No One Cares About The Struggles of Asian Dudes
When corporations look for diversity, Asian men is the last kind of diversity they want
In Jay Caspian Kang’s The Loneliest Americans (disclosure: Jay is my favorite Asian writer and one of my favorite writers period), Jay spends a chapter talking about Asian-Americans who fall into the men’s rights movement. These men on subreddits that either get heavily moderated or banned regularly harass Asian women, but only one subset of Asian women: high-profile Asian women who date White men.
Like most things Asians do, these men’s rights Asians (MRAZNs) are pretty intense about the harassment. These women get death and rape threats and have their addresses and phone numbers leaked. The fringe men’s rights Asian community regularly accuses these high-profile Asian women who date White men of being race traitors.
Jay follows around one friend, Doug, and follows his path to radicalization. Doug is someone who wants to make it big in Hollywood, but is increasingly frustrated no one wants his films and is also frustrated at the lack of Asian representation in Hollywood. In the men’s rights activism he sees on Reddit, Doug finds a sense of belonging and slowly becomes radicalized.
First of all, this is a pretty intense double standard from the MRAzns community. As an Asian man who is engaged to a Black woman, I have no stake in this conversation. I don’t see them saying anything about Asian men who date White women (not that there’s anything wrong with that), and there’s a very selective targeting of only Asian women who date White men.
I’m sure their counterargument is you don’t see many high-profile relationships of Asian men who date White women, but sends the inherently sexist message that it’s perfectly fine for Asian dudes to date White women, but not vice versa.
I’m generally not someone who’s super into Asian identity or being Asian, but Jay is one of my favorite writers, so I spend a good deal of my free time reading his writing and listening to him talk. I heard him speak with his co-hosts on their Asian left-wing podcast, Time to Say Goodbye, as well as with Andrew Yang on his podcast. I subscribed to Time to Say Goodbye’s Discord channel and have messaged him…
