It’s not yet 8:00AM, but I’ve already been up three hours. I felt well enough this morning to do some light lifting at the gym. I expect to be back to a regular training schedule tomorrow.
It’s a short week, so there are loads of things to do. I always cancel my classes the day before Thanksgiving; the one year I did teach on that Wednesday, fewer than a third of my students showed up. I’m mystified as to why it isn’t a holiday here at PCC; many of the local K-12 schools do give kids the extra day off. But a two-day week, as luxurious as it is, just means more work compressed into a very short time frame. Lots and lots of grading to do, and writing, and so on.
Two notes on the weekend: First, my Cal Golden Bears won the Big Game against Stanford for the fourth year in a row, a streak unseen since the second FDR administration. In my four years at Berkeley, we won only once. For those folks who remember the famous "play" in 1982 (where Cal scored in the final seconds by running through the Stanford band), that victory came at a high price. Over the next 19 games from 1983-2001, the Cardinal held a 14-4-1 edge over my Golden Bears. Those were hard years indeed!
Second, my wife and I went to see "Bee Season" last night. Starring Juliette Binoche and Richard Gere, the film has had generally positive reviews. My wife and I split on the film — I liked it very much, she didn’t. Kabbalah is one of the film’s themes, and that had piqued our initial interest. One thing I can say for Richard Gere — he may not be a great actor, but he’s become darned good lately at portraying self-satisfied, middle-aged narcissists who undergo a dramatic catharsis!
And I write this morning with considerable sympathy for, of all people, Michelle Malkin. (Hat tip: XRLQ). The right-wing syndicated columnist, blogger, and commentator is one of my least favorite mouthpieces for the conservative agenda. I don’t read her blog regularly, largely because I’m not one of those people who takes pleasure in being exasperated.
But Malkin is an Asian woman, married to a Jewish man. I’m sorry to say that far more than her white counterparts on the right, Malkin has apparently been subjected to extraordinary sexual and racial ugliness from those whose politics are close to my own. Last February, Malkin posted some of the criticism that regularly comes her way; most of it falls into the "yellow whore" camp of nastiness. This weekend, she posted about it again, as the issue of her race and her marriage resurfaced when she was a guest on a radio talk show. Malkin, the mother of a kindergartner, writes:
The racist and sexist "yellow woman doing a white man’s job" knock is a tiresome old attack from impotent liberals that I’ve tolerated a long time. It is pathetic that I have to sit here and tell you that my ideas, my politics, and my intellectual capital are mine and mine alone in response to cowardly attacks from misogynistic moonbats with Asian whore fixations. My IQ, free will, skin color, eye shape, productivity, sincerity, and integrity are routinely ridiculed or questioned because I happen to be a minority conservative woman. As a public figure, I am willing to take these insults, but I cannot tolerate the smearing of my loved ones. Because I have always been open and proud about his support for my career, my husband has taken endless, hate-filled abuse from my critics. His Jewish heritage, his decision to be a stay-at-home dad, and even his looks, are the subject of brutal mockery.
Enough.
If you have a problem with my work and what I stand for, go ahead and take me on. Keep calling me whatever four-letter-word makes you feel better when you can’t win your arguments. But leave my family alone.
Well, Michelle, I could have done without the "impotent liberals" bit, as it does knock you back off the moral high ground you’re rightfully occupying, at least on this issue! Still, I share Malkin’s outrage even as I abhor her political positions. As a pro-feminist progressive, I’m angered whenever a woman who chooses a public life is attacked with misogynistic rhetoric. (Heck, I’m happy that Malkin is willing to use the word "misogyny"; some of her colleagues on the right deny that visceral hatred of women still exists anymore in public life). As a man in a mixed-race marriage, I’m also angry when tired old stereotypes emerge around that issue, as they have in the case of the Malkins.
Though I am obviously not as public a figure as Michelle Malkin, in the past year, I’ve received several hundred "hate e-mails" and hundreds of nasty comments here on this blog. Because I’ve taken a pro-feminist position and attacked the men’s rights movement, I’ve regularly had my masculinity questioned. I’ve been called a "mangina" (man + vagina), "pussy-whipped", "a traitorous piece of shit", a "pathetic eunuch", and worse by dozens and dozens of readers. In a couple of instances, I’ve been threatened — anonymously — with physical violence. I very carefully don’t disclose my wife’s name or much about her identity, but even in relative anonymity she too has been attacked, at times with racial slurs directed at her mixed-race (African-Colombian-Croatian) heritage.
Above all, my critics use one charge more than any other: self-loathing. Because I’m so hard on my brothers, because I am so committed to pro-feminist principles, my critics have decided that I must be seething with nearly pathological hatred of my own masculinity. Over and over again, I’m told by my critics that if I really liked myself — as a man — I wouldn’t hold the views I do. What’s so tiresome about the charge of self-loathing, of course, is that it is impossible to refute. How do I prove to anyone — especially on a blog — that I am comfortable in my own male skin? I’ve given up trying, but that hasn’t stopped the critics.
Here’s where my real empathy for Malkin lies: as an Asian woman with right-wing, anti-feminist politics, she too is tarred with the charge of "self-loathing." She and I are both accused of actively betraying those who share our sex or our ethnicity. Her critics assume she’s desperately currying favor with white men, while my critics assume I am eager to be validated and affirmed by women, particularly feminists. In other words, because our views contradict cultural and social expectations, there can be no legitimate explanation for why we believe as we do. We are either dupes of our allies (white men or feminists), or we are filled with self-hatred (for our heritage or our sex), or we are simply crass opportunists, using novelty (a woman of color with right-wing views, a straight evangelical man with pro-feminist ones) to attract attention.
If there’s one thing I am clear on, it’s this: one’s skin color, one’s heritage, and one’s sex do not, in and of themselves, impose specific political obligations. Michelle Malkin, as a woman of color, is under no obligation to toe any party line. She can be an interesting and effective spokeswoman for her side without being a misguided dupe, a self-hating woman of color, or a shrill manipulator. I happen to believe that she’s wrong 95% of the time on virtually every major foreign policy, economic, and social issue of our day. But when she is attacked not for her politics but for her person, she has not only my empathy, she has my vigorous support.
Thank you for your post. While I happen to be on Michelle’s end of the political spectrum, I find it disgraceful when someone quits trying to argue content and instead maligns a person. You are to be commended.
Hugo, I agree with your condemnation of racist and sexist attacks on Michelle Malkin. I’d also say that she ought to refuse to allow her work to appear on the race-baiting VDare site, where cross-racial and cross-ethnic unions are regularly attacked. She may have a good marriage, but she keeps bad company.
Sorry, an Asian-heritage woman praising the internment of all American-born Japanese in WWII is the definition of “self-hating”. After all, the Germans were our enemies too, and we didn’t lock away all Americans of non-Jewish German descent - they looked indistinguishable from the people in power. Malkin is deceiving herself if she thinks most white Americans distinguish between Asian-Americans of one national origin vs. another. And what did ol’ Sulu (George Takei, to non-Trekkies) do to get locked up at age 4?
And there are always going to be a few minority members who question what is going on in a fellow minority’s psyche when the individual marries out of the group. Is the minority intermarrier doing so from genuine love for the white member of the couple, or are they trying to gain status? This is the converse of the questions about whites marrying minorities - is the white marrying a stereotype image (Asian women as geisha-like submissive wives) or a purely sexual imprinting on a specific ethnicity without much thought for the individuals (in gay terms, “rice queens” or “dinge queens” - see the recent movie Brother to Brother for an example). Of course, all such questions are difficult for outsiders to answer. Much ink has been spilled over OJ Simpson and Clarence Thomas, but we really don’t know their motivations for sure. It strikes me that the gay community is having to address these issues more thoroughly than the straight community, simply because the smaller number of social venues and potential partners in the gay community increases social contacts between different race people. My attitude is, if it isn’t your own relationship, don’t bother wondering about motives of individuals involved, because you’ll not get a conclusive answer (and who cares anyway).
I have observed with dismay the slandering of Malkin as a whore, and do my bit to slap down those slanderers. Unjust, untrue, disrespectful.
When someone disses her journalism or writing, I must say I agree.
Ralph, I agree about VDare; very close to the outright white nationalist fringe (they link to American Renaissance).
Nancy, I don’t like Malkin’s views. But I fail to see how you can prove that she is filled with self-loathing based on any one political position, even one about Japanese internment. Insensitive, yes, but not necessarily self-loathing.
I doubt it’s self-loathing so much as opportunism. David Brock once admitted that he was friends with people like Norah Vincent because they didn’t really hold those extreme views off the printed page. “White guy supports Japanese internment” doesn’t stir up the page hits like “Asian woman supports Japanese internment”.
That said, there’s plenty of sexism, racism and other, ugly bigotry on the Left. I doubt those people calling her a whore are gentle, non-sexist souls who had to carefully search around for a term she might find offensive.
I strongly suspect Mythago is correct, but of course it could be a case of self-loathing. Or it could be a brain tumor that causes her to hold such preposterous views. The point is: a) it’s pointless to try and speculate about, and b) it simply doesn’t matter. Her views on internment are both historically nonsensical and openly racist. It doesn’t reflect well on her that she holds those views. Why she holds them is between her and whatever deity or deities take an active interest.
Of course there is that other possibility, not self-loathing, but self-deception, and over-reliance on practical expression of good-will from conservative whites. She’s married to a white, she’s paid by whites, she may think she’s regarded as fully equal by the white male conservative punditocracy. And she may have a better opinion of her writing skills than the generality of editors. She may believe that the rules don’t really apply to her, and that her influential friends would help in a crisis.
Right on, Hugo. I can’t stand Michelle Malkin — I think she’s one of the most insane, heartless wing-nuts out there right now. But sexist and racist swipes against her don’t actually do any good. Putting aside the obvious — that they’re bigoted, wrong, and completely unfair — they don’t bother to attack the deeply flawed ideas she presents. And they allow her to use the “anyone who disagrees with me is a racist” card.
And about Bee Season, did you read the book? I read it about two years ago, and absolutely loved it — I’m just having an impossible time picturing Richard Gere as the father. I am dying to see it though, so good to know you liked it. Check out the book if you have time, it’s great.
NancyP: I don’t see how it’s self-hating for a Filipina to advocate Japanese internment. To claim that such a view is self-hating requires one to believe in some sort of “pan-Asian” identity which, to my knowledge, certainly didn’t exist during WWII or even today. The Japanese conquered the Philippines and became brutal occupiers. Japanese soldiers considered most other Asian peoples, particularly ones they had conquered, as lesser civilizations and Japanese forces saw the Filipinos as virtually subhuman. Filipinos were exploited as slave labor, raped, worked to death and even killed for sport. The Japanese killed 100,000 alone during the liberation of Manila.
Despite the long US history of colonial occupation and brutal counterinsurgency warfare, the Filipinos viewed the US as a liberator from a savage regime, and Gen. MacArthur, despite his faults (many, many faults), is venerated in the Phillipines even today. It is estimated that close to a quarter of a million Filipinos actively fought against the Japanese in a long guerrila campaign, and an unknown, but presumably much greater number, assisted an anti-Japanese underground.
While much of white America might have refused or had a difficult time distinguishing between one Asian nationality and the other, the difference certainly wasn’t lost between the Japanese and Filipinos, or Koreans, or Chinese, or Vietnamese, or Indians, etc.
To say that she is “self-hating”, despite the fact that there is no love lost between Japan and the Philippines, or that she is affected by a brain tumor essentially makes Malkin’s point. Rather than argue against her, she is dismissed as traitor to a non-existant pan-Asian racial mentality or mentally ill.
Your other comment is even worse. Now she writes just to please her white masters? My God, that’s reprehensible. There really no difference between believing that, and some MRA’s claiming that Hugo is a traitor to his gender, and simply in the thrall of an instutionalized feminist academia. Really, it’s about the same thing, and should be treated with the same sort of regard.
If Ann Coulter wasn’t blond and skinny to the point of starvation, if Laura Ingraham wasn’t blond and skinny, if Michelle Malkin wasn’t Asian and young-ish, if Armstrong Williams wasn’t black, I think it unlikely that they would have gone far in conservative punditry. Eye-candy (ugh, in the case of Coulter, but then again, I am not a heterosexual guy, so what do I know about het guy tastes) and tokenship are reasons for conservative powermakers and editors to hand out mid-level pundit jobs. You have to look at the top echelons of conservativism to realize the blindingly white and male character of the movement, the mid-level people are there for window-dressing.
Now, some might think that a minority conservative ideologue accepting what amounts to an affirmative action job is a bit contradictory. So maybe mythago is right, and this is unrealistic self-esteem, not self-loathing. And maybe the top-echelon people do some flattering of these pundits, so the minority pundits keep believing that they are hired on talent and not demographics.
I’ll believe in colorblindness of conservativism when the top elected officials and the top-tier pundits include plain older women and plain darker blacks, and when jobs held by white men are filled by women and racial minorities, instead of the tokenist system (Marshall died, put Thomas in).
The brain tumor line was simply meant to illustrate the folly of speculating about motive. I hope that was clear.
NancyP, it’s interesting to note your pondering statement, “she may think she’s regarded as fully equal by the white male conservative punditocracy”. She may indeed think this. Can you wrap your mind around the possibility that she also may be correct in this thinking? Perhaps you can, but I have seen no evidence of it in most “liberal” persons. All evidence that I see points to her being 100% correct in this idea. And the very possibility of this being true is too threatening for most leftists to contemplate. Perhaps I exaggerate.
I’ve not been a reader of Malkin myself, but maybe I should check her out. Perhaps she is racist and heartless as described here. She’s still an equal in rights, privileges, and human dignity. Her evil spewings may change my mind.
If she didn’t write to please the white conservative establishment, she’d be publishing on I-Universe or other selfpublishing outlet or small press. It is really hard to break into publishing opinion books without some sort of hook, often, time in high elected or appointed office, or success as a radio/tv host, or sponsorship by Olin or other conservative granting organisation.
Malkin is American-born, and certainly much too young to have direct contact with the war, and while she might resent Japan for the war, the cold hard truth is that to most US white people, she is lumped together with other Asians. The emotional and political climate of her parents’ generation was much different than her own. I don’t see a whole lot of younger Jews resenting the fact that the US didn’t intern German-heritage individuals during WWII. In fact, few even think twice about buying German products.
Malkin does not have her own TV program, nor is she a regular member of the Sunday talking heads TV shows. This makes her second-tier in a world where many white male conservative commentators have these jobs. Since some people with TV programs are also poor writers, I can only conclude either that she is not considered a truly “important” and equal pundit by the conservatives, or that she has disabling stage fright not addressable by a beta blocker.
Stanton, you seem far too reasonable to be amused by Malkin. WHereas you often make efforts to be fair-minded toward your opponents, she does precisely the opposite. For a serious, non-racist/sexist/personal rebuttal of all sorts of Malkin’s nonsense, I suggest Dave Neiwart’s excellent blog. He’s currently doing a series of posts on her new book, but his eviscerations of the dishonesty of her internment revisionism are much more important.
dneiwart.blogspot.com
Hugo: Malkin’s vigorous counter-attack is against a slur that never happened at least not in the interview to which she is apparently reacting. She has a long history of taking a very small (often out of context) sample of attacks and exploding them into “liberal smears.” So this is basically recycling what you already responded to eight months ago.
Calling a Filipina “self-loathing” because she defends Japanese interment makes about as much sense as calling white Americans “self-loathing” because we fought a nasty war against the Germans in World War II. You might as well come out and say “Japanese, Filipino, what’s the diff?” More to Hugo’s point, even if Malkin were Japanese, it would be irresponsible to write her views off to “self-loathing” simply because you disagree with them. Maybe she defends internment not out of hatred for anybody, but simply because she believes, rightly or wrongly (wrongly, IMO) that it was necessary under the circumstances. Besides, all this internment stuff is a side issue at best. Malkin’s book on internment didn’t come out until last August, but the liberal racist vitriol against her goes back much further than that.
Uh, excuse me, but the U.S. government did intern and restrict the movements of German and Italian immigrants and born-in and naturalized U.S. citizens:
http://www.foitimes.com/internment/gasummary.htm
Maybe not in the numbers (at least not among the Italian-Americans and immigrants), but it did happen. In fact, the last internee released wasn’t Japanese, but German. released from Ellis Island in August, 1948, thanks to the efforts of Senator William Langer (R-ND)
I agree that Malkin can sometimes come on a bit strong, but I’m as tired as anyone of every conservative non-white-male getting labelled as an Uncle Tom, a traitor, or a geisha. It’s not only anti-conservative but racist. No one says what party white men should belong to; they’re free to make up their own minds. And yet some expect every Asian-American, African-American, Latino(a), and every other person who isn’t white to vote a certain way.
bg
Thanks for speaking out for what is right.
By the way, your African-Colombian-Croatian wife sounds beautiful.
If Malkin didn’t regularly defend the indefensible, she wouldn’t get the reaction she gets. It’s not just “minority group conservative” reaction - Armstrong Williams originally was not vilified or thought insincere, merely accused of getting on the conservative-pundit-of-color marketing bandwagon. NOW he’s vilified for taking **direct payments** from the US government (Dept Education) for espousing specific policies on education and passing them off as his independent opinion. He deserves the whore word, used figuratively. Malkin is getting the kind of nasty personal comments that tend to be used towards people who make a habit of nasty comments. This is not necessarily restricted in race or gender, though the mode of insult may be gender/race based. Rush Limbaugh famously made a comparison of Abu Ghraib torture to fraternity hazing. Therefore, I consider him fair game for attacking his wholly unnecessary (he could have corrected it with minor surgery) anal pilonidal cyst deferment from Vietnam and current hawkishness, his 4 marriages (considered by some to be “beard” marriages by a man on the “down low”), his “I have an unfortunate addiction to pain meds and deserve therapy, while those other folks are degenerate drug addicts who need 5 years in the pen” attitude, his weight (while he calls feminists ugly hags).
I’m mystified as to why it isn’t a holiday here at PCC; many of the local K-12 schools do give kids the extra day off.
If PCC is anything like my college, half of them would just disappear on Tuesday. Seems to be the sport to stretch holidays as far as possible. (Now I don’t even get the Friday off, but such is life in the real world…)
I must confess: I am surprised that someone who spews as much vitriol as Malkin is “shocked” to find that there are trolls (and racist, sexist, ignorant, and obnoxious trolls at that) online. This is not to condone any of the attacks on her, but more to point out that “raging jackass” is not a political affiliation.
Stanton, I honestly do find it unlikely that Malkin’s white male peers take her as seriously as she’d like. The kinds of sexual harassment lawsuits coming out of places like Fox suggest to me that professional respect for women in such forums (fora?) still has a ways to go. I can’t pretend to have numbers on this point, but given the kinds of language that some of Malkin’s colleagues in ideopunditry and the existance of such lawsuits, I remain wholly unpersuaded that she gets the same level of professional respect.
You know… I don’t pay attention to Malkin. Much like I refuse to read anything by say… Limbaugh, Coulter, “Vox Day,” etc. I do occasionally catch a bit of O’Reilly, but that’s mostly because I think he’s a concious self-parody, and that sort of amuses me.
However, self-loathing or no, I wonder how she’d react if we locked up everyone who’s family is from a terrorist nation… you know… like the Philipines? (Yes, it’s been offically listed as a nation that “harbors and aids.”)
Would she go in with a flag raised high, to prove a point? I guess I wonder if she’s *really* committed to the *idea* of internment… or if she’s just committed to the paycheck that comes with controversy?
Y I don’t see a whole lot of younger Jews resenting the fact that the US didn’t intern German-heritage individuals during WWII
The US did not treat German-heritage individuals well (some of whom were German Jews, by the way), whether or not it herded them into internment camps as it did those of Japanese ancestry.
Mythago makes an excellent point. It’s also worth noting that in WWI there was a lot of vicious anti-German sentiment in both the US and the UK. The royal family was forced to take up an entirely ficticious name because “Saxe-Coburg” (or whatever) was no longer considered socially acceptable. I’m presently reading “Castles of Steel”, a history of naval warfare in WWI, and the author is particularly kind to the First Sea Lord (highest ranking commissioned officer in the Royal Navy), Prince Louis of Battenburg. He was eventually sacked, but before leaving the Admiralty Prince Loius was forced to change his name to the now-familiar “Mountbatten” in order to sound less German. He was, in fact, born in Germany to an unlanded Prince, but he had faithfully served the crown and considered himself British since he was a teenager. For that matter, the royal family was steadfast in their devotion to him, and publically stated, on many occasions, his loyalty to King and (adopted) country. No matter, even someone of as high a station of Louis was forced to change his surname.
In the U.S. many German terms were “Americanized” in a manner eerily similar to the “Freedom Fries” incident of late. Sauerkraut became “Victory Cabbage”, for instance. Also, many Americans of German ancestry, including some of my forebearers, were victims of ethnic discrimination. German-owned stores in NYC were vandalized, and an thriving German culture, including beer gardens and a variety of clubs and philanthropic organizations, that had established itself in Gotham since before the Revolution was forced to essesentially dissolve in order to avoid fervent anti-German sentiment. Few people remebered that Von Steuben was the father of the professional U.S. Army, or that many Germans (again, my ancestors included) volunteered to serve in the Continental Army, despite the fact many knew only rudimentary English.
So one can say that German-Americans have been subject to some pretty terrible wartime paranoia and nationalist sentiment.
I think you’re confusing WWI and WWII, Glitch. There was a real anti-German crusade during WWI, although nobody attempted anything like what was done to Japanese-Americans during WWII. That was much, much less true during WWII, partly because people didn’t want to repeat the mistakes of the past war and partly because German-American culture never really recovered from the hit it took in 1917 and 1918.
Incidentally, German and Austrian citizens, including Jewish refugees, were interned during WWII in France and Britain. I don’t think that was ever seriously considered in the U.S.
As a left-winger, I take pride in my tolerance of other people’ viewpoints. I feel Michelle’s ideas are wrong most of the time, but I accept that she has a right to have them. When she makes outrageous comments, I have a window into what the “other side thinks” and can argue my own viewpoints more persuasively.
Nothing is gained by personal attacks. It does nothing to change her opinion. In fact, she becomes emboldened in her righteousness to make further attacks on the left. I don’t see how this tactic is working on our side. It may make the attacker feel better but personal integrity is diminished. Then she can claim how hypocritical the left is.
The best way to win the war of words is to attack the position, not the person. Doing the latter exposes the fact that one has nothing substantive to say. Even if people on the right do it all the time, we do not have to resort to those tactics to win the argument. We can show that we are better than that.
Hugo: More on Malkin’s faux-outrage here
Sally: Glitch is talking about WWI. But, there were internments of German citizens resident in the US during WWII. You’re right about the WWI-era anti-German campaigns, and that’s a big reason that there wasn’t a major anti-German-American sentiment during WWII: they’d already been forced to prove their loyalty and assimilation. The Germans who were interned during WWII were non-citizens (and the Germans, unlike the Japanese, had the opportunity to become citizens, so it means something) who (mostly) had suspected ties to Nazi party supporters. In other words, reasonably rational security risks, whose cases were decided individually and who had due process rights to boot.
Jonathan, we’ll have to disagree. “Satire” that uses racist language is still racist; no one gets the right to use the “but I was only joking” defense. Google searches reveal that some fairly nasty things are said about her, her husband, and her child. Should she ignore them? Sure. Should I ignore the most vile emails from MRAs? Sure, and I usually do. But sometimes…
Sally: Glitch is talking about WWI.
Ah, you’re right. Myth was talking about WWII, and I misread Glitch’s response.
and that’s a big reason that there wasn’t a major anti-German-American sentiment during WWII: they’d already been forced to prove their loyalty and assimilation.
I think it’s probably more complicated than that. Barring the racism that made Japanese-Americans seem really scary and unassimilatable, immigrants and ethnics just weren’t constructed as a problem in the same way in the WWII era. Immigration restriction meant that ethnic communities weren’t being replenished with new immigrants, which made those communities seem less foreign. Also, a good number of the German and Italian immigrants who were around were vehemently anti-fascist, which probably helped.
I’m not crazy about accusations of self-loathing, either, but I do get why people think it’s particularly odd that an Asian-American woman would support Japanese internment. The logic of internment was racial: Japanese-Americans were assumed to be disloyal because Asians, across the board, were assumed to be racially unassimilatable. That’s why Asians, unlike white people or people of African descent, couldn’t become naturalized American citizens. There was a racist logic, supported by racist laws, that held that Asian people were not capable of being truly American. That logic made Japanese-American internment seem like a sound, sensible, and legal policy.
Malkin may not think she has anything in common with Japanese or Japanese-American people, but that logic applied to Filipinos, too. And there are vestiges of it still around: I bet she’s been asked a million times “where she’s from” by people who don’t expect the answer to be “New Jersey” and who say “no, but where are you really from?” when she tells them she was born in Philadelphia. So it seems weird that she’d support a policy that was only possible because of racist ideas that would have been, and to some extent still are, directed at people like her.
Obviously, she can think whatever she wants. But it does seem odd to me.
Having said that, I’m really squicked by some of the nasty things lefties say about her, as well as by the argument, which I hear on occasion, that it’s ok to be racist and sexist as long as you’re talking about someone whose ideas you find abhorrant.
Anyone accusing anyone else of being a “yellow woman doing a white man’s job” or criticizing a mans decision to be a stay-at-home dad - is not liberal minded. I find that a hilarious and dumbfounding assertation. Either Malkin is conveniently choosing what she labels offenders - or the offenders are utter frauds. I wouldn’t in a lifetime accept being pooled in with such folks, so either I insist we kick ‘em out or I’m gonna need to disassociate from the L word altogether.
Malkin is American-born, and certainly much too young to have direct contact with the war, and while she might resent Japan for the war, the cold hard truth is that to most US white people, she is lumped together with other Asians
White people lumping Filipinos in with Japanese people in the category “Asian” is not racist… because white people lump Filipinos in with Japanese people in the category “Asian.”
Oh, and Jill — I haven’t read Bee Season, but am planning to now. It is hard to buy Gere as a Jew, frankly…
I’m biased and self-serving, since I’m one of the two people Malkin is ostensibly responding to here, but let’s be careful about allowing Malkin’s conflation of the racist comments many so-called liberals are making, and the actual accusations being levelled at her.
Racist and sexist epithets never were and never will be acceptable, but I’m not going to stop criticizing someone because some other asshole is being an asshole.
I’m continually puzzled by the “Jesse is making her do it” stuff aimed at Malkin. Don’t misunderstand me - I think she’s wrong about just about everything. I also think that she’s allowing the bad blood that still exists between the Phillipines and Japan to short-circuit her sense of morality. Racism isn’t any prettier when it’s aimed at the Japanese from a Filipina than it is in any other situation.
BUT…even if we think she’s a stubborn, wrong-headed moron, why not acknowledge that she’s perfectly capable of being a stubborn, wrong-headed moron all by herself? Why the assumption that her husband is spoon-feeding her ideas? If you look at Malkin’s history, she seems to have been an outspoken conservative from a young age. There’s really no reason to assume that her husband is pulling the strings. Even if we disagree with her (which I do on just about everything), that doesn’t mean that the basic rules of respect and polite discourse do not apply. And going after her family is totally unnacceptable. Attack her ideas by all means, but leave her family out of it.
I’m disturbed by the distinctly unlovely combination of racism and sexism directed at Malkin. It bothers me that so many people on the left feel the need to use repulsive racist stereotypes to attack her. It’s pretty easy to criticise her ideas themselves, there’s really no need for the racial/sexual slurs.
And on another note, which Chris already alluded to…why are so many people on the left apparently so enamoured with the idea of “Asian” as some sort of monolithic identity, and so oblivious to the conflicts and general lack of unity between the many different Asian cultures? Anyone with even the most basic grasp of geography and history shouldn’t be assuming any kind of fellow-feeling between the Phillipines and Japan. That’s what bothers me about the “she’s betraying her own people” stuff…the Japanese are not in fact her people. That doesn’t make her defense of the internment any less loathsome, and we should be calling her out about it, but we can do so without pretending that “Asian” is a homogenous identity, which it isn’t. Honestly, this apparent inability to tell the difference between a Filipina and someone Japanese, or to recognise the fact that the scars of the Japanese occupation of the Phillipines probably have a lot more to do with her stance than anything her husband might believe, looks pretty damned racist to me.
We can criticise her without acting like she’s a puppet with no agency of her own, and without resorting to demeaning stereotypes of the submissive and/or overly sexualised Asian woman. The left needs to take the moral high ground on this, or how can we expect anyone to take us seriously?
Also, in regards to Nancy’s point, it may indeed be true that most white Americans are oblivious to the fact that all Asian people are not one and the same. Do you really think that gives those on our side of the political fence an excuse to be equally stupid, ignorant, racist or sexist? If anything we should be holding our own side to higher standards, as frankly we ought to know better and really have no excuse for not doing so.
Heh. I’m just glad - as an “Uncle Tom-Tom” - to have once again the confirmation that the ersatz outrage over racism from most of the left is mere posturing and grandstanding by political poseurs, and not really the deeply held principle that they claim. The rationalizations are most entertaining, especially in the shrill and bitter defense and reaching jusifications of using racism, sexism, et al to attack political foes. “Politically correct for thee, but not me!” What a hoot.
And on another note, which Chris already alluded to…why are so many people on the left apparently so enamoured with the idea of “Asian” as some sort of monolithic identity, and so oblivious to the conflicts and general lack of unity between the many different Asian cultures?
I’m not arguing that Asian people are all the same. I’m actually not making an argument about identity. It’s a massive mistake, I think, to talk about race in the U.S. as if it’s just a matter of identity, rather than a way that the dominant culture has deployed social and legal power. I’m arguing that “Asian” was a legal and social category in the United States in the early 20th century: all “Asians” were subject to legal disabilities to which other people were not subject. This was true of both Japanese and Filipino people, despite their very different relationships to the U.S.
Internment was only possible because of these legal and social disabilities, which were predicated on a system of racial classification that lumped “Asians” together. So even if she rejects the identity “Asian,” when she defends internment, she’s defending a system that was ultimately based on racism against a group that would have included her. It would make sense if she didn’t support that system of classification: it was used to oppress people like her. But the system still existed.
She can, of course, make of this historical fact what she wants. But as far as I can tell, she deals with it by denying it and claiming that Japanese internment had nothing to do with racism, that it was just a coincidence that the only ethnic group to be interned was also the only one made up of people who were racially barred from naturalizing. And that strikes me as intellectually dishonest. It may be that she believes that internment was justified and therefore wants to ignore its racist underpinnings, but the racist underpinnings are still there.
And that may be my last contribution to this discussion, beause I’m going away for Thanksgiving!
If Malkin didn’t regularly defend the indefensible, she wouldn’t get the reaction she gets. It’s not just “minority group conservative” reaction - Armstrong Williams originally was not vilified or thought insincere, merely accused of getting on the conservative-pundit-of-color marketing bandwagon. NOW he’s vilified for taking **direct payments** from the US government (Dept Education) for espousing specific policies on education and passing them off as his independent opinion. He deserves the whore word, used figuratively. Malkin is getting the kind of nasty personal comments that tend to be used towards people who make a habit of nasty comments. This is not necessarily restricted in race or gender, though the mode of insult may be gender/race based. Rush Limbaugh famously made a comparison of Abu Ghraib torture to fraternity hazing. Therefore, I consider him fair game for attacking his wholly unnecessary (he could have corrected it with minor surgery) anal pilonidal cyst deferment from Vietnam and current hawkishness, his 4 marriages (considered by some to be “beard” marriages by a man on the “down low”), his “I have an unfortunate addiction to pain meds and deserve therapy, while those other folks are degenerate drug addicts who need 5 years in the pen” attitude, his weight (while he calls feminists ugly hags).
Ad hominem attacks are always a sign of weakness to me. It means you can’t attack somebody’s argument you attack the person instead. The implication is that the argument is to strong to be attacked. So I really don’t get what advantage is gained by homophobic accusations against Rush Limbaugh.
Hey, all you Malkin-haters out there…
I’m trying to find examples of Malkin’s vitriol and spitefulness from her web site and random browsing of her column archives, and I am striking out. I have not found a thing that would even put her in the category of Pandegon for biliousness. Perhaps I’m looking in the wrong place. Would one of you be so kind as to provide a few links to the worst of her nastiness? Or is this view based primarily on her book about the internment camps in WWII?
What Michelle has done here is intellectually dishonest.
There is no doubt that she receives some of the worst hate mail anywhere insulting her based on her race and her sex. Nobody is arguing that.
What her post does, however, is rolls those unforgivable attacks in with legitimate criticism and dissent.
I am one of Michelle and Jesse’s biggest critics and indeed I was involved with the “Ghost Blogging” story that revealed the extent of Jesse’s participation in the background. That story did nothing more.
Michelle mines Eschaton and DU threads for hateful comments about her - and they are there, for sure.
Assigning responsibility for those comments onto her other critics is dishonest.