WM's Boyhood Memories of Responses to Anti-Asian Racism | Asian Air Forum

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WM's Boyhood Memories of Responses to Anti-Asian Racism

have been in this forum for a while and I have addressed those questions before. However, I will be happy to address them with you.
     1. Would you be still be here and have the same level of Asian sensitive?
     Absolutely yes. One of my best friends whom I grew up with was an AM and he's someone for whom I have the utmost respect. We're still in touch and we stand by eachother, regardless. I've seen how distored views on Asian Americans affected him early on. As a result of this, when I was real young I realized that racism is downright wrong and I would do everything in my power to fight ignorance, especially in how it impacts the Asian Community and friends of Asian ancestry.
     2. Would you still be trying to work and uplift Asians?
     Yes, without any reservation.
     3. Would you even be aware of the number of hate crimes, negative stereotypes, and racial acts committed towards Asians?
     I was aware of hate crimes and negative stereotypes as a six year old kid. I saw offensive portrayals where Jerry Lewis made fun of a Doctor from Hong Kong. I saw how Asians were portrayed as goofy foreigners (i.e. Arnold Takahasi on "Happy Days") Knowing my friend Enoch, his brother Phillip and my first grade teacher Mrs. Kim who were Asian Americans who spoke English like any other Americans, weren't goofy or weird, but were just plain good and decent folks made me think that the people who did that crap on TV were nuts. I remember the time someone spray painted the G-bomb (racial slur) on Mrs. Kim's car and how much it hurt her. I'd learned about the internment of Japanese Americans during World War 2 from a PBS special and though to myself how wrong it was to do that to loyal fellow Americans. All this stuff struck a chord with me before I was even 10 years old--long before most of us were even thinking about dating a girl, regardless of her ethnic background.
     4. Would you even care what happens to Asians in the USA?
     Of course I would. My personal sense of fairness and justice would not allow me to turn a blind eye to unfair actions against others, including Asians. Right is right and wrong is wrong. Anyone with a true sense of morality should know the difference.
     5. When you are around only Non-Asians, would you still demonstrate Asian sensitivity by stopping insensitive racial slurs, discrimination, and oppression by other Non-Asians against Asians?
     I did just that when I was 10 years old, and got in trouble for it. My fifth grade teacher was late for class one morning. When she got in the students were cutting up and she starting yelling for us to sit down. She went on to say that she had her car rear-ended by some C-bomb (anti-Asian racial slur) who she thought had no insurance. When she said that I stood up and said "Mrs. Sherburne, how dare you use a dirty word to describe an Asian man, especially in front of us." Mrs. Sherburne grabbed her yardstick, whacked me on the butt and sent me to the principal's office for talking back to her.
     The principal called my dad and told him that I'd talked back to the teacher. My dad came in, mad as Hell, and was about to whack me with his belt. However, he asked me why I talked back to Mrs. Sherburne and when I told him and the Principal what happened, my Dad turned on the principal and said "What kind of teachers are you keeping at this school who would talk like that in front of the kids?"
     Suffice it to say, I wasn't suspended and I was moved to another class to prevent me from receiving retribution from her. What was the most sad was the Mrs. Sherburne was suspended for a week with pay, but in the end she kept her job and basically just got a small write up in her file. Of course, that was 1979 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Today, however, she would have been fired and the school district would have been sued.
     Steve, I can understand why you would be ticked off at seeing an AF hanging with a WM who would say he loves her in one second and yet would curse out an AM and use a slur. There are couples like that out there and both parties are disgusting in my sight. It reeks of Dave and Nancy on the "Titus" sit com! There are a lot of White folks out there who are ignorant and use slurs casually without thought because that's their habit. The crux of my point is that not all of us Caucasians, male or female, do this and this should be considered before making posts like your last one.
     In your post to Nautica, you didn't specify that the AF in question was dating a racist white male and was acting ignorant of it. You basically surmised that before an AF should enter into a Transethnic relationship with a White male, she should ask herself that series of questions which weren't worded to deal with the specific White male she's dating but rather with White males in general. Those questions contained implications about White males as a whole, and that is just as bad as stereotyping all Asian Males as a whole, which is what Nautica did, and that was majorly wrong as well. The only reason I didn't say anything to her is because I knew that the regulars (A/HL, my buddy Kevin, Bao, et al.) were going to say something and I figured it would be more meaningful coming from them than from me. That may have been a slight on my part in retrospect.
Hank Lewis

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