Why mainstream asian activism is a complete failure.

I've written about this before here and elsewhere so I'll write it again:

Identity Politics - The issue your identity faces does not necessarily overlap with mine and I will never dedicate as much energy to solving your issues as I do my own.

There was a discussion about emasculation on the AA subreddit and one of the mods, I don't remember which (I believe it was Chinglish or something to that effect), brought up the idea that instead of fighting to be seen as "manly", maybe we should be fighting against the white patriarchy's idea of what masculinity was and help feminists redefine it so that it was less toxic (toxic masculinity) and could be expanded to included transgendered, gay and asexual men. I was initially pissed at that comment - I mean, the trans and asexual probably encompass less than 1% of Asian men, why the fuck should I step aside and include them? I learned later that the guy was transgendered and asexual. Of course he would want the definition expanded, that's his identity too and whether you agree with his identity or not, he is Asian and that overlaps with us.

But am I going to fight on his behalf? No. Because I can't bring myself to even pretend to care that much about an identity grouping that makes up such a small portion of the population when I got my own shit to deal with. And this ultimately is one of the reasons why feminism is such a big schism in the AA community. Men as a whole will never embrace feminism as much as women want us to. Why would we, it does nothing for men? That's why women are always going to demand more of us than we are willing to give and why there's always going to be a group of men who believe that feminists are asking for too much. I think it's important to be empathetic to other groups and peoples needs and support each other when they overlap but at the same time, I'm not going to pretend to give a shit when you start asking me to work with you to end the mythical wage gap. I will never identify with you, you will never identify with me. We end up fracturing an already pretty fractured group.

Asians complain about being grouped together as a monolithic group but we cannot get out of our own way when it comes to doing this to ourselves - Another example from the AA subreddit: In a thread about Affirmative Action one of the Pro voices argued that since Asian (read: Chinese and Indian) Americans are so overrepresented on college campuses, we should embrace the increased diversity that Affirmative Action brings to the table. He did not for one second consider that there are non-Chinese Asians and Indians that - as a demographic, have similar issues to blacks and Hispanics but lose out on Affirmative Action policies because they are grouped in with the monolithic Asian categories. I'm talking about people like Filipinos, Vietnamese, Sri Lankans (Tamils particularly) and so on.

Too much focus on mother countries: No offense to Chinese people here but I really don't give a good god damn fuck about how China is viewed by the west. The second part of Asian-American is AMERICAN. You should be fighting on behalf of people in the country you live in, not the country your parents came from. When you read anti-Chinese sentiments, your goal should be to convince people that you're American (or whatever country you live in), not to convince white people that not all Chinese people are like that. Plus, I hate to break it to you guys but everything you read about mainland Chinese people being uncouth on the internet is repeated by people from Hong Kong to a much higher degree. This isn't limited to China but Chinese Americans probably make up the bulk of Asian-America so I just chose to single out China.

I grew up hunting in Northern Ontario, playing hockey and baseball at school and picking up hobbies like Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and collecting overpriced audiophile grade headphones. My goal with identity activism was always to be seen as as Canadian as a flannel wearing lumberjack rather than being seen as a proud stoic Asian man. I'm culturally way more Canadian than I am anything else.

Change comes slowly. Most people - myself included, can't live with that. That's why we give up.

One of the books I read in college that later help formulate my ideas about activism was a book called The Rebel Sell. I would not say the book is required reading; in fact it probably has not aged all that well as it's main target was the anti-globalization movement that arose after the Soviet Union fell but preceded 9/11 and subsequently fizzled out after the Clash of Civilizations became the political issue of our time during the Bush years. The main thesis of the book is that counter-cultural movments just end up getting co-opted by mainstream culture and fed to the masses as counter culture but in a sanitized way. The real eye opener was the conclusion however. Revolutionary change comes very slowly and piece by piece. Look at how many years it took for gay people to go from the Stonewall Riots to gay marriage being legalized nationwide. Now imagine that combined with the setbacks the gay rights movement had to deal with as the AIDS epidemic was happening and further so with the religious right emerging a political force in America. This is not a fight that people have the heart to stand in for. People want to see Mike Tyson knock motherfuckers out in the first round but cannot appreciate watching Pernell Whitaker make fools out of his opponents for 12 rounds. Don't know who Sweat Pea is? Exactly.

/r/AsianMasculinity Thread