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Comment by ldd | Hacker News Reader

Racism against Asians in North America is really puzzling. It is excessively common to hear female acquaintances, even asian ones, say that they would never date an asian guy. Compound this with comments that belittle asians in movies, TV shows and in just about every conversation, I sometimes wonder why they keep so quiet. Then I remember that racism is a complex and delicate question, and that our society is still incapable of dealing with these issues in 2015.

ps: As a child of bill 101, I do not really understand what you meant by that comment about French in Quebec.

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> I sometimes wonder why they keep so quiet.

A big part of it is being consistently dismissed or more often punished for speaking up.

Because of the myth that racism "doesn't happen" in the West, or that racism "doesn't happen" against Asian-Americans, if you try to speak up about it, one of two things will happen:

1. You'll be told that you should just rise above it[0], that you're imagining it, or (my personal favorite) that it's "not really racism" because $REASON.

2. You'll face outright retaliation for bringing it to light, and thereby forcing people to face an uncomfortable truth

After a while, the fear of these reactions gets internalized, and people decide that it's safer just to remain silent.

EDIT Ironically, as I'm writing this comment, this pattern is already playing out in the sibling comments, with more than one person telling OP that he should just ignore it (or in other words, "be better than that"). Which misses the whole point of the story.

[0] and this is how the role of the "model minority" is actually used as a weapon

At least for movies and TV, it's all about the unwritten rule that you can't punch down, but it's okay to punch up. Big Bang Theory is a good example: it makes fun of the stereotypical nerdy white, brown, and jewish guys. That is socially acceptable, because these are the same demographics ruling the country from Silicon Valley and Wall Street.

Of course not every asian guy is a 1%-er working at Google. But lots of old white guys (always an acceptable target for comedy) also struggle to make ends-meet. Regardless, that's where the media has chosen to draw the line. I'm not defending the practice, but I'm pretty sure that's what explains your observations.

You don't even need overtly racist comments in movies to satisfy a structural system of racism. The absence of strong minority leads is enough - I can't think of any Asian or Middle Eastern actors with strong leading roles in America (unless they're really hot women serving as exotic temptresses, which isn't really the same)

Are people like Jet Li and Jackie Chan to stereotypical to count?

What if black actors only played athletes?

There's other examples like Ken Jeong, Kal Penn, John Cho, and more.

Also the weird history of Asian actors playing Native Americans in Westerns...

I'll give you John Cho and Kal Penn.

But Ken Jeong? The guy whose biggest movie role to date is "Mr. Chow" in The Hangover, where he pranced about in tighty whities with an exaggerated Chinese accent and making slow jerkoff motions?

The same Ken Jeong who infamously did this shoot with GQ? http://www.gq.com/gallery/ken-jeong-kate-upton-mens-slim-cor...

Video if you're interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hLYXqqgfAY

It's hard to perceive much of his work as anything but modern variations of Long Duk Dong, ultimately I consider his work to have added to Asian stereotypes.

The guy is free to take the role he wants, but IMO as far as "actors dismantling Asian stereotypes with their work" his career so far has been as far from it as it gets.

Jakie Chan? I guess he almost always plays a buffoon in his English speaking roles so that doesn't really help. Jet Li is usually pretty competent and the Filipino action star is usually looked up to. I haven't seen any middle aged Asian stars who are just respectable and or successful.

Strong and _Diverse_ leading roles.

Traditionally, the only lead roles afforded to Asian males are either 1) nerds or 2) mystical martial artist

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