Breaking Down the Falsities of Texas Public School Social Studies' Curriculum

An original version posted on 5/18/2010 as "Deconstructing the Texas Calls for Social Studies Overhauls" @ Examiner.com

The past few months have seen an uptick in proposals across two states to radically reform public State education in Social Studies and US History.

Officially signed into law by Governor Jan Brewer on May 11th, Arizona banned ethnic studies classes in public education because of what supporters say are displays of "ethnic chauvanism."

Most controversial in the law are provisions which ban courses "designed primarily for students of a particular ethnic group" and "advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals." The courses affected include Mexican-American/Chicano Studies, African-American Studies, and Asian Studies, which according to Tom Horne, Superintendent of Schools in Arizona, "divides students up, just like the old South."

If public schools do not adhere to law, they stand to lose state funding. The LA Times reported that the Tucson Unified School District's 14-year old Chicano studies program was a main target of the state law.

The latest call for reform for social studies reform will be decided in Texas tomorrow on May 19th when the State Board of Education will vote on whether to pass a list of proposed changes.

The Texas Board of Education released its 5th and Final draft of required Social Studies curriculum for public schools in April. Much contention has arisen over highlighting the influence of religion on the founding fathers with a notable de-emphasis on Thomas Jefferson's influence and the "unintended consequences" of big government programs such as the New Deal or the War on Poverty. Read the document here.

Also included is a call for a "Celebrate Freedom" week.

Perspective: Texas Proposal aims at selective truth

I grew up learning that the truth was the most important thing to aim for in history.

As I've come up in my education, I've learned that history isn't necessarily about telling one objective truth, but about rounding up primary sources and having subjects share their stories about events.

They used parts of American history to invoke a sense that America is rooted in exceptionality, or in other words "being better" than other people. I am quite sure that this type of thinking hints at a truth, but I am not sure that it represents the entire truth.

History is dynamic, always being made, and contains an infinitude of stories to be understood in one neat way.

If American history can be understood as a big collection of snapshot pictures, Texas is taking only the most flattering portraits of American policy and its conservative bases, but catching only invasive paparazzi voyeuristic ones of liberal and international views.

The view presents US history as every event in naturally and eventually agreeing upon or evolving into whatever happens to be the status quo.

The Texas brand of social studies is bent on suggesting that the origins of equality were already implemented in the document. They had been trying to say that the Declaration of Independence which was declared in 1776 was really the stimulus behind undoing slavery in 1865, how it allowed for women's rights movements in the 1920s, and the driver behind diversity we came to accept in law by 1965.

Saying that origins of equality were already in the Declaration of Independence gives off the impression that equal opportunity was all only a matter of rationalized legislation, like changes were all going to happen anyway, minimizing the struggles of different peoples.

The document is based on minimization of the negative impacts of US Foreign policy and conservative domestic policy.

They really want to call capitalism, "free enterprise" in attempt to negate its negative connotations. If were going to play this game of calling everything by a more positive name, let's call communism, socialism or Marxism by their intention-based positive phrase too: "people's needs-based system."

The way they plan to represent other countries is particularly troubling in their selective application of certain loaded and controversial terminology. Bothersome is their selective employment of the word "imperialism."

Traditionally, "imperialism" has been used to describe US foreign policy in the turn of the 19th century into the 20th century. However, notice how imperialism is something only the Japanese do.

• "...explain the major causes and events of World War II, including the German invasions of Poland and the Soviet Union, the Holocaust, Japanese imperialism, the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Normandy landings, and the dropping of the atomic bombs."

This clause is buried deep in the document and very specific. I only read about Japanese imperialism and a broad "European" imperialism. I didn't read anything about American, France, German, Italian, Belgian, Portugese or Spanish imperialism. It is merely German "invasion" of Poland and Soviet Union, no mention of the driving ideology of Nazism, while the Japanese take on a label of "imperialism" as if Japanese people were inherently imperialistic.

Equally troubling is the framing of the Palestine and Israel conflict. They use loaded terminology to circle Palestinians and Arabs, nonchalantly labeling them "terrorists" and pretending that State of Israel wasn't established under much controversy. By framing it as the Arabs rejecting the state of Israel, it makes it seem as if the Arabs were the problem.

The only things the Texas State Board of Education wants students to openly analyze and question are the people and movements that they decidedly don't like. For example, the document calls for "analyzing the unintended consequences of affirmative action and Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society." There is also a call to "Analyzing the effectiveness of the approach" taken by the Black Panthers versus the "philosophically persuasive" tone of Martin Luther King Jr."

It's peculiar how "consequences" and "effectiveness" are a cause for concern with equal opportunity and civil rights programs.

While given the freedom to analyze the tactics used in civil rights era movements, there doesn't appear to be any similar mandate to analyze the "unintended consequences" of the "conservative resurgeance" of the 1980s or the mandated "Celebrate Freedom Week" itself.

The "conservative resurgeance" was a period that saw Ronald Reagan triple the national debt by cutting taxes while cutting social programs. His great work was being able to firmly instill into the American consciousness the image of the black, undeserving "welfare queen", a distasteful and ultimately divisive image upon which a generation of conservative and tea partiers have used to drum up distaste towards social programs.

Texas: Giving a blueprint for Eugenicist thought

The image of the welfare queen is still alive and well. It's an image of dependency, laziness, and all-around incompetence that continually informs popular perception and legislative decision-making.

The image pervades the way Texas plans to do social studies and teach people about America in the 21st century. They do not give people of color or perceived predecessors any credit for their own advances. It's as if any advancement they have made was a result of "other people's" actions, which by default tends to mean "white people."

For example, when talking about the cultures whose people appear to descend from what is now known as Mexico, the only way to understand them is as outgrowths of people prior to them. The people prior to them are Greece and Rome.

• "...compare the major political, economic, social, and cultural developments of the Maya, Inca, and Aztec civilizations and explain how prior civilizations influenced their development"

Why is there no need to study how prior civilizations influenced the development of Greece or Rome?

Its as if Greece or Rome were people who self-generated themselves and fathered all our ideas, hence fitting this narrative of self-sufficiency coming from one race, the White one.

While the white people were thinking up great ideas in the West, the sparsely populated brown-skinned peoples were just waiting around to be inspired by them.

If white people were the originators of ideas and it is presented that way, it follows that rationally and naturally they would be entitled to ownership over the land; everything in their view was earned fairly. This mentality follows that minimal benefit can be gained from immigration or the infusion of different cultures, which has actually shown to be the opposite in some studies.

They want students to learn that everything of consequence emerged from Europe without any influence or contact from any other group of people whatsoever.

Never mind that Islam and Arabics, some heavy targets in popular American media today for their way of thinking, were responsible for innovations in the medieval era, making contributions to what we label now as "Western medicine." Never mind that the very number system we use today would not have been possible with Roman numerals, but also took Eastern thought to come up with the idea of zero to make the number system work.

The idea of dependency where people from minority cultures need to wait around for white males to come to the rescue is reflected in the way they represent contemporary battles for equal opportunity.

• "Explain actions taken by people to expand economic opportunities and political rights, including those for racial, ethnic, and religious minorities as well as women, in American society"

This provision reads as if women, racial, ethnic, or religious minorities took little or action on their own behalf. They needed "people" to swoop in save the day and are ultimately dependent on majority action.

The study of US geography also carries a Eugenicist bent.

Specifically, they want students to identify "the effects of population growth and the impacts on physical environment." For over 100 years, this has been a pseudo-scientific way to criticize immigrant populations.

If they were really concerned about the physical environment, children should learn that resources tend to be concentrated in the hands of very few people, and continued hyper-consumption combined with a culture of disposal and landfills, those kind of human activities are the real harm to the physical environment, not necessarily certain demographic groups.

For more analysis of the Texas curriculum proposal:

NY Times deconstructing Texas

The Nation deconstructing Texas

The Nation deconstructing Conservatives who use history

Non-Democracy in Action on Tape

An original version posted on 9/19/2009 as "The Town Halls on Health Care Shout Again: Speak English" @ AMMMO

We now return to...The country that won't let you speak if you want some kind of health care reform. And even less if you speak Spanish.

During a town hall meeting on health care in Connecticut, Bishop Emilio Alvarez asks a question in Spanish and gets booed, yelled at, harangued by anti-health care people.



Some people might retort "I could understand why he got heckled. He should've spoken English, he was addressing an English-speaking audience."

Just because you speak a certain language doesn't mean you shouldn't have a voice in a public town hall meeting in a so-called democracy. Believe it or not, other people who speak other languages other than English have opinions too! Perhaps with even more insight.

The purpose of the town hall is to give individuals floor space to speak with politicians and dialogue in a civil manner with politicians and fellow civilians.

'Civil manner' is something that the anti-health care people in the town halls seem to interpret loosely and/or altogether ignore.

Not sure why exactly the bishop asks his question in Spanish because he seems perfectly fluent in English, but sometimes it's just more comfortable to speak in the native tongue.

As a grant-writer, it's important to use language as carefully and precisely as possible. You don't want to mince words.

Perhaps Bishop Alvarez had the same concerns when speaking Spanish. And perhaps his question wasn't necessarily for the audience, but instead for the Representative.

When speaking a non-native language it's not as easy to convey the emotion, the drasticness of your speech, and/or to be taken seriously. You can be more incisive and specific in your native tongue.

I can sort of speak Spanish if given a paper, and Tagalog, but I wouldn't feel comfortable at all asking any sort of question in those languages. I can talk about basic, functional items, like asking where the bathroom is or how much something costs. But if I had to make a nuanced, educated respected point in somewhere like China or the Phillippines, and I had the green light to speak in English, I'll take that opportunity and hope that the message gets across to the important people.

Oh, Now There Are Male Filipino Role Models

An original version posted on 11/16/2009 as "Filipino Male Role Models in the Present Day: Manny Pacquiao" @ AMMMO

It's a different day than what I experienced as a kid.

This is a day of high interconnectivity, instant and constant information from just about any source. I'm not just restricted to the TV and/or the newspapers to see what's big. Today its Google, blogs, tweets, message boards, UStream, youtube feeding me information about any and everything. With such interconnectivity comes more of an aura of global consciousness, and seamless integration of diverse-LOOKING individuals into advertisements, everyday news ephemera, and populist conversation.

That was very difficult to find as a kid. The news on TV, the people whose stories were talked about were all white people. I wondered why my family or other people of color wouldn't be interviewed by Dateline or 20/20. Guess we were not interesting enough? We weren't real Americans to be talked about? It was such a feeling of invisiblity.

As a preteen, pre-internet, as I mentioned in this post about Filipino male role models as a kid, I used to keep an eye out for Filipinos who "made it," that is Filipinos who've been seen by lots of people, doing something cool and somewhat positive.

I was cheering my ass off when I saw Ernie Reyes Jr. make a slight appearance in the Rock's crappy movie, the Rundown. And that was as a grown-ass 19-year old kid in 2003.

Why have "role models" in the first place?

Perhaps as a source of inspiration to do something.

Why a celebrity?

Because they're doing it for lots of people to see. It's nice seeing them being validated in the public and popular spheres like the newspaper articles, the TV shows, etc, and it makes me think, "hey I kind of have the same background as that guy, I can do like he does! Perhaps even better!"

Why did it have to be a celebrity emphasizing a racial or ethnic connection or kinship?

Because it's hard to imagine yourself doing something successfully and/or finding inspiration if the people doing what you want to do don't exactly look, talk, perhaps even think like you.

If you haven't seen people with whom you can identify with do something successful, you're probably susceptible to an inferiority complex --- you're not tall enough to play basketball, you don't talk white enough, you don't know much about politics, you don't sound that "professional" to really fit in with this program --- this is all stuff that has crossed my mind plenty of times.

While Filipinos were coming up in boxing, now that we have the mega-superstar Manny Pacquiao, there seems to be more Filipinos interested in boxing, and more opportunity in general for Filipinos to be in conversation. As a result of this fight, anyone think that these Filipino news reporters are even given the same platform on HBO to speak their opinion on what will happen in the fight?

If its true that I'd be susceptible to inferiority complexes if I don't see anyone someone I can identify with, why can't I just identify with anybody so I can get over my obssession with other Filipinos?

I'm not sure if its a conscious decision to choose anyone I can identify with.

I identify with plenty of people that are not Filipino, but usually only after I've come to learn their story. I particularly identify with Albert Einstein's story of working as a lowly patent clerk while drawing up his theory of relativity. I identify with Nobel Prize winner Eric Kandel's story of being a humanities student entering the sciences and being acknowledged for his work on neurobiological memory. I can identify with Kirk Hinrich's habits on the basketball court, the Unabomber's thoughts on technology --- just as I get to know more stories, there's usually something I can identify with in another human person.

However, the ethnic category of "Filipino" instantly brings to those of us who've grown up with Filipinos a sense that we share the same story. "Instantly" is the key word. I don't have to go out and bump across an individual story to identify with if someone identifies themselves as Filipino (at least in the American context of where I sit), I can sort of understand where they might be coming from already, so I'm going to bust out my Tagalog and hopefully they can get what the hell I'm saying. It's exciting that there is now consciousness of the word "Filipino" worldwide and its associated stories can be brought out for the rest of the world to see. I never felt as much chill in the back in Lupang Hinirang until that group sang it before Pacquiao-Cotto.



Didn't have anything to do with the greatness off their voices, it's just a great feeling of having something that may act as a hindrance in some context (like fitting in with job interviews, social situations) being acknowledged and respected.

The Filipino boxer Manny Pacquiao, the Filipino-Americans in the Jabbawockeez, that Filipino-Irish basketballer Erik Spoelstra, all are people I can sort of look up to as strong, cool, knowledgeable, and they all roughly come from where I come from. These are Filipinos who have appeared at one time or another on the New York Times, LA Times, Wall Street Journal, Good Morning America, Regis and whoever, ESPN, CNN, MTV, channels, networks watched by a diversity of people, who have to acknowledge our existence.

I can infer those Filipinos, Manny, the Jabbawockeez, and Erik Spoelstra probably may have eaten some adobo, are hardwired to play basketball, can bust some lines in Tagalog --- stuff that I do! And that's where I feel connected to their stories even though I might not know it as well as I do an Einstein or an Eric Kandel. The trajectory of their storylines as Filipinos are shooting towards success and widespread acceptance by other respected people in what they choose to do. Brian Urlacher, Magic Johnson, Derek Jeter, Mario Lopez, P.Diddy, Jay-Z, Mariah Carey, all people I've seen and admired at one point or another coming out to see this 5'6 cross-eyed, humble, happy, simple-seeming brown guy knock out another relatively small brown guy.

Said 5'6, cross-eyed, humble, happy, simpleton is now entering conversations and comparisons to icons like Muhammad Ali, Joe Louis, Sugar Ray Robinson --- boxers I've only known through pictures, stories, and myths. Whoever thought a lil ugly brown guy with boxing gloves could hold such sway and become so admired?

Quotes: On White Privilege and the US Presidency

“In 2000, journalists didn’t incessantly mention that George W. Bush was seeking to become the 43rd white male president of the United States. No one even thinks in those terms. It’s implied. It’s one of the perks of dominance.” – Gregory Rodriguez, LA Times Writer

Feeling Sorry for One of Hip-Hop's Critics

An original version posted on 6/23/2008 as "Hip-Hop and Political Change? Apparently Not!" @throwascrewinit.blogspot.com

The Manhattan Institute's John McWhorter says that hip-hop is not a vehicle for positive change, but rather a destructive force for black Americans.

Another one of those "reformed" black guys who serve as a vehicle to legitimate white America's history of denial of wrongdoing coupled with paternalistic, third-person omniscient solutions.

I generally can't get myself to respect anyone who dismisses something that is important to a chunk of the population. He seems to goes out of his/her way to hate on something he doesn't really understand, kind of like a spy...or...a stalker.

Upon reading more of McWhorter here and listening to an NPR interview, I can't help but feel sorry for the man. I truly do.

Why? Two things: He's a stalker and he's passive-aggressive.

1) Keeping true to that identity as a stalker, he doesn't actually speak to anyone to uncover any truth.

In his main article against hip-hop, he leads with an observation about some kids at a KFC. The kids are loud and annoying in a public or quasi-public space, behavior virtually unheard of from any group or subgroup of teenagers in America. So, what's to blame?

You guessed it! The ASSUMED soundtrack of their lives. These Black kids at KFC...must be that damn Hip-hop! A-HA!

In his radio interview, he mentioned that when he speaks, everyone has been supportive and no one has bothered him. No one, except maybe "one hothead" gets riled up at his talks, probably because he bores his supporters or would-be supporters. And, he passively aggressively hides from those who want to call him out.

2) When explaining his avoidance of opponents and potential detractors, he calls himself a "homebody", code word for divorced-from-reality, scared, linguist.

I feel bad for him mostly because behind the flowery high-falutin' language and the degrees from Stanford and Berkeley is just a scared, passive-aggressive stalker.

Even though the writer of these books and articles is kind of pathetic in his attempts to disparage hip-hop, what he says is essentially still the same stuff that critics of hip-hop from casual to extreme haters use, so its worth a response.

I can agree with a few things he says:

• Some of the most promoted and commercialized rap songs are those without real positive messages. But I can see where it comes from and I don't think it goes anywhere.
• I agree that we could do without the sexism and violence
  
• People do need to adapt to their life circumstances

Where he and I differ is that he seems bent on extracting the worst elements of hip-hop and subsequently, rooting it out based on that.

It's kind of like trying to ban Christianity because you don't like the KKK or Terry McVeigh. In each case, you're trying to look for the worst elements of something you don't like without fairly weighing its good elements.

From this vantage point, this attempt to extract the worst of the genre, his argument boils down to two things:

1) According to him, Hip-hop is responsible for the destruction of the black American.

You'd think that the arrival of hip-hop caused the destruction of the 'hood.

The rise of nihilistic rap has mirrored the breakdown of community norms among inner-city youth over the last couple of decades. It was just as gangsta rap hit its stride that neighborhood elders began really to notice that they’d lost control of young black men, who were frequently drifting into lives of gang violence and drug dealing. Well into the seventies, the ghetto was a shabby part of town, where, despite unemployment and rising illegitimacy, a healthy number of people were doing their best to “keep their heads above water,” as the theme song of the old black sitcom Good Times put it.

He seems to operate on this romanticized and historicized viewpoint that the 'hood was a rough place but still a place where this "healthy number" of people were doing well within their own communities.

"Healthy numbers?"

I remember a talk with the LA Times Homicide Blogger, Jill Leovy where she said that the black man murder rate has always been staggeringly high from Jim Crow until now. Her point was that there's deep a history of homicide within the black community.

In 1976, before talks of handguns, gangs, crack stuff, the black male homicide rate according to the US Justice Department was still 7x higher than those of whites. In, 1960, according to the Centers for Disease Control, death rates for black man were 14x higher, and in 1950 black male death rates were 17x higher than those of whites.

So bad things were still happening within the neighborhoods before hip-hop. I think the only difference with hip-hop in the picture is that it gives people like him to pick at and justify structural injustices and hegemonies.

2) His conclusion: hip-hop is antithetical to "helping people help themselves..."

He takes aim at those who try to spread the positive messages. Cites the Dead Prez as an example of conscious hip-hop. He mentions that they're pretty good at noting the insufficient employment opportunities. But then he criticizes them for advocating civil and social rights, i.e. standing on top of Capital Hill.

The classic pull-by-the-bootstrapping yes-man, he advocates a personal anecdote to a social and structural problems. He says that plenty of UPS jobs and delivery boys do not require college degrees and they can live perfectly legit middle-class existences.

Guess he missed the talks about the disappearing middle-class, here, here, and here.

McWhorts then goes on to criticize those who do try to make their money in the underground economy. I would've thought that he'd think the underground is the adaptive way of making money, and would've applauded them.

Ultimately, Dr. McWhorter's prescription for his fellow black man is a whole dose of mediocrity. He offers a hellvua lot less that than the rappers from the neigbhorhood with the money and the women. He's essentially telling them to become drones of everyone else while other people get their action.

In the end, rap and hip-hop is only a medium of expression. It's a piece of marketing, but it doesn't drive any widespread violence that wasn't already endemic. If people want to destroy, that's usually a highly personal decision. I doubt that people make negative life or death decisions based on what they hear from an artist.

Hip-hop is mostly a tool for empowerment because it breeds expression. It has the potential to inspire. A tool for empowerment because this is where people can find their strength.

But ultimately, it's only a tool, it's not going to be the only thing that will make or break a segment of the population.

Explaining the Social Infrastructure of White Privilege Through an Urban Planning Metaphor

An original version originally posted on 1/12/2010 as "Social Infrastructure of White Privilege and Bike Lanes" @ AMMMO

I felt very aware of my race and ethnicity almost all the time during my most formative years.

I knew that I was Filipino before I began going to the "puti" high school. It was going to be different from the more homely Filipino-dominated grade school.

I knew that I was one of only a few Filipinos in my college dorms. I didn't have too many white friends going to the "puti" high school.

I know that I am one of the few Filipinos interested in pursuing anthropology and science studies as a career. I come from a background of nurses and future nurses, and in my stage of liminality, I keep getting pulled towards a career like that.

There's just a bit of a "disconnection" between where I've gone/where I want to go and what has surrounded and currently surrounds me.

I use the word "disconnection" because that's exactly how I feel when I become "aware" of my race/ethnicity in a setting. I feel "disconnected" from the people who inhabit the space, like I can't make a connection, like we share almost nothing in common.

I can become "aware" of that when I'm in an academic conference full of older white guys as the key speakers and experts, when I'm in a wine-tasting shop in Silver Lake. I don't become as "aware" of this when I'm at the basketball court in Glassell Park.

My thinking implies that people who have a feeling of "fitting in" either consciously or unconsciously feel or have a connection. Let's assume that's true. What fosters that connection?

It is at this point that I'll borrow the term "infrastructure." "Infrastructure" fosters that connection.

"Infrastructure" is used in the context of public works projects. It is defined as the "basic physical and organizational structures needed for the operation of a society or enterprise." Infrastructure is the freeways, roads, BIKE LANES, power plants, power-lines water sources, the internet, phones, and other forms of communication. I use the term "infrastructure" to mean "a collection of connective strands used to maintain a system."

When you are a white American, and probably male, there is an "infrastructure" that firstly, helps you forget the negative parts of your identity and secondly, fosters the ability to go in and fit in almost anywhere.

You see your likeness reproduced in all kinds of public discourse and spaces. You see yourself in movies, academia, arts and high-class theater, corporate jobs. You can literally identify with being almost anything cause you know that no matter where you are, someone with your identity, perhaps even your looks, are there and you can probably talk to them, and they can hook you up.

If you're a white guy in America, unless you're queer and/or poor, you don't really have to constantly (whether conscious or not) re-evaluate your "belongingness" in mid-high class settings. You don't have to think about where you come from because you're already everywhere and the possibilities are endless. You can do this and this and this. You can just be "human" and not focus on your color. You know that your opinion really counts. The infrastructure in the form of movies, academia, arts carries these people any and everywhere and they don't have to stop and think as much cause they're so connected to whatever they want to do.

Conversely, the existence of an "infrastructure" working so well for a white American male implies that there is little to no infrastructure for a person of color. There isn't as much infrastructure that would firstly help a person of color forget the negative parts of their identities. There isn't as much infrastructure that would help a person of color fit in almost anywhere.

There are infrastructures that help people of color, but are more insular (or at least can be perceived that way). The demarcation that something like a Scholarship fund is for blacks, or Asians, or Latinos makes it seem to plenty of white folk that there is just all this opportunity for people of color. The very naming and labeling of the organization makes it very explicit that it benefits who it does. There is no formal naming if any involved in the process of a white guy getting into a business or high position because he "fits" the culture or "knew someone". Without that formal naming, is an informal, connected, embedded network.

Like the BIKE LANES in LA that last for one block, the infrastructure for people of color is piecemeal and far and few between.

Bike lanes and infrastructure are built only on certain streets.

Even without any BIKE LANES/INFRASTRUCTURE on streets and avenues, a few people will still bike, but it's not expected that they will bike.

People could technically go anywhere with their bikes without "infrastructure" but it isn't a safe bet, and usually most drivers, pedestrians, don't expect bikers on their streets. The streets are reserved for drivers.

Yes, we see a few people of color here and there in some movies, some academic fields, some arts, some sports, infrastructure that holds up popular culture. But there are only certain professions and things that people of color can be acknowledged to do, like my whole my family and the nursing profession.

People of color could technically go anywhere with their careers without "infrastructure", but it isn't a safe bet and usually families and people in power, won't expect those people of color to be in professions like that dealing with Science Studies or Anthropology. The streets are reserved for white Americans and obssessive Asian kids.

So the question is how do we keep building that infrastructure for people of color?

For me...Manny Pacquiao is a start.

Dynamics of the Perception of People of Color Sticking Together

An original version posted on 8/19/2003 as "Friendster: The Asian Thing to Do! :karate chop:" @throwascrewinit.blogspot.com

People of the same race, whether white, Asian, black, Latino generally stick together.

This tending of people within their racial groups whether white people or people of color towards each other is about developing a trust. People generally trust whoever looks like them, grows up around them. That trust and rapport is important in such a society as the urban United States because it helps connect strangers in an otherwise polarized, individualized, impersonalized society.

For example, when buying a car, my dad will automatically go towards the car salesman who happens to be Filipino. Not that he’s racist, but he can automatically and instantly build a connection with the salesman who happens to be Filipino by just speaking the native Tagalog.

The best way to eliminate dependency on race?

Connect with strangers. But that takes time. These stereotypes are something only gradual assimilation into society via more media exposure, and people of color acquiring powerful positions in society and bringing more visibility and confidence for youth of color to align themselves with.

Hopefully continued media exposure, and thus varied opinion and positions of authority can help dissipate the stereotypes that are associated with people of color.