Category Archives: imho is just a polite way to say I know you don’t give a hoot what I think but I’m going to say it anyway

One Ellen DeGeneres is not enough

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If you look at the ratings, the crazed fans (“regular Suzy homemakers” many of them) in the audience, the 4.5 million followers on Twitter, her No. 3 position on the Twitter ranking (behind Ashton Kutcher and Britney Spears *Yes, I know* BUT ahead of POTUS), you’d be convinced that Ellen DeGeneres has gone mainstream. For goodness sake, Ellen is a CoverGirl! She is able to mention her wife Portia de Rossi in the mundane way that spouses mention each other in their conversations with other people without raising any eyebrows.

Wanda Sykes has a show on Fox.

The primetime TV show “Modern Family” on ABC includes in its main characters a suburban couple with an adopted daughter who happen to be gay without any trace that would possibly remind you of Jack from Will and Grace.

If you put your blinder on (and force yourself to forget about Prop 8), you can tell yourself that, yes, gays and lesbians have been accepted as “one of us”. Or at the very least, homosexuality is now broadly accepted as yet another piece of fabric weaved into this complex, multi-faceted world that we live in.

You would be wrong.

First of all, as you are well aware of, there is a fight raging on in Washington over “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell”. I can’t do my frustration justice without simply asking you to watch my beloved Jon Stewart proposing a ban on Old People from serving in the Senate. Naturally “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” would apply also should this ban go through…

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The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
A Few Gay Men & Women
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Reform

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Earlier we were outraged by what happened to Constance McMillan, the lesbian high school student in Itawamba, Mississippi who wanted to wear a tux and bring her girlfriend to the prom and was denied this request by the school board. At the same time we were amazed and impressed by this young woman’s poise, resolve and courage when she didn’t take the easy way out by simply backing down and instead took her case up with ACLU. Such a story naturally hit close to home for Ellen: She invited Constance to be on the show to tell her story and presented Constance with a scholarship of $30,000 (from an anonymous donor) at the end of the interview. Later when a federal judge ruled that the school board violated her rights by cancelling the prom (without ordering the district to hold the prom as planned), Ellen sent yet another strong message to Constance, and also to her viewers.

You’d thought such outrage would have taught the school district, the parents and the students involved to rethink their position and learn a lesson from this. But no…

Last Friday, Constance was sent to an effectively “fake” prom which was only attended by 5 other students. The principal and teachers were also there as chaperons. Two of these students were reportedly disabled. (One had to assume that they have also been directed to this “fake” prom). In the mean time, a privately-held party organized by parents was held in another location attended by, you guessed it, the other students. “The parents didn’t want Constance there, and they didn’t want to get sued.” Some reports said.

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The "Secret Prom" Constance McMillan was not invited to. She lucked out judging by the photo...

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You’d think that people would eventually wake up one morning and realized such cruelty is unbecoming of a human being and relent. But no…

The other students have been identifying themselves as victims because Constance ruined the prom and their memories of senior high school. As a normal teenager would do when they have an ax to grind against somebody, they started a Facebook page called “Constance quit yer cryin.” (I just spent an hour reading some of the things being posted on that Facebook page. My jaws are still on the floor…)

All this is unbelievable isn’t it? Well, no worries. Because our fellow human beings never disappoint. What is even more unbelievable, more outrageous, more horrifying, and more saddening is the case of Phoebe Prince in South Hadley, MA, who killed herself in January after cyber and emotional bullying. The most un-fucking-believable part of this? Her tormentors went to her Facebook the day after she hung herself (and discovered by her 12-year-old sister!) and mocked her. Right there on the memorial page.

It’s been two months and every time when I think of her and this story, I cannot stop cursing and crying.

Finally on March 29, nine teenagers were indicted for their involvement in this case. I sure hope I will not hear about Facebook page set up by supporters of the Hadley 9 bemoaning how Phoebe Prince has ruined their lives.

What happened here?

The teachers have been blamed for Phoebe Prince’s death; the school district/board has been blamed for the prejudiced decision against Constance McMillan.

How about the parents?

What I am seeing is a severe case of Undeserved Sense of Entitlement and Lack of Accountability.

Teachers don’t teach you this at school. Nor should they be responsible for building characters and moral fortitude for the kids. It is the parents’ job, isn’t it?

Don’t get me wrong: I am not so smug as to assume that I will be able to understand my children when they turn teenagers. But as a parent, you have got to try as hard as you could. Now I know you did not try hard enough if you were organizing a private party just so you could exclude the gays and the disabled. The disabled? WHAK? Does the Bible say something against the disabled too?

Candace Gingrich-Jones on HuffPost put out a call for action:

“We can all learn a lot from Constance McMillan and how she has handled herself — when we see something that doesn’t seem right, it probably isn’t. And it is the responsibility of every one of us to take some kind of action on behalf of fairness. Whether you bring up bullying at the next PTA meeting, write a letter to the Itawamba County School District, or call out your friends or co-workers when they say ‘faggot’ or ‘that’s so gay,’ you are improving the climate for queer youth — and adults. Do something.”

DO SOMETHING.

Let’s tell our kids that “the buck stops here.” The buck has got to stop with them. Let’s tell them that we understand peer pressure and how hard it is to survive high school, but they have to be the one that speak up. If not to their peers, then to an adult. If malicious rumors are being circulated about someone, the least they have to do is to NOT continue the chain. Break the cycle of cruelty. Sometimes all it takes is one person to stand up or stay back or speak up.

LET’S DO SOMETHING.

Baby steps. All of us.

One Ellen DeGeneres is not enough.

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Let’s start with the word “Gay”.

Let’s start with banning the usage of the word “gay” as a substitute for “stupid, dumb, ugly, undesirable, etc.” from your schools.

Since I wrote “That’s so Gay” is NOT so funny! This has nothing to do with sense of humor… last February, “That’s so gay” has been gaining popularity as just another common expression. I am hearing (and seeing on Facebook) this phrase more and more often, from children younger and younger who have no idea what “being gay” means. As the phrase takes on the facade of familiarity, moving into the realm of the vernacular, taking on the identity of an idiom (because what exactly does it even mean in this context?! Children or the immature adults only know to prevent this phrase from ever being used on them… but what exactly does it mean?!) it is becoming harder and harder to fight it off.

I am tired of hearing “That’s so gay.” I really am. There are so many words in English to choose from to denote your distaste for something. Get a thesaurus. Get a book of classic insults by Shakespeare. Wilde. Because when you are so concerned about being called “gay” that “That’s so gay” becomes a popular insult, you know, you sound like a Homophobe to me. And you know what they say about Homophobes… How about this, let’s give “That’s so Beck” a try.

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p.s. Here’s my angry musing on the increasing popularity of the usage of “Gay” as an insult…

The increasing popularity of the usage of “Gay” as an insult is indicative of the underlying homophobic mentality permeating in our society, despite decades of working towards acceptance by the “mainstream”. This is, the way I read it, part of the backlash against the gains made by gays and lesbian. They have co-opted the word “queer” so that now it conveys pride in self-identification in some specific uses. It is then not too far off to see the co-opting of the word “Gay” as revenge by the not-so-enlightened amongst us: they are trying to turn the previously neutral and PC “label” (for lack of a better word) into a slur. “You took an insult word from us so that we can no longer hurt you with it. Guess what? We are going to turn how you have been identifying yourselves with into a insult equivalent of anything undesirable…”

Clever maneuver by the not-so-tolerant.

What does this say about how we really feel about those who are different from the “norm” deep down, behind the door, if we allow the use of this word on the playground and in the school hallways as part of the litany of insults that our kids can hurl at each other?

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…………………………………………………………………………………….

And, like a bad infomercial on TV, THERE IS MORE!

The drama continues here on the Facebook page set up by the adults from Itawamba, Mississippi. It is easy to see where the kids have learned their prejudices and bigoted attitudes. I don’t want to sound naive to say that I am shocked by the ugliness found there. But despite all my cynicism, I am still shocked.

WTF Wednesday: Here, have an MRI

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Thanks to the straight (and stern) talks from you, I went to see a doctor today. Just a random doctor since I don’t really have a family doctor. My Ob-Gyn is the only doctor that I “keep in touch” throughout the years. And oh, yes, my dentist. I have been forced to drop quite a few family practitioners in the past when they 1. suggested that I get my tubes tied after I had my second child, 2. ordered expensive tests that still cost thousands after the 80% insurance pay when the disgonosis turned out to be Achilles tendinosis (So no, nothing to do with my nerves), 3. mis-diagnosed my blood clog as a muscle tear.

I gave the good doctor the litany of my symptoms: nausea & vomiting, dizziness, headache, sinus discomfort (but not pain nor pressure), stuffy feeling in my ears. I shared with him my theory of this being allergy-induced since my “condition” started a month ago when Spring supposedly arrived. I appreciated his gallant efforts in not rolling his eyes in my presence. I also informed him of some new development: running nose, a fever, and possibly the worst chill I have ever had in my life.

After all this, his diagnosis? “Are you suffering a lot of stress lately?”

I am a working mother with two rambunctious boys working full time commuting downtown with the company headquartered in another state 800 miles away and a boss that is scheming to either get me to move there or to get rid of me and a husband that travels 50% of the time for work. So yeah. I guess I am stressed.

“Have you suffered from any head injury? Did you hit your head somewhere?”

Why? You read my blog or my tweets?

“I think this is tension headache.”

Hello? What about the nausea and the vomiting?

“Are you married?”

Do I look tired and not care how I look? Yes, I am married.

“You should ask your husband to rub your neck.”

I rolled my eyes.

“Ha ha. Yes. I should write you a prescription to get him to do this, and if I submit it to your insurance, they may even pay him! Ok. Here is what I want you to do…”

Miracle drugs?

“I want to get some blood tests done to rule out the usual: thyroid, glands…”

Really? Why am I NOT surprised?

“And then I want you to get an MRI. I am worried about the headaches. The MRI is going to come back clean, but I want to rule anything out before I talk to you again. So after you get your MRI, call me, and I can talk to you about Tension Headaches.”

Seriously? Is an MRI even remotely necessary in my case?

Like a good Chinese girl (brought up in a Chinese society let me emphasize this), I did not question the good doctor. And really, should I even question my good fortune? I am blessed enough to be covered by a top-notch health insurance plan: the free health insurance provided by my company is a Cadillac plan. It covers everything. No pre-certification required for most of the expensive tests. If the doctor does not even want to wait and wants me to get an MRI before he even talks to me more, which I am actually able to get right away without having to call the insurance company and go through the labyrinth of paperworks, unlike say people on Medicare, should I not be grateful?

Fine. Call me an ungrateful bitch. But here is what I thought as soon as I walked out of the doctor’s office:

Son of a bitch. He is worried that he may get sued if something happens to me and he did not order me an MRI.

How much of the root cause for the rising health care costs in the U.S. is due to the fear of lawsuits?!

(Yeah, I know. You will be wanting to see me eating my foot if the good doctor was right and the MRI does detect something. THAT will solve all the questions about “What the F is wrong with you?!” in more ways than one. And seriously, if something is growing inside my head, you cannot fault me for being a bitch so would you really still want to see me eating my foot?… So the way I see it, either way, my foot will stay as far away from my mouth as humanly possible. Ha!)

All this rambling reminded me of a post from February 18, 2009, “Americans pay $650 billion more for health care than comparable countries…” when there was absolutely no traffic to my blog…  Reading the conclusion I drew more than a year ago,

“In the United States, the ‘average’ consumer of health care pays for only 12 percent of its total cost directly out of pocket (down from 47 percent in 1960), as well as for 25 percent of health care insurance premiums, a share that has stayed relatively constant for the last decade.  Well-insured patients who bear little, if any, of the cost of their treatment have no incentive to be value-conscious health care consumers.”

This sounds familiar but now we have the numbers to back up our suspicions:

In order for any health care reform to work and stick, it is important that we carry out the education and cultivation of a new generation of patients that are “value conscious” and treat the burden of health care, even when they do not have to pay for it DIRECTLY, as ultimately their own INDIRECT cross to bear.

I am saddened and a bit ashamed, seeing how I will be getting an MRI after all, albeit begrudgingly. I am only human – I do not want to bear the unnecessary risk of not getting this MRI just to make a point, especially since it is readily available to me. So that puts us in a bit of a conundrum, doesn’t it?

Foot in my mouth after all.

WTF Wednesday: The Price of Tomatoes

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I am honored to welcome Velva from Tomatoes on the Vine to participate in the WTF Wednesday feature in which rants and foaming are conducted and strong opinions are shared on things that bother us, that just won’t go away until we get on our soap box and let it rip.

Velva celebrates the deep, communal meaning in food, through her wonderful blog: Tomatoes on the Vine – sustaining our bonds with one another through the simple grace of sharing a meal. What makes me respect her even more is that, in the midst of the gorgeous pictures she takes and the delicious plates she shares with her friends and families,  she did not forget where the food came from, and how it got to our table. The Politics of Food Production and Distribution. We don’t want to think about it. But it is there.

Now let’s give a round of applause and welcome Velva to WTF Wednesday! (And you can be NEXT!)

The Price of Tomatoes

by Velva Knapp @ Tomatoes on the Vine

I was born and raised in South Florida where the landscape and food are as diverse as its people. I don’t want to take you to the part of South Florida where you pass million dollar houses and shopping malls that include Saks Fifth Avenue and Tiffany’s. I want to take you on a journey to the other side of the tracks to Immokalee, Florida, located 120 miles Northwest of Miami. When you arrive, the highway suddenly shrinks from six to two.

Welcome to the Tomato Capitol of the United States.

During the months of December through May most of the tomatoes consumed in the United States come from this impoverished, gritty, dusty town filled with potholed streets and trailers that are almost uninhabitable, or at a minimum in permanent disrepair. Not only is this the Tomato Capitol of the United States but according to Douglas Molloy, the chief assistant U.S. attorney, “Immokalee Florida has another claim to fame: It is “ground zero for modern slavery”.

How does slavery occur in the United States in 2010?

The condition in which these migrant workers live and work is appalling and sub-human. Since 1997, over 1,000 men and women have been freed by law enforcement in Immokalee, and these were only the cases that led to conviction. A well-known fact is when you are undocumented, mistrustful and speak little or no English; you are not likely to report the crime. This allows the crew bosses who exploit these workers to go uncharged and the big growers who hire them, simply turn a blind eye and go unnoticed.

As I write this post, I am not referring to a few incidents of unscrupulous crew bosses, what I am writing about takes place everyday, and not just to a few but to many migrant workers who do jobs that most Americans cannot even fathom.

I am not trying to stir-up a debate about U.S. immigration policy but, to look on the human side of the people who work our fields to ensure that our grocery bins and fast-food chains are filled to the brim with tomatoes and most other produce. The fact remains that big companies under the guise of labor contractors and crew bosses, recruit, lure and hire migrant workers. Promise them basic necessities such as food, shelter and medical care, if they should become injured on the job. Instead, many migrant workers are provided appalling housing conditions, virtually no medical care and there is a cost for everything.

The migrant worker working in Immokalee’s tomato fields, rummages through staked vines looking for hard green tomatoes-when the 32-pound basket is filled, It is then hoisted upon their shoulder and then trotted up to large dumpster the size of a gravel bed of a truck. The basket of tomatoes is then dumped, and the process starts all over again. This is usually done at break neck speed. On a good day, for each basket that is picked, a worker can earn a token worth about 45 cents. A young fit worker could pick a ton of tomatoes a day, netting about $50 per day-that is if the worker actually receives what they have earned. A known practice is that when piece workers are paid their work is routinely falsified.

Oftentimes, their pay is also docked for everything from drinking water from a hose, a meager meal of tortillas and beans, or using the bathroom. An average trailer that literally leans in the wind and houses on average ten migrant workers usually costs about $800 per month. Want to take a cold shower $5 to use a garden hose and $20 a week for urinating and defecating outside because there is no indoor plumbing. In a relatively short period of time, the workers are in debt to the crew bosses and in a situation in which they cannot pay off their debts, and are forced to live in involuntary servitude.

Next time, you head to the grocery store and are placing your tomatoes or other produce in your cart you can reasonably assume that your produce was picked by the hand of a slave – as it is not an assumption. It is a fact.

Wanker Wednesday: My problems with “The Help”

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I probably don’t need to publish this post on my blog. It is not appealing. It is not good writing. It will not make you laugh out loud. It is not even a proper rant. Besides, it is friggin’ long – I am amazed at how much I tapped out on my iPhod, and tedious. I am not even making any coherent argument, not to mention grammatical errors! Run-on sentences! totally exposing myself as a feeble-minded person. Even the title spells “MEH”.

That being said, I feel this pathological need to be on the record, I guess. Since I have been treating this blog as my diary, I want everything that comes out of my head to be on here. So, sorry about this… mental puke…

I brought the book, The Help, by Kathryn Stockett with me on my flight back home last December. I have had the whole flight between IAD and Narita to ponder on this book. I won’t even attempt at writing a review since I am really not qualified to do so. And at any rate, there are already more than 1,400 reviews on Amazon.com. Furthermore, all the book reviewers in the major news outlets have done so and waxed poetic on this book, with one of them comparing The Help to To Kill A Mocking Bird.* I will just make a list of things that I have been chewing on. By Tap Tap Tap on my iPhone (without a SIM) and therefore heavy editing involved thereafter.

Spoiler alert: If you are thinking of reading this book, you should skip this. I will also be 100% honest with myself, which means I will be contradictory, at times nonsensical, and possibly offending, especially if you love the book.

Confession first: I enjoyed reading this book tremendously. Cliché, yes. Truth is: it IS a page turner. For me. From the moment when I opened it in August when I first received it, I could not completely put Aibileen out of my head until the Christmas week, when I finally had time to sit down and read the book in long stretches.

The stories are riveting. The voices are, as much as I hate using this word because it is often confused with “stereotypical”, or at the very least “archetypal”, the voices sound to me “authentic”. That is, when I was reading it, when I was caught up in the drama of the story that was being expertly told, when I was kept in suspense as to the safety of the women, when I was hoping with clenched fists and a racing hear that they would triumph over evil and that justice would be done. Well, justice be done to a certain extent, in the strict confines of the story-telling.

Now I ask myself: How many Southerners do I know? None.

Do I know any African American domestic help? Nope.

What do I know about Southern dialects and accents? Not a thing.

So what do I know about whether the book is “authentic” or not? Hasn’t this always been the gripe I have against books like Memoirs of a Geisha? That a fiction novel, on account of its main characters being of a non-white race, is evaluated and praised for delivering an “authentic” portrayal. Do we even care whether Dan Brown’s characters are authentic or not?

Damn the identity politics theories I read, classes I took.

I cannot help, in the back of my mind, though I immensely enjoyed the stories of these women, that a white woman took possession of the black women’s stories twice, especially after I read Kathryn Stockett’s personal note at the end of the book: like Skeeter in the story, Stockett wrote the black women’s stories and gained wild success.

I understand the above statement reeks of identity politics, but I cannot help the gnawing feelings in the back of my head.

What bothers me even more is Skeeter’s cajoling, forcing almost, these women into telling her their stories because she was told that she needed to write something that nobody had ever written before in order to get into the publishing world. Throughout I was extremely uncomfortable with her motive: next to the all too real risk to the black women’s lives, her motif seems so trivial. Selfish even. What is the potential downside for her engagement in this feat? None too serious really. And indeed, there was a happy ending for Skeeter. But for Minnie and Aibileen the future remained uncertain.

Although I do wish something horrible would happen to the wrong-doers and was a bit let down when it didn’t, I do applaud the author for not cheapening the story by taking the easy way out. They are still in the mid 1960s in Mississippi and it is not like they are going to all of a sudden find true equality by the end of the book. I need to give the author props for not providing her White readers with an easy cathartic way to assuage the white guilt. “The villain that caused such misery is dead/appropriately punished, all is well in the universe. Now get on with your merry life.”

As I mentioned, the book received gleaming reviews. From White book reviewers. This could be racist on my part, and certainly identity politics at its worst as some might say, nevertheless, I feel I NEED TO know how an African American reader may feel about this book. NOT because a white woman from a privileged family in the South wrote this book, but because, again, despite my immense enjoyment of this book, and yes indeed I feel guilty for liking this book when I started wondering how my friends back in my graduate study classes would have said about this book, I cannot ignore the conflation of the tropes: 1. the White heroine being rescued, or finding self-realization, through Black folks around her that she does not socialize with, 2. Black people, unable to help or save themselves, being rescued by a White person.

I imagine this book already optioned by a movie studio. Or soon will be. Anyway you look at it, it IS going to be a great vehicle for some of the outstanding African American actresses, and god only knows how hard it is for a good script with a strong minority character lead to make it all the way to some head honcho’s desk. I do hope that the script and the actor that portrays Leroy would breathe some more life into him rather than the one-dimensional wife-beater. When in doubt, we reach for the things we share as women: abusive husbands, cheating boyfriends, sexist Chauvinistic patriarchs. In that process, our men are further demonized. Joy Luck Club immediately comes to mind. I can’t watch that movie without cringing. Not a single man in that movie is worthy of loving. Is it why it was accepted by the white mainstream audience? “Poor Asian women. They are so much better off over here. Away from their men.”

When The Blind Side came out, and the Internet was all abuzz about what a feel good movie it was, it immediately raised the mental red flag for me. “Feel good” means, to me, “Not for you. You are probably not the target audience/reader. Stay home. Otherwise you won’t feel good.”

I asked an African American columnist whether she planned to see the movie,

“No. We don’t consider that movie an attractive idea.” She said coyly.

* The surest way to incite heated debate against the worth of any book is to compare it to the beloved To Kill a Mocking Bird… So if you hate someone, yeah, go ahead and compare them to Harper Lee.

WTF Wednesday: Eye? Aye!

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It is Thursday (and actually soon will be Friday…) Yes, I am cheating again by backdating my post. But it IS Wednesday somewhere in the world, right? Oh. Who cares. It is a WTF post by me when I’ve got my WTF glasses on. (Yeah, this line is for you my Wicked Kitchen Lady…) So WTF ANYTIME… FTW!

We received a Christmas card from a high school friend of my husband’s. The address label on the envelop was one of those personalized family labels with the faces that are supposed to represent each member in the family.

Get your family labels here! Personalized to fit your family!

Our friends are of Asian descent, and therefore the figures on the address label all have black hair, and it does remind us of them: with the appropriate hair styles. To my surprise, my husband was interested in getting a set for us.

“Maybe for next Christmas?” He emailed me with the link.

Don’t you just love how they add things to your list with a nice question like that?

Fine. I thought. It could be cute. Naturally I was already wondering how we were going to represent our multiracial family. Perhaps I could get some message out with each letter I mail. Represent! I thought. Things could get very interesting. I thought. Little did I know that it was going to be VERY INTERESTING alright.

I browsed through the site, looked at the samples, and clicked on ORDER:

Choose your head and hair style here: Male and female heads

They do have a wide selection for heads/hair styles. At this point, my kids became curious in this project and they were getting excited, impatiently waiting for their turn to choose their own faces.

“Oh oh oh. Choose this one!”

“No. Mom looks more like this one!”

Finally we (i.e. the kids) settled on a hair style for me.

So many heads, so little time... to make my decision I mean...

By selecting the head style, we were then shown a variety (i.e. THREE) of different skin tones and many hair colors to choose from.

So many hair colors to choose from! Should I go with my natural color or my highlighted color?

“Mom, pick the Dark Brown Hair. That looks more like you.” My oldest said.

“Mom, I am not sure what you should choose for your skin color. That one is too light, and that one is too dark.” My youngest said. He is a man of 100% honesty.

I was relieved that the instruction gave me the permission to select “Fair Skin” for myself, since I consider my complexion to be “tan”. I thought I’d go with Black Hair and Tan Skin because I did not want people to mistake me for a non-Asian person. However, my hair has not been BLACK BLACK for almost a decade: I discovered highlights many years ago and baby, let me tell you: I ain’t gonna go back. Fine. She looks too happy anyway. What I need really is a scowling face. I went with the kids’ suggestions.

Here comes the WTF moment. The first WTF moment…

(The following is a “dramatized” version of the screen I saw at the initial WTF moment. I went through the ordering process just so I could grab a screenshot to show you, my friends. You are welcome)

My jaw dropped. Add-on Features. “Asian eyes” is one of the 3 add-on features offered by the company. Along with Glasses and Santa Hat.

Asian Eyes. One of the only 3 add-on features. Me so honored.

“What the…?!” I stopped myself short. The kids looked at me, then looked at each other.

“Mom. You should check ‘Asian Eyes’ because you are Asian.” Mr. Monk, my youngest, said. With all honesty.

“Shut up.” My oldest chastised his brother.

“Hmmm. Honey, do you know that they offer ‘Asian Eyes’ as an Add-On Feature?! Next to Santa Hat and Glasses?!” I hollered at husband.

“Mom. What do the, eh, Asian Eyes look like?” My oldest asked. Now fully invested in this new development as well.

So we searched high and low on the website, and we finally found it. Ta da!

WTF Moment Numéro deux…

Seriously. Do those eyes even belong to a human?

“What the heck is this? Voldemort?!” I was so startled by the unreality of it I burst out laughing.

My oldest was indignant. “That is so racist!”

“What is racist?” My youngest asked. But fortunately, immediately, “Those don’t look like your eyes. You should just use the black dots.”

I laughed even harder when I saw the labels for kids: “Have your kids feel special!”

Asian eyes, what? for the straight A kids? (Yes yes, I know, yet another stereotype...)

Oh, little Jennifer is going to feel special alright… When she is shown to be some evil spirit, creepy imbecile, or wicked mastermind with no pupils.

CODA: I am not trying to read too much into this. I am sure the company does this out of good intentions. What kind of idiot would want to set out to offend paying customers, right? They are trying so hard to operate in this multi-cultural, multi-racial, complex and wonderful world that the United States of America has become. But seriously, dude? Those “Asian Eyes” are beyond creepy. They gave me nightmares. I was wondering why you stopped there? Why didn’t you include an Add-on feature for Coolie Hat? (Ok. Ok. I can’t help it!…)

Asian eyes? Take that!

WTF Wednesday: Fighting “I Guess I’m a Racist” with “I Guess I’m a Lazy Ass”!

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UPDATE (12-17-2009):

I realized that my attempt at satire actually makes it even more confusing. My apology. I will lay it out straight: The “I’m a Racist” ad is ridiculous also because it predicted on the faulty assumption #1 HCR is mostly about the African Americans #2 Ergo I have been accused of being a racist because I am against HCR. OR, if you criticize my criticism of HCR, you are accusing me of being a racist. In my mind, #1 is incorrect, and therefore #2 is incorrect. (This is the argument I was trying to make by invoking the fact that there are also a lot of POOR WHITES who are trapped in the poverty cycle AND the arguments, on both sides, seem to have overlooked their plights).

The new ad “I Guss I’m A Lazy Ass” I am proposing here is for the Pro-HCR camp as a comeback. And it is satirical. Hard to convey “satirical” tone with words since you can’t see my Quote Fingers or Jazz Hands… It plays upon #1. The assumption by many in the anti-HCR camp (anti-Public-option) that people without health care are lazy asses who cannot hold a job, etc. Why should we help those people out? #2. This proposed ad would confront that assumption. #3. The prominent representation of white people (a la the prominent representation by the final Black guy in the “I’m a racist” ad), as sarcastically proposed, refers to the common assumption that Poor White People are Poor NOT because they are lazy but because they are unfortunate…

Anyway, it serves me right to be smug enough to think that I can tackle such a controversial and complex issue. This is such a charged subject and as you can see I am confused myself. There is probably no need for this update either since you either got me (for which I am very grateful and would you please come to my house and explain me to my husband?) or you have moved on to more important things (I would have done this if I were you too so no hard feelings), but I feel that I need to clarify things because I am anal retentive. The bottom line is:

I would like to see the government TRYING to help the truly unfortunate out, esp. the millions of children that are not ensured, and if that means I have to pay more taxes, I am fine with it. Will they make some bumbling mistakes along the way? You bet ya. But the expectation of imperfection should not be the excuse for not doing it at all. Have all the countries claiming to be a democracy really adhere to the democratic principles all the time? Are there not corruptions, nepotisms, all sorts of Jackassery going on? You bet ya. Does that mean democracy failed and we should just write it off? I am sure the answer is no.

This I believe:

“No one should die because they cannot afford health care, and nobody should go broke because they get sick.”

The Original Post (as published on 12-16-2009):

Many of you have this feature called Wordless Wednesday every, eh, Wednesday. But me? Not talking? When I have my own soap box right here? Ha. Therefore I decided to start my own tradition called WTF Wednesday.

And conveniently, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, together: what do we have here?!

My token male reader called me out on an evasive post last week, half-assedly commenting on the “I guess I’m a Racist” anti-healthcare reform ad.

Yeah yeah I know I just also wrote this big giant navel-gazing post about how I am going to ignore all of you and just do whatever I want. So I am going to ignore you right now for mocking me…

You are a dick, dick!

Although I have blogged about how I feel about HCR, his comment struck a cord. I was caught red-handed for not following through with my oh-so-big announcement of how I am going to just go ahead and be myself. YOU GOT ME DICK! (No, he really is a dick. I mean, that’s what his blog is called. Eh, never mind…)

So here it is, a week later, assuming (hoping, actually) that I am preaching to the choir, FWIW:

The video is asinine to say the least.  As Professor Melissa Harris-Lacewell succinctly puts it, “THIS sucks the rhetoric air out of the room.”

  1. First of all, the ads (and many comments circulating on the Interweb) unquestionably assume that RACISM operates on the individual level, rather than on the institutional level. Regarding institutionalized racism: You either agree with this, or you don’t. This is my pessimistic conclusion.

  2. Furthermore, the ads (and the subsequent celebratory comments around the Interweb) wrongfully, yet effectively, turned the entire HCR debate around and recast the issue in an ultra emotional light, since most people do not deliberately practice racist beliefs and activities, and most people take it very personally, understandably, when they feel they are being accused of being a racist.

  3. The real issue of HCR, in my opinion, is one about class: the Have’s vs. The Have-Not’s. And we need to recognize that in the U.S., the class issues are inextricably linked to race issues, due to our unique histories. Although many in the African American academia have challenged the “code words” used in the HCR debate, e.g. “Welfare Queens”, “under class”, etc., it does not mean that they are trying to “hijack” the HCR issue with race issues. The poor Whites will also benefit from an improved health care system. And do you know approximately 2/3 of all welfare benefits administered by the government went to poor Whites? Why is that in a discussion on HCR that could benefit all the people who currently do not have any form of health insurance across the board, we don’t hear about these non-non-White folks’ plights?

  4. Somebody should make a video with all sorts of people speaking to the camera, “I guess I am a lazy ass,” to move the dial all the way to the other end: “You cannot afford health insurance, it must be your own damn fault!” Preferably featuring WHITE PEOPLE since as the thinking goes (as exemplified in the “I Guess I’m a Racist” vid) :

    BLACKS <> NOT RACISTS : WHITES <> NOT LAZY ASS
    Ergo, all these people that you saw just now? NOT Lazy Ass.

    5. And definitely remember to show a mother with an innocent child who looks at her mother and asks, “Am I a lazy ass, mom?” That’s going to be some powerful shit.

  5. I would have suggested Asian Americans in the vid to make the strongest point because of the whole “Model Minority” stereotype — You know: We work hard. We pull ourselves up by the bootstraps. We are good workers. We hunker down and keep our goddamn mouths shut. We never complain. Yada yada yada — were it not for the other stereotype of Asian Americans being immigrants and foreigners. THAT would have served the enemy’s purpose: LOOK. The HCR IS going to provide insurance to foreigners. OMG!

  6. Some random lady “engaged” me on a debate on Twitter. Imagine debating someone on such a complex issue 140 characters at a time?!… Her argument comes down to: I have done my part. Why should I give more? The government should get out of the business of trying to tell ME how I should spend my (husband’s) hard-earned money. AND, this sort of sums up her position: “I pay tax because I HAVE TO. I give money to charity, through my church, already.” At that point, I said, “Do you seriously want to engage in a political debate with someone who was just talking about tits on Twitter?”

  7. That was the moment when I became deeply convinced that there is NO way we are going to change each other’s mind. None.

  8. That was the moment when I fell in love all over again with Jon Stewart.

p.s. Comedy Central’s blog post on this vid is called “I Guess I’m a Racist, Sexist, Puppy-Killing Psychopath Who Never Calls My Mom“…  The title IS the comment.

p.p.s. The funniest, most scathing, most intelligently sarcastic, and in my mind, the most effective comeback was found on The AWL:

“I’m of the opinion that it’s always great to see an oppressed group of people attempt to reclaim a word that has been used in the past to cause hurt and shame. I’m thrilled for Republicans that they’re trying to take the ‘racist’ label back.”

GOLD.

Quote Fingers vs. Jazz Hands

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I am never taken seriously on the hardcore race/social justice discussion website Racialicious. But it is ok. I still visit often and once in a while cannot help but put in my $0.02 worth and continue to be ignored by the other commenters that are a lot more serious than I am… Because…

Unknown Mami

Oh yeah.

For the very serious discussion: “POLITICAL CORRECTNESS” IS A REACTIONARY TERM AGAINST THE LOSS OF PRIVILEGE I decided to lighten up the scene by interjecting (injecting) some humor in it:

I see the term “politically correct” or “politically incorrect” as the new “I am sorry but no offense” or the new “with all due respect”. It is mostly used with “quotation marks” and often accompanied by “wink wink”. I think from now on when somebody uses the term in the “quotation mark” way, we should combat it with Jazz Hands…

I thought that was a brilliant idea. No?

Dr. Evil - Abuser of Quotation Marks

Dr. Evil - Abuser of Quote Fingers


vs.

Possibly the most macho Jazz Hands you'll ever see

Possibly the most macho Jazz Hands you'll ever see

Seriously. I cannot be 100% serious at all times.

All things on cable TV considered, I wish my hotel had porn…

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I am trapped in a hotel in a Boston suburb. Therefore I did what I always do in this situation: I did the grown-up thing. I went to the bar and got myself multiple drinks, got myself drunk and depressed. Depressed. Apparently alcohol is a depressant. Shit! So that’s what I have been doing wrong. I am always a bit embarrassed by my being a sad, teary drunk. So it is not me. It is the alcohol.

Do you know what cures drunkenness and self-pity before you can say Xanax? A convenient case of indignant outrage. Courtesy of hotel cable TV. Yeah, smart ass. Not porn. I wish it were porn. At least it would not have left such a bad taste in my mouth.

Did you hear about this new anti-healthcare-reform commercial that’s said to be aired nation-wide, starting tomorrow?

The commercial that is getting lots of positive feedback on conservative blogs and websites shows a bunch of white people Euro-Americans looking into the camera, sprinkled in between with three non-white-looking people, and of course, with a mother and her toddler daughter who is sucking on her lollipop, all wide-eyed and innocent. The mother, looking into the camera, says, “I guess we are racists.” (Is your daughter even old enough to be against the healthcare reform? No? Then she is fine. We don’t know about you though.  <– Just kidding! You people have no sense of humor… <– Just kidding! Again!! Did you see what I am trying to accomplish here? I slay me.) The commercial ends with a young, nice-looking African American* man saying, “I guess I am a racist.” (Congratulations, dude. You just got your one and most likely only starring role as an aspiring actor!)

* Someone is very proud of that ending. What a strong finish! See? It’s a black man = He cannot be racist = All the others lily white folks cannot be racist either. Hurray! Martyrs, all of us. “I am Spartacus!” *Cough Cough*

I am the Queen of Passive Aggressiveness. Yet I am floored by the rampant passive aggression exhibited in this video. They must have consulted the Italian, Chinese and Korean mothers in the world. (Sorry, ladies, I love you guys. But have you seen yourselves in the soap operas? Yikes!)

This is what I call Preemptive Jackassery. This is similar, similar ONLY in my poorly-formed analogy since I have had too much to drink at the hotel bar by myself, and NOT in degree, to my calling myself a bitch which liberates me from doing all bitchy things.

“I guess I am a bitch BUT your baby really is ass ugly.”

“I guess I am a bitch BUT those jeans do make your butt look fat.”

“I guess I am a bitch BUT my honor-roll student can totally kick your bully kid’s ass.

Or your calling yourself a dick so you can kick baby kittens.

Or my husband’s saying preemptively, “Honey, I know I am an asshole” just to get out of doing housework throughout the entire marriage.

Remember how Newt Gingrich called Judge Sonia Sotomayor a Racist?

Finally, one thing we can all agree on: we are ALL racists. What’d ya know?

Well, what’d ya know? There’s more.

Sarah Palin reportedly left Hawaii (where she went to the first of the four colleges she attended) because, cough cough, the presence of so many Asians and Pacific Islanders made her uncomfortable: “They were a minority type thing and it wasn’t glamorous, so she came home.”

I have to say, she is being quite brave by still wanting to run for the President in 2012 despite her fear. Think of all the Asian people she needs to meet when she runs for POTUS AND all the Asian countries she needs to visit when she becomes POTUS? She will need to meet with Chinese government officials, mostly male most likely, and shake their hands. Yeeeewwww! It’s going to be like the Indiana Jones trope: “Snakes, why did it have to be snakes?”

“Asians, why do they have to be Asians?”

You go girl. Confront your phobia.

To Hell with keeping my mouth shut and ignoring the crazies and the ignorant…

13 Replies

I thought I could just comment on what has been happening to this country, specifically the latest, hottest, “meme” that is going on and making the news circuit and the blogoshpere and the twitterverse, by reminding all of us, once again, the Golden Rule. Yes, indeed, I am referring to the clever, seemingly harmless and indeed “How Christian of you”, appearances of bumper stickers that say:

“Pray for Obama: Psalm 109:8”

By now I assume most of you know what the hack I am talking about. If you are one of the fortunate ones that have been shielded from such ugliness, here is the article, “Biblical anti-Obama slogan: Use of Psalm 109:8 funny or sinister?” on none other than The Christian Science Monitor. I am also repeating the by-now-old-news-because-our-generation-suffers-from-ADD details here for my children, so they will know, when they look back one day, how FAR indeed we/they have come. Please, let it be overcome by then…

Why the debate on whether quoting Psalm is sinister? Because this is from the Old Testament, whose god is a vengeful god. Because the exact verse in Psalm 109:8 is

“Let his days be few; and let another take his office.”

Not so bad? One clearly has the right to wish Obama out of the White House as soon as possible, as argued by many, citing Freedom of Speech. Read on because Psalm 109:9, which comes after Psalm 109:8, says

“Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.”

Because, Psalm 109 is Vengeance Invoked upon Adversaries. Remember, Vengeful god.

Naturally some of the folks that gladly applied the bumper stickers, tweeted this verse, emailed it to friends and families, or even wore the t-shirts (Are you surprised that there were t-shirts made and sold already?) now claim ignorance. They did not know what comes after Psalm 109:8

And you have got to believe them. Old Testament aka the Hebrew Bible. Is it a surprise that not many Christians have read it?

More importantly, selfishly, I want to believe the claim for ignorance. I need to. Otherwise it would be extremely difficult to continue to believe in the general goodness of mankind. I don’t want to be convinced by Frank Shaeffer’s argument on TRMS that this is “trolling for assassins”, “calling for holy war”. That many are just eagerly awaiting Obama to fall into the same fate as that of Kennedy, McKinley, Garfield, and Lincoln. That it really “just takes one”.

I never liked Bush yet I had never prayed for his untimely death. Nor have I Cheney. Nor Glenn Beck. The list goes on…

I don’t even want to go down the road of pondering why Obama, in himself, incites so much fear and anger. I understand, with sorrow, that not all Americans were heart-broken when John Kennedy was assassinated. One could safely made the assumptions that the malignance (invidiousness? which negative emotion best described the frenzy?) bestowed on Obama has reached an unforeseen level of intensity.

This whole incident illustrated the dangers of quoting anything out of context and not checking the sources/references before propagating it. Another example, the ironic “Teabaggers wearing the Obamao t-shirt from China“, immediately comes to mind. Though the danger of you being mocked for not getting something is significantly reduced if you have taken care to be surrounded only by like-minded people…

It also goes to prove that Richard Dawkins (yes, THE IT atheist) is correct in advocating the mandatory studying of the bible, albeit as LITERATURE,

“The Bible as literature should be a compulsory part of the national curriculum… you can’t understand English literature and culture without it.”*

I would also like to suggest a new rule for consideration in conjunction with the suggestion above:

One shall not quote the Bible, or Shakespeare for that matter while we are on this subject, without actually reading the entire passage first.

* This is the reason why the first book of literature we were made to read in the department of Western literature was The Old Testament. Read it and weep. For so many reasons…

The world needs a new meme “I comment therefore I am”

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Unknown Mami over at well, Unknown Mami, struck gold with this great idea of creating yet another Internet Meme:

I comment therefore I am.

Unknown Mami

The idea is: we express ourselves, in addition to through our own blogs, also by leaving traces of ourselves with our comments all over the interweb.  Unknown Mami decided that all of our comments are worthy enough to be turned into real posts. Because she herself is a prolific commentator, she is turning this into a weekly feature on her blog, otherwise the post would get too long… she said.

An idea that cuts down the actual writing? Esp. in the blasted month of NaBloPoMo? I am 100% down with it. I will at least try it this once. Take that NaBloPoMo! Another DAY bites the dust! Besides, I always do believe that comments are often the funniest, sometimes the scariest (i.e. on the political blogs), yet always the most revealing part of a website/blog.

I thought some of you may want to play too!  So gather up all of your stellar comments: all your humorous, ironic, sarcastic, poignant, illuminating, sincere, pontificating comments, and turn them into a post.

The following are selected evidence of my insomnia, my restlessness, when I roam the earth in search of my next victim…  Again, warning: discussions of Race and Stereotypes abound…

In response to #11 Asian Girls on the list that Stuff White People Like…

Disclaimer/Explanation: The way I see it, this site, Stuff White People Like, employees a tongue-in-cheek, straight-faced, sardonic, wry humor that I recognize in myself. When I saw #11 Asian Girls, I thought it was hilariously awesome. If we cannot laugh at ourselves, we have no right to laugh at the others. That’s how I view this world. Of course, of all the “items” listed on this HUMOR site, #11 has proven to be the most controversial and incited the most comments, and heated debates. Please be warned, and I am being serious, many most of the 17,295 (as of today) comments are lewd (even by my standard) and malicious. And in case you wonder, yes, I did read through many pages of the previous comments, before I left mine on Page 454. I considered it to be Cultural Study. Or as Sun Tzu said, “Know your enemy and know yourself and you can fight a hundred battles without a single failure.” (I have to google this shit up too. So no, just because I am Chinese doesn’t mean I have studied the Art of War…)

p.s. Something funny: I actually “tracked down” the genius who wrote #11 Asian Girls, and he wrote, “Yes, I am the non-white guy that is part of StuffWhitePeopleLike. Please stop sending my hate mail…”

Without further delay, here is one of the finest comments I have written. A masterpiece in the art of sarcasm.

#11 Asian Girls

submom on June 10, 2009 at 9:58 am

Dear Sir, I would like to thank you for putting us #11 out of the many things that white people like. I feel truly honored. (Do NOT imagine me saying that in an accent a la Master Splinter…)

On the other hand, I have to be honest, I am rather peeved that we are not on the Top 10 List. (Wes Anderson?! Ok. Fine. I can live with that. I like him too) I am not sure whether you have had a chance to read through all 14500+ comments generated by this post. (Great job! Congrats!) Granted most of them are hate mails from all groups of males: Maybe for once they can all agree to hate Asian females and hate each other? I thought I’d leave a post to thank your readers for the new insights about ourselves that I didn’t know before.
Here are a few things I’ve learned from your ab. fab. and maddeningly funny post:

1. If you are white and male and you are looking to date a girl of Asian descent (hey, let’s be PC here, peeps!) show her to your other Asian, preferably male, friends. (If you have no other friends of Asian descent, hmmm, I think there should be another post about this situation but I digress…) As a last resort, take her to any Asian restaurant (No, Panda Express does NOT count!) Ask them whether she is HOT by their standards. Do not trust your own judgement.

2. If you are a girl of Asian descent and are fielding interest from a non-Asian male, do ask him whether he’s ever been to Asia and more importantly, whether he’s taught English there. If YES to the latter or if he has stayed there for longer than a month, RUN.

3. If he says, “I love Panda Express.” Punch him in the nose and then RUN.

4. If you think you may be suffering from Yellow Fever or Asian Fetish, you really should get it looked at. Your insurance may cover it.

In response to the question posted on BlogHer: Dating Deal Breakers: What Merits an Automatic Dismissal?

I said:

“The first two questions I asked my husband as a litmus test when he first showed signs of interest in me (or when I finally were sure that he was interested): 1. Did you belong to a fraternity? 2. Have you ever been to Asia for an extended period of time?/Have you dated a woman of Asian descent?  He answered NO to both.  I admit I based the first question on stereotypes of frat boys from the movies/TV shows.  Yes, I am a Fraternist. No apology there.  The second question was necessary because I am Asian, and I have seen enough Western men (regardless of skin colors) with “yellow fever” to be alarmed. If he were into me JUST (or even, first and foremost) because I am Asian. Then sorry, not into that.  I have also seen enough white boys being totally spoiled in Asian countries thinking they are the cat’s meow to want to weed out, or at least be super cautious towards, anybody that has spent a lot of time over there.

My other deal-breakers are more normal: RUDE to people in the service industry, e.g. waiters, doormen.  Failure to hold doors open for others.  Ok, maybe not so normal. I consider these to be telltale signs for a person’s character.”

Inadvertently I shared too much too candid too soon. Seriously, are you surprised? I may have also touched upon an area, race/skin color, that in general makes people hesitate, if not downright uncomfortable. The host of this discussion did not respond to my comment.