My son had an assignment this weekend to write an essay on cultural values vs. personal values in Huckleberry Finn. The teacher didn’t assign the whole book, just an excerpt in which Huck has to decide whether or not to send Jim, the escaped slave, back to Miss Watson. So I read through the excerpt and sure enough, it includes multiple uses of what’s now known as “the N-word.” I asked the boy, “Did Mr. Murano discuss with you guys about Mark Twain’s use of the word ‘nigger’?” “No,” he said. “But in case you hadn’t noticed, our school is mostly Asian. Now if Mark Twain had overused the word ‘chink,’ then we’d have a problem.” Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Race
Planned Parenthood
My son’s a mixed kid — white and Asian . . . Last night, he said, “I should marry a black and Mexican girl. Our kids would be a mix of all races: white, Asian, Mexican and black. Those kids would be good at everything.” Read more →
Our Kids Are Smarter Than Your Kids
A new set of California Academic Performance Index (API) scores are out . . . In Irvine, where I live, education is king, and the school district posted a very nice score: 888 out of 1000. Breaking it down demographically, the Asian kids led the way with a 933. African-American and Hispanic kids were both more than 100 points below the average, but there are so few of them in the district that they don’t affect the overall score very much. Even the special ed kids scored a respectable 705, higher than the 668 scored by the neighboring Santa Ana district, where education takes a back seat to gang-related slayings. Irvine: Our special ed kids are smarter than your honor students. Read more →
Asian Gang Activities
A co-worker informs me that a Santa Ana elementary school teacher has been charged with child endangerment for keeping a gun in her classroom. “Well, that’s Santa Ana,” I say. “What do you expect from people? Not a day goes by that you can’t pick up the Orange County Register and read about a gang-related slaying in Santa Ana. If I were a teacher in Santa Ana, you best believe I’d be packing heat too. Thank god this kind of thing doesn’t happen in Irvine where I live.” “There are Asian gangs in Irvine.” “Asian gangs in Irvine?! What a racist you are. I’ve lived in Irvine for seven years and I’ve never seen or heard of any Asian gang activity. Unless studying for AP exams counts as a gang activity. Blowing their brains out with mathematical formulas . . .” Read more →
Halloween 2007
My son put on a cap, a pair of sunglasses, hung a clock around his neck, and went trick-or-treating with his friends as Flavor Flav. I can’t imagine anyone in Irvine is going to be able to figure that one out. Postscript “One woman asked me, ‘Are you supposed to be Flavor Flav?’” he says. “What was her ethnicity?” I ask him. “White.” OK, I stand corrected. Read more →
So Much for Dominating the White, Black and Hispanic Kids
My son and I are watching a Citibank commercial in which a woman in Japan drops her son off for his first day of school. As his mom starts to walk away, the boy looks back anxiously . . . “What’s the Asian kid nervous about?” my son says. “He’s going to get better grades than the rest of the kids anyway. Oh wait, all the other kids are Asian too. Ouch.” Read more →
Cancer is Racist
From an American Cancer Society email: While minorities have made great social strides in the United States in recent decades, many still experience disproportionately higher incidences of disease — especially cancer. The American Cancer Society is working to eliminate cancer disparities among minority populations and the medically underserved, a fact underscored by National Multicultural Cancer Awareness Week, which is April 15-21, 2007. Sounds like more white people need to get cancer . . . Read more →
The Geometry of Politics
On the heels of my kid’s discovery that his tour group will not be break dancing their way across our nation’s capital, comes another disappointment — his tyrannical math teacher has been added to the list of chaperones. “She’ll probably say, ‘Oh, Casey, I’m glad you’re here. Why don’t you calculate the volume of the White House?’” Read more →
I Have a Dream 2007
My son’s going to Washington, DC, next week with a group from his junior high school. Once there, they’ll hook up with a group from Martin Luther King High School for a 5 day, 4 night Discover DC educational tour. Despite the name, MLK High School is not a predominantly black school, a big disappointment to my kid, who was looking forward to his travel companions “breaking out the cardboard mats and spinning on their heads.” I Have a Dream, indeed! Read more →
How Ancient Rituals Die Out
My son had an Irvine honor band concert last night. Along with the junior high group that he’s in, there were groups from the elementary and high schools. I was looking through the program to see if any of his junior high friends had brothers or sisters in the other groups. That turned out to be an impossible mission. To explain why, I’m going to plop my finger down at a random spot in the program and read off a list of the kids’ last names. OK, here we go — Kim, Lin, Chang, Kim, Chang, Kim, Yang, Choi, Chiang, Chen, Tang, Huang, Lee, Tran, Lin, Lee, Yang, Lin, Yi, Oh, Krolewski (Krolewski! “He’s a white boy,” my son explains.) Kim, Song, Chen, Yang, Lin, Kim, Thomas, Tran, Chung, Chan, Lee . . . When I was in school, it was a first-day ritual for the teachers to read through… Read more →
Why Asian Girls Like White Guys II
As in the previous example, these photos are from the same photoset on Flickr: What could be worse than being an Asian woman in Asia and having to surrender your mystical Oriental hotness to Asian men? In no other race — white, black, Hispanic — are the women so much better-looking than the men. Now you might say: What about Indian or Middle Eastern men? Aren’t they uglier than Asian men? Possibly — but my point is that their women are incredibly ugly as well, so it’s a good match. My wife’s cousin, also an Asian girl, agrees with my theory, but adds something I hadn’t thought of: Asian guys are also boring, she says, because they’re all the same. They all have the same story, same parents, same college major (engineering or business), same, same, same . . . Read more →
Black Father of the Year
NEWPORT BEACH — Two Los Angeles residents believed to be a father and a daughter were arrested early today near John Wayne Airport on suspicion of burglarizing four local businesses, authorities said. Donald Perkins, 48, and Kenesha Perkins, 28, were pulled over for speeding at about 3:15 a.m. near Dove Street and Newport Place Drive, said Sgt. Evan Sailor of the Newport Beach Police Department. — Orange County Register Kenesha Perkins is a lucky girl . . . most black fathers are not actively involved in their children’s activities like this . . . Read more →
Asians and Idiots
My son’s junior high school is having a co-ed pickleball tournament at lunch. The results are posted on the school web site. The funny thing is that if a team name contains any sort of cultural reference, the P.E. teacher in charge of the tournament either can’t or won’t put the name on the web site without a deliberate misspelling. For example, 3 White Guys and a Hindu becomes 3 Wite Gus and a Hidu, because identifying someone as white, male or Hindu is unacceptable. Curiously enough, the team name 3 Blondes and a Brunette comes through unscathed. Why are people allowed to self-identify as blondes, but not as white guys or Hindus? It seems like the same thing to me. The weirdest one to me is 4 Asians and an Idiot, which comes out as 4 Ans and an Idiot. I ask my son, “Who’s the idiot?” “Some white… Read more →
Homework Follies
“This is racist,” my son says. I look over to see what he’s talking about. He’s sitting on the sofa doing math homework. “What’s racist?” I ask. “The math book?” “Yeah. They have answers in the back for problem 9 and problem 13, but not problem 11. Because I’m a Mexican.” “You’re a Mexican?!” “I’m a mixed kid,” he corrects me. His mom is Asian. “You think the white kids’ book has the answer to number 11?” “Yup. The Asian kids’ book has got all the answers.” “Dude, check this out. Jackson collected s seashells. Petra and Tyrone collected 13 less than twice s. Now here’s the stupid part: I have to figure out how many seashells each person collected! COME ON! And the racist book doesn’t have the answers!” I say, “Jackson’s pretty lame if a girl collected more than he did.” “He’s pathetic!” Read more →
A Ready Answer on Diversity
From a corporate diversity report: The issue of having less diversity in the management ranks than in the aggregate among the workforce is faced by virtually every company in America and is one for which we do not have a ready answer. You don’t have a ready answer? I’ll give you one: From a management perspective, diversity, like outsourcing, is best implemented on some other sucker’s job. Read more →
Hate Crime in Irvine
Irvine police are investigating a possible hate crime that occurred early Saturday morning in the gated Turtle Ridge community. Officers arrived around 6:10 a.m. and discovered a car parked on Rose Trellis had been painted with race-related graffiti. The car belongs to an African-American family that lives there. — Orange County Register Now that’s a shocking piece of news. You mean to say there are black people living in Irvine?! Read more →
Racial Sensitivity at the Office
A manager says to one of the programmers, “You are the whitest Mexican I’ve ever seen. You need to get out and mow some more lawns.” Read more →
Why Asian Girls Like White Guys
These are from the same photo set on Flickr, taken at a local beach here in Orange County: Any questions? See Also: Why Asian Girls Like White Guys II Read more →
Why God Builds Gated Communities
I’m looking over this flyer for a church group meeting that my son’s going to next week. It’s being held at a member’s house in a gated community, so the flyer has directions, as well as an entry code for the security gate. “Jesus wouldn’t like gated communities,” I say. “He was very welcoming to all people. This is racist. They’re trying to keep out blacks and Mexicans.” Read more →
Clarence Thomas, Judicial Nincompoop
Clarence Thomas is back in the news . . . During a recent Meet the Press appearance, Harry Reid, the Senate minority leader, questioned Thomas’ competence as a Supreme Court justice and was subsequently accused of racism, which is pretty much guaranteed to happen if you say anything critical of a black man, woman or child. Read more →