fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2343 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2343 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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[not a repeat, was too big before]

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 055 secrets from Secret Submission Post #335.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I'm Chinese and grew up on a pretty homogenous white community. Quite a few of the kids I went to school with hadn't met any sort of Asian person before, and at the time, it was pretty new to them. Some were nice and curious about it. A lot of people were... hmmm. I'll tell you how they were. This is a sampling of things that happened on a regular basis. Daily, even.

* People making fun of my last name, which is a very common Chinese name but sounds funny to Americans
* People making slanty-eye faces at me and telling me that's what I looked like
* People yelling what they thought of as "Chinese" at me, mostly stuff like "Chingy ching chong Chinaman", etc.
* People asking me if I ate dogs and cats
* People making fun of the shape of my nose because it's small and doesn't stand out from my face much
* People doing all of the above, simultaneously

Now keep in mind that none of these kids truly hated me. They weren't always necessarily trying to be mean (although some of them certainly were), they just thought it was FUNNY. Kind of like you, thinking that you're just trying to be funny and that it's unfair to be called out on it because you weren't alone in doing it.

I suppose you could say they weren't making fun of my eyes because they're Chinese eyes but because they're slightly slanted and that's just funny to them. I guess you could say that they're not making fun of my language because it's foreign but because it just sounds unusual. (I should mention here that I don't speak Chinese and have never spoken it in their hearing.) No doubt what they'd heard of Chinese cuisine (namely other people making funny jokes about eating pets) was amusing to them, too. Nothing personal! And lots of people with "funny" noses get teased about their looks, too. Just some harmless fun and I'd be an SJW killjoy for wanting it to stop, right?

You could say all of that, but it'd be a weak attempt to ignore what it really was: kids being racist bullies. Nobody told them that they were being ignorant assholes and to knock that shit off, but somebody should have. Besides me, I mean. Maybe if the teachers had spoken up and stopped it, or if my fellow classmates had stepped up and said, "That's not funny, you racist asshole!", it might've helped.

But nobody did, because it was just harmless fun. Fun that lasted from about kindergarten until high school, where it eventually petered off because more and more people called out those kids for being ignorant racist assholes. Some of them realized it on their own, of course, and probably felt pretty uncomfortable for being such dicks. I never got any apologies from them, either way.

So I guess what I'm trying to say here is... have fun? But don't delude yourself about what you're doing or that it doesn't hurt anybody. It does. Much like how victim-blaming enables rape culture, making fun of other cultures only makes it our fault. We deserve the ridicule for being so weird and foreign, because being foreign is wrong and worthy of mockery.

P.S. For anyone who's worried, I'm fine and not too scarred by the experience. They were assholes, and I knew it from the start because they were kind enough to give me really obvious clues.

I'm not Chinese but also East Asian, and I had pretty much the same experience as you growing up. Going through this thread, I'm really beginning to think people can't understand why it's a problem unless they've been through it themselves. Whereas before, I was rather complacent in my belief that it was rather obvious.

Yeah. Quite a few of my Asian friends report similar experiences, and quite a few of my white friends are horrified to hear how common this was. They can't imagine dealing with it on a near-daily basis, for years, from multiple sources and with nobody batting an eye.

And yet you still meet people who seem blissfully unaware that it's an extremely common problem. I guess if you lack firsthand experience, it's much easier to convince yourself that minorities are making a big fuss over nothing or just being "sensitive".

I don't think I'm particularly sensitive. I told no one about what was happening, except my parents, who explained that people could be unfeeling and mean but that what they said wasn't true. Those racist assholes never made me cry or made me want to kill myself. Most of them never physically touched me. But I remember each and every last one of them and what they did and wonder what kind of people they grew up to be.

Reading this thread, I think maybe I know, and that makes me sad.

That's a pretty big difference in degree, and an even bigger difference in vulnerability of target. There are a lot of things routinely said about adult celebrities which should never be said to kids. Ever.

As I said, people made fun of my last name on a regular basis because its foreignness made it sound funny to them. I'm not sure how that's drastically different from what the OP's done, and I'm pretty sure all of the people who did that would also object to being thought of as racist assholes. What they want doesn't really alter what they did, though.

I also don't think any of the things I listed were things that should be done to an adult, famous or otherwise. It was mean, and at the root of that cruelty was racism. The same people who thought it was okay to make fun of my name also thought it was okay to make fun of everything else that was different about me. If you want to make fun of different cultures, you're helping to legitimize that mindset.

People made fun of you to your face, I doubt OP would make that joke in Shyamalan's face.

DA So it's okay to do mean things as long as you don't do it in front of the people you're being mean to/about?

No, I'm just pointing out that it's not the same situation.

Still, this argument isn't about whether Shyamalan's feelings are hurt by these jokes. Maybe they are, maybe they aren't. But he is such a public figure that mockery of his name is ubiquitous, and that can affect people with names like his, who are more vulnerable.

You say you are Chinese but you grew up in a white community and your name sounds funny to Americans.

Are you American? If so then you name IS American. Just Chinese-American.

I hate that people like you keep the stereotype that American names are only Anglo names like Smith, Jackson and Washington. Every name under the sun is in America attached to an American. Therefore, making their name just as American as the three listed above. Quit distancing yourself from your nationality.

I have a strong ethnic name and I have to fight to prove that my name, as an American, is just as American as any other citizen. YOU ARE NOT HELPING.

[ SECRET POST #2343 ]

(frozen comment) OP, I've got a story to tell you.

(frozen comment) Re: OP, I've got a story to tell you.

(frozen comment) Re: OP, I've got a story to tell you.

(frozen comment) Re: OP, I've got a story to tell you.

(frozen comment) Re: OP, I've got a story to tell you.

(frozen comment) Re: OP, I've got a story to tell you.

(frozen comment) Re: OP, I've got a story to tell you.

(frozen comment) Re: OP, I've got a story to tell you.

(frozen comment) Re: OP, I've got a story to tell you.

(frozen comment) Re: OP, I've got a story to tell you.