Caption: "Chink? Gook? You're lucky you didn't call me Jap, else I would've kicked your ass!"

I saw an interesting interview of JAY-Z on TV the other day.  The interviewer said that Barrack Obama thinks that blacks should stop calling each other ‘nigga’.  Jay-Z disagreed, and said it in another interview as well:

“People give words power. For our generation, what we did is that we took the word, and we took the power out of that word. We took a word that was very ugly and hurtful into a term of endearment,” Jay-Z said Thursday.

Jay-Z is referring to the fact that brothas will call each other ‘nigga’, kind of like they used to say ‘homie’. He thinks by doing that, they have somehow taken the power out of the word.   ?????

I totally disagree. If your buddies call you ‘nigga’, and that’s how you greet each other, then you might be all cool with it.  But, if some angry redneck called a black guy ‘nigger’ out of the blue, you know that brotha is gonna be mad as hell!  Same goes for Jay-Z; he’d be furious, and start throwing punches!

My point is that Jay-Z hasn’t taken any power out of the word.  Read the rest of this entry »

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One thing when you’re raised in a traditional Asian home is that you learn to obey your elders.  It can be a good thing, but it can also give you bad habits since your values at home will conflict with what is the norm out in White society.  By obeying elders, you give them all your power and decision-making rights.  This may work to keep harmony in the house, but when you do this in white society, you’re perceived as weak and a pushover.  In the states, you gotta be tough, you gottta challenge the status quo, and you gotta speak up to get what’s yours.  The worst thing you can be is a polite, quiet, model minority who follows orders, because most of your managers are probably white dumbasses with a lot of stupid ideas that need to be checked.  You should respect your elders, but respect is earned, and if they have weak ideas, they should be challenged.  It’s for everyone’s sake: yours and theirs.

Black people are really outspoken, and they get what they want.  They are raised to hustle.  They go for what they want, and they learn to negotiate and be persistent.  Asian people tend to give up after one ‘No’, but black people will continue to push for what they want since they understand they got nothing to lose.  I really respect that part of their culture.  When they’re mad, they will vent.  When they want the attention of a girl, they’ll act.  And, many a time, they GET. Read the rest of this entry »

She probably had McDonalds on the way to work

Sushi is the rage.  Sushi is exotic, it’s delicious, it’s classy, and it’s cool.  Every major city in the US now has sushi, and Seattle is no exception.  People here love it!  There’s not only classic sushi restaurants, but also three or four conveyor-belt sushi chains.  The demand is so high!  Now, every now and then, there will be talk about which sushi restaurants people like, and you know how outspoken white people are!  They love to voice their opinions, and they’ll start telling me which sushi restaurants are their favorites. “Oh, you gotta try Mashiko!  It’s the best!”  Or, “My favorite place is Hiroshi’s” or “Wasabi Bistro is the best sushi in town!”.  Now, I have had an open mind and have taken their word and tried these various places my Caucasian friends and coworkers have told me about.  And sure enough, I’m disappointed every fuckin’ time!

Conclusion.  White people don’t know sushi.  Just like you don’t ask a black man to teach you how to swim, you don’t ask a white person to tell you where to get the best raw fish.  Read the rest of this entry »

shush

I read an interesting book on the fear of confrontation, and the effects of what happens when you don’t speak up.  I never thought about it, but in the USA, if you don’t speak up, it implies to others that you agree with them.  Whether you’re in a group of friends or at work, if you sit there quietly and don’t voice your opinion, it is implied that you agree with the opinions of the outspoken ones.  I didn’t really realize this.  In my Japanese American upbringing, I somehow learned to be non-confrontational, and I would be quiet even when I disagreed with what was going on.  I’ve been this way since childhood, and it’s only recently that I realized what I was doing, and what that implies here in the states.  In Japan, I think silence can mean both agreement and disagreement.  But in the states, I guess it’s viewed as agreement. So, basically, I have been misunderstood all these years!  Shit.

What this means to me is that I have to speak up and assert my differences wherever I am.  Not to confront, but to voice my opinion just so people don’t assume I agree with everyone.  More often than not I disagree.  In Japan, people are very good at sensing what others feel and think.  They are almost telepathic.  Here in the states, people are so self-centered that they can’t imagine what is going on in other people’s heads.  So, in a culture like this, you gotta speak up, SAM.