Remember how this girl was completely degraded down? It's been a couple of years since then, but I want to take the time to analyze this without all the fury context that was surrounding the incident.
The two points that she made were was that:
"Asian parents don't teach their kids to fend for themselves" and,
Don't f***ing go on your cellphone when you're in the library.
She does say other things which seem racist in a way, but to me, personally, doesn't really seem to cross the line of racism.
However the reality was that everyone at the time took her as a racist, which even lead to their, UCLA's Asian American Association, to take a media stance with her. Youtubers of the Asian American realm exploded that week too.
But really, what here constitutes as racism? Was this discrimination in anyway? Was she being hateful towards a single race?
She is definitely abrasive in communicating her grievances. It would seem as so her political science course is failing her in that respect. In this era of large groups of people having the need and want to be offended and been seen as a victim, she will be considered racist.
I do think her rant made so many ignorant assumptions that the polarization and Fe-ness that naturally occurs in SoCal exploded over the situation (as it is prone to do). UCLA's campus is overcrowded, competitive, aggressive, and nearly solid Asian last I checked (I used to go there for proctored exams), so I guess a clash like this was bound to happen.
I think it's much better that someone says what they're thinking than to hide it. Otherwise, we can't address some inaccurate assumptions:
1) That an individualist culture based in social contracts is inherently and obviously superior to a collectivist society. No reasons are necessary- just contempt and irritation based in discomfort.
2) That people should shed their cultures and traditions and adopt hers, again, because it's obviously the inherently correct way to live a life.
She seemed totally unaware that a lot of people might find her givens for her own culture, her assumptions about what is and isn't "right," potentially equally mock-worthy (things like provocative dress, her accent, her lack of understanding that she was born into a certain set of obligations to her family, or her struggle to work effectively in a crowd).
Discrimination in any form is telling someone who they are without listening to their perspectives and accepting those perspectives with some gravitas. Yes, we do it all the time, but it's wrong because it causes a massive amount of unnecessary suffering in the world and hinders societal progress. It means that the person with the biggest stick and the loudest, most aggressive voice gets all the power- even when they're wrong.
If she had kept her arguments to talking in the library being against the rules, she wouldn't have revealed her thoughtlessness on the topic and wouldn't have been harassing people for being of a certain race or culture (something people have had to put up with for most of human history and still put up with in a lot of jobs, businesses and neighborhoods).
You can probably look up "non-discrimination" policies on your college website for a definition of racism. Mine suggests that discrimination is any form of hostility (verbal included) based in stereotyping a class of persons. That seems much too qualitative for me. I prefer Wikipedia's definition of "verbal abuse" or "racism." I don't think there was enough hostility directed at any one person for her to be officially rebuked by the school, but it inches in that direction.
I don't understand why I can't channel this sociological... scribe-ness I feel today into all the essays I need to do. I've even looked back at old posts for inspiration and I've got nothing. *sigh*
I CAN SEE WHY SHE IS CONSIDERED RACIST SHES EXTREMELY IGNORANT TOWARD WHY SHES IN SCHOOL... TO BE OPEN TO OTHER PEOPLE! PEOPLE DONT COME HERE TO 'BE AMERICAN' THEY COME HERE FOR OPPORTUNITY AND MAINLY THAT OPPORTUNITY IS TO GET AN EDUCATION
IT JUST SOUNDS LIKE A ANOTHER WHITE CHUBBY GIRL UPSET THAT HER POSSIBLITIES ARE SLIPPING AWAY AND THATS MAINLY BECAUSE SHES FOCUSED ON THE WRONG THINGS! LIKE OTHER NATIONALITIES.
PEOLPLE LIKE THIS ANNOY ME BECUASE THEY DO NOTHING BUT COMPLAIN YET DO NOTHING TO MAKE THINGS BETTER.
I remember the week this was news. I gave my Chinese (ethnically. Socially he's one of the whitest guys I know) friend a hard time because his older brother was literally in his first year there at UCLA.
I think her "ching chong" impression of an Asian language crosses the line of racism. Like if some high profile comedian did a bit nowadays and pulled out that voice it'd be news for a couple days. Also what the fuck? Americans don't talk on their phones in the library? Bitch please my campus library has people on the phone all the time. There are a few easy ways to solve this though, such as wearing headphones or moving to a different floor (most college libraries have dedicated quiet floors/areas and if someone makes a peep in those areas I'm pretty sure it's actually legal for everyone else in the room to stone them to death).
Also I think, to an extent, there's a particular mindset (especially on college campuses) that if you are white, you are inherently and inescapably racist. I don't really want to comment on this idea too much though, one way or another. I've just observed that it's present (I was literally taught it in one of the classes I took), as a white dude I have no judgement as to whether or not it's correct.
To be honest a lot of the people of Asian descent I've known have been some of the kindest and most supportive and well-mannered people I've ever met and her distaste for Asians as whole comes off a bit like some sorority bitch who pretty much only hangs out with her other white sorority bitch friends and just finds herself being annoyed by a group of people who she, at a distance, can't relate to. She's not necessarily a bad person for that. Sure, I find her annoying and intolerant, but that's my emotional reaction to her rather than an objective judgement.
Fucking chieftains of political correctness will make thing worse than they were before. I admire Asians in general, but who cares about what one Youtuber has to say until the arbiters of political correctness get ahold of it?
I agree with Cheeseumpuffs. The impression was just stupid. If she were to make a racist joke, she should have had the common courtesy (or lack thereof) to at least put some thought into it. It took pretty much no intellect to say what she did in that video. She's aggrandizing her own 'hard work, studying, and epiphanies'. Also, she's studying political science?! She makes less of a point than Trump at times. She also really doesn't know what Asian culture is like. It's very family-oriented, and people tend to have a sense of duty.
I've never seen this before, but her rant and venting is just terrible.
Discrimination in any form is telling someone who they are without listening to their perspectives and accepting those perspectives with some gravitas. Yes, we do it all the time, but it's wrong because it causes a massive amount of unnecessary suffering in the world and hinders societal progress. It means that the person with the biggest stick and the loudest, most aggressive voice gets all the power- even when they're wrong.
Wouldn't this fall under ignorance and not discrimination? It's because she doesn't understand the culture- just its appearances- therefore she makes ignorant assumptions. (I don't mean ignorant in a derogative manner here, I mean it by its literal definition [i.e. "lacking in knowledge or training; unlearned"])
I think her "ching chong" impression of an Asian language crosses the line of racism. Like if some high profile comedian did a bit nowadays and pulled out that voice it'd be news for a couple days. Also what the fuck? Americans don't talk on their phones in the library? Bitch please my campus library has people on the phone all the time. There are a few easy ways to solve this though, such as wearing headphones or moving to a different floor (most college libraries have dedicated quiet floors/areas and if someone makes a peep in those areas I'm pretty sure it's actually legal for everyone else in the room to stone them to death).
See again, is this racism? She doesn't understand the language, therefore she simply parodies the expressions. It's not exactly racist, but more of a play of a cultural stereotype that's been culturalized. What I mean by this is that this 'ching chong' terminology/usage has been around much longer than she has, it's ingrained as a type of cultural "notation". Jackie Chan and Chris Rock? Rush Hour? I could make parallels with other languages- we use Jamaican as a parody-like expression, same with French or let's say Italian.
(This is another topic in itself altogether, but worth the highlight)
Also I think, to an extent, there's a particular mindset (especially on college campuses) that if you are white, you are inherently and inescapably racist. I don't really want to comment on this idea too much though, one way or another. I've just observed that it's present (I was literally taught it in one of the classes I took), as a white dude I have no judgement as to whether or not it's correct.
It's not exactly racist, but more of a play of a cultural stereotype that's been culturalized. What I mean by this is that this 'ching chong' terminology/usage has been around much longer than she has, it's ingrained as a type of cultural "notation".
The word "nigger" has been around much longer than we have, does that mean it's not racist for me to go around complaining about all the niggers in the world?
Overall, I think she could be considered racist; but is she a racist?
If she could be considered racist doesn't that make her racist? It's not like there's a fundamental, platonic representation of who she is that exists and within that representation there's a label that proclaims her either "racist" or "not racist." The idea of racism is itself a social/cultural idea (ie. it depends on and is defined by interactions and relationships between humans) so if someone thinks she's racist then, as far as they're concerned, she is.
I think she's annoying. I think she's comparatively intolerant. I think she's a shitty person. However, I deliberately tried to avoid stating whether or not I think she's "a racist" in my original response because I think it's a label that people get bogged down in. Proclaiming her a racist would be attempting to make some kind of objective moral judgement on her nature as a human which seems fundamentally impossible and a little irresponsible.
It's not so black and white that anyone can be lumped in to either being racist or not. My answer to your question would be that she's more racist than most people I know but she's certainly not the worst offender.
Wouldn't this fall under ignorance and not discrimination? It's because she doesn't understand the culture- just its appearances- therefore she makes ignorant assumptions. (I don't mean ignorant in a derogative manner here, I mean it by its literal definition [i.e. "lacking in knowledge or training; unlearned"])
Overall, I think she could be considered racist; but is she a racist?
I guess it could fall under ignorance instead, but there can be considerable overlap between ignorance and discrimination instead it being either/or. "Ignorance" is a little bit subjective for one person to use to describe another in a case like this since it's being used as a relative measure between people. Because everyone... doesn't know something. *shrug* It's probably wasn't the best choice of words, but it carries a slight emotional quality that I think reflects how people can justifiably feel after hearing her speech.
In your example about her simply imitating a culture she is ignorant about, well... I think everyone at college level needs to realize that they need to start phrasing their ideas in a way that won't land them in serious doo-doo if they're proven wrong.
Also, there was a tone in her speech that wasn't at all neutral or without bias. I am ignorant about most cultures, but if I see a woman with a shaved head and a monk's outfit in class or if I see a man an orthodox Jewish outfit, I'm not going to start pointing and talking about how weird they look or how strange it is that anyone would do that to themselves. There's an emotional weight to my assuming that the individual is "weird" because they fall outside my comfort zone and that they therefore deserve to be singled out in manner that doesn't take their personal experiences into account.
I'm not sure if we can fairly say she is a racist... I think that "being" would be an inherent quality, so it would be an attitude someone has to hold over the course of an entire lifespan, so it couldn't be measured until death, but the video, we can get a strong inference that she experienced the beliefs and corresponding contemptuous emotions that constitute racism. But racist as a moment in time is something everyone has probably been at some point, or is to some degree or in little bursts.
Here's the dictionary's definition of racism:
"a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human racial groups determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one's own race is superior and has the right to dominate others"
...and I do think we can match her video up with this dictionary definition pretty neatly.
Probably this issue about the term "nigger" stems from the fact that it sounds like it's derived from a verb when actually it's not. This creates room for moving goalpoast generalized blame and irredeemable sin. Blacks have been cast as sisyphos fighting bulls just because of a stupid etymology coincidence.
The word "nigger" has been around much longer than we have, does that mean it's not racist for me to go around complaining about all the niggers in the world?
If she could be considered racist doesn't that make her racist? It's not like there's a fundamental, platonic representation of who she is that exists and within that representation there's a label that proclaims her either "racist" or "not racist." The idea of racism is itself a social/cultural idea (ie. it depends on and is defined by interactions and relationships between humans) so if someone thinks she's racist then, as far as they're concerned, she is.
I think she's annoying. I think she's comparatively intolerant. I think she's a shitty person. However, I deliberately tried to avoid stating whether or not I think she's "a racist" in my original response because I think it's a label that people get bogged down in. Proclaiming her a racist would be attempting to make some kind of objective moral judgement on her nature as a human which seems fundamentally impossible and a little irresponsible.
It's not so black and white that anyone can be lumped in to either being racist or not. My answer to your question would be that she's more racist than most people I know but she's certainly not the worst offender.
Agreed on the last part, she is hardly the worst offender, but I'm not sure whether or not should we be relative when considering someone a racist.
From how I see it, she's using the word 'Asian' to encompass and categorize people who offend her (and maybe even others) in some way- it's not exactly an remark that is inherently racial. darkmatters points out the tension between individualistic and collectivist cultures well. On the second point the girl's contending with, I think has some cognitive bias (not everyone who is on the phone in the library are Asian), but this doesn't exactly mean the problem is related to race. The problem is: people just shouldn't be on the phone when they're in the library.
In her defense (lol why am I defending her...) she does note that and give the possibility that Asians, (she's completely wrong in this regard as well but-) are on the phone because of the tsunami in Japan (the 2011 Sendai earthquake/tsunami etc etc, ['ching chong' -> Chinese =/= Japanese]). To me, that doesn't seem like hatred towards a race, more like.. possibility indifference?
I guess it could fall under ignorance instead, but there can be considerable overlap between ignorance and discrimination instead it being either/or. "Ignorance" is a little bit subjective for one person to use to describe another in a case like this since it's being used as a relative measure between people. Because everyone... doesn't know something. *shrug* It's probably wasn't the best choice of words, but it carries a slight emotional quality that I think reflects how people can justifiably feel after hearing her speech.
In your example about her simply imitating a culture she is ignorant about, well... I think everyone at college level needs to realize that they need to start phrasing their ideas in a way that won't land them in serious doo-doo if they're proven wrong.
Also, there was a tone in her speech that wasn't at all neutral or without bias. I am ignorant about most cultures, but if I see a woman with a shaved head and a monk's outfit in class or if I see a man an orthodox Jewish outfit, I'm not going to start pointing and talking about how weird they look or how strange it is that anyone would do that to themselves. There's an emotional weight to my assuming that the individual is "weird" because they fall outside my comfort zone and that they therefore deserve to be singled out in manner that doesn't take their personal experiences into account.
I'm not sure if we can fairly say she is a racist... I think that "being" would be an inherent quality, so it would be an attitude someone has to hold over the course of an entire lifespan, so it couldn't be measured until death, but the video, we can get a strong inference that she experienced the beliefs and corresponding contemptuous emotions that constitute racism. But racist as a moment in time is something everyone has probably been at some point, or is to some degree or in little bursts.
Here's the dictionary's definition of racism:
"a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human racial groups determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one's own race is superior and has the right to dominate others"
...and I do think we can match her video up with this dictionary definition pretty neatly.
I nod to nearly everything you said, especially the bold. But.. now- turning to the dictionary's definition of racism, does it really fit into the situation?
Like, is she saying that Asians cannot achieve, and is she explicitly saying or inferring that her own culture (whatever she means by "American manners") is better than the culture of someone else's? I don't see that, personally. I think this could be a type of racism, and that her expressions were racial and racially insensitive, but does that make her a racist? To me a racist is someone like Jesse Helms (@1:30) or someone who doesn't offer services simply because of race. I do agree that ignorance and discrimination overlaps, but I don't think just because it was ignorance that was in play makes her actions discriminatory.
From how I see it, she's using the word 'Asian' to encompass and categorize people who offend her (and maybe even others) in some way- it's not exactly an remark that is inherently racial.
Eeehhh, I'm not entirely certain how to respond to this. I think this lends itself to a slippery-slope-gray-area kind of argument.
On one hand I could see how, as a college student living in a densely populated college town, feels run down by a lot of annoying habits she perceives people around her doing and then notices that the majority of people who are annoying her are Asian (simply because the student population of UCLA is predominantly Asian) and then kind of extrapolates from there.
as a side note, this^ would still be considered a brand of intolerance, even if not explicitly racial. People are going to do things that bother you, that's part of existing. Suck it up and stop bitching about it because you are a bad person for not accepting that, even though you don't see these habits as normal or whatever, others might.
That said, taking the generalization that Asians are bad/annoying/shitty/etc people and then applying that generalization outwardly (for example, making a video that specifically complains about Asians as a race/culture) is, I would say, the basis of racism.
So yeah, her observations may not be inherently racial, but I think the conclusions she's drawn from those observations have, at least, the possibility to become inherently racial, if they aren't already.
On the second point the girl's contending with, I think has some cognitive bias (not everyone who is on the phone in the library are Asian), but this doesn't exactly mean the problem is related to race. The problem is: people just shouldn't be on the phone when they're in the library.
That's not necessarily how I interpreted what she said. Her example about talking on phones in the library is racially charged, I would say. She introduces it as a problem with asians and she makes a point of emphasizing the "asian-ness" of the offenders. She doesn't say "I hate people who talk on the phone in the library. It sucks when I'm being all studious and such in the library and I hear some asian over on the other side of the room chattering away on the phone."
The way I interpreted it was her essentially saying "Asians don't have any fucking manners. An example of this is when they start chingchonging around the library while I'm trying to be a genius and have epiphanies."
I'd agree that a whole lot of what some people see as hatred would be more accurately described as indifference. But also I think that indifference kind of lends itself to racism (or what people perceive as racism).
That indifference is kind of a hallmark of "white imperialism" or colonialism or whatever. Like the "I don't give a shit about your culture so I'm going to come in and do my thing here and I don't give a fuck whether or not my thing disparages/limits/harms/etc. you" mindset, which a lot of people connect to racism.
I'm not necessarily saying this is how I feel, I just know that this connection could easily be made. I'm not sure that racism definitively needs to be hateful to still be considered racism.
is she explicitly saying or inferring that her own culture (whatever she means by "American manners") is better than the culture of someone else's? I don't see that, personally.
Yes, I think she is. Essentially, how I've understood her, she's saying "You Asians have bad manners. American manners are better. You people need to behave more like me and my culture because I'm not comfortable existing around you and your culture."
Edit: This is just an observation I had and not really relevant to the conversation as a whole, but I was just kind of sitting here, eating my tortellini with chopsticks, when I realized that if this conversation had been about any other race, I probably wouldn't have become this involved in it. I wonder what it is about Asian cultures that gets me involved. Hurm.
She was bashed because she's easy. She fits into people's stereotype of what being someone who thinks in stereotypes looks like. She ticks every box for someone who's mind hasn't escaped their own upbringing.
- treats Asians as a category of offenders, and no white person ever answers their phone in the library.
- no specificity past 'Asian'. It's a big place with many different cultures.
- poorly impersonates dialect.
- prescribes own culture
- describes other cultural practice as inferior
- puts a large emphasis on the numbers of these people, implying there are too many
- the point about cell-phones is a rule for everyone, and making it specifically about race is pointless. Talk about the rule for everyone, then if there is some sort of cultural issue, mention it, but not in an accusatory way. "We often get people from X who have difficulty with this because they are not used to it or are unaware of our tradition/law/whatever. She made it personal.
- she fits the profile of white privilege, down to her phrasing and mannerisms.
Telling people to go outside just in case they find out their family is dead or in trouble because their hysterics might disturb the quiet needs no parody.
Basically, she was directing this video to her in-group at the expense of the target out-group. The spokespeople who represent that out-group saw an opportunity to further their goals (which is their job), by publicising this content which is of such poor quality as to undermine any serious position opposed to theirs. It's the equivelent of a straw-man. Every culture/ideology has idiots, the vocal ones are a liability.
Anyone who was actually interested in fixing the issue of people making noise in libraries would leave their pitchfork at home, at least until they've got some sort of evidence for their witch-hunt. Make a sign or something you daft bitch.
Agreed on the last part, she is hardly the worst offender, but I'm not sure whether or not should we be relative when considering someone a racist.
In her defense (lol why am I defending her...) she does note that and give the possibility that Asians, (she's completely wrong in this regard as well but-) are on the phone because of the tsunami in Japan (the 2011 Sendai earthquake/tsunami etc etc, ['ching chong' -> Chinese =/= Japanese]). To me, that doesn't seem like hatred towards a race, more like.. possibility indifference?
... turning to the dictionary's definition of racism, does it really fit into the situation?
...is she saying that Asians cannot achieve, and is she explicitly saying or inferring that her own culture ...is better than the culture of someone else's? I don't see that, personally. I think this could be a type of racism, and that her expressions were racial and racially insensitive, but does that make her a racist? To me a racist is someone like Jesse Helms (@1:30) or someone who doesn't offer services simply because of race. I do agree that ignorance and discrimination overlaps, but I don't think just because it was ignorance that was in play makes her actions discriminatory.
I think I see what you're saying. I'm going to rabbit trail a little.
Re: indifference versus hate, a lot of people argue that a lack of acceptance is nearly the same as hate (The Laramie Project). After having been close to several gay people in conservative areas and seeing what they deal with from Christians who "hate the sin, love the sinner," I have to agree. The net effect is usually a deep sense of shame, fear and inferiority- for no solid reason other than social convention. It's also something these peoples' more populous peers don't have to spend most of their lives wrestling with. So I understand why institutions have decided to be very careful about restricting harassment about deeply personal issues like race, religion, sex, etc. For one thing, it prevents humanity from reaping the benefits of having more minds in the think tank.
I don't think ignorance made her actions discriminatory either. I hope that wasn't the impression I conveyed, because no one knows everything, so everyone is at least partially ignorant, but that doesn't mean that someone in some state of ignorance is concurrently in a state of holding racist beliefs. Racism isn't a thing that has to be marked by physical actions or words. A lot of things aren't. And so racism isn't something that can be defined exclusively by the presence of specific words or actions like taking steps to bar someone from achievement like the guy in the YouTube video did with the lady in the elevator. Racism is completely internal until it leaks out, and we might only see little bits and pieces of it until then. I don't think it has to be consciously acknowledged either.
I see your perspective about her not necessarily inferring that she thinks "American culture" is superior and worthy of dominance. I agree with that more than I don't. It's that specificity about race that raises red flags, especially for a "new Ivy" like UCLA that is extremely large, old, ambitious and desperate to save face as a Californian flagship. I do think that it should be thinking seriously about its responsibility as one of the keys to maintaining good relations with countries like China.
But is she racist? *shrugs* I can't tell for sure.
Should the video have gone viral a la "so you've been shamed?" Pssh. Probably not. And I say that as someone who has some Asian in her. One of the most irritating things about the present is the ironically hateful, reactive back lashing that happens on social media. It might have been better for the video to just die out quietly. Californian culture tends to have high rates of shallowness and passive aggression in my estimation though. People here seem to view a bleached blonde with that sort of accent and demeanor as a pattern of a 'type' of 'spoiled' person, so I think I can understand the dynamics of the reactivity that surround this video.
Whether or not she's racist isn't as important to me as the fact that she's managed to become a really dumb and ignorant human despite having freedom of access to all the resources required to not be really dumb and ignorant.
I CAN SEE WHY SHE IS CONSIDERED RACIST SHES EXTREMELY IGNORANT TOWARD WHY SHES IN SCHOOL... TO BE OPEN TO OTHER PEOPLE! PEOPLE DONT COME HERE TO 'BE AMERICAN' THEY COME HERE FOR OPPORTUNITY AND MAINLY THAT OPPORTUNITY IS TO GET AN EDUCATION
IT JUST SOUNDS LIKE A ANOTHER WHITE CHUBBY GIRL UPSET THAT HER POSSIBLITIES ARE SLIPPING AWAY AND THATS MAINLY BECAUSE SHES FOCUSED ON THE WRONG THINGS! LIKE OTHER NATIONALITIES.
PEOLPLE LIKE THIS ANNOY ME BECUASE THEY DO NOTHING BUT COMPLAIN YET DO NOTHING TO MAKE THINGS BETTER.
I think there's a point she's making which is fair, if we take into account that when the same point is made against westerners, it's accepted fairly easily. When you go to somebody else's culture, you make some effort to respect the rules and their way of life. Westerners are derided for going to muslim countries and dressing too provocatively (very broad term which includes not wearing a headscarf in some places) or getting drunk, or talking too loudly (Americans get a lot of this) or anything else which shows ignorance, insensitivity and an arrogant refusal to adapt to the dominant culture while one's behaviour insults these people in their own homes. They're expected to show some awareness of cultural expectations in other areas and abide by them.
You could apply the same thinking here, if you're clear that it's a cultural and not racial divide (ie Asian Americans should have no difficulty seeing the problem). It's fair for people in any culture to feel like their home life (ie life in their country) is relatively undisrupted, and is more or less upheld by other members of that culture, and respected by visitors to that culture. Some visitors however enter someone else's culture but make no effort to learn the dominant expectations for behaviour and instead expect the culture to adapt to them - which is behaviour that will invite offence.
Consideration for the general public in small ways like maintaining silence in a library isn't an expectation present in every culture - the rule is a fairly small, simple one but it embodies the larger principle of 'be considerate of other people' - and I do often see Westerners tripped up by these differences overseas. Of course, you get idiots everywhere, but you generally consider them the minority unless the majority of representatives from a certain culture are exhibiting the same distasteful behaviour, in which case you attribute it to something cultural.
Where it's easy to fall into error is when you instantly attribute negative behaviour in a different-race/culture person to their race/culture, but attribute it to specific individual stupidity in someone from your own race/culture. This is a bias towards viewing outgroupers negatively as something inherent to group culture, rather than recognising the 'few bad eggs' rule.
She made some very unfortunate mistakes. Her biggest problems seem to be ignorance and impulsivity. Why she'd make that comment about the tsunami, backtrack fairly insincerely, and then go ahead and post the video is initially a little hard to understand... but then you realise she is quite young. Obviously hadn't thought about the issue much beyond her own irritation.
I watched the video of a couple of other "racist" young girls after that (the Santaluces High one)
and the biggest problem there seemed to be their youth and ignorance again - they were making jokes the way children do, and exploring their relatively new sexual attractiveness which they have to define in opposition to difference, in love with their power and particular brand of femininity. These girls are young and I've heard many similarly stupid lines of thought from children - I think they're native to most people, we just grow out of them through exposure and education. It seems like these girls have either been exposed to privileged, racist attitudes, or they haven't been exposed to differences being more attractive (ie having more power) than them. Privilege is very easy to assume; people naturally have high opinions of themselves, illusions of specialness, etc. It's fairly normal, even if disheartening, for people their age to be somewhat obsessed with their physical appearance and how well they're faring in the world, especially for a gender which is still primarily marketed and rewarded for appearance. Anyway, that's what I saw. Lots of appearance-based remarks, elevation of their own status in relation to different appearances (which is basic cattiness and takes place regardless of race), constantly primping in front of the camera, and lots of silly, physical-humour/impressions jokes, the sort children often make in a misguided sense of power and humour. They're transparently see-through in their self-infatuation and ignorance, and very typically 'white girl', thus like Hado said I think they were easy targets much like Miss Boobies here.
I actually think there's one more factor here making them particularly hate-worthy targets: their gender. Vanity is one of the easiest things you can target about a person, but especially women, because in general women make far more effort in the area of appearance, have more (completely visible) marketing directed at their appearance, and are judged more on their appearance. Vanity juxtaposed against any kind of serious point instantly weakens the speaker's position socially because it puts the vulnerable ego on display. Women routinely have their status lowered either by direct attacks on their appearance or attacks against them maintaining their appearance. These 3 women appear like worthless twits because they've got an attempted power-game on show (boobs in one, general primping in the other two, ostensibly meant to elicit favour in viewers) while attempting to draw on other sources to discredit other people's power. There's an easy way to instantly deny them status and punish them for their offensiveness, which was eagerly taken up by commenters. They also embody self-obsession, another easy avenue of attack. Miss Boobies was mocked also for her apparently paraded genius (at least she pronounced 'epiphany' correctly, unlike the hapless Michael Scott). I didn't think there was anything wrong with her talking about having epiphanies, but people jumped on it as a bubble of delusion they could prick. It certainly underscored her perception of herself as positive and others as negative.
There's not much of a point here (it's nothing to do with feminism or protecting women as victims, btw), other than to say that offended parties tend to find ways to tear apart the offender's ego, and women in one way have their ego transparent and visible at all times: their effort in looking good. And if they haven't made any effort, that's something detractors can jump on as well. They certainly deflate men too, but they usually have to make guesses at penis size and joke about living in a basement. Women are more obviously laughingstocks because an ego vulnerability (caring about how you look, *and* how you look) is on physical display.
[The above is explained from the perspective of general society. There are other reasons for choosing to look/dress a certain way than an effort to gain favour with others, but these generally aren't recognised and so aren't relevant in why some people are easier targets than others.]
+1 to darkmatters' post on the 'spoilt superficial' vibe.
Youth is another easy target. Lack of education, ignorance about the world and other cultures, juvenile and naive mental patterns, etc. These three things made these girls very easy to mock.
In conclusion, I can't tell if she's racist or just an idiot, but either way she's exhibiting ignorance and a lack of self-awareness. However, the point she's clumsily clutching at has some validity within the context of this point being made against the West.
Whether a member of any community has the right to enforce soft/unspoken cultural rules on visitors, or whether cultures should be preserved at all, is a different issue.
Instead of being surprised that "what?!! you have that human nature and you show it!"
why don't we realise that this is what going to happen when you put different people together,people do not like people that are different to them,we shouldn't deny that,hiding feelings won't make them disappear,it only make it harder to recognize people motives to their actions.
Every person is racist,every one of them,saying racist is "evil" is the same as saying all people are evil.If there is a cat and a milk in the room,the cat will try to eat it,the cat desire for milk is not evil.
The problem is only what people do with their feelings.
The automatic judgment of people according to race is "evil",you should judge person by who he is.
But you can't deny reality,there is difference between the races,there is a tendency.
If you want to hire a good basketball player you probably should focus on black candidates but still if you see a good white basketball player do not think he is not good because he is not black.
Eeehhh, I'm not entirely certain how to respond to this. I think this lends itself to a slippery-slope-gray-area kind of argument.
On one hand I could see how, as a college student living in a densely populated college town, feels run down by a lot of annoying habits she perceives people around her doing and then notices that the majority of people who are annoying her are Asian (simply because the student population of UCLA is predominantly Asian) and then kind of extrapolates from there.
as a side note, this^ would still be considered a brand of intolerance, even if not explicitly racial. People are going to do things that bother you, that's part of existing. Suck it up and stop bitching about it because you are a bad person for not accepting that, even though you don't see these habits as normal or whatever, others might.
But from here.. I'm not sure if our interpretation is fair.
That said, taking the generalization that Asians are bad/annoying/shitty/etc people and then applying that generalization outwardly (for example, making a video that specifically complains about Asians as a race/culture) is, I would say, the basis of racism.
So yeah, her observations may not be inherently racial, but I think the conclusions she's drawn from those observations have, at least, the possibility to become inherently racial, if they aren't already.
That's not necessarily how I interpreted what she said. Her example about talking on phones in the library is racially charged, I would say. She introduces it as a problem with asians and she makes a point of emphasizing the "asian-ness" of the offenders. She doesn't say "I hate people who talk on the phone in the library. It sucks when I'm being all studious and such in the library and I hear some asian over on the other side of the room chattering away on the phone."
The way I interpreted it was her essentially saying "Asians don't have any fucking manners. An example of this is when they start chingchonging around the library while I'm trying to be a genius and have epiphanies."
I don't think she meant it in that fashion, and I don't think she meant it in that way. And taking this further, I don't think just because some people took it to be offensive means there wasn't a problem in the first place (which she addresses).
See to me, from how I see it, "Asian" here isn't really used as a racial expression, it's more of a social grouping, like in parallel with 'goth', 'prep', or 'wasp'. She talks about race, yes, but does it automatically mean she's racist? If we go with the dictionary's definition of what a racist is, she doesn't seem to fit that profile, I.e. making claims about racial or cultural superiority. Just as an illustration, if a black person makes fun of wasps (white Anglo-Saxon protestants), does that black person automatically become a racist? Or if a white person goes to an Asian country, where they tell him or her to stop acting 'white' so that they wouldn't stand out, would that make the natives racist?
Going back to what I said earlier, I think she just uses a cultural stereotype that isn't inherently racist. Chris Rock impersonates Chinese people in films- is that really racist behavior or is it just an parody-like expression? I don't think merely making fun of a language or behavior constitutes as racism, it's something that was culturally ingrained, through film in this particular context. I think the background of where she inherited the terminology isn't connected to the definition of racism. I think it's more alluding to a social grouping rather than a cultural/ethnic one.
I think it's a bit different from the usage of 'nigger', which has definite, racial, historical ties which are explicably taught in schools (common knowledge).
Racism to me is inherent superiority of a race or a decline of services or rights because of race. I think what she expresses is fundamentally different- it's just her expression of her frustration was in bad taste, which could be interpreted wrong.
I'd agree that a whole lot of what some people see as hatred would be more accurately described as indifference. But also I think that indifference kind of lends itself to racism (or what people perceive as racism).
That indifference is kind of a hallmark of "white imperialism" or colonialism or whatever. Like the "I don't give a shit about your culture so I'm going to come in and do my thing here and I don't give a fuck whether or not my thing disparages/limits/harms/etc. you" mindset, which a lot of people connect to racism.
See again, does perception make her a racist? I think the fashion in which she expressed her grievances was a bit misleading, but I don't think that that her ignorance equals racism; just either naivety or insensibility. She tries to express something about a group of people which she had the misfortune (or stupidity/immaturity) of tying up with race.
I'm not necessarily saying this is how I feel, I just know that this connection could easily be made. I'm not sure that racism definitively needs to be hateful to still be considered racism.
Hmm, I personally think so. Hatred and fear I think, are the two main components, although ignorance could be a source. The output of racism on the other hand would be discrimination. I think the purest type of racism would be something like Aryanism. But hatred and fear are the two aspects I'd highlight.
Yes, I think she is. Essentially, how I've understood her, she's saying "You Asians have bad manners. American manners are better. You people need to behave more like me and my culture because I'm not comfortable existing around you and your culture."
I see how that would be interpreted, but, (I'm repeating myself here), I'm hesitant to say whether that's an accurate interpretation.
Edit: This is just an observation I had and not really relevant to the conversation as a whole, but I was just kind of sitting here, eating my tortellini with chopsticks, when I realized that if this conversation had been about any other race, I probably wouldn't have become this involved in it. I wonder what it is about Asian cultures that gets me involved. Hurm.
Should the video have gone viral a la "so you've been shamed?" Pssh. Probably not. And I say that as someone who has some Asian in her. One of the most irritating things about the present is the ironically hateful, reactive back lashing that happens on social media. It might have been better for the video to just die out quietly. Californian culture tends to have high rates of shallowness and passive aggression in my estimation though. People here seem to view a bleached blonde with that sort of accent and demeanor as a pattern of a 'type' of 'spoiled' person, so I think I can understand the dynamics of the reactivity that surround this video.
Yeah I think it's possible that some double standard was in play too. White blonde girl talking about other 'races'.. it's a bit, how do you call it, the majority in a minority.. going up against the major minority? It's sort of ironic. I think her 'preppy' look and her vernacular also had something to do with it as well. Anyway yeah, possible double standard.
Re: indifference versus hate, a lot of people argue that a lack of acceptance is nearly the same as hate (The Laramie Project). After having been close to several gay people in conservative areas and seeing what they deal with from Christians who "hate the sin, love the sinner," I have to agree. The net effect is usually a deep sense of shame, fear and inferiority- for no solid reason other than social convention. It's also something these peoples' more populous peers don't have to spend most of their lives wrestling with. So I understand why institutions have decided to be very careful about restricting harassment about deeply personal issues like race, religion, sex, etc. For one thing, it prevents humanity from reaping the benefits of having more minds in the think tank.
Hmm I'm not sure if we can make parallels with the LGBT issue- that's more in line with sexuality rather than race. Indifference in a race and indifference in a type of sexuality are different because of the qualia that are not able to be shared to really understand the issue involved. Anyone can experience and understand racism, not everyone can experience same sex sexual attraction. But this is another topic in itself altogether so.. (not gonna open up a can of worms here :x)
I don't think ignorance made her actions discriminatory either. I hope that wasn't the impression I conveyed, because no one knows everything, so everyone is at least partially ignorant, but that doesn't mean that someone in some state of ignorance is concurrently in a state of holding racist beliefs. Racism isn't a thing that has to be marked by physical actions or words. A lot of things aren't. And so racism isn't something that can be defined exclusively by the presence of specific words or actions like taking steps to bar someone from achievement like the guy in the YouTube video did with the lady in the elevator. Racism is completely internal until it leaks out, and we might only see little bits and pieces of it until then. I don't think it has to be consciously acknowledged either.
On the bold, I personally think so, because without it, how can we judge who's racist or not? We can't levy racism onto someone without it being seen in action, I think.
I see your perspective about her not necessarily inferring that she thinks "American culture" is superior and worthy of dominance. I agree with that more than I don't. It's that specificity about race that raises red flags, especially for a "new Ivy" like UCLA that is extremely large, old, ambitious and desperate to save face as a Californian flagship. I do think that it should be thinking seriously about its responsibility as one of the keys to maintaining good relations with countries like China.
But is she racist? *shrugs* I can't tell for sure.
I think there's a point she's making which is fair, if we take into account that when the same point is made against westerners, it's accepted fairly easily. When you go to somebody else's culture, you make some effort to respect the rules and their way of life. Westerners are derided for going to muslim countries and dressing too provocatively (very broad term which includes not wearing a headscarf in some places) or getting drunk, or talking too loudly (Americans get a lot of this) or anything else which shows ignorance, insensitivity and an arrogant refusal to adapt to the dominant culture while one's behaviour insults these people in their own homes. They're expected to show some awareness of cultural expectations in other areas and abide by them.
You could apply the same thinking here, if you're clear that it's a cultural and not racial divide (ie Asian Americans should have no difficulty seeing the problem). It's fair for people in any culture to feel like their home life (ie life in their country) is relatively undisrupted, and is more or less upheld by other members of that culture, and respected by visitors to that culture. Some visitors however enter someone else's culture but make no effort to learn the dominant expectations for behaviour and instead expect the culture to adapt to them - which is behaviour that will invite offence.
Consideration for the general public in small ways like maintaining silence in a library isn't an expectation present in every culture - the rule is a fairly small, simple one but it embodies the larger principle of 'be considerate of other people' - and I do often see Westerners tripped up by these differences overseas. Of course, you get idiots everywhere, but you generally consider them the minority unless the majority of representatives from a certain culture are exhibiting the same distasteful behaviour, in which case you attribute it to something cultural.
Where it's easy to fall into error is when you instantly attribute negative behaviour in a different-race/culture person to their race/culture, but attribute it to specific individual stupidity in someone from your own race/culture. This is a bias towards viewing outgroupers negatively as something inherent to group culture, rather than recognising the 'few bad eggs' rule.
She made some very unfortunate mistakes. Her biggest problems seem to be ignorance and impulsivity. Why she'd make that comment about the tsunami, backtrack fairly insincerely, and then go ahead and post the video is initially a little hard to understand... but then you realise she is quite young. Obviously hadn't thought about the issue much beyond her own irritation.
I watched the video of a couple of other "racist" young girls after that (the Santaluces High one)
and the biggest problem there seemed to be their youth and ignorance again - they were making jokes the way children do, and exploring their relatively new sexual attractiveness which they have to define in opposition to difference, in love with their power and particular brand of femininity. These girls are young and I've heard many similarly stupid lines of thought from children - I think they're native to most people, we just grow out of them through exposure and education. It seems like these girls have either been exposed to privileged, racist attitudes, or they haven't been exposed to differences being more attractive (ie having more power) than them. Privilege is very easy to assume; people naturally have high opinions of themselves, illusions of specialness, etc. It's fairly normal, even if disheartening, for people their age to be somewhat obsessed with their physical appearance and how well they're faring in the world, especially for a gender which is still primarily marketed and rewarded for appearance. Anyway, that's what I saw. Lots of appearance-based remarks, elevation of their own status in relation to different appearances (which is basic cattiness and takes place regardless of race), constantly primping in front of the camera, and lots of silly, physical-humour/impressions jokes, the sort children often make in a misguided sense of power and humour. They're transparently see-through in their self-infatuation and ignorance, and very typically 'white girl', thus like Hado said I think they were easy targets much like Miss Boobies here.
I'll nod to this. I'm not sure whether to brand this as a type of feminism, though it's pretty close to the feminist 'privilege mode' of thinking.
I actually think there's one more factor here making them particularly hate-worthy targets: their gender. Vanity is one of the easiest things you can target about a person, but especially women, because in general women make far more effort in the area of appearance, have more (completely visible) marketing directed at their appearance, and are judged more on their appearance. Vanity juxtaposed against any kind of serious point instantly weakens the speaker's position socially because it puts the vulnerable ego on display. Women routinely have their status lowered either by direct attacks on their appearance or attacks against them maintaining their appearance. These 3 women appear like worthless twits because they've got an attempted power-game on show (boobs in one, general primping in the other two, ostensibly meant to elicit favour in viewers) while attempting to draw on other sources to discredit other people's power. There's an easy way to instantly deny them status and punish them for their offensiveness, which was eagerly taken up by commenters. They also embody self-obsession, another easy avenue of attack. Miss Boobies was mocked also for her apparently paraded genius (at least she pronounced 'epiphany' correctly, unlike the hapless Michael Scott). I didn't think there was anything wrong with her talking about having epiphanies, but people jumped on it as a bubble of delusion they could prick. It certainly underscored her perception of herself as positive and others as negative.
There's not much of a point here (it's nothing to do with feminism or protecting women as victims, btw), other than to say that offended parties tend to find ways to tear apart the offender's ego, and women in one way have their ego transparent and visible at all times: their effort in looking good. And if they haven't made any effort, that's something detractors can jump on as well. They certainly deflate men too, but they usually have to make guesses at penis size and joke about living in a basement. Women are more obviously laughingstocks because an ego vulnerability (caring about how you look, *and* how you look) is on physical display.
[The above is explained from the perspective of general society. There are other reasons for choosing to look/dress a certain way than an effort to gain favour with others, but these generally aren't recognised and so aren't relevant in why some people are easier targets than others.]
+1 to darkmatters' post on the 'spoilt superficial' vibe.
lol, I think it's slightly bit too far, but I see how they could be like this.
Youth is another easy target. Lack of education, ignorance about the world and other cultures, juvenile and naive mental patterns, etc. These three things made these girls very easy to mock.
In conclusion, I can't tell if she's racist or just an idiot, but either way she's exhibiting ignorance and a lack of self-awareness. However, the point she's clumsily clutching at has some validity within the context of this point being made against the West.
Whether a member of any community has the right to enforce soft/unspoken cultural rules on visitors, or whether cultures should be preserved at all, is a different issue.
That was a nice balanced analysis, thanks. I'm not sure whether it's entirely 'the West' that' the problem here too, I think the reactions to her was reasonable, but a bit of a tangent and simply just reactionary, rather than getting engaged with the issues expressed. Seems like both parties are at fault to some degree- well, at least to me.
Well, she is lumping a whole group of people together based off of one thing-- Race. She is recognizing their phenotype and therefore that she is not color-blind. In lumping together an entire group of people based entirely off of race and making judgments or snap decisions about them, I would say that is as racist as it gets.
Is it discriminatory? It becomes discriminatory when she singles out a sole group of people for her misgrievances and in a way that makes distinctions based off unfair things like, race. Unfair may be subjective-- might I remind you that that AA community is extremely diverse between individuals, and a public library is full of more than just AAs but latinos, caucasians, and and african americans who also, most likely, talk on their cell phones if not just as much, but from time to time. She makes no distinctions of this, nor does she acknowledge it.
To make matters worse, she talks about it in the wake of the tsunami that took place in Japan, decimating towns, homes, and lives. Millions of Asians and their families abroad suffered that day. She showed zero empathy when she mentioned them in a pretend call, which she used to further her point-- Hatred is often said to be found at the root of prejudism. I am not saying she is prejudice, just that it was certainly what she portrayed.
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I've even looked back at old posts for inspiration and I've got nothing. *sigh*
because we're just BETTER 
