https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pta08f6h9L8

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/social-media-changed-way-talk-race-justice/

I honestly was not surprised to find that Asian Americans were the fastest growing racial group while reading Theresa Senft and Safiya Umoja Noble’s “Race and Social Media,” Though I too noticed some of the issues in the way Pew Research Center categorized different Asian races into one, all-compassing racial group. It doesn’t accurately explain the proportion for each Asian community. But anyway, I digress…

As an Asian American myself, I never really understood the need to always identify myself as “Asian American” and not just “American” until I realized that identifying myself with the first label was important in explaining who I am. First-generation Asian Americans often find it difficult growing up in the United States because they’re trying to find a harmonious way to incorporate their ancestors’ culture while fitting into the American way of life. And honestly, it can be very difficult. For me, it was especially hard because I went to schools where the Asian population was not very large. I had a very few small friend group that could relate to my struggles (because we were all first-generation Americans in our family), but most of my friends did not experience the same upbringing as I did.

[Insert “The Internet” Here]
When I was in middle school, I was introduced to the wonderful, somewhat life-changing world of the internet. From Myspace to YouTube, I found comfort in watching videos of other Asian Americans who would talk about the same issues I was experiencing growing up as an Asian American. This community was then built among those who shared the same experiences. The internet became the place for Asian Americans to connect.

I realize now that much of the Asian-American dialogue regarding struggles and shared experiences can be found online. I could never find myself fully identifying with girls on TV or in movies. I now do social media for an online publication called Mochi, that strives to create a community for Asian-American young girls and women. Being part of this online publication helped me realize how wide-reaching the Asian-American community is online. YouTube and other online communities are still the place for Asian Americans to talk with one another because it’s still uncommon in mainstream media. This is why ABC’s new family sitcom “Fresh Off The Boat” is such a big deal for the Asian American community. It’s allowing their voices to be heard in a way that was not representative of their community before. I think the internet will always be the place for the Asian American community to connect and share, but hopefully this is the start of mainstream media incorporating more of what quickly growing minority populations within the United States need.

The readings this week really hit home for me. I grew up watching Youtube stars like Nigahiga- and, as the article mentions, it is pretty common to use humor to get at deeper concerns about race as a social construct- people throw it around a lot, but even in the most serious of social justice discussions, there seems to be a way in which it is used to shut others down. I found it funny that some scholars might want to confine race to “the dustbin of analytically useless terms”, but it helped me see past all the empty rhetoric and recognize that is really just an “ideological system” for “thinking about, categorizing and treating human beings”.

Despite this, people are more emotional than rational when it comes to the issue, and the fact that it has become so sensitive makes me wonder how differing sentiments can be expressed in other art forms, or even plainly, without somehow inciting race as a defense mechanism. Common arguments employed by communities of color/ minorities include their “history of oppression”, “cultural appropriation” and even stereotypes and microaggressions launched against them. One of the most difficult to refute is the fact that “white privilege” permits people outside the culture to ever understand the struggles of these minority groups.

While I find it problematic to use personal experience (or lack thereof) as a basis for shutting others arguments down, I wanted to reflect on my own status as a minority group on this campus. As an international student from Singapore, hardly anyone knows about my home country and what that says about my identity. I have had several people ask me where in China Singapore is, and causally compliment me on my good English. Fact is, Singapore is not part of China, and most people in Singapore speak English (it’s my first language). It is also a diaspora, as a number of US immigrant groups seem to be. More in this article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/13/opinion/tash-aw-being-chinese-in-singapore.html

However, unlike the tension created between whites and communities of color here, Singaporeans have used social media to respond more humorously than seriously to stereotypes and idiosyncrasies of the culture. It might be that it is difficult to offend anyone because the country is so young (about 50 years old) and we lack a strong sense of national pride, or that we have not been the victim of hate crimes or racially motivated wars. This, however, does not change the fact that we have learnt to take embarrassing facets of our culture very generously upon criticism. An example (Shit Singaporeans Say)-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r41uayjfg1w

Despite the fact that no one really understands my culture (nor would I claim to completely understand it myself), I don’t feel the need to use it as a tool against others. Further, I think the fact that these videos are created speak to the desire to contribute to a greater narrative about the way we interact with the world, and mis(portrayal) of Asians don’t really upset me. Stereotypes are meant to be reductionist, and while racism is alive and well here, the knowledge that the medium of humor is as reductionist as the stereotypes it seeks to imitate speaks to some truth in the representation. This also forces acknowledgement and further reflection on nuances and complexities.

While the race argument is very difficult to address, I think Spencer does a great job of pointing out that “the use of racial divisions emerged as a way of resolving the conflict between the ideology of equality for all and universal reason, and on the other hand, facts of social inequality”. But because social media has the power to democratize, it seems as though social inequality is temporarily suspended. It does not change the fact that racism is still prevalent, but because you can be anyone on social media, it removes the label of race and hopefully encourages us to develop arguments that are conceptual rather than simply contextual.

This week’s readings all revolved around the pertinent issue of race and how the concept has developed through online platforms in modern society. Race and racism has always been a touchy subject, but I feel like the Internet has definitely transformed the way both these subjects are presented in society. One particular way is through the integration of race and humor on social media and online activity. I remember stumbling upon this article, Kanye West’s Super Bowl Selfie Face Perfectly Captures How Everyone Feels About White People, that discusses infamous Kanye West’s Super Bowl selfie face in the context of race, overlaying his face on certain situations that are meant to poke fun at white people. One example:

Obviously, these images are meant to provoke laughter. Senft and Noble, in their essay “Race and Social Media, bring up the SWGSBG video, the concept of micro-aggressions, and how examples like that  ‘use humour to say something smart and discomforting about race,” which is definitely related to this article’s aim. Yet, I feel like it also defines a sort of racial divide, one that identifies a specific racial community by communities of other races. It speaks on racial stereotypes as well. Senft and Noble also point out examples of racial activity online, like Black Twitter, that show how the Internet is used to perform racial identities, which I feel is what’s happening through this article.

In terms of the idea of reverse racism, which is also discussed by Senft and Noble, this Buzzfeed article definitely acquired some backlash in the comments section. Examples:

I just think that the fact that humor is so often used on the Internet in the context of racial relations is a very important thing to note. Because all of this is happening in the Cyber world through jokes, Vines, etc., has it desensitized people on the real issues of racism in this society? How can this sort of approach to race online affect the discussion around it in the real and physical world?

In “Race and Social Media,” Theresa M. Senft and Safiya Umoja Noble make reference to “Black Twitter.” The term describes a collection of public communication between people who identify as Black online and can connect over their shared experience, including similar concerns, tastes, and cultural practices. Although the phenomenon would normally go unnoticed by the rest of the platform’s users, Black Twitter users have managed to generate considerable attention through regular command of Twitter’s “trending topics” and savvy hashtag use. Recently, Black Twitter became the subject of an academic study, which was approached with scrutiny and suspicion (most prominently by the people it intended to study) quickly after it was announced.

Although the study had multiple issues, one of the most concerning seemed to be its researchers. It was first credited primarily to three White men, with one person of color also receiving credit. The distribution of the project team caused many to question the potentially exploitative nature of the research. Could the phenomenon be understood adequately and portrayed fairly by people who did not participate in Black Twitter and were not even Black themselves? Even after the seemingly accidental minimization of the lead researcher’s contribution was explained, the team’s research methods were found questionable. The researchers chose to record Black Twitter’s activity based on viewership of the television show Scandal, which was interpreted as trivializing the community, which tended to prioritize political activism more significantly than entertainment.

Lastly, the purpose of the study was not made clear, and many people interpreted the researchers’ desire to connect online activity to “offline participation in black culture and politics” as an attempt to identify Twitter users who would be likely to mobilize a protest based on events in that affect the Black community. The process of the study was not transparent; no one announced the research ahead of time and no one attempted to obtain consent from people affected by the study. The confusion surrounding the work highlighted questionable research practices and potential ethical dilemmas while managing to alienate the community being studied.

In Senft and Noble’s Race and Social Media, they point out how in most of the media, press, and law reports, racist acts are made out to be singular acts exempt from the rest of society. This makes it seem like racism is something that is out of the norm, leaving no room to suggest that our culture itself harbors structural and societal racism.

I found a humorous, yet insightful video on YouTube that illustrates an interaction between a white man and Asian American woman, where he tries to ask her “where she’s from.” When she answers “San Diego…,” he goes on to “correct” her by asking “No, I mean where are you FROM… where are your people from?” Once she reveals her great-grandmother was from Seoul, he goes on talking about very stereotypical Korean/Asian things that he loves (“Oh I love Kimchi!”). The woman turns the conversation around and asks the man the same exact questions, then goes on to do equally stereotypical and caricatured British acts. The humor of the video, and the biggest statement from the video, comes from the fact that the man does not realize the racism in his actions, yet is offended and confused by the woman’s.

The most insightful piece this comedy sketch has to offer is a follow up clip of the actors reading the comments on the original video. A few of the commenters again fail to see the man’s original racism in his statements, stating that the woman’s acts were racist towards white people instead. Perhaps these people are unaware because this racism is imbedded in white culture; it is normal for some white people to think of themselves as the “original” Americans and to automatically view other races as foreign. They fail to see the racism in their own actions because the media treats racism as isolated acts committed by a few individuals. Luckily with the onset of social media, minorities are able to take their representation into their own hands and point out these flaws in our culture. One can hope that this new representation will translate to mainstream media, a platform that has huge potential to push societal change, and make our cultural stereotypes and racism apparent to everyone, not just the victims.

Gentle Reader, as I read through Senft and Noble’s essay “Race and Social Media,” I could not help but think of what W. E. B. DuBois brings up in his book The Souls of Black Folk. This resemblance was especially strong at the final section of the essay titled “Addressing the Problem” where it talks about, like in DuBois work, the problem of racial tension being placed on a group of people. Although in The Souls of Black Folk, DuBois addresses the issue of black people being blamed as the problem, and in this section of “Race and Social Media,” the finger is pointed at white people, there is still correspondence with the overall concerns of the color-line. Mixed-raced author Charles Chesnutt, who despite appearing white (much like Homer Plessy) identified himself as black,  describes his writing as “not so much the elevation of the colored people as the elevation of whites.”

The problem is neither black or white, although I would argue it unfixable. I do not see how there can ever be an answer to the problem of racial tension because even the generally accepted neoliberal, color-blind view of race still holds a “cemented” and often over-emphasized view, which Galloway brings up in “Does the Whatever Speak?”  I find myself somewhat unqualified arguing over topics like this though, probably due to being white myself. I can identify with the idea of whites actually being the problem, which can be highlighted in a (for some reason) uncanny way with this quote from “Race and Social Media”:

As we noted earlier, people of color have long used the Internet to gather together. Whites, too, have created spaces devoted to racial identity although as Jesse Daniels notes, at these sites tend to come with overtly racist political agendas.

I can never imagine a website created and monitored by whites for the promotion of “white” culture without it being dubbed as racist, supremacist, or at least exceptionalist. I am in no way arguing that there should be websites like this, although I am just interested in what the fuel is behind this. I understand the argument of the history of white supremacy, but will this ever go away? Is this all that is behind it? Of course, groups of white people have brought along some large problems within society, but will the times ever change that there is no line between race, or even boundaries that races have to follow? Will this only come when all people are mixed-race? I see it as a problem of coming to terms; but when the original problem that needs to find closure is simply too large, there seems to be no real answer. Or at least for now.

Although we have touched on the topic of race on the Internet and social media before, I appreciated this week’s focus on the issue of race. In particular, the reading “Race and Social Media”, by Senft and Noble, highlighted many issues that are common in our society in terms of race and often not addressed. Although the statistics regarding people of certain races online were interesting, I was especially intrigued by the part about racist YouTube videos online. I am not sure if I saw “Sh*t White Girls Say to Black Girls” when it came out, but I do remember seeing a lot of the similar videos at the time. SWGSBG (as it is referred to in the reading) is an example of how these videos have used humor to make a statement about race. Although these are edgy, some of these videos make us laugh, while also making us think a little harder about race.
Unfortunately, not all videos regarding race online are making a statement that makes us think. I was reminded in the reading about the girl from UCLA that made the racist video about Asians in the library that went viral. When Alexandra Wallace posted her rant about Asian students in an attempt to be funny, she completely missed the mark and instead offended thousands of people, not only at UCLA, but also in the entire Asian American community. Although this girl may say some of these comments to her friends anyways, the big problem is that she chose to post this on the Internet for everyone to see. Race is a sensitive issue sometimes, and social media is a sensitive medium, so her lack of filter when posting this shows she did not know how to use social media responsibly. This video also contributes to the over-arching theme of things put on the Internet that can stay up forever. Although this girl removed her video shortly after posting it, and receiving backlash, the video is still all over the Internet and is extremely easy to find. As shown by the attachment:

The network’s approach was to tell a universal, ambiguous, cornstarch story about Asian-Americans resembling moo goo gai pan written by a Persian-American who cut her teeth on race relations writing for Seth MacFarlane. But who is that show written for? –Eddie Huang, “Bamboo Ceiling TV”

After reading the excerpt of Theresa M. Senft and Safiya Umoja Noble’s Handbook of Social Media, I immediately figured that we needed to address the recently aired television sitcom, Fresh Off the Boat. FOB is an ABC sitcom adapted from the published memoir of Taiwanese-American chef and restaurateur, former lawyer/weed slanger, and all around cool guy, Eddie Huang. The man spits the truth about racial microagressions, in a manner I can relate to as a second generation Korean-American who can share similar experiences that he describes in his book. His book was widely well-received by those whose opinions mattered the most about this book, the Asian-Americans. Personally however, I had my suspicions about how well this book would translate onto an American television network. After watching the first and second episodes of the sitcom, my boyfriend, also Korean-American and I exchanged unsure glances and agreed that although we didn’t mind it, it definitely could have been better. We both wondered if the show’s humor and storylines would be better enjoyed by a white viewer. Huang definitely had his differences about the show’s adaptation and writes about his frustrations and hopes in an article featured in an issue of the New York Magazine.

As of now the show feels weak and as mild-mannered as the model-minority role we Asians are expected to exceed. Where’s the sriracha sauce?! The kimchi?! The episodes so far blandly imitate the A and B plots of a Malcolm in the Middle episode, but only with Asian stereotypes sprinkled in here and there. Huang addresses these issues in the article and rants about the complications of working against an industry so content on shoving their faces with Panda Express when there’s family owned Ding Tai Fung. I do have hope for this show however, but only if it is guided under the right hands. We cannot underestimate the power of addressing microagressions on a nationally broadcasted television sitcom, I just hope we can do all of them justice.

http://www.vulture.com/2015/01/eddie-huang-fresh-off-the-boat-abc.html?mid=facebook_nymag/