Asian American Empowerment - The Problem Runs Deeper Than Details

By Elbert Lin
Special to ModelMinority.com
April 16, 2004

Next month is “Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month.” From the looks of this month’s Details magazine, don’t expect the folks at Fairchild Publications – a part of the media conglomerate that also owns The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, GQ, and twenty-five daily newspapers around the country – to be joining in the revelry.

On page fifty-two of the April 2004 Details is a feature by Whitney McNally entitled “Gay or Asian?” The one-page “column” breaks down a full-length photograph of an Asian male (much like a diagram out of an anatomy textbook) and purports to point out the numerous ways in which an Asian male cannot be distinguished from a gay man (“delicate features,” “sashimi-smooth chest,” “ladyboy fingers”).

McNally’s piece has drawn fire from the Asian American community nationwide. Leading Asian American organizations have called for, among other things, a formal apology from the editors at Details. Numerous protests have been planned, including one organized by Asian Media Watchdog that took place in midtown Manhattan today in front of Fairchild Publications.

Details intends to issue an apology in its May issue – just in time for Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month.

But how could a mainstream fashion magazine with a nationwide circulation (I picked up a copy at the local drugstore) have printed something that crudely stereotypes gay men and Asian men?

Some might argue (in fact, Details does argue) that the column was intended as satire, an attempt to use humor to undermine negative stereotypes. They would point to the fact that “Gay or Asian?” is the most recent incarnation of an ongoing “Gay or ...?” bit. Other installations over the past few months include: “Gay or Magician?”, “Gay or British?”, and “Gay or Democratic Front-runner?”

I don’t buy this explanation. Effective satire is tough to pull off. Even in the most favorable circumstances – where the context clearly connotes edgy humor (such as sketch comedy shows, comic strips like Boondocks, humor magazines like Mad) or where the speaker is a member of the stereotyped group – attempts at meaningful satire often come across as your usual mean-spirited, use-a-stereotype-to-get-a-laugh joke.

And it’s hard to believe the editors at Details, who work for a sophisticated publishing empire, were ignorant of these conventions of satire. So I’m not persuaded that Details, which is neither an edgy humor magazine nor a magazine explicitly targeted towards gays or Asians, was trying to be satirical.

I believe the editors simply didn’t think that they were trading in unacceptable stereotypes. It is no secret, for instance, that it is still permissible in many circles to fish for laughs at the expense of homosexuals.

Americans also regularly allow discrimination against Asian Americans, though this assertion may seem outrageous. Understandably, most Americans probably suppose that stereotyping or discrimination of race, if nothing else, is not at all tolerated in this country. Unfortunately, in practice, only stereotyping or discrimination of some racial groups is completely out of bounds. Asian Americans don’t appear to fall into this category.

Consider the recent row in Philadelphia over requests by the Asian American community to change the name of a restaurant called “Chink’s Steaks.” Would there have been any objection to changing the name of a restaurant called “N--ger’s Steaks”? Then there’s “fortune cookie night,” the Miami Heat’s reception for Yao Ming’s first appearance at American Airlines Arena. “Fried chicken and watermelon night,” on the other hand, is unthinkable. And finally, Senator Hillary Clinton recently joked that Mahatma Gandhi “ran a gas station down in St. Louis.” Her gaffe garnered little attention in the mainstream media, but picture the feeding frenzy that would follow a joke about Cesar Chavez picking grapes or working a landscape business.

How has America contracted this discriminatory myopia? The answer lies in part in the widespread belief that Asian Americans are foreign. When I tell people, in my native English, that I am from Chicago (where I was raised) or Brooklyn (where I was born), I frequently am complimented on my fine, accentless speech or asked where I am really from.

Because unequal treatment of foreigners is acceptable (in fact, immigration laws make it legal), discrimination against Asian Americans, who are perceived to be foreign, also becomes acceptable. But this is fallacious reasoning. Must I point out that many Asian Americans were born in America and have called no other country home? Many others are naturalized citizens.

The double-standard also arises from the widespread belief that Asian Americans have succeeded. We appear to attend good schools and to make good money. We run businesses. We seem to be doctors, engineers, lawyers.

Because “discrimination” has become synonymous with “denial of opportunity,” our apparent success leads to a particular cognitive dissonance. The very notion of discrimination against Asian Americans becomes literally inconceivable. Thus, what might otherwise seem racially discriminatory is overlooked when applied to Asian Americans. But this, too, is fallacious reasoning. Discrimination on the basis of race is an absolute wrong, not a means-tested one.

Asian Americans live our own twisted version of the American Dream: work hard, play fair, do well, and still lose.