The Souls of Yellow Folk: Essays by Wesley Yang reviewed • Hacker News Board

Re: The Souls of Yellow Folk: Essays by Wesley Yang reviewed

#11

Post by Jun8 » Sun, Dec 09, 2018, 4:32 PM UTC

peteretep wrote: post #2

> those — often Asian, usually male — who find themselves excluded from certain intangible perquisites of American life: love, success, security, and belonging I’m going to need some actual data on that, compared to outcomes of different gender/ethnicity combos.

I addition to the OKCupid study, here is some other data:

* 2007 Chicago Booth paper about online dating (https://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/emir.kamenica/documents/rac...): One important (probably unsurprising) find was that "Females exhibit stronger racial preferences than males." Also from the paper: " Finally, we can reject the hypothesis of equal preference against partners of other races for white, black, and Hispanic subjects, owing largely to the greater preference against Asian males by all other races"

* If you prefer anecdata, here are some Asian stories from the frontlines: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/asian-americans-dating-.... Asian women are desirable but they find that this cuts both ways, i.e. the desirability comes with unwanted fetishization on the dragon lady (O-Ren Ishii, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kill_Bill:_Volume_1) - geisha scale (Suzy Wong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_of_Suzie_Wong_(film)).

* If you're interested in the above fetishization of Asian women, here's an interesting paper on how they have been portrayed in Hollywood by analyzing four movies that span 20th century: https://web.uri.edu/iaics/files/07Wang.pdf

Re: The Souls of Yellow Folk: Essays by Wesley Yang reviewed

#12

Post by shliachtx » Sun, Dec 09, 2018, 4:52 PM UTC

nkurz wrote: post #9

johan_larson wrote: post #3

That's rather an ambitious title, isn't it? W.E.B. Dubois might be the most respected African-American intellectual, and "The Souls of Black Folk" might be his finest work. Yang is setting the bar rather high for himself.

Did you intend "ambitious" to be sarcastic? Given the content, it feels parallel calling Dubois "uppity": https://uppitynegronetwork.com/what-is-an-uppity-negro/ In the Paper Tigers essay, much time is spent condemning the highly regulated degree of ambition deemed appropriate for Asian Americans. Yang consciously rejects this, and wants the freedom to aim higher. From his Paper Tigers essay (and partially requoted i…

GP is not commenting on the ability of an Asian-American to write or think on par with W.E.B. DuBois, but that the presented body of work is not necessarily a parallel to The Souls of Black Folk. As other commenters have mentioned, this book does not exclusively discuss the role of Asian-Americans in American culture and society, apparently being relegated to a few essays. For a book which proclaims to be about "The Souls of Yellow Folk" - invoking DuBois's book, this does indeed seem a little ambitious.

Re: The Souls of Yellow Folk: Essays by Wesley Yang reviewed

#13

Post by mc32 » Sun, Dec 09, 2018, 4:54 PM UTC

iso1337 wrote: post #10

peteretep wrote: post #2

> those — often Asian, usually male — who find themselves excluded from certain intangible perquisites of American life: love, success, security, and belonging I’m going to need some actual data on that, compared to outcomes of different gender/ethnicity combos.

Okcupid did some analyses on this. The big losers in the US sexual market are black females, black males, and asian males. https://theblog.okcupid.com/race-and-attraction-2009-2014-10...

While the stats are accurate, the self selection may not represent the pop at large.

Re: The Souls of Yellow Folk: Essays by Wesley Yang reviewed

#14

Post by jhowell » Sun, Dec 09, 2018, 5:08 PM UTC

shliachtx wrote: post #12

nkurz wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you intend "ambitious" to be sarcastic? Given the content, it feels parallel calling Dubois "uppity": https://uppitynegronetwork.com/what-is-an-uppity-negro/ In the Paper Tigers essay, much time is spent condemning the highly regulated degree of ambition deemed appropriate for Asian Americans. Yang consciously rejects this, and wants the freedom to aim higher. From his Paper Tigers essay (and partially requoted i…

GP is not commenting on the ability of an Asian-American to write or think on par with W.E.B. DuBois, but that the presented body of work is not necessarily a parallel to The Souls of Black Folk. As other commenters have mentioned, this book does not exclusively discuss the role of Asian-Americans in American culture and society, apparently being relegated to a few essays. For a book which proclaims to be about "The…

I think the comment questions the clickbait title and not necessarily the content.

Re: The Souls of Yellow Folk: Essays by Wesley Yang reviewed

#15

Post by johan_larson » Sun, Dec 09, 2018, 5:14 PM UTC

nkurz wrote: post #9

johan_larson wrote: post #3

That's rather an ambitious title, isn't it? W.E.B. Dubois might be the most respected African-American intellectual, and "The Souls of Black Folk" might be his finest work. Yang is setting the bar rather high for himself.

Did you intend "ambitious" to be sarcastic? Given the content, it feels parallel calling Dubois "uppity": https://uppitynegronetwork.com/what-is-an-uppity-negro/ In the Paper Tigers essay, much time is spent condemning the highly regulated degree of ambition deemed appropriate for Asian Americans. Yang consciously rejects this, and wants the freedom to aim higher. From his Paper Tigers essay (and partially requoted i…

I am not being sarcastic. By choosing the title he did, the author is setting himself up for comparison with a really famous work, and I have to wonder whether that was wise. It was, to say the least, bold.

Would I have reacted differently to something similar done by someone who is not Asian? Hard to say; I can't interrogate my mind with complete reliability from the inside. But believe the answer is no, I would have reacted the same way regardless of the race of the author.

Re: The Souls of Yellow Folk: Essays by Wesley Yang reviewed

#16

Post by nkurz » Sun, Dec 09, 2018, 5:38 PM UTC

johan_larson wrote: post #15

nkurz wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you intend "ambitious" to be sarcastic? Given the content, it feels parallel calling Dubois "uppity": https://uppitynegronetwork.com/what-is-an-uppity-negro/ In the Paper Tigers essay, much time is spent condemning the highly regulated degree of ambition deemed appropriate for Asian Americans. Yang consciously rejects this, and wants the freedom to aim higher. From his Paper Tigers essay (and partially requoted i…

I am not being sarcastic. By choosing the title he did, the author is setting himself up for comparison with a really famous work, and I have to wonder whether that was wise. It was, to say the least, bold. Would I have reacted differently to something similar done by someone who is not Asian? Hard to say; I can't interrogate my mind with complete reliability from the inside. But believe the answer is no, I would hav…

I agree that it's a bold title, and agree that the the collected essays probably aren't going to measure up to the historical standard. But I think this is central to Yang's thesis that the standards of behavior are different for Asians in America than they are for others.

For me, I think the title choice works because it calls attention to the fact that Asian American culture is not particularly open to the strategy of aiming really high and being likely to fail, and instead favors targeting a more modest level of success that can be attained with greater likelihood. Braggadocio and overconfidence are not considered typical traits.

Yang's title is high-risk high-reward high-likelihood-of-failure, and I do find my self surprised (in what is likely a racially biased manner) that an Asian American male would choose such a brazen title. That I have this thought (as a non-Asian Amerian) makes me suspect that Yang is on to something.

Re: The Souls of Yellow Folk: Essays by Wesley Yang reviewed

#17

Post by iso1337 » Sun, Dec 09, 2018, 5:50 PM UTC

mc32 wrote: post #13

iso1337 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okcupid did some analyses on this. The big losers in the US sexual market are black females, black males, and asian males. https://theblog.okcupid.com/race-and-attraction-2009-2014-10...

While the stats are accurate, the self selection may not represent the pop at large.

Here’s another: Black females and asian males are less likely to be in interracial marriages [1]. Under the heading “For blacks and Asians, big gender gaps in intermarriage”

Of course this only paints part of the picture, since it sliced and diced the data differently. Ideally you’d have much more comprehensive statistics about people in relationships, and the statistics wouldn’t just be % of intermarriage, but all marriages. However you should be able to extrapolate, since all marriages = interracial + interracial marriages. So if asian females have higher rates of intermarriage and males don’t, then there presumably are a surplus of unmarried asian males (and black females for that matter).

http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2017/05/18/1-trends-and-patte...

Re: The Souls of Yellow Folk: Essays by Wesley Yang reviewed

#18

Post by gandutraveler » Sun, Dec 09, 2018, 6:13 PM UTC

iso1337 wrote: post #10

peteretep wrote: post #2

> those — often Asian, usually male — who find themselves excluded from certain intangible perquisites of American life: love, success, security, and belonging I’m going to need some actual data on that, compared to outcomes of different gender/ethnicity combos.

Okcupid did some analyses on this. The big losers in the US sexual market are black females, black males, and asian males. https://theblog.okcupid.com/race-and-attraction-2009-2014-10...

I believe Asian in this study means Asian Continent and not the american 'Asian'

Re: The Souls of Yellow Folk: Essays by Wesley Yang reviewed

#19

Post by magic_beans » Sun, Dec 09, 2018, 6:26 PM UTC

johan_larson wrote: post #3

That's rather an ambitious title, isn't it? W.E.B. Dubois might be the most respected African-American intellectual, and "The Souls of Black Folk" might be his finest work. Yang is setting the bar rather high for himself.

> Yang is setting the bar rather high for himself.

That's precisely the point!

Re: The Souls of Yellow Folk: Essays by Wesley Yang reviewed

#20

Post by magic_beans » Sun, Dec 09, 2018, 6:30 PM UTC

thaumasiotes wrote: post #6

peteretep wrote: post #2

> those — often Asian, usually male — who find themselves excluded from certain intangible perquisites of American life: love, success, security, and belonging I’m going to need some actual data on that, compared to outcomes of different gender/ethnicity combos.

Here is "love" data for college students. Take particular note of the summary: > First, Asian guys are screwed, obviously. http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2008/07/why-does-race... Asians as a group have more economic success and security than whites do. But they're right to complain about love. Economic success doesn't mean much by itself, unless your idea of the good life is to sit in the dark muttering over…

I'd love to see another version of this study performed at UCLA. Unlike New York, California has a huge and highly culturally-integrated Asian population.