trouble in paradise

For those who haven't been following the Asian Weblog Awards on Flying Chair, things have gotten acrimonious as non-whites complain of white oppression in yet another area of human affairs. Phil, you racist, hegemony-obsessed bastard!

The flareup appears to have been instigated by-- you guessed it-- an ethnic Korean (though from that person's point of view, it was started by Flying Chair for having the audacity to run such a contest).

Read this post to get caught up on what's going on, and take a trip through the comments thread as well. For Americans interested in matters of race, this is a different angle from the usual black/white discussion, but you'll quickly notice that many of the same themes are involved, not least of which is the whole victim mentality.

My own feeling is that it's a joke for the ethnic Asians in the contest to complain about the contest's supposed racism when they're the ones winning in most of the categories. Phil's basic argument is that his definition of "Asian weblog" is inclusive, not exclusive-- hence the strong presence of expats and non-Asians in the contest. The ethnic Korean complainer, Scott, is focusing on race as the issue here, completely forgetting that (1) it's Phil's blog, and if he wants to run a contest, then he can run it however the fuck he pleases, and (2) the phrase "Asian weblog" places as much stress on "weblog" as it does on "Asian." By Phil's definition, quite a few blogs can participate in this contest.

But some people want to be segregated, and that's typically Asian thinking. If anyone cares to accuse me of making a racist generalization with that remark, I invite them to go live in China or Japan or South Korea a while. If you come away, after a couple years, convinced that these are societies that value pluralism, I'll know you spent your time tonguing your own hemorrhoids.

Scott, who's American, really should know better.

So maybe you shouldn't vote for me. A vote for me is obviously a vote for da Man.

_