details magazine – makes odd statements about the acceptability of homosexuality among some of the Chinese nobility and Japanese samurai. I would take issue with the veracity of the supposed ‘facts’ she cites with regard to this issue but – even if I, for the sake of argument, agreed with her about those notions – her points on this issue aren’t well thought out. Most men weren’t samurais or nobles in Asia. Even if some sort of gay culture existed among these small number of men – which I highly doubt – how is this any different than the acceptability of homosexuality among the Ancient Greeks and the English nobility?

Finally, Sheridan cites some ‘statistics’ about relative heights of Asian men and relative penis sizes. Let me deal with height first. I’ve noticed that many of the White men that Asian women date are often short, shorter than many Asian men, and even shorter than the Asian women themselves! So does height really matter or is this really about race?

As for penis sizes … frankly, many of these White guys that Asian women seem to be swinging their legs open for like there is no tomorrow don’t appear to have large penises. Even Ms. Prasso points out in a section about Filipino prostitutes that penis size of the White guys weren’t really a turn-on. To make matters worse, Ms. Prasso – who is usually meticulous about properly citing sources – does not do that when she cites a rather dubious study (or studies, that isn’t totally clear either) that purports to reveal relative penis sizes.

There are two questions I would pose to Ms. Prasso, if I had the chance, with regard to the penis question: (1) Do you seriously think that Yao Ming has a three inch penis? (2) More seriously, do you really think the discrimination against Asian men are about penis sizes when you factor in the fact that many men find women to be attractive even when they don’t have double-D breasts and that many of these White guys having sex with Asian women probably have extremely small penises? Isn’t this really about racism?

Again, to be fair to The Asian Mystique, these passages that aren’t helpful to Asian men are more exceptions that the rule in Ms. Prasso’s book. Also, in fairness to her, she may have been trying to be balanced and trying to explore all of the angles that are put in play when Asian male sexuality is brought up.

Another area that I would take issue with is that she is often too uncritical of the people and groups she examines. In fairness to her, when she spots characters that are clearly perverts or criminals, she is upfront in her condemnation of them. There are large portions of this book revealing the seedy underbelly of the Asian fetish: Ultra-misogynists, potential child molesters, de facto prostitution / sex slavery rings, and White men who simultaneously want to ‘bang out’ Asian women yet hate Asians in an undeniably racist way.

Having said that, there are parts of her book which seem to scream out for more critical thinking and skepticism on the part of Ms. Prasso. She seems to take as a given that, if a White man (or an Asian woman) simply states that they’re not in an Asian fetishist relationship, then gosh and golly they just can’t be in one. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that White men (and Asian women) may feel like the heat is on and try to cover up unseemly aspects of their relationships.

She cites large portions of avowedly Asian fetishizing websites – ironic, since the whole point of the book seems to be to take blokes like that to task – without much skepticism. For example, she cites AsianWhite.org as providing something approaching a fair-minded defense of the Asian fetish when they are infamous for censoring any Asian man (or Asian woman who is offended by the boorish opinions expressed in its forums) who dare to speak their mind. By the way, these White male censors then have the nerve to come onto Asian American websites like ModelMinority.com and don’t have the guts to be honest about their identities; instead, they pretend they are Asian men and even Asian women (perhaps they can love themselves then!).

Sheridan Prasso’s soft-pedal approach to some of the figures in her book isn’t limited to White men with Asian fetishes (no matter how much they may deny it). There are many Asian women she talks to or talks about in her book. At some point I had the impression that the vast majority of them were sleeping with or married to (or wanted to marry) White men! After about the 200th Asian woman I encountered in the book dating or married to a White guy, I wanted to scream, “Sheridan, why don’t you ask them tougher questions about why they are doing this!”

There are times I began to think most of the stewardesses in Asia were only interested in White guys. There was one Japanese woman she mentioned who dated a bunch of White guys then settled on a Japanese man for marriage. Gee, thanks for throwing Asian men a bone! (By the way, that was sarcastic.) I’m ‘glad’ that that Japanese woman had her fun and is now finding Asian men to be a convenient fall back position. Makes me feel great. (Sarcasm again.)

The part of the book that made my blood boil the most was the seemingly nonchalant way in which Ms. Prasso mentioned Wei Hui, the author of the atrocious (perhaps someone could write about how an Asian woman writing a book about preferring sex with fascist White men, written by someone with the writing skills and stylings of a moron, can garner so much praise from the Western press and how all of that may have something to do with ‘the Asian mystique’) Shanghai Baby. Wei Hui’s anti-Asian male rants were so odious that the BBC World Service once voluntarily censored an interview with her (something the Beeb doesn’t like to do). If Wei Hui was a White man, then no one would question the fact that she is a Chinese-hating racist. Yet, somehow her viewpoint is seen as being okay even though Wei Hui should be the poster child for ‘the Asian mystique.’

Again, in Sheridan’s defense, she is being honest. Frankly, I would have been more offended and angry if she had produced yet another patronizing and dishonest portrayal of supposed color-blindness in East-West romantic relationships. The overwhelming majority of interracial relationships between Asians and Whites are between Asian women and White men. Those are the facts and I sincerely thank Sheridan for not soft-pedaling, being namby-pamby, or dishonest about that fact.

The final criticism I have isn’t really a criticism. It’s more a point of curiosity. Asian postings by Western companies and governments had been mostly a male affair (and to some extent it still is). There have been accounts – including published ones – of White women like Sheridan complaining about having their romantic lives put on hold when posted to Asia. One Asia Wall Street Journal article called it “Asia: Heaven for Men, Hell for Women.”

So that leads me to the following question: What is or was Ms. Prasso’s feelings toward Asian men? How much of it was affected by the propaganda and stereotypes that she dissects so admirably in her book? What was the affect of seeing thousands of Asian women abandoning Asian men for the ‘salvation’ of White men had on her image of Asian men as being possible romantic suitors?

Conclusion

This brings us back to the passage in The Asian Mystique about the two female editors of a Western business magazine in Asia. One of them pointed out the negative aspects of the Asian mystique. The other shrugged her shoulders to such concerns but wound up writing a brilliant book about it.

I don’t know what happened to the female assistant managing editor for Business Week in Asia. But if she ever finds herself in a similar situation, she can bring out a copy of The Asian Mystique to bolster her case.

I can say the same thing for Asian men and women, wherever they may be, interested in combating the corrosive racist sexual stereotypes that have been deployed against us. Buy this book. Read it carefully and skeptically. You won’t regret it.

The Anti-Model Minority Myth (or Why E.R. Will Never Have an Asian Male Doctor)

2005-10-07T06:06:00.000-04:00

The Anti-Model Minority Myth (or Why E.R. Will Never Have an Asian Male Doctor)

by Lu Xun

Several years ago, I had a ritual where I would have lunch with several Asian American friends at a Chinese restaurant every Sunday afternoon. Although women were often a part of this lunch group, it was mostly young Asian American men. Unintentionally, it turned out that most of these Asian American men in my Sunday lunchtime ritual were either physicians or attending medical school.

These Asian American men that I was friends and acquainted with weren’t just run-of-the-mill doctors. They had, or were attending, some of the best medical schools in the world. Harvard, Johns Hopkins, UCSF, and other fine medical schools were represented during those Chinese restaurant get-togethers. These doctors or future doctors were often interns or residents of some of the best teaching hospitals in a major metropolitan area. Some of these Asian American male doctors are making valuable contributions to cutting edge medical procedures and technology. Others are top-notch surgeons dealing with the most complex cases. Others are providing a high quality of care to both emergency room (often abbreviated, e.r.) patients or in their own medical offices. I knew of at least one Asian American male doctor in my circle of friends/acquaintances that is providing medical care and other vital social services to orphans in a Third World country.

As an Asian American man, being surrounded by these incredibly accomplished medical professionals, I began to wonder whether there was anyone other than Asian American men who were becoming top-notch physicians. That’s a silly thought, I know.

But there is something even sillier than thinking that most of the best doctors in America are Asian American men. What is truly ridiculous is to think that there are no Asian American male doctors in a major teaching hospital in America or, even worse, that there are no Asian men who are physicians at all in America.

Who would be stupid enough to think that? Who would be nutty enough to think that they could attempt to portray the medical profession in America based on a notion as ludicrous as suggesting that there are no Asian American men who are doctors in America?

Hollywood.

There has never been a major Asian American male character that has been a doctor on the long running NBC medical drama E.R. This show supposedly takes place in a hospital that would be affiliated with a major medical school in a major city, Chicago. Yet, there are no Asian American men of any note that are doctors in this supposedly venerable series.

Grey’s Anatomy? House (M.D.)? No, they have neglected to have Asian men as doctors in those shows as well. But it’s E.R.’s – the longest running and most respected of the bunch – inability to admit to the fact there might be at least one Asian American man that would be a physician in such a hospital that is the most troubling and bizarre.

The Model Minority and the Anti-Model Minority Myth

There has been a lot of ink spilled over the whole issue of ‘the model minority myth.’ It’s a complicated issue, but, boiled down to its simplest form, it’s a set of stereotypes that says all Asian Americans are successful in some way and that we really don’t face the same sort of struggles that other minorities in American face. Put in that way, it’s completely ridiculous. Asian Americans are not a monolithic group just as African Americans, Latinos, or White Americans aren’t monolithic. Some Asian Americans are doing well (depending on how you define ‘well’) while others struggle … which is pretty much what you can say about any other group. As for struggles based on race, most Asian Americans have or will experience something racist or racially insensitive in their lives. Vincent Chin and the Chinese Exclusion Act might be extreme examples to some but it isn’t impossible to imagine that we may face similar dangers in the future as we have in the past and in the present.

What I want to focus on here, however, is what I call the ‘anti-model minority myth.’ In my opinion, the ‘anti-model minority myth’ – which gets a lot less attention – may be as dangerous or more dangerous than the model minority myth.

I would define the ‘anti-model minority myth’ as being the sort of evil twin or the flip side of the model minority myth. Rather than unreasonably being labeled as people that have little or no reason to complain about American society, the anti-model minority myth dictates that we Asian Americans aren’t really even a part of American society or, if we are a part of it, we are an ineffectual part of it and, thus, whatever contributions we make to it are de-valued and minimized.

For example, have you seen the latest G.E. commercials depicting the completion of the transcontinental railroad – an event that essentially heralded the unification of the continental United States? Did you see one Asian face in that commercial? No, of course not even though it’s a historical fact that Chinese Americans provided most of the labor (including losing their lives) to complete the project and that there were plenty of them around when the final spike was hammered in.

Why would they forget that there were Asian Americans who contributed to such a momentous event? Maybe they didn’t forget. Maybe it was deliberate or, if not deliberate, it was grossly negligent.

It’s plain and simple racism – no fancy thinking required here – to just wash us out of history. To suggest that Asian Americans weren’t there when they were there. It’s racist to suggest that we didn’t make a contribution when we made a lot of contributions. At least with the model minority myth, we exist and we are doing something; with the anti-model minority myth, we are, at best, a whisper. It’s as if we don’t exist. As if we didn’t do and aren’t doing anything.

By now some smart-aleck might respond to all of this by saying that, ‘Hey they have and have had Asians as doctors in E.R. and Grey’s Anatomy.’ That’s true, but they are Asian women not men. That’s where this gets tricky and interesting.

Asian women are from Venus, Asian men are from Mars (or why Long Duk Dong didn’t go to medical school)

This is where the anti-model minority myth intersects with our old bete noir, the Asian fetish. Asian women aren’t seen as being a threat to Whites (especially men). Hell, White men can’t get enough of them! So isn’t it wonderful to have a hot, sexy, erotic Asian woman be a really smart doctor who can meet your medical and other needs, thinks the White Hollywood producer and writer. Yes, they do have them having relationships with African Americans but this is probably because they either are feeling guilty about their Asian fetishist feelings or they’d like to fantasize about something like that when they’re jacking off.

Asian men? Well, they’re a threat. Economically and in other ways. Yes, there are plenty of them that go to medical schools, become doctors, and if someone went to a real hospital you will see quite a lot of them treating patients or performing surgeries. But why let such inconveniences like facts or the truth get in the way of White male fantasies. In fact, heaven-forbid, if Asian men were portrayed as sympathetic, caring professionals who could be both successful and admirable at the same time, women – Asian, White, African American, Latina etc. – may find them attractive. That wouldn’t be good for White male egos. But as soon as White Hollywood types need to have surgery or treatment for cancer they will be sure to go to one of those Asian male doctors.

The only way they can portray a ‘powerful’ or ‘successful’ Asian man is by portraying him as a Fu Manchu character – evil, deviant, clever, and out to destroy and take over the world – or as characters out of Michael Crichton’s Rising Sun (come to think of it Michael is producing E.R.). Rather than trying to balance out the decades of defamatory portrayals of Asian men with some positive and factually realistic portrayals of admirable and skilled Asian men, Hollywood is only comfortable with portraying us, at best, in benign minor roles, or, as usual, as some conniving squinty-eyed devil out to sabotage America, molest faire maidens (or, simultaneously, be asexual eunuchs), take ‘American’ jobs, and just mess things up for gringos.

So the Asian male character that had the most screen time over the years on E.R. is another old bete noir, Long Duk Dong (Gede Watanabe is his real name, but that’s not important)! And guess what Long Duk Dong is. He ain’t a doctor. He’s an orderly. Nothing wrong with that. He wears a pink smock. Nothing wrong with that either, I guess … until you realize that he is the only Asian man of note in a medical series placed in an environment that would – in real life – be filled to the gills with Asian men who are doctors.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that there aren’t Asian women who are doctors. I had lunch with several of them. The problem is that there is a reason why we only see women and not men. How does it make any sense to have Asian women as doctors without Asian men when in real life there would be plenty of both in a major teaching hospital?

I’m glad that Ming Na represented us on E.R. I don’t know too much about the British Asian (Indian descent) actress that is the token Asian on E.R. now, but I’m glad she’s there. I’m not a big fan of Sandra Oh on Grey’s Anatomy considering her weird statements bashing parts of the Asian American community and being a Whites-only Asian femme. I hope they will continue to have Asian women playing doctors on t.v.

All I want is for Hollywood to reflect reality and the reality is a lot closer to my Sunday afternoon lunch group than it is to what you see on E.R. Asian American men are doctors and you will find them in real Chicago hospitals. Asian American men built the railroads. Asian American men have and are doing things that contribute to American society.

As an Asian American, I’m tired of myths. Let’s have some truth and the truth is that there are too many Asian men who are doctors to be ignored by Hollywood unless they’re being deliberately deceitful. Stop the deceit. Stop the myths. Give us the truth!

The NEW Bachelors Society: The Civil Rights Issue That Dare Not Speak Its Name

2005-10-06T01:42:00.000-04:00

The NEW Bachelors Society: The Civil Rights Issue That Dare Not Speak Its Name

by Lu Xun

(This essay is dedicated to those few Asians and Asian Americans who have a shred of dignity left and still give a damn.)

“It was in this way that the boy found out that a Chinaman had no rights that any man was bound to respect; that he had no sorrows that any man was bound to pity; that neither his life nor his liberty was worth the purchase of a penny when a white man needed a scapegoat; that nobody loved Chinamen, nobody befriended them, nobody spared them suffering when it was convenient to inflict it; everybody, individuals, communities, the majesty of the State itself, joined in hating, abusing, and persecuting these humble strangers.”

-- Mark Twain, from ‘The Disgraceful Persecution of a Boy,’ May 1870

“Deal with it!”

-- Conan O’Brien, NBC late night talk show host and serial anti-Asian racist, in defense of his umpteenth racist remarks directed against Asians, September 16, 2005 broadcast (re-aired on September 22, 2005)

Who murdered Emmett Till? Who was Lena Baker?

Who murdered Emmett Till and why? Before we get to those questions about Emmett Till, we have to address another question: Who was Lena Baker?

Lena Baker is less famous than Emmett Till. Emmett Till’s brutal murder was one of the catalysts for the Civil Rights Movement. Unfortunately, the equally tragic story of Lena Baker has gone largely unnoticed. Before I address the plight of Asians and Asian Americans, I will try to right this wrong and talk briefly about the tragedy of Lena Baker.

Lena Baker was an African American woman living in Georgia who was hired during the 1940s as a maid and caregiver to a White man. That White gentleman – as his slave-holding and racist predecessors had done before and since then – took a liking to his new African American female servant. And just as other White gentlemen had done in similar positions, he tried to rape her. No romancing. No dates. None of the messy stuff of normal relationships. No, just plain, simple, and brutal rape.

Ms. Baker’s White employer imprisoned her and forced her into sex. At least that’s what civil rights activists and the Georgia Board of Pardons concluded in the 21st century. Unfortunately for Ms. Baker, she lived in the 20th century. In a 1944 trial for the ‘murder’ of that same White ‘gentleman,’ Ms. Baker defended herself to an all White, all male jury – no jury of her ‘peers’ for poor Ms. Baker – by stating the facts: She had to kill her White boss/rapist in self-defense because she was being imprisoned and raped.

Lena Baker was sentenced to death via the electric chair. Her unmarked grave was found over 50 years later in Cuthbert, Georgia.

This brings us to the better known case of Emmett Till. Mr. Till wasn’t really a ‘mister’ at all; he was a kid. He was butchered when he was just 14 years old. I use the word “butchered” because when his body was found he had a cotton-gin fan tied around his neck with barbed wire. His face was bruised and battered to an almost unrecognizable condition. Most of his teeth were missing. The funeral director pleaded with his mother to have a closed casket at the funeral in his hometown of Chicago. Mr. Till’s mother bravely refused. The whole world would see what the White gentlemen of Mississippi had done to her baby boy.

What had he done to ‘merit’ such treatment? Emmett Till supposedly whistled at a White lady. That’s it.

Historians aren’t sure whether or not Emmett Till actually made any sort of suggestive comments about the particular virtuous White woman in question. No matter. White gentlemen – presumably as virtuous and honorable as the White gentlemen who had (usually coerced) sexual relations with Ms. Baker and scores of other African American women and girls – felt it was their duty to protect ‘their women’ from Non-White men. Of course, if African American men had tried to protect ‘their women’ – or if the women, as Ms. Baker tried to do, protected themselves – they would have been lynched at the drop of the hat. Such is the convenient hypocrisy of White gentlemen.

The Old Bachelors Society (and why old things never really went away)

For those of you who are lacking knowledge about Asian American history – a rather large group seeing as how many Asian Americans I see during a typical day wearing Abercrombie & Fitch outfits and shunning Asian men for the comforts of White gentlemen – I want to introduce you to something called the ‘Bachelors Society.’ The old Bachelors Society was mostly a Chinese condition, but Filipinos, Koreans, and Japanese men who had manage to come to America to support their families back home often suffered from similar afflictions.

The relatively brief explanation for the Bachelors Society is that most of the Asians who came to ‘Gold Mountain’ during the 1800s and early 1900s were mostly men who came looking for jobs of various kinds (usually menial). When the Chinese Exclusion Act and other anti-Asian racist laws were passed at every level of the Land of Opportunity and Immigrants, these Asian American men were stuck in a Catch-22: They couldn’t go back home because their families needed them in America and, frankly, their lives were really more American than Asian; yet, if they stayed they would be targets of lynching, discrimination, humiliation, and unbearable loneliness.

White American gentlemen tried to influence the decision making process by setting dogs to chew upon the flesh of ‘Chinamen’ – as no less a luminary than Mark Twain observed (a note for you White racists who regularly visit Asian American sites to deny or minimize racism against Asians: Are you seriously denying the existence of Mark Twain?); lynchings; and bizarre laws openly targeted against Asians that took away any semblance of human rights, dignity, or equality.

But the most diabolical aspect of White America’s attempts at either ‘persuading’ Asian men to leave America and/or exterminating them (they made no secret of their desire to exterminate us as if we were vermin … in fact, prominent politicians openly boasted about it as they passed laws like the Chinese Exclusion Act) involved robbing us of any right to intimacy and love.

This is where Emmett Till, Lena Baker, and the African American experience become most relevant, because White America tried to do a very similar thing to African Americans. African American men were portrayed as being dangerous rapists lusting after White women. African American women were portrayed as being almost asexual.

Of course, all of that was preposterous. Most of the dangerous rapists were White men who were lusting after African American women. For a Black man to even look at a White woman was to risk death; for a White man, like Ms. Baker’s employer or the late Strom Thurmond, to force ‘colored’ women into having sex was simply his droit seigneur.

In spite of the racist propaganda and the laws that were passed – don’t forget that White men passed those laws NOT Non-White men – the White male power structure didn’t totally succeed. Rather than simply being afraid of African American men, many White women saw African American men as being more interesting than the White gentlemen who were busy coercing African American and other Non-White women and girls into sexual servitude. As for their attempts to hypocritically portray African American women as being un-desirable … Halle Berry, Tyra Banks, et al., seems to have put the lie to that.

But where they sort of failed with African Americans, they have brilliantly succeeded with Asian Americans.

White men had a big advantage when it came to stripping Asian men of any expectation for intimacy and love: They passed laws that made it impossible for most Asian men to start families. The Exclusion Acts and similar laws made it exceedingly difficult for Asian women to come to America in any significant numbers. So who were Asian American men going to start families with?

White women? Heaven forbid! White men must protect ‘their women’! Humiliating and degrading racist propaganda made sure that no respectable White women would have relations with Asian men. I once saw a caricature of what White people thought of a typical Chinatown – which started out as ghettos that Chinese men were forced into by Whites. Chinatowns were portrayed as being dens of vice, sin, and squinty eyed scoundrels. One panel showed a group of Chinese elders conspiring to sabotage and corrupt America. Another panel showed a virtuous young White maiden being beguiled by these Chinese ‘scoundrels.’ ‘Watch out White women!’ these drawings seem to be warning. White gentlemen have always been diligent about protecting ‘their women’ (while fucking Non-White women without an ounce of shame and shamefully accusing us of wanting to protect ‘our women’ from them).

So the most dehumanizing aspect of this Catch-22 for Asian American men – as if being lynched, attacked by White men’s dogs for a bit of a laugh (Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien: if you happen to read this, I suggest you realize the fact that there probably have been more dogs that have eaten Asian American men then the other way around … your comedic forefather Mark Twain would have agree with me), and not having anything approaching the rights that someone who was Irish, Pole, Russian, Swede, etc. had in this Land of Opportunity – was that they couldn’t marry and start a family. Hell, they couldn’t even get a date!

Animals get to have sex and produce offspring. The dogs that feasted on the flesh of ‘Chinamen’ for the amusement of White gentlemen sired pups. The animals that host NBC late night talk shows probably get some action now and then. In the Bachelors Society of the Exclusionary Period, Asian men were lower than animals. Animals – if they could not love – could at least have children. Asian men of the Bachelors Society couldn’t even do that.

To make matters worse – just so that everyone, especially women of all types, would understand that Asian men were lower than animals – the White male power structure made sure to humiliate and emasculate us. Never mind the fact that these White ‘gentlemen’ were so lacking in, shall we say, manly potential that they had to force and coerce captive slaves and powerless minority women and girls to have sex with them, now Asian men were to be the laughingstocks. We became the eunuchs. We were hapless with women or, in a bizarre irony, we were somehow sexually dangerous and perverted and White women better stay clear of us.

So what has changed since the fading away of the Bachelors Society? That’s the strange thing. Not much has changed. In fact, things may have gotten worse. That’s what this essay is about.

The Incredible Apathy of Being Asian American

I’ve been involved in civil rights and community services within and outside the Asian American community for quite awhile now and I’m going to let you in on an insight I have developed: Many Asian Americans just don’t give a damn. What I mean by that is that they don’t care about dignity within their own communities and it follows logically that many Asians aren’t really sensitive towards civil rights and community concerns in other minority communities. After all, if you don’t care about your own, how can you have the empathy and sympathy necessary to care about others?

Oh, but you object! So you willfully ignore the fact that Asians seem to be single-handedly keeping Abercrombie & Fitch in business while they’re the same company that made humiliating shirts about us (“2 Wongs Make it White” … “No Tickee, No Washee”). So you’re forgetting about the limp-wristed response (or non-response) we have to movies, tv shows, and periodicals (‘Memoirs of a Geisha,’ most of the stuff on NBC, and Details magazine) that continue to mock and dehumanize us.

But I’ve got the ultimate example of Asian American (and Asians in Asia too, might I add) apathy: The massive disparity between interracial relationships between Asian women/girls and White men versus Asian men and White (or other non-Asian) women. I’ve seen various statistics on this, some dubious and some closer to the truth. But I have an easy way to prove this point: Simply go to a Chinatown, Little Tokyo / Japantown, Koreatown, Little Saigon, Little Manila, etc., and count off how many Asian women/White men couples there are versus Asian men/White women. Now do the same for other parts of major metropolitan areas (New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, etc.) and count off the same stats. Hell, go to Asia and see what happens (take your pick: Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Taipei, Singapore, Seoul, Tokyo, etc.). I will bet you a lot of money that the ratios will be somewhere above 100 to 1.

(Statistical digression: There is a much quoted statistic based on US Census figures saying that there is a 3 to 1 imbalance in favor of Asian women/White men couples. I think this is close to the truth, but this seriously UNDERCOUNTS the actual numbers because: (a) it only counts married co-habiting couples and not unmarried co-habiting couples or people that are just dating, (b) Census figures in general are more vulnerable to undercounts rather than overcounts (something akin to a ‘Type I’ error in mathematical statistics), and (c) there are strong incentives for people to not be honest or forthcoming about these types of relationships to census data collectors.)

I know what you’re thinking at this point: “This is just another guy bellyaching about the fetishizing of Asian women and the related issue of the interracial relationship disparity. So why the heck are you subtitling this essay ‘The Civil Rights Issue That Dare Not Speak Its Name’?”

My answer to that line of questioning is this: This is NOT an essay rehashing the same old relationship stuff. This is an essay that will make it clear why this is really about a civil rights issue that is being maliciously ignored.

I will spend the rest of this essay laying out why this whole mess – which I call the ‘New Bachelors Society’ – contributes to the apathy and meaningless action/inaction among many in our community (especially some of our supposed ‘leaders’ and ‘activists’). I will also lay out that this isn’t just about Asian guys not ‘getting any’; this is about dignity. This is about being treated like human beings. African Americans, men and women, should be treated like human beings. Ditto for Latinos and any other group. Why shouldn’t Asians being treated like human beings?

The Elephant in The Room

So here is the elephant in the room. The open wound that no one points out as it festers.

Asian men are shown as being undesirable, unattractive asexual and/or perverted freaks and Asian women are shown as being highly desirable, exotic (read erotic) hyper-sexy vixens/quasi-innocents.

Oh, the same old stuff again!? Wrong. Guess what happens when you walk into a work environment, schools, social situations, etc., with these assumptions in play.

You’re looking for a nice job to go with that university education. Asian men might find it harder (relative to White men and Asian women) to get interviews or, if they get it, harder to get jobs at law firms, banks, consultancies, and any other company that isn’t strictly ‘technical’ (like a major teaching hospital or an engineering/technology company). And let’s say an Asian man gets that snazzy job. You better know Mandarin even if you’re Korean, Japanese, or Filipino and even though that Irish American guy at the office can’t speak a word of Celtic. You better be ten times better than the White men (or their Asian girlfriends) and even that isn’t good enough. Meanwhile you see Asian women getting passed around by White men in power like a spliff at Woodstock.

You’re at university. You apply to become a research assistant in a lab. Sorry, that job is taken. Need to fill out the harem for the White male profs and post-docs. Hey, why isn’t there any White women, Latinas, or African American women in your lab/harem? White man says: I like them Asian.

You’re out on the town. Asian women are getting treated like they’re giving out ‘Lewinskies’ for gratis. Meanwhile, you get asked by women – White, Asian, whatever – whether you have a small penis since you’re an Asian man.

You still don’t see this as civil rights or about basic human dignity? How would you like to be stopped by the cops for driving a nice car in a nice neighborhood while ‘being Black’? How about being thought of as ‘one of them illegals’ just because you’re Latino?

Logically speaking, isn’t an Asian man getting screwed over as a professional, as a student, and as a man not about humiliation based solely on race? If being thought of as a criminal because of you race or ethnicity is racist and about civil rights, then how can being denied basic human dignity and respect in other important areas not be about civil rights and combating racism? That was a rhetorical question.

Some People Aren’t Comfortable With Elephants (or the Truth)

So where are the Asian American activists and leaders rising up with righteous indignation at such race-based humiliations? Surely – unless you’re blind or a moron (or deliberately deceitful) – you have to have noticed the way the world views Asian men and Asian women and the obvious consequences thereof (like the interracial relationship disparity)?

Well, much like our intrepid President George W. Bush, our ‘leaders’ and ‘activists’ have been on a holiday regarding this issue. In fact, this holiday has lasted so long that they make Bush look like a workaholic!

So what has Asian American activists and leaders – most of whom seem to be Asian women who are married to White men or who date White men and wouldn’t date an Asian man unless every other variant of men died out – done to slay this elephant or at least put it back in its place?

Well, they make a lot of noise about nothing and little or no noise about important stuff. They’ll get indignant about some nice newspaper article pointing out an Asian American who is doing well at school, but NOT say a peep when that Asian American is being accused of eating dogs, stealing American jobs, being a eunuch/pervert/gay/asexual if he is a boy and being a hot-to-trot exotic White man’s fantasy if she is a girl, and getting physically assaulted or even murdered.

Why should we be surprised by this. It would actually cost them something if they actually did anything about substantive civil rights issues affecting Asian Americans. Heaven forbid that they would have to sacrifice the cushiness of their jobs, their assumptions that they’re in color-blind relationships with White guys who seem fixated on ‘Oriental’ beauty, and that they would burn bridges to better paying jobs kissing up to (and doing more exotic things to) powerful White men.

So what if Asian men are getting passed over for that promotion they really deserved or even getting laid off. So what if Asian men become punching bags – literally – for aspiring entertainers (Mark Wahlberg, are you listening?).

What’s really ridiculous about this whole thing is that ‘Whites-only’ Asian women are essentially giving a ‘get out of jail free card’ to White men. White men can claim that they’re multi-cultural – while they continue to treat African Americans, Latinos, and Asian MEN like shit – because they’re married to an Asian woman. How noble of you, oh great White one!

Even White men who are out-an-out anti-Asian racists love banging Asian women (and vice versa). They can have their cake – bashing us chinks – and eat it to – fucking the female chinks.

What do Asian women get out of this? I’m not sure about this one. All I’m sure about is this: Whites-only Asian women are the only minority/Non-White group who actually BENEFITS from negative stereotypes (about them as well as their male counterparts). Look at the fact that Asian women are the ONLY group of women in America who suffer from NO income disparity (even White women suffer from that). Enough said.

If we don’t get leaders and activists who are going to tackle the New Bachelors Society in a forthright way, then we are doomed to be stuck in a downward spiral where we will be subject to worse and worse racism over time. Don’t fool yourself … look at history … the powerful are never satisfied with a few cheap humiliations against the weak … there is going to be uglier acts of racism that will have its roots in the kind of anti-Asian crap we see out of late night talk shows, movies, and general society. It’s going to make the carping about interracial dating look like child’s play.

Act now my Asian brothers and sisters. Before it’s too late.

What is the ‘New Bachelors Society’?

I deliberately waited until now to define more precisely what I mean by a ‘New’ Bachelors Society. The Old Bachelors Society was composed of Asian men who were trapped in an unimaginable pit of loneliness. Cut off from their birthplaces and their families, unable to love and start families in their new homeland, waiting to die alone … hated and despised by the same society they helped to build up (we united this country via the railroads … in spite of our presence being washed out of history).

What is the ‘New’ Bachelors Society? It’s about Asian American men who are doctors, engineers, lawyers, programmers, teachers, and other well-educated professionals. It’s about great guys who followed all the rules that were suppose to lead to the American Dream. It’s about quality men who would be fending off women if only they weren’t Asian.

It’s about the first Asian male firefighter in Georgia getting laughed at by the audience of a nationally syndicated tv program (‘Live with Regis and Kelly’) because he dared to enter a contest designed to find a ‘hunk.’

It’s about guys I went to school with. Asian brothers who went to some of the finest schools in the world. Nice guys. Successful. And there is a real possibility that – like their Old Bachelors Society forefathers – they will never have a chance to love who they should be able to love. Not have a chance to start a family.

Like the old guard, the new generation of Asian American bachelors are contributing greatly to America and the world. You wouldn’t know it from television medical dramas, but there actually are Asian men who are doctors in America. There are Asian bachelors who are making key contributions in every field and are critical to the success of America. Yet we aren’t treated like human beings. We can’t love and live like other human beings.

Get up. Stand up. We’re human beings. It’s time we insist on being treated that way.

Addendum: For Our White Male Visitors

I’m not going to waste too much time on this because I already know you will trash this essay and anything supporting it. You like your geishas/school girls/dragon ladies and how dare we Asian men think we’re actually human beings and men.

You will – like your hypocritical and shameless predecessors (Strom Thurmond, Ms. Baker’s rapist, the men who lynched Emmett Till) – make all sorts of ludicrous accusations and counter-charges.

Let me leave you with this: If the situation were reversed and Asian men were seen as being virile and we were snapping up ‘your’ women at rates that we see Asian women/White men couples, you would no doubt pass laws against it and/or have racist propaganda to stop it. How am I sure of this? Because you did this before. Ask Emmett Till. Ask Lena Baker. Oh, I forgot. White men like you murdered them.