Our superlative editorial assistant, Vickie Chang, published a thought-provoking article (Yellow Fever) on the fascination of some with Asian-American females. Unfortunately, it also functioned to provoke the thoughtless, whom she discusses in Your Fetish, My Life in the current issue.
The internet message boards erupted with harsh criticism of the piece.
On MensActivism.com (a “Men's Rights and Activism” website), “John” went further, comparing “Yellow Fever” to Mein Kampf (bringing the number of Nazi comparisons to three). “A childish outpouring of disgusting personal prejudices (a la Mein Kampf),” he declared, “rife with hypocrisy. Her 'Asian male stereotypes' were news to me, by the way. One of the heroes of my youth was Bruce Lee, who was definitely not 'virginal and emasculated.'”
Okay, John-boy, you're wrong on three counts:
- Chang's piece had less to do with her personal prejudices than other persons' prejudices – preconceived notions regarding females of her race. Her only prejudice in her piece is a strong distaste for people who base their attraction to her on purely racial characteristics, rather than her other virtues – for example, her excellent writing skillz (yes, with a z).
- Mein Kampf was obsessed with propaganda, while Yellow Fever focused on the results of propaganda – the effect of years of the depictions of Asians as submissive. The only similarity between Chang's story and Hitler's is they are both autobiographical. Your fallacious argument is nothing but a Reductio ad Hitlerum, not to mention a proof of Godwin's Law.
- Bruce Lee isn't the best example. I'm no Jeet Kune Do aficionado, but I do remember this: Lee, among the greatest Martial Artists to ever live, played second fiddle as Kato to Van Williams's Green Hornet for 26 episodes of The Green Hornet through 1966-67. His acting career was practically based on a submissive role.
Then there's theFighting44s.com – these kids ejaculated four pages' worth of comments on Chang's piece, the majority of which either argued over or assumed her status as a CCB – a “cracker-chasing bitch”. Clearly these are not regular readers or they would know that Chang is more cracker-chased. I direct your attention to her recent Trendzilla piece, “The Bro”:
“It also didn't help that the guy was kowtowing and screaming “Koniichiwa!” at me at every turn.
I'm Chinese-American, asshat.”
But the ass-crown must go to TKGuy, who wrote on theFighting44s that “I come to the conclusion that Vickie is a white person trapped in an Asian body.”
Rather than convincing people like Vickie that there are white perverts out there I think it's more productive to convince Vikie [sic] that she is not white and that white people do not see her as white.
…
Once again the option of just looking to her own race for a partner is never ever raised.
Look, Captain Douchetastic, the piece wasn't about HER choice in partners (except Rivers Cuomo). It was about those who would choose her or other Asian females exclusively. Do I hear the cry of an Asian man spurned by his own kind?
Yellow Fever isn't about a white person in an Asian body—it's about white people who want to be in Asian bodies.
