Which is another claim that the term is being advocated by trans activists, not a source of the term.
Look, I’m not saying that it isn’t being pushed somewhere, somehow, but it sure doesn’t seem to be very forcefully pushed since it seems internet can only provide one source (which to me seemed benign) and the rest is just various levels of outrage about the term. And that leads me to thinking that…
…we should reserve our scorn for the actual stupidities being said, because as you say, there are plenty of those around.
Except, this has more than a grain of truth to it. Socially constructed standards of beauty exist, and have consequences. Toni Morrison’s 1970 novel The Bluest Eye was one of the earlier explorations of this theme, in a racial context, but the discussion has been ongoing since at least the beginnings of feminist theory.
I mean, yeah, the stuff linked here goes pretty far down the rabbit hole and is hardly rigorous academic theory stuff, but the core issue isn’t trivial.
Then again, these aren’t liberals, any more than the Trumpists are conservatives. They are all twits of various hues.
I didn’t read the article, but interpreted that as meaning that they want to see more people falling in love with “brown women” and not have it always be a white woman that a brown man was falling for.
She is not only wrong in the specific case she is wrong in the general case. More Asian women are married to white men, then white woman married to Asian men, by a pretty wide margin.
I’ve heard several Haole (white) woman complain, “That all the Haole guys in Hawaii have a bad case of yellow fever”.
At which point, I keep my mouth shut.
At the end it is a bloody romantic comedy (I like Kumaii so much on Silicon Valley, I may actually watch it). If there wasn’t an element of conflict and strangeness in it, nobody would watch it.
This is more complicated than just that. East Asian (“oriental”) women in particular are exotified and sexualized to great degree in our culture, in a way that other people of color are not.
Put another way, as a commenter on Larry Wilmore’s show once noted: the two least desirable things to be in our dating culture is a black woman or an Asian man.
I agree and there seems to be data to back up what the guy said. Which makes it even more baffling why she’d be critical of the movie. Whoopi Goldberg had dated and/or married a number of handsome white men like Ted Dawson, I’d don’t remember her getting criticized for it If people insist on view everything through the filter of race and privilege shouldn’t they be celebrating the disadvantaged Asian men get’s the cute funny white girl?
I think it’s totally fine to think about it both ways. (I share your criticism, in the sense that it’s probably less fine to focus on one while ignoring the other.)
First off, there is a question of perspective. Generally, the question of somebody being portrayed as desired or not depends on who the protagonist is. So, in this argument, it’s not a question of the “lucky Asian guy” getting the white woman, it’s the question of why is that considered lucky for him?
But it isn’t just about a single case. The complaint is against a system that consistently portrays whiteness as the most desirable option. When this is extended throughout media as a pattern, it means that there disproportionately few portrayals of women of color (or, say, Chinese men) being desirable. Sometimes disproportionately few can be read: none.
So, the argument isn’t that Kumail Nanjiani is “wrong” for marrying a white woman. It’s that if the media was properly representative, it wouldn’t be an issue for him to marry a white woman on screen, because there would be other shows featuring Pakistani protagonists that were dating Pakistani women, instead of him being the only non-terrorist Pakistani on screen this year.
"The U.S. Census Bureau in 2010 estimated that there were 363,699 U.S. residents of Pakistani descent living in the United States; "
That is about .1% of the population. There are a couple hundred sitcoms figuring 1/2 dozen main characters per show. I’d say that statistical proper representation of Pakistani protagonist is exactly one. Dinesh comes across as pretty good person in Silicon Valley, certainly better than most of the white guys in the show.
If we are going to move beyond “judging people by the color of their skin”, then we have to stop paying attention to this stuff.
Here’s where I’d respectfully disagree. We can’t “stop paying attention” to stuff like this, because ultimately all that does is reinforce the dominant cultural patterns of the status quo that are the problem in the first place. We do have to “pay attention,” but it is key how we pay attention.
Many of my students come to me, in college, from high school systems that have tried to erase cultural, racial, gender, social, whatever difference, by inculcating an idea in students’ heads that “we’re all the same.” Well, at some metaphysical, spiritual level, I’m sure that’s true, as well as on a basic evolutionary biological level, but culturally and socially it just ain’t so. Difference is real, and it matters. But dealing with difference is HARD, especially if you want to do it right, because it will make you uncomfortable and make it very hard for you to maintain whatever illusory world view you have about people and their interactions. This applies to everyone–white, black, Asian, Hispanic, gay, straight, whatever–because we all tend to retreat into a sort of safe monochromatic world view at times.
So, yeah, judging people by the color of their skin (or their sexual or gender orientation or status, or their socio-economic level, or whatever) is clearly dumb. But recognizing that those categories and a person’s place within those categories exists, well, that to me is not only desirable, but essential. It’s what you do after that that is the key.
Because lord knows we can’t have more than one film or show at a time that focuses on them. Really Kumail should just be glad they let him Star in his own semi biopic. Would’ve been far better if they swapped him for an Indian or Chinese actor. Demographic representation amiright /s
So far this thread has produced relatively mild examples and a few extreme ones that are allegedly held by a niche of a niche with little supporting evidence.
Compared to the well documented daily craziness of modern conservatives and the most powerful conservative himself I don’t feel too bad being a liberal.
They are just impressional kids, but it’s the end result of teaching people they have a right not to be offended. The stupidest of notions, which certainly isn’t liberal in any historical sense. It just sort of sprang out of nowhere in the last decade.
