These thoughts, shocking and interesting,
have been rattling around since I came to Asia many years ago.
As a Canadian, I could not dare write
like this back home, or the Liberal/Multi-cultural
Same Thoughts Please crowd
would activate.
I was enraged, as much as a sweet
and feminine person such
as myself gets,
when I accidentally web-surfed
last night onto a Dumb Bunny piece
of racism called:
Asian Women - - - - - - - - - . *
With so many truly wonderful Chinese
women friends both in China and Canada
I thought Chinese were being insulted.
The article was written by
a young Asian woman, and did not insult
Chinese women. It insulted Chinese men, though she was careful to only imply that it was Chinese men. She had a Chinese
name though in her assumptions of Chinese male powerlessness she must never have seen
the New China, or shot her mouth off there.
Apparently, she wondered aloud
to the entire global Internet community
why Asian men - not some, mind you, all
the men in Asia - were so less in demand at her American university - than white men
or Indian men.
Indian men? Yoo hoo, was not India
in Asia, or did I miss something?
Not wanting to be sued for racism
by the same Liberal crowd that spills over
into the USA,
she softened her attack slightly.
The picture she drew of
her American university was one of choice
and prized Asian girls huddled around wondering why Asian men were
just less so than other men.
Is this not racism?
Why is it wrong for people in
Western governments or media to malign
Jews or blacks, and yet it is okay to imply
that one group of people are s--ier
than another group?
For that is the root of
this coarse and childish racism.
Thanks to my Canadian writer friend, Carolyn
Zonailo, who pointed out to me, Sexuality of The Other is the first thing
to be ridiculed, as it makes
The Other laughable.
That is racism, she said. I had been
talking about how the women of French Canada
were always considered to be s--ier
than English woman.
They breed like rabbits,
was one often repeated bias of my Canadian childhood
in French Canada.
Black men too have been seen
falsely as superstuds,
Once you try black, you never go back.
I am sure sensitive black men
have problems with this stereotyping.
White men, whether businessmen
or ESL teachers, should realize that
their sexiness in the eyes of the Han Chinese
goes with excessive body hair, and lower intellectuality, when expressed in injust expessions such as..
When Europeans were swinging on trees,
like apes in the jungle.
This has been a saying in Chinese culture
until recently, and maybe still now.
They don't tell us that when they get
their Green Cards and Canada passports.
If white people experience bias
at the hands of the Chinese, they should
wake up and perceive that the Chinese regard us not from a One Down view of resentment
as the Blacks in America
regarded the Whites, but rather
with deep condescension
of a One Up social class.
They repeat to us Whites
the exact same set of prejudices that Whites
have had to Blacks:
coarser in bodily appearance
far lower in intelligence
less complex in psychology
rawer and more vital in sexuality
I am a White Woman and
I have a Chinese boyfriend.
In Hong Kong we feel sometimes
the loss of Canada, where we were just
an ordinary, dull, nice pair
of Computer Geeks.
Suddenly, in Hong Kong, Joe frets
he is not a British-accented Hong Kong
Chinese, and we speak openly as good friends about various biases.
Still, the people of China
were the most hospitable and generous hosts,
and they had many virtues of their own,
remarkable responsibility to their families
and to their friends as well,
and all in all,
things balance out.
Unlike many Canadians,
who feel they arrived at an almost nation
some time ago, the Chinese are in flux,
and I hope Chinese as well
will appreciate my insights on Race Prejudice.
Arielle Gabriel, Hong Kong, 2005.
