Introducing the tumblr "Amy & Shaun" (a mixed-race love story)

A few weeks ago I received a lovely email message from Shaun, the creative talent behind the tumblr "Amy & Shaun."  He sent me a link to his tumblr, along with this description:

The pictures are not making any overt political or social commentary, but I think they send a very strong, positive message about the viability of mixed race couples, a love of oneself, and that love for oneself in the state in which we were made (without the need for processed hair and etc.), and, to some extent, a message about strong women and what they can do in this world.

Here's one of the pictures -- I particularly like it for its cheekiness!

I loved scrolling through the tumblr and seeing all these whimsical images of Amy & Shaun--especially the ones incorporating Shaun's background with Asian art (there are a few that look like he has plopped his characters in the middle of a Chinese painting).

So I decided to ask Shaun if he'd be willing to be "interviewed" by me -- a first for Mixed Race America.  I'll probably have to work on my interview questions, but I really appreciated the chance to chat more with Shaun about the inspiration for his art and his thoughts about inter-racial relationships.  Please do check out the tumblr "Amy & Shaun."

MRA:  What was your inspiration for the tumblr "Amy and Shaun"?  And where do you derive inspiration for your individual art pieces?

A&S:  Originally, these pictures were only ever meant to be a way for me to reach out to my love every morning to let her know just how much I love her, to remind her that her Shaun loves his Amy very very much.  I was going through a difficult time dealing with some personal things a year and a half or so ago, and Amy started sending me a picture each morning to help keep my spirits up.  After she'd sent a hundred of them, I decided that it was my turn to take over.  And I've never stopped.  I've drawn a picture every day for Amy ever since, and I don't have any plans to stop at this point.  Inspiration for each picture can come from all sorts of different places, but mostly from the fun of living my life with Amy.  If we go on a hike together, the next day I might draw a picture of us hiking.  If we see a beautiful sunset together, I might draw that same scene we had shared and draw us in it together.  Some times I'll see certain colors or patterns as I walk through my day, and they'll set off a chain reaction in my mind, imagining a picture around that color or idea.  It's really just daily whimsy, I guess I would have to say.

MRA:  Do you have a favorite art piece?

A&S:  Wow, choosing favorites from among our pictures is really really hard.  I usually really love whatever I've just drawn.  Until the next picture comes along, and then it becomes my favorite.  But I particularly like any of them in which I feel like I've done a particularly good job of making Amy look really really cute.  Because she is!  

Of our more recent pictures, I do love this one of us dancing cheek to cheek on the ballroom dance floor:

http://amyandshaun.tumblr.com/post/26643751469/dancing-cheek-to-cheek

MRA:  Any plans to add text or to create narratives/stories that will accompany the pictures?

A&S:  I don't think so.  I really try to have the picture itself tell the whole story, or just convey a certain mood or feeling.  I do often add captions though.  But I probably won't ever do more than that.  I've been thinking about trying a few pictures that include multiple panels, like a comic strip.  That might allow for a bit more of a narrative if I ultimately do decide to try that.  To the extent that the pictures do convey messages about interracial couples or strong women of color, I definitely do not want to be heavy handed about that.  I don't think it's necessary and I don't think it would feel genuine if I tried to consciously do that.
 

MRA:  When/where/how did you and Amy meet?

A&S:  My life changed forever when Amy became a part of it.  I was sleep walking through a black and white landscape until Amy took my hand.   She came to me as a sweet, quiet song in the dark, gently waking me with a kiss.  And when she did, and my eyes opened, my world had grown so bright I was nearly blinded by it, with all the colors of life's palette flowing all around me.   

MRA:  What has been one of the most surprising things (in either a good or not so good way) that you've encountered in being an inter-racial couple?

A&S:  I'm not sure that much has happened to us that I would characterize as "surprising."  I think we are both highly attuned when it comes to detecting even very subtle forms of racism and sexism.  I am very much an optimist by nature, and I believe that people are capable of great good.  But I'm also a realist, and I see the world for what it is.  Very sadly, our world remains replete with evidence of humans' nearly infinite capacity to hate one another.  We hate the Other:  You part your hair on the right, while we part our hair on the *left*, and that is why we hate you.  That's why I can't say it's surprising when, for example, we're standing near a cash register, Amy in front of me, and we watch one white customer after another being casually asked if they need assistance, while no one says a word to Amy.  In many instances like that, I don't even think that these actions are conscious on the part of the counter folks.  I just think that, in situations like that, the people at the counter simply don't "see" Amy.  When Amy then tells me to stand in front of her, it's zip zip zip, instant service.  The white guy approaches and all bow down before him.  

We're changing and getting better.  But it's happening very very slowly.  And I've seen so much of this sort of thing during my life that none of it is surprising to me.  We don't let it ruin our day.  When we see it, we look over at each other and give each other a knowing nod.  Or make jokes about it.  Life's too short to let it completely ruin your day.  There are times when it can, for sure.  But to the extent that we can, why try not to let it get the better of us.
 

MRA:  What has been the reaction to your tumblr?

A&S:  So, as I said, the original idea behind these pictures was simply to express my love for my perfect angel, my partner Amy.  So the reaction has actually been quite a surprise to me.  I have a fairly considerable number of followers now, which is in itself surprising, as I'm sufficiently self-aware and self-critical to appreciate that these pictures are not "great works of art."  They're just simply little line drawings.  So the size of the audience that they seem to appeal to is something of a surprise to me, for sure.  And even more surprising is the fact that, at least so far, the vast majority of the tumblr's followers are young, black and African-American women.  When Amy and I began to notice this make-up of the audience of followers, it made us start to think about what else these pictures might represent:  that it's okay to be a part of a loving, interracial couple; that it's something to be celebrated, in fact.  That it's a wonderful and beautiful thing for a white man to be in love with a brilliant and strong woman of color.  When Amy and Shaun fight a dragon, it is Amy who takes the lead, with Shaun following behind her, but showing a great deal more trepidation about the encounter than his brave partner is.  In different scenarios, I might draw either of us in the role of the hapless or silly or scared and nervous one.  I think the important point is that we can both be strong, or weak, or scared, or foolish, or funny, in turn.
 

MRA:  If you were to give your tumblr a subtitle (something post-colon) what would it be?

A&S:  Amy & Shaun:  A Perfect Love.  I am nothing if not a completely hopeless romantic.
 

MRA:  What does the phrase "Mixed Race America" mean to you?

To me, that is a very succinct description of the future of this great country of ours.  I believe it was during the most recent census that we learned that white babies now make up a *minority* of all kids being born in America.  The great melting pot is finally starting to mix together our skin colors and religions and ethnicities.  I would guess that in as little as a generation or two, America is going to be getting very close to being a country of mostly yummy, caramel-colored kids.  Let's hear it for hybrid vigor!  

MRA:  If you had to choose between having either flight or invisibility as a super power, which would you choose?

A&S:  No contest:  the ability to fly.  To be able to soar among the clouds and the mountain tops, gazing down at all of the natural beauty on our little blue marble?  That would be incredible.  I used to have dreams about flying as a kid.  As for invisibility, well, I've seen both the Invisible Man and Hollow Man movies, and things always seem to end badly for those "a-pigment" types, so that's another good reason for going with flight.

What is it like to be white?

I think another title for this post could be "What is it like to be in the majority?" but I it's not just any majority I wanted to write about today, the last day of my beach vacation in my home southern state.  No, it's the kind of majority that is racial, and cultural to a certain degree.

The view from our balcony

Southern man and I have been vacationing for the past week at a beach, lets call it "White Sands" since that's pretty much what the beach looks like.  Aside from a few storms when we arrived and one mid-week, it has been glorious each day--highs in the mid to upper 80s, Atlantic ocean that feels like swimming in bath water (particularly since I grew up splashing in the Pacific which is just plain frigid), and stretches of sand to lie out with a good book and to dry off from our swimming (or to jump in the water if we get too warm).

This is the kind of vacation I love--nothing to do but just hang out and read and swim and eat good food (in this part of the state it means Calabash which means fried, which is OK by me--I mean, I'm on vacation). 

So why am I wondering what it's like to be white (especially now that my skin is a toasty almond brown from all that sun)--because that's pretty much the only people who are here at White Sands beach.  Seriously.  We're been here for a week and I will tally up the number of people of color we have seen walking about a mile in either direction of our rented condo:

*Asian Americans:  4 (not including myself) -- 2 appear to be the transracial/transnational adopted children of a white couple

*Latino:  12 -- I should note that 8 of those have consistently been a work crew that is helping to prevent against beach erosion.  If you look at the photo above and see all those sandbags, for the past week a crew of about a dozen people, 8 of whom are Latino, have been building those sandbags outside our window.

*African American:  6

*Native American:  N/A -- I couldn't tell -- I'm sure that there were Native Americans in the various crowds of people we saw, or rather that there are people who identify as such, but I wouldn't have been able to guess by just looking at anyone.

*White:  100-200 -- I'm TERRIBLE at estimating, but I'd say at we saw at least 100 people the beach if not 200 people. 

I'm not even counting the number of people we saw at restaurants and supermarkets--I'd say for the most part that every place we dined in I was the only Asian American person.  One particular lunch place that is renown for their deep fried goodness was the kind of cafe that has the menus printed on chalkboards--not fancy but good.  We walk in and it's like a Western--every head in the cafe swivels to look at me.  Most look back at their food, but one particular gentleman, someone in his mid to late 1960s, white haired, paunchy and beady eyed.  This guy was eyeballing me like I was an alien who landed.  Like I was an unidentifiable creature.  Like I was the Viet Cong come back to haunt him (he had that kind of vet vibe going on, and here at White Sands there are a TON of those MIA/POW black flags around here, which always makes me nervous in a southern setting because I know they're looking at me and having flashbacks to the war).

Anyway, my usual thing to do in this situation is to simply stare back.  Hard.  Usually the other person is embarrassed and looks away.  But not eye-ball man.  He just keeps staring.  And staring.  And staring.  His table is right by the hostess station, and since they were packed, we had to wait a while to get our table.  So he stared long and hard.  And I stared back.  Southern man (who had gone to park the car) walked in and I immediately pointed out the staring guy (usually I'm discreet but in this case I openly gestured to him and said, "This guy will not stop staring at me!"  So Southern Man, being the diplomatic and polite guy that he is (his momma raised him right) looks at the guy and says "Hi, howya doing?" at which point the man grunts and looks down.

Done.

I'm glad that the staring is over but peeved that it takes my white southern husband to crack this guy.  I mean, I don't think he was happy to see miscegenation, but Southern Man is a big guy so I also think this guy realized that if I was unhappy then Southern Man would be unhappy and he didn't want to get Southern Man unhappy.  Or maybe it's some weird white man code.  I stare at your woman, you call me on it, I back down.

I will say that as we left to go to our table I noticed the eye-baller eyeballing me again.  I guess he just couldn't help himself.  I thought about flipping him off, but then thought that it wasn't the educational moment that would be helpful.  And that in the scheme of things, being stared at wasn't a big deal.  But it also wasn't comfortable and definitely it enacted my racial paranoia.

Which is why I wonder--what is it like to be white or to pass as white?  To be able to walk into places and not get stared at?  Maybe it's awful because if you're an anti-racist ally who is white you may have people say all sorts of awful things to you assuming you'll be down with their bigoted beliefs.  At least people generally don't say racist things about my group (Asians) and generally not about other groups also. 

But still, sometimes I wonder what it's like to live in white skin and never have to worry about which restaurants you can walk into or whether you are getting looked at because you're not white or whether the service is bad or someone in a store isn't friendly to you because you're not white.  I don't obsess over these things, but they're always in the back of my head--that extra radar of racial awareness.  And sometimes I think it'd be nice for it to be turned down because especially when I'm on vacation, I just want to enjoy the surf and sand and sun and not worry about weird old men eyeballing me when I want to eat my fried clams.

Activism as Parody from the women of Wellesley College

A few months ago I was sent a link to a Youtube video by two Wellesley College students, Nicole and Meliora.  I didn't click on it because (a) I'm never sure if things are a "scam" and some awful virus would infect my computer (b) the email account that is connected to this blog isn't one I check on a regular basis.  So I saw it and then forgot about it.

Thankfully I decided that I should trust Niclole & Meliora (after all, they're women of a seven sister's school and I have a soft spot in my heart for all seven sister schools after having taught at Mount Holyoke College for 3 years).  What I found was a parody based on Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe"--a parody of Asian American stereotypes.

[Note: If you have NO IDEA what I'm talking about, just google "Call Me Maybe" and "Youtube" and you will find both the original music video that Jepsen did AND a host of parodies, most famously the US Swim team did one and my favorite is by "Corgi" Rae Jepsen]

Nicole and Meliora sent me a description of what inspired them to make this parody and what they hope to accomplish in terms of Asian American activism.  It's rather long, but let me quote a segment for you:

As we all know, the media is a conduit that allows artists and visionaries to express their opinions to the general public, and in many ways this expression can be very liberating and has become a staple of American society. What is not liberating however is the underrepresentation of minority groups in the media that runs the risk of portraying a race as one collective identity. Especially in communities where there is very little interaction between racial groups, the few representations the media provides can set societal expectations or stereotypes for how a race should be approached.

With the hopes of challenging these stereotypes my fellow classmate Nicole and I embarked on an exciting journey of composing, directing and editing our own music video about breaking down the typical Asian stereotypes projected in the media. Our goal is to see how influential we as two students, with limited political connections and resources, can be in getting our voices heard. We decided the best way to do this would be combining pop culture, activism, and the Internet.

The stereotypes Nicole and I address in this video are all ones that have been projected within the media at some point or another: submissiveness/ politeness; the excessive type A personality that excels in mathematics, chess and the medical field; the martial artist; the uncultured Asian that eats strange foods and speaks in broken English; the nerdy anime lover; the over sexualized Asian that will “love you long time” or engage in such strange fetishes as tentacle porn; the stereotype that all Asians look like; and of course the age old stereotype of bad Asian drivers. We try to address and conquer all of them. However, we are aware our video will be working against years of engrained racism that has targeted both Asian American men and women.

Anyway, please watch Nicole & Meliora's activism as parody in "Just Don't Call Me."  I, for one, applaud their desire to challenge stereotypes and educate us while making us laugh.

Dear Mixed Race America, it's time to stop the MADNESS

An Open Letter to everyone in the United States,

I am heartsick.  The recent violence in Aurora, Colorado and now the shooting at the Oak Creek, Wisconsin Gurdwara (Sikh temple).  So much violence.  And not enough outrage.

Oh, I know there are plenty of people who are angry at the shooters.  Angry that this "senseless" violence could happen.  There's lots of hand wringing and, in a case of what I consider to be misplaced fear and anxiety, gun purchases ratcheted up in Colorado immediately following the midnight massacre.

This isn't going to be a post just about gun control, although heaven's knows I believe in it--I believe that we absolutely need more not less gun control--there's no earthly reason why any individual needs semi-automatic weapons and so much ammunition you could kill a theater or temple full of people.  And I wish there was more concentrated outrage that will lead to stricter measures.

But what I want to concentrate on today is hatred.  The madness of hating someone else based on their difference--their racial and religious difference.

Members of the Oak Creek gurudwara listening to an FBI report on the shooting

That's the crux of the Oak Creek shooting.  Wade Page was a known white supremacist.  According to this New York Times article, the Southern Poverty Law Center had been keeping tabs on him due to his "ties to the white supremacist movement and his role as the leader of a white-power band called End Apathy."  While some officials are calling this an incident of domestic terrorism -- there are many who are clamoring to call this what it was: a hate crime. 

Page walked into the Gurdwara and opened fire because he had steeped himself in an ideology of white supremacy that taught him that it was his right to hate people non-white and his right to inflict violence on non-white people.  There has been some speculation that perhaps Page was confused about the Sikh religion--that he had meant to target Muslims and confused Sikhism for Islam.  But as my colleague Amardeep Singh so astutely and powerfully writes about in this New York Times piece:

Whether or not that target was actually the “right one” was beside the point for the Oak Creek shooter. . . . I also don’t think we should fool ourselves that all hostility will be resolved purely by education, nor should we presume that this shooter suffered only from ignorance. As a white supremacist, it seems safe to suppose, what mattered to the shooter was that he hated difference — and saw, in the Sikh gurdwara at Oak Creek, a target for that hatred.

Difference, the targeting of others based on racial difference, is the subject of Matthew Salesses piece in the Asian American Writer's Workshop:  "If you look different, you are treated differently. This is just how our world is. We are not in another, better place, where we each fit in for our individuality. There is a true power to appearances, and there is a true power to the words we attach to those appearances."

[Side note:  Matt is actually a former student of mine from Southern U, and I am so proud that he has become such an eloquent writer]

Another colleague, Viet Ngueyn, makes a very astute connection about various forms of global violence and racialized violence in the United States, writing that his essay will show "the direct line from the core of American culture and history to the Viet Nam War to the Oak Creek massacre and a couple of other massacres many of us have already forgotten about."  And Harsha Walia in Racialicious reminds us, quite forcefully, that the root of the shootings by Page are in racism--not an individual act of racism by a lone white supremacist, but racism in its institutionalized and systemic form:  "The crimes of white supremacists are not exceptions and do not and cannot exist in isolation from more systemic forms of racism."

The image above makes me weep--literally, the first time I saw it, I cried.  I cried because not only Wisconsin is weeping, but America is or should be weeping.  We HAVE to do better.  Better gun control, yes.  But we also need more allies of all races and religions to stand together and to say no more.  We are not going to continue to vilify one another.  We are not going to tolerate this kind of intolerance.  We are going to educate our children and teach them about the history of racism in this country and that they can do better than previous generations.  We are going to decide that we aren't just going to wait for the next generation but do better NOW for ourselves--for others--for our society and our nation.

We live in a Mixed Race America.  What happened in Oak Creek, Wisconsin hurts my heart.  It also reminds me that I not only can but must try to make a difference and be an ally to others who are oppressed and to not let the Pages of the world have the last word.  We can and must do more.  We can and must stop this madness.

Who do you root for?

Unless you've been truly living off the grid and avoiding human contact & any form of news, then you know that the London Olympics have started.

I must confess that I'm a fan of the Olympics.  I know that there are many critiques one can level at the IOC (International Olympic Committee), at the amount of commercialism, the problems of corporate sponsorship, and jingoism that can get out of control.  But there is something I find spell binding about seeing people push themselves to their athletic limits--to see them excel in sports that they have devoted themselves to for most of their lives.

Which brings me to the title of this post: Who do you root for?

The natural answer is the country you identify with--but for those of us with multiple heritages and/or passports, this can be a thorny answer.

One of the things I've realized is that I am drawn to rooting for people of color.

For example, I'm a Top Chef fan and at the beginning of every season, I find myself rooting for the chefs of color--unless, of course, they turn out to be super annoying, jerks, or just not plain good.  Which does happen.  In the last season, I was NOT a Beverly fan but I was so happy Paul won.

This isn't to say that I don't root for non-people of color.

If you've been following Olympic swimming then you must know who Missy Franklin is--and from the feel good piece that NBC did about her and her family, she just seems like an incredible athlete, with an amazing personality and a very down-to-earth family.  She has turned down extraordinarily lucrative endorsement deals because by turning professional she wouldn't be able to compete for her high school swim team.  You can't put a price on loyalty like that.

But if I have to be honest, I am drawn to the athletes of color.  Especially athletes that look like they may be multiracial, like Kyla Ross, a member of the Fab Five who just took home gold in the team gymnastics event last night. 

When I saw her and her teammates featured on the Today Show at the start of the Olympic games, I immediately googled her because I thought she might be mixed race.  And sure enough, I found an article that described her background--her father is African American and Japanese and her mother is part Filipina and part Puerto Rican. 

Then there's John Orozco, a gymnast who visibly looks black but who identifies as Puerto Rican.

 

There's a Washington Post article that talks about the increased diversity in US Gymnastics and lists Orozco along with Gabby Douglas and Danell Leyva.  No mention of Kyla Ross, which strikes me as a BIG oversight--I'm not sure whether being of part Asian heritage or being mulitracial kept her off the radar of the Post (or it could be that she's not one of the more prominent members of the Fab Five).  But it is good to know that diversity (a buzzword that I find annoying but I get that the Post is using it as a shorthand for racial diversity in a sport that is predominantly white and middle class) is being recognized/talked about in terms of the Olympic athletes.

[Note: There has been some speculation about whether Orozco is adopted or not--apparently this website suggests that he is, indeed, adopted, and might be of Dominican heritage--but on his official site and in news pieces his parents are described as his parents--whereas one of the things I find a bit disconcerting are the ways in which sometimes Dannell Leyva's father & coach is referred to as his stepfather and sometimes his father]

The last thing I'll end with is that sometimes rooting for the person of color or multiracial American can really backfire on you.  Case in point: I'm currently watching the TBS sitcom Sullivan & Son.  Starring Steve Byrne, a comedian who is half Korean and half Irish, Byrne plays the "son" of a Korean immigrant mother and Irish American father.

 I've seen 2 episodes so far.  Both were dreadful.  I could go on about the sexism, the local bigot who makes racist jokes, homophobic jokes, and sexist jokes (like some kind of archaic Archie Bunker figure--I figure in time he'll start in on the environment and vegans), about the not-so-subtle forms of homophobia (see above Bunker figure--it's like the producers get to have it both way--they get the old white geezer to make the gay slur and we get to laugh at the joke and laugh at the geezer and know that we shouldn't be laughing at the gay joke because it's wrong but we're still laughing anyway), and the really bad jokes about his Korean tiger mother.  But what makes Sullivan & Son so dreadful is that it's simply not funny.  The storylines aren't compelling.  The characters aren't well developed.  And again, they just don't bring the funny.

Why am I watching?  Because I'm that starved for images of Asian Americans and especially mixed race Asian Americans in popular culture.  (click here for a guest post I did at What Tami Said on this topic) Because aside from the debacle that was All American Girl there has not been a sitcom (or drama for that matter) that has starred an Asian American or multiracial Asian American person.  For the most part, Asian Americans are supporting cast characters.  Sometimes very prominent supporting cast members.  Grey's Anatomy, Hawaii Five-O, Parks and Rec, and The Office all feature Asian American cast members who get definite screen time and story arcs.  But they aren't the stars. 

So I'm going to give Sullivan & Son a chance.  There will be a tipping point -- there will be a moment when I won't be able to take it: the bad writing, the sexism/homophobia, the lack of funny.  But for the time being, I'm rooting for Byrne and hoping that he can shape up or else I'll just tune out.

Changing institutional culture -- thoughts on the Penn State sanctions

I do not follow collegiate sports, generally speaking.**  Nor do I watch major league sports.  I guess you could say I'm not a "team" person because the sports I'm attracted to watching (and playing) are singular activities: golf, tennis, running, biking, swimming.

I am, however, a tenured faculty member at a large southern university that has a very active sports culture (more basketball than football, but we have our share of football fans too).  And as a faculty member dedicated to the education and enrichment of the Southern U. student body, I am very interested and invested in discussions about the place of NCAA sports on college campuses.

Which is why I tuned in to the 9am EST press conference at NCAA headquarters to announce the sanctions against Penn State in light of the Freh report--the report that detailed the failure in leadership to report the sexual abuse that Jerry Sandusky carried out against scores of minor children he purportedly was mentoring.  The failure reached the upper echelon's of Penn State's administration and including the much revered and beloved "Joepa"--Joe Paterno, who had once-upon-a-time been the most winningest coach in NCAA collegiate football.

Before...

After.

I say "was" because among the penalties imposed on Penn State were

*The evacuation of the wins they accumulated from 1998 (the date at which the abuse came to light at Penn State and therefore the date that marks the failure of Penn State's leadership to end Jerry Sandusky's sexual predatorship of young boys) to 2011.

*The reduction in scholarships to be made available to their football program (10 scholarships per year for the next four years)

*A ban on post-season games (bowl games) for the next four years.

*A $60 million dollar fine (the equivalent of revenue that the football program typically generates during a football season) to be donated to an organization to help prevent sexual abuse and to support survivors of sexual abuse nationwide.

In a quick google search to reactions based on the announcement by the NCAA words like "brutal," "harsh," "unfair," and "too far" popped up.  Continually there has been a rhetoric of the punishments being meted out hurting innocent victims--the student-athletes and coaches who were not affiliated with the events of the past.  There are others (including the NCAA) who believe that the sanctions will help change the institutional culture at Penn State and other college athletics program.  In the words of NCAA's president, Mark Emmert:

"Football will never again be placed ahead of educating, nurturing and protecting young people . . . the culture, actions and inactions that allowed them to be victimized will not be tolerated in collegiate athletics"

[for more on the sanctions, see this New York Times piece]

However, I'm skeptical of whether these sanctions will actually change the culture at Penn State, at Southern University, or any other college or university that fields a major sports team that competes on a national stage, particularly in division 1 sports.  It sounds pretty to say that we want to emphasize education over sports--that we value and privilege academics over athletics.  But I know that if I assign work the night of a basketball game, there's a great chance that only 50% of my students will do the assignment, study for the exam, hand in a complete final paper.  And they will grumble--at me and my colleagues--for not checking the basketball schedule and assigning work on a game night.  And heaven forbid if Southern U wins the national championship--I ended up cancelling class once I realized that students were simply not going to show up but would, instead, be headed over to the basketball arena to welcome home the national champions.

I like the Southern U students very much. They are an incredibly intelligent, diligent, responsible, and respectful group of students.  But they are also fiercely loyal to their sports teams--to call them sports fans is just a shorthand for saying sports fanatics.  When I first came to Southern U, I vowed not to bend to student pressure to revise my syllabus based on the basketball schedule.  After a decade of teaching here, there is a reality that has set in--an acceptance of the culture that I find myself in, a culture that prioritizes and privileges college sports--if not above academics then I'd say it's an event split--certainly academics are not placed about college sports by a vast majority of students.  And I don't think that the culture of Southern U is any different than at Penn State, USC, Michigan, Virginia...pick your Division I school of choice.

However before I end this post, I want to bring focus back to the real people, the real victims, we should be thinking of--the real reason why the NCAA has put sanctions on Penn State: the children (some of whom are now young adults) who were sexually abused by Jerry Sandusky.  We should not forget that the reason we want to change the institutional culture of a "win-at-all-costs" atmosphere is that we never EVER want what happened to the sexual abuse victims to happen anywhere, especially not at a place of higher learning.  Two writers eloquently remind us of who we really should be thinking of today: Joelle Casteix,*** the Western regional director of SNAP: the Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests (click here for her statement) and Tom Kinslow, a Penn State Alumnus (click here for his essay), who reminds all of us of the lessons we should learn in the aftermath of Sandusky and the Penn State sanctions:

"These are values and mindsets that have to be established in each and every community across the country. Never believe for a second that you can put blind faith in your leaders to do what's right. As we've learned time and time again, people are fallible, and if unchecked they can do great damage to communities and the institutions they are trusted with."

**I have to add the exception of basketball at Southern U.  Not to watch Southern U. during basketball season is like not being a Red Sox fan when you live near Fenway Park--unheard of and it can be dangerous not to understand the culture of the community you live in.  The second exception, of course, is that I am a Jeremy Lin fan and watched as many of his games as I could during the past NBA season.

***Joelle and I went to UCSB together and is a dear friend of mine--and I am SO PROUD of the work that she does on behalf of victims of sexual abuse.

[Update--July 24, 2012:  Apparently Joe Nocera, NY Times Editorial columnist, is also deeply suspicious/cynical about the amount of change that will happen within colleges and universities as a result of the Penn State sanctions--although he does note that Penn State will have to take a long and hard look at its football program in the aftermath of these penalties.  Whether real and lasting cultural change takes root at Penn State remains to be seen, but I wouldn't hold my breath.  Too many people depend on Penn State to be a powerhouse football franchise--an NPR news report said that the local economy of the Happy Valley will be hurt by these sanctions since restaurants, hotels, shops, and all sorts of other businesses not directly affiliated with Penn State benefits from the football franchise]

T.G.I.F. -- Patsy Mink: Pioneer Powerhouse

While most people have probably heard of Title IX and think of its main application in terms of providing equal access for girls and women in high school and college sports, many people may not know that (1) Title IX was actually proposed with the idea of equality of education for women and covers 10 areas, including equality in sports (2) The principal architect and sponsor of this bill -- a bill that was subsequently renamed in 2002 to honor this congressperson's achievements, is Patsy Mink.

Patsy Mink in the 1960s when she first came to Congress

Patsy Mink was an extraordinary woman.  She was born Patsy Matsu Takemoto on December 6, 1927 and grew up on a plantation in Maui, Hawaii (although it should be noted that her father was one of the few college-educated plantation employees -- he was a land surveyor -- and received a very good salary, certainly better than the laboring plantation workers in the fields).  Mink wanted to become a doctor, but found that a combination of sexism and racism barred her from medical school.  So she got a law degree from the University of Chicago, but subsequently found that a combination of sexism and racism prevented her from being hired in both Chicago and Honolulu.

[Mink was one of 2 Asian Americans and 2 women in her graduating class--she also met and married her John Mink, a graduate student in geology, while at U of Chicago]

So Patsy Mink got involved in politics.  And while the path to Congress would take too long to recite in this blog space, the important thing to know about Patsy Mink is that she became one of eight women in the House of Representatives and, most significantly, she was the first woman of color, the first Asian American woman, the first Japanese American woman, to serve in Congress.

PBS is airing a documentary, Patsy Mink: Ahead of the Majority, which you can watch on-line through July 31, 2012 (click here for the link to the Independent Lens website and here for a link to the filmmaker's website).  It's truly a wonderful documentary that chronicles the life of a truly extraordinary woman.  A woman who was a true liberal lion--who spoke out against the war in Viet Nam.  Who fought on behalf of women and poor people.  Who always spoke up for what she believed in, even when her opinion was a minority opinion and not well received.  She was one of the 66 people who voted against the Homeland Security bill post-9/11.  And, as noted in the beginning of this post, she fought for equal access for women in higher education--because Title IX forced colleges and universities to open up the admission process in graduate and undergraduate admissions to women, enabling the current equity we now see for women entering medical and law school. 

June 23 marked the 40th anniversary of the passage of Title IX -- I am a direct beneficiary of its passage.  I am a direct beneficiary of the legacy that Patsy Mink left in terms of her public service, in terms of her fighting for social justice, in terms of her breaking down barriers and showing up as an Asian American woman at a time when that phrase "Asian American" wasn't even in existence and when a woman's place was believed to be in the kitchen not the halls of Congress.  Title IX expanded educational access for women--I don't know the faces or names of the countless women who have been impacted by Title IX, but I do know the face of one woman who was key to its implementation.

Patsy Mink in the 1990s

Four years ago, I introduced a series called the T.G.I.F. Award, which stands for "The Great Impossible Feat" -- and although it's been a while since I last gave out one of these, I think it's very appropriate and long overdue to honor Rep. Patsy Mink for all her many contributions to helping people in the U.S. who would otherwise not have a voice--women, people of color, poor/working class people. 

Thank you Patsy Mink, especially on behalf of all young girls, THANK YOU!

 

“What you endure is who you are.  And if you just accept and do nothing, then life goes on.  But if you see it as a way for change, life doesn’t have to be this unfair.  It can be better, maybe not for me, I can’t change the past, but I can certainly help somebody else in the future so that they don’t have to go through what I did.”

--Patsy Mink

Linsanity moves to Houston

As most of the world who follows the NBA or Asian American athletes or the very fine intersection of the two in the singular figure of Jeremy Lin now knows, Lin is moving to Houston to join the Rockets because the NY Knicks wouldn't match the Rockets' offer.

Lin accepting the 2012 ESPY award for best breakout athlete

 The New York Times has a piece that describes the reasons for the Knicks failure to retain Lin, and Jeff Yang of The Wall Street Journal talks about the impact this will have on Asian American fans.  Yang quotes my friend and colleague, Tim Yu, whose astute observations bear repeating in full:

“I don’t care who he plays for — I’m a Lin fan, not a Knicks fan,” says Timothy Yu, an associate professor of Asian American Studies (and Jeremy Lin Studies pioneer) at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. “What I’m mad about is that the Knicks just completely cut him loose — and they’re blaming him for cutting such a hard-nosed deal with the Rockets. The fact of the matter is that even the team that benefited from Linsanity doesn’t believe it’s for real. That really burns me as an Asian American fan. But shed no tears for Jeremy: An Asian American athlete is getting paid like a superstar, because he is one — and that’s cool.”

Like Yu, I am a Lin fan, not a Knicks fan.  In fact, I have been a Lin fan from back when he was playing in the Ivy League and awarded him a T.G.I.F. (The Great Impossible Feat) back in February 2010.  Who knew that just two years later, I'd have caught the fever called Linsanity.

Farewell  Jeremy.  I hope Houston treats you right.  Most importantly, I hope that you have an AMAZING season/career such that the Knicks and all the fans in NYC and around the world will weep at this decision.  I, for one, am just excited to be seeing you play and to know that you are getting what you deserve--a salary and recognition to match your talent!

So long NYC! I'm headed to HOUSTON!!!

[Update: 1:46pm EST:  Just saw an interview that Lin did before the 2012 ESPY awards last week--it's just under 4 minutes and at around the 2 minute mark he gets asked about his impact on the Asian community and talks about what it's like for him as an Asian American breaking stereotypes about Asian American athletes--you just gotta love this guy!]






[Second Update -- July 19, 2012: Just saw this GQ article in which the author, Devin Gordon, talks openly about what no one wants to say was part of the whole Lin-to-Houston kerfuffle: Lin's race and ethnicity played a part in the calculations of Dolan, the Knick's owner, even if subconsciously.  Here's a quote from Gordon that says SO MUCH of what I, and many other Asian Americans, think/feel:

"But here's what I am confident saying about Dolan on the subject of Lin's ethnicity: he has absolutely no grasp of what Jeremy Lin really means as a cultural phenomenon. It does not pierce his bubble. It stirs no emotion in him. He doesn't understand what it means for millions of people in this country, and around the world, to watch the first Asian-American superstar athlete excel on the highest stage, and what it means to have that player wearing the uniform of his team. The pride, the joy, the inspiration, the transformative effect it can have on an entire generation of kids."

Read More http://www.gq.com/blogs/the-q/2012/07/the-jeremy-lin-debate-no-one-wants-to-have.html#ixzz215OGDUTd