Obama's Visit Stirs Rethinking On Race, Racism In China

Washington Post:

As the country gets ready to welcome the first African American U.S. president, whose first official visit here starts Sunday, the Chinese are confronting their attitudes toward race, including some deeply held prejudices about black people.

Read the whole story: Washington Post

Comments

[wilray]

Lou Jing has a rather attractive face, especially when you realize that she has only the barest hint of make-up.

It reminds me that black supermodel Tyson Beckford is also of Chinese heritage.

[Free2Speak]

Racism will always raise it head when it comes to black men in Asia and the western media.This is about the emasculation of any males who comes around asian women that not white.A group of japanese male college students told me that when I was in Okayama.They also said blacks are a much easier target by virtue of their portrayal in movies by the west and lack of resources to respond.

[obamafan84]

i guess im juz reminded of my history, when the japanese thought they could do whatever they wanted throughout asia coz they thought they were the most powerful asian country on earth at that time. even if it were true (at that time), the acts they committed against their asian neighbours were atrocious, and none of the western countries really even bothered to question their behaviour till after they bombed pearl harbor. none of the other western powers even bothered to help nanjing when it was being attacked by the japanese, ironically the only one who even bothered to try to help the citizens at all was one of japan's allies, a nazi by the name of John Rabe.

[obamafan84]

goddessndiva, i am not an american, im asian myself, but i dont think there is anything wrong of the washigton post journalist to write that story. why is it wrong to expose racism anywhere else in the world juz coz u guys experience ur own racism? why do so many ppl here defend china as if it were free of racism itself and has no right to be called out on it? isnt china becoming a superpower, soon to replace the US or about equal to it when it comes to world dominance? if it were so, shouldnt it, like the US, also need to be called out on its bad behaviour? so many ppl here dont seem to realise what happens if u unquestioningly support a growing superpower, even if it acts in ways that are not good for the region as a whole.

[KingMidas]

BLACK MAN TIME NOW!! What goes up, MUST come down.

[goddessNdiva]

If the Washington Post wishes to use the internet, as a source, to show how racist Chinese people are than America must be winning the category of the most racist country on earth when it comes to racist comments on the internet.

Whenever the William sisters win the only comments start or end with the N word on AOL.

When President Obama won the presidency every other comment on YouTube was the N word.

It's easy to be an internet gangster and hide behind a computer and say hateful things about another race but when journalists try to use the internet as a source, they have no credibility.

Shame on them.

[yearlin]

black people get treated like crap no matter where they are/travel/live

[wilray]

Done a lot of traveling have you?

I can honestly say that the times I have felt treated like crap have pretty much all occurred in the U.S. When I have been to Mexico treated well. When I have been to Canada - from Vancouver to Montreal - I was treated well. In Denmark - treated well. In Holland - treated well. In France - treated well. In Morocco - treated well. As soon as I have reached U. S. customs - treated like crap.

[Tekd]

I think it's somewhat the luck of the draw though, I've heard people say some pretty terrible things about blacks while I was in Europe. Most people were great but I've heard people drop the N-word (they were speaking English) in conversation, and apparently expected me to agree with them when they said it. Caught me pretty off guard actually.
Anyways, racism exists everywhere but not everyone is a racist.

[goddessNdiva]

According to the article, 20 year old Lou Jing never experienced hostility until she entered the competition.

Interesting.

The first time I was called the N word, I was 6 years old and it was in France.

The second time I was called the N word, I was 10 years old and it was in America.

The third time I was called the N word, I was 13 years old and it was in Lebanon.

By the time I turned 20, I can honestly say that N word was used towards me more 20 times and none of the people were Chinese that called me that word but they were mostly White and Arab.

Seems to me that Chinese people are more tolerant or less openly racist if this young lady never encountered any hostility till her 20s.

[Tekd]

I've only really ever heard older Chinese people say racist things, and even then it wasn't so much hateful slurs as that they were scared by people who didn't look like them (keeping in mind that most older Chinese people have spent their entire lives living only with people who look like them).

[obamafan84]

joel ng, as much as i would like to genuinely believe that china is very sincere about embracing its asian neighbours, judging from its actions i seriously doubt it. they have conflicts with a lot of asian countries, such as india, vietnam, the philippines and taiwan. how do u explain the spratley islands, Taiwan and the Tawang region?

[obamafan84]

joel ng, im sorry if i offended u, but im juz stating my basis on what ive experienced myself. im not juz singling out the chinese though, im also mentioning the koreans and the japanese. im not saying that all chinese are racist, im sure there are also plenty of chinese that are not (racist). but a lot of those ive met from the mainland and hk both online and offline seem to have a similar kind of view on what they think of other nationalities, especially southeast asians. how many times have i heard from east asians ie. chinese, koreans, japanese, that they are far more superior than malays from southeast asia? they (east asians) get angry at westerners, particularly europeans, for having the audacity of calling them racist and point the finger right back at them due to their colonialization of asia, yet they seem to have no problems discriminating against their own asian neighbours. i juz sincerely hope that china doesnt become like the old japan.

[Joel Ng]

It's sad that so many comments here accusing Chinese people of racism themselves are painting us with a broad brush, unable to distinguish between the hundreds of Chinese who attacked her and the hundreds more who defended her in forums and blogs. I suggest that racism exists in China, just as it exists in Europe, and it exists in the US, but that doesn't make them fundamentally racist.

[MeloMelo66]

Thanks alot for the TED talks link with the "single story " perspective. It is really enlightening. Do you per chance have any other links that are as wonderful as that?

[obamafan84]

i dont know why some ppl here would want to make excuses for the racism of the chinese juz bcoz americans have their own racism. the chinese were already aware of their asian neighbours even before the europeans came to conquer asia, and infact, a lot of them had even migrated to other asian countries and assimilated with the local ppl, and yet the mainland chinese are still racist against other asian countries. not only that, they seem to think that they can dominate the whole asian region i.e the tawang region, the spratley islands. thats why a lot of asian countries, as much as they acknowledge its rise, are still hesitant to fully embrace china. a powerful china who dominates the whole of asia is not good for other asians, bcoz it might end up becoming like japan prior to WWll all over again.

[obamafan84]

the chinese are not only racist against africans and westerners, they're also racist against other asians who look a bit different from them i.e southeast asians. they're similar to the koreans and japanese, in that they find east asians to be superior in every way, in both looks and intelligence. they consider south east asians to be ugly, and look down on them, and consider them to be nothing more than mere servants to serve them and their needs. if u go to hk, they even have a derogatory term for the southeast asian maids there. based on all the chinese ppl ive met and spoken to, a lot of them do make fun of black ppl, and dont see anything attractive in their skin or features, except for their view that black ppl are genetically predisposed to being good at sports. a lot of them seem to think that being intelligent is also based on race, the hierarchy being the east asians to be on top, the second are white people, and last are black and southeast asians. how do i know all of this? bcoz im asian myself, a southeast asian to be exact, and i have experienced first hand the racism of the chinese against me.

[Joel Ng]

I'm Chinese, and engaged to a (black) African. I am aware of some Chinese with some racial ways of looking at things where it's not justified. I'm also aware of many Chinese who are culturally tolerant, who are genuine friends with my partner and who do not see things the way you claim we do. Perhaps you want to rethink your broad brush strokes which you're trying to smear an entire culture with? Some might term that a little... racist?

[Beca]

I am sorry but we have no right to be judgint other coutnry's attitudes towards different races when we have extremely active racists right here in our own backyards who are still "stunned" that we elected a Black President! and have been working all angles to de-legitimize him as our President by filing law suits contesting his citizenship, soldiers who enlist just so they could turn around and reject deployment orders because they claim President Obama is not our "legal" President, where the Pentagon lets these racist idiots slide, where our media keeps feeding the flames of racism against him and his family, where he receives more death threats than all our 5 Presidents put together, where the teabaggers are given legitimacy by our elected representatives and our main stream media.

No, we have no room to talk or judge other countries, we are among the worst of the developed and developing nations.
Yes, racism is not good anywhere, but c'mon! China's issue is that it has been a mono-race (however you say that!) society forever, until recently. These are prejuidices because now they have people who look very different than them, and yes, they become the target of displaced anger and jealousy, but racism like we have and have had here? No, we pretty much take the cake on this one.

[Ivatsol]

Racism stems from ignorance and yet ignorance is color blind!

[Ken114]

Wow! That is the best comment I have actually seen about this subject (kudos)