In light of the current brouhaha going on in Britain with many people crying for Channel 4 to draw blood from the racist ignormai and apathetic contestants of Celebrity Big Brother (UK), there was a beacon of a well thought out voice among the hurt and angry.
At its basic form, racism is a form of oppression based solely on a person’s ethnic background … something NO ONE can control or has a say in – and something most of us visible minorities have encountered at some point in our lives. For us Asians, in particular, while upwardly mobile and generally a hard working collective, it often is difficult to pick on the quirks of an individual when they evidently surpass the attacking party in so many ways. And hence we have the lowest, simpliest, and not particularly clever form of oppression – racism out of jealousy.
This is our threatening power – the stealth like existence that when you’re not looking – the entire IT department has the ability to pull the rug from under the CEO’s desk. You wanna take over the world? – go through the back door, it’s already unlocked.
Throughout all my work within the Asian-North American arts community, countless discussions have taken place, both in person and IMing in cyberspace with regards to the state of our ‘place’ in society – where we appear in the food chain. I’ve long concluded that we can not rely on someone else to save us from the limbo of our media visibility, and so we have to create it ourselves – think building a new home like in SIMS. And only by succeeding in whatever we choose to do with our lives can we make the difference.
Now go – Intimidate by simply succeeding. Threaten with Success.
