The Conversation
- Scapegoating our own (12)
- Frank Chow: @King He definitely said he opposed “same-sex marriage”, that didn’t change....
- King: @ Frank But Manny didn’t even say what he’s been accused of.
- Frank Chow: I think any athlete should be an athlete and accept the responsibility of their words in a public forum....
- Facebook co-founder renounces U.S. citizenship prior to IPO (13)
- Raguel: This is a storm in a tea cup, a new five minutes of hate. This is because despite the outrage, people will...
- Frank Chow: “The country is not over-taxed; in fact, tax rates are near 60 year lows.” -source,...
- bigWOWO: Linda, Mark Cuban is rich (richer than me anyway), and he’s just as horrified as I am. I don’t...
- The Perversity of Human Biodiversity, a.k.a. “Scientific” Racism (428)
- LadyBlack: Hello, you who believe that some races are inferior and that some are superior. As a Black (in particular...
- bigWOWO: Thanks, Grover!
- Grover Porquel: Excellent roundup. I have taken on these “biodiversity” types myself over the years and...
- Higher education: the next subprime bubble (5)
- bigWOWO: Let’s think hypothetically. Let’s say they had quotas, such as a company of X number of...
- kobukson: In the past, a high school diploma was sufficient for getting a job. Things changed and a HS diploma...
- bigWOWO: I do agree with you, Ei, to a certain point. I have heard that some lawyers and engineers are having...
- Americans Eat the World’s Cheapest Food (36)
- bigWOWO: A week in, and: I liked the mock chicken, but the family didn’t like it. I don’t know if...
- King: ^ But isn’t Anthony Bourdain the same guy who recently called Paula Deen the “Worst Unhealthy Cook” for...
- kobukson: I like Anthony Bourdain’s take on vegetarians and vegans: “Vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like...
- Why Do Asian People Have Bad Eyesight? (37)
- Suing the Bachelor for racial discrimination (34)
- George: The problem with the entertainment industry is that they have already stated that blacks are not on the show...
- George: “Oh and prediction, you know the first female non white bachelorette will be Asian, and it will be...
- Chen: i’ve been reading about BFOQ cases, and it seems as if the entertainment industry wins unless they do...
- Reasons to eliminate black studies (23)
- Asian Men, Black Men, and the Competition for White Women (569)
- Raguel: Actually, white people may laugh at him even more, and that may be why they like him so much.
- Raguel: How does this nihilistic dog so filled with ressentiment and love of the slave morality even dare to mention...
- ChineseMom: (continued) Criticism of contemporary Chinese literature and Marxism Q: After the publication of your...
- Immigration records of Asian immigrants to be made available to public (2)
- American woman becomes hero to abused women in China (39)
- Chen: thats it. This woman got beat up, and that is wrong. I’m sure some assholes are going to use that and run...
- Eurasian Sensation: Patriarchal practices are incredibly ingrained in some countries and are extremely hard to shift....
- Raguel: Wasn’t it reported in one of the major american magazines like life, time etc that travelling ulamas...
- San Diego student left alone in cell for five days (3)
- bigWOWO: Haha…I know, Zach! This is the absolute worse kind of invisibility that there is!
- Zach Katagiri: Man — talk about asian american males being invisible!!
- Linda: this will be the next episode of “I survived….” I am surprised they don’t have video...
- Adventures of the Karaoke King by Harold Taw (Review and Question) (4)
- bigWOWO: Alpha, Glad that you see the precious metals rather than the ranking! Although I guess I should consider...
- Raguel: Why not make contact with other blogs and Asian American websites to feature your reviews? This way,...
- Alpha Asian: B, I know what you mean. A lot of reviewers just give very bland reviews and they don’t really...
- Asian women fetch high prices for egg donation (5)
- Dman: I don’t get the article Asian women in demand for donating her eggs. I did not see anything mentioned...
- bigWOWO: I think that buying an egg is financially easier these days than adoption from China. I know people trying...
- Linda: Also regarding about adoption. I think a lot of Americanized Asians are open to adoption in the US. (unlike...
- Re-Programming Your Mind (74)
- Chr..: I’m not making this up! I saw this guy in front of a Trader Joe’s here in NYC not too long ago as...
- Asian Women and the Invisible Chain (187)
- Chr..: @ King Yes, and what can the general masses do to stop with what’s going on right now? Not much I would...
- King: @ Chr Because the money, more than anything else, is ‘the system’ that affects everything else.
- Chr..: “The whole thing looks like a very twisted version of musical chairs, doesn’t it?” Why does this...
- Creative Monopolists (3)
- Asian husband-wife team on Shark Tank (3)
- Artists Who Refuse to Work for Free (5)
- Courtney: I have been drawing for 22 years. I think it’s really inconsiderate to ask an artist to sit down for...
- More Asian Americans Marrying Within Their Race (106)
- Chr..: “Look at some of the fatcats on Wall Street–a guy who can drop $800 on a single night out isn’t...
- The Richer Sex by Liza Mundy (Review) (12)
- Chr..: “dystopian mating marketplace where, like income inequality, the rewards of female sexuality will go...
- Whiteness and American TV (9)
- Linda: @hadoken – I don’t know why korean dramas are like crack. I go thru phases. since it’s a...
- Scapegoating our own (12)
Monthly Archives: June 2009
Sotomayor vs. Thomas
Clarence Thomas and Sonia Sotomayor during their college days
Today the NY Times had a very fair and balanced (if I’m allowed to use the term) comparison between Clarence Thomas’s and Sonia Sotomayor’s biographies and views on race. It presents a three dimensional view of both people.
As you all know, I don’t know if I necessarily support Sotomayor’s nomination, but I do think the fact that she is a Latina will help provide a greater richness to the decisions and opinions of the Supreme Court. I think it’s important for the nation’s government to look like and to share the experiences of the people it serves. It broadens her perspective, and her presence will broaden the perspective of the Court. Against an “equally qualified” White man, I would support her, although I put “equally qualified” in quotes since I believe her diversity is a qualification.
Writing Ethnicity
I saw this blog post from a gay White male author named Michael Thomas Ford on how it’s assumed that authors always write characters of their own race. This goes back to a point we made a while back about being race blind to the highest extent possible. When is it acceptable? When is it desirable? Most Asian American authors explicitly mention race or ethnicity in their writing. Why do we focus on race? Is it holding us back, or does it make a point?
No podcast this coming week
We’ve had podcasts every week for the past few weeks, but this week we don’t have anything scheduled. We were originally hoping to have the fatherhood podcast this weekend. Unfortunately didn’t work with everyone’s schedule. It looks like next week we’ll be talking to Ed Kahana and Eric Jacobus, followed by possibly doing the fatherhood podcast. After that, well, it’s anyone’s guess.
If you have any ideas for interesting podcasts, e-mail them over or feel free to sound off below.
Medium's Genius Screenwriting and Acting
Natasha Bedingfield's Soulmate
If you didn’t catch the last Medium, you need to. Check it out here (look at the episode list and click on “Bring Me the Head of Oswaldo Castillo.) Not only was it an awesome episode; it also had a really dark song as the backdrop, Soulmate by Natasha Bedingfield. Medium itself has always been dark, and it was a great finale for NBC before Medium moves from NBC to CBS. I’ll talk about it below.
David Carradine Dead
David Carradine
This is shocking. Wow. Out of nowhere.
David Carradine was the actor assigned to the leading character in the TV show Kung Fu, a role that Bruce Lee invented but was denied since he, ironically, wasn’t White. Since those days, David Carradine, with his slow moving Tai Chi, created a faux-Asian image that Americans bought like crazy. Being White helped launch and solidify his career as a leading role and figure in Orientalist Asian American culture, most recently in Tarantino’s Kill Bill films.
IR on NPR
(pic from here)
The 4-1-1 on I-R on N-P-R. Man, these acronyms and short cuts are all over the place.
One of you (not sure if it was meant to be anonymous or not) sent me this article and podcast on NPR. NPR covered our favorite topic just a few days ago. Because I and everyone else on this site are experts on the phenomenon, the NPR article didn’t say anything that we already didn’t know. It also didn’t mention the general idea of what we know–this IR (interracial relationships) issue is like a bone in the throat for us, and Asian America is stuck in cultural purgatory around this issue. However, as always, articles like this confirm and build on what we already know–IR is somewhat on the decline for Asian Americans, and people are starting to think more about family, etc, according to the news media. As people trying to educate and elucidate, we need to hear the issue from different angles.
Brian Clay today
Brian Clay, as the winner of the Olympic decathlon, is considered the greatest athlete in the world. Yet fame and fortune have not come his way. The NY Times has an article about Clay and his relative anonymity today. Clay is half African American and half Japanese American, and as the article says, people sometimes mistake him for Tiger Woods.
Such is the way capitalism works. Even being the best in the world doesn’t guarantee fame and fortune. The Times says it well:
How is it that backup quarterbacks, utility infielders and winless golf professionals live more extravagantly than someone deemed the world’s greatest athlete?
Podcast: Interview with Jimmy Aquino
Last Thursday I had a podcast with Jimmy Aquino, one of the writers of Secret Identities: The Asian American Superhero Anthology. Download it here, or hear it here:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
It is 36 mB and runs just under 40 minutes. I’m consistently having problems with GarageBand, so I guess y’all will have to get used to the large file sizes. In this podcast, we discussed Jimmy’s career, his previous life as an html coder, his interest in comics, his involvement with The Minority Militant’s website and Project X, and his goals for the future as an Asian American writer.
Edison Chen breaks his silence
Edison Chen
I was surprised this morning to see that Edison Chen was among CNN’s most popular stories. Check it out here. According to the site, you can
Watch the full, exclusive TV interview with Edison Chen on CNN TV and here online on Wednesday, June 3. Chen talks at length to CNN’s Anjali Rao about the women involved in the photographs, why he took the images, the effect the scandal had on his health, his family and others.
That Gravitational Pull
Sandra Day O'Connor being sworn in, 1981
The NY Times had a good article on how minority judges change the dynamics of how a committee operates. They start with Thurgood Marshall, who was the first non-white male Supreme Court Justice, and then they move to talk about Ginsburg and O’Connor. The article discusses how the mere presence of a minority changes the way the club operates. Even Scalia noted the influence.
But the other justices did get to know Justice Marshall, and even the more conservative ones acknowledged that his very presence exerted a gravitational pull more powerful than his single vote.
