Microassaults: Conscious and intentional actions or slurs, such as using racial epithets, displaying swastikas or deliberately serving a white person before a person of color in a restaurant.
Microinsults: Verbal and nonverbal communications that subtly convey rudeness and insensitivity and demean a person’s racial heritage or identity. An example is an employee who asks a colleague of color how she got her job, implying she may have landed it through an affirmative action or quota system.
Microinvalidations: Communications that subtly exclude, negate or nullify the thoughts, feelings or experiential reality of a person of color. For instance, white people often ask Asian-Americans where they were born, conveying the message that they are perpetual foreigners in their own land.
(via titotito)
Today is Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday, and in his honor, the Black students’ union sent out an email summing up MLK’s life, politics and legacy, along with a reminder of what we students can do. The email was sent to the Black students’ union email listserv and the Latino students’ union listserv.
But not to the Asian students’ union listserv.
Why the resistance to including Asians as people
“You’re clearly not white and encounter tons of ignorance from that circumstance, but you’re still more socially accepted than black and latino group due to “positive stereotypes” (bullshit IMO) and thus receive better access to resources i.e. health care, education. “
As an Asian American, I will have to slightly disagree with that statement, that Asians are more “socially acceptably.” It is not the people who are socially acceptable, it is our products.
By products I mean our food, history, mythology, culture, our martial arts, and dare I say it, the “exotic” nature of all that and more. Our products eventually became fetishized for most white people to consume and mold into their society.
In media, the Asian people are just as shafted and pigeon holed into the typecast roles that a white consumer society established for them, and if an Asian isn’t emulating any of those “positive stereotypes,” (ie if you don’t know kung fu, if you’re not nerd or geek smart, if you are not an Asian female that can be hypersexualized into an exotic trophy for the white man to win), you are denied opportunities and privileges just like anyone else of color.
Anyways, yeah wtf Asians are too of color and we love MLK as much as anyone does.
(via jesifiable)
Well… Naya is latin.
Naya’s the token. In addition, Naya Rivera is lightened up in her photo, which happens a lot in photos involving people of color.
Yup. Skin lightening happens to everyone, but particularly to people of color. Just look at Rihanna! That’s scary.
Glee seems to be a show completely made up of tokens. They preach diversity and inclusion, but only end up doing the typical Asian on Asian love, for example. The two characters then don’t get normal kisses, nope. They get “Asian kisses” as Jes mentioned in her last post. Glee markets to a (largely) ignorant audience who don’t recognize true diversity. I remember reading some posts by an LGBTIQ blogger about how to some fans of Glee, Kurt and Blaine had become more than just a popular couple…they had become a FETISH.
Diversity in YA Fiction is a website and book tour founded by two young adult authors, Malinda Lo and Cindy Pon, to celebrate diverse stories in YA.
DIYA is a positive, friendly gathering of readers and writers who want to see diversity in their fiction. We come from all walks of life and backgrounds, and we hope that you do, too. We encourage an attitude of openness and curiosity, and we welcome questions and discussion. Most of all, we can’t wait to have fun sharing some great books with you!
Cindy Pon is the author of Silver Phoenix (Greenwillow, 2009), which was named one of the Top Ten Fantasy and Science Fiction Books for Youth by the American Library Association’s Booklist, and one of 2009′s best Fantasy, Science Fiction and Horror by VOYA. The sequel to Silver Phoenix, titled Fury of the Phoenix, will be published in April 2011. Visit her website at www.cindypon.com.
Malinda Lo is the author of Ash (Little, Brown, 2009), which was a finalist for the William C. Morris YA Debut Award, and named one of the Kirkus Best Young Adult Novels of 2009. A companion novel to Ash, titled Huntress, will be published in April 2011. Visit her website at www.malindalo.com.