Friday, September 4, 2009

Two VERY Angry Asian American Women

Thought I'd give everyone a jolt for your weekend with this piece by Yellow Rage, two Asian American female spoken word artists speaking their truth LOUDLY and ANGRILY:



[Note: In my professorial mode I restrain myself from expressing myself like Yellow Rage but I have to say that at various times in my life I have felt THAT FURIOUS--so I can relate to everything that they're saying, as most Asian American women who have been subjected to a particular racist sexual exoticization knows all too well]

3 comments:

pgee said...

loved it, going on my fb.

KingstonTiger said...

not sure I get all the anger and indignation. Don't you find it a bit narcissistic?(I'm almost certain that audience didn't get it either!)

They are most likely assimilationists at heart. One day they'll find a good non-racist white man and fall in love if they haven't already.

It's a double edged sword. Look at poor Annie Le.

Jennifer said...

pgee,

Glad you liked it, and

matthew,

To be honest, I'm not sure about your comment regarding them being "assimilationist"--I'm assuming you were being sarcastic/snarky. I guess what I'm saying is that I found that your point about not getting their anger to be valid--and you may even have a point about the narcissim-there is a certain amount of narcissim inherent in any kind of performance, spoken word no exception. As to the audience not getting them, I'd disagree, I think that the audience, predominantly people of color and African American really understood the overriding anger that they were expressing.

And I think THAT is the key point to understand about your non-comprehension of their rage. I don't know how you identify, but as an Asian American woman, I understand and feel a lot of the frustration that they voice--and while in my everyday life I may not go around expressing myself as they do, as a form of art I appreciate how they give voice to the blinding rage I sometimes feel when faced with the explosive combination of sexism and racism.

As to your last comments about finding a non-racist white man, I think it's disrespectful and not helpful to a real dialogue about race that I hope to encourage on this site. I welcome you to come back if you really want to have a conversation about these issues, but if you want to make disparaging or sarcatic or snarky remarks, then it seems like you are the one being a bit narcissistic in terms of wanting your own opinion voiced versus a real dialogue.