I cringe every time I hear those stupid Asian accent imitations too. My father has a very thick Korean accent, which I know he’s self-conscious about because he always used to ask me and my sister for pronunciation tips. His accent is not due to any lack of effort to learn English on his part, his reading and writing is near fluent. I hate to think that people (maybe even my friends) have probably mocked him for it behind his back.
그래서 당신은 나가 백인 이라고 해서 한국말을 할줄 모른다고 단정짓습니다. 이것이 바로 나가 얘기한 인종차별입니다. 이해하시겠습니까?? 당신이 나의 인종 ( 걷모습 )만을 보고 내가 한국말을 못한다고 생각하면 그것이 바로 인종차별 아니겠습니까???
Not all white people think they can live in another country without making at least an attempt to learn the language. To look at a white person and assume he speaks English, and only English, is making a prejudgement based on his race.
It is ironic, though, how the same type of people who say “You’re in America! Speak English”, are the same assholes who get stationed in foreign countries and make no effort to learn the language.
Not all people are like that. I will be stationed in Germany soon. And I have already started learning German. I will not stop learning and practicing until I am relocated. I think it’s more than prudent to learn the language of one’s host nation. Fortunately, I scored a 123 on the DLAB, so I can pick up new languages a bit easier than most.
And the rest of my post was not moot either. The point, and the truth, is that White people are not immune from racism even in America. You are wrong to assume that they are.
Bear_Nenno, I just want to say that I really respect you for this. I know how hard it is to learn a language, and I had plenty of American and Canadian friends in Korea that never made any real effort to learn the language (they were always very ashamed of it, though, and did learn basic phrases, but never took serious lessons or anything). There are so many Americans that come to foreign countries with double standards, as you mentioned in the latter part of your post. There are also decent Americans like yourself, who make the effort to fit in. That makes you cool. 
I only wish I could say that your example is the norm rather than the exception.
I think it’s silly to say that white people don’t experience racism, but I don’t think it’s really comparable to what minorities experience in the US. There is no social/systematic racism against whites. White people experience racism (in the US) mostly in isolated cases rather than in terms of a larger structure. And while racism can never be justified, I think it’s understandable that some individuals might harbor some bitterness against mainstream American society and end up taking it out on the next unlucky white person that crosses their path. (Again, I am not saying this is excusable, but it’s not beyond comprehension either.)
I have to admit, if you really wrote that I’m fairly impressed. But the fact I assumed you don’t know Korean doesn’t quite make me racist but closer to realistic, if somewhat presumptuous.
But the fact that you speak Korean doesn’t quite give you a ‘get out of jail free’ card concerning racial issues. Now I’m having less trouble believing that your joke did not contain malice, but it did ultimately undermine my complaints and triggered an influx of other jokes that made a mockery of the issues I was trying to discuss.
I know that Whites can experience racism, and it’s usually in areas where they are not the majority, and in most of the United States, they are. Like I said, if those White people came in and offered their experiences here or in a different thread, I don’t think they would’ve had the same reaction my OP did. I don’t think that non-Whites would come in and dismiss and undermine his/her complaints and call him/her a ‘honky’.
Look, I’m sorry that I made that jab about your marriage, but the fact is of the matter is, you don’t know me well enough to make jokes when I am obviously not in a joking mood. Maybe this wasn’t your intention, but from my end, it looked like an attempt to dismiss my complaints and it worked. It took 2 pages to get back on topic without (White) people questioning and attacking me. In hindsight, if I had reacted with less venom it probably would’ve been easier, but it’s very hard to stay cool when there’s a group of people very visibly snickering and rolling their eyes at you when you complain about something they know little about.
Can someone decipher the love note for us Occidental illiterates? Babelfish churned out some rather illucid “Engrish,” and my Korean-English dictionary is currently holding up a corner of my couch.
So, if I met you in real life, and I assumed that, because you’re Asian, you don’t speak English, that wouldn’t be racist?
Because I always kinda assumed that it would be.
Depends where. In the US, yes that would be mildly offensive. But if it happened to me, I wouldn’t think much of it other than that person needs to get out more. In South Korea, no. In fact, it would be strange if you assumed I did.
If you’re still trying to compare American in Korea with minority in the US, it doesn’t work. Radically different situations for a number of reasons (historically, demographically, etc).
I’ve been following this thread avidly because I am profoundly interested in all the different insights people have shared about their own perspectives, and I’d like to second that. I wouldn’t speculate on whether it is more than most not White people have experienced, but I have been horrified by things other White people have said to me, and left wondering if they said them because I was white and they assumed it was okay, or if somehow I did or said something to give them the impression that it was okay. I would like to say that was always cleared up by my response, but I suspect many times the other person simply thought I was weird or rude or crazy, as opposed to having a philosophical commitment to what I was saying.
In some ways, simply being white makes me play a role with institutionalized, casual (or not) racism as well. I think this even made the national news a few years ago, but in New York City it was fairly common knowledge that cabs were less likely to pick up Black men, even if that Black man was wearing a business suit. I still cringe when I remember when I was a clueless young professional and didn’t know that, and someone had to pull me aside and gently explain that it would be appreciated if I would stand around and be White when people were getting cabs. The whole thing was the epitome of white mortification, because all the while I was feeling miserable about it, I was also feeling guilty that I was feeling miserable when surely the person being denied the cab was the one with the biggest claim to misery.
On the other hand, I think I get what r4nd0mNumb3rs was saying in the sense that it is a luxury of sorts that I could ignore things like that if I was so inclined. Relatively speaking, it’s no doubt easier for me to put things like the cab situation out of my mind than it is for a person who has to think about it every time he needs to take a cab.
I liked your post, but I have no idea what you mean by this… can you explain it a little more?
그래서 당신은 나가 백인 이라고 해서 한국말을 할줄 모른다고 단정짓습니다. 이것이 바로 나가 얘기한 인종차별입니다. 이해하시겠습니까?? 당신이 나의 인종 ( 걷모습 )만을 보고 내가 한국말을 못한다고 생각하면 그것이 바로 인종차별 아니겠습니까???
So you assume I can’t speak Korean because I’m white. That is the racism I was talking about. Understand? If you think I can’t speak Korean because of my race (outer appearance), isn’t that racism?
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I am always somewhat surprised - and amused - when people assume I can’t speak English because I’m Asian. It led to some interesting situations in Korea, where sometimes foreigners would talk shit in front of me (but not about me specifically; just in general about the people around them) under the assumption that I couldn’t understand them. I posted somewhere else about this one time these American guys sitting next to me on a bus urged one of their party to “do me” because I obviously “wanted it bad.” :rolleyes: But to be fair, Koreans do the same thing - they talk crap about foreigners to their faces because they think they can get away with it.
There is plenty of racism in Korea, but I don’t think that has much to do with the topic at hand, which is racism in the US. The two attitudes are rooted in entirely different historical backgrounds and societies. If someone wants to start a thread pitting racism in Asia, knock yourselves out. I have plenty to say on the subject. But making comparisons between the two doesn’t seem very relevant here.
I’d be happy to, but before I launch into some crazy rambling exposition, were you asking about the logistics of getting cabs, or about how it made me feel?
I guess it was this sentence: “Someone had to pull me aside and gently explain that it would be appreciated if I would stand around and be White when people were getting cabs.”
What were you doing? Standing near Black people in an effort to get them cabs? (Not trying to be snarky, I truthfully don’t know what standing around and being White entails.) If you want to say more about it I’d be interested.
Yep, pretty much. Standing with a Black colleague to create the impression that I was the one who would be getting in the cab, so like a bait and switch from the cab driver’s point of view. While it sometimes happens that two people might dither over who was taking the cab (“you’re going uptown, I’m going to Brooklyn, why don’t you take this taxi and I’ll get the next one?”), in this particular situation it was very artificial, especially if there were several Black people needing cabs and it was repeated several times, and that often, I wasn’t ultimately taking a cab at all. There wasn’t a lot of discussion among my set of coworkers about this, it was more like everyone knew the drill and went through the motions with little or no comment. My feeling was that I wasn’t the person directly wronged, so I took my cue about whether or not to get vocal about it from the people who were. At the end of a long workday, people aren’t always in the mood to start conversations about Race In America when they just want to get home and watch Monday Night Football. Also, I was younger then (my first job) and less confident in my ability to initiate a conversation about an uncomfortable topic (I don’t know, maybe everyone wanted to talk about the elephant in the room but no one wanted to start). Now I would be able to navigate that a lot more deftly.
Other points I pondered about this was that it essentially meant assuming ahead of time that a random driver wouldn’t have stopped for a Black person, even if maybe the individual driver (who was as likely as not to be neither white or black) had absolutely never intentionally passed a person on the basis of race. And that seems unfair. Also, another bit of standard NYC cab etiquette was that a man would not leave a woman waiting alone for a cab at night - the woman would always be given the first cab - and I felt that it added to the discomfort of those Black men (especially if they were a little older) to take a taxi ahead of a woman – to add insult to injury, they were denied the opportunity to extend a common courtesy that they would otherwise be inclined to do. (We could also talk about whether or not that was sexist, but that’s probably a whole different conversation.)
But how does that dilemma come up? Why would the black men have to take a taxi ahead of women?
Presumably, because if the woman left first, the black man would be standing alone and, as such, would have trouble getting a cab.
Oh - dephica’s a woman. I assumed that all of her examples of bait & switch involved a white man as the bait.
Exactly so.
Here’s a quote from a 1999 article in the NY Times:
“The humiliating experience of being passed up by taxis, some of which then pick up white passengers a short distance away, has become almost a rite of passage for black men in New York City, where comedians have turned the experience into a gag that audiences find quite funny.”
Here is a link to the full article which I think requires NY Times registration.
For reference, my experiences with this that I’ve been describing happened in the mid-90s.
Right, I am the white woman being the bait.
A white person with an entreprenuerial streak could jump on this phenomona.
I can already see the commercials…
Hire-A-Decoy
For a small fee, your decoy will stand on the corner with you and help you flag down a taxi.
And for just a little extra, she’ll help you rent an apartment or buy/sell your house. She’ll even stand-in for you at job interviews!
Come on, white people. Think of all the opportunities!
Sounds like an improvement on the “white shoe polish” alternative.