Asian American Re:Activism

Spinning quietly...
Cure: Disintegration

I have been getting more and more annoyed as I watched the Hot 97 controversy spill into petty turf wars, territorial pissings, grandstanding, and ethnic politics-as-usual. I can't stand the internet-enabled re:activism that has infected Asian American students and organizations. While there are a lot of groups who are doing really important work, it seems like there are just as many loose networks of college students and "press-release" organizations who seem to focus on these distraction "issues" and take up the limited space that Asian American community issues get in the media and public consciousness.

The Hot 97 thing, the Abercrombie and Fitch t-shirt incident, and a few other issues come immediately to mind as these blown-up issues that some groups seem to rally around. It's like the generation is searching really hard for its Vincent Chin, its I-Hotel, or its Dotbusters. But give me a break - these things pale in comparison. It's not like there aren't other issues that the community is dealing with that could serve to codify some kind of movement.

It has become the movement du jour, in which list servs and push-button "activism" has taken the place of traditional direct action, and passions begin to flare to combat cases of simple ignorance, stereotyping, and bias. While I agree with the thinking that we have to confront these examples of bias head-on, I think that they are distractions from the real work that lies ahead, quick fixes that are "easy-wins" with non-controversial, non-rigorous actions that don't require much time or emotional investment from the participants. Taking up the airwaves and commanding the dialogue on list servs, these issues feel like white noise that drowns out the difficult fights that are more closely linked to the actual communities whose interests we purport to represent.

Abercrombie and Fitch has become a rallying call for some of the keyboard activists, and a badge of honor that some former college students seem to wear on their sleeves. Taking on a company for stupid t-shirts is one past-time, but what about taking on a company for sweatshop labor or environmental racism (or if you're down with the global fight, how about taking on a company that's refusing to take responsibility for the death and harm that one of its subsidiaries has inflicted upon an entire region in India). At the end of the day, does it really make a significant difference that the shirts aren't on the market? Did it have to become such a lightning rod, when there seem to be so many other more worthy causes out there?

The infamous Tsunami Song parody played in extremely poor taste on hip-hop station Hot 97 in NYC, and the even more damning radio chatter afterwards are deplorable. But it's a no-brainer, caught on tape, and just a matter of a concentrated campaign to make them take the proper steps. If the groups involved were more focused on addressing the deep-set racism and mistrust between communities that guides and supports some of this work, that would have been progress. Trying to crucify the idiot radio jockey is an option, but is it really the most effective way to use the attention that the stupid song gained for issues of blatant racism? Is the goal to get the FCC involved so that they can slap even more rules on radio/broadcast about decency regarding discussions of race? Do we really want to see that flipped on its head to cut out discussions of historical instances of racial injustice or other issues that occupy the bandwidths where WBAI and Air America radio live?

And then there's the question of racial/ethnic politics. Why is it that the Chinese American organizations and spokespeople took off on this one? Was it because the insulting song and chatter seemed to disrespect the tremendous suffering of South and Southeast Asians throughout the world? Or was it because the song chose anti-Chinese slurs as their catch-all to represent Asians? Perhaps I'm walking on thin ice, but I'm sick of the trigger being some kind of knee-jerk reaction to an outdated slur that an ignorant fool is still using, whether or not the context was appropriate or deliberate. I only wonder where these folks were when South Asian and other communities were being called terrorists, harassed, and routinely made the center of anti-immigrant rhetoric that spew forward after September 11th. Why weren't these rabid anti-racists (or is anti-slurists more appropriate?) around and vocal at that time? Or were they too busy singing God Bless America from beneath the cover of their oversized star-spangled banners?

A note about re:activism
In a past conversation with my compadre Boogie, he observed that the most successful press for Asian American studies on campus only seems to happen after there's a racist incident. Cases in point... University of Connecticut had a series of anti-Asian incidents, and they ended up starting a program and institute (if I'm not mistaken). At SUNY Binghamton, wrestlers beat up a few Korean American students, and there was a strong movement for punitive action, and a groundswell of support for an Asian American Studies Program. Why do we have to wait for something to happen before we act? Instead of pro-activism, it's what I call re-activism. And in this instance, where the internet plays such a key role in "mobilization" around specific issues, I think of it as "re:activism", referring to the navel-gazing of the current generation of both students and academicians who are out of touch with the community itself, as well as the email shorthand for the subject line when folks hit "reply", as they launch into another useless thread of email discussions as the world spins without their taking notice...