7 ms·

It strikes me as really odd that mocking Asians this way is acceptable, while almost any remark about black people can be interpreted as serious racism. In my

It strikes me as really odd that mocking Asians this way is acceptable, while almost any remark about black people can be interpreted as serious racism. In my opinion, people in the US are, without realizing it, very hypocritical and very stuck-up when it comes to racism. If your roommates joke that you will study all day, they are being really rude, but making fun at a cultural difference which is indeed very noticable (in general, Asian students study way more than American students). I don't think this is racism. The basic problem is that people think that being racist is a binary thing that can be triggered by saying something bad about groups of people (nowadays, it doesn't even have to be a racial group anymore). It is a very bad thing that such an undefined thing is taken so seriously (I think the usual definition of 'racism' is 'the idea that people of some racial groups are inferior to people of other racial groups', which would make the only racist thing to literally say that people of some racial groups are inferior to people of other racial groups. I think similar behaviour against other ethnic groups should be treated the same way as this behaviour against Asians (as rude, but not racist). I think it is mainly due to Asian people who deal with mockery very well (as illustrated in this story). In the long run, I think it will only benefit Asians. For example when I am around black friends, I will subconsciensly watch my words and avoid touchy subjects or remarks.

berneezy3 10y ago
I think that points out the whole fallacy of PC culture: that Americans only will be ethnically thoughtful when being pressured into. For better or for worse, Asians get mocked simply because we are conditioned to deal with mockery with silence. I don't know whether we can just attribute that to Asians dealing with it well. But I definitely share your hopes that this quality will benefit us in the long run. One of my white roommates who mocked me in the story was actually a hardcore Bernie supporter who stood up for black culture at the drop of a dime, so I found it curious that he viewed people of my culture so negatively.
- XorNot 10y ago
  Isn't this just the perceived difference in source? i.e. mocking someone for what you believe is a positive character trait is generally seen as okay (the aforementioned "study a lot"). Another vein this happens in is with regards to Germans ("being precise"). I don't think you could say that there's a similar vein of humor with African-American culture that's developed, and that's principally historical: America's slave holding history is still an open-wound today, and its social concepts around African-Americans were widely based on making sure they were viewed as lesser. EDIT: This isn't to say either is ultimately good. There's a pretty important difference between occasional good humor that transitions into something of more malevolent intent, but how people perceive them appropriateness very much matters.
  - berneezy3 10y ago
    Very good point. I do think the hardships that the African-American community have endured are far more severe than the ones Asians in America have. But my people did endure their share of hardships as well; the first Chinese immigrants in San Francisco were used as slaves to build the railways, many working to their deaths on the tracks. The conditions were extreme, but I guess the scale was much smaller than the African-American slaves.
    - tentsive 10y ago
      But do people even know the types of hardships Asian Americans had to endure? How many people know about the Chinese Massacre of 1871 in LA? If we really are going to compare suffering, wouldn't Native Americans be on the top of the list? And yet their suffering isn't really something that is focused on.
      - berneezy3 10y ago
        Native Americans are probably the most unfortunate group. To put it in business terms, I think certain ethnic groups have just been more successful in their marketing than others ;)
        deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
  - tentsive 10y ago
    Aren't there a lot of accepted jokes about black men being well endowed or otherwise physically gifted?
    - dutchieinfrance 10y ago
      Really, in the USA? I wouldn't have guessed from the literature or movies. I'm a European, I've never actually visited the USA, so this is genuine question about whether these kind of jokes would be considered "politically correct".
- SturgeonsLaw 10y ago
  > roommates who mocked me Just curious, did you perceive a certain level of malice with their mocking, or was it more lighthearted? I can't speak for Americans, but here in Australia, mocking from your friends is a sign of acceptance and mateship. It's a way of indirectly indicating that you're comfortable enough with someone to knock them around a bit, it's a complimentary way of saying "I know you're strong enough to handle it". I don't want to risk sidelining your experience, but is there a chance they may have seen you as one of the boys?
  - berneezy3 10y ago
    Yeah, we also love to give our friends shit here in America :) But to clarify, the group text began before they met me. They only told me about the texts after realizing I was Americanized and deciding I was "one of them". However, I do conclude that there was a degree of malice to their jokes. This is because while they were telling me about the texts, they voiced their legitimate concerns about living with asian people( But credit to them for being 100% honest and opening up discussion). A couple of my roommates even went on to say that the international students were ruining the social climate of the university, and ruining their chances of having a traditional, party-boy college lifestyle, and that colleges were accepting way too many Asians. (FYI I attended UC San Diego which had 50% asian people). However, after this episode, we maintained great relationships as roommates, and yes, they still made fun of my driving, my small eyes etc., but at that point, I knew it was all in good spirits :)
    - VLM 10y ago
      "colleges were accepting way too many Asians" Some of this is just kids being dumb, but some is Americans have a weird relationship with their Empire. On one hand their parents and student loans are paying more money to fund the foreign exchange students and every foreign exchange student present is quite literally one local taxpayer who isn't getting an education yet is somehow supposed to pay for the system without an educated-level job. Even if the school accepts everyone, that just means the local taxpayers are on the hook for capex to make huge buildings that wouldn't be necessary without the demands of the Empire. That sounds like a horrific deal for the local taxpayer, and it is, but Empires always suck at some level or another for pretty much everyone involved. However from a foreign aid and propaganda perspective that money is well spent, who else gets to propagandize the entire world's youth for practically no cost compared to military expenses? Its a lot cheaper to indoctrinate the world's kids at an American school than to wave expensive F-35 fighters at them in a threatening manner a decade later. In typical American corruption we officially spend like 0.1% of our federal budget on foreign aid and then bury things like state Uni budgets in the individual state budgets to pretend our Empire spends roughly nothing on foreign aid, but we really do spend lots of money on the Empire, for which we're theoretically running a profit, or if not "we" at least someone is running a profit. I'd estimate the total cost to the GDP of empire has got to be something like 5% but its cheaper than the alternative, or so the people getting rich off the empire insist. At any rate, my point is some of it is just kids being dumb, yet some of it is knowing for federal level foreign policy reasons their old high school buddy named XYZ can't go to college with them, despite his having to pay for it in taxes, because a foreigner is there in his place and supposedly everyone is better off for it, yet fundamentally on a personal level they still miss their old high school buddy XYZ.
- blueberryy 10y ago
  Are you okay with being treated differently for being Asian though? I don't see how being silent to mockery helps us at all. Americans are well aware of how African-Americans feel about stereotypes and racially charged language, but can casually mock Asian-Americans because of the subservient attitude a lot of us display. Please don't just take mockery with silence, let people know how you feel because they won't know otherwise.
  - berneezy3 10y ago
    I don't think its the best solution, but I do think it is better than the way certain minority groups are using PC culture as a means to harass anyone with the different opinion. At least with the current Asian culture of remaining silent, we encourage there to be honest dialogue. Yes we will be mocked sometimes, but at least Americans won't act all polite and PC in front of us, then let all the beans spill we aren't listening.
throwaway776834 10y ago
Humour can be used as a social prompt - someone on Tinder might make a joke about fashion if they want to make sure their date wears nice clothing, for example. It can also be used as a plausibly deniable way of telling someone you're worried about something - "I hope you're not a craigslist scammer" or "as long as my Christmas gift isn't socks or books". I wonder if his roommates were attempting to give him some social cues about what kind of behaviour they wanted and/or trying to ease their own discomfort about living with someone from a different culture.
- tentsive 10y ago
  Well, let's use the "Black Litmus Test" to see if it sounds more like stereotypical racism or just humor: "In the group text, they joked that I would go out and play basketball all day, only listen to rap and hip hop, coming back late at night, and even joked that they should all move out because of me..." Would this be an okay use of humor to ease their discomfort?
  - throwaway776834 10y ago
    I don't think the mockery received by the OP was okay, so no, that wouldn't be okay either. Having said that, firstly, understanding why a bad behaviour happens is important in stopping it: maybe students should meet their roommates earlier, or get introduced to them over the phone, or get pamphlets titled "How Not To Alienate The Person You Will Live With For The Next Year", or something. Secondly, the OP is talking about people who were raised in a totally different culture. "Black" in the context you're talking about presumably means black Americans, who live in the same country as you, speak the same language as you, and get the same TV as you. As someone from outside America, I'm quite happy that the cultural differences between us exist, because they make life interesting - however, they can be an obstacle to communication.
  - peteretep 10y ago
    Let's use the equally arbitrary "Finnish Litmus Test": In the group text they joked that I would go out and play ice hockey all day, only listen to death metal, eat exclusively pickled fish... Just sounds funny to me. Almost like a history of oppression is an integral factor in this, and joking about the diligence and work ethic of a group that's found huge success via those is different from joking about a group that's been literally enslaved, marginalised, and overtly oppressed by the group the jokers belong to.
klagermkii 10y ago
I think a lot of it comes from the modern definition of racism involving power + prejudice. As a group Chinese people appear to be relatively successful in society (certainly in tech) and so sit slightly higher up the power scale than black people do. So if a white person makes a negative comment it's going to appear as societally "punching down" much further if it targets a black person vs a Chinese person. Basically it seems worse if you reinforce stereotypes against a group that is already struggling.
- SturgeonsLaw 10y ago
  That's not the "modern" definition of racism, that's an arbitrary modification that only exists in academia and is used to justify racism against whites and sexism against men. Whether you're punching up or down, racism and sexism are ugly and disgusting, regardless of what Bidel-Pavda[0] and her ilk would claim. [0] http://wetasphalt.com/content/why-racism-prejudice-power-wrong-way-approach-problems-racism http://wetasphalt.com/content/why-racism-prejudice-power-wro...
  - webmaven 10y ago
    Look, you're complaining against the fact that 'racism' is more narrowly defined than just gender discrimination and requires privilege to enforce/reinforce the latter for it to be considered the former. How hard is it really to adjust to a more finicky definition? Or are you denying that when backed up by a prevalent privilege (or an inverse stereotype), all other things being equal, discrimination becomes more damaging (and harder to withstand)? No one is denying that plain discrimination is still ugly, after all.
rayiner 10y ago
There is nothing odd or hard to understand about it. The rule for mockery or jokes in the US is generally "you don't punch down." No cop has ever flipped out and shot an unarmed Asian kid based on stereotypes about how hard asians study. There is no such thing as "driving while Asian." Asians make more money on average than even white people, they live longer, etc. They are well represented in higher academia and high income professions. You'll find Asians in high income neighborhoods around the country. The country didn't fight a war over half of it trying to enslave Asians. One of the things I've always found shocking about America, as an Asian immigrant myself, is how black people are treated as more foreign, in their own country, than actual foreigners. There are small pockets of unintegrated Asians (mostly first generation immigrants) but cities all over the country are highly segregated along black/white lines. If you really want to understand what makes American culture tick, live somewhere like Philadelphia or Baltimore for awhile.
- dorfsmay 10y ago
  You just described institutional vs individual racism. The former is anchored in society and has deeper and multi generational damages. A lot of people on the left now describe the latter as discrimination, arguing that only institutional discrimination can be called racism, which can make some discussion confusing.
  - rayiner 10y ago
    I'm describing when it's perceived as okay to use stereotypes in humor. That doesn't fall neatly along the lines of individual versus institutional racism. For example, say you're black/Hispanic/Asian and you marry into a white American family. To the extent you encounter any racism it'll be the individual kind. But the assumptions people make about you as an Asian are very likely to be the most benign. Likewise, consider the reaction of a typical Asian American community to a young Asian woman dating a white man versus a black man. Among the (cosmopolitan, upper middle class) Asians I grew up around, the former would be pretty non remarkable. The latter would still be kind of a scandal. That's why it's socially acceptable to make fun of Asian stereotypes but not black (and to a lesser extent Hispanic) stereotypes.
- 10y ago
codingdave 10y ago
If your roommates in college mock you for studying all day,they may be missing the point of college, and you may want different roommates anyway.
- walshemj 10y ago
  But college (university) is more than rote learning and getting a 4.0 or a first.
  - VLM 10y ago
    However, look at it from their point of view. If they're from a foreign culture or country then they've already given up on socializing with their own people by becoming exchange students. Theoretically they could learn or gain something from local kids, if kids had anything useful to teach them, and if they planned on staying after graduation. But if they don't plan on staying, then no matter how much or how little socializing they do, they'll just get one line on the resume or a checkbox at job time so over-investing in socializing won't help their future. So they may as well at least get something out of the classes, by learning as much as possible from the profs. Which they need to do, if a GPA of 2.0 and the right local friends is as useful in the job market back home, as a GPA of 4.0 from some foreign school and no local friends because they were at the foreign school. From their point of view, maxing out their GPA is far more useful than getting drunk with people who won't matter to them in a couple short years, and being kids, have nothing to teach them anyway.
    - walshemj 10y ago
      If you think leaning in the widest sense is only to do with memorising what a lecturer says in class then you have missed the point.
  - Moshe_Silnorin 10y ago
    Yes, it's also an overpriced IQ test, binge drinking retreat, and dating service.

berneezy3 10y ago

I think that points out the whole fallacy of PC culture: that Americans only will be ethnically thoughtful when being pressured into. For better or for worse, Asians get mocked simply because we are conditioned to deal with mockery with silence. I don't know whether we can just attribute that to Asians dealing with it well. But I definitely share your hopes that this quality will benefit us in the long run. One of my white roommates who mocked me in the story was actually a hardcore Bernie supporter who stood up for black culture at the drop of a dime, so I found it curious that he viewed people of my culture so negatively.

XorNot 10y ago
Isn't this just the perceived difference in source? i.e. mocking someone for what you believe is a positive character trait is generally seen as okay (the aforementioned "study a lot"). Another vein this happens in is with regards to Germans ("being precise"). I don't think you could say that there's a similar vein of humor with African-American culture that's developed, and that's principally historical: America's slave holding history is still an open-wound today, and its social concepts around African-Americans were widely based on making sure they were viewed as lesser. EDIT: This isn't to say either is ultimately good. There's a pretty important difference between occasional good humor that transitions into something of more malevolent intent, but how people perceive them appropriateness very much matters.
- berneezy3 10y ago
  Very good point. I do think the hardships that the African-American community have endured are far more severe than the ones Asians in America have. But my people did endure their share of hardships as well; the first Chinese immigrants in San Francisco were used as slaves to build the railways, many working to their deaths on the tracks. The conditions were extreme, but I guess the scale was much smaller than the African-American slaves.
  - tentsive 10y ago
    But do people even know the types of hardships Asian Americans had to endure? How many people know about the Chinese Massacre of 1871 in LA? If we really are going to compare suffering, wouldn't Native Americans be on the top of the list? And yet their suffering isn't really something that is focused on.
    - berneezy3 10y ago
      Native Americans are probably the most unfortunate group. To put it in business terms, I think certain ethnic groups have just been more successful in their marketing than others ;)
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
- tentsive 10y ago
  Aren't there a lot of accepted jokes about black men being well endowed or otherwise physically gifted?
  - dutchieinfrance 10y ago
    Really, in the USA? I wouldn't have guessed from the literature or movies. I'm a European, I've never actually visited the USA, so this is genuine question about whether these kind of jokes would be considered "politically correct".
SturgeonsLaw 10y ago
> roommates who mocked me Just curious, did you perceive a certain level of malice with their mocking, or was it more lighthearted? I can't speak for Americans, but here in Australia, mocking from your friends is a sign of acceptance and mateship. It's a way of indirectly indicating that you're comfortable enough with someone to knock them around a bit, it's a complimentary way of saying "I know you're strong enough to handle it". I don't want to risk sidelining your experience, but is there a chance they may have seen you as one of the boys?
- berneezy3 10y ago
  Yeah, we also love to give our friends shit here in America :) But to clarify, the group text began before they met me. They only told me about the texts after realizing I was Americanized and deciding I was "one of them". However, I do conclude that there was a degree of malice to their jokes. This is because while they were telling me about the texts, they voiced their legitimate concerns about living with asian people( But credit to them for being 100% honest and opening up discussion). A couple of my roommates even went on to say that the international students were ruining the social climate of the university, and ruining their chances of having a traditional, party-boy college lifestyle, and that colleges were accepting way too many Asians. (FYI I attended UC San Diego which had 50% asian people). However, after this episode, we maintained great relationships as roommates, and yes, they still made fun of my driving, my small eyes etc., but at that point, I knew it was all in good spirits :)
  - VLM 10y ago
    "colleges were accepting way too many Asians" Some of this is just kids being dumb, but some is Americans have a weird relationship with their Empire. On one hand their parents and student loans are paying more money to fund the foreign exchange students and every foreign exchange student present is quite literally one local taxpayer who isn't getting an education yet is somehow supposed to pay for the system without an educated-level job. Even if the school accepts everyone, that just means the local taxpayers are on the hook for capex to make huge buildings that wouldn't be necessary without the demands of the Empire. That sounds like a horrific deal for the local taxpayer, and it is, but Empires always suck at some level or another for pretty much everyone involved. However from a foreign aid and propaganda perspective that money is well spent, who else gets to propagandize the entire world's youth for practically no cost compared to military expenses? Its a lot cheaper to indoctrinate the world's kids at an American school than to wave expensive F-35 fighters at them in a threatening manner a decade later. In typical American corruption we officially spend like 0.1% of our federal budget on foreign aid and then bury things like state Uni budgets in the individual state budgets to pretend our Empire spends roughly nothing on foreign aid, but we really do spend lots of money on the Empire, for which we're theoretically running a profit, or if not "we" at least someone is running a profit. I'd estimate the total cost to the GDP of empire has got to be something like 5% but its cheaper than the alternative, or so the people getting rich off the empire insist. At any rate, my point is some of it is just kids being dumb, yet some of it is knowing for federal level foreign policy reasons their old high school buddy named XYZ can't go to college with them, despite his having to pay for it in taxes, because a foreigner is there in his place and supposedly everyone is better off for it, yet fundamentally on a personal level they still miss their old high school buddy XYZ.
blueberryy 10y ago
Are you okay with being treated differently for being Asian though? I don't see how being silent to mockery helps us at all. Americans are well aware of how African-Americans feel about stereotypes and racially charged language, but can casually mock Asian-Americans because of the subservient attitude a lot of us display. Please don't just take mockery with silence, let people know how you feel because they won't know otherwise.
- berneezy3 10y ago
  I don't think its the best solution, but I do think it is better than the way certain minority groups are using PC culture as a means to harass anyone with the different opinion. At least with the current Asian culture of remaining silent, we encourage there to be honest dialogue. Yes we will be mocked sometimes, but at least Americans won't act all polite and PC in front of us, then let all the beans spill we aren't listening.

throwaway776834 10y ago

Humour can be used as a social prompt - someone on Tinder might make a joke about fashion if they want to make sure their date wears nice clothing, for example. It can also be used as a plausibly deniable way of telling someone you're worried about something - "I hope you're not a craigslist scammer" or "as long as my Christmas gift isn't socks or books". I wonder if his roommates were attempting to give him some social cues about what kind of behaviour they wanted and/or trying to ease their own discomfort about living with someone from a different culture.

tentsive 10y ago
Well, let's use the "Black Litmus Test" to see if it sounds more like stereotypical racism or just humor: "In the group text, they joked that I would go out and play basketball all day, only listen to rap and hip hop, coming back late at night, and even joked that they should all move out because of me..." Would this be an okay use of humor to ease their discomfort?
- throwaway776834 10y ago
  I don't think the mockery received by the OP was okay, so no, that wouldn't be okay either. Having said that, firstly, understanding why a bad behaviour happens is important in stopping it: maybe students should meet their roommates earlier, or get introduced to them over the phone, or get pamphlets titled "How Not To Alienate The Person You Will Live With For The Next Year", or something. Secondly, the OP is talking about people who were raised in a totally different culture. "Black" in the context you're talking about presumably means black Americans, who live in the same country as you, speak the same language as you, and get the same TV as you. As someone from outside America, I'm quite happy that the cultural differences between us exist, because they make life interesting - however, they can be an obstacle to communication.
- peteretep 10y ago
  Let's use the equally arbitrary "Finnish Litmus Test": In the group text they joked that I would go out and play ice hockey all day, only listen to death metal, eat exclusively pickled fish... Just sounds funny to me. Almost like a history of oppression is an integral factor in this, and joking about the diligence and work ethic of a group that's found huge success via those is different from joking about a group that's been literally enslaved, marginalised, and overtly oppressed by the group the jokers belong to.

klagermkii 10y ago

I think a lot of it comes from the modern definition of racism involving power + prejudice. As a group Chinese people appear to be relatively successful in society (certainly in tech) and so sit slightly higher up the power scale than black people do. So if a white person makes a negative comment it's going to appear as societally "punching down" much further if it targets a black person vs a Chinese person. Basically it seems worse if you reinforce stereotypes against a group that is already struggling.

SturgeonsLaw 10y ago
That's not the "modern" definition of racism, that's an arbitrary modification that only exists in academia and is used to justify racism against whites and sexism against men. Whether you're punching up or down, racism and sexism are ugly and disgusting, regardless of what Bidel-Pavda[0] and her ilk would claim. [0] http://wetasphalt.com/content/why-racism-prejudice-power-wrong-way-approach-problems-racism http://wetasphalt.com/content/why-racism-prejudice-power-wro...
- webmaven 10y ago
  Look, you're complaining against the fact that 'racism' is more narrowly defined than just gender discrimination and requires privilege to enforce/reinforce the latter for it to be considered the former. How hard is it really to adjust to a more finicky definition? Or are you denying that when backed up by a prevalent privilege (or an inverse stereotype), all other things being equal, discrimination becomes more damaging (and harder to withstand)? No one is denying that plain discrimination is still ugly, after all.

rayiner 10y ago

There is nothing odd or hard to understand about it. The rule for mockery or jokes in the US is generally "you don't punch down." No cop has ever flipped out and shot an unarmed Asian kid based on stereotypes about how hard asians study. There is no such thing as "driving while Asian." Asians make more money on average than even white people, they live longer, etc. They are well represented in higher academia and high income professions. You'll find Asians in high income neighborhoods around the country. The country didn't fight a war over half of it trying to enslave Asians. One of the things I've always found shocking about America, as an Asian immigrant myself, is how black people are treated as more foreign, in their own country, than actual foreigners. There are small pockets of unintegrated Asians (mostly first generation immigrants) but cities all over the country are highly segregated along black/white lines. If you really want to understand what makes American culture tick, live somewhere like Philadelphia or Baltimore for awhile.

dorfsmay 10y ago
You just described institutional vs individual racism. The former is anchored in society and has deeper and multi generational damages. A lot of people on the left now describe the latter as discrimination, arguing that only institutional discrimination can be called racism, which can make some discussion confusing.
- rayiner 10y ago
  I'm describing when it's perceived as okay to use stereotypes in humor. That doesn't fall neatly along the lines of individual versus institutional racism. For example, say you're black/Hispanic/Asian and you marry into a white American family. To the extent you encounter any racism it'll be the individual kind. But the assumptions people make about you as an Asian are very likely to be the most benign. Likewise, consider the reaction of a typical Asian American community to a young Asian woman dating a white man versus a black man. Among the (cosmopolitan, upper middle class) Asians I grew up around, the former would be pretty non remarkable. The latter would still be kind of a scandal. That's why it's socially acceptable to make fun of Asian stereotypes but not black (and to a lesser extent Hispanic) stereotypes.
10y ago

codingdave 10y ago

If your roommates in college mock you for studying all day,they may be missing the point of college, and you may want different roommates anyway.

walshemj 10y ago
But college (university) is more than rote learning and getting a 4.0 or a first.
- VLM 10y ago
  However, look at it from their point of view. If they're from a foreign culture or country then they've already given up on socializing with their own people by becoming exchange students. Theoretically they could learn or gain something from local kids, if kids had anything useful to teach them, and if they planned on staying after graduation. But if they don't plan on staying, then no matter how much or how little socializing they do, they'll just get one line on the resume or a checkbox at job time so over-investing in socializing won't help their future. So they may as well at least get something out of the classes, by learning as much as possible from the profs. Which they need to do, if a GPA of 2.0 and the right local friends is as useful in the job market back home, as a GPA of 4.0 from some foreign school and no local friends because they were at the foreign school. From their point of view, maxing out their GPA is far more useful than getting drunk with people who won't matter to them in a couple short years, and being kids, have nothing to teach them anyway.
  - walshemj 10y ago
    If you think leaning in the widest sense is only to do with memorising what a lecturer says in class then you have missed the point.
- Moshe_Silnorin 10y ago
  Yes, it's also an overpriced IQ test, binge drinking retreat, and dating service.