Stereotypes unwarranted

For the second consecutive semester, the "Monday, Monday" column has made a casually racist comment about Asians. Forget whether such stereotypes are "positive" or cognitively useful. In the grand scheme of things, they get us nowhere and only serve to perpetuate the racism deeply ingrained in U.S. society.

To the author(s) of the column, I ask, what compelled you to make such a comment? Why is it funny? To the students who may have thought nothing of the statement, what compelled you to accept such a derogatory depiction of almost one-fifth of the undergraduate population? I'm sorry, half that, because we're only talking about men, right? It's normative to date Asian women, but not those [insert adjective of negative connotation] Asian men.

If you were curious, not even 1 percent of the undergraduate student population is a male, "Asian or Pacific Islander" engineer, as per 2003 statistics obtained from Pratt's website. Within Pratt alone, only 7 percent of students, male or female, are classified as "Asian or Pacific Islander."

Yet jokes wouldn't be funny, and controversy wouldn't ensue, without a tinge of truth, right? I've already admitted to noticing the prevalence of interracial relationships on this campus involving more Asian women than Asian men. Is this because of anti-miscegenation laws of the late 1800s forbidding white female/Asian male partnerships? Is this because 1940s laws allowed tens of thousands of Asian women to bypass long-standing anti-Asian immigration laws and enter the country as war brides of US military men? Is this because Asian men simply have no game? Is this because the media has portrayed Asian women as love-you-long-time fetishes, and the only Asian men people remember are Long Duk Dong from Sixteen Candles, martial arts stars who never even kiss the leading lady and William Hung?

I don't know, but I urge people to always question and always challenge the norm. It's hard, I know. But if "Asian" were replaced with "black," "Jewish," "Latino," "Native American," "white," "Muslim," "Russian," "short," "skinny" or "gay," what would the reaction have been?

Kevin Fang

Trinity '07