An Ocean By the Cupful

I had a really honest conversation with a white friend yesterday about racism.  At a certain point, I couldn’t stop myself from crying as I explained to her some of the terms that address more systematic issues.  I think the most revolutionary moment was when I explained that while we discuss systematic issues, its happen to real individuals.

Also, that racism isn’t just an idea or thought that I can only think about when I want to, it is a part of my life, it confronts you in places and spaces you thought would be safe, you can’t run from it.

I don’t usually have that much of an outpouring of emotion when I talk about the issue, I think because of the constant fear of showing weakness.

I’m tired of hipster racism and hipster feigned interest in social justice that results in nothing, it’s just another cause for white kids who feel alienated from their own cultural tradition and heritage in the post-modern society they created, to latch onto and appropriate in order to find their lost sense of personal identity and self worth. 

It’s just another form of exotification, voyeurism- that leaves the oppressed feeling cheapened, dirty and the privileged with warm falsely obtained altruistic fuzzies.

Trying to explain my frustration with racism to my friend, then the second level of frustration with hipster racism/social justice was complicated, but she cared and she listened because she’s my friend.  She even suggested that I talk about it, do a seminar or discussion about it one night with some of our larger social group, and I told her I was tired of being a dancing monkey for the white people, and that that is what it feels like, so much of the time. 

Just because I’m okay and I function simply because I don’t know how to live any other life other than one that has to confront the issue, doesn’t make all of it okay.

How does this sound?

Dear Mom & Dad,

I am so grateful and thankful that not only do you pay my phone bill, but you decided two years ago to switch to a family data plan.  The time has come for an upgrade, and I cannot deny that I wish for an iPhone, I understand that this will mean an extra $10 per month, but I ask that you would please consider this.

Your Youngest Child.

People my age, they dream of being powerful, successful people, and those powerful successful business people they dream to be-

they dream of being us.

young

free

untethered.

whatsdifferentincanada:

There is a great debate in the US about what to call a generic soft drink. The answer is incredibly complex, but generally the answer is: soda on the east and west coasts, coke in the south, and pop everywhere else. In Canada, no such scruples - it’s pop everywhere. 

Suggested by pinotpie

I DIDN’T KNOW THAT

#thingsmichiganhasincommonwithcanada

^that should be a reaction blog to this blog =D

partytights:

i wish i lived in the 60s!!!! racism!!!! sexism!!!! homophobia!!!! the threat of nuclear war!!!!!

dragonlordoferebor:

booksandcatslover:

geniusbillionairesassmaster:

I AM NO MAN

I AM NO MAN

MUSTERTHE ROHIRRIM 

An overweight queer Taiwanese American girl has a conversation with white, heterosexual, married, fair skinned, American man….

I have a lot of these, but recently I just thought of a new one tacked onto finishing/publishing my novel

• become a recording engineer at a studio in Taiwan.
• while working on my novel
• living in Taiwan

Because ideally, I could have a day job in Taiwan while I do what I need to do to finish the novel.  This day job would ideally be something that I would like (because I’m pretty sure I could get a job teaching English, or even a suit job (being a bilingual business major has its perks) but teaching English almost feels like something of a waste of time, and I feel like being a suit would be too much of a time suck that I would be left with little time to actually work on the book.  If I could continue building my experience as an engineer and producer that would be great.  Also, I feel like recording engineer supply is less in Taiwan, and with good experience, I might be able to get a job there.  

Ideally, I would prefer to not have to live off of stuff I’m saving in America to live over there.  I was talking to my friend last night about it, and I have a pretty good deal since I can live with my relatives, but I still have other expenses.  I don’t want to ask my parents for the money either. 

(what kind of self respecting writer lives off of their parent’s income *coughcoughlenadunham*?) 

The question is just how I’m going to get a job at a studio there, I think I will be decently qualified, and I have some connections in the music industry, hopefully they’ll be able to help me keep an ear to the ground in terms of studio jobs.  

I want to keep studying Chinese while I’m in Taipei though, I want to go to NTNU.  Maybe, I can move over there on scholarship from the Taiwanese government to study Chinese, then once I find work, (maybe a quarter or two in?) I can finally apply for citizenship and then also work.  crazy.  This timeline is playing itself out for (at the shortest) one year over there, but if I could get a good studio job, it could potentially be sustainable for upwards of 2 or 3 years.

This is a plan that I could enact right after graduation.  That kind of scares me that I have a solid stay in Nashville plan A and a solid go to Taiwan plan B now.  WHO HAS THAT MANY REAL PLANS?

I almost want there to be no work in Nashville so I have a good reason to go back to Taiwan for a while, but I don’t. AHHHHH

myfriendsaremarried:

zuky:

This is the story of a racist myth that began with a light-hearted letter to the New England Journal of Medicine in 1968 and subsequently exploded in North American culture — in direct opposition to every shred of scientific evidence — becoming so prevalent that credulous eaters buy into it to the point of experiencing its effects on a purely psychosomatic basis. 

It’s often been called “Chinese Restaurant Syndrome” and its premise is that MSG in Chinese food results in unpleasant allergic reactions. Interestingly enough, higher quantities of MSG in non-Chinese foods are not reported to have the same effects. MSG is a naturally occurring amino acid, and some of the highest levels of MSG a North American consumer is likely to ingest come in vine-ripened tomatoes, aged cheese, and dry-aged steak — yet there is no reported medical phenomenon known as “Italian Food Syndrome” or “American Steakhouse Syndrome”.

Monosodium glutamate was first isolated from the seaweed kombu, commonly used in the Japanese broth dashi, by biochemist Kikunae Ikeda of the Tokyo Imperial University in 1908. He named its taste umami because it differed from the five conventional flavours of sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and spicy. Ikeda patented his discovery and MSG became commercially available in 1909. It was found to enhance flavours with one third of the amount of sodium as traditional salt, i.e. sodium chloride. In this sense, monosodium glutamate is probably healthier than sodium chloride because it achieves flavour with reduced sodium levels.

MSG was immediately popular in Asia and became common in the North American food industry after World War II, used in baby food, canned soup, vegetable juice, frozen food, as well as seasoning mix brands such as Accent. Yet somehow in the 1960s, this popular food additive became associated with Chinese food and deemed a health hazard. Why? Because Chinese people, culture, and food have been targeted by widespread and effective racist hate campaigns in North America since the 19th century, buttressed by wild claims that the Chinese are “unclean”, carry diseases, are sexually-deviant opium addicts, inscrutable and sneaky, a Yellow Peril. 

The 1968 letter to the New England Journal of Medicine which solidified the myth of MSG was actually written by a Chinese immigrant named Robert Ho Man Kwok, who described “numbness at the back of the neck, gradually radiating to both arms and the back, general weakness and palpitation” after eating in American Chinese restaurants. The letter opened the floodgates to a barage of letters and related articles complaining of headaches, dizziness, paralysis of the throat, tingling in the temples, tightness of the jaw, irregular heartbeat, depression, hyperactivity, and all manner of digestive ailments. 

Given this preponderance of anecdotal evidence, numerous scientific studies have been performed since then attempting to identify this “Chinese Restaurant Syndrome”. The funny thing is that no study has ever been able to do so. When people don’t know that they’re consuming MSG, they don’t suffer adverse reactions. All national and international food safety bodies have concluded that MSG is perfectly safe. People in Japan eat MSG every single day and the Japanese have the longest life expectancy in the world.

Fear of MSG is a racist remnant of the Chinese Exclusion era which exists only in North America and has been thoroughly debunked by science. Yet racist socialization is so powerful that people actually experience physical effects such as headaches, depression, and indigestion based solely on their indoctrinated fear of Chinese people and Chinese food. Think it over next time you eat parmesan cheese or a vine-ripened tomato.