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On Being Black in China

theatlantic.com

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Re: On Being Black in China

#11

Post by temphn »

pradocchia wrote: post #8
temphn wrote: post #6

This author has an incredibly solipsistic worldview: Mao issued another statement of support in April 1968 after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. But despite these expressions of support, there is scant evidence to prove Mao or any other Chinese political leader at the time would have been willing to align themselves actively with the Civil Rights Movement. In fact, Chinese foreign policy in the 1960s…

The passage you quote seems fairly neutral to me, and you appear to bring more baggage to the conversation than the author himself. There was in fact a qualitative change in popular Chinese outlook from Mao to Deng, never mind the damage Mao inflicted on the country. China became more materialistic, less ideological, less idealistic. White people were associated with rich and powerful western nations, so their presti…

  never mind the damage Mao inflicted on the country. China 
  became more materialistic, less ideological, less 
  idealistic.
"Never mind" the damage Mao inflicted? 65 million people died during his reign. Post-Mao China is more realistic, more productive, much wealthier, and much less insane (aka "ideological/idealistic"). It is less likely to foment violent revolution nearby and more interested in profitable stability. It is an improvement on every front that matters.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/m...

  Mao's Great Leap Forward 'killed 45 million in four years'

  Mao Zedong, founder of the People's Republic of China, 
  qualifies as the greatest mass murderer in world history, 
  an expert who had unprecedented access to official 
  Communist Party archives said yesterday.

  Speaking at The Independent Woodstock Literary Festival, 
  Frank Dikötter, a Hong Kong-based historian, said he found 
  that during the time that Mao was enforcing the Great Leap 
  Forward in 1958, in an effort to catch up with the economy 
  of the Western world, he was responsible for overseeing 
  "one of the worst catastrophes the world has ever known".

  Mr Dikötter, who has been studying Chinese rural history 
  from 1958 to 1962, when the nation was facing a famine, 
  compared the systematic torture, brutality, starvation and 
  killing of Chinese peasants to the Second World War in its 
  magnitude. At least 45 million people were worked, starved 
  or beaten to death in China over these four years; the 
  worldwide death toll of the Second World War was 55 
  million.

  Mr Dikötter is the only author to have delved into the 
  Chinese archives since they were reopened four years ago. 
  He argued that this devastating period of history – which 
  has until now remained hidden – has international 
  resonance. "It ranks alongside the gulags and the Holocaust 
  as one of the three greatest events of the 20th century.... 
  It was like [the Cambodian communist dictator] Pol Pot's 
  genocide multiplied 20 times over," he said.
But he said something nice about MLK once. Really, methinks that some "baggage" - aka knowledge of history - is quite necessary here.

Re: On Being Black in China

#12

Post by pessimizer »

temphn wrote: post #6

This author has an incredibly solipsistic worldview: Mao issued another statement of support in April 1968 after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. But despite these expressions of support, there is scant evidence to prove Mao or any other Chinese political leader at the time would have been willing to align themselves actively with the Civil Rights Movement. In fact, Chinese foreign policy in the 1960s…

Because "ideals" means "belief systems" rather than "list of terrible things that they did that temphn thinks should be mentioned whenever their name comes up in conversation"?

Re: On Being Black in China

#14

Post by pessimizer »

I've been asking for this for years, but if anybody can come up with a method (website?) for me to figure out how black people are seen in different countries and regions, that would help me a lot. Seems like the only way to tell is to fly somewhere, then find out that your experience there is not going to be like your friend's was.

Racist heatmaps?

Re: On Being Black in China

#15

Post by temphn »

pessimizer wrote: post #12
temphn wrote: post #6

This author has an incredibly solipsistic worldview: Mao issued another statement of support in April 1968 after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. But despite these expressions of support, there is scant evidence to prove Mao or any other Chinese political leader at the time would have been willing to align themselves actively with the Civil Rights Movement. In fact, Chinese foreign policy in the 1960s…

Because "ideals" means "belief systems" rather than "list of terrible things that they did that temphn thinks should be mentioned whenever their name comes up in conversation"?

Hard as it may be to imagine, there are things that are more important than whether someone said something nice once about the US civil rights movement - such as hundreds of millions of Chinese lives. The USA is not the center of the world and the level of platitudinous veneration of American icons is not the most important criterion by which to judge a foreign leader.

Re: On Being Black in China

#16

Post by noname123 »

temphn wrote: post #6

This author has an incredibly solipsistic worldview: Mao issued another statement of support in April 1968 after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. But despite these expressions of support, there is scant evidence to prove Mao or any other Chinese political leader at the time would have been willing to align themselves actively with the Civil Rights Movement. In fact, Chinese foreign policy in the 1960s…

This is true. But IMO, there's a difference between the idea of "equality" in the Chairman's speech in People's Congress and black people's treatment in the open air market in Nanjing. As usual, "equality" is not altruistic.

Mao during the 1970's Sino-Soviet split wanted to create his own ideological alternative as a third way to the American capitalist decadence and the Soviet revisionist. So he struck a lot of deals with African go'vt back then to give their students education grants to Chinese universities. I honestly don't think Mao had an understanding of the African American experience in the sense of "Invisible Man," "Their Eyes Were Watching God" etc. but simply had an abstract understanding of "third-world solidarity".

Nowadays, the Chinese leadership is helping Africa in the name of the third-way of "peaceful rise" and "political non-interference to internal affairs" as the alternative to "America, the World Police" of UN/IMF/World Bank. Again I don't think Hu Jintao and Xi Jinping really relate to the health, socio-economic concerns of African people but simply wants access to the oil of Sudan and the soft power in the international stage.

All of this international diplomacy and economic deals does very little to affect the average Chinese person's attitude towards African's which is very racist. But I'd add that in my experience, racism is China is no worse than racism in America except the difference is that the average majority-member in the States is well-versed in political correctness or guilt that they know not to offend people in public and in private.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanjing_anti-African_protests

Re: On Being Black in China

#17

Post by pradocchia »

temphn wrote: post #11
pradocchia wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The passage you quote seems fairly neutral to me, and you appear to bring more baggage to the conversation than the author himself. There was in fact a qualitative change in popular Chinese outlook from Mao to Deng, never mind the damage Mao inflicted on the country. China became more materialistic, less ideological, less idealistic. White people were associated with rich and powerful western nations, so their presti…

never mind the damage Mao inflicted on the country. China became more materialistic, less ideological, less idealistic. "Never mind" the damage Mao inflicted? 65 million people died during his reign. Post-Mao China is more realistic, more productive, much wealthier, and much less insane (aka "ideological/idealistic"). It is less likely to foment violent revolution nearby and more interested in profitable stability. I…

temphn, I wouldn't have weighed in if I didn't already know the history. Yes, you can see those ~65M deaths in world population statistics, that's how bad it was. China had gone through 200 years of instability, strife and suffering by the time Deng took over. Since then, things have gotten better along many dimensions.

However, pollution has also gotten worse. Can I mention that without mentioning the sins of Mao? In a village I know, the central government is now paying for a landfill. This is great, since now the villagers won't throw their non-recyclable household waste into the river. Can I mention that without mentioning the sins of Mao?

This article was about black people in China, not Mao, not the Great Leap Forward, not the Cultural Revolution, and you are changing the subject.

Re: On Being Black in China

#18

Post by coldtea »

temphn wrote: post #11
pradocchia wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The passage you quote seems fairly neutral to me, and you appear to bring more baggage to the conversation than the author himself. There was in fact a qualitative change in popular Chinese outlook from Mao to Deng, never mind the damage Mao inflicted on the country. China became more materialistic, less ideological, less idealistic. White people were associated with rich and powerful western nations, so their presti…

never mind the damage Mao inflicted on the country. China became more materialistic, less ideological, less idealistic. "Never mind" the damage Mao inflicted? 65 million people died during his reign. Post-Mao China is more realistic, more productive, much wealthier, and much less insane (aka "ideological/idealistic"). It is less likely to foment violent revolution nearby and more interested in profitable stability. I…

>"Never mind" the damage Mao inflicted? 65 million people died during his reign.

First, the huge majority of those deaths were due to famine.

Second, it was in a country in great turmoil, civil war, and a revolution (regime change, if you prefer). In places where such things happen -- as opposed to an country with a stable political climate like the US, people die (including by execution).

Someone from a stable country cannot relate, but think of the Civil War and the tons of deaths. Or the French revolution. Those doesn't mean one leader or a handful is the only one to blame, like one does not pin civil war deaths to Lincoln or the confederate leaders. Such are the times.

Countries do not get into such messes by one "bad apple" leader. On the contrary, the leaders represent the general problems in the society in general. Even Hitler was voted by a majority of Germans, which ascribed to the same ideals long before he came to power (and for the "philosophical" parts of nazism, even decades ago, e.g Nietchze, Wagner, Heidegger, Carl Schmitt, and tons of lesser intellectuals).

Re: On Being Black in China

#19

Post by noname123 »

lambdasquirrel wrote: post #10
olalonde wrote: post #3

I live in China and there is indeed still some racism towards black and even asian people. A black English teacher in China will have a much lower salary then a white person for example (though this is also true of English teachers who are asian). As crazy as it sounds, schools will often prefer to hire a white teacher who is not a native speaker to a black/asian teacher who is a native speaker.

You see some of the opposite here in America. For some reason or another, people tend to prefer an Asian-looking kung fu teacher to a Caucasian or African-American one. The present-day East Asian cultures have become strangely obsessed with image. There was one Taiwanese pop star, I think her name was Jolin or something, she's rumored to have had 3 different plastic surgeries in the last however many years, and come…

> when a husband and wife marry and then the kids turn out looking nothing like the parents.

Doesn't seem like a bad thing, just means that there should a good market for plastic surgery for the next generation.

Re: On Being Black in China

#20

Post by VladRussian2 »

pessimizer wrote: post #14

I've been asking for this for years, but if anybody can come up with a method (website?) for me to figure out how black people are seen in different countries and regions, that would help me a lot. Seems like the only way to tell is to fly somewhere, then find out that your experience there is not going to be like your friend's was. Racist heatmaps?

"how black people are seen" - i don't think it can be answered by one number on the scale from 1 to 10. For example, Russians are pretty racist, nationalistic chauvinistic, antisemitic ... you name it, basically Equal Opportunity Haters ... and there are a lot of disrespectful jokes about black people as well. On the other side - we drank a lot with the black students we had at our University and at other places and the girls liked them as well.

>then find out that your experience there is not going to be like your friend's was.

yep, he may be a cool guy and you're a party pooper or vise verse :)

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