Exhausted Not Exotic Dangers of Asian Fetishization
[Applause]
middle school
i don’t know about all of you but
whenever i think about those two years
of my life i can’t help but think
mistakes simply mistakes from the things
i did
to the things i took so seriously that
never really mattered
dances come to mind and some of the
people i surrounded myself with
my best friend at the time and i were
talking about boys because middle school
and we got on the subject about a boy
she thought had liked me then so i asked
her how so
i’m 17 now and i still think about her
response to this day
she said with a chuckle he probably
likes you because he has yellow fever
and just out of curiosity’s sake how
many people on the audience have heard
of the term
yellow fever outside the disease context
okay
is there a number of you um just make
sure everybody’s on the same page
yellow fever is a term used for when a
person has a
sexual or relationship based preference
for asians
more on that later one of the many
mistakes i made when i was in middle
school is how i responded
i laughed along with her and we
continued on our merry way
that was one of my in interactions with
racial federation which is defined as
the sexualization or obsession with
someone’s race and or ethnicity
i will acknowledge that my experience
with it is by no means one most terrific
stories out there
but we have to acknowledge that just as
federalization is a form of racism and
prejudice
prejudice and oppression exist in tears
are fundamentally built on things such
as seemingly harmless comments
like the one my friend felt comfortable
making to me that support that
escalation and behavior that allows it
to potentially become normalized
this isn’t an issue can stand idly by
any longer as
racial federalization has very real
consequences and the way
it extends the reign of racism misogyny
in the lives of women of color
throughout society
in this talk i’ll be focusing
specifically on the federalization of
asian women
and how it’s present in our history how
has relevance now
and what we can do about but this focus
is by no means an invalidation on the
ways
it affects black latino native american
and other communities of color as not
just women but also men and non-gender
conforming people
have are affected by racial
federalization
and misogyny make themselves present in
multitudes of ways and lives of women of
color
some key examples include how
how they could and have been valued for
their bodies and stereotyped as people
especially in the context of racial
federalization
some ways people who probably wear
raised fetishes on their sleeves try to
justify
and explain their soul attraction to
women of color is through how certain
physical features that they possess are
just attracted to them
or they’ll sign certain personality
traits or attributes to them that make
them worthy of phrase
or how they how they’ll put it at least
such as how black women are
stereotyped as being curvy latino women
are seen as being
sassy and asian women are seen as being
submissive
and a glaring issue with the
objectification dehumanization of a
person is how can incorrectly
and dangerously translate into a feeling
of entitlement over that person’s body
or attention
and just to set the record straight
there is a very distinct difference
between having a preference and
raised fetishes as having a preference
and knowing what you like such as
certain personality traits is
understandable
as we develop preferences for the people
we want around us in our lives as we
grow up
however the very nature of racial
federation encourages a climate of the
sexual exploitation
and violence against women of color
through the way it objectifies their
bodies and stereotypes their existence
where these people will equate them to a
body
and like the idea of them simply because
of their racial background
racial federalization like many issues
didn’t just appear out of the blue has
historical context which in this case we
can contribute to
colonialization and imperialism as the
conquest of foreign lands was justified
through white man’s burden
a term coined in a poem by rudyard
kipling about colonies in the
philippines as it was perceived to be
the westerner’s responsibility
to educate and enlighten the people of
these foreign lands
on the way of the west which they
perceived as civilized and right
quite ironic when we consider how
borderline barbaric colonizers were
in the countries they invaded as they
not only exploited the land but also its
people
for women in particular they are often
seen as trophies of colonialization
beings be conquered for the sexual
gratification of the colonizers
one example that comes to mind would be
when the u.s got involved during the
philippines revolt against spain in the
late 1800s and
spoiler alert the us would eventually go
on to occupy the country
and while war waged on american military
forces are responsible for
the killings of 800 000 to over a
million filipinos and it also engaged in
the sexual conquest of the women
as the soldiers perceived philip the
filipino women as
little brown effing machines powered by
rice
and unfortunately cases like these are
present throughout history such as the
brothel systems
and military sexism industries that
begin to flourish during world war
ii the korean war and the vietnam war as
well as how the
mail-order bride industry began to
flourish during
the um when american feminists were
making strides in their movement as
as men sought to have someone more
submissive
in their homes i bring this up as our
history has a great level of influence
into why our world is the way it is for
better or for worse in the case of the
worst
seeing asian women as such as beings to
be conquered came from the mentality of
conquering the land
as colonizers sought strategies to
exercise as much control and power as
they could
with the knowledge we have about the
historical context of racial
federalization
now we have to talk about its relevance
now specifically how it has a direct
correlation with the sexual
violence abuse and exploitation of asian
women
rather than seeing yellow fever as a
preference
let’s see for what it actually is a
smokescreen of way of normalizing the
rampant sexual violence against
asian women how they are stereotyped as
hypersexual
and submissive which has origins from
the history like before
is dangerous as it allows others to
assume that they can take advantage of
them according to morgan dewey the
national network to end domestic
violence communications coordinator
41 to 61 of asian women reported having
experienced physical
and or sexual violence by an intimate
partner at some point in their lifetime
and that’s just reported and that number
actually ended up being
much higher than that of any other
ethnic group within this study
the mistreatment at the hands of those
familiar to them is a direct consequence
of the widespread normalization of how
asian women are dehumanized and
sexualized in the most extreme and grave
cases
this has even resulted in deaths and
immense trauma and with that being said
i’d like to pay
tribute in remembrance of some of the
victims of racial federalization
nguyen was a vietnamese woman and was
raped by two white american men who had
called her a racial service and then
burned her alive
she was 28 and forced to leave behind a
family in the spring of 2018.
over 90 chinese immigrant students at
the university of southern california
were assaulted by school gynecologists
who took advantage of their
immigration saudi status socioeconomic
background and their racial identity
in addition in in 2017 yin zhang a
visiting chinese scholar at the
university of illinois
was raped and murdered according to law
enforcement who’d actually looked into
the murder search history he had visited
an infamous fetish website and
researched how performing kidnapping
beforehand meaning not only
had he been thinking about it and the
crime was premeditated
it also came from a federalization
mindset
and then with a conversation about how
asian women are impacted by sexual
violence today
we also have to talk about human
trafficking in a view and view
in tangent with sexual harassment and
domestic violence and other issues as
they can’t be viewed separately
human trafficking which has been dubbed
the new slavery harms an unimaginable
number of people
all over the world on a daily basis and
unfortunately most human trafficking
revolves around women and their sexual
exploitation
as kimberly mullen orizoco author and an
expert witness on human trafficking
civil and criminal court cases wrote
asian women are highly sought after
because they are perceived by american
men as being more
submissive in my interviews with
commercial sex consumers and through
research into the forums
they talk about their dislike of
american women who they perceive as more
recliatran to their sexual and social
demands
it’s really hard to see a simple
preference as just that if it comes from
an inherent
desire for dominance and control and the
issue grows even more concerning and
alarming
when we get into the numbers on those
targeted by human trafficking as
according to the un international labor
organization 2016
there was an estimated 3.8 million
adults and a million children who were
victims of forced sexual exploitation
and out of those individuals more than 7
out of 10 of them were asian
this report as well as moment or zoku’s
research gives us insight into the issue
and sheer scale of human trafficking as
well as it
illustrates exactly how a dark history
of colonialization the systematic
stereotyping dehumanization
objectification
of asian women has influenced and
largely con
contributed to the number of them being
sexually exploited
and mistreated and with these issues in
mind we have to talk about the emotional
trauma and insecurity
women who have suffered through such
conditions may experience
for many asian women it can cause them
to doubt the true intentions of their
romantic partners as they could be
genuine about their feelings and like
them for them
or they could find her attractive solely
because of their yellow fever
that kind of treatment can cause a
disorienting image of themselves and
their self-worth if they are valued
for the generalizations based on their
racial identity
and not on the essence of their being i
know that fear was instilled in me the
moment my friend made that comment to me
finally the mental health consequences
become even more concerning when we
consider the fact that asian people are
three times less likely to seek out help
according to the american psychological
association
there are multiple factors that can
explain this such one being how
mental health is a often stigmatized and
somewhat of a taboo subject in
asian communities and it is great that
we are now in a time where we are
talking about mental health
more than ever before and we are
developing treatments and resources but
we also have to consider
opening up access to those that may need
it the most
with all that i’ve talked to you about
today i can’t help but think about all
those i have lost their lives i’ve had
trauma to heal from
and it just makes my head spin and my
heart ache for all the asian women out
there who had to go through this
and it’s frustrating so frustrating to
see
how downplayed racial federalization is
as it has very real
consequences and harms so many people
out there
and it begs the question on how many of
their lives have to be taken
and ruined before people with these
dangerous beliefs who believe that women
of color
are beings to be taken advantage of
before our society comes to a practice
consensus that harming women
women of all backgrounds should be
unfathomable
i am angry simply put beyond a doubt
but that isn’t the reason why i’m
standing here talking to you all
because instead of anger i am motivated
by
a desire to hopefully foster change and
express
love for the asian community and i’m
confident
and gradual painful but necessary change
to happen
racial fantasization doesn’t have a
simple cause and won’t have a simple
solution either
so combating it requires us to tackle
issues such as racism sexism a climate
of sexual violence
and exploitation among others
individually we must act and speak up
against the wrong doings we see don’t
let some harmless comments about
objectifying women go unchecked because
when those comments are left
unchallenged
they reinforce a culture in which women
are seen as bodies not people
holding people accountable for their
actions and words is important because
it helps us better ourselves and our
society because
simply put and honestly we have to
expect better from people
even if we don’t directly say or do
something wrong ourselves we become
complacent
in our science and in action if we just
watch and let it continue
in addition to considering our actions
as individuals we also have to think
about ways society and institutions
could change for the better as it takes
both societal and individual action to
make change happen not one
not the other but both whether you’re
new to or knowledgeable about these
kinds of issues
there are still endless horizons for
ways we can continue to learn something
new and take
meaningful action with the knowledge in
hand
there are all kinds of things we as
communities and individuals can do
for the sake of a better future we are
all entitled to fair representation
autonomy over our own bodies as well as
safety and peace of mind and it deeply
saddens me that i have to say that at
all as it should just be assumed
and universally agreed upon but it’s not
as there are people out there that
believe that it’s
okay to violate those things
for other people based on their identity
as if they’re conditionals
things to be taken away from we have to
do all that we can not just for
ourselves
but for future generations in order to
get closer to a world where this is a
standard accepted by everyone
thank you
you