what is the anatomy of pride? what beat-down loser flush with learned helplessness came up with the idea that sticks and stones harm more than words?
if i call someone, especially a black someone, a nigger, i’m liable to be assaulted, physically and in the media, for insensitivity and hate and ignorance.
a black person calls another black person nigga with any number of derogatory adjectives with no repercussion. in the words of bounty hunter Jubal Early, does that seem right to you?
a black person calls a white person a cracker or any number of things and most people laugh or shrug it off.
i call a person a fag and it must be because i’m secretly harboring repressed homosexual desires or because i’m a Christian or i’m ignorant or i’m homophobic (actually scared of gays? really?).
according to various murmurings, the gay community is attempting to salvage (redeem?) the term by liberally calling each other fags. you know, desensitization and all. it doesn’t cause as much anxiety after so many applications of mean words.
my blonde sister-in-law tells blonde jokes. i laugh. as i returned pillows at Macys yesterday, the black sales associate with black hair had a self-proclaimed blonde moment. i thought it odd, but my blonde wife didn’t even bat an eyelash. and she’s an actual blonde.
i’m half Korean. my mom is fully Korean (the good kind). i’m proud of the exotic half of my ethnicity. it’s a good conversation piece. i haven’t worn the clothes much. i’m not sure who the president of South Korea is. there’s definitely a good portion of SoKo (what hipsters call it. just kidding. i’m totally full of $h!+) history where they got pushed around, i believe by Japan, and i know there’s some lingering resentment there. but not on my part. not on my mom’s part, either. i know that Seoul’s the capital city. i know my dad was in Pyongyang, near Panmunjom. but i had to look up how to spell those cities. but is that enough? can i be accused of being not proud enough?
i’m not sure if i’m proud of the white part of me. i’m not at all ashamed. don’t get me wrong but pride in one’s whiteness conjures images of pointy pillow case hoods and burning crosses.
when i was in fourth grade, George, a lanky and popular Mexican classmate, called me a “dirty Korean” during a soccer game. it didn’t roll off his tongue at all and everyone just kinda wrinkled their noses at his less than funny attempt at an insult. it wasn’t that they were horrified at his cultural insensitivity. it was simply less than laugh-worthy.
i wasn’t embarrassed or sad. i think i was just as confused as everyone else, because a minute ago George had asked me if i was Chinese. i wasn’t. i was Korean, though.
i don’t know what reputation Korea (the good one) has in the world. i know the food rules. i know the folks i’ve met at Korean churches are generous and kind and welcoming. but that might be just because it was a church.
once, i was mocked for being a virgin. but i didn’t blush. i was a little jealous that the insulter had already made it with a girl, but it didn’t hurt my feelings, nor did i feel the need to defend the honor of virgins worldwide. i was born a virgin. but i’m not one any more.
Paul said that in Christ, there is neither virgin nor veteran sex-haver, blonde nor bald, North or South Korean, proud or embarrassed American.
or something like that.
i wonder how far to take that. Chad says inflammatory things like you lose your rights once you sign on with Jesus. you submit yourself to the kingship of God to be a part of the Kingdom of Heaven. you lose the right to respond to a slight with anything but a turned cheek. you lose the basis for demanding an apology. you lose the right to expect sympathy. and this isn’t just in terms of your faith—because even if in modern society, life can be compartmentalized, i submit to you that modern society is not always correct. and a holistic, even more truthy view of life demands that faith not be set against work or family or friends or personal life.
even if you reject this premise or observation of reality, people are far too sensitive. people are mean. but people also leave things open-ended, frequently in art and in writing. of course being in the public eye widens the ripple any dropped stone might make in life. a private letter usually only reaches the recipient. the post-game press conference for the Super Bowl reaches a far wider audience. and a player’s slightly vague response to an innocuous question might be speculated about for weeks on sports radio and television.
so when someone writes a book that talks about character and the many traps and enemies of integrity but uses a thread in the title, content, marketing, and appearance of ninjas, among other things, people can see what they want. one of the bigger complaints about the Deadly Viper Character Assassins is that Asian people are displayed in a menacing manner. i’m literally dumbfounded. they are NINJAS. and by nature, as assassins, are scary. you wake up in the middle of the night and see a ninja in your room, you’re about to die (or be rescued in a totally awesome fashion).
other points of conflict are: confusion of Japanese and Chinese letters/characters, usage of Asian objects and symbols in a manner that is not honoring to the cultures they represent (kimonos, samurai, etc.), a line in the book that compares a made-up Chinese sounding name to a communicable disease.
Asians sound off here, here, and here.
there’s a little back and forth here at Church Marketing Sucks, which initially gave a good review to the book, then once the offended parties raised their collective voices, backed off and opened a forum for discussion.
ultimately, i’m having a tough time wading through the crap on both sides and figuring out why people are offended. some of the most eloquent responses fall along the lines of “we just are. why can’t you see that?” some of the more prominent responders are having a great day increasing their site hits by trolling various sites and linking back to their blogs while deleting opposing viewpoints from their own blog comments.
i don’t believe the authors intended to be hurtful or malicious or demeaning. most of the voices seem to agree, but feel that apologies are owed (they’ve since been given to some extent) and that more reconciliation is needed.
and so i’m examining myself to see where i’m hurtful and racist and unintentionally damaging to the kingdom i profess to be a part of, and from what i currently see, being offended and being offense don’t even necessarily go hand in hand. i’m not a journalist or a constitutional defender, but it seems that saying “x” might get you into trouble simply because someone heard you say that particular letter and felt “z” about it. freedom of speech is one of the stakes in this conversation.
we’re taught early on that words can’t harm. and then we’re taught that words can hurt more than broken bones. but looking back on the schoolyard rhyme, i think there’s a line missing about the thickness of our collective and individual skin.
governance, the two party system, and lawbreaking in the State of Offense
Posted by joezissss on November 19, 2009
what is the anatomy of pride? what beat-down loser flush with learned helplessness came up with the idea that sticks and stones harm more than words?
if i call someone, especially a black someone, a nigger, i’m liable to be assaulted, physically and in the media, for insensitivity and hate and ignorance.
a black person calls another black person nigga with any number of derogatory adjectives with no repercussion. in the words of bounty hunter Jubal Early, does that seem right to you?
a black person calls a white person a cracker or any number of things and most people laugh or shrug it off.
i call a person a fag and it must be because i’m secretly harboring repressed homosexual desires or because i’m a Christian or i’m ignorant or i’m homophobic (actually scared of gays? really?).
according to various murmurings, the gay community is attempting to salvage (redeem?) the term by liberally calling each other fags. you know, desensitization and all. it doesn’t cause as much anxiety after so many applications of mean words.
my blonde sister-in-law tells blonde jokes. i laugh. as i returned pillows at Macys yesterday, the black sales associate with black hair had a self-proclaimed blonde moment. i thought it odd, but my blonde wife didn’t even bat an eyelash. and she’s an actual blonde.
i’m half Korean. my mom is fully Korean (the good kind). i’m proud of the exotic half of my ethnicity. it’s a good conversation piece. i haven’t worn the clothes much. i’m not sure who the president of South Korea is. there’s definitely a good portion of SoKo (what hipsters call it. just kidding. i’m totally full of $h!+) history where they got pushed around, i believe by Japan, and i know there’s some lingering resentment there. but not on my part. not on my mom’s part, either. i know that Seoul’s the capital city. i know my dad was in Pyongyang, near Panmunjom. but i had to look up how to spell those cities. but is that enough? can i be accused of being not proud enough?
i’m not sure if i’m proud of the white part of me. i’m not at all ashamed. don’t get me wrong but pride in one’s whiteness conjures images of pointy pillow case hoods and burning crosses.
when i was in fourth grade, George, a lanky and popular Mexican classmate, called me a “dirty Korean” during a soccer game. it didn’t roll off his tongue at all and everyone just kinda wrinkled their noses at his less than funny attempt at an insult. it wasn’t that they were horrified at his cultural insensitivity. it was simply less than laugh-worthy.
i wasn’t embarrassed or sad. i think i was just as confused as everyone else, because a minute ago George had asked me if i was Chinese. i wasn’t. i was Korean, though.
i don’t know what reputation Korea (the good one) has in the world. i know the food rules. i know the folks i’ve met at Korean churches are generous and kind and welcoming. but that might be just because it was a church.
once, i was mocked for being a virgin. but i didn’t blush. i was a little jealous that the insulter had already made it with a girl, but it didn’t hurt my feelings, nor did i feel the need to defend the honor of virgins worldwide. i was born a virgin. but i’m not one any more.
Paul said that in Christ, there is neither virgin nor veteran sex-haver, blonde nor bald, North or South Korean, proud or embarrassed American.
or something like that.
i wonder how far to take that. Chad says inflammatory things like you lose your rights once you sign on with Jesus. you submit yourself to the kingship of God to be a part of the Kingdom of Heaven. you lose the right to respond to a slight with anything but a turned cheek. you lose the basis for demanding an apology. you lose the right to expect sympathy. and this isn’t just in terms of your faith—because even if in modern society, life can be compartmentalized, i submit to you that modern society is not always correct. and a holistic, even more truthy view of life demands that faith not be set against work or family or friends or personal life.
even if you reject this premise or observation of reality, people are far too sensitive. people are mean. but people also leave things open-ended, frequently in art and in writing. of course being in the public eye widens the ripple any dropped stone might make in life. a private letter usually only reaches the recipient. the post-game press conference for the Super Bowl reaches a far wider audience. and a player’s slightly vague response to an innocuous question might be speculated about for weeks on sports radio and television.
so when someone writes a book that talks about character and the many traps and enemies of integrity but uses a thread in the title, content, marketing, and appearance of ninjas, among other things, people can see what they want. one of the bigger complaints about the Deadly Viper Character Assassins is that Asian people are displayed in a menacing manner. i’m literally dumbfounded. they are NINJAS. and by nature, as assassins, are scary. you wake up in the middle of the night and see a ninja in your room, you’re about to die (or be rescued in a totally awesome fashion).
other points of conflict are: confusion of Japanese and Chinese letters/characters, usage of Asian objects and symbols in a manner that is not honoring to the cultures they represent (kimonos, samurai, etc.), a line in the book that compares a made-up Chinese sounding name to a communicable disease.
Asians sound off here, here, and here.
there’s a little back and forth here at Church Marketing Sucks, which initially gave a good review to the book, then once the offended parties raised their collective voices, backed off and opened a forum for discussion.
ultimately, i’m having a tough time wading through the crap on both sides and figuring out why people are offended. some of the most eloquent responses fall along the lines of “we just are. why can’t you see that?” some of the more prominent responders are having a great day increasing their site hits by trolling various sites and linking back to their blogs while deleting opposing viewpoints from their own blog comments.
i don’t believe the authors intended to be hurtful or malicious or demeaning. most of the voices seem to agree, but feel that apologies are owed (they’ve since been given to some extent) and that more reconciliation is needed.
and so i’m examining myself to see where i’m hurtful and racist and unintentionally damaging to the kingdom i profess to be a part of, and from what i currently see, being offended and being offense don’t even necessarily go hand in hand. i’m not a journalist or a constitutional defender, but it seems that saying “x” might get you into trouble simply because someone heard you say that particular letter and felt “z” about it. freedom of speech is one of the stakes in this conversation.
we’re taught early on that words can’t harm. and then we’re taught that words can hurt more than broken bones. but looking back on the schoolyard rhyme, i think there’s a line missing about the thickness of our collective and individual skin.
Posted in culture and society, news and social commentary | Tagged: deadly viper, asian-american, offended | 1 Comment »