According to some back-of-the-envelope calculations, the average person meets around 80,000 people in their lifetime. Or roughly 0.00102% of the world population. And will use that tragically limited sample to generalise about all human behaviour.
Melody sounds like an ex-pat....in her own country!
I am in Mexico as I write this, where I have a business. My social life revolves around all the Mexicans I know from running my business. I would say that the vast majority of the ex-pats from the US and Canada hang out with other ex pats in their "safe spaces" if you will. (I hate that phrase because it falsely implies that everyone else is somehow "dangerous"--it's really slanderous.) Many of these people have a language barrier that I don't have. There may be cultural barriers too, but I have a hard time understanding what they are.
There is an African-American "subculture" in the US. That's behind the very real concept of "code switching." Maybe that's what Melody's talking about. So, there is much more than "skin color" at play Steve. What I find interesting is how much easier it is for African Black immigrants (especially educated ones) to assimilate into mainstream white American culture than many African Americans, particularly at the lower end of the economic scale where de facto segregation is highest.
My daughter works with high school kids in these areas in Newark and Irvington NJ, and the level of alienation her kids feel from mainstream white America is just off the charts. I would also wager that many white Americans would feel out of place in West Newark and Irvington, New Jersey.
So, I guess what I am saying is that Melody has a point, depending on her background. But social separation just serves to reinforce this. It would have been interesting to ask her if there were white dominated environments in which she really did feel comfortable.
"There is an African-American "subculture" in the US. That's behind the very real concept of "code switching." Maybe that's what Melody's talking about. So, there is much more than "skin color" at play Steve."
Yeah, you make an important point, but you're missing an important distinction. If the title of this post had been, "It's Nice To Chill Alone Or With Folks Who *THINK* Like Me," or "Who Share My Cultural Reference Points," it would have been a very different conversation.
In fact, I'd have been in complete agreement. I often find it exhausting to be around people who don't (by my evaluation of these words) think logically and clearly. And even in Japan, it's nice to interact with people with whom I can speak easily or who watched the same TV shows as me growing up. The point is, I know I can't tell who does and doesn't based on how they look.
Lots of black Americans aren't a part of the "African American subculture" you're talking about. Especially as that culture also varies from state to state and even, in some cases, fro city to city. And some white people, who have grown up in the relevant neighbourhoods, are as steeped in those subcultures and understand their rules just as well as any black person.
I've said here and elsewhere, the fact that some black people in America feel a degree of alienation is understandable. But the *extent* of that alienation, the belief that the entire system is against them, is a learned behaviour and a lie, propagated, sadly, most often by "progressives." Young black people are being indoctrinated, to their detriment, to believe society is always and forever against them. That they need to be kept "safe" from it. And this stops them from participating in it fully. It's racism 2.0.
Yes I understand. Melody probably meant to say “people who think like me” or “people who share my cultural reference points.”
There is no inherent relationship to skin color at an individual level. There is an enormous diversity of culture within what is called “Black” and “white” with plenty of overlap. That is your point I think.
So Melody perhaps inaccurately used skin color as a proxy, which is somewhat understandable given the rough overlap between African American subcultures and African American looking people themselves. But it is VERY rough as you point out.
So I think we agree.
The alienation I was referring to among my daughter’s Irvington students had little or nothing to do with DEI or progressive anti racist ideas. This stuff has very little if any presence in the really poor African American
areas where my daughter worked. She was referring instead to a broad feeling among her students that they had no place or future in the broader culture. A lot of these kids just think they are worth shit. As a teacher this lack of self confidence was by far her biggest hurdle.
When she changed to a more affluent integrated school in DC, the DEI crap hit her like a shitstorm. She is now in disciplinary proceedings for a “name based micro aggression” brought by the parents of a hyper entitled African American kid. She forgot that she was in a new environment. This would NEVER happen in her previous Newark and Irvington schools.
So yes the alienation derived from anti racist dogma is rampant and destructive. But it is not the real cause of the other type of alienation experienced in the poorest and most segregated African American neighborhoods in her experience.
Also IMHO: You should write several articles on Racism 2.0, Steve. I dunno if You coined the phrase, but it's so appropriate it should be patented. TY, as always, either Way...
I lived in Norfolk, VA for high school. I had a lot of black friends. People who would invite me to their homes.
I remember once I went to Richmond, which is not all that far away. The black people there seemed completely different, much more hostile. I remember one young man standing on a street corner with all the hate in the universe in his eyes.
"What I find interesting is how much easier it is for African Black immigrants (especially educated ones) to assimilate into mainstream white American culture than many African Americans, particularly at the lower end of the economic scale where de facto segregation is highest."
Glenn Loury & John McWhorter have hit this point several times. How African and West Indian immigrants come here and get jobs and live middle-class lives and don't seem to encounter all the challenges certain African-Americans do. Shelby Steele beat this drum 30 years ago with "The Content Of Our Character" in which he made the point that it's up to AAs to develop *themselves*, to educate themselves more, push themselves more, push themselves more, aspire to more and work toward it. Loved that message as it also applies to women, too. That's why my Substack welcome tagline is "Big girls don't blame the patriarchy." Grown-ass AAs know the difference between genuine discimination and obstacles (which are real for both) and when the obstacle is in the mirror.
Too many people (everyone) need to get out of their own way, including myself.
"Melody sounds like an ex-pat....in her own country!"
I can't get over how astute that line is. Yeah, I think there are a lotta black people who feel like, if their ancient ancestors hadn't been forcibly brought over to the U.S. of A., they would-a been better off.
Nicole Hannah-Jones comes immediately to mind.
So, okay then. Reparations? Give any black person who wants a free ticket for them and their family, to any available airport in the world. Only cost is citizenship. Make same offer to whites, reds, yellows, and purples.
You think You're bad off? UNBEARABLY bad off here in America? Because America is, at it's core, despicable? Or for ANY reason? ESPECIALLY all You Progressives: Find someplace better and be happy!
NHJ & others might well be slaves *today* if their ancestors hadn't come here first, forcibly or not. Parts of Africa are still very big on buying, selling, trading, and owning human beings.
Thank You, Nicole. I've heard that slavery still exists today, but I've never seen any specifics. Well, I know girls and women can be forced into sex slavery, but not much about it.
It's hard for me to conceive of it.. That it still hasn't been eliminated in this (supposedly advanced) day and age. TY again.
The minimum wage increased to $1.65/hour in 1968. I got paid $1.65 in the summer of that year.
It increased slower than inflation and it has been frozen at $7.25 since 2009. had it tracked inflation and productivity it would be about $24/hour now, more than thrice what it is.
If this isn't slavery, it will substitute just fine until the real thing comes along, as it will if Republicans maintain power.
I was just "talking" with a woman in Australia Saturday. They break minimum wage down by industry and AGE. I dunno about doing it by industry. The bureaucracy involved may not be worth it.
But here's the thing about minimum wage going up: It prices kids outta the market. Who's gonna pay an inexperienced kid $24/ hour? They are, unfortunately, not WORTH that kind-a mondy. So they'll only accept experienced workers at that rate, and then the kids can't GET experience. Vicious circle time.
So I believe there should be carve outs, by age. That's just me.
Well, you can substitute any group you don't want to pay a living wage for "kids" and have the same justification. Facct is that full time at $24/hour is $48K per year, half of which would go to rent in a basement apartment in a lot of cities. It is not much money.
However. Conservatives are constantly making the same forecast and it is not borne out in practice. Even fast food places that pay twice or more than MW don't go out of business; as others do the same, employees have more buying power and lift all boats.
I don't know of it happening in the US and to the best of my knowledge is most common to people from so called 3rd world nations.
One related exception was told to me by a Marine embassy guard from Kuwait. Woman shows up with no ID. Met Abdulla in the US. He was a wonderful guy, married him and went to Kuwait. Discovered she was not the only wife; he was a very different man in his own country. She wants the hell out, but he has her passport and all of her ID. This was not a single occurrence.
When I lived in Saudi Arabia my employer had my whole family's passports locked up. A had an iqama a work permit that had my wife and daughters' pictures in the back. If a Mutawa (religious policeman) challenged them being with me, I could show them that. My employer had to authorize us getting an exit/reentry or exit only visa to leave the country. I was a contractor to an American country so it was not as likely to be a problem as it could have been had I worked directly for a Saudi company.
If you don't have control of your passport, you are potentially a slave.
When my wife first came to America, she looked for people who looked like her. If black people in America feel like raisins in the oatmeal, try being Southeast Asian here. After a while she got to the point of, "We wouldn't be friends in Thailand, no reason for it here just because we look the same." When we adopted our niece, she went thru the same thing. Her after school study buddies were Asian.
My daughters had a different path. The half that wasn't seemed to be more important to lots of people than the half that was. Both in America and Thailand. The exception was in martial art circles. My daughter's were exceptionally talented and a big hit with Asian martial artists.
That being said, my wife has more Asian friends than non-Aaian. She still feels the being seen as a "foreigner" thing and her Asian friends are immigrants, rather than "where are you from?" Americans.
Not safe space but something akin to expats hanging together. As an expat I spent more time out of the expat community than most, but perhaps I am at times foolishly brave. I'll leave those stories untold.
As a queer person, I enjoy spending time in queer venues. Not as much as as most of my LGB brothers & sisters, but certainly from time to time it's great. If that were my only option, I'd get very agitated or bored, but the feeling of "home" in those spaces is real and palpable. Especially as my circle of friends is basically straight, it's nice to get away, so to speak. As a bi guy, I also like spending time with other bi folks, although this is actually a very rare occasion. Maybe because of the rarity of it, it's exciting when there's more than just one bi guy in a room.
As a mixed-race Filipino/White guy, I love spending time with my Filipino relatives and co-workers and I'm delighted when I get to bond with other mestizos. I don't see a lot of Filipino culture in my day to day life, even here in SF where there is a ton.
Okay, all that said, I wonder what you (and anyone else) thinks about affinity spaces. My feelings are... mixed?
I convened a "POC work group" at my workplace in 2020, at the request of three of my POC staff. (I'm an executive at my agency and they thought it should be started by someone at my level.) So I did. It was an interesting but also irritating experience, for the 4 meetings I was allowed to be there - they asked me and the other two directors in the group to step back so that they could come up with recommendations for the agency and they didn't want their discussion compromised by their various bosses being in the room. I did end up liking their recommendations, surprisingly. The POC group basically faded away after coming up with those recommendations in 2022. Shortly after, some white colleagues started a white affinity space, which was a controversial idea and continues to be one, among both POC & white staff not involved with the group. That group still meets. I'm pretty curious, in sort of a sick way, about what they talk about in that group (Robin DiAngelo? LOL) but I've been told as a mixed-race person, I shouldn't be there. (Context: I identify as mixed-race, as Filipino, and as white.) Which was probably for the best because I can imagine myself being an asshole in that space because of what I imagine to be extremely woke conversations.
Recently there have been noises about creating a "BIPOC" group. I'm so conflicted about joining. I know people expect me to. As a leader of my agency, and as the person who is specifically in charge of "DEI" (one of my many hats, and my least favorite one). But ugh I don't want to. Are they planning on talking about "white supremacy" per Tema Okun and how "whiteness" shows up in our majority-POC agency (LOL)? I think a part of my mulishness is super petty - I actually hate the acronym BIPOC because it feels so unnecessarily othering & diminishing of Asians, Latinos, and people from the Middle East. What a dumb word.
Sorry for all the rambling! It's Sunday night and I'm about to step into this tomorrow, so definitely on my mind. This seemed like a good space to journal!
"As a queer person, I enjoy spending time in queer venues."
Yeah, as I was just saying to Miguelitro, there's an important distinction to be made between cultural groupings and physical characteristic groupings. There's some overlap, of course, but the former is infinitely more valid than the latter.
LGBT-only spaces (sorry, I can't bring myself to embrace the Q-word), culturally specific spaces, religious spaces, I don't think there's any problem with these. But white-only spaces? Or black-only spaces? That's a different animal. Which is why I think they led to controversy. I've given serious thought to creating some kind of "workplace diversity done right" programme.🤔
I also hate the term BIPOC (I wrote an article about it) again, because it links people together who have no real point of connection except that they're not white. I think Asians, Latinos etc. are usually included in BIPOC, no? Anyway, as I've said many times before, humanity probably isn't going to outgrow tribes any time soon. I just wish we were better at making those tribes meaningful.
"sorry, I can't bring myself to embrace the Q-word"
yeah, I hear that. especially nowadays. (also I get why older/boomer gays would resist the word.) I've been using it since the 90s as a catch-all for LGB, so it's just another word for that acronym to me. what makes me want to resist it these days is the frequency of straight people using it to describe themselves. that's kind of a joke to me, worthy of a sneer or at least an eyeroll. I actually got in an argument with my youngest staffer over this usage - I guess it's common in Gen Z? anyway, I think straight people using it is super performative and cringey, akin to calling yourself a demisexual.
"I also hate the term BIPOC (I wrote an article about it) ... I think Asians, Latinos etc. are usually included in BIPOC, no?"
hey can you link to that article? I think I must have missed it.
yep, Asians etc. are included in the catch-all POC part of BIPOC, which is exactly what I find diminishing & othering. at least the standalone "POC", for all its flaws, equalizes all "people of color" rather than uplifting Black & Indigenous as apparently the most important POC, the rest can just be thrown together in the POC part. It's like if "LGBT" was "GaysEtc" - Gays taking precedence, lesbians & bis & trans tossed together into Etc.
And yeah, as with so many other things "queer" has just become a way for people who want to gain a few points on the victimhood hierarchy to claim they're oppressed. Oh, you kissed somebody of the same sex in college or had an open relationship once? Welcome to Q+!!
“sorry, I can't bring myself to embrace the Q word”
You’ll find very few gay men over a certain age who don’t find it as offensive as the N word.
“Queer” is what hundreds, maybe thousands, have had shouted at them as their teeth were knocked out and their noses flattened.
Like the friend I visited in the hospital in 1982, all his incisors gone and one eye damaged to uselessness.
Mark, I would appreciate you not using that vile word. And don’t dick me around with “reclaimed” or “language evolves.” This is a PTSD level issue. My watch tells me my heart rate went to 135 when I read it.
“I also hate the term BIPOC (I wrote an article about it) again, because it links people together who have no real point of connection except that they're”
Same as I feel about everything after “LGB.”
Now they’re even being “inclusive” with prostitutes.
I never heard if anyone pretending to be LGB. But nearly every T is pretending.
The funny thing is, all of this drama and cope and bullshit basically came out of Racial Reckoning 2020. And mainly from the management and executive levels rather than line staff (of course). The actual work being done is incredible. I mean, I should know, I've worked here for 23 years and was a volunteer 6 years before that. Our line staff are amazing people who are helping people with huge challenges (cancer, HIV, isolated seniors, people losing housing, etc.). It's just that RR20 brought out the worst in some folks who have hypnotic voices. It's depressing how right you are when you describe it as a "self-made hell on earth" because it is definitely that sometimes. But the actual work being done, and my own work in training volunteers who have nothing to do with (and have no interest in) the woke bullshit, is basically amazing. I keep holding on because I hope that we will eventually get back to that place of nonjudgmental, empathetic community - that was also tons of fun - that we were before pandemic and before BLM protests. But now we're a place where I have to repeatedly take down definitions of "white supremacist behaviors" before the volunteer trainings I run - posters that anonymously get put up on various walls - so that volunteers don't get the wrong impression of my very non-woke trainings that are basically about being empathetic and open-minded. Ugh!
May your astute and compassionate writing encourage others to be proud and comfortable in their own skin and with who they truly are as a human being. Oftentimes we assume others are judging us when in fact they aren't thinking about us at all.😶
Thank You, Steve. I've been away from Substacks for a while now. Real glad I stopped by to read this gem.
'Sometimes I get tired of ["blackness"] EVERYWHERE. '
'We unfortunately bear rhe burden of stereotypes and negative tropes pushed in us by [blacks whose ancestors] were forcefully brought here.'
'There is a lot of self-hate in the [white] community.'
If I wasn't modifying Melody's quotes, I'd be considered racist. May be anyway. I'm sorry, Steve, but Melody is pathetic. You've got a very large percentage of white people who don't think it's okay to be white. I don't think blacks can measure up to the amount of self-hate they experience compared to whites, but ICBW (I Could Be Wrong).
“It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.”
Yeah, Melody's ancient ancestors were forced to come here. Perhaps. The POINT is or, rather, the questions is, what negative effect does that have on Melody today? Whatever she allows, right? Obviously, she was brought up different than You, Steve. So maybe I shouldn't get so impatient. But sometimes I agree with Professor Mason (Marsha?? probably naw)... Well, she and Coleman Hughes and others believe the best (only?) way to defeat racism is to simply ignore melanin altogether.
Granted, I'm not quite there entirely, myself. So there is that.
Like You quoted: "It's Nice To Chill Alone Or With Folks Who Look Like Me"
Back in the before-times, we had a term for people who judged other people by how they looked. "SHALLOW." I've never heard-a such a HUGE percentage of shallow people as exist in the current times. A lotta black people are extremely shallow. Of course, white people even more. (Quantity; dunno about percentages.)
Blacks are a minority population in the Western world. So it can be delusional to think that a black person isn't gonna see non-black people EVERYWHERE, but understandable. Except for "safe" spaces like Melody is comfortable in, there are likely to be SOME non-blacks most-a the time. Those are the facts facing minority populations, the world over.
So blacks (and whites) and BIPOCs <puke> should get over themselves. Everyone can do the world a favor, and get over themselves. COMPLETELY get over themselves and quit being so self-important (without losing their sense of self-worth, of course). I'm still working on that, myself, and expect to until I die. (Which will probably come sooner than I would prefer but when it has to, regardless. ;-) = wink
I was diagnosed manic-depressive in '77. Could even be True. That was before they handed out Bipolar diagnoses like ADHD diagnoses. My affinity group is so negligible, I never found one. So I get it, a lot more than black people can imagine. It's awful to be confronted with "sane" people, LITERALLY EVERYWHERE. Back before Bipolar was something to be CELEBRATED (for heaven's sake!).. Back before it was something to BRAG about.. Before it brought social cachet and the power of being a "marginalized" person..
Well, in the before-times, it was sometimes hard to maintain one's self-worth, if One was diagnosed manic-depressive. (At least it was for me, as I was heavy on the depressive side, alas.)
Cry me a river, Melody. And the rest-a You white, black, red, yellow, and purple people. Wake UP and smell the coffee. If You look around, "there are people STARVING in Africa." Consider Yourself lucky if You aren't at the very bottom of life's totem pole. Like smokers.
Sorry this is so long, Steve. (Long-winded Way of "saying" Thank You, I s'pose. ;-)
Thank you so much for saying "Who [we] are is so much more important than what [we] look like." As a melanin-poor individual, I really appreciate you not judging me based on my pale skin.
I lived in South Korea for eight months. Like you, Steve, it was a real eye-opener about how white people are viewed by cultures where everyone looks different from you. One young Korean man asked me how I got my hair to be so many colours at once. I said, "The sun does it. My hair is very sensitive to bleaching from sunlight." He said, "Hmm, I'd like my hair to be like that. "
In 1960 my family moved from a 99% Italian Catholic neighbor in Bensonhurst Brooklyn, to a small town in Suffolk County Long Island that was actually divided in half by the railroad tracks. White on side. Predominantly Black on the other. I ended up in an elementary school and school system that was mostly Black. It was a culture shock for a seven-year-old who loved the sights, sounds and smells of the big city - but was also a unique experience. I felt isolated and terribly alone for about a week. Uncomfortable and awkward for the next week. And by the end of the third week, I had made new friends, who liked baseball, dodgeball, telling jokes and being a kid and they helped me to feel okay again. And I have always been thankful to that group who followed each other through 8th grade.
In truth kids instinctively zeroed in on who each person was. How they talked to each other - not their accent, but the respect and kindness they showed and gave one another. That experience solidified for me that people can get along regardless of color, religion, politics or anything else. They just have to make the effort, be sincere and "see" the person in front of them, NOT some version of them that others talk about.
I always missed Brooklyn, but felt blessed to have that handful of kids enter my life at that time. They saved me.
"That experience solidified for me that people can get along regardless of color, religion, politics or anything else."
One of the things that most frustrates me about how kids are being taught about race, is that they're being taught to see each other as a collection of immutable traits and privileges instead of as human beings. Kids instinctively see past all the nonsense. It's our job to keep them that way. Not dump our baggage on them.
I'm with you on that point. I have an 16-month old grandson who is filled with curiosity and you can see his joy in experiencing new things. He's taught me a great deal and provides renewed hope for the future.
Japan is one of my favorite places as well. Certainly I don't look like anyone else there, nor do I have the expectation to be in "safe spaces" with a bunch of people who vaguely share my skin tone. Maybe I'm younger, but it seems like a lot of people in their feelings on things but their day-to-day experience is actually quite pleasant. Not enough advertisements with black people? Or "latin" people? Or "white" people (have heard this complaint more recently)? I don't know, don't keep track, and don't care personally. It's at a point of silliness in this country.
"Maybe I'm younger, but it seems like a lot of people in their feelings on things but their day-to-day experience is actually quite pleasant."
Yep, I think it's partly a generational thing, but some people just love having something to say, "poor me" about. For older people, I do understand that a lack of representation was an issue. With society being a lot more racist in the 70s, say, Melody probably saw very few positive representations black people if the people around her didn't provide those role models.
But that's far from the case today. And with society being much *less* racist, I think it makes much less sense to focus on "people who look like me."
Funnily enough, just before I saw this, I saw somebody on Twitter arguing that because they'd never met anybody who thought same-sex attraction was transphobic, nobody was saying that. People make global judgements based on their small pools of friends and acquaintances all the time.
I am stunned at your impression of japan. Mine was precisely opposite. Waiters looked at me like they were annoyed that their jobs kept them from spitting in my face.
I was so disgusted with the bigotry that when I left I dumped all my remaining Japanese currency on a counter in the airport.
Interesting. The only issues I've had were with the police. They obviously took it for granted that they could speak Japanese in front of me and I wouldn't understand (I was happy to play up the "dumb gaijin" role) and the fact that I was black came up more than once.
But people in general? I found them notably kind and welcoming and helpful. As I say below, I think it made a big difference that I was obviously a visitor rather than somebody trying to live in Japan.
Had a similar experience in South Korea but that was thanks mainly to the presence of American bases. Military had run over a Korean person and everyone was tense. And then there was the ice-skating at the Olympics. It seemed any little incident set off their xenophobia. Outside the cities, it was friendly and mostly curiousity.
I found the Koreans to be among the most hospitable people on the planet. Where else will people fetch you from the hotel to have raw squid, garlic cloves, jalapeno peppers and soju for breakfast and then take you to church on a Sunday morning.
The night before they got me smashed on soju while eating raw eels and fish. Wonderful people ;0)
Agreed. I had a great 2 years teaching over there. Like I said, it was the occasional flare up that bought out their jingoistic fervor. The world cup in 2002 was the best time!
When my black friend went to Japan to teach English in a village, her arrival made the village paper's front page. Despite, no one attempted to socialize with her during her entire time there. When she went to larger cities, children would point her out to their parents in awe. Overall, she still kinda loved Japan but felt like such an outsider that she cut off her experience a year in. It was just too isolating & lonely for her, despite her love of Japanese culture.
"When she went to larger cities, children would point her out to their parents in awe. "
I had a very similar experience in Vietnam. It was honestly like being a celebrity. Literally every day I had people running up to me to take pictures and chat (read: practice their English). People invited me to their homes for dinner or wanted to buy me drinks.
It was definitely a little overwhelming at times, but generally a really nice experience, because it all came from a place of genuine newness and curiosity. Everyone was polite and respectful, but in many cases had just never seen somebody who looked like me in the flesh.
My experiences in Japan weren't like that at all, except when I was in very small towns. In big cities, people mostly didn't bat an eyelid. But yes, the reason I've never lived in Japan, despite loving it so much, is that I've heard several stories, even from people whose ethnicity is Japanese but who grew up elsewhere, that the deeply ingrained social etiquette and othering of people who don't fit in perfectly, make it almost impossible to truly integrate.
Being a visitor is fine, but if you want to build a life there, whatever colour you are, I hear there's a lot of resistance.
I bet they showed you around. The acquaintance of a westerner brings status. The fact that I don’t drink alcohol spares me most of this. They hear “I don’t drink” as “I won’t drink with you.”
A Chinese, not do much. Ethnic Chinese are second class citizens here.
I can’t claim to know anything about that but I felt serious hostility in Japan. Chinese tend to be pretty bigoted.
Ok I wasn’t in Japan long, but after all is said and done I didn’t like them. They’re the only people I’ve ever seen smoke while eating. I had a headache over a week from a one-day layover.
I was dating a Japanese guy for a while. We got along great. Suddenly I started getting the voicemail. I forget how I finally managed to see him in person but eventually got through that something totally innocent I had said weeks before he had later reinterpreted in Japanese terns and decided I’d, I don’t know, insulted him or something. It was kind of painful.
I’ve heard a thousand variations on this theme. They may be polite but they will never fully accept someone who isn’t Japanese.
And they have no grasp of cultural relativism at all. If I use the wrong form of address in Vietnam, it’s okay, I’m a foreigner. A similar faux pas in Japan, they won’t say a thing but you’ll go to voicemail forever after.
For a while I spoke conversational Cantonese; since I never learned to read it, it's long gone and forgotten.
But I remember several times being around Chinese people who would talk openly about how inferior and brutish black people were, presuming nobody else could understand them.
Where I live now I am likely the only westerner that a lot of people have ever seen. They don't point, but they stare. Probably trying to figure out how to get me to give them money.
I was once in an out of the way place in Thailand at a time that Westerners were very rare there. It was the holiday where people float little boats with candles. I asked my wife to be why everyone was looking at me and smiling (not the land of smiles smile). Her reply was, "Because you are a giant." If you've never seen anyone who was 6'3" you would think them a giant.
Vietnam is going through what Japan did after WWII. Forbidden a military they had vastly more money and the standard of living soared. Including diet. A generation grew up with as much protein as they wanted and you’d see families with the sons a head taller than their parents.
You don’t see a lot of six foot tall teens here but in 1998 there were none.
My experiences in Japan have been positive. The only negative was my shock at the genres of soft core porn on open display in stores. I need not name them, if you spent much time there you saw it. That and seeing young women get felt up on crowded trains. Not to my liking but their country and culture, not mine.
I found them generally to be quite hospitable. I had some rather hilarious experiences that people with thinner skin or a less robust sense of humor might have found uncomfortable. Maybe my ability to turn on a Ricky Gervais-like attitude helps me fail to notice, or care about, microaggression.
I gave up on 'women only' safe spaces about ten years ago when I realized it was holding women back. I was in a Pagan 'feminist' group in which the women there struck me as the perma-victim types whose idea of 'fighting the Patriarchy' was slapping at its ankles when it walked past their little hidey-hole in the ground. I broached the idea as a private test to see whether I should continue hanging out there, where I always seemed to be the odd one out arguing against victimhood, and their feeling was they needed their 'safe space'. And I left, because I don't need a 'safe space' from men (unless I'm taking a wiz or changing my clothes). I need to speak up, assert myself more, and stop caring so much what others think. I wonder how the battle is going for them. Have they defeated Da Patriarchy yet?
“Because there’s been so much stupidity around “diversity” lately”
What a pleasure to read this. Allow me point out the even greater stupidity around “inclusivity.” I hasten to clarify: what is important is to *not exclude*, to be equally open and welcoming irrespective of race and other parameters.
I hope this doesn’t sound like a vague distinction, but I’m seeing “inclusion” more and more as a net negative. Inane language, suppressed judgment, phony warmth.
As I’ve been saying since middle school, “I’ll start worrying about what people think when I get some evidence that they do.”
Anyone whose sense of worth is founded on the opinions of others should go to a mall and look around.
Melody sounds like an ex-pat....in her own country!
I am in Mexico as I write this, where I have a business. My social life revolves around all the Mexicans I know from running my business. I would say that the vast majority of the ex-pats from the US and Canada hang out with other ex pats in their "safe spaces" if you will. (I hate that phrase because it falsely implies that everyone else is somehow "dangerous"--it's really slanderous.) Many of these people have a language barrier that I don't have. There may be cultural barriers too, but I have a hard time understanding what they are.
There is an African-American "subculture" in the US. That's behind the very real concept of "code switching." Maybe that's what Melody's talking about. So, there is much more than "skin color" at play Steve. What I find interesting is how much easier it is for African Black immigrants (especially educated ones) to assimilate into mainstream white American culture than many African Americans, particularly at the lower end of the economic scale where de facto segregation is highest.
My daughter works with high school kids in these areas in Newark and Irvington NJ, and the level of alienation her kids feel from mainstream white America is just off the charts. I would also wager that many white Americans would feel out of place in West Newark and Irvington, New Jersey.
So, I guess what I am saying is that Melody has a point, depending on her background. But social separation just serves to reinforce this. It would have been interesting to ask her if there were white dominated environments in which she really did feel comfortable.
"There is an African-American "subculture" in the US. That's behind the very real concept of "code switching." Maybe that's what Melody's talking about. So, there is much more than "skin color" at play Steve."
Yeah, you make an important point, but you're missing an important distinction. If the title of this post had been, "It's Nice To Chill Alone Or With Folks Who *THINK* Like Me," or "Who Share My Cultural Reference Points," it would have been a very different conversation.
In fact, I'd have been in complete agreement. I often find it exhausting to be around people who don't (by my evaluation of these words) think logically and clearly. And even in Japan, it's nice to interact with people with whom I can speak easily or who watched the same TV shows as me growing up. The point is, I know I can't tell who does and doesn't based on how they look.
Lots of black Americans aren't a part of the "African American subculture" you're talking about. Especially as that culture also varies from state to state and even, in some cases, fro city to city. And some white people, who have grown up in the relevant neighbourhoods, are as steeped in those subcultures and understand their rules just as well as any black person.
I've said here and elsewhere, the fact that some black people in America feel a degree of alienation is understandable. But the *extent* of that alienation, the belief that the entire system is against them, is a learned behaviour and a lie, propagated, sadly, most often by "progressives." Young black people are being indoctrinated, to their detriment, to believe society is always and forever against them. That they need to be kept "safe" from it. And this stops them from participating in it fully. It's racism 2.0.
Yes I understand. Melody probably meant to say “people who think like me” or “people who share my cultural reference points.”
There is no inherent relationship to skin color at an individual level. There is an enormous diversity of culture within what is called “Black” and “white” with plenty of overlap. That is your point I think.
So Melody perhaps inaccurately used skin color as a proxy, which is somewhat understandable given the rough overlap between African American subcultures and African American looking people themselves. But it is VERY rough as you point out.
So I think we agree.
The alienation I was referring to among my daughter’s Irvington students had little or nothing to do with DEI or progressive anti racist ideas. This stuff has very little if any presence in the really poor African American
areas where my daughter worked. She was referring instead to a broad feeling among her students that they had no place or future in the broader culture. A lot of these kids just think they are worth shit. As a teacher this lack of self confidence was by far her biggest hurdle.
When she changed to a more affluent integrated school in DC, the DEI crap hit her like a shitstorm. She is now in disciplinary proceedings for a “name based micro aggression” brought by the parents of a hyper entitled African American kid. She forgot that she was in a new environment. This would NEVER happen in her previous Newark and Irvington schools.
So yes the alienation derived from anti racist dogma is rampant and destructive. But it is not the real cause of the other type of alienation experienced in the poorest and most segregated African American neighborhoods in her experience.
Also IMHO: You should write several articles on Racism 2.0, Steve. I dunno if You coined the phrase, but it's so appropriate it should be patented. TY, as always, either Way...
I lived in Norfolk, VA for high school. I had a lot of black friends. People who would invite me to their homes.
I remember once I went to Richmond, which is not all that far away. The black people there seemed completely different, much more hostile. I remember one young man standing on a street corner with all the hate in the universe in his eyes.
You're knockin them outta the park here, Steve.
In roundabout Way, I "said" similar.
Whites are putrid, but not in the way Melody and a lotta black people think/feel. IMHO. (Yeah. Believe it or not, Humble Opinion. ;-)
"What I find interesting is how much easier it is for African Black immigrants (especially educated ones) to assimilate into mainstream white American culture than many African Americans, particularly at the lower end of the economic scale where de facto segregation is highest."
Glenn Loury & John McWhorter have hit this point several times. How African and West Indian immigrants come here and get jobs and live middle-class lives and don't seem to encounter all the challenges certain African-Americans do. Shelby Steele beat this drum 30 years ago with "The Content Of Our Character" in which he made the point that it's up to AAs to develop *themselves*, to educate themselves more, push themselves more, push themselves more, aspire to more and work toward it. Loved that message as it also applies to women, too. That's why my Substack welcome tagline is "Big girls don't blame the patriarchy." Grown-ass AAs know the difference between genuine discimination and obstacles (which are real for both) and when the obstacle is in the mirror.
Too many people (everyone) need to get out of their own way, including myself.
"Melody sounds like an ex-pat....in her own country!"
I can't get over how astute that line is. Yeah, I think there are a lotta black people who feel like, if their ancient ancestors hadn't been forcibly brought over to the U.S. of A., they would-a been better off.
Nicole Hannah-Jones comes immediately to mind.
So, okay then. Reparations? Give any black person who wants a free ticket for them and their family, to any available airport in the world. Only cost is citizenship. Make same offer to whites, reds, yellows, and purples.
You think You're bad off? UNBEARABLY bad off here in America? Because America is, at it's core, despicable? Or for ANY reason? ESPECIALLY all You Progressives: Find someplace better and be happy!
No sarcasm intended.
NHJ & others might well be slaves *today* if their ancestors hadn't come here first, forcibly or not. Parts of Africa are still very big on buying, selling, trading, and owning human beings.
Thank You, Nicole. I've heard that slavery still exists today, but I've never seen any specifics. Well, I know girls and women can be forced into sex slavery, but not much about it.
It's hard for me to conceive of it.. That it still hasn't been eliminated in this (supposedly advanced) day and age. TY again.
The minimum wage increased to $1.65/hour in 1968. I got paid $1.65 in the summer of that year.
It increased slower than inflation and it has been frozen at $7.25 since 2009. had it tracked inflation and productivity it would be about $24/hour now, more than thrice what it is.
If this isn't slavery, it will substitute just fine until the real thing comes along, as it will if Republicans maintain power.
TY, Sir Chris. You make good points.
I was just "talking" with a woman in Australia Saturday. They break minimum wage down by industry and AGE. I dunno about doing it by industry. The bureaucracy involved may not be worth it.
But here's the thing about minimum wage going up: It prices kids outta the market. Who's gonna pay an inexperienced kid $24/ hour? They are, unfortunately, not WORTH that kind-a mondy. So they'll only accept experienced workers at that rate, and then the kids can't GET experience. Vicious circle time.
So I believe there should be carve outs, by age. That's just me.
Well, you can substitute any group you don't want to pay a living wage for "kids" and have the same justification. Facct is that full time at $24/hour is $48K per year, half of which would go to rent in a basement apartment in a lot of cities. It is not much money.
However. Conservatives are constantly making the same forecast and it is not borne out in practice. Even fast food places that pay twice or more than MW don't go out of business; as others do the same, employees have more buying power and lift all boats.
More later I need to do my treadmill.
When people working full time jobs can’t house themselves, eat properly and have medical care all at the same time, slavery is alive and well.
TY. In a way, true that.
https://www.amren.com/news/2019/07/africa-is-again-the-worlds-epicenter-of-modern-day-slavery/
Thank You. Funny that I haven't heard BLM rioting about this.
One modern method is the promise of a good expat job that becomes slavery when your passport is confiscated by your new e̶m̶p̶l̶o̶y̶e̶r̶ owner.
TY Sir Dave,
Vicious.
Does this happens in the U.S. too? Well, thinkin on it: I'm not sure that some illegals aren't in similar situation.
I don't know of it happening in the US and to the best of my knowledge is most common to people from so called 3rd world nations.
One related exception was told to me by a Marine embassy guard from Kuwait. Woman shows up with no ID. Met Abdulla in the US. He was a wonderful guy, married him and went to Kuwait. Discovered she was not the only wife; he was a very different man in his own country. She wants the hell out, but he has her passport and all of her ID. This was not a single occurrence.
When I lived in Saudi Arabia my employer had my whole family's passports locked up. A had an iqama a work permit that had my wife and daughters' pictures in the back. If a Mutawa (religious policeman) challenged them being with me, I could show them that. My employer had to authorize us getting an exit/reentry or exit only visa to leave the country. I was a contractor to an American country so it was not as likely to be a problem as it could have been had I worked directly for a Saudi company.
If you don't have control of your passport, you are potentially a slave.
When my wife first came to America, she looked for people who looked like her. If black people in America feel like raisins in the oatmeal, try being Southeast Asian here. After a while she got to the point of, "We wouldn't be friends in Thailand, no reason for it here just because we look the same." When we adopted our niece, she went thru the same thing. Her after school study buddies were Asian.
My daughters had a different path. The half that wasn't seemed to be more important to lots of people than the half that was. Both in America and Thailand. The exception was in martial art circles. My daughter's were exceptionally talented and a big hit with Asian martial artists.
That being said, my wife has more Asian friends than non-Aaian. She still feels the being seen as a "foreigner" thing and her Asian friends are immigrants, rather than "where are you from?" Americans.
Not safe space but something akin to expats hanging together. As an expat I spent more time out of the expat community than most, but perhaps I am at times foolishly brave. I'll leave those stories untold.
As a queer person, I enjoy spending time in queer venues. Not as much as as most of my LGB brothers & sisters, but certainly from time to time it's great. If that were my only option, I'd get very agitated or bored, but the feeling of "home" in those spaces is real and palpable. Especially as my circle of friends is basically straight, it's nice to get away, so to speak. As a bi guy, I also like spending time with other bi folks, although this is actually a very rare occasion. Maybe because of the rarity of it, it's exciting when there's more than just one bi guy in a room.
As a mixed-race Filipino/White guy, I love spending time with my Filipino relatives and co-workers and I'm delighted when I get to bond with other mestizos. I don't see a lot of Filipino culture in my day to day life, even here in SF where there is a ton.
Okay, all that said, I wonder what you (and anyone else) thinks about affinity spaces. My feelings are... mixed?
I convened a "POC work group" at my workplace in 2020, at the request of three of my POC staff. (I'm an executive at my agency and they thought it should be started by someone at my level.) So I did. It was an interesting but also irritating experience, for the 4 meetings I was allowed to be there - they asked me and the other two directors in the group to step back so that they could come up with recommendations for the agency and they didn't want their discussion compromised by their various bosses being in the room. I did end up liking their recommendations, surprisingly. The POC group basically faded away after coming up with those recommendations in 2022. Shortly after, some white colleagues started a white affinity space, which was a controversial idea and continues to be one, among both POC & white staff not involved with the group. That group still meets. I'm pretty curious, in sort of a sick way, about what they talk about in that group (Robin DiAngelo? LOL) but I've been told as a mixed-race person, I shouldn't be there. (Context: I identify as mixed-race, as Filipino, and as white.) Which was probably for the best because I can imagine myself being an asshole in that space because of what I imagine to be extremely woke conversations.
Recently there have been noises about creating a "BIPOC" group. I'm so conflicted about joining. I know people expect me to. As a leader of my agency, and as the person who is specifically in charge of "DEI" (one of my many hats, and my least favorite one). But ugh I don't want to. Are they planning on talking about "white supremacy" per Tema Okun and how "whiteness" shows up in our majority-POC agency (LOL)? I think a part of my mulishness is super petty - I actually hate the acronym BIPOC because it feels so unnecessarily othering & diminishing of Asians, Latinos, and people from the Middle East. What a dumb word.
Sorry for all the rambling! It's Sunday night and I'm about to step into this tomorrow, so definitely on my mind. This seemed like a good space to journal!
"As a queer person, I enjoy spending time in queer venues."
Yeah, as I was just saying to Miguelitro, there's an important distinction to be made between cultural groupings and physical characteristic groupings. There's some overlap, of course, but the former is infinitely more valid than the latter.
LGBT-only spaces (sorry, I can't bring myself to embrace the Q-word), culturally specific spaces, religious spaces, I don't think there's any problem with these. But white-only spaces? Or black-only spaces? That's a different animal. Which is why I think they led to controversy. I've given serious thought to creating some kind of "workplace diversity done right" programme.🤔
I also hate the term BIPOC (I wrote an article about it) again, because it links people together who have no real point of connection except that they're not white. I think Asians, Latinos etc. are usually included in BIPOC, no? Anyway, as I've said many times before, humanity probably isn't going to outgrow tribes any time soon. I just wish we were better at making those tribes meaningful.
"sorry, I can't bring myself to embrace the Q-word"
yeah, I hear that. especially nowadays. (also I get why older/boomer gays would resist the word.) I've been using it since the 90s as a catch-all for LGB, so it's just another word for that acronym to me. what makes me want to resist it these days is the frequency of straight people using it to describe themselves. that's kind of a joke to me, worthy of a sneer or at least an eyeroll. I actually got in an argument with my youngest staffer over this usage - I guess it's common in Gen Z? anyway, I think straight people using it is super performative and cringey, akin to calling yourself a demisexual.
"I also hate the term BIPOC (I wrote an article about it) ... I think Asians, Latinos etc. are usually included in BIPOC, no?"
hey can you link to that article? I think I must have missed it.
yep, Asians etc. are included in the catch-all POC part of BIPOC, which is exactly what I find diminishing & othering. at least the standalone "POC", for all its flaws, equalizes all "people of color" rather than uplifting Black & Indigenous as apparently the most important POC, the rest can just be thrown together in the POC part. It's like if "LGBT" was "GaysEtc" - Gays taking precedence, lesbians & bis & trans tossed together into Etc.
"hey can you link to that article? I think I must have missed it."
Hey Mark, sorry for the delay. Here it is. https://steveqj.medium.com/bipoc-is-the-new-ni-er-9c6c76d28d73
And yeah, as with so many other things "queer" has just become a way for people who want to gain a few points on the victimhood hierarchy to claim they're oppressed. Oh, you kissed somebody of the same sex in college or had an open relationship once? Welcome to Q+!!
“sorry, I can't bring myself to embrace the Q word”
You’ll find very few gay men over a certain age who don’t find it as offensive as the N word.
“Queer” is what hundreds, maybe thousands, have had shouted at them as their teeth were knocked out and their noses flattened.
Like the friend I visited in the hospital in 1982, all his incisors gone and one eye damaged to uselessness.
Mark, I would appreciate you not using that vile word. And don’t dick me around with “reclaimed” or “language evolves.” This is a PTSD level issue. My watch tells me my heart rate went to 135 when I read it.
We are gay. We are not queer.
“I also hate the term BIPOC (I wrote an article about it) again, because it links people together who have no real point of connection except that they're”
Same as I feel about everything after “LGB.”
Now they’re even being “inclusive” with prostitutes.
I never heard if anyone pretending to be LGB. But nearly every T is pretending.
Your company truly sounds like a self-made hell on earth. I'm surprised it still exists with all that toxic dysfunction.
Steve, here's a patient for you.
The funny thing is, all of this drama and cope and bullshit basically came out of Racial Reckoning 2020. And mainly from the management and executive levels rather than line staff (of course). The actual work being done is incredible. I mean, I should know, I've worked here for 23 years and was a volunteer 6 years before that. Our line staff are amazing people who are helping people with huge challenges (cancer, HIV, isolated seniors, people losing housing, etc.). It's just that RR20 brought out the worst in some folks who have hypnotic voices. It's depressing how right you are when you describe it as a "self-made hell on earth" because it is definitely that sometimes. But the actual work being done, and my own work in training volunteers who have nothing to do with (and have no interest in) the woke bullshit, is basically amazing. I keep holding on because I hope that we will eventually get back to that place of nonjudgmental, empathetic community - that was also tons of fun - that we were before pandemic and before BLM protests. But now we're a place where I have to repeatedly take down definitions of "white supremacist behaviors" before the volunteer trainings I run - posters that anonymously get put up on various walls - so that volunteers don't get the wrong impression of my very non-woke trainings that are basically about being empathetic and open-minded. Ugh!
May your astute and compassionate writing encourage others to be proud and comfortable in their own skin and with who they truly are as a human being. Oftentimes we assume others are judging us when in fact they aren't thinking about us at all.😶
Thank you Ruth. And yes, so true. So much of what we're absolutely certain people are thinking about us is just what we're thinking about ourselves.
Very true. People are too preoccupied with themselves to have time to think about you, unless it reflects upon them.
Thank You, Steve. I've been away from Substacks for a while now. Real glad I stopped by to read this gem.
'Sometimes I get tired of ["blackness"] EVERYWHERE. '
'We unfortunately bear rhe burden of stereotypes and negative tropes pushed in us by [blacks whose ancestors] were forcefully brought here.'
'There is a lot of self-hate in the [white] community.'
If I wasn't modifying Melody's quotes, I'd be considered racist. May be anyway. I'm sorry, Steve, but Melody is pathetic. You've got a very large percentage of white people who don't think it's okay to be white. I don't think blacks can measure up to the amount of self-hate they experience compared to whites, but ICBW (I Could Be Wrong).
“It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.”
Epictetus. (n.d.). AZQuotes.com. Retrieved March 19, 2023, from AZQuotes.com Web site: https://www.azquotes.com/quote/90292
Yeah, Melody's ancient ancestors were forced to come here. Perhaps. The POINT is or, rather, the questions is, what negative effect does that have on Melody today? Whatever she allows, right? Obviously, she was brought up different than You, Steve. So maybe I shouldn't get so impatient. But sometimes I agree with Professor Mason (Marsha?? probably naw)... Well, she and Coleman Hughes and others believe the best (only?) way to defeat racism is to simply ignore melanin altogether.
Granted, I'm not quite there entirely, myself. So there is that.
Like You quoted: "It's Nice To Chill Alone Or With Folks Who Look Like Me"
Back in the before-times, we had a term for people who judged other people by how they looked. "SHALLOW." I've never heard-a such a HUGE percentage of shallow people as exist in the current times. A lotta black people are extremely shallow. Of course, white people even more. (Quantity; dunno about percentages.)
Blacks are a minority population in the Western world. So it can be delusional to think that a black person isn't gonna see non-black people EVERYWHERE, but understandable. Except for "safe" spaces like Melody is comfortable in, there are likely to be SOME non-blacks most-a the time. Those are the facts facing minority populations, the world over.
So blacks (and whites) and BIPOCs <puke> should get over themselves. Everyone can do the world a favor, and get over themselves. COMPLETELY get over themselves and quit being so self-important (without losing their sense of self-worth, of course). I'm still working on that, myself, and expect to until I die. (Which will probably come sooner than I would prefer but when it has to, regardless. ;-) = wink
I was diagnosed manic-depressive in '77. Could even be True. That was before they handed out Bipolar diagnoses like ADHD diagnoses. My affinity group is so negligible, I never found one. So I get it, a lot more than black people can imagine. It's awful to be confronted with "sane" people, LITERALLY EVERYWHERE. Back before Bipolar was something to be CELEBRATED (for heaven's sake!).. Back before it was something to BRAG about.. Before it brought social cachet and the power of being a "marginalized" person..
Well, in the before-times, it was sometimes hard to maintain one's self-worth, if One was diagnosed manic-depressive. (At least it was for me, as I was heavy on the depressive side, alas.)
Cry me a river, Melody. And the rest-a You white, black, red, yellow, and purple people. Wake UP and smell the coffee. If You look around, "there are people STARVING in Africa." Consider Yourself lucky if You aren't at the very bottom of life's totem pole. Like smokers.
Sorry this is so long, Steve. (Long-winded Way of "saying" Thank You, I s'pose. ;-)
Thank you so much for saying "Who [we] are is so much more important than what [we] look like." As a melanin-poor individual, I really appreciate you not judging me based on my pale skin.
I lived in South Korea for eight months. Like you, Steve, it was a real eye-opener about how white people are viewed by cultures where everyone looks different from you. One young Korean man asked me how I got my hair to be so many colours at once. I said, "The sun does it. My hair is very sensitive to bleaching from sunlight." He said, "Hmm, I'd like my hair to be like that. "
Interesting article - fascinating comments.
In 1960 my family moved from a 99% Italian Catholic neighbor in Bensonhurst Brooklyn, to a small town in Suffolk County Long Island that was actually divided in half by the railroad tracks. White on side. Predominantly Black on the other. I ended up in an elementary school and school system that was mostly Black. It was a culture shock for a seven-year-old who loved the sights, sounds and smells of the big city - but was also a unique experience. I felt isolated and terribly alone for about a week. Uncomfortable and awkward for the next week. And by the end of the third week, I had made new friends, who liked baseball, dodgeball, telling jokes and being a kid and they helped me to feel okay again. And I have always been thankful to that group who followed each other through 8th grade.
In truth kids instinctively zeroed in on who each person was. How they talked to each other - not their accent, but the respect and kindness they showed and gave one another. That experience solidified for me that people can get along regardless of color, religion, politics or anything else. They just have to make the effort, be sincere and "see" the person in front of them, NOT some version of them that others talk about.
I always missed Brooklyn, but felt blessed to have that handful of kids enter my life at that time. They saved me.
"That experience solidified for me that people can get along regardless of color, religion, politics or anything else."
One of the things that most frustrates me about how kids are being taught about race, is that they're being taught to see each other as a collection of immutable traits and privileges instead of as human beings. Kids instinctively see past all the nonsense. It's our job to keep them that way. Not dump our baggage on them.
I'm with you on that point. I have an 16-month old grandson who is filled with curiosity and you can see his joy in experiencing new things. He's taught me a great deal and provides renewed hope for the future.
Japan is one of my favorite places as well. Certainly I don't look like anyone else there, nor do I have the expectation to be in "safe spaces" with a bunch of people who vaguely share my skin tone. Maybe I'm younger, but it seems like a lot of people in their feelings on things but their day-to-day experience is actually quite pleasant. Not enough advertisements with black people? Or "latin" people? Or "white" people (have heard this complaint more recently)? I don't know, don't keep track, and don't care personally. It's at a point of silliness in this country.
"Maybe I'm younger, but it seems like a lot of people in their feelings on things but their day-to-day experience is actually quite pleasant."
Yep, I think it's partly a generational thing, but some people just love having something to say, "poor me" about. For older people, I do understand that a lack of representation was an issue. With society being a lot more racist in the 70s, say, Melody probably saw very few positive representations black people if the people around her didn't provide those role models.
But that's far from the case today. And with society being much *less* racist, I think it makes much less sense to focus on "people who look like me."
Sorry Steve but the “percentage of the world’s population” argument makes absolutely zero sense here.
Funnily enough, just before I saw this, I saw somebody on Twitter arguing that because they'd never met anybody who thought same-sex attraction was transphobic, nobody was saying that. People make global judgements based on their small pools of friends and acquaintances all the time.
But the views of a huge variety of other cultures? Do we need to average them in to accurately read the pulse of our own?
In Uganda being gay is a death sentence. Do I need to have the acquaintance of hundreds of Ugandans if I live in San Francisco?
And a few dozen people is a far cry from 80,000..
It isn’t possible to know any significant fraction of eight billion people.
I am stunned at your impression of japan. Mine was precisely opposite. Waiters looked at me like they were annoyed that their jobs kept them from spitting in my face.
I was so disgusted with the bigotry that when I left I dumped all my remaining Japanese currency on a counter in the airport.
Interesting. The only issues I've had were with the police. They obviously took it for granted that they could speak Japanese in front of me and I wouldn't understand (I was happy to play up the "dumb gaijin" role) and the fact that I was black came up more than once.
But people in general? I found them notably kind and welcoming and helpful. As I say below, I think it made a big difference that I was obviously a visitor rather than somebody trying to live in Japan.
Had a similar experience in South Korea but that was thanks mainly to the presence of American bases. Military had run over a Korean person and everyone was tense. And then there was the ice-skating at the Olympics. It seemed any little incident set off their xenophobia. Outside the cities, it was friendly and mostly curiousity.
I found the Koreans to be among the most hospitable people on the planet. Where else will people fetch you from the hotel to have raw squid, garlic cloves, jalapeno peppers and soju for breakfast and then take you to church on a Sunday morning.
The night before they got me smashed on soju while eating raw eels and fish. Wonderful people ;0)
Agreed. I had a great 2 years teaching over there. Like I said, it was the occasional flare up that bought out their jingoistic fervor. The world cup in 2002 was the best time!
When my black friend went to Japan to teach English in a village, her arrival made the village paper's front page. Despite, no one attempted to socialize with her during her entire time there. When she went to larger cities, children would point her out to their parents in awe. Overall, she still kinda loved Japan but felt like such an outsider that she cut off her experience a year in. It was just too isolating & lonely for her, despite her love of Japanese culture.
"When she went to larger cities, children would point her out to their parents in awe. "
I had a very similar experience in Vietnam. It was honestly like being a celebrity. Literally every day I had people running up to me to take pictures and chat (read: practice their English). People invited me to their homes for dinner or wanted to buy me drinks.
It was definitely a little overwhelming at times, but generally a really nice experience, because it all came from a place of genuine newness and curiosity. Everyone was polite and respectful, but in many cases had just never seen somebody who looked like me in the flesh.
My experiences in Japan weren't like that at all, except when I was in very small towns. In big cities, people mostly didn't bat an eyelid. But yes, the reason I've never lived in Japan, despite loving it so much, is that I've heard several stories, even from people whose ethnicity is Japanese but who grew up elsewhere, that the deeply ingrained social etiquette and othering of people who don't fit in perfectly, make it almost impossible to truly integrate.
Being a visitor is fine, but if you want to build a life there, whatever colour you are, I hear there's a lot of resistance.
I bet they showed you around. The acquaintance of a westerner brings status. The fact that I don’t drink alcohol spares me most of this. They hear “I don’t drink” as “I won’t drink with you.”
A Chinese, not do much. Ethnic Chinese are second class citizens here.
Yeah, China was a very different animal to Japan or Vietnam or pretty much any other Asian country I’ve been to.
The people there seemed a lot less welcoming to foreigners and I definitely had the impression there was more of an anti-black tinge to it.
I can’t claim to know anything about that but I felt serious hostility in Japan. Chinese tend to be pretty bigoted.
Ok I wasn’t in Japan long, but after all is said and done I didn’t like them. They’re the only people I’ve ever seen smoke while eating. I had a headache over a week from a one-day layover.
I was dating a Japanese guy for a while. We got along great. Suddenly I started getting the voicemail. I forget how I finally managed to see him in person but eventually got through that something totally innocent I had said weeks before he had later reinterpreted in Japanese terns and decided I’d, I don’t know, insulted him or something. It was kind of painful.
I’ve never dated another Japanese since.
They’re the most insular people on the planet.
I’ve heard a thousand variations on this theme. They may be polite but they will never fully accept someone who isn’t Japanese.
And they have no grasp of cultural relativism at all. If I use the wrong form of address in Vietnam, it’s okay, I’m a foreigner. A similar faux pas in Japan, they won’t say a thing but you’ll go to voicemail forever after.
For a while I spoke conversational Cantonese; since I never learned to read it, it's long gone and forgotten.
But I remember several times being around Chinese people who would talk openly about how inferior and brutish black people were, presuming nobody else could understand them.
Where I live now I am likely the only westerner that a lot of people have ever seen. They don't point, but they stare. Probably trying to figure out how to get me to give them money.
I was once in an out of the way place in Thailand at a time that Westerners were very rare there. It was the holiday where people float little boats with candles. I asked my wife to be why everyone was looking at me and smiling (not the land of smiles smile). Her reply was, "Because you are a giant." If you've never seen anyone who was 6'3" you would think them a giant.
Well I am in no danger of that. I peaked at under 5’10” and after a bad accident and age shrinkage I think I’m 5’8” now.
Age shrank me to 6'2" which still leaves me in the bump my head on everything realm.
Vietnam is going through what Japan did after WWII. Forbidden a military they had vastly more money and the standard of living soared. Including diet. A generation grew up with as much protein as they wanted and you’d see families with the sons a head taller than their parents.
You don’t see a lot of six foot tall teens here but in 1998 there were none.
My experiences in Japan have been positive. The only negative was my shock at the genres of soft core porn on open display in stores. I need not name them, if you spent much time there you saw it. That and seeing young women get felt up on crowded trains. Not to my liking but their country and culture, not mine.
I found them generally to be quite hospitable. I had some rather hilarious experiences that people with thinner skin or a less robust sense of humor might have found uncomfortable. Maybe my ability to turn on a Ricky Gervais-like attitude helps me fail to notice, or care about, microaggression.
They have a real thing with bondage porn.
I gave up on 'women only' safe spaces about ten years ago when I realized it was holding women back. I was in a Pagan 'feminist' group in which the women there struck me as the perma-victim types whose idea of 'fighting the Patriarchy' was slapping at its ankles when it walked past their little hidey-hole in the ground. I broached the idea as a private test to see whether I should continue hanging out there, where I always seemed to be the odd one out arguing against victimhood, and their feeling was they needed their 'safe space'. And I left, because I don't need a 'safe space' from men (unless I'm taking a wiz or changing my clothes). I need to speak up, assert myself more, and stop caring so much what others think. I wonder how the battle is going for them. Have they defeated Da Patriarchy yet?
“Because there’s been so much stupidity around “diversity” lately”
What a pleasure to read this. Allow me point out the even greater stupidity around “inclusivity.” I hasten to clarify: what is important is to *not exclude*, to be equally open and welcoming irrespective of race and other parameters.
I hope this doesn’t sound like a vague distinction, but I’m seeing “inclusion” more and more as a net negative. Inane language, suppressed judgment, phony warmth.
Yeah more weaponry, that'll help a LOT.