Through a short web-crawl related to my watching of the Kim Possible Movie on Friday, I ended up at a clothing site called blacklava. They sell clothing designed to "raise questions about how Asian Americans are viewed in today's society." Some of their stuff is reasonably clever, and some of it about prejudice in general rather than specifically directed. One shirt, though, made me say "huh." It reminded me of a situation from a while back, when Ann came to visit me in Jersey and we had lunch with her cousin. He asked me if I was interested in Ann because of the "geisha image." I think I laughed at him.
But reading the shirt and the poem(?) to the left of it, I had a very bizarre moment. I'm exceedingly white, no doubt about that. At the same time, I'm getting a Master's degree in Japan Studies, writing serialized fiction where the main characters are pulled from the Asian zodiac, revising a novel themed around Chinese literature...
I'm suddenly waiting for someone to ask me where the hell I get the nerve.
Do I have nerve? I wasn't attracted to Ann because she was Asian any more than I was attracted to Lena because she was Russian or any other girl for any similar reason. I've got my "type," like anyone else, but I like people for who they are. I set up the Fables like I did because I wanted a thematically finite set of characters. Earth & Heaven is what it is as a conscious counter-point to boring (to me) Western fantasy (and also because Three Kingdoms is hella fun). I'm a Japan Studies grad student because... ok, I got nothing, there.
None of which is to say that I feel I've got to defend myself. Just, well, sometimes some things strike me as being a little funny.
I don't know. Am I making any sense, or should I just chalk this up to my feeling sick and leave it at that?
Comments (5)
it's not unusual to like the single white rose from a stack of red roses.
Posted by gus | April 11, 2005 7:50 AM
Posted on April 11, 2005 07:50
You like Asian chicks. You have expressed as much to me and to others. There is no shame in this taste in itself and it does not seem to eclipse your appreciation of other, shall we say, flavors and blends.
You are not yet the creepy white guy going to Sumo matches in Osaka. You are, however, morphing into a slacking multicultural left-coaster, but without the long hair hippie pedigree.
Posted by Erik | April 11, 2005 10:48 AM
Posted on April 11, 2005 10:48
Well, like I said, everyone has their "type" that they're attracted to. I'm attracted, to quote Zach, to "ethnic chicks," with a pretty loose definition of the word "ethnic."
My point, as the title of my post would have it, is that this isn't an act of fetishization. No matter what prompts my initial attraction for someone, it's not a stereotype I'm interested in, it's the person.
Yeah... a little more coherent this morning, and still unlikely to be the white guy at the sumo matches in Osaka. So ain't my thing.
Posted by Jason | April 11, 2005 11:49 AM
Posted on April 11, 2005 11:49
I think you meant to write "the single yellow rose from the stack of white roses."
Posted by Aaron | April 11, 2005 8:04 PM
Posted on April 11, 2005 20:04
Ha, now that's funny.
Posted by Rich | April 14, 2005 9:29 AM
Posted on April 14, 2005 09:29