Asking a company to lose money to service a market that doesn’t buy their product is naive. Companies have stockholders. Stockholders these days usually means a bank of stock held by a management fun on behalf of retirement funds (401K and stuff) rather than stuffy rich folk you’re talking retired folks. They can’t take losses, not even for the best of reasons, and will ensure the executive that takes a loss like that is fired.

This blogger has used the Asians “prefer to look lighter and use lightening creams” argument. Oh hey, so have African people! What does that say if people desire to use lightening creams? Isn’t there something seriously wrong there? I used to joke that older Asian women are like goths – white made up faces with brown necks and black lined eyes. I too prefer the goth look but I’m not going to hide my skin just because it turns a shade of obvious brown in summer! It’s how I was born and at least I still use sunscreen!

America’s social racial relations are a bit different to the rest of the world but then it’s actually not that different as well. Other parts of the world the division might be perceived nationality/foreign-ness or class (a really big example is the caste system in India, which is illegal but definitely still in existence) but at the end of the day it is the same, it is the desire to make certain groups “other” to feel better about oneself without actually doing any work to deserve this self entitlement. People may argue that racism and classism are different but for me they are intertwined and many other times they run so closely parallel that they are almost the same.

To me, I find it most depressing when other people of colour are in denial of the existence of racism and the uneven structure of power in established institutions of authority. It’s like “ass kissing the enemy”.

OMG… and health care over in the US! It is funny because most Americans I’ve met always compliment the healthcare system of Australia (which is far from perfect still…) but then they go protest against it in the US? I find that… very odd.

For this reply, I want to address the “Asian in a Black and White World” title. Just my opinion, but I think the U.S. and other Western countries are strongly dualistic. Good-evil, right-wrong, Democrat-Republican, etc. Shades of gray in morality exist, but they aren’t usually addressed – or not as frequently as the extremes. A Green Party and an Independent Party exist politically, but they don’t get the same coverage as the big two, Democrat and Republican.

In race matters in the U.S., the basic duality has been White-Black for so many years, the existence of “Others” gets sidelined. Acknowledging Asian or Native American or Hispanic distracts the opposing forces scenario. You can also have White-Asian duality OR Asian-Black duality, but to have three or more groups interacting at the same time … chaos.

What’s interesting now is that the Black-White dynamic is – not dissolving, but interrupted? by the growing Brown (Hispanic) population. Either Hispanics outnumber or they are soon to outnumber Blacks as the largest minority group in the U.S. Repercussions of this shift can be seen in the increasing White-Hispanic alliances. For doll examples … Mattel produced the High School Musical couple, White Troy and Hispanic Gabriella, in doll form; Mattel pairs Barbie with Teresa now in doll sets; and tellingly MGA pairs White Avery with Hispanic Sophina in their “friend set.” MGA’s Black Sasha is not included in any corresponding “friend set.”

Just some thoughts on American racial interactions. My attempt to shed some light? response?