Racism is a problem.
Stories of racism turn up all the time, in every part of the world, whether it is an African-American who dared to return to America leaving behind in Shanghai the Chinese woman he impregnated, a black Brazilian man standing next to his Ford Ecosport SUV at a Carrefour in Brazil, or another African-American Harvard professor entering his own Massachusettes home. And these are just instance of racism against black people, in a world where racism and reverse-racism cuts not just both directions but every direction.
Lou Jing and her Chinese mother on the Chinese talent show, "Oriental Angels".
To see this, we only need to revisit the aforementioned Lou Jing fiasco, where a Shanghainese girl of mixed blood (black American and yellow Chinese) found herself in the middle of a torrent of racist comments by Chinese netizens, all kindly translated for us by infamous China-tabloid chinaSMACK (and the upstart ChinaHush).
Just as the examples of Chinese racism were outrageous were the foreigner comments predictable. In the face of ridiculously ignorant and malicious racism by many Chinese netizens, many foreign netizens flooded chinaSMACK’s comment section with equally ignorant and malicious racism against the Chinese. “A hah! I knew Chinese society was racist!” the chorus crooned.
To be sure, many of them meant well, meaning to voice their distaste for and opposition to racism in general, but so many simply couldn’t do so without racially generalizing the Chinese in the process. It was as if the only way they could show that they were outraged by racism against blacks was to be even more racist towards the Chinese. It made me wonder: Are these people here to condemn racism? Or are they here to condemn the Chinese?
Some may say, “we’re here to condemn the Chinese for their racism”. Indeed, and is it necessary to be racist in doing so? Or are we really here to use racism as an excuse to condemn the Chinese? Is using racism or tolerating racism to condemn racism somehow right? Or does it just create more problems of self-righteous hypocrisy…amongst races? Are those of us who consider ourselves non-racist actually not racist? Or have we merely been trained with conditional response to certain forms of racism but not others? What is more important? The state of being racist or the state of being Chinese?
Websites like chinaSMACK are as accurate — and as flawed — a representation and reflection of foreigners as it is of Chinese people.
Behind racism is a frightening combination of ignorance, insecurity, and plain stupidity. To this day, the vast majority of humanity is still content to align themselves to race and nationality over logic and rationality. We still find it more important to reinforce or tolerate the superficial identities and seemingly persuasive diatribes that make “us” better and “them” worse, rather than celebrate the similarities that make “us” better and condemn the similarities that make “us” worse.
Racism is a problem. With all of us.
UPDATE: Great post by Uln on this topic over at CHINAYOUREN »
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Chinese Racism: Yes, It Exists, But Why Won’t They Admit It? 
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It is truely bizarre what’s being said over there. Off the top of my head, here’s a few reasons why it’s happening…
1. The forum: there’s just no consequences for being anonymous and stupid
2. The audience: ChinaSmack and the like have definately figured out who their audience is and is pandering to them well… anything for the hits
3. The medium: it’s commenting in English on ridiculous comments that are at best tabloid quality to begin with
4. The hypocricy: most people are hyocritical assholes, who have never examined their own prejudices
5. The provincialism: the internet is the closest alot of these people have gotten to actually communicating with people from other countreis, ethnicities, or races
Mike Fish!
1. Can’t argue with that there.
2. I don’t know about this. I still think they have a subtly meaningful premise beneath all the gaudy content. Part of me suspects its all a major ploy to aggregate stupidity to show that stupidity knows no borders.
3. To be fair, most internet comments are tabloid quality. See #2.
4. Agreed. See #2.
5. Indeed. See #2. For the most part, I think this is a good thing, that we now have the technology to interact with people so far and ostensibly so different from us. chinaSMACK itself has, I think, often stated that it’s all about helping people realize they’re not actually all that different. I think some of their interviews or the old About page was most clear on this. The problem is that most people refuse to see this, which is your fourth point. So even if chinaSMACK has some “good” goal/purpose to it, only a few get it, while the rest just fester as usual.
Yeah, ChinaSMACK commenters are largely disgusting.
HEY! I resemble that remark! Oh wait… so do you…. and so does Kai… now I get it.
Wait, what are you talking about? I’m delicious!
damnit, I’m a hypocritical asshole.
“To this day, the vast majority of humanity is still content to align themselves to race and nationality over logic and rationality.”
True. But I think the sentence would be more meaningful if morality and humanism were added to ‘logic and rationality’.
I also believe such alignment is necessarily more prevalent in a country where the distinction between nationality and race themselves are somewhat blurred in the minds of many (if not most).
i have nothing insightful to add at the moment, but wanted to thumbs-up this post. i think it’s the kind of topic most China-based bloggers would overlook, but the sort of discourse we could use more of.
and also, what’s up with your contact form? i’m trying to send a message but it just keeps saying oh schnap and unhelpfully advising me to use twitter.
jane,
Yeah, sorry about that, something’s wrong with our contact form and I can’t figure out what it is at the moment. It worked before but obviously not anymore. Hm, if you need to, you can reach me directly at kai [at] cnreviews [dot] com.
Cheers for the thumbs-up!
First, I have no criticism of the blogger’s trite message, it’s the way it was delivered that begins to irk me. As I’m reading it, it strikes me as a “gotcha” moment, simply used by the blogger as an excuse for self-righteous tut-tutting and lecturing. ANYONE that’s spent ANY time on the internet already knows there’s some horrible comments out there.
In addition, there IS a difference between a group of anonymous strangers insulting an individual for their race, versus a group of anonymous strangers insulting another group of anonymous strangers for their race. In the former situation, one person is being judged before a mob, which is nearly impossible to defend against. In the latter, it’s two mobs acting like morons, which is m.o. for 95% of the Internet.
JUH, if by “blogger” you’re referring to me and me self-righteously tut-tutting and lecturing, fair enough. I can definitely come across that way for many people.
As for the message being trite, sure, but I’d likewise remind you that ANYONE that’s spent ANY time on the internet already knows there will be people like me occasionally pushing back against those horrible comments out there. Consider it part of the on-going and never-ending discourse our society struggles with. Fair enough, right?
I don’t think the Lou Jing racism was THAT bad; most of the translated material seemed to be directed at the mother not for her miscegenation but for cheating on her husband with an African. Could be worse, they could be denigrating the girl for being an abomination; I was told there was some positive bias regarding “hybrid vigor” in mixed-race children in China. Wondering if you’ve ever had any experiences with that?
An aside; it’s also pretty interesting how the girl’s facial expressions seem so utterly Chinese. I’m upset I haven’t managed to find documentation on differing facial expressions and expression languages in various cultures.
not “THAT” bad? “could be worse?” making personal attacks on a teenage girl one doesn’t even know personally for reasons beyond her control seems pretty messed up, and not on a sliding scale. on the other hand, simply writing off the whole affair as being due to “racism” shows a certain blindness that i guess this piece was trying to point out.
from what i’ve seen/heard being mixed chinese myself, there is these days an element of vogue/cosmopolitan pride surrounding mixed-race kids (it’s also, apparently, trendy to claim any minority/non-han ethnic roots you have), but i feel like that’s not specific to china (obama, anyone? tiger woods? and a whole boatload of others). it’s part of a broader the-world-is-shrinking-and-we-personify-that phenomenon.
on the other hand, how many people are willing to deal with the inevitable culture clashes that are (usually) involved in producing such a kid? and not only that but also stand up to their decision in light of relatives, friends, etc. decrying it, as sometimes happens? i would say we are not in a post-racial world as some like to claim.
On the stuff translated on ChinaSMACK, all of the hatred is vented at either the mother or the African-American for cuckolding the Shanghainese guy. On Chinahush, you get more intimations of attacks on the girl, but of the translated posts, the only insult is calling the half-Black girl a bastard.
I wouldn’t bother claiming that it wasn’t that bad if it didn’t seem that readers were especially upset that the mother cheated on her husband with a black man. If the ape accusations hadn’t gotten involved, it wouldn’t be racist at all; it would just be a matter of criticisms of an adulteress trying to exploit her beautiful daughter.
I still find it interesting that the overtly racist folks will NOT use their real name. If they are so behind their beliefs, they shold openly reveal themselves and stand up for what they believe in.
It worked for hilter, why not for these guys…
btw, i love the chinese name for hitler… SHITler good one!
Oh… I would believe the reaction at the China Daily BBS was more raunchy than ChinaSmack – with the thread, Racists attacks on Shanghai Black Girl
http://bbs.chinadaily.com.cn/viewthread.php?gid=2&tid=646227&extra=page%3D4
The idea of ‘mixed blood’, ‘mixed race’ etc., taken literally, is in itself racist – as if human ‘races’ were firm categories (i.e, as if their were clear identifiable boundaries according to ‘blood’, genetic makeup or whatever between groups of human beings that conform to national identity, geographical location of recent ancestors (paternal or maternal or bilateral, etc.)) – there are not, and the idea that they are, and that they have natural (rather than culturally-invented) significance lies at the root of racism. The phrase “…a Shanghainese girl of mixed blood (black American and yellow Chinese)…” represents this conception. I am not accusing the author of racist beliefs; but such a conventional way of referring to an individual with ancestry from different regions of the common human gene pool perpetuates the linguistic convention that ‘race’ has some NATURAL significance beyond the likely determination of skin color, hair texture, etc. In short, ‘race’ and racism are alive and well in human culture, although they have no existence elsewhere. When associated with nationality, ‘race’ becomes particularly dangerous, since it then reinforces, and is reinforced by, another fiction – one that is heavily armed.
OMG! As a Chinese, I feel FAINT! Is THIS the type of color person we want for ourselves, for China…BLACK SKIN? This Lou Jing is an absolute abomination. Just look at her dirty-looking skin! Is this what we are setting ourselves up for in the future? Do we really want to assimilate this very dark and different race into Chinese population? Can no one see that Lou Jing and her kind are race destroyers? Because that is what will happen. One-drop rule is not a joke people. Once you go black, there’s no going back.
For thousands of years, East Asians have valued light-colored/white skin. Are we to see all of our racial heritage destroyed? And for what? For the sake of being PC? Bowing to leftist liberal propaganda? Why should we appease these blacks? Fine, to have trade, but that doesn’t mean we Chinese have to accept them as breeding partners. If that starts to happen (God Forbid), and if we Chinese are not more racially aware, say bye bye to light skin, my fellow people. Too think, all that skin lightening cream wasted. Of course, the skin whitening cream industry wouldn’t be suffering, in fact just the opposite. : (
Sure, people think one or two of these darkies aren’t going to matter, but these types of people do BREED like rabbits, which then goes back into the overall Chinese genepool.
Just LOOK at this halfie girl, her skin color is plain DIRTY-looking! Oh and don’t forget, blacks all across the world tested have the lowest IQ, whether they are in 1st rate nation or not, compared to all other races.
Is that what we want for our future generations? Lower IQ on top of dirty looking skin color? Could it get much worse than that?
WOW, You are probably the dumbest person I have ever read a blog from. What is your fasination with being like white people? Do you understand that your prejudice is whats wrong in this world and you think blacks have lower IQ’s then most of the world? You must be some village tramp whose Dad can’t stop humpping on you idiot. Grow up stupid.
WoW is either doing a poor job parodying or doing an average job of trolling. If nothing else, judging by his English, he (and it is most likely a “he”) is not a mainland Chinese person and likely not Chinese at all. Don’t take him too seriously.
@ Kai Pan
“You must be some village tramp whose Dad can’t stop humpping on you idiot. Grow up stupid.”
Do you know that this “Tom in America” is really using his/her own racial ignorance/prejudice against all Chinese with that kind of revealing attack? And instead of defending Chinese, you’re trying to appease him? Nice Kai Pan. But then are you even Chinese? Or are you too Chinese? The sort who is afraid of confrontation with black people? You know the type, the Chinese delivery guys who get beaten up senselessly by blacks, just for a few bucks. Or those Chinese students who get bullied and beaten up, sometimes on a daily basis, for their ipods, allowance and even the clothing on their backs (sneakers,etc), etc. Yet despite all this violence perpetrated on them, they are told not to fight back, not to bring on more violence, which actually brings upon worse attacks, since the blacks know they can get away with it. What’s sad is how Chinese DON’T STICK TOGETHER enough to do something about it (at least the Koreans are better in that department).
Oh and another thing, trust me, blacks have no qualms in using racial epithets against other people, but just try the reverse, and see all hell break out. Of course what I’m speaking about takes place in America, quite often in the inner cities, where the poor Chinese are just trying to make a honest living. And the bullying/stealing is ALWAYS perpetuated by blacks.
So when people blame mainland Chinese for ignorance in their racial views regarding upon blacks, I’d say it’s actually the other way around. In fact, under the circumstances the Chinese have actually been quite nice to blacks. It’s not true or fair to call East Asians IN their own sovereign nations, ‘ignorant’, just because they don’t want to embrace blacks. Speaking of which, if nothing else, Tom in America shouldn’t be so quick so call people names when his post has not one inkling of intelligence in it:
For example; just take that statement accusing Chinese of trying to be like whites. By that, I’m assuming he means skin color. Now who’s being ignorant? The west always assumes that when East Asians speak of white skin, we are talking about Caucasians. Well that is just a manifest of the British who started it, to help in their empire building. In fact, Marco Polo noted in his travels that the Chinese, especially the women, had very ‘WHITE’ skin. Key word being white, not yellow, not brown but white. So before the real racial awareness of the twentieth century, admiration for fair skin as always existed. If anything it’s the blacks, who having been under the dominion of whites for so long, that they buy into the notion that only whites can claim white skin. FYI there is no such thing as white skin, unless perhaps if one was an albino. The difference between the white of Caucasians and Asians is the former has a pink/blue undercast and the latter a yellow. But as for lightness, many East Asians have just as light skin as whites. Hence, the wish for “WHITER” skin.
And really, if blacks were oh so proud of their skin color, why is the skin “whitening” industry so prevalent amongst the Indian AND Black communitiies/countries?? And just why are Indian and Chinese hair so popular amongst blacks? Kinky hair is what they NATURALLY possess, why are they trying to look anything BUT black? ROFLO.
eNuf said.
WoW,
You’re mistaken. Don’t confuse my refusal to defend you being stupid with me trying to appease him.
Yeah no comment. I kind of knew this………….. yeah, oh well