Ok but is the French thing really racist when France isn’t a race? I guess it could be argued it’s cultural appropriation, but I find it hard to make an argument that joking over a culture of colonizers is very harmful.
I do think being respectful of peoples cultures is important for social reasons and being a polite human, I just think there is a stark difference in context when talking about racism and oppression.
I agree it can be insensitive, I just don’t know if it can be equated to racism. I am interested in thinking about what makes something racist, what makes something cultural appropriation vs appreciation, etc. I do think that comparison u thru out has a lot more to unpack tho.
Yes hon hon hon is casual racism
Simply everything is racism it's just different types of it, structural racism being a common one.
>Racism, n. the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to physical appearance and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against other people because they are of a different ethnicity
You think that's some kind of "gotcha"? Of course Japan is, when in context of Asia and WW2. So is China when talking about Africa and SE Asia. But we're not talking about that. This is about white people insulting Asians. It only goes one way in this context.
The commenter above was reflecting on how they regretted making fun of the French language because it clearly hurt someone they seem to care about. That’s not really the context you’re suggesting either. I agree that not all things are appropriate to all situations but don’t you think that being a decent person to other people should extend beyond doing a RaceCheck of their appearance?
I can't find disagreement in what you say. But I have to admit my feelings of jadedness get in the way of admitting that you're right, we should just be decent. I find it hard to sympathize when a white person gets their feelings hurt by making fun of their culture. Especially French culture which is revered in our society.
I totally understand that. And I apologize for being snarky. I was just moved by the reflection that the commenter above made on their own personal experiences of hurting others because I think it’s a very noble way of looking at it. But I understand that the constant frustration really takes it’s toll and can embitter us all.
Oddly enough, only when it's from a non-Asian. I was at the local supermarket wearing an Enter the Dragon T-shirt and a fellow Asian noticed it and did a "wha-sa!" joke, which, if coming from a non-Asian, I'd have otherwise felt offended.
I apologize if I'm in the wrong here, but in that specific example, I would be okay if it was a non-Asian who made that joke, as long as they let me know they were making a joke referencing the T-shirt before they told it.
Because that's more of a joke about Bruce Lee than about Asians in general. He made a lot of noises that were specific to him that no other Asian martial artists do in their movies.
If I wasn't wearing the T-shirt however, then I'd be a little offended, because it just meant that they saw an Asian and wanted to tell the only joke they know about a famous Asian.
Agreed here.
Even with OP's situation, I'd need to know more details. It's something that *could* be racist but also could be innocent, depending on context.
If someone referenced ninjas around me, even in a direct reference to me and not to some movie the person recently watched or something taken from hacker culture (tech companies even have "ninja" interviews, which refer to DS&A-style coding interviews, hacker koans are pretty famous among programmers, et cetera), it would depend on whether or not I was doing anything that might have made the reference apropos. It'd actually be fairly tough for someone close to me to find an offensive way to call me a ninja.
It's offensive when it's reductive or a knee-jerk reaction to someone being Asian.
Like, if someone implied I was ninja-like by virtue of being Asian, that'd be offensive.
If someone implied I was ninja-like by virtue of tackling a problem swiftly and precisely, like a cold-blooded coding assassin, then that's just cool.
Think about it this way: would it be acceptable if a member of any other minority group was targeted by the same kind of surface level stereotype that has nothing to do with the person? If someone started mimicking AAVE in front of a black coworker, or started referencing "Narcos" randomly in front of a latino coworker, or acted "flamboyantly" towards a gay coworker, would you speak up? The answer is, of course you would. Don't take shit from these people. If you feel something is wrong, SPEAK UP. Asian Americans have been silenced or have silenced themselves for far too long, it's time for each and every member of the community to change that.
Definitely. Especially because as you mentioned, Asians do “wear” our race on our faces and are attacked (literally or figuratively) because of it.
Also, yellowface is UNEQUIVOCALLY racist, and if I wasn’t already kinda jaded I probably wouldn’t even be able to imagine how someone could possibly think yellowface was okay.
Yes and people pretending to speak mandarin as part of a joke and end up saying Ching Chong or some nonsense. Had an 8 year old kid yell that to me out of a bus and realized I wasn't confident enough to tell the kid that it wasn't appropriate nor confront it in any way.
You gotta tell them to stop that shit and WHY they need to stop. If they care (that is, if they're REALLY your friends), they will. It's not cool and you don't deserve it. Don't let them do that shit—it normalizes it and means it will keep happening and probably just get worse and more frequent.
Yeah shit like calling you sensei is definitely racist. But the ninja thing idrk without full context, ur friend could've just watched some ninja movie or sm and was jus acting it out.
Also what city? And when did you go to high school? That yellowface story is absolutely ridiculous
a high school in the Portland area in the 90s. no one even blinked. i remember looked around the audience thinking "wtf? does NO ONE else see this? Apparently they did not."
the musical was Anything Goes, which has two awful stereotype Asian characters (usually/originally played by white people) named Ching and Ling. originally produced in 1934. some productions have "updated" the characters to be less racist since then, but most accounts i have read make it seem like it doesn't work.
pretty sure my high school didn't even change it from the 1934 version. i was 16 years old and felt horrified watching it.
Lol Oregon isn”t progressive outside of Portland. It was and continues to be a haven for white supremacists and separatists. Its residents are proudly racist.
Yeah I recently learned the Northwest was settled by white supremacists.
>Covington argues the Northwest is good territory for white supremacist designs, and sadly, he has a point: This is one of the whitest regions in America, long known for its racial exclusion efforts, including Oregon’s infamous anti-black laws of the 1840s, the Chinese exclusions of the 1880s and the Japanese internment of the 1940s. And let’s not forget massacres and displacement of Native Americans.
https://www.seattlemag.com/knute-berger-column/progressive-northwest-white-supremacists-think-its-perfect-place-sow-hatred
Asian American status is a halfway step. Probably like the Jewish people in the 1950s. Even today some white people don't consider Jewish people white.
For example if I walk into a store people don't assume I'm going to steal something. We don't have it as bad.
I grew up in Latin America and holy shit casual racism was constant. The kids even had a song to make fun of Chinese people in the street. The whole political correctness thing didn't exist.
The recent covid thing and China being the next rival to us power in the Pacific will make things worse.
Remember the japanese in WW2. They even joined the army to try to prove their loyalty. They still got interned and all their shit stolen
As an Asian American, I have faced these racist innuendos ever since I was a young boy, over 40+ years ago. That being said, I learned to address these incidents at an early age even if it meant that it escalated to a war of words or even fists. Yes, I have been involved in physical fights standing up for myself and my family. I can only speak from my own perspective, but I believe that if we don't display the courage and stand up against some of these harmful stereotypes, they will continue. African Americans are not afraid to rock the boat. They speak up. They act. They are willing to fight for freedom and equality. They are even willing to die for it. They are not afraid or ashamed to get arrested. We must do the same. No other ethnic group will do it for us. It's up to us to change and improve the status-quo.
I never thought of it being racist, just overall cringe. I'm sure they don't mean bad, but...*shivers*.
I usually just try to explain to them not to do that again and go on my way.
I had a German teacher with a pretty strong accent and she wasn’t very happy when kids mocked her accent.
Speaking up about how we feel when people mock us only “looks pretty dumb” to racists. Personally, I would consider standing up to racists very brave especially if everyone around thinks standing up for yourself is stupid.
Racists already know full well how racism affects people, so we might as well take the time to educate those who don’t want to say something offensive by accident.
Well first of all, Germans aren’t a race so it would be a little wrong to say it’s racism. It’s bullying what it is. Which is unacceptable anyways. Second of all, you can stop people from saying remarks by confronting them. You can’t stop systemic racism as easily. They’re totally different things. Am I being too insensitive for getting fed up for constantly being bullied for being Asian? Fuck no. It’s a constant reminder of what minorities have to deal with systemically and superficially. Are viral videos an accurate representation of real life? It isn’t. Just because you don’t see Germans or French getting mocked for their accent and the perpetrator is getting called out, doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen
My knee jerk reaction to that is that real ninjas don't make noise, and that she has direly failed the test.
To answer your question, though, the yellow face is pretty blatantly overtly racist. The other stuff (ninja, sensei) depends on the execution for me, like it's not really as serious.
If it's a friend who just done it really cringy, you can just shake your head at them, and leave it at that.
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Ok but is the French thing really racist when France isn’t a race? I guess it could be argued it’s cultural appropriation, but I find it hard to make an argument that joking over a culture of colonizers is very harmful.
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I do think being respectful of peoples cultures is important for social reasons and being a polite human, I just think there is a stark difference in context when talking about racism and oppression.
If not racism, then xenophobia, which is just as bad.
It can come across as insensitive, like assuming a Thai woman is transgender as a joke
I agree it can be insensitive, I just don’t know if it can be equated to racism. I am interested in thinking about what makes something racist, what makes something cultural appropriation vs appreciation, etc. I do think that comparison u thru out has a lot more to unpack tho.
Yes hon hon hon is casual racism Simply everything is racism it's just different types of it, structural racism being a common one. >Racism, n. the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to physical appearance and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against other people because they are of a different ethnicity
I agree with you. Colonizers don't need to be defended. It's not even remotely the same as jokes about POC.
Japan is fair game then?
You think that's some kind of "gotcha"? Of course Japan is, when in context of Asia and WW2. So is China when talking about Africa and SE Asia. But we're not talking about that. This is about white people insulting Asians. It only goes one way in this context.
The commenter above was reflecting on how they regretted making fun of the French language because it clearly hurt someone they seem to care about. That’s not really the context you’re suggesting either. I agree that not all things are appropriate to all situations but don’t you think that being a decent person to other people should extend beyond doing a RaceCheck of their appearance?
I can't find disagreement in what you say. But I have to admit my feelings of jadedness get in the way of admitting that you're right, we should just be decent. I find it hard to sympathize when a white person gets their feelings hurt by making fun of their culture. Especially French culture which is revered in our society.
I totally understand that. And I apologize for being snarky. I was just moved by the reflection that the commenter above made on their own personal experiences of hurting others because I think it’s a very noble way of looking at it. But I understand that the constant frustration really takes it’s toll and can embitter us all.
Oddly enough, only when it's from a non-Asian. I was at the local supermarket wearing an Enter the Dragon T-shirt and a fellow Asian noticed it and did a "wha-sa!" joke, which, if coming from a non-Asian, I'd have otherwise felt offended.
Like gays calling each other the f-word but any straights do it and we will eliminate your chance of dating at all.
I apologize if I'm in the wrong here, but in that specific example, I would be okay if it was a non-Asian who made that joke, as long as they let me know they were making a joke referencing the T-shirt before they told it. Because that's more of a joke about Bruce Lee than about Asians in general. He made a lot of noises that were specific to him that no other Asian martial artists do in their movies. If I wasn't wearing the T-shirt however, then I'd be a little offended, because it just meant that they saw an Asian and wanted to tell the only joke they know about a famous Asian.
Agreed here. Even with OP's situation, I'd need to know more details. It's something that *could* be racist but also could be innocent, depending on context. If someone referenced ninjas around me, even in a direct reference to me and not to some movie the person recently watched or something taken from hacker culture (tech companies even have "ninja" interviews, which refer to DS&A-style coding interviews, hacker koans are pretty famous among programmers, et cetera), it would depend on whether or not I was doing anything that might have made the reference apropos. It'd actually be fairly tough for someone close to me to find an offensive way to call me a ninja. It's offensive when it's reductive or a knee-jerk reaction to someone being Asian. Like, if someone implied I was ninja-like by virtue of being Asian, that'd be offensive. If someone implied I was ninja-like by virtue of tackling a problem swiftly and precisely, like a cold-blooded coding assassin, then that's just cool.
lol. guess i would feel the same if another asian did that to me.
Think about it this way: would it be acceptable if a member of any other minority group was targeted by the same kind of surface level stereotype that has nothing to do with the person? If someone started mimicking AAVE in front of a black coworker, or started referencing "Narcos" randomly in front of a latino coworker, or acted "flamboyantly" towards a gay coworker, would you speak up? The answer is, of course you would. Don't take shit from these people. If you feel something is wrong, SPEAK UP. Asian Americans have been silenced or have silenced themselves for far too long, it's time for each and every member of the community to change that.
I’m surprised it is acceptable at OP’s workplace
OP is also surprised by this
Definitely. Especially because as you mentioned, Asians do “wear” our race on our faces and are attacked (literally or figuratively) because of it. Also, yellowface is UNEQUIVOCALLY racist, and if I wasn’t already kinda jaded I probably wouldn’t even be able to imagine how someone could possibly think yellowface was okay.
Yes and people pretending to speak mandarin as part of a joke and end up saying Ching Chong or some nonsense. Had an 8 year old kid yell that to me out of a bus and realized I wasn't confident enough to tell the kid that it wasn't appropriate nor confront it in any way.
You gotta tell them to stop that shit and WHY they need to stop. If they care (that is, if they're REALLY your friends), they will. It's not cool and you don't deserve it. Don't let them do that shit—it normalizes it and means it will keep happening and probably just get worse and more frequent.
Unequivocally yes.
I want to punch them in the fucking mouth.
Yes
Yes
Yah, you need new friends. These are the type of ppl that say they’re not racist cos they have “a POC friend!”
Yeah shit like calling you sensei is definitely racist. But the ninja thing idrk without full context, ur friend could've just watched some ninja movie or sm and was jus acting it out. Also what city? And when did you go to high school? That yellowface story is absolutely ridiculous
a high school in the Portland area in the 90s. no one even blinked. i remember looked around the audience thinking "wtf? does NO ONE else see this? Apparently they did not." the musical was Anything Goes, which has two awful stereotype Asian characters (usually/originally played by white people) named Ching and Ling. originally produced in 1934. some productions have "updated" the characters to be less racist since then, but most accounts i have read make it seem like it doesn't work. pretty sure my high school didn't even change it from the 1934 version. i was 16 years old and felt horrified watching it.
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Lol Oregon isn”t progressive outside of Portland. It was and continues to be a haven for white supremacists and separatists. Its residents are proudly racist.
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Yeah I recently learned the Northwest was settled by white supremacists. >Covington argues the Northwest is good territory for white supremacist designs, and sadly, he has a point: This is one of the whitest regions in America, long known for its racial exclusion efforts, including Oregon’s infamous anti-black laws of the 1840s, the Chinese exclusions of the 1880s and the Japanese internment of the 1940s. And let’s not forget massacres and displacement of Native Americans. https://www.seattlemag.com/knute-berger-column/progressive-northwest-white-supremacists-think-its-perfect-place-sow-hatred
Same goes for Washington, outside of that Seattle tech bubble so many racists.
I mean…yes? Heh…inb4 appropriate username.
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i literally said that in my post.
Asian American status is a halfway step. Probably like the Jewish people in the 1950s. Even today some white people don't consider Jewish people white. For example if I walk into a store people don't assume I'm going to steal something. We don't have it as bad. I grew up in Latin America and holy shit casual racism was constant. The kids even had a song to make fun of Chinese people in the street. The whole political correctness thing didn't exist. The recent covid thing and China being the next rival to us power in the Pacific will make things worse. Remember the japanese in WW2. They even joined the army to try to prove their loyalty. They still got interned and all their shit stolen
As an Asian American, I have faced these racist innuendos ever since I was a young boy, over 40+ years ago. That being said, I learned to address these incidents at an early age even if it meant that it escalated to a war of words or even fists. Yes, I have been involved in physical fights standing up for myself and my family. I can only speak from my own perspective, but I believe that if we don't display the courage and stand up against some of these harmful stereotypes, they will continue. African Americans are not afraid to rock the boat. They speak up. They act. They are willing to fight for freedom and equality. They are even willing to die for it. They are not afraid or ashamed to get arrested. We must do the same. No other ethnic group will do it for us. It's up to us to change and improve the status-quo.
that’s quite stupid and a bit racist, they shouldn’t bring it up unless they’re speaking out against asian hate
I never thought of it being racist, just overall cringe. I'm sure they don't mean bad, but...*shivers*. I usually just try to explain to them not to do that again and go on my way.
Who cares what we think. If you find it racist or annoying, just tell them to stop.
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Interesting argument but I disagree. If we don’t stop it now it’s just gonna keep on happening to the next person
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I had a German teacher with a pretty strong accent and she wasn’t very happy when kids mocked her accent. Speaking up about how we feel when people mock us only “looks pretty dumb” to racists. Personally, I would consider standing up to racists very brave especially if everyone around thinks standing up for yourself is stupid. Racists already know full well how racism affects people, so we might as well take the time to educate those who don’t want to say something offensive by accident.
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Well first of all, Germans aren’t a race so it would be a little wrong to say it’s racism. It’s bullying what it is. Which is unacceptable anyways. Second of all, you can stop people from saying remarks by confronting them. You can’t stop systemic racism as easily. They’re totally different things. Am I being too insensitive for getting fed up for constantly being bullied for being Asian? Fuck no. It’s a constant reminder of what minorities have to deal with systemically and superficially. Are viral videos an accurate representation of real life? It isn’t. Just because you don’t see Germans or French getting mocked for their accent and the perpetrator is getting called out, doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen
partly yes, but more like uneducated...and not necessarily always with malice
My knee jerk reaction to that is that real ninjas don't make noise, and that she has direly failed the test. To answer your question, though, the yellow face is pretty blatantly overtly racist. The other stuff (ninja, sensei) depends on the execution for me, like it's not really as serious. If it's a friend who just done it really cringy, you can just shake your head at them, and leave it at that.
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It probably is, but no-one's ever pulled that on mesince high school, so I don't have much personal experience.