PSA- Fetishizing POC bodies
This is a public service announcement.
For anyone who still doesn’t get this- sleeping with, dating or marrying someone of another (POC) race does not mean that you’re not necessarily a racist and/or fetishizing piece of shit.
Everyone- just being “way more attracted” to one (POC) race over others is not a preference. No, what you’re doing is fetishizing their bodies based on dehumanizing societal tropes and stereotypes that say what people of that race are supposed to be like. Stereotypes that say what makes them “different,” what makes them “abnormal,” what makes them “other.” It’s gross and dehumanizing, point blank. So stop trying to use that phrase as an excuse, because it’s not one. It just shows that you’re fetishizing the shit out of that race of people. Stop.
POC- we are also guilty of fetishizing one another’s bodies a lot of the time, and that’s fucked up. No “free pass” on that dehumanizing BS. It’s wrong. Stop.
White people- just no, stop. Especially since you have set up global systems where you are the standard of beauty and where, as the standard, you are the “normal,” while our bodies are the exotic “other.” And because for centuries you systematically denigrated our bodies into “otherness,” building yours up as “normal,” and making us the objects of your fetishizing fantasies… when you do it, it’s especially gross and wrong. Get out of here with that bullshit. Just stop.
POC - (one last thing) Stereotyping and fetishizing people of your own race is equally if not more fucked up (“Oh, yeah, Asian women are so docile and obedient, I want one.” “Oh, black men are just so sexual and hypermasculine. I need one.”, etc.). That’s also messed up. Stop.
White people- (one last thing) Stop.
This has been a public service announcement.
“My race, my ethnicity, my heritage and my skin color… is NOT a fetish. I’m not some exotic safari. I’m not some ‘new territory/land’ that you need to conquer. I’m a human being with feelings, dreams and aspirations and should be treated with respect. We all should be!”
—End Colonial Mentality
"ASIANS BROUGHT IT ON THEMSELVES"
Green Onion <too_tardy@gmail.com> (unregistered) wrote:
Where were Asians when California Indians had bounties placed on them (scalp collecting) and were being slaughtered to collect said bounties that were tabulated based on age and sex? Where were the majority of Asians when the Civil Rights era was in full swing with the majority of POC (Asians are not POC) participating? Why do a lot of Asians tout their own superiority in this racial hierarchy to degrade other non-Caucasian groups and revel in it as well as basking in the idea of the model minority, going so far as to present IQ scores as their model of achieving what other groups couldn’t (due to having a different history in the States)? Face it, Asians brought it on themselves and expect others to sympathize? ROFL
IP address: 98.159.94.162
This uneducated racist douchebag just thought it was a smart idea to post this as a comment. Seeing as I am a contributor for an upcoming anthology and am unbelievably busy working on my entries, I don’t have time to write a comprehensive history of Asian cross-racial alliances within the United States.
Though here’s a few points to consider.
- Asians did not really begin arriving in the United States until 1850. The group, predominately Chinese, largely could not speak English, and did not understand the political climate of the United States and immediately were targets from the beginning of hate crimes and legally institutionalized forms of segregation, exclusion, discrimination, etc.
- Starting in 1854, a series of laws were passed that determined that Chinese were aliens in the country; could not become citizens due to being too “different”; had no rights to own land; could not testify in court; were taxed more than any other miners, black or white; could not marry outside of their race (an issue considering the fact that the Page Act of 1875 banned all Chinese women entrance into the country to prevent Chinese from procreation, which has been argued by many scholars as a form of genocide, creating the first bachelor society in the United States); were taxed based on the amount of air they were allowed to breathe in San Francisco; were driven out and forcibly deported; could not apply for business licenses; were taxed based on pole lengths (Chinese carried buckets and heavy packages on poles they held on their shoulders); were not allowed to vote; were segregated and forced into ghettos; were lynched and massacred by white folks on a regular basis; could not enter white-only establishments — so on and so forth. This culminated with the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, where NO Chinese were allowed entry into the United States. In 1917, the act expanded to include ALL of the “Asiatic races.” It was not until 1942 that this was overturned, and only then it was with a very small quota of approximately 100 immigrants per year, compared with the thousands of immigrants from Europe and other parts of the world. This changed in the 1960s when the quotas were lifted.
- During the infamous Plessy v. Ferguson case, which, if you do not know, means you know nothing at all about racial history and politics in the United States, Justice John Marshall Harlan argued against racial segregation only by invoking the “Oriental.” This is what he said: “There is a race so different from our own, that we do not permit those persons belonging to it to become citizens of the United States. Persons belonging to it are, with few exceptions, absolutely excluded from our country. I allude to the Chinese race.” And you were saying about Asians not being POC?
- Japanese Internment. Concentration camps in the United States of all Japanese on the West Coast and in Hawaii. ‘nuff said.
- There is a long and VERY RICH history of Afro-Asian solidarity that has been going on since the Bandung Conference of 1955. To the degree that figures such as Richard Wright, Malcolm X, W.E.B. Du Bois, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Huey Newton amongst others, have all spoken rather emphatically about the importance of Afro-Asian alliances that not only are generated domestically but also transnationally, as demonstrated by the way many black figures during this period romanticized Mao and China in general as a potential post-racial fantasy. (Du Bois, Newton, and Wright all spent time in China.) In response, Mao Zedong even issued two major proclamations supporting the Civil Rights Movement. Domestically, there has also been a very rich history that I am not going to bother to cover here in depth, seeing as you most likely don’t really care to learn anyway. Though if there’s a slight chance you might actually care to be blown away by history: Afro-Asia ed. Fred Ho and Bill Mullen; Afro Orientalism by Bill Mullen; Blacks and Asians ed. Hazel M. McFerson; Orientals by Robert Lee; Everybody Was Kung-Fu Fighting by Vijay Prashad; AfroAsian Encounters Ed. Heike Raphael-Hernandez and Shannon Steen
- Richard Aoki, one of the FOUNDING FIGURES OF, oh that’s right, just a small, completely unimportant organization known as the Black Panther Party. In fact, Bobby Seale credits Aoki for providing him with much of the philosophy that served as the foundation to the Party and for introducing him to Mao’s work. Oh gee, this just so happened to occur during the Civil Rights Movement. Or more appropriately, the Black Power Movement. (Disclaimer: I’m being sarcastic, guys, The Black Panther Party was a very important organization!) Not all Black Power Movement activists agreed with the idea of it being a Civil Rights Movement, but of course you wouldn’t have thought to learn more about the Movement before opening your mouth and saying some racist, ignorant bullshit.
- Yuki Kochiyama, one of Malcolm X’s most trusted disciples to the degree that he literally died with his head in her lap. She also, during the Black Power Movement, worked feverishly to get prisoners released and was instrumental in the movement.
- Grace Lee Boggs, another major Black Power activist who worked with Malcolm X and had even wanted him to run for president.
PSA: Do not exotify multi* people
We are not here for you to look at
We do not exist to satisfy your gaze
We are not here for you to fetishize and dehumanize
We are real people who are not around simply for you to objectify and exotify
I’m sure all multi* people have heard the ridiculous and fetishist stereotype that “all multiracial people are hot”
What many people fail to realize is that this stereotype is extremely harmful
Just because it is “positive” (hint: it’s not), does not mean that it is not damaging
It constantly robs multi* people of their humanity, it constantly degrades them into nothing more than walking mannequins, it reduces our entire existence into something for someone else to look at
And it’s even worse for multi* people because exotification of multi* people has a consistent history of othering them
Seriously. By exotifying us, you’re treating us as abnormal objects that do not fit the mainstream. This only further perpetuates these horrendous ideas that multi* people are not any of their composite identities- it’s used as a systematic way to exclude multi* people from claiming their identities. Exotifying us only prevents us from self-identifying as we would like to because now, not only are not any of our identities, we’re also not human.
Furthermore, it just keeps this weird, backwards “All people of [x] race look a certain way” idea that for some reason hasn’t died. As multi* people, we do not owe any explanations as to our physical ambiguity and we do not owe it to you to patronize your discomfort with the way we look. Calling us ‘exotic’ simply makes it clear that you think we can’t possibly be of the identities that make us up because we don’t fit into your narrow-minded idea of how they should look. I’m sure most people aren’t even aware of how many multi* people they run into in a day, simply because we don’t fit the ‘conventional’ look of our identities.
Moreover, not only has it excluded us from our identities, but it has also been used to exclude us from social and political processes. If we’re exotic, we are things, not people- if we are exotic, we are abnormal- if we are exotic, we are separate and do not need to take part in society. This line of thinking has been used to exclude multi* people from being fairly represented in government, education, minority activist groups, etc.
We are not things to look at
We are people
Do not exotify us
Do not fetishize us
Do not dehumanize us
Exotic vs Beautiful
Why can’t people just say you’re pretty or beautiful? Why is that when you are a person of color instead you’re described as “exotic” looking? Just because I don’t look like your average white person does not mean I have to be described with a whole different set of adjectives. Save the extra words and just say I’m pretty, because after all that is what you mean, I hope.
i really think that weaboos and koreaboos are getting somewhat smarter.
so to mask their wea/koreabooness, they use that bastardized “trans-ethnic” identity so they can justify their fetishization of japan and korea.
i mean, it’s just basically a classic middle class white person being bored with their tired ass white life and want some ~*exotic culture*` so they can feel more…well ~*exotic*~.
ugh i hate it. i hate it so much. ngl, i had a weaboo phase too. from 11~13, i was hook-line-and-sinker into ~*japanese culture*~ (it was also tied to my self-hating phase as a black woman). i had chopsticks in my bun, spoke broken japanese, think japan is all about the animanga and video game industry…you know the whole nine yards. i sometimes laugh at it, sometimes feel ashamed of it, etc. it’s a nice story to tell your kids when you’re older, but i also feel really stupid. cause 1) i was disrespecting japanese people 2) fetishized japan 3) bastardize the japanese language
it’s ultimately wrong and disrespectful and i wish i could apologize 1,000x. thank god i haven’t met any east asian people in my weaboo phase. i would’ve embarrassed myself like woah.
so i could relate to those trans-ethnic folks to a certain point, but i won’t tolerate it at all. it’s pathetic and borderline disgusting. |:
