Serenepia


Wednesday, 27 May 2009

"Model minority, my ass"

Eugene Volokh writes about Judge Sotomayor's nomination to the Supreme Court:

That's obviously important for a wide range of issues on which the liberal position would trouble not just conservatives, but also libertarians and moderates: the individual right to keep and bear arms, the right of Asians and whites to equal treatment under the Constitution's racial equality provisions and federal equal rights statutes,

I am so sick of people using Asians to drive wedges and otherwise cover up their real agendas.

Sidebar: Volokh is obliquely referring to the claim, mostly made by anti-affirmative-action types, that Asian-Americans are harmed by affirmative action policies, mostly by focusing on university admissions. See the Nation for a good rundown on why Asian-Americans consistently reject an end to affirmative action policies.

As A.R. Sakaeda wrote:

Members of the model minority often are used to shame other people of color. They can do it, why can't you? If you would only have those same close-knit families. If you only valued education more. If you only worked harder. Racism is a thing of the past.

Holding up Asian Americans as a model divides communities of color, making it difficult for us to see our commonalities.

"Model" too often means you don't have to ride in the back of the bus. You can ride near the front of the bus, but you have to be very, very careful never to say anything about the people forced to ride in back, as writer David Mura notes.

Honestly, I remember the 80s, specifically for me growing up in Vancouver as Chinese immigration surged. I think the reasons American conservatives try to lump Asians with whites (essentially against other minorities) is (1) because it sounds better than just saying "the right of whites to equal treatment under the Constitution" and (2) because there are relatively few Asian-Americans in the US. If the numbers of AsAms in the US was a lot higher, I don't think that 'solidarity' of the kind Volokh espouses would have a whole lot of staying power.

posted at: 23:57 Wed 27/May/2009 | /politics | permalink | 1 comment | trackback

Monday, 04 May 2009

"Birth Month" on Facebook

As I turned 32 this year (or 0x20 in hexadecimal), I decided I wanted to emphasize this occurrence on Facebook by updating my status daily, each time with an absurdly grandiose (or sometimes just absurd) status update. And now I'd like to post them here as an archive, and because I need to put something on my blog.

It was surprisingly annoying having to come up with new and strange updates every day. I missed a few - one for laziness, one or two for sickness - and ripped off the Simpsons and other favourite joke sources here and there as well, though as far as I can tell a fair number of these are original. As well, it's pretty clear I ran out of gas near the end.

Some of the comments I got were encouraging. Some people just appreciated the random jokes, but my favourite comment by far was "I get a sense of how it must be to live in North Korea".


Mar 29: Andrew Chang says birth month celebrations commence next week. Please clear your calendars.

Mar 30: Andrew Chang says birth month celebrations commence this Wednesday. Counting down: 2 more days...

Mar 31: Andrew Chang says birth month celebrations commence this Wednesday. Counting down: 1 more day. This is not a drill, repeat, this is not a drill.

continue reading...

posted at: 07:27 Mon 04/May/2009 | /journal | permalink | 1 comment | trackback

Wednesday, 18 March 2009

Why the AIG bonuses matter

Quick question: why is Joseph Cassano not mentioned in the same breath with Nick Leeson and Jerome Kerviel? All three took down their respective financial institutions (AIG, Barings, Societe Generale) with a series of bad bets. The latter two are convicted criminals. Cassano took in millions from his basically fraudulent schemes, then went on to leave the company, with a million dollar a year "consulting" contract. (At least that bit of golden parachute was later rescinded...) (edit: no, his golden parachute was one million dollars A MONTH.)

Anyways, all that is a prelude to my real point. Why do the AIG bonuses matter? Aren't they absolutely dwarfed by the scale of the overall bailout to the company? Yes, but. The bailouts of the company have been frantic efforts to keep the entire world's financial system from collapsing in a chain reaction. The bonuses, however, are completely indefensible. $450 million is going to AIGFP! There's only 370 people in that division, and more importantly, it is the division that sank the company.

continue reading...

posted at: 13:57 Wed 18/Mar/2009 | /politics | permalink | 3 comments | trackback

Monday, 02 March 2009

Comments down

Comments are down until I can swap out the antiquated captcha system with a new one and its blosxom plugin.

posted at: 13:51 Mon 02/Mar/2009 | /blogging | permalink | 3 comments | trackback

Tuesday, 10 February 2009

Bivalve molluscs are funny

(This is pure silliness)

About a week ago, I was feeling happy for no particular reason and so I put "Andrew is happy as a clam" on my Facebook status. Then, a couple of days after that, I got sick, so I thought I would write "Andrew is sick as a dog", but at the last moment I decided to write "Andrew is sick as a clam" instead. Then, later in the week I felt a bit better, and thus "Andrew is as happy as a somewhat sick clam". (Followed, for the record, by "Andrew is as happy as a somewhat sick clam who's full of barbeque", "Andrew is trying not to be shellfish", and then "Andrew feels as healthy as a clam!".)

The point is that the phrase "sick as a clam" just amuses me no end, and I can't even quite figure out why. I know this can't amuse anyone else as much as it does me, but I still want to twist a few other common animal phrases ("clever as a fox", "strong as an ox", "proud as a peacock", and so on).

posted at: 06:29 Tue 10/Feb/2009 | /journal | permalink | 0 comments | trackback



Photos, videogames, politics, art, architecture, and other geekery.

Andrew Chang
andrewc-blogatofb.net
aka ArC

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