Edit 12/28/09:
Thanks to adf who first raised the issue of possible bias on the part of CNN.
I asked a Chinese friend to look over the Chinese sites to see what was being said about allegations of infidelity on the part of Lou Jing’s mother, something that was not mentioned AT ALL in the CNN report. From what he gathered, it seems that:
1. Lou Jing’s mom told the public on an American Idol style show that Lou Jing was the result of infidelity while she was married to a Chinese guy.
2. There was harsh language directed at both mother and daughter, however quite a few people defended Lou Jing because she herself did nothing wrong.
3. An interesting part of the discussion was that some people thought it was less shameful for Lou Jing’s mom to cheat with an African American than an African from Africa.
So here’s my somewhat changed stance:
I think that there has been racism directed against Lou Jing. Clearly, people wouldn’t be mentioning stuff about her race if the mom had cheated with a Chinese guy. However, I also think that CNN was negligent in not mentioning the infidelity. As demonstrated by the Tiger Woods, John Edwards, and John Ensign news stories this year, people get pissed off when people cheat. It was irresponsible for them not to report this. It doesn’t excuse racism, but the infidelity does show that these Chinese citizens weren’t targeting the interracial relationship ONLY because it was interracial. I’m assuming that CNN, being the rich media outlet that they are, had the financial wherewithal to get a Chinese reporter to find the truth. That’s what they should have done.
Original:
Check out this story and video feature. I had seen Lou Jing on the internet, but this CNN feature was the first report that really captured my attention on her experience. Lou Jing is the product of an African American father and Chinese mother, and when she auditioned for a singing reality show, the Chinese internet went crazy with people discussing her skin color and status as a Chinese person. Lou Jing has had a history of people questioning her identity:
“Sometimes people on the street would ask me, ‘Why do you speak Chinese so well?’ I’d just say, ‘Because I’m Chinese!’” Lou said.
Watch the video section. There’s an Asian American woman interviewing her, and Lou Jing speaks only in Chinese. I was wondering, “Why doesn’t she just speak English with the American reporter?” And then it occurred to me: her father left before she was born, and so her English is probably at the same level as any other Chinese person in China. Talk about crazy assumptions on my part. If I were to ask why she was speaking Chinese, she’d probably say, “Because I’m Chinese!”
This is the time where the typical “activist” will confront China’s racism and question why a half-White person like Maggie Q gets worshiped by Asians while Blasians get the shaft. These activists are correct, but I’m not going to follow that route. Instead, I’m simply going to say that I respect people like Lou Jing for stepping forward and pushing Asian people into a dialogue that we all need to have.
No related posts.
But here is an...
I agree with everything you said. About #1…I think...
Crazy assumptions…maybe. This is not uncommon in the Vietnamese communities here in the US and in Vietnam with the legacy of the Vietnam war. These kids now all grown up look more black or white or whatever than they do Vietnamese but can barely speak English. And their kids can’t speak that much better either. But these kids being a product of war have a different set of circumstances than Lou Jing’s I’m sure.
It would be interesting to meet and talk to someone like this, if for nothing more than to get over the cognitive dissonance.
You dont have crazy assumuptions, the whole point of her fame is she is talented, attractive, and pretty rare. How many black chinese women do you see? almost none, black & south east asian yes, some, but black and chinese that are not living in the US? I don’t think it is crazy for the first assumtion to be she can speak english.
assumtions are not all bad or wrong. and just because you make an assumtion and it turns out to be wrong it doesn’t make you a bad person. (course this is complicated one could make assumtions that are wrong and which were bad to make)
As far as the racism issue goes, I see a lot of positives in this story along with some negatives.
In the most blatant of racist societies, Lou Jing would simply never have been allowed on the show in the first place, and therefore nobody would be discussing her. Exclusion and denial of access are always the most readily available tools of a racist system. The fact that Lou Jing is on T.V. at all, is a positive sign.
But once she got on the show, she might have faced a massive public backlash. The Chinese public might have demanded, in overwhelming numbers, that she be removed. Or the audience simply might have voted her down on her first appearance. Instead, Lou Jing enjoyed popularity and survived even as other full Chinese girls were voted off. Again, this is also a positive for the image of Chinese tolerance.
And when there was some push back from racists, the show’s producers didn’t scurry to get her off the show, but rather, they endeavored to humanize Lou Jing, by better telling her personal story, and bringing her mother in for an interview. All of this was positive.
As for the show hosts calling Lou Jing “Chocolate Girl” or “Black Girl” this probably needs to be understood from within the context of her culture, as to whether or not the terms would be considered to be offensive. As an American, I can’t make that call from an outsider’s perspective.
However, the fact that there are racists in China, just like there are everywhere else is obvious, and cannot come as a surprise to anyone. Wherever there are races, there is racism. However, the larger question regarding the perception and treatment of Anglo-Sino hapas as opposed Afro-Sino hapas shows an obvious disparity and that is perhaps something both to be considered and addressed.
Dude, you have to stop retelling the biased, anti asian western media view of things like this. Or at least dig a little deeper and tell the other side of the story.
While there certainly are racists in china, most of the vitriol was against her mother and dead beat real father. Her mother had cheated and cuckolded her then chinese husband, even explaining that LJ was black due to herbal medicines she took. He raised her as his own for 3 years until his lying eyes could take it now more, and frankly, I don’t blame him. Her real black dad was never seen again after the night of LJ’s conception.
Realize that western media is baised against asians (whether you’re in america or not), and try to spread their biases and hate. This kind of ignorance leads to things like the hate crimes in the philly high school. Most average americans don’t know the difference between asian americans and asians, and biased stories like this does us all a disfavor.
speaking of China, I wonder how this is going to go over:
http://filmdrunk.uproxx.com/2009/12/celeb-karaoke-first-trailer-for-karate-kid
the racial, cultural, and plain bad acting involved…ripe for a long post
nepotism doesn’t make for good movies apparently…
Thanks Lingyai and King! It did sound like much of the voting audience was supporting her.
afd,
Thanks.
I’ll admit that I had no idea about the cheating allegations. I did some preliminary research, and the Western media doesn’t say much about it. It’s in the English-speaking blogosphere somewhat, but only somewhat.
Do you have any links? My Chinese reading skills are shite, but I’ll get someone to read it to me and post the other side above the original post if you have a good reliable source.
Lingyai,
That movie looks HORRIBLE. It’s like a cross between Romeo Must Die and Karate Kid II.
Hate to admit it, Byron, but “adf” is 100% correct. To make matters worse, the Western media takes the worst of these comments and tries to push it as mainstream. It’s like their habit of pulling aside the most idiotic and misinformed individual at any protest rally to discredit everyone else.
At least when Asian people are racist, it’s blatant. When Americans do it, it’s much more covert which means it’s incredibly insidious.
This is why I respect conservatives more than liberials who are racist. At least you know where you stand with conservatives.
Malcolm X pointed this out, no?
“The white conservatives aren’t friends of the Negro either, but they at least don’t try to hide it. They are like wolves; they show their teeth in a snarl that keeps the Negro always aware of where he stands with them. But the white liberals are foxes, who also show their teeth to the Negro but pretend that they are smiling. The white liberals are more dangerous than the conservatives; they lure the Negro, and as the Negro runs from the growling wolf, he flees into the open jaws of the “smiling” fox.”
uRB4N:
I agree with you–it’s looking like adf is right. I’m planning to put up the other side and maybe even post up a new blog post, especially since we’ve been talking so much about infidelity (Tiger Woods, Who’s Your Daddy, and FlashForward). I just need a reliable link–AND I want to learn exactly what was said. It sounds like people were not angry at Lou Jing and that more anger was coming from the infidelity. Of course, there was racism involved in this, but as everyone has pointed out, racists exist everywhere.
In any case, I’m still speaking from ignorance, and I have no idea how bad it was or exactly what was said. My friend from Shanghai says that he’s going to look up stuff for me over the weekend. Once I get it, I’ll check it out and post it up.
(Man, monolingual literacy sucks. Don’t let this happen to your kids.)
B.
I don’t know that adf is completely right.
There seems to be two roads to danger here. The first is to simply see the negatives and judge all Chinese society based on the actions of the worst actors. That is unfair and dishonest. The second road is to chalk this whole thing up to non-racist motives and ascribe the only real problems to be the bias of the Western media. (making China itself the only real victim in this story) That too is dishonest and conveniently self-deceptive.
Even if you just look at the English language sites, you will find disturbingly racist comments, not just about Lou Jing, but about Black people in general. I find it hard to believe that the Chinese language sites don’t have a good percentage of race-based negative comments also.
Nevertheless, I stand by me previous assessment of the issue. Most of the news here is positive, and the fact that the “devil of racism” is being openly exposed and discussed in China will be a net gain for all. I believe that most Chinese will both reject and stigmatize racist behavior. And as those who promote racism become more marginalized, it will become an even less popular viewpoint.
Hey King,
I think your assessment is correct.
There definitely is some bias based on race involved. Proof of that is clear: if Lou Jing’s father had been another Chinese guy (I’m assuming that the mother cheated but will get an update on that this weekend), would there be an uproar? Clearly not. I’m glad she’s half-black because it enables China to have a badly needed dialogue about race. China is poised to possibly become the next superpower, and they need to be open to everyone.
My other perspective was going to be related to the Chinese mindset. Have you ever seen the movie “The Chinese Connection” with Bruce Lee? (I think that was the movie I’m thinking of.) There’s a part where the Japanese give him a sign that says “Sick Man of Asia” referring to the Chinese. There’s a Chinese racial inferiority complex that comes from all those years of war, and I was wondering if it reared its ugly head with this racial issue. If so, it still doesn’t make it right, but perhaps it brings up a window through which we can see how to fix the problem. (I’m actually talking about Asian Americans since, as I mentioned, my Chinese skills are not up to par. But maybe someone with better skills than me could use the Asian American approach to help China?)
In terms of where adf is correct, I guess it would be the question of why they didn’t reference the cheating allegations or the fact that the comments are more directed towards the mom. The problem becomes a lot deeper if they do. Not more moral on the Chinese end–it’s still racist and wrong–but deeper. It does become more moral on the Western media end though–if it were a black guy cheating with a White woman, it would have been ALL over the place. Instead–and I’m still waiting to hear from my Shanghai friend this weekend–it looks like the media was selective on the news they chose to share, and it’s quite possible they were selective in order to tell a one-sided story about the Chinese. If it’s an allegation that has good supporting evidence, I would think they should have mentioned it, especially as it sheds much more light on what could be fueling the outrage.
In other words, they could have raised the question of Chinese racism against Lou Jing, but they could’ve provided a much fuller picture of the circumstances.
I was going to write some anecdotes but after starting, it was too long and so I’m just going to keep it short…
I agree with King,
My experience is that PRC Chinese culture is extremely biased against people with darker skin colour. Even against other “”Asian”" people such as Camodians/Indians/Filipinos. In fact even against other Han Chinese people too. So Africans and half Africans have NO chance. Theres definitely going to be discrimination. But you cant attribute it all to racism. PRC society is in many aspects 50-60 years socio-culturally behind developed countries. In PRC, Dark skin is related to class issues as well as race issues, and the two are linked.
No Han Chinese will ever openly say to a non Chinese that they dont like Blacks/ or people with darker skin. But if you are an ABC or Overseas Chinese who is their close friend, or their family member, maybe they will discuss it with you or around you, and their bias will emerge.
Ive had PRC Chinese say things to me like; Black people are dirty, they ALL have AIDS( I kid you not), theyre dangerous, theyre poor, theyre lazy, they steal(since theyre so poor and too lazy to work), they are violent, etc. And this isnt just one or two or 10 or 20 people saying this, this is 100s, across a whole spectrum of PRC Han Chinese, alot of them highly educated, and wealthy too.
I havent spoken to every single one of the 1.3 billion Chinese in PRC so i cant say that EVERY PRC Chinese has a bias towards Black people(and I’m sure there are some that dont). But from an individual personal experience, i would have to suggest that the CULTURE of PRC IS extremely biased against people with darker skin colour, for both racial and class reasons.
@ anna123
Well, every people on earth begins with the concept that their culture and people are better than all others. There must be something within our human psychology/sociology that causes us to believe this. All of our human cultures are guilty of it. We favor those who look more like ourselves, and suspect those who differ most from us. It’s anti-diversity.
But, as I said above, there is a lot to be positive about in this story. Change is slowly happening.
We must all change.
Pingback: The Asian Inferiority Complex | big WOWO
King,
So the article that Etain sent describes a bit of the perspective that I’m taking on the Lou Jing thing:
http://www.bigwowo.com/2009/12/the-asian-inferiority-complex/
Do African countries import White women to grace their fashion ads? This is part of the problem that we need to overcome. It’s like this (and people can chime in if I’m wrong): Chinese people will say that Chinese culture is strong. But when it comes to Chinese views of Chinese individuals, White seems to always come on top and black seems to come on the bottom. It makes it hard to reverse a social trend if you’re always putting another race in the driver’s seat.
Okay, real quick before I jump into the big pile of work on my desk…my friend C is Chinese, and he graciously took the time to look over the Chinese language sites. So see my correction in the original post above.
Thanks.
jaehwon,
I suggest you got to blog.foolsmountain.com and search for the article Lou Jing Racism Gone Wild?
Read all the comments, as I find them very rational (thought there are a few stubborn folks who hold strictly to the western media view of things).
Yes, there are racists, and the LJ episode brought them out on the internet, but my beef is why did the western media not mention even once the massive amount of support for her (tv, internet and otherwise)? Or her complicated back story? Because the western media is following a script to demonize china, and asians in general. Seriously, how often do you see things in the news and entertainment that makes you, as an asian (american), feel good about yourself?
Cynically, I think the one hope that the view of asians may change is in fact the rise of china. Hollywood, ever more greedy than anything else, sees the potential of the massive chinese market, and will need to create more positive and realistic portrayals if it wants a significant piece of the action.
Wow. Great blog. 387 comments. I’ll most definitely check it out over the long weekend.
Out of curiosity, adf, what is your background? Are you Chinese from China? Are you totally literate in Chinese?
What is your take on this?
http://www.bigwowo.com/2009/12/the-asian-inferiority-complex/
Will the rise of China mean more opportunity for Asian actors/models, or White actors/models? Not having set foot in China for the last fifteen years or so, I have no idea what direction the Chinese zeitgeist is taking.