In my circle of Asians, we have our own trouble as well. My wife is Japanese, and I grew up influenced heavily by Japanese culture (I'm Indonesian Chinese), but majority of my circle is 99% Koreans and Chinese. So yeah every time WWII or Japan/Korea/China thing gets brought up I also just stay silent and will just ask my wife to go home early or pretend we have some business to do. Definitely something will go wrong. We are in our 20s - 30s, and WWII are our grandparents generations battle. We are aware of Japan's WWII problem, but we aren't gonna pretend we know what to do.
when you are not blinded by the sound of your own voice you can see beyond your eyes
The person you are replying to
Despite my family being refugees, much of which died getting here. Despite eastern culture being almost the polar opposite of western culture. I wish that counted for something more.
Not asking for any special treatment because I feel Asian-Americans just put their head down and do the work. But it's stark how silent the conversation around Asian-Americans is, except for when we talk about Crazy Rich Asians.
Or are they treated as asians? This whole thing is complicated, but including asian people as 'white' when it is colloqially used to mean 'caucasian european' for the most part, is just disigenuous and moving the goalposts.
But also
> Except Asians don't get put in leadership positions as easily as white counterparts
I guess it's now been brought up, so that's a milestone.
It is a time where we are getting violently targeted. And while people are jumping at the bit to speak up for every other group, we’re forced to uncharacteristically muster it up ourselves. I imagine if I was any other minority group talking about my experiences, it'd be taken more seriously.
You have missed the point. However they are being treated, by definition, is how asian-americans in tech are treated.
They aren't being treated as "not POC", that is how asian poc are treated.
What evidence would falsify it?
What if I made a similar argument except I replaced "asian" with "french"? How would you prove there's a difference between that argument and your argument?
Hope that makes sense.
My Father is white and my mother is hispanic, but I've been asked if I am Asian or Pacific Islander many times. I've also noticed a distinct difference in how people treat me when they see me, vs virtual or phone.
I meant to draw attention to how many non-whites are forced to immerse themselves in mostly white groups and can feel ostracized in the US.
Well I am white, so no.
> I meant to draw attention to how many non-whites are forced to immerse themselves in mostly white groups and can feel ostracized in the US
Well the majority of the population in the USA is white. No getting around that, even if a theoretical perfect distribution of diversity is achieved.
Racism takes many forms.
Yet, i don't discuss this stuff with anyone interesting. Just my core group, and my core group has had this conversation to death.. nothing to be gained anymore.
So i don't grow on these subjects. I don't feel more progressive. I don't feel like i understand the problems better, or the solutions, and certainly don't know which areas i'm motivated to help in.
Because i want to discuss, to critically analyze the problem space and try to question and verify solutions, i'm terrified of being labeled an -ist.
This isn't a "woe is me" post. Rather, this is my explanation that in my eyes i am _less progressive_ as a result of this culture. I _act/help less_ in this culture. This culture shuts me - a self identified very progressive liberal - down.
Would you mind sharing what this means and what the context is? I think I get what you mean, but don't understand the reference.
It is, but I'd encourage you to examine that a bit more from the perspective of the person weighing in. Yes, you meant nothing by the question, and you would have asked it regardless of the other person's gender, but what is interesting is -someone got defensive-. Why? She's hypersensitive; is it more likely she got that way apropos of nothing, that she has just bought into some victim culture that is determined to create claims of systems issues wholecloth to rail against, or because she -has- run into misogyny enough times that she assumes the worst?
Again, it's not reflective of you, but take an empathetic view to where people like that are coming from, as it's not a vacuum.
Is it fair to you? No, it isn't.
However you need to realize that _that question_ has been used, probably verbatim, in bad ways against her or her peers... therefore she has pattern-matched this into a sexist question too.
This is not an irreversible state. 99% of these communication breakdowns can be solved with a polite correction: "no, didn't cross my mind. I am sincerely curious about what drives that career decision, if I may ask".
I won't get entangled into a straw-man battle-royale, so if the person cannot recognize they made a mistake and correct course: sure thing I'll retreat.
That hasn't happened to me just yet, but I know it could. Fair? No, but it is what it is.
I am aware we are dissecting a quickly summed-up situation here, so my argument might not apply to the actual encounter you experienced. But if it does, I think you and lots of others are skipping on conversations that you actually wanted to have due to a very small and temporary defect on the dialogue.
And how do you know? You have direct knowledge of it or are you just pulling out a factoid?
But then I also am not part of any minority group. I'm a white male in a western country who is good at what he does, which would let me incur a lot of awkwardness before someone thinks that the problem is me. That might be different in your situation, or simply in that context, I don't know. Regardless, it makes me sad that there was a need to bury the topic.
I am not saying misogyny doesn't continue to exist, but it is now very often misattributed in scenarios that technically fit the criteria (man didn't hire woman, etc) but are in fact the result of other factors (woman wasn't a good hire). It's a slippery slope and the reason we have such outrage in response to equality movements in general. Kneejerk reactions to non-misogynistic interactions are counter productive and serve to undermine the validity of the complaints against misogyny by giving naysayers a reason to dismiss them.
Then I spent some years in a culture where I stuck out by skin color, hair color, language skills, height, shoe size--pretty much every way possible. People were not mean to me or racist towards me. But every waking moment I knew I was different. And I knew I would never have the right hair or skin or height or accent to fit in. I would always be an outsider.
For the first time, I understood in some small way that minority from my youth who seemed to have a chip on their shoulder. I can't say that I have had their experience, but I have had an experience that opened my eyes to realize what it means to always know you are an outsider.
I wish they didn't react so negatively. But I think I know better now than to condemn their hostility outright. My experience was some short years as an adult. And I wasn't treated as inferior. How would it be to grow up under that and to expect it for your entire life?
Does it need to though? A black person may never have been a victim of police brutality, but if they have experienced a couple of questionable stops, is hypersensitivity really "victim mentality", and not -completely understandable-?
Most racism, misogyny, etc, nowadays -isn't- overt. Almost no one is going to say "I didn't hire you because you're a woman", because they know doing so is going to get them socially ostracized at best, legally culpable at worst.
Of course kneejerk reactions are counter productive, because it's easy for people who -weren't- coming from a racist, misogynist, etc, position to get defensive. That doesn't mean they aren't understandable, warranted, and that someone on the receiving end of that claim doesn't need to seek empathy in how they respond. That's allyship; understanding that a cry against injustice, even directed at you, isn't something you need to get defensive about, but to instead see for what it is. Trying to blame them for having a victim mentality is to dismiss the basis they even made the claim in the first place, thereby making us part of the problem.
Is this a term for something real, or just a contentless way to denigrate people who claim to have been victimized? Is there some diagnostic criteria other than "that person annoys me"?
It's real. The most privileged people I know (and later cut out of my life entirely) are the first to play the victim card. We're talking the type of people who would choose to show up to work late every day and then complain that they were fired because they were [insert trait]. Or people that refused to study and then demanded they get extra support and financial aid because they came from a 'difficult' background.
Some definitely white people claim to be minorities because some percentage of people will use every card in the deck to get ahead. The tragedy is that these people sour the conversation and make people distrust those who bring up the actual issues they face.
The NAACP got involved. There was outrage and shame to spare. The principal wrapped herself in righteous indignation, despite herself being in the position of power.
Months later, she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease. Oops.
I’m sure this person definitely experienced racism and sexism in her life and career. There were undoubtedly many incidents when she was slighted by white people. It’s America, after all. But in this particular case, she was not the victim. The teachers were the victims. The students were the victims. Yet she still acted the victim. Hence, “victimhood mentality”. “Contentless” can cut both ways.
The insidious thing about these types of incidents is how it discredits the rest of the racial justice movement. We need to hold our outrage to a higher standard.
When you get into the territory of microaggressions and subconscious bias, which are real problems but aren't necessarily clearly benign or bad on a case by case basis, the lines can get very blurry depending on who the observer is. Generally you should give the benefit of the doubt, because part of the nature of the social problems we talk about come from blaming the weak for being weak.
Why? I'm hypersensitive; is it more likely I got that way apropos of nothing, that I just bought into some racist culture that is determined to create claims of issues wholecloth against blacks to rail against, or because I -have- been mugged by a black person enough times that I assume the worst?
Would you take an empathetic view to where I'm coming from?
A black man, or just any man wearing street clothes?
Any man wearing street clothes, or just any man wearing street clothes on an otherwise empty street?
Because if you do that in broad daylight, on a well populated street, because a black woman in business clothes appears to be a possible threat, but you don't do it for the white man in street clothes on an empty street at night, then it sounds like maybe you have a pretty racist heuristic.
Otherwise, yeah, I'm pretty empathic; race may indeed be an additional input, especially given your history, but if it's just one more heuristic that makes you slightly more likely to cross the street, and you also -recognize- that it's a generalization you're making, and that it's unfair to the individual even though it's based on personal experience...yes, I'm empathic towards where you find yourself. Certainly, as a man, if the input of "a man approaching" on its own caused you to be more likely to cross the street, I don't view it as some sort of misandry, and would not take it personally.
(And yes, I know this is an attempt at a rhetorical counter argument, but I'm purposely treating it as a real position to make clear I don't view it as a particularly compelling argument)
I personally would be empathic to you.
However I would also expect you to recognize the failure in that heuristic, even as you continue to execute it.
EDIT: After a second look I realize this is probably what the parent post is trying to get at :-)
Now for jumping to the defensive the moment a man asks you a benign question, because you assume he is sexist because of his gender - isn't that sexism?
I asked my Pakistani heritage boss when he immigrated, innocently. Note I'm an immigrant to the US myself and now the UK, so I thought it was not a bad question to ask. He's British born though, and considered himself a British citizen foremost. And given the rampant racism in the UK against those of Pakistani origin (many white Brits don't consider anyone Pakistani to be "proper British"), well you could see how he might be offended at my question. Fortunately he just laughed at my rudeness.
Another time, I made a bad joke to a French colleague of mine who I'd been working with for a couple weeks. I think he said I didn't seem like a normal American, and I responded saying I didn't think he looked French, not wearing a striped shirt and a beret. Oh man, that really dug my grave right there. Saying he didn't look French was probably the greatest insult I could ever have said. He is of Turkish heritage, and Turkish people have been persecuted and treated poorly for a long time in France, including lots of racism based on "they don't look French". He was angry with me for a very long time over that. I apologized to him profusely, saying I was just an idiot American, and I think he forgave me eventually.
I've been working to help correct this misconception through careful writing.
But what does your example have to do with race?
I imagine social media is the worst environment to have this kind of dialogue.
I'm very very surprised about this whole identity politics thing. First time I came to the US and I conversed with this Asian women friend, who told me that she wanted to go to business school, and I asked her "why business school?" and suddenly another Asian women (friend of her) cut me and said "Oh why not, because she is a woman?" and I was like "wow, where did that come from? what does that even mean?" and since that day I know that US racial issue is fucked up big time.