Weighty Ounces

Tues: Chinese Final Exam
Wed: Chinese Oral Presentation
Thurs: EC 11 Final Exam, EC 60 Midterm which will be a final if I get a B
Fri: First Draft of PS 128 paper due. 7.5/10 pages currently written.

ALMOST THERE. EC 11 did not go as well as I had hoped, but at this point I'll take the grade. A B in that class will be enough to make me happy. Killed the EC 60 midterm though! I'm confident I won't need to take the final, but I don't want to jinx anything...

Only downside to all of this is that Andrea's didn't deliver my fried chicken!!! I'm probably going to walk over to broken yolk in about three hours, once I'm done with my paper. I can't wait to have an omelette I didn't have to make myself.

Martin Luther Keezy

I have just improved your lives by an order of 10^3. Now excuse me while my brain bleeds out through my nose.

Aside, anyone at Tufts want to catch Children of Invention? Showing tomorrow night at the Somerville Theatre.

Getting There

Tues: Chinese Final Exam
Wed: Chinese Oral Presentation
Thurs: EC 11 Final Exam, EC 60 Midterm which will be a final if I get a B
Fri: First Draft of PS 128 paper due. 0/10 pages currently written.

Striking the oral presentation too because I just wrote it. Huzzah! I guess the biggest reason I'm taking Chinese now is not to be able to converse fluently in Chinese, but more because of the thrill I get from learning how to express new words and ideas. I knew I was in higher level Chinese when I learned how to say "objectification of women." Getting ready to start the feminist movement in China now...

Snippet of thought:

Decrying racism out loud and voicing disapproval does not legitimize it, nor does it represent capitulation to racism's insidious power. It's different from getting hot under the collar before empty taunts. The objective of racism isn't to provoke people to careless action out of anger, it's to reinforce negative stereotypes associated with categorizing people according to socially constructed traits, like "whiteness", "blackness" or "chineseness" thus promoting subjugation according to these categories. Voicing your disapproval does not make the racist stronger. Activism and anti-racist discourse challenge racist views of the world, whereas silence and complicity with racism gives legitimacy, approval, and condonation to acts and words of racism.

Want a historical example? Black people didn't get whites to stop using the n-word by keeping quiet and brushing the dirt off their shoulder. The vocal disapproval of that racial slur made using it a path of great resistance in society, one rightfully so.

A Predictable Response

I cracked open today's copy of the Tufts Daily and couldn't help myself. The number and nature of the op-eds tell me that the process of ending racism on this campus is going to be long and hard, and many people are going to oppose me and my friends. Long entries to resume once the week is over, but for now, here's a video you might enjoy:



The size is weird but the sound is more important. Just click the screen and let it play.

Pause

This week is going to be ridiculously busy, so I might be quiet for a while.

Tues: Chinese Final Exam
Wed: Chinese Oral Presentation
Thurs: EC 11 Final Exam, EC 60 Midterm which will be a final if I get a B
Fri: First Draft of PS 128 paper due. 0/10 pages currently written.

Only upside to all of this is I'll be pretty much done by the time Ludacris gets here for Spring Fling!

Today was rather good in a productive way. Ate a damn lot, lit a candle for my brother Lorenzo's birthday, got home to find that the Celtics won on a Jesus Shuttlesworth buzzer beater. Even got to master the kettlebell snatch with my 53 lb chunk when I got back home. Some kids were at the entrance of Metcalf selling brownies and I got some for a nightcap. Productive day, I'd call it well spent. If the rest of this week goes as well, I'll be happy. Congratulations also to all my friends who went to the marathon! It continues to be a dream for me and my muscle anxiety.

I believe in miracles.

Towards True Constructive Discourse

The following is a copy of a letter that I sent to members of the Tufts administration. Certain names have been omitted for the purpose of privacy.

________________________________________________________

Dear all,

Earlier today, my friend sent you a letter in which she detailed how because of her speech and her history of activism at Tufts, she has received verbal personal attacks from anonymous members of the Tufts community. I will not reproduce those comments here because I trust that you at least read letters coming from your students, and you have seen them already. Even though the comments come from a few sources who have not been named, they have caused her and her friends great distress. Do you know what it's like to meet new people and have to think about whether this person already hates who you are?

When I read her letter today, it woke me to how real the harmful environment on campus is. I had tried to be thick-skinned. I took all the comments of "whiny", "bitchy", "crybaby minority", as well as the ones telling me and my friends to "shut the fuck up" about racism and bigotry as signals that yes, indeed, there were people at Tufts who were ignorant and who I had to reach out harder to. I took their attacks as attacks on the principles that I stood for, not as attacks on my person. However when she bravely attached her name to the words she wrote, she became the one target of attacks that named her as someone to be derided, ignored, demeaned, and not taken seriously. I had previously changed my name entry on facebook in anticipation of the backlash that could get personal. But seeing how personal it has gotten for her has, yes, made me fearful of coming out with my name to speak out on racism and bigotry and support my classmates. But I intend to anyway because despite my fear of retaliation upon my person, I want people to know that these harmful acts and this harmful environment are things that I, Anthony Cruz, do not approve of, and if they disagree I want them to tell it to my face.

As an administration, it is one thing to foster freedom of speech on a campus, but it smacks of irresponsibility to encourage speech among students and completely disavow ownership of the discourse that ensues. Of course you tell us all that racist, hateful, and violent speech are bad and that you care about the intellectual, physical, and emotional well-being of students on this campus. But these are all truisms that you have to tell us. I don't need to hear that you care about me or that you decry racial slurs. I need you to acknowledge that this is a problem that we students cannot fix by ourselves because in an important way, racism is a problem with all students, with the university, and even with you, members of the administration.

Which brings me to my next point. My parents have been extremely supportive of my efforts, and yet every time I show them a piece I wrote for my blog, the rally campaign or the Tufts Daily, they wonder about the toll it is taking on my schoolwork and the time I should spend studying. And you know what? It does take time that I would have spent studying. But as a person I cannot spend my time studying when I know that I can and should be doing the right thing. I should not have to be telling my classmates that racism still exists, that it is much more than a problem of individual racists and that we should all actively stand together against it. Believe it or not, despite Tufts' rigorous standards for admission, there are still people I have to explain these things to. But I shouldn't have to explain it to them. That is YOUR job. If you tell me and students like me that my views are important and that you completely support them, why is it I that has to defend them over and over and over again before people that you have conceded are misinformed and misguided about the problem of racism? I want to believe that you are not likewise misguided, and that you truly support the cause that me and my friends are fighting for, but we really need much more help than we're currently getting. I should not have to be taking time to write this letter, but I do anyway. I really have no choice because, unfortunately, unlike many other Asian Americans, my parents never taught me to "know my place."

This campus is not as divided as you may think. It is not black and white, or asian and white, or rich and poor or administration and students. When someone shouts death threats and racial slurs at my friends or derides my friend's character for speaking what she believes is right, it is a problem with all of us. These things happen because people think that they're the okay things to do, that no one will speak out in disapproval or that the consequences will not harm them. I tell you that this is exactly what people have in their minds when they do these things.

In a way, this letter comes from me alone and it is a mere drop in the bucket, and it will certainly not end racism by itself. But it is small for a very important reason. That is because in order to end or at least lessen the harmful power of bigotry and oppresion, it requires efforts from all of us, not just those of us who feel oppressed, but those of us who belong to the groups that hold power and privilege in this social system.

Truth be told, I'm new to this whole activism thing. Some of the people who have called me whiny are right about a few things - I'm still full of a lot of noise and anger. One thing you can count on is that I will continue to be noisy and angry until you and the administration finally take ownership of the harmful environment on this campus and take steps towards fixing it. In fact, I am adding all these email addresses to a mailing list of mine now, just so I can send emails to all of you with ease in the future. If you mark me as spam, I will find some other way to reach you.

I'm told by my more cynical classmates that I'm going to have to learn to not get responses from people in positions of power. I frankly don't care whether you write me back personally or not. You are all busy people and there are many things that require your attention. I just hope that the well-being of your students becomes one of those things someday.

Best,
Anthony

Generation

Today is the second day of Telescope weekend at Tufts. Telescope is officially described as a "program for students of color, first generation college students, students from rural or low income areas, and other students interested in diversity." In practice, it's where high school seniors who have already been admitted to Tufts get to come to the University to visit and have the time of their lives going apeshit as college freshmen are wont to do. I didn't have the luxury of going on Telescope, but friends of mine tell stories of both incredible fun and incredible stupidity, as if they were thrust into college at a time when they really weren't ready for it yet. Bah, who is, really?

I was having lunch in the campus center when someone who looked to me like a middle-aged dad approached me and stuck his hand out. "Excuse me, could I have a few minutes of your time?" said the man. From yesterday I've had random people going up to me and congratulating me on the rally and it's just been awesome to have so many people supporting us. I thought he was another one of them, but to my surprise, he was in fact Bruce, a middle-aged father of a girl going on Telescope. Since he mentioned later in our conversation was Jewish and from Philly, I'm guessing his daughter was one of the "other students interested in diversity."

Bruce had picked up a copy of the Tufts Daily and read about our rally. He asked me if there really were a lot of hate crimes going on at Tufts. I hesitated at first, thinking that I was just about to paint a picture of my school to someone who had no impression of it. He told me once again that his daughter had already decided to come, so I could be honest. I breathed a sigh of relief.

What I appreciated from this conversation was that despite Tufts' efforts to bury what happened in terms like "bias incident", even a complete outsider like Bruce realized that the details of the incident pointed to it possibly being a hate crime. Just let me know that people even outside the university are concerned with how we are doing.

After he left, though, I thought about why I assumed he was a dad off the bat, but yet I wondered why, of the around twenty people in Hotung Cafe at the time, he approached me. He had no knowing that I was one of the rally organizers. He in all likelihood assumed that since the rally was in response to an incident involving Asian Americans, an Asian must know about the true situation involving hate crimes on campus. Not calling him racist, but at least even he realized that the best person to ask about racism is someone who belongs to the targeted group. Some people don't get even that.

Also, been reading a lot of Allan Johnson's stuff recently - I know you're reading this Kip, would highly recommend him for debaters (If you still coach high schoolers that is :) ). He's a good intro to talking about sociology in a scholarly manner. If you can't find his books, his site collects many of his essays.

Sanctuary

I had a conversation with a friend last night about what my goals in doing all this rallying, activism, and being angry. Truth is, for a long time I wasn't sure of the best way to articulate them. It's not ultimately to make America as a country better, this is not my country and I have another one to worry about. It's not out of whining about Asian victimhood or some twisted sense of Asian supremacy. And it's certainly not out of some desire to make myself look better or get a writing portfolio going - but if that happens, that's ancillary of course.

The same friend seemed to doubt how realistic the declared goals of the rally and the activism were. Solving racism? "bullshit." Making Tufts a safe haven? "bullshit." Something like it not being possible so we should stop trying for that.

I felt angry and offended by his statements, but also seriously challenged. Because truth is, I don't think it's unrealistic or unreasonable to ask Tufts, the administration and the students, to make our physical and intellectual space a safe haven. It's not too much to ask that when people go here their presence here will not be questioned or attacked on account of their race, sexuality, religion, or socioeconomic class. It's not too much to ask that students be greeted by other students with open-mindedness and curiosity, not ignorance and bigotry. It's not too much to ask that the administration stop sweeping hate crimes under the rug with the sugar-coated shell of "bias incident." A bias incident implies held racist beliefs of an individual. Any sociologist will tell you that when it comes to talking about racism, individualistic models always fail. Racism is ingrained in how social systems work, how people are raised to behave in these social systems, and how the paths of least resistance in these social systems lead to oppression by privileged groups towards unprivileged ones. At Tufts, no one in the administration acknowledges that privilege still continues to create an environment that ignores the struggles undergone by students who do not belong to the dominant majority, resulting in the perpetuation and compounding of their pain.

Because when you think about it, the student who spat on my friends, told them to go back to China, and threatened to physically injure and kill them received more protection from the university than my friends did. In the real world, if he pulled shit like that he would have been put in a hospital. That didn't happen in part because at Tufts there is a police department that patrols everything, and no one would have been able to beat him half-dead and leave the scene scot-free, which isn't to say that my friends would have beat him up otherwise. Tufts ostensibly claims to value the emotional and intellectual well-being of its students, and it claims to value protecting its students from hateful attacks. In this case, it failed. They didn't just fail in preventing the attack from happening. They failed in properly recognizing the attack perpetrated and they fail in creating solutions that properly address it.

Someone else asked me why I care so much, why I haven't just learned to tolerate it and know my place like most Asian Americans. I guess it's a funny product of the fact that I myself belonged to a very privileged class in my own country and the fact that I never really had an experience with oppression on the level that Asian Americans face in this country. I guess I'm not so good at bearing it, and I still cannot comprehend "knowing my place."

I must add however, a positive note. Despite the fact that I have met so many people who in their ignorance deride not just me or my views, but my sense of justice, I have met so many more who support me and believe the same things and tell me to keep writing and keep fighting. For all the haters, I have never felt so powerful in my life.

hasta la victoria siempre

In case some of you aren't already aware, I was on a committee that helped organize a rally at Tufts today. Back in high school, I never seriously figured myself becoming the noisy activist type. I always thought I'd go through college being thirsty all the time, just getting drunk and getting Tang (hahaha, wordplay!). In college for my first two years I spent more time dicking around than I'd like to admit. Even this year there were times when I'd find myself sitting around doing nothing and wondering about what I wanted to do. The past week has had me stressed, angry, tired, and confused for a lot of the time, but it also had me fired up, driven, vocal, and passionate. I think I've found an issue I can really relate to on this campus on a huge level. Studies are always a first priority, but I don't mind putting time into this fight because it's really gotten bigger than me and my Korean friends or even the rally. What comes of this struggle will impact Tufts heavily for years to come.

does my ass look big?

One of the real highlights of working on this whole thing was Professor Wu telling me that my "Thirsty Victims" article was "amazingly good" and that I should become a race relations lawyer. On the one hand I feel great because it's a compliment from the best person at Tufts to give it, and on the other hand I wonder what I would have decided to do had I heard that comment a year earlier. Anyway, what's done is done.

Ending this entry, I'd like to misquote Atty. Andrew Leong, who is currently helping the KSA members and their advocates out. He spoke at the rally and gave me the best take-home message for the whole thing:

"You know what? I'm Asian. I'm not Black, but I can be. I'm not Brown, but I can be. I'm not Gay, but I can be. Because when I sent the press release of this rally to my friends at the Massachusetts Black Lawyers' Association, I know that they are supporting me here. And so are all my other friends in the bar no matter what their ethnicities are. If we really want to learn how to solve racism, we have to learn how to be Asian, Black, Brown, Gay, Muslim, Christian, White, and everything else in order to stand together and face problems against all of us."

A Thirsty Victim

This is the OpEd I submitted to the Tufts Daily in response to this column by Will Ehrenfeld. Let the flaming begin.

_________________________________________________________

A Thirsty Victim
By Robert Siy

Before I begin, let me say that I have not taken Race in America with Jean Wu. I have never before college lived in America, I wouldn’t even say that I identify as Asian American. But as an Asian man living in America now, I share a part of the lived Asian American experience in the way that I am seen and perceived because of my appearance, and in the messages that I am sent by society and media as a half-Filipino, half-Chinese man living in the United States. It is from there, and my experience of racism in my own country, that I make my arguments.

On April 14th, 2009, The Daily published an article by Will Ehrenfeld in his regular column Stuff Tufts People Like entitled “Alleging Bias.” This, apparently, being something that Jumbos are fond of. Going off of the theme of his previous column where he elucidates the Tufts “thirst for victimhood”, what better way to quench that thirst than by crying big, white, racist wolf at every turn? Somehow it’s a mark of “uniqueness” and exoticism to belong to some marginalized group, and how better to express this uniqueness than by telling everyone how exotically victimized you are at every chance?

Disturbed as I was by some of Mr. Ehrenfeld’s remarks, I was able to keep my victimhood in my pants long enough to realize that Mr. Ehrenfeld, just as he says about the freshman who got in a “physical altercation” with the Korean Students Association, is in all likelihood misguided and misinformed. Terribly misguided and misinformed, but that isn’t his fault, and it’s not entirely the kid’s fault either. We pay Tufts $50,000 a year and the least they can do is not make us culturally insensitive reprobates.

Mr. Ehrenfeld seems confused about whether or not this is a “bias incident.” To be honest, I’m not sure if this is a bias incident either. The term (which was invented at Tufts and to my knowledge is only used as a classification at Tufts) is so vague and broad that it in itself does not do much to inform anyone about what the hell is going on.

I’ve got another term for you to think about, though. According to KSA’s accounts, the freshman started the physical violence, and no one, not even him, denies the fact that he called the students “chinks”, their dance “the gayest sh-t”, and told them all to “go back to China.” At any other school, the freshman wouldn’t be accused of a “bias incident.” He would be accused of a “hate crime.” It doesn’t matter whether or not he said the words before or after somebody got hit. If he used the word “gay” as an insult and “chink” with the intention of degrading someone, it’s hateful speech. It’s not like your brain only decides you have something against Asians minute you call them “a bunch of chinks.” That word was in his arsenal of obscenities as a golden bullet for the express purpose of hurting Asians. He used it, so he should be made to answer for the damage that it caused.

Yeah, it would be a whole different story if the kid were harassing a group like say, TDC. If he just mocked their dance and started a fight with them, Mr. Ehrenfeld is correct in arguing that it would not be a bias incident. He’d just be another dumb, drunk, and disorderly freshman if the dancers he harassed just happened to be heterosexual white students.

But what if, for example, the dancers were black? What if he called them “niggers” and told them to “go back to Africa”? I defy anyone to speak out like they do about this incident that such a case wouldn’t be called a hate crime.

And here’s where I disagree with Mr. Ehrenfeld. The issue here isn’t that Jumbos are running amok in fight clubs or that violence “has so pervaded our school” that violent conflict is hardly a big deal anymore. At least we have a proper task force to deal with violence – they’re called the police. The issue here is precisely racial insensitivity, and what is appalling to me was that it took a conflict involving physical violence to draw attention to something which many Tufts students have not spoken out on for fear of being labeled thirsty victims whining over something that isn’t a “big deal.” The power of racial slurs to hurt people is rooted in far more than one person’s ill intent. Words like “nigger” and “chink” carry with them memories of anger, hatred, and exclusion that will never be taken away. Just check your dictionaries and history books to see how for years and years these words were used in conjunction with violence to degrade, alienate, and destroy.

This pain is forever etched in the records of humanity – to forget the meanings of these words would be tantamount to denying the history and consciousness of entire peoples (Before anyone denies racism against Asian Americans, give a google to the tune of “Vincent Chin”). Racist and homophobic slurs work on a different level than ordinary “obscenities”, and this is why they are such a “big deal”: they degrade entire populations that people have been raised to take pride in belonging to. They foster division, intolerance, and fear for no reason other than differences in appearance and behavior. There is no one who belongs to a racial, sexual, or religious minority that has not once in their lives felt the pain associated with being unwanted for something they could not change about themselves. There is a problem here when students can use these words against other students and claim that they are no more hurtful than mere insults, and that they somehow can be excused in a drunken haze in the heat of the moment.

You can’t deny the hurtful power of words like “chink” and “nigger” any more than you can deny the Holocaust. Of course, if you want to deny the Holocaust, that is your right of free speech in this country and at this institution. But it is the right of victimhood-thirsting, bias-alleging, overly-PC Asian men like myself to call you out on your ignorance.

Robert Siy is a Junior majoring in International Relations.

NOTE: if the word “nigger” is censored, I requested that the daily append this paragraph:

“By the way, the fact that the Daily will print “chink” but won’t print the n-word should be telling.”

Until Proven Guilty

Really busy day today, but I just learned that the student accused in this bias incident is taking steps towards legal action. Against my friends whom he attacked, spit on, and degraded. Now he's saying he was the victim of a brutal beatdown by a gang of vindictive Koreans.

This just keeps getting better and better. The possibility that this kid can walk away without so much as a disciplinary scratch, well, isn't making me a happy camper at all.

UPDATE: I know what tonight's entry is going to be about. I feel bad in a way because I have met Mr. Ehrenfeld in person and he was kind and polite to me. I feel that those who are commenting on his article with remarks like "you make me ashamed to be at Tufts." are the ones who are truly blowing things out of proportion. But I feel that it is my duty as someone with a keyboard and an understanding of racism to make sure tha Mr. Ehrenfeld is called out on his errors and misguided assumptions.

If you're in Boston this Thursday, please come to this and show your support for the Asian American community and all those who are victims of discrimination and violence because of who they are.

An Asian in America

"An Asian in America", unwieldy as the statement might be, is how I have decided to characterize myself in the grand cultural milieu of the United States.

I am, for all technical and legal definitions, an American, a citizen of the United States just as anyone born and raised from New York to Los Angeles, Seattle to Miami, from New Mexico to North Dakota and everywhere in between. My parents, like so many others in this land of opportunity, came here in search for the best lives for themselves, their loved ones, and the descendants they were to have. It was during their pursuit of happiness that I was born in a small hospital in Alexandria, Virginia, and I was baptized in a small church in Fairfax a few miles away. This is why I carry an American passport and am fortunate enough to be regarded the courtesies that citizens of this great country enjoy - that I am an American, and I have been granted this privilege by the grace of those who recognized the citizens of this land not as belonging to one race of people, but to all those who would seek in it a means to make the world a better place.

Despite these privileges for which I am thankful, I cannot in good conscience ever refer to my identity as being that of an "American". To do so would be a disservice in numerous ways, to numerous people. It would disparage the efforts of my parents who, instead of choosing a path that would create great wealth for themselves, they gave that up to raise me and my brothers in the same world they formed their characters in, to enable us to grow up in an environment that they believed would make us the best people. It would not do justice to the rest of my family and friends, by whose influence, which I could have received nowhere else, I am the person I am today. But more than anything it would take away from the history, struggle, and human spirit of the country from whose earth grew the food that would nourish me and make me strong, whose days and nights crafted my hopes and dreams, my justice for years and years.

This is why despite my two passports, despite my dual command of Filipino and English, despite my small eyes and Chinese surname, I have called myself a Filipino my entire life and have never gone by any other affiliation.

However, I recognize and acknowledge the struggles of people like, and not so much like myself. I recognize that as a man from Asia now residing in America, I have whether I wanted to or not begun to partake in the lived experience of Asian Americans. Some may have lived here their entire lives and have never been to Asia, some may not speak a word of the language their parents were raised on and some may even conceal their heritage in public fora, but these are all people with whom I now share an experience that only we will have in the entire world. As an Asian in America for the first time I am no different from their parents and grandparents, brought far away from our homelands in the East to a strange land full of wonder and unfamiliarity, joy and sorrow, despair and promise. It is in this kinship that I feel the need to speak the way I do, and make no mistake, this is no apology. Merely an explanation and resolution, and affirmation of who I am and what I stand for.

Judge a singer by her cover?

Embedding disabled by request. But fuckdammit, watch this.

Susan Boyle. Unemployed, lives with cats, never been kissed. And she will bring tears to your eyes and restore your faith in humanity.

"Stupendous": British for "fucking awesome"

Easter Sunday, the day of the resurrection and the life. What a day to see a video like this and have my world turned... I wouldn't call it turned upside down because it honestly wasn't that bad to begin with, but it was turned bloody good all right. I just think about how many unemployed, unkissed cat ladies there are in the world, and to think some of them would have voices that amazing... damn. Imagine how much money the American media pays to put no-talent ass clowns with tattoos and fake tits (not that I have anything against tattoos or fake tits - I have both in healthy supply ;) ) on reality shows, and what if that money were spent bringing out talent like Susan Boyle's. Damn, damn damn damn damn.

I do feel bad for the girl with the black hair in the audience who rolled her eyes at Susan. Now anyone watching the clip thinks she's a shallow, vapid bitch whose hair isn't naturally black. I'll say right now that my eyes were rolling all day right up until the fat lady started singing. And when she stopped, I was scratching my natural ebony locks in amazement.

I swear upon the flimsy rafts of my hardy ancestors that it's not spam or a trap. Happy Easter everyone, and may your lives be less shitty today by having read this.

Vino Veritas (my arguments on the KSA bias incident summarized)

Been doing a lot of writing on this facebook group regarding a particularly nasty incident that my friends were unfortunately involved in. Two days ago I wrote about my initial reactions, but now that I've been engaged in a healthy amount of discussion with a number of people I'm just going to paraphrase/plagiarize myself for this entry.

First of all, the people who are accusing the fraternity associated with the freshman are just being puerile, immature hatemongers. There is nothing in any account of the events that say that they encourage or even tolerate this behavior. It is also too early to reasonably expect them to make a decision on whether or not to keep the accused freshman as a pledge. The investigation has not been completed and the severity of his actions has not been determined. Any anger towards the fraternity the kid is associated with and the entire Greek system is unjustified and inappropriate at this point. Greeks get a bad rap as it is in the court of public opinion. Their name being dragged through the mud is unfortunate, but just because it is happening does not mean any of us should encourage it.

There's also discussion on how much the drunkenness of the individual should mitigate any punishment heading his way. We assume that people's brains function at a higher level than animals, this is why we farm and fry chickens and not babies. But isn't everyone "a little bit racist"?

Racial bias is inherent in people in the sense that the stimulus of features from certain races elicit immediate thoughts associating particular characteristics with that person solely on race alone. It's almost all instinct. However, because our brains function at a higher level than the chickens we fry, we quickly dissociate those thoughts and replace them with the generally-held-rational belief that race in and of itself has no bearing on the intrinsic quality of a person.

The drunkenness argument points out that the alcohol removed his ability to function at a human level. Assuming but not conceding you believe any of the drivel I just spouted, then wasn't the kid's behavior inhuman rather than human? Don't we criticize people for "inhuman" behavior such as cruelty and ruthlessness? Should his lack of human levels of functioning excuse his actions? The only people whose actions can be excused when they're drunk are ancient chinese kung fu masters, but that's only because they're kind of unfuckwithable.

Lesson #358: In a martial arts tournament, don't fight the old guy.

Not that I actually buy it either way, I'm just saying that for the sake of this discussion, making it about his intentions is pointless if we're going to introduce drunkenness into the picture. To be honest, drunkenness isn't even that good a defense because it renders any account he gives of the events to be unreliable. Does he really want that to happen especially since even his girlfriend said he instigated the fight?

However I did say that his intentions were a moot point in this debate because there's really no proving what he thought of what he said either way. What actually manifested was a torrent of hateful messages that hurt some people very deeply. Drunk drivers don't want to hurt anyone but they're punished when they do, and just because people were not sent to the hospital doesn't mean that no damage has been done. For this, I believe, he should be made to answer. Regardless of his intentions, and even if he did not mean to cause pain on the level that he did, isn't there something wrong when people think they can throw around racial slurs when drunk and have everything be okay? I'm one of the least PC people out there (I love Chip Tsao) but when actual hateful messages are delivered, the people from whom they originate should be ready to answer for them.

Whites of Their Eyes

Me: Asian male, 20, 5'9" 180 lbs. Athletic build, buzz cut, barely detectable stubble. Single.

You: Asian female, likely 18-19, around 5'6", I'd hazard to say 125 but that's me being generous, and you'll find I'm very generous. Slim, shoulder-length black hair with brown streaks, cute smile. Very visibly taken, but only visibly.

We were both walking on Professors Row - me walking back to Metcalf from the gym, and you headed right for me, coming at each other like a meeting between destiny and serendipity. I was wearing a loose hoodie and was a bit sweaty from the gym, but my Boyish Charm© was more than obvious, you surely must have spotted that.

When we were within six feet of each other I puckered my pouty lips and threw you a smile and sultry glance out of little more than the corner of my eye, my gaze partially averted and coy. I was delighted at your response, the joy in your features as you gasped slightly, elevating your voice and clutching your friend's arm enthusiastically. He was a white male of about twenty, possibly thirty since he hadn't shaved in days, wearing a t-shirt with cutoff sleeves, a trucker cap, and jeans sized up three. In some cultures such a gesture would be perceived as saying: "This is my boyfriend, clearly I like white guys so away from me, you creepy asian man." But I knew you didn't mean that.

Of course he was just an accessory for you to lean on because you could not contain the tremors of desire I caused to well up inside you. I apologize for this exquisite and pleasurable unsettlement I may have caused you, but I know deep in my heart that you are just like me, a hunter on the prowl with the scent of hunger in your breath, a voracity that longs to be satisfied before the fires in your heart burn down the walls of your mortal coil. I can think of no better way to quell your raging loins than with my taut, al dente... noodle. And I must let you know that it does take very well to the tooth.

White man's burden.

If you're reading this, email me at ireallylikeasianmen@forreal.com and describe your underwear so I know it's you. I know that celibacy can be overwhelming so get in touch with me before you're driven insane by the frigidity of lesser men.

Race to the Bottom

Don't worry, this isn't a Chip Tsao post. But this is going to be about race, so you can skip to yesterday or tomorrow if you don't want to hear about it.

I think I became conscious of race when I went over to a friend's house to do homework back in grade school. I couldn't have been older than ten at the time, and I was, in ways, a concentrated version of the man I was going to be - bouncing and exuberant with a healthy helping of boyish charm. But when my friend's mom came over and started speaking to me in rapid Fukien, I was taken aback. I had always been good with parents, but this time I could manage not more than a few awkward smiles as she grilled me over and over. I finally got the courage to say that I couldn't speak, at which she asked in Tagalog if my parents had ever taught me. I said no. She then gave me a look that perplexed me, whose meaning I now know: you're one of "them." And from that moment on I knew I was somebody else.

Granted, it was mostly my ethnicity and cultural upbringing as a fifth-generation Chinese Filipino in a westernized liberal household that was being targeted. But as someone who can claim actual Filipino ancestry, I know that any discussion about cultural value is somewhat connected to racial ideals. It is my indio blood, after all, that led people to exclude me from their circles, that led girls to tell me they couldn't go out with me, that made me cringe when I would go to my friend's houses and hear their parents who I kissed on the cheek moments earlier throw around all the racial slurs that Chinese people call Filipinos. On the whole though, despite pockets like this, the Philippines is still a largely homogenous society, and, for better or worse, race is rarely an issue in the goings-on among Filipino lives.

I guess the fact that I attended a school where most kids were ethnically pure Chinese helped compound my consciousness of being an actual mixed Chinese-Filipino. But my awareness of race reached a new level when I came to America. All of a sudden, there were black people, in the flesh! We'd get the occasional white person in Manila but black people, come on! It's like being on TV!

Of course, I soon found out that bigotry is still alive and well, even in true-blue Boston, Mass. Less than twenty-four hours ago, some of my friends were harassed by a drunk student during their dance practice. After he came between them and mocked their dance, he got in their faces and tried to verbally instigate a fight. He eventually got physically violent and my friends had to restrain him and hold him down all the while he was screaming:

"FUCKING CHINKS! GO BACK TO YOUR COUNTRY! I'LL FUCK YOU ALL UP!"

Although it didn't occur to him that my friends were all Korean, he still managed to hurt them very deeply. Questions jarred my mind as I listened to this account. Why is it, that at one of the most liberal schools in the country, one that prides itself on being among the most diverse, ethnically and economically, do we still get people who are so ignorant and mean-spirited? Why do they still feel they can act this way? Why couldn't I have been there to send that motherfucker to the hospital?

This incident reminded me that as unconscious as I was of my race in my home country, now that I'm in the states, I like all other people of color have to deal with race and its associated issues on a daily basis. I'm just saddened that racism is still so alive and so real even in a day and age when we can elect a black president. I just hope that Tufts does something about it so that kids who go in nasty and mean can at least, after four years, leave changed in some way.

Always Someone Better

Just when I thought I was so good that Chip Tsao should pay me to be his public apologist, Conrado de Quiros goes and says it better than me:

We haven’t just become a nation of servants, we’ve become a nation of illiterates.

Bobo raw tayong lahat. I'd like to see the Philippine government put this bastard on a blacklist.

Wait till you see how I "spray currency"

Any port in a storm, any storm in a recession.

Nigerian president makes it rain, gets in trouble. Yahoo news fails for not actually making a reference!

I have this friend whose girlfriend used to work at a strip club (as a hostess she says, but frankly I couldn't care less) but anyway, I asked her if people actually make it rain in clubs, and I was surprised to find out that this is actually common practice. So much so that clubs actually have procedures for instances when patrons want to "spray currency". If a patron finds himself so meterologically inclined, he can of course indulge his torrential desires, but not before he ponies up a $100 "security fee" to the club. Apparently when this was a new phenomenon and people would toss dolla dolla bills all over the place, people would go apeshit trying to pick them up and, like average, ordinary people, manage to seriously injure themselves in the hubbub. So the fee is there to wake up the bouncers and make sure they're big and scary and no one picks the money up but the dancers.

Yes, after the security fee, all the currency you spray goes to the club too. That's just how it is. Must be a lot easier to do it in Zimbabwean Dollars. Of course now that they're on the rand these jokes are much less relevant.

"There was one true Christian, and he died on the cross."

Can America still be called a "Christian Nation"? Robert Meacham examines.

"Christian Nation", by the way, is one of those terms that makes me bristle, and I bristle especially hard because of the fact that the Philippines, my home country is often itself characterized as a Christian nation. In Catholic high school, my teachers (not just my religion teachers) would boast with pride of the fact that the Philippines is the only "Catholic country in Asia." Christian tradition in the Philippines, after all, is more than just an adherence to going to church on Sundays with your family. Christianity and its associated discourse deeply informs nearly all aspects of Philippine life. Sex among high schoolers is the cautiously whispered exception rather than the norm, prostitution is at the same time derided and supported, and homosexuality is the big gay elephant in the room that everyone pretends they can see through. Let's not even start the debate on contraception, because I can go on and on with that one.

For sure, the ethics of sexual conduct is the area in which there is much stir about adherence to Christian doctrine, but it's more than just that. Growing up in the Philippines, Christianity, particularly Catholicism, was what I was taught to assume was the default state of any ordinary, rational human being. Baptists and Protestants were tolerated to an extent (They don't believe in Mama Mary!) but any other creed was seen as a sort of aberration. Muslims and peoples of other religions remain heavily marginalized by most of Philippine society. Remember when the kind folks in Greenhills wouldn't even give the muslim pearl vendors a spot to pray? It's not like they were about to sully your skyline with spires and minarets, people.

The whole attitude that promoters of the "Christian Nation" idea have is precisely what makes me so annoyed with them. Part of it is my own libertarian tendency to support the free and harmless exercise of personal religious fulfillment. But most of it is my reaction to the arrogance that some Filipino Christians have to tell other people how to live their lives as if they were inferior or not wanted in the country. Granted, separation of church and state in the Philippines is a cautiously cobbled together line. Twice have (men who have been) Catholic priests (until their political inaugurations) won public office in the country. True, it's far from a theocracy, but the Church's influence on Philippine politics cannot be denied. And because of this fact, certain individuals seem to think it's okay to use religious teaching and chauvinism to justify bullying, intolerance, and ill will.

Of the applications of religion in the Philippines, the one that I really find disgust with is the way it's used to manipulate the poor. I don't believe I need to link to Marx here. Oops. Given how poor people can get sometimes, it's not hard to see how people can place their hopes in God for lack of any other alternative. And since the majority of the Philippines remains poor, that's a lot of people who hang on God's every word. The fact is that as long as the Philippines remains a democratic country, the ones who rule will be the ones who can manipulate the majority. The masa and dukha win elections, not the middle class. Priests have helped depose presidents. Thus, there is a great, great interest in claiming to speak for God. I wonder if there are any biblical references.

The term "Post-Christian" was bandied around a lot in Meacham's article, but I'm still hesitant to use the words to define my beliefs. There are some things, such as abortion, that I still don't feel completely at peace with. I've often been called arrogant for believing and claiming that I can define my morality without the concept of God. How much more so than those who purport to speak for God himself? What would Jesus do?

The end is nigh for godless heathens such as myself. But only whenever God feels like it, of course.

Folly of Youth

Volunteered for Kids Day today. The way this works is that my uni sets up a carnival-like atmosphere around the school so that the children of faculty and staff can come and have a good time playing with college kids, and we (supposedly) have a great time volunteering and chilling out with some neat grade schoolers. Or something like that.

Job involved running around after ten seven-year olds from 9a to 3p. In spite of all the cool rides and booths staffed by attractive college girls, all the damn kids wanted to do was run. RUN. Every time we'd have some free time, the kids would go "I'm bored Rumbo (my name for the day), let's race!" And so I'd race. Over and over again.

The cool thing about the kids my group got was that they weren't children of Tufts people - they came from a public school in Boston's Chinatown. At that age, though, kids are all the same. My mom will probably furiously correct me on this, but it's like to them, there's no class, no race, no enmity at all. They've got that rose-colored life that for which I'm toiling away in college, hoping to create for myself. I miss having my innocence.

Of all the kids, I was proudest to have met Davonte. I swear, twelve years from now Davonte Jones is going to be selected with the first pick in the NBA Draft, if he hasn't already gone to some D1 college football program. The kid is about three and a half feet tall with a four foot vertical. Craziest hops and speed I've ever seen on a midget. You remember those big balloon castles you used to jump around in as a kid? There was one of them kind of like a balloon obstacle course. There were two identical sides and kids could go in at the same time and race each other to see who could complete the course the fastest. Davonte was burning other kids who got ten second head starts. It got to the point where he was beating some of my friends (my adult-sized friends). Would have destroyed me.

Did I mention that Davonte is black?

I don't think I've ever sincerely thought "I'm too old for this shit" and meant it before.

O Prodigal Sun

New day, new entry. I'm not sure whether I should consider this the true "inaugural post" of this blog since the first two were really just my soapboxing. I'm going to take a tip from one of my favorite bloggers, Christian (Not Safe For Work!!) and stick to one entry a day. Exactly one. No more, no less.

Why? I think one's a good number, it makes sure I've got some content coming out every day, and also sticks me to a schedule. On my previous blog I noticed that if I'd update more than once a day, I'd end up getting complacent and thinking "oh, that should be enough for a while..." Part of the reason I'm blogging again is to really become a better writer, and to do that I feel I need a measure of discipline in my writing.

That aside, one of my philosophies in life is that the best ideas are the ones that frighten a person. The thoughts that we want to banish are the ones, I believe, that end up challenging us the most. When we hear ideas we find unpalatable or subversive, our beliefs and thoughts are called into question, leading us to either affirm them further or abandon them if they are found inconsistent or insufficient. It is in that spirit that I am writing this blog - I want to try to discover at least one dangerous idea a day, novel or not, and examine it for myself. Hopefully anyone reading this will find it just as fulfilling.

So here's your daily deleterious thought. As someone who is obsessed with fitness and loves food, issues of hunger relief and malnutrition home very close to my heart. If you're reading this, there's a very good chance that you're eating very well. Even if you're gourmet to the point that no meat under $10 a pound satisfies you anymore, well, hey, you're getting something, right? Check this out:

16% of public school children in the Philippines are undernourished.

How do we visualize this? There are many different ways, but because I'm a bit of a meathead, I decided to think in terms of calories. Calculations are made using this calculator.

I remember that my youngest brother, at ten years old, was exactly 5'2" and 100 lbs. Using the BMR calculator above, if he stayed in bed all day, his body would burn about 1408.4 calories all by itself. Consider that ten-year-old children in Philippine public schools are likely smaller than my brother was, who was well-fed at the time. This would make their BMR lower. Now consider that people are not lying in bed all day, and they need to be eating more calories than their BMR to at least not be losing weight.

A cup of rice has about 380 calories. No protein, fat, vitamin, minerals, or fiber. For many Filipinos, rice is all they can rely on to keep their bones moving. Now for every hundred kids in a Philippine public school, sixteen of them are wasting away because they're not eating enough. Sixteen of them can't get the caloric equivalent of a measly four cups of rice.And we haven't even gotten into talking about vitamins!

You can look up information about malnutrition and hunger yourself. The World Health Organization calls hunger the single gravest threat to the world's public health. More than AIDS, malaria, SARS, bird flu, or genocide. More than that, I believe that the fact that obesity is an epidemic in a day and age when people still have nothing to eat is mankind's single greatest moral obscenity.

Damn, that was pretty gloom-and-doom. So how do we respond to this? I've been on the internet long enough to know that when in doubt, google. Sad reality, but what I think what makes human life great is that there's always room for improvement. World hunger may not be wiped out in our lifetimes, but if we can push humanity a little bit towards that goal at all, we come closer to a lifetime when no one goes hungry again.

A (Somewhat) Indecent Proposal?

Those of you up to no good, I've got some deleterious reading for you today (Thank you, commenter #4!). So if you have about half an hour to burn (it need not be a full block, you can read bits and pieces from a window you minimize at work), I invite you to digest:

A Modest Proposal, by Jonathan Swift

Of course, you might find that you'll need a few more minutes to fully appreciate the intricate flavor and texture of that nice piece. If you don't have the luxury of that time you can still savor:

The Wikipedia entry for A Modest Proposal, by Jonathan Swift

And if you have even less time than that you can suck on my twice-masticated commentary.

If you read the article, then congratulations! You're reading Chip Tsao's quite famous predecessor. If you look even further back, you'll see that satire is something humans have been enjoying for a long time. If you appreciate art at all, you know that there's really more to everything than the paint on the surface (depending on your school of thought, of course). Aristophanes did write that nice bit that got Socrates killed, but that's besides the point.

Point is, and I can't believe I'm saying this, Jonathan Swift wasn't really telling everyone to go sell their babies as steaks. Just like Chip Tsao wasn't really describing that he was actually a dick to Louisa, who, by the way, doesn't exist! Unless of course you want to castigate me now, making the argument that "Louisa represents every Filipina domestic worker who is bastinadoed by these cruel and barbaric Chinese! Somebody sell me some Alaxan, 'cause sitting on a high horse all day gets my ass really sore!"

You want to talk rhetoric? I'll give you some rhetoric. Chip Tsao is doing the same thing Jonathan Swift did in his essay- he assumes the mantle of the cruel, sadistic, racist, altogether chauvinistic Chip Tsao to tell us about what exactly he has planned for the assumed-real Louisa. Oh yeah, it's hateful. Loathsome. Contemptuous. We're supposed to really be mad at him now. In all seriousness, we really are. THAT'S WHAT FIGURES OF SPEECH ARE FOR. He lambasts this despicable idea while presenting the less than palatable reality that there are Chinese people who do think this way, by using his name as a (apparently too believable) figurehead for bigoted Chinese. I shudder when I'm told that it would be acceptable if Chip Tsao used a character with a different name to portray this attitude, because it bothers me that Filipinos are so blindly patriotic that they conflate Chip Tsao the supervillain with Chip Tsao the smartass. Because really, people, that's all that he claims to be.

Smartass? How about some wordplay? The dictionary definition of "jingoism" is:

Extreme chauvinism or nationalism marked especially by a belligerent foreign policy.

For his writing, Chip Tsao has been branded a persona non grata by our country's offices. The man is quite literally not wanted, no-thank-you, in any of our seven thousand some islands. Hmm... that's some policy, by the Department of Foreign Affairs... that's treading dangerously close to belligerent, no? It makes sense, but in reverse!

How's that for Filipino Hospitality? What about freedom of speech? I find it interesting that Filipino society is so permitting of satire when they're not used as an instrument in its delivery. Ang lakas natin mangasar pero ang bagsik din natin pag pikon, no?

Some people tell me that not only are they mad that Chip Tsao wrote the article in the first place, but they tell me that they're even more mad at his "apology". I'm not linking to one of the many, many people who are pissed about the fact that Chip Tsao deigned to tell everyone it was just a joke, as if Filipinos were so dumb that they could not comprehend simple satire.

Frankly, if that pisses you off, then you deserve it.

Note: Comments have been addressed - it is my intention with this blog to address every comment left in the interest of intelligent and informed discussion. The only comments I will delete are those that either use the other names of the author or that may otherwise pose threat of offline harm to any individuals.

Casting Stones from a Gunboat

Check this article. If you're Filipino and on the internet, then statistically speaking, chances are your stomach is twisting, your eyes are popping bloodshot, and you're typing so hard you're about to break your macbook air in half. Did that sumvabitch really just take a dump on my country, my people???

People are pissed. Google for Chip Tsao and you'll find that not only is the article in question not on the front page, but almost all the entries are some forms of how-dare-hes peppered with the occasional say-it-to-my-face-tangina-mo. First line on the page as of this writing says Roilo Golez wants to take him on in a boxing match, a brutal one-rounder! Of course, it'll be the longest round of Chip Tsao's life before Golez goes and lays his chip ass out.

Righteous furor, right? Are you mad? Are you angry? Kumukulo na ba yung ebak mo sa galit? If so, then just let that shit simmer for a bit because congratulations, you're completely wrong.

Doesn't anyone read The Onion anymore? I'm loath to go on and explain Chip Tsao's point, because I find it hard and painful to believe that we as a society have sunk so low, so low that our jokes have to be explained to us like we do for the slow kid in class. Is our noble maharlika blood so volatile, so raging that we have no capacity to distinguish between satire and hard news? Is our chocolate-colored skin so thin that no one can poke fun at us anymore? Better call Rex Navarette and all those other malansang isda, because they're next. No one shits on the Philippines and gets away without Roilo Golez's fistprints on his grills.

More seriously, however, I am troubled by the deeper implications of all this outrage, implications which point to the nature of Filipino identity itself. One of the most incendiary portions of Tsao's column is this line:

As a nation of servants, you don't flex your muscles at your master, from whom you earn most of your bread and butter.

So after he goes on about browbeating the poor Filipina in his home, he calls us a colony of maids. Helpers. Yayas. And this is making a lot of people very very angry. "We're not all maids, you know! In case you're not aware, Filipinos have gone on to be successful everywhere!"

Because, of course, there's nothing successful about being a maid. Because it's a lowly job that is only done by those who can't do anything else. Because there's nothing great about leaving the comfort and familiarity of your homeland, going to a strange place and prostrating yourself before strange people, and being far, far away from the parents, children, brothers and sisters who by your toilings are fed and clothed. Tell me, is there not a more noble and patriotic sacrifice than this?

It's truth that most of the Filipinos in Hong Kong are there as domestic helpers in the homes of wealthy Chinese. Anyone who denies this needs to comb the gravel out of their hair and get some sunlight. But there is nothing that should offend us about this truth. The only people who are offended by this acknowledgment are those who deride the profession of the Filipino domestic helper and see it as something degrading to Filipinos. What message are we sending to domestic helpers when we bristle at that description and want nothing to do with them? What was that line about loving your countrymen?

Chip Tsao has nothing to apologize for, other than an unfamiliarity with the temper of Filipino society. The only people who should be apologizing are the bigots who continue to look upon domestic helpers as second-class human beings.

Terms of Engagement

Talampasan - Pertaining to the qualities of a plateau, Talampas. Subjectively sensible. In the context of this blog, "Leveling"

Tampalasan - Villainous, felonious, walang hiya. A superstitious and cowardly lot.

Puñales! - "Daggers!" Used as an expletive by various characters in Jose Rizal's novels.

¡Caiigat Cayo! - "Be slippery as an eel." Subversive pamphlet purportedly published by Jose Rizal in response to ¡Caingat Cayo!

¡Caingat Cayo! - "Beware." a pamphlet published by Fr. Jose Rodriguez denouncing the novel El Filibusterismo as mortally sinful.

The little text under the title - "Of malicious books and writings"

The author - Anthony Cruz. Young, raging liberal, Filipino, Chinese, all of the above, brave as a lion, tender as a lamb. This isn't the name I commonly use. I share that name with too many people and far be it from me to sully it with my iniquities.