Comments for The Color Line http://thesocietypages.org/colorline Applying sociological concepts, trends, and data to more fully understand the real-world issues related to race, ethnicity, and immigration in 21st century American society. Fri, 18 May 2012 12:48:42 +0000 hourly 1 Comment on Asian Stereotypes in ‘Hangover 2′: When Enough is Enough by Racist Todd Phillips http://thesocietypages.org/colorline/2011/06/28/asian-stereotypes-in-%e2%80%98hangover-2%e2%80%b2-when-enough-is-enough/comment-page-1/#comment-133 Racist Todd Phillips Fri, 18 May 2012 12:48:42 +0000 http://www.asian-nation.org/headlines/?p=1751#comment-133 This movie was a huge slap in the face to asian people… Here is a list of the multiple slaps: - One-dimensional asian woman being saved by a white man from her people who hold her back - Weak asian man (younger brother) who is a pushover and overall geeky cello prodigy who doesn’t know how to have fun - Asian man small penis – showing a scene showing the asian criminal (who happens to have the smallest cock possible) and making a scene out of it - White men in all of the positions of power and authority in thailand - Asian women as sex objects / Asian women small tits The list goes on. Very culturally insensitive and distasteful. This is the problem with Hollywood. Brainwashing and promoting stereotypes creating divisive mindsets and planting seeds of culturally acceptable racism. This movie was a huge slap in the face to asian people… Here is a list of the multiple slaps:
- One-dimensional asian woman being saved by a white man from her people who hold her back
- Weak asian man (younger brother) who is a pushover and overall geeky cello prodigy who doesn’t know how to have fun
- Asian man small penis – showing a scene showing the asian criminal (who happens to have the smallest cock possible) and making a scene out of it
- White men in all of the positions of power and authority in thailand
- Asian women as sex objects / Asian women small tits

The list goes on. Very culturally insensitive and distasteful. This is the problem with Hollywood. Brainwashing and promoting stereotypes creating divisive mindsets and planting seeds of culturally acceptable racism.

]]> Comment on Best Asian American Documentaries (Part 1) by Karen http://thesocietypages.org/colorline/2010/08/31/best-asian-american-documentaries-part-1/comment-page-1/#comment-128 Karen Thu, 19 Apr 2012 14:43:27 +0000 http://www.asian-nation.org/headlines/?p=1632#comment-128 Thanks, this is helpful! Thanks, this is helpful!

]]> Comment on 14 Exit Poll Statistics About Obama’s Victory by And yes I'm white http://thesocietypages.org/colorline/2008/11/06/14-exit-poll-statistics-about-obama%e2%80%99s-victory/comment-page-1/#comment-127 And yes I'm white Thu, 12 Apr 2012 13:59:27 +0000 http://www.asian-nation.org/headlines/?p=831#comment-127 Let me see if I remember my history... Didn't the Europeans bring the Africans to the Americas. So in your example, who's fault is it? Let me see if I remember my history… Didn’t the Europeans bring the Africans to the Americas. So in your example, who’s fault is it?

]]> Comment on Thoughts on the ‘Tiger Mother’ Controversy by Andre M. Smith http://thesocietypages.org/colorline/2011/01/24/thoughts-on-the-%e2%80%98tiger-mother%e2%80%99-controversy/comment-page-1/#comment-125 Andre M. Smith Fri, 06 Apr 2012 15:59:56 +0000 http://www.asian-nation.org/headlines/?p=1704#comment-125 There is a recurring theme without solid core that continues to recycle on the question of Amy Chua and her style as a mother. J.G. (unfortunately anonymous, as are most of the endorsements of Professor Chua) has written I think it's easy to take cheap shots at Chua, but it's hard to argue that the average American child needs less discipline, less direction or less respect for others. It might seem amusing to mock her (her "cushy job" and "hottie husband"), but harder to actually consider the points being made in a non-defensive way, without trying to paint yourself as the "cool mom" who prefers three martini playdates? p.s. It seems ironic that an Asian-American female who went to Williams (fulfilling a fantasy of Chinese parents everywhere) would paint her parents as laissez-faire and herself as moderately motivated. Posted by: J.G. | January 18, 2011 at 02:31 PM http://thecareerist.typepad.com/thecareerist/2011/01/chinese-moms.html I, for one, have no interest whatsoever in her “cushy job” and “hottie husband.” Nor do I have any objection to her having become a millionaire from the sales of her book and that she will be well on her way to becoming a multimillionare once the planned translations of it into thirteen of the world’s languages have been completed. My uncompromising objections to Professor Chua are two-fold: her abuses of young children pursued to further her own narcissistic urgencies and her deep commitment of abuse of the art of music – of which she seemingly has no knowledge whatsoever – for reasons having nothing to do with that art. My shots at her are far from what J.G. calls “cheap shots.” They do in fact go to the heart of the problems with her that remain my chief concerns. J.G. and most of his fellow travelers in their tepid defenses of Professor Chua continue to focus on her inherited emphasis of the sorry state of public education in The United States. What else is new? As with most of the ringing endorsements of Amy Chua, those from J.G. are clearly from a mind not wholly engaged. He has written ” it's hard to argue that the average American child needs less discipline, less direction or less respect for others. In his tangled syntax I’m quite sure he means – at least I’m hoping he means – it's hard to argue that the average American child does not need more discipline, more direction or more respect for others. J.G. has written further, “p.s. It seems ironic that an Asian-American female who went to Williams (fulfilling a fantasy of Chinese parents everywhere) . . . “ Again, but this time TWO thoughts from nowhere! What has Williams College to do with Amy Chua (Harvard, A.B. ’84)? And since when has Williams even been on the “fantasy” palate “of Chinese parents everywhere?” Professor Chua usually receives the quality of defense she deserves. ____________________________ André M. Smith, Bach Mus, Mas Sci (Juilliard) Diploma (Lenox Hill Hospital School of Respiratory Therapy) Postgraduate studies in Human and Comparative Anatomy (Columbia University) Formerly Bass Trombonist The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra of New York, Leopold Stokowski’s American Symphony Orchestra (Carnegie Hall), The Juilliard Orchestra, Aspen Festival Orchestra, etc. There is a recurring theme without solid core that continues to recycle on the question of Amy Chua and her style as a mother. J.G. (unfortunately anonymous, as are most of the endorsements of Professor Chua) has written

I think it’s easy to take cheap shots at Chua, but it’s hard to argue that the average American child needs less discipline, less direction or less respect for others.
It might seem amusing to mock her (her “cushy job” and “hottie husband”), but harder to actually consider the points being made in a non-defensive way, without trying to paint yourself as the “cool mom” who prefers three martini playdates?

p.s. It seems ironic that an Asian-American female who went to Williams (fulfilling a fantasy of Chinese parents everywhere) would paint her parents as laissez-faire and herself as moderately motivated.
Posted by: J.G. | January 18, 2011 at 02:31 PM http://thecareerist.typepad.com/thecareerist/2011/01/chinese-moms.html

I, for one, have no interest whatsoever in her “cushy job” and “hottie husband.” Nor do I have any objection to her having become a millionaire from the sales of her book and that she will be well on her way to becoming a multimillionare once the planned translations of it into thirteen of the world’s languages have been completed. My uncompromising objections to Professor Chua are two-fold: her abuses of young children pursued to further her own narcissistic urgencies and her deep commitment of abuse of the art of music – of which she seemingly has no knowledge whatsoever – for reasons having nothing to do with that art. My shots at her are far from what J.G. calls “cheap shots.” They do in fact go to the heart of the problems with her that remain my chief concerns.

J.G. and most of his fellow travelers in their tepid defenses of Professor Chua continue to focus on her inherited emphasis of the sorry state of public education in The United States. What else is new?

As with most of the ringing endorsements of Amy Chua, those from J.G. are clearly from a mind not wholly engaged. He has written ” it’s hard to argue that the average American child needs less discipline, less direction or less respect for others. In his tangled syntax I’m quite sure he means – at least I’m hoping he means – it’s hard to argue that the average American child does not need more discipline, more direction or more respect for others.

J.G. has written further, “p.s. It seems ironic that an Asian-American female who went to Williams (fulfilling a fantasy of Chinese parents everywhere) . . . “ Again, but this time TWO thoughts from nowhere! What has Williams College to do with Amy Chua (Harvard, A.B. ’84)? And since when has Williams even been on the “fantasy” palate “of Chinese parents everywhere?”

Professor Chua usually receives the quality of defense she deserves.
____________________________

André M. Smith, Bach Mus, Mas Sci (Juilliard)
Diploma (Lenox Hill Hospital School of Respiratory Therapy)
Postgraduate studies in Human and Comparative Anatomy (Columbia University)
Formerly Bass Trombonist
The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra of New York,
Leopold Stokowski’s American Symphony Orchestra (Carnegie Hall),
The Juilliard Orchestra, Aspen Festival Orchestra, etc.

]]> Comment on Thoughts on the ‘Tiger Mother’ Controversy by Andre M. Smith http://thesocietypages.org/colorline/2011/01/24/thoughts-on-the-%e2%80%98tiger-mother%e2%80%99-controversy/comment-page-1/#comment-120 Andre M. Smith Sun, 25 Mar 2012 16:57:50 +0000 http://www.asian-nation.org/headlines/?p=1704#comment-120 I divide my year annually between New York and Shanghai. One of my common visitations in the latter city is to the area in and around The Shanghai Conservatory of Music. About four years back the school built a large new building on Fenyang Lu. Along the street side is a lower level with a string of music stores stocked with new instruments. In four of those stores I counted, literally, one trumpet, one horn, one trombone, no tuba, two flutes, one clarinet, one oboe, no bassoon, a handful of strings (but no string bass), and two-hundred pianos! The single trombone (my instrument) looked and felt like it had been made in an industrial arts school as a class project. I asked one of the clerks how many trombone students were then enrolled in the Conservatory. “Five,” he replied. I told him it would be impossible for any serious student of that instrument to plan advancement playing such useless metal and asked what brand of instruments are taught upstairs. All the trombones were imported by the school, only as needed, from Yamaha in Japan. But, why the sea of pianos? Most parents do not want their children spending, i.e., wasting, their time on any instrument for which a student can not enter a contest and win prizes. Prizes mean medals and certificates, which Mommy and Daddy can display as their own achievements by extension. It is the major conservatories in China (Shanghai, Beijing, Shenyang, and Wuhan) which are responsible for continuing to nurture this false status, while, visually at least, giving the external impression that China is a major cultural locus of Western classical music. Anyone who has heard the wind sections of a major symphony orchestra in China will hear just how major the cultural locus is in China for those instruments. Naïve morons; school and parent alike! For the serious student having neither interest nor ability to become a graduate of Harvard Medical School, this phony sequence of contest successes may lead to Juilliard in New York or Curtis in Philadelphia. “If a clown like Lang Lang can make it, then so can my little angel. Who is, of course, the most adept keyboard wizard to blossom since Lawrence Welk or Rachmaninoff.” Stage mothers: Away with them! All of this clap-trap nonsense has no relationship whatsoever to two very important issues: music or Asian American. It is, with the rarest of exceptions, largely Oriental in the homeland. Atavistic immigrants from those eastern cultures or those descended directly therefrom – like the ever-psychobashing Kommandant Amy Chua – have some untested, sentimental notion that music opens doors and ensures careers in whatever direction the unmusical music student chooses; which the student is free to choose, so long as it isn’t music. (Try to figure out that one. “You are free to study physics or mathematics, so long as you don’t attempt to make a career of them.”) For the past forty years during my own studies in medicine and music in New York I have been wedded to and worked closely with and around nurses, physicians, surgeons, and medical technicians active in all the standard disciplines. Those persons have come from all modern regions of the world. And, yes, some of my coworkers have come from the beloved Harvard Medical School. But, I can write with authority, the number of those professional persons who have had any direct contact at any times in their lives with piano or violin is insignificantly small. No one has ever wasted time typing me as a wimp. Nevertheless, with an Amy Chua of my own only thinly masking a contempt while ostensibly trying to encourage me before the age of ten by classing me as “garbage, “lazy,” “useless,” and a host of other niceties (a savage, a juvenile delinquent, boring, common, low, completely ordinary, a barbarian) all the while forbidding me to sit on a toilet until I can play triplets in one hand against duolets in the other mechanistically en duo with a metronome might have (likely would have) set me up both for advanced training to climb The Texas Tower and chronic constipation. ___________________________ André M. Smith, Bach Mus, Mas Sci (Juilliard) Diploma (Lenox Hill Hospital School of Respiratory Therapy) Postgraduate studies in Human and Comparative Anatomy (Columbia University) Formerly Bass Trombonist The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra of New York, Leopold Stokowski’s American Symphony Orchestra (Carnegie Hall), The Juilliard Orchestra, Aspen Festival Orchestra, etc. I divide my year annually between New York and Shanghai. One of my common visitations in the latter city is to the area in and around The Shanghai Conservatory of Music. About four years back the school built a large new building on Fenyang Lu. Along the street side is a lower level with a string of music stores stocked with new instruments. In four of those stores I counted, literally, one trumpet, one horn, one trombone, no tuba, two flutes, one clarinet, one oboe, no bassoon, a handful of strings (but no string bass), and two-hundred pianos! The single trombone (my instrument) looked and felt like it had been made in an industrial arts school as a class project. I asked one of the clerks how many trombone students were
then enrolled in the Conservatory. “Five,” he replied. I told him it would be impossible for any serious student of that instrument to plan advancement playing such useless metal and asked what brand of instruments are taught upstairs. All the trombones were imported by the school, only as needed, from Yamaha in Japan. But, why the sea of pianos?

Most parents do not want their children spending, i.e., wasting, their time on any instrument for which a student can not enter a contest and win prizes. Prizes mean medals and certificates, which Mommy and Daddy can display as their own achievements by extension. It is the major conservatories in China (Shanghai, Beijing, Shenyang, and Wuhan) which are responsible for continuing to nurture this false status, while, visually at least, giving the external impression that China is a major cultural locus of Western classical music. Anyone who has heard the wind sections of a major symphony orchestra in China will hear just how major the cultural locus is in China for those instruments. Naïve morons; school and parent alike!

For the serious student having neither interest nor ability to become a graduate of Harvard Medical School, this phony sequence of contest successes may lead to Juilliard in New York or Curtis in Philadelphia. “If a clown like Lang Lang can make it, then so can my little angel. Who is, of course, the most adept keyboard wizard to blossom since Lawrence Welk or Rachmaninoff.” Stage mothers: Away with them!

All of this clap-trap nonsense has no relationship whatsoever to two very important issues: music or Asian American. It is, with the rarest of exceptions, largely Oriental in the homeland. Atavistic immigrants from those eastern cultures or those descended directly therefrom – like the ever-psychobashing Kommandant Amy Chua – have some untested, sentimental notion that music opens doors and ensures careers in whatever direction the unmusical music student chooses; which the student is free to choose, so long as it isn’t music. (Try to figure out that one. “You are free to study physics or mathematics, so long as you don’t attempt to make a career of them.”)

For the past forty years during my own studies in medicine and music in New York I have been wedded to and worked closely with and around nurses, physicians, surgeons, and medical technicians active in all the standard disciplines. Those persons have come from all modern regions of the world. And, yes, some of my coworkers have come from the beloved Harvard Medical School. But, I can write with authority, the number of those professional persons who have had any direct contact at any times in their lives with piano or violin is insignificantly small.

No one has ever wasted time typing me as a wimp. Nevertheless, with an Amy Chua of my own only thinly masking a contempt while ostensibly trying to encourage me before the age of ten by classing me as “garbage, “lazy,” “useless,” and a host of other niceties (a savage, a juvenile delinquent, boring, common, low, completely ordinary, a barbarian) all the while forbidding me to sit on a toilet until I can play triplets in one hand against duolets in the other mechanistically en duo with a metronome might have (likely would have) set me up both for advanced training to climb The Texas Tower and chronic constipation.
___________________________

André M. Smith, Bach Mus, Mas Sci (Juilliard)
Diploma (Lenox Hill Hospital School of Respiratory Therapy)
Postgraduate studies in Human and Comparative Anatomy (Columbia University)
Formerly Bass Trombonist
The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra of New York,
Leopold Stokowski’s American Symphony Orchestra (Carnegie Hall),
The Juilliard Orchestra, Aspen Festival Orchestra, etc.

]]> Comment on Thoughts on the ‘Tiger Mother’ Controversy by Andre M. Smith http://thesocietypages.org/colorline/2011/01/24/thoughts-on-the-%e2%80%98tiger-mother%e2%80%99-controversy/comment-page-1/#comment-118 Andre M. Smith Sun, 25 Mar 2012 16:51:46 +0000 http://www.asian-nation.org/headlines/?p=1704#comment-118 Why is the art of music required to endure the ill-informed antics of such inartistic imbeciles as Amy Chua? Her lust for fame as an old-fashioned stage mother of either a famous violinist (yet another mechanical Sarah Chang?) or a famous pianist (yet another mechanical Lang Lang?) shines through what she perceives as devotion to the cultivation of the cultural sensitivities of her two unfortunate daughters. Daughter Lulu at age 7 is unable to play compound rhythms from Jacques Ibert with both hands coordinated? Leonard Bernstein couldn’t conduct this at age 50! And he isn’t the only musician of achievement with this-or-that shortcoming. We all have our closets with doors that are not always fully opened. And why all this Chinese obsession unthinkingly dumped on violin and piano? What do the parents with such insistence know of violin and piano repertoire? Further, what do they know of the great body of literature for flute? For French horn? For organ? For trumpet? Usually, nothing! For pressure-driven (not professionally-driven!) parents like Amy Chua their children, with few exceptions, will remain little more than mechanical sidebars to the core of classical music as it’s practiced by musicians with a humanistic foundation. Professor Chua better be socking away a hefty psychoreserve fund in preparation for the care and feeding of her two little lambs once it becomes clear to them both just how empty and ill-defined with pseudo-thorough grounding their emphasis has been on so-called achievement. Read more about this widespread, continuing problem in Forbidden Childhood (N.Y., 1957) by Ruth Slenczynska. ______________________ André M. Smith, Bach Mus, Mas Sci (Juilliard) Diploma (Lenox Hill Hospital School of Respiratory Therapy) Postgraduate studies in Human and Comparative Anatomy (Columbia University) Formerly Bass Trombonist The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra of New York, Leopold Stokowski’s American Symphony Orchestra (Carnegie Hall), The Juilliard Orchestra, Aspen Festival Orchestra, etc. Why is the art of music required to endure the ill-informed antics of such inartistic imbeciles as Amy Chua? Her lust for fame as an old-fashioned stage mother of either a famous violinist (yet another mechanical Sarah Chang?) or a famous pianist (yet another mechanical Lang Lang?) shines through what she perceives as devotion to the cultivation of the cultural sensitivities of her two unfortunate daughters.

Daughter Lulu at age 7 is unable to play compound rhythms from Jacques Ibert with both hands coordinated? Leonard Bernstein couldn’t conduct this at age 50! And he isn’t the only musician of achievement with this-or-that shortcoming. We all have our closets with doors that are not always fully opened.

And why all this Chinese obsession unthinkingly dumped on violin and piano? What do the parents with such insistence know of violin and piano repertoire? Further, what do they know of the great body of literature for flute? For French horn? For organ? For trumpet? Usually, nothing!

For pressure-driven (not professionally-driven!) parents like Amy Chua their children, with few exceptions, will remain little more than mechanical sidebars to the core of classical music as it’s practiced by musicians with a humanistic foundation.

Professor Chua better be socking away a hefty psychoreserve fund in preparation for the care and feeding of her two little lambs once it becomes clear to them both just how empty and ill-defined with pseudo-thorough grounding their emphasis has been on so-called achievement.

Read more about this widespread, continuing problem in Forbidden Childhood (N.Y., 1957) by Ruth Slenczynska.
______________________

André M. Smith, Bach Mus, Mas Sci (Juilliard)
Diploma (Lenox Hill Hospital School of Respiratory Therapy)
Postgraduate studies in Human and Comparative Anatomy (Columbia University)
Formerly Bass Trombonist
The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra of New York,
Leopold Stokowski’s American Symphony Orchestra (Carnegie Hall),
The Juilliard Orchestra, Aspen Festival Orchestra, etc.

]]> Comment on Recent Trends in Asian American Interracial Marriage Patterns by MaSir http://thesocietypages.org/colorline/2011/11/21/recent-trends-in-asian-american-interracial-marriage-patterns/comment-page-1/#comment-117 MaSir Sun, 11 Mar 2012 19:38:33 +0000 http://www.asian-nation.org/headlines/?p=1805#comment-117 Glad you posted this. Great analysis! I wish I would've found your post sooner before I posted a blog on this just yesterday. There's additional research that's been down by Pew Research Center which also makes note of this trend. I may have to update my blog now and link to your post. Glad you posted this. Great analysis!

I wish I would’ve found your post sooner before I posted a blog on this just yesterday. There’s additional research that’s been down by Pew Research Center which also makes note of this trend.

I may have to update my blog now and link to your post.

]]> Comment on It Was Inevitable: Racial Ignorance Against Jeremy Lin by rickg http://thesocietypages.org/colorline/2012/02/20/it-was-inevitable-racial-ignorance-against-jeremy-lin/comment-page-1/#comment-115 rickg Thu, 01 Mar 2012 01:27:36 +0000 http://www.asian-nation.org/headlines/?p=1830#comment-115 One example of a Hollywood movie that plays with and works against the trend you're talking about is "Romeo Must Die" - a modern day version of Romeo and Juliet starring Jet Li and the late Aaliyah. It's reviews aren't great, I know, but I still recommend it. One example of a Hollywood movie that plays with and works against the trend you’re talking about is “Romeo Must Die” – a modern day version of Romeo and Juliet starring Jet Li and the late Aaliyah. It’s reviews aren’t great, I know, but I still recommend it.

]]> Comment on It Was Inevitable: Racial Ignorance Against Jeremy Lin by Martin http://thesocietypages.org/colorline/2012/02/20/it-was-inevitable-racial-ignorance-against-jeremy-lin/comment-page-1/#comment-114 Martin Thu, 01 Mar 2012 01:07:36 +0000 http://www.asian-nation.org/headlines/?p=1830#comment-114 It's because caption "Chink in the Armor" is obviously being used as a double entendre in this case you moron. It’s because caption “Chink in the Armor” is obviously being used as a double entendre in this case you moron.

]]> Comment on It Was Inevitable: Racial Ignorance Against Jeremy Lin by syed ali http://thesocietypages.org/colorline/2012/02/20/it-was-inevitable-racial-ignorance-against-jeremy-lin/comment-page-1/#comment-112 syed ali Tue, 21 Feb 2012 22:18:20 +0000 http://www.asian-nation.org/headlines/?p=1830#comment-112 c'mon, when do you hear chink in everyday conversation? as for chink in the armor, it is in no way derogatory. sports reporters use it because it is incredibly trite, and they love nothing more than trite sports phraseology. to assume they were racist in its usage implies they could work with two levels of metaphors at once. if you read enough sports reporting, you'd see that is inconceivable save for a handful of sports writers, who would not be so crude. they're likely moronic, but that's probably only weakly correlated with their being or not being racist. espn's reaction was overkill; if you're going to can folk, do it because they're buffoons. whitlock on the other hand, now that's a special brand of obnoxious, doofus and moronic rolled into one. but hey, it's fox now, innit? c’mon, when do you hear chink in everyday conversation? as for chink in the armor, it is in no way derogatory. sports reporters use it because it is incredibly trite, and they love nothing more than trite sports phraseology. to assume they were racist in its usage implies they could work with two levels of metaphors at once. if you read enough sports reporting, you’d see that is inconceivable save for a handful of sports writers, who would not be so crude. they’re likely moronic, but that’s probably only weakly correlated with their being or not being racist. espn’s reaction was overkill; if you’re going to can folk, do it because they’re buffoons. whitlock on the other hand, now that’s a special brand of obnoxious, doofus and moronic rolled into one. but hey, it’s fox now, innit?

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