Kristof and WuDunn
Nicholas Kristof and his wife Sheryl WuDunn are the 2009 Dayton Literary Peace Prize winners. The Dayton award, according to the website, is the first and only annual U.S. literary award recognizing the power of the written word to promote peace. The award recognizes Kristof and WuDunn for their work in bringing awareness to issues around the world, particularly women’s issues.
I’m not familiar with WuDunn’s work. I do think that Kristof deserves the award–despite being annoyingly flippant at times, and despite his tendency to portray himself as the good western rescuer, he has brought much needed attention to problems around the world. He has dug deep in uncovering issues, and he has promoted environmentalism and other issues that are important. Many of these issues would probably remain unknown without his work.
Still, part of me is saddened. I first wrote about Kristof’s attitude towards Asian Americans here, regarding one of his condescending articles on Asian Americans and his subsequent response when he received angry mail from our community. I was one of those who sent him a letter, and he responded to all of us with a simple “I don’t buy it.”
Look, I think it’s great what he’s trying to do for Darfur. I think he’s doing a good job raising awareness of sex trafficking around the world. He’s a compelling writer, which is why he is where he is, and he deserves the award. However, Asian Americans in this country lack representation, and I wish he would do some work to bring us some peace too. Because he is married to a Chinese American woman, you would think that he would be close to our struggles. I’m all for peace around the world, but I wish the powerful people with ties to our community would do their part to lend us a hand.
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I agree with everything you said. About #1…I think...
“Because he is married to a Chinese American woman, you would think that he would be close to our struggles.”
I haven’t been that naive since high school. I’m a little surprised though that you made that statement given all the great IR discussions you have participated in or at least have been a witness to not to mention overall real life experiences that would make you at the very least a little more incredulous and wary. But I don’t think you used that statement to show disbelief, but instead you were pointing out the disgusting irony…in which case I agree.
“But I don’t think you used that statement to show disbelief, but instead you were pointing out the disgusting irony…in which case I agree.”
Haha…you know me well!
Actually, I sent the letter to Kristof right after reading something he wrote about him learning Chinese with his daughters, and I think I referenced his multi-culti famili. I wasn’t expecting much from him. Even though I felt his article was racist, I wasn’t expecting him to say so. Still, I expected…something. Even just an acknowledgment that he’d at least try to do better. Instead, he used his NY Times blog to tell us all that he doesn’t buy it.
I do think it’s a question worth asking. The two MOST POWERFUL media men in the world are married to Asian women (Moonves and Murdoch). I think Neutral Observer brought this up before–we’ve got the people there, so we shouldn’t have media issues. Where is the love?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJpyskHMwRs
Oops, sorry, Neutral didn’t bring it up with respect to Asian women; he was mentioning that black women ran some black media companies.
Thought: I wonder if rich people feel racism at the level that the common people (you and me) do. I suspect that things change if you have several mil in the bank.
“I do think it’s a question worth asking. The two MOST POWERFUL media men in the world are married to Asian women (Moonves and Murdoch). I think Neutral Observer brought this up before–we’ve got the people there, so we shouldn’t have media issues. Where is the love?”
America doesn’t work like that. Once minorities reach the pinnacles of power in the USA, they are fully part of the system. They share the same values and worldview as the White elites whose world they are part of.
In fact, these minorites would never be allowed to join the White elite if they didn’t share its values–and of course serve its political interests.
This all goes back to something I believe: the Colored Faces in High Places model of minority empowerment is largely worthless.
It doesn’t fundamentally change the operation of institutions; instead, it just gives these institutions a diversity figleaf they can hide behind.
And it certainly doesn’t benefit minority communities as a whole–only a very thin layer of upwardly mobile and ambitious elites of color.
As for Nicholas Kristof, he is a smug White liberal. You will find many of these types in the East Coast establishment, like at the so-called Newspaper of Record itself.
America doesn’t work like that. Once minorities reach the pinnacles of power in the USA, they are fully part of the system. They share the same values and worldview as the White elites whose world they are part of.
Just curious, Larry.
So what’s your take on Obama? Pawn of the White man, or a true activist working to get things done?
You know I have been trying to coin the term “minority agents” for awhile and along with that get some sort of lucrative book deal or article in a research journal. While minorities clamor about equal representation and mobility in the corporate world/ workplace, they do not realize that it takes a fair amount of “selling out” to make it to what they think is the top or the top of their potential. These minority agents wholely play their role in which they are manipulated, controlled, and promoted based on a lie without even knowing it or at least without caring as long as they move up “socially” and “economically”.
I have observed and experienced this minority agent concept many times. And I have been royally burnt once when I refused to compromise my values to get to where I did. However, as soon as my employer found an acceptable minority agent who I hired, brought in, trained, and mentored by the way combined with certain circumstances that fell in place, my so called career was cut short abruptly by arrogant, incompetent, gun toting, Obama hating, white male chauvenistic mofos. I went from being praised by the vice president and chairman of the entire company to being ousted in a matter of months. How does that happen I ask you?
There were so many things fucked up with the situation, so many ways they tried to fuck me, and so many things fucked up with that business unit and division I worked in. If I told you everything, you won’t believe me. My only mistake was not getting out of there on my own terms. By the way, I found out after the hire, that the person working under me hated blacks and believes all that is good can only be associated with whiteness. I swear to God, I hired the perfect minority agent for this company. The things I saw and experienced at this company was unbelievable but not at all untypical although most companies do somewhat better jobs of concealing what I experienced at this company.
Anyway, back to the original topic (sorry for derailing). Yes, yes, these Moonves, Murdoch, and Kristof’s “Asian” pearls are nothing more than minority agents of the worst kind indeed given their positions and power as the wives of very powerful, white douchebags. If anyone should get grief, it should be these apparently fine, sophisticated, worldly, ‘successful’ ladies instead of their white masters.
Just curious, Larry.
So what’s your take on Obama? Pawn of the White man, or a true activist working to get things done?
In terms of his promises about “change that you can believe in,” Obama is a political fraud. His domestic and foreign policies are largely a continuation of his predecessor–with some cosmetic or tactical differences.
Cynthia McKinley put it best: Barack Obama is Bushism without Bush.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eQN_3rn9CY
@ MT
Your experience sounds interesting. You should definitely write about it in some sort of article or even book. Minority agents is a good term. But it might be a bit too lenient on these people. They sound like what are usually called Uncle Toms.
From my experience, the WM who is dating or married to an AF is more racist than the average WM; especially towards AM.
I second Larry for the production of mT’s career memoirs. Share the knowledge so others can learn from it!!
In what ways would a minority agent be different from an uncle tom?
@etain
I am glad you asked. In general, I think the term Uncle Tom applies more to a black person. It’s often used to describe a black person who undermines his/her own people through actions and behavior of subserviency to the ruling class or whites (which inevitably involves betraying his/her own peeps in various ways) in the false hope of obtaining the acceptance of whites and the elitist social/economic status and benefits that is associated with such actions/mentality of subserviency and betrayal. Someone correct me if I am wrong…but ‘Uncle Tom’ did not always have negative connotations. Its origins were very different, but it was quickly twisted and became something very negative.
A minority agent is built on the same concept but can be used more as an academic term. I like to use the term minority agent to expand the scope a lot more to include any minority group and to try to capture the range of actions and motivations of minorities in relation to a particular situation or dynamic as well as the interactions and relationships of that minority to the situation or dynamic. The term also lends itself to discussing the concept across multiple social settings or environments.
For example, at the company I talked about before, the environment was very unprofessional, sexist, and crude at times. The GM of the business unit would call the ex-group controller of the former division a stupid cunt, a bitch, a slut, etc. It’s a very male dominated industry. When I told the HR manager who happened to be a female of this, the first thing she asked me was “in what context the GM used those words”. She tried to go on and argue that it really depended on the intent and meaning, then she backtracked, and it ended nowhere…it was just such a waste time…because I was obviously talking to a stupid minority agent. Then she said that she would not do anything about it unless I ‘absolutely’ wanted her to. Just the fact that I told her what was going on wasn’t enough for her to even make a note, file a report, follow up, or do anything. And it wasn’t like she wasn’t aware of any of this type of behavior as she had worked there alongside her white GM male boss for years and has surely heard other types of demeaning jokes and statements made in the open just like everyone else did. So, see…the HR manager is a white female and she’s a minority agent. She is a disgrace to women everywhere. And guess what…if she’s willing to betray women; she’s surely capable of easily dismissing other shit in order to kiss the ground that her corporate masters have walked on and be paid a fat nice salary for being an incompetent HR person with exception skills at being a tool for a racist institution. As a side note, it was kind of uneasy when I was in the same room with all these white male senior and executive managers of the company, and they briefly brought up the ex-group controller’s resignation. They all knew she was forced out and they called her a stupid slut and a cunt behind her back, but there in that moment in that meeting they were saying how smart she was but “she just couldn’t get along with others”. What a crying farce.
Anyway, I hope that answers your question a little bit.