5 ms·

White guy named Michael couldn’t get a poem published so he became Yi-Fen Chou

52 points by xacaxulu 11y ago

dools 11y ago
Donna Chang? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsKpShq2X6s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsKpShq2X6s
Spooky23 11y ago
Trying to grok the criticism. So English professors are racist, so using a ethic name as a pen name is more racist?
- Asbostos 11y ago
  Their judgement has to be appear consistent with all the famous writers who have done similar things before. So it's more specific than that. A woman can pretend to be a man, and a black can pretend to be a white but a white can't pretend to be a Chinese. Yep, weird mess of racism on all sides.
gboudrias 11y ago
Can't tell if this is an abstract or the full thing, but here's what the poem looks like at least: https://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/prairie_schooner/v088/88.3.chou.pdf https://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals... This is pretty interesting. It seems obvious to me though, that one's identity is hugely important in the meaning of any creative endeavor. However it seems equally obvious that a name does not necessarily imply any specific identity!
Asbostos 11y ago
Strangely one of the critics considered it wrong that a member of a "traditionally privileged" class pretended to be a member of a less favored class. That despite the fact that Michael's work was consistently rejected under his own name. Apparently in poetry, Chinese is a privileged class and white Americans suffer discrimination yet people believe it's the other way around.
jawns 11y ago
"He sort of implies that minorities are published because we're minorities, not because of our work. That's just insulting." What Prof. Chang means by this is that she believes minorities are published because of the quality of their work, and anyone who suggests that they're published simply because they're minorities is wrong and motivated by a belief that minorities' work does not stand on its own merits, which would indeed be insulting. If this white guy announced, "I'm going to use a Chinese-sounding pen name because I think it'll make my poems more likely to be published," then yeah, I think a case could be made that it's insulting, because he would be presuming that minorities' work does not stand on its own merits. But in this case, the white guy did not make a racist statement. What he did was demonstrate that in at least one case, the Chinese-sounding name did influence whether his poems were published. So, if it's insulting, it's insulting not because of what this man said or did. Rather, it's insulting on the part of the publications, who did judge the poems on something other than their merits.
generic_user 11y ago
When you set policy to favor certain genders or races instead of meritocratic ability you open the door for people to cheat the system and deny hardworking talented people who don't fit into your favored groups. Chinese Americans have parity or higher average income, college graduation rate, etc than European Americans for some time.Clearly there was some selection criteria to favor certain groups which outweighed merit in this case.
snarfy 11y ago
I'm not sure why they are calling him racist - he's not the one judging poems based on author name. The name is not relevant to the content.
- duncan_bayne 11y ago
  Because, and I wish I were making this up, calling establishment figures on racism is itself considered racist if the racism being called out favours certain groups. It'd be A-OK if a black person did the same thing, pretending to be white, but flip the races and the person exposing the racism is pilloried for being a racist. And, not only did he call them on it, he did it in a very public fashion, and in a manner to which the only real rejoinder is a smear campaign against him.
  - ubertaco 11y ago
    >And, not only did he call them on it, he did it in a very public fashion, and in a manner to which the only real rejoinder is a smear campaign against him. Effectively, "nuh-uh! Uhh...YOU'RE racist!"
    - duncan_bayne 11y ago
      Yes. It might make more sense, actually, if you think of 'racism' as being devoid of any meaning other than an expression of political opprobrium. It only becomes confusing if you think of racism as actually meaning what it's supposed to mean: discrimination on the basis of race alone.
ap22213 11y ago
This isn't so surprising. Quite a few years ago (when I was doing art installations) I met a couple people (Americans) who had changed their names and accents to sound German or Nordic so that they'd be taken more seriously (and sell more gallery art). Apparently, this had worked for them. But, is it all so different from my Chinese co-worker who refers to himself by his American name? Or, perhaps even the chain Häagen-Dazs that wanted to be considered as an exotic ice cream maker to the average American? Art is (and has always been) only what the market will bare.
Tycho 11y ago
Terrible victim blaming from the poetry community here.
glomph 11y ago
Of course this is considered big news. However the statistically measured significant bias against marginalised groups isn't even mentioned in the story. One white man does better under a different name and that is enough for a whole article in the Washington Post. The article doesn't even mention the wider context of studies on implicit bias / blind reviews and so on.
- JoeAltmaier 11y ago
  Its just a puff piece. Maybe folks can use it to find an ecosystem where they can win for once!
norea-armozel 11y ago
I'll never understand why names matter in poetry or fiction writing. Maybe it's just me but I usually buy a book or read a poem more on the title than the name of its author.

52 points by xacaxulu 11y ago

dools 11y ago

Donna Chang? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsKpShq2X6s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsKpShq2X6s

Spooky23 11y ago

Trying to grok the criticism. So English professors are racist, so using a ethic name as a pen name is more racist?

Asbostos 11y ago
Their judgement has to be appear consistent with all the famous writers who have done similar things before. So it's more specific than that. A woman can pretend to be a man, and a black can pretend to be a white but a white can't pretend to be a Chinese. Yep, weird mess of racism on all sides.

gboudrias 11y ago

Can't tell if this is an abstract or the full thing, but here's what the poem looks like at least: https://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/prairie_schooner/v088/88.3.chou.pdf https://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals... This is pretty interesting. It seems obvious to me though, that one's identity is hugely important in the meaning of any creative endeavor. However it seems equally obvious that a name does not necessarily imply any specific identity!

Asbostos 11y ago

Strangely one of the critics considered it wrong that a member of a "traditionally privileged" class pretended to be a member of a less favored class. That despite the fact that Michael's work was consistently rejected under his own name. Apparently in poetry, Chinese is a privileged class and white Americans suffer discrimination yet people believe it's the other way around.

jawns 11y ago

"He sort of implies that minorities are published because we're minorities, not because of our work. That's just insulting." What Prof. Chang means by this is that she believes minorities are published because of the quality of their work, and anyone who suggests that they're published simply because they're minorities is wrong and motivated by a belief that minorities' work does not stand on its own merits, which would indeed be insulting. If this white guy announced, "I'm going to use a Chinese-sounding pen name because I think it'll make my poems more likely to be published," then yeah, I think a case could be made that it's insulting, because he would be presuming that minorities' work does not stand on its own merits. But in this case, the white guy did not make a racist statement. What he did was demonstrate that in at least one case, the Chinese-sounding name did influence whether his poems were published. So, if it's insulting, it's insulting not because of what this man said or did. Rather, it's insulting on the part of the publications, who did judge the poems on something other than their merits.

generic_user 11y ago

When you set policy to favor certain genders or races instead of meritocratic ability you open the door for people to cheat the system and deny hardworking talented people who don't fit into your favored groups. Chinese Americans have parity or higher average income, college graduation rate, etc than European Americans for some time.Clearly there was some selection criteria to favor certain groups which outweighed merit in this case.

snarfy 11y ago

I'm not sure why they are calling him racist - he's not the one judging poems based on author name. The name is not relevant to the content.

duncan_bayne 11y ago
Because, and I wish I were making this up, calling establishment figures on racism is itself considered racist if the racism being called out favours certain groups. It'd be A-OK if a black person did the same thing, pretending to be white, but flip the races and the person exposing the racism is pilloried for being a racist. And, not only did he call them on it, he did it in a very public fashion, and in a manner to which the only real rejoinder is a smear campaign against him.
- ubertaco 11y ago
  >And, not only did he call them on it, he did it in a very public fashion, and in a manner to which the only real rejoinder is a smear campaign against him. Effectively, "nuh-uh! Uhh...YOU'RE racist!"
  - duncan_bayne 11y ago
    Yes. It might make more sense, actually, if you think of 'racism' as being devoid of any meaning other than an expression of political opprobrium. It only becomes confusing if you think of racism as actually meaning what it's supposed to mean: discrimination on the basis of race alone.

ap22213 11y ago

This isn't so surprising. Quite a few years ago (when I was doing art installations) I met a couple people (Americans) who had changed their names and accents to sound German or Nordic so that they'd be taken more seriously (and sell more gallery art). Apparently, this had worked for them. But, is it all so different from my Chinese co-worker who refers to himself by his American name? Or, perhaps even the chain Häagen-Dazs that wanted to be considered as an exotic ice cream maker to the average American? Art is (and has always been) only what the market will bare.

Tycho 11y ago

Terrible victim blaming from the poetry community here.

glomph 11y ago

Of course this is considered big news. However the statistically measured significant bias against marginalised groups isn't even mentioned in the story. One white man does better under a different name and that is enough for a whole article in the Washington Post. The article doesn't even mention the wider context of studies on implicit bias / blind reviews and so on.

JoeAltmaier 11y ago
Its just a puff piece. Maybe folks can use it to find an ecosystem where they can win for once!

norea-armozel 11y ago

I'll never understand why names matter in poetry or fiction writing. Maybe it's just me but I usually buy a book or read a poem more on the title than the name of its author.