OK, I figured it was time for an article-level post on this subject, since we seem to have kicked up a minor storm on this blog about it, but I don't see much progress being made here between the two sides of the fence. For people new to this debate, check out the post "On the Supposed Legitimate, "Political" Concerns over Interracial Dating" and associated follow-up posts.
First of all, I think our main protagonist, while his input is appreciated, is hung up on a few points that I'd like to clear up now.
On the subject of my alleged "attack" on Korean American men and my "one-sided view" – I think that interpretation is unfair. My post was grounded in my own experience of constantly hearing certain kinds of comments from people I even consider friends in the Korean American community around me. My point in posting was to say that it's not OK to continue to make assumptions and comments about people based on what is nothing more than a stack of assumptions rooted in the questionable identity politics about race. I would consider the same to be true for Black women constantly getting on Black men about dating white women just so "they can get of the other side" and castigating white women for wanting to "get some of that big, Black dick." Hey, some people are down with that program and those assumptions. But I bet you that many of these relationships are not, and what business is it of ours anyway to judge whom people date, whom they fuck, and whom they befriend? Yes, there are frustrating structural factors that surround and inform our individual personalities and choices, but you can't enforce the "personal is political" rule, Red Guard, thought-police style. It's just not anyone's place to do so. Even if we knew the individual(s) in question, it would still likely not be our place, would it?
As for comparing oppressions – that's a dangerous and useless path to start to tread, but for the sake of argument, let's explore this line of thinking for a moment. OK – Korean American men have it worst in the world, being stereotyped by every other racial group and stereotyped, discriminated against by your "own" women. Yeah, Black men in America have got it really good, since now rap is so popular and Will Smith is a major 4th of July draw every summer. No, there has been no media stereoptyping of Blacks at all in comparison to what Korean American men have experienced, and no one has ever been ridiculed for being Black. And I wish there were enough Black men to go around even to be stereotyped against by their "own" women, but since we all know that 1/4 young Black adultmales are/were in jail, Black women now complain about the fact that there aren't enough to go around. And yes, Korean American men have it so bad when they come to Korea, since they all start going out with the tall white men.
Can we all see how ridiculous this line of thinking is? Korean American men have it the worst in the world. Hey, let's get real. If someone is looking at things in a one-sided way, and painting a whole group's collective experience as a function of one single man's experience, it's Bluejives. I know a lot of Korean American men who would not agree with your view of things – I'm simply saying that you shouldn't use your own experience as representative of everyone in your group.
My original post was critical and laced with anger, but it was very much rooted in being sick of hearing things around me that a lot of Korean Americans do tend to say around me, and I was surprised at not only the fact that they were saying them, but that these things are so considered to be a legitimate kind of discourse that people even say these things aroung someone who they know good and well is the product of one of these "questionable" interracial relationships. It's not that I am so sensitive or stressing about it – I am way used to it – it's just that I'm speaking up against a way of thinking that's obviously rooted in racist assumptions and thinking.
In that post, did I imply that all Korean Americans think in this way, or somehow single out Korean Americans as particularly more racist than other groups? Was my post's point to prove that Korean Americans' ostensive treatment of me is worse than the treatment than "they" receive from white people? None of this was the post's intent at all, if you actually read it for what it said. I am, however, being critical of behavior in a community of which I am also a part. And I consider this behavior racist. I would hope and expect that when racist comments come up in conversation amongst white people, a white person might call people out on their shit.
Everyone has relative points of cultural power, although everyone does not share in relative points of structural power. Yes, African Americans possess some degree of pop culture capital in our society that perhaps Korean Americans do not similarly enjoy (which perhaps explains why members of the mostly Korean American but ostensibly Asian fraternity on campus often address each other with a "what's up, nigga?!" on campus, something that boggles my mind), but please stop whining about how badly Korean American men have it in a society in which they are a part of the dominant group. Maybe you can continue to dwell on how badly Asian American men have it in the United States, but don't even make me laugh – not in Korea.
Nigga, please.
