Black Women/Yellow Men

With all the recent activity around Watermelon Sushi, the line of Hapa*Teez t-shirts, and a short documentary about biracial people that I'm producing, I feel stuck in a racial rut. I can't stop thinking about race! Whenever someone mentions Obama, I want to talk about his ethnic heritage--not about his candidacy. If I'm not writing about race, I'm drawing it, or filming it, or discussing it. Perhaps all of this race reflecting will lead to a cleansing of sorts, like being purified after walking through a fire.

As I was contemplating racial matters today, I remembered reading once that the two most maligned groups in the U.S. were black women and Asian men. The author had suggested that individuals from both groups should begin to seriously consider hooking up with each other since both were being left behind in the marriage game. Black women have one of the highest statistics for never marrying at all, and it seems Asian men are rapidly catching up.

Well, first of all, if you think that marriage is the be-all, end-all, to life, then you've been watching too many soap operas. But, seriously, if a close personal relationship with the opposite sex is something that you really desire and want to manifest in your life, and you're either a straight African American female or a straight Asian American male, you might want to consider your odds with each other.

Why are these two disparate groups being painted as undesirable? Well, I blame the media. Black women are often portrayed as being unfeminine, aggressive, loud and having loose morals while men of Asian descent aren't even visible--especially, older Asian men. Why is that we see Asian American women newscasters on every TV channel, but not their male counterparts? And, why are black women handed such a one-dimensional portrait by the media?

The answers are too long to delve into at the moment, but, of course, it all points to racism. One of the reasons black women outnumber black men in the marriage pool is simply because so many brothers are locked up or living lives of crimes (including doing drugs) that make them undesirable husbands--some of which is directly related to racism. Asian men, on the other hand, have been doused with the image of a stern, sexless math wiz. Hardly the type an ordinary heterosexual woman would find hot or cuddly.

So, what about it? Sistahs are you ready to consider a nice Asian brotha as your beloved? How about you Asian men? Are you in the market for a decent black woman? Personally, I'd like to know more about black women and yellow men together.

Any comments?

Above is an old photo of me with Rae Dawn Chong--whose half-Irish, half-Chinese father (Tommy Chong) married her African-Canadian mother.

Your Hip Hapa,

Yayoi