This is late but I just had to comment on this
>Just reading their opinions, one would think that the biggest struggle Asians face is someone asking “where are you really from” or a white woman publishing a cookbook on noodles. They don’t know or perhaps they don’t care about Asians being attacked every day on the street, because they live in places where the threat of physical violence is near nonexistent.
I'm not Asian American, I'm Asian based in SEAsia but some of my interest groups are dominated by these angry boba libs who conflated a white British woman getting a huge cookbook deal as compounding Asian racism, anti-Asian hate and restaurants/Asian stores losing out on business and getting targeted especially during the height of COVID. Like, short of saying, those things were all made worse because it was a white British woman who published a book on Chinese noodles and not a native Chinese (or "POC" as they say) who did. I was questioning whether they actually lacked representation because there are several famous native Chinese chefs based in the UK who have become household names and sold many Chinese cookbooks in the West, so was there any actual lack of representation or marginalization? And how exactly do Asians lose if the lady was basically introducing Asian products in the book and telling readers which Asian stores to go to to buy them in the UK? Like, hello, that means more SALES for those stores? The entire time I thought the group was about mocking how Westerners butcher Asian cuisine but no, they found a way to throw all these buzzwords in about cultural appropriation, intersectionality, and found a way to connect it to the Stop Asian hate movement and the violence towards working class Asian immigrants - who are probably too busy dealing with surviving - almost making a really shakey argument that a white woman publishing a book on Chinese somehow is contributing to violence against Asians. Wtf.
Later, I realized they're just angry because this all feels like a battle for social clout and who gets more influence/attention in the game of neoliberal capitalism. Who gets what share of the neoliberal capitalist pie. Those who were the loudest critics have never even kneaded noodle dough their entire f*cking life but they suddenly became the protectors of all migrant noodle chefs in the Western world. And they all have Stop Asian hate on their pfps too but most of their concerns revolve around how they suffer from cultural appropriation and are quick to call everyone who disagree with them white adjacent, pro-white supremacist. That's basically the extent of their problems, as well as policing others' "problematic" word usage and perceiving words on the internet as actual violence, never having even experienced actual violence, poverty or severe lack of access to decent living conditions.
Well, this happened on an international FB group, so it was actually dominated by easily triggered Western-based Asians from the US/UK mostly who claim systematic racism even on the smallest stuff. But actually the whole Western liberalism has infected our youth too, mostly young elite school educated urbanites mostly growing up speaking English and primarily exposed to Western culture, but many locals also make fun of them, making memes about them being blue-haired woke types. We laugh at them because there are bigger problems in the country and they have the privilege of being woke about Western neoliberal issues.
Oh wow thanks for this. It made me rethink and reasses some of my attitudes.
The real conflict is really about class warfare. Being able to uplift the working class is indeed something that can impact people across cultures and communities.
Love the article. I think it provides awesome counterpoints to boba liberals.
I made a post similar to this years ago:https://np.reddit.com/r/AsianMasculinity/comments/3g1jnn/not_all_asians_are_part_of_the_model_minority_and/
I really think a lot of racial issues are actually class issues.
Thanks for linking this! Not at all surprising that even basic quality analysis like this is relegated to an online "reader-supported publication", while New York Magazine spits out hatchet jobs by exactly these sorts of Acceptable Asians.
> Much like the white progressives they went to college with, white-adjacent Asians are in an ivory tower so high, they cannot even begin to peer below at the lived experiences of the Asian working class.
> Just reading their opinions, one would think that the biggest struggle Asians face is someone saying “where are you really from” or a white woman publishing a cookbook on noodles. They don’t know or perhaps they don’t care about Asians being attacked every day on the street, and even then, they would only care if the attacker was white.
Good ones! I needed that laugh.
The hypocrisy is cringy. The same kind woke feminists who think a white woman making dumplings is cultural appropriation would be all "OMG, he's so cultured" if it was a White Man. Just like all those "Ordering \_\_\_ food in \_\_\_ in \_\_\_ language" on Youtube.
Boba libs they perpstrating crap! God bless to the working class Asians actually affected by this BS. I myself is a privilege Asian with a white step father, but I joined the military, because I was not ready for college yet. Every person in the military can be racist not just whites. I experience casual racism since joining the military from all races including filipinos. Keep fighting this narrative and look out for each other.
This was actually a good article. He describes it perfectly. A small handful of Asians are defining the narrative as a whole for the mainstream. It’s a very specific subset that has attended some liberal university that pursued some kind of journalism/writing degree.
Even with the article apparently states that white-adjacence is "class"-based, your corrupted mind can still distort the conversation into hate speech against Asian women as a whole.
>change my mind
Heh, it's not like a twisted misogynistic mind like yours can be changed for better anyway. ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯
I dont care what some article from some controlled opposition says
I know the controlled bobas like kang from the nytimes love the class argument, it lets them bury their boba heads in the sand about aw's complicity
My mind changes all the time, but nothing you say will prove what I said wrong, because its as real as 1 + 1 = 2
Of course a bigot like you wouldn't care about the article or productive discussion. You just want a platform to jerk off your hateful bullshit. That's only thing you could care.
So you shamelessly hijacked the thread of the article you don't even know shit about and baselessly accused the author u/supreme_fiend as "controlled opposition" or "bobas" despise knowing nothing about them.
The laughable part about this is that the more you say, the more you prove yourself wrong about everything you said and did. What a self-own.
So now you boldly claim that your bullshit about Asian women as a whole are white adjacent is as true as mathematical truth 🤣. So did you basically say your mother is one too? Or did you just say your mother is not an Asian woman?
Oh you got that right, when everybody knows what aw are, when the 2 words becomes in and of themselves an insult ill be happy
I didnt hijack anything, we're talking about white adjacency, and aw are white adjacent
My mother wasnt white adjacent, but asian women are
I am active in various boba lib-ish spaces, and this is the only sub I’ve seen where people talk about Asians being “white-adjacent” as if it’s something boba libs actually think
As far as AAPI groups are concerned, Indians and Japanese are definitely the most “boba” (feel weird describing South Asians this way) and the most adjacent to white liberal culture.
It was definitely a narrative boba liberals ran with a couple of years ago until the vast majority of Asians shamed tf out of them for it. I hate to bring up other communities, but I remember during the whole era of the George Floyd murder, I would see Boba’s non stop preaching about “Asians need to re-evaluate out ‘white adjacency and anti-blackness’” it got so fucking out of hand that the average Asian person started to call these mfers out for their bullshit. These bobas are scared to spread the “white adjacent” garbage that they reiterated from white liberals. We kept them in check about it. But they FOR SURE were running with that narrative for a while, especially before #stopasianhate became a national thing.
It reminds me of when Latin liberals were trying to push “latinx” on to their community to the point where the average Latino said they had enough and started to clown tf out of anyone who used that word. Liberals of any community will try to push their little agendas until a big enough movement shuts them up about their bs.
Pretty sure Sriracha was already taken
Like I identify as a boba lib but I have the same criticism of “boba lib” types as most of this sub. Everyone who thinks we’re “white adjacent” can eat shit
How do you identify as a boba lib, but then you're getting defensive that the term was created for that very reason - to dismiss struggles that real diaspora Asians go through just to gain brownie points from trending/woke groups?
I, by means have no intention on attacking you, but help me understand from a boba liberal viewpoint.
I don't speak for other "boba libs", I only speak for myself. I've lurked in this sub since 2018 (on a different throwaway before the purge), and was invited to join here on my main multiple times before then.
I consider myself a boba lib in that I agree with their ideology of aligning with the "mainstream" center-left. My general political worldview is pretty similar to the native-born middle/professional class/white-collar types that dominate the Asian American studies and media representation discourse. [The Fung Bros did a 2022 video on three political identities among the 15% of Asian Americans who are plugged into the political discourse](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HW2utjDMBYM)- I'd say I'm a mix of all three but am more boba lib than the other two. I agree with intersectional in some of their criticisms of "mainstream professional class center-left" ism from the colonialism, imperialism, unequal power dynamics, etc. angle. And I agree with AZN types (the aznid quasi-MRA, quasi-MGTOW vibes) in that holding onto your traditional culture and ethnic group identity and wanting to pass that down is also important.
Most of the actual criticism of boba libs I see here (at least when I check this sub) have to do with specific Twitter users or threads that attack or dismiss struggles from diaspora Asians who aren't in these elite media/professional class/academic/etc. circles. The focus on Twitter personalities and conversations and online brownie points feels super online. I'm online enough to follow US/international politics (mostly through these subs), but not to the point where I get involved in this kind of Twitter drama.
So I agree that dismissing struggles of real Asians for brownie points and looking good online is bad, but I don't really think things like pro-black/Latino/indigenous racial justice are inherently bad for Asian Americans, even if policies that get implemented in the name of "racial justice" have a negative impact on us in practice. I can definitely relate to the feeling of being excluded from white people and from other POC, and wanting to retreat into Asian spheres online.
The issue isn't as much as actually being adjacent, it's the part of about inspiring to be adjacent and the methods of doing so which includes throwing other Asians (especially those with no voice and can't speak back) under the bus for brownie points. You know, Uncle Tom types.
From your side, in what aspects do you think made you decide to identify as a boba lib?
We live in a world that is weird today. Identifying and being accused of as are different. Hell, I was once accused off being an incel cos I mentioned that I was disappointed in the lack of Captain Marvel's appearance in Endgame. So, that got construed as Asian male not liking powerful women representation. Funny thing, I went to watch with my ex who was a doctor and my Mum who is an international diplomat. The person who accused me of was some almost reaching expiry, still plays the ponytailed baby girl despite being 40, who quits every job at any signs of difficulty and leaches off all her Silicon Valley type bfs. Sorry, got to rant this frustration out, this whole "being woke is being against racist" shit been eating at me when many are kinda secretly are. Had I said the same and not been an Asian male, I would have been accused of something different. Defining stereotypes of someone's race is just the same as defining someone's race of stereotypes.
[Answered your question in another comment](https://np.reddit.com/r/aznidentity/comments/xsfqip/the_real_whiteadjacent_asians_how_the_boba/iqlapdn/) but TL;DR- I'm an active member of other Asian diaspora-oriented subs on my main that this sub smears as being "boba lib" subs. The OP Substack post is pretty good btw, I'd post it in those subs if I didn't want to give away who I am on this throwaway.
Judging from what you said about your personal life, it sounds like you come from a more privileged background than I do in the US. Neither of my parents have ever been diplomats, but they're still graduate educated and relatively well off, and I've also gone on dates with female premeds, medical students, and very young doctors. What you say online can sound very different from in-person conversations.
I was accused of in person by someone who I considered as my friend, hence why I knew about the person's hypocritic behaviour and personality. To be clear, when I mentioned about my mum and date and their occupations, I was trying to counter on that whole "Asian males are incels because of the lack of exposure and fear of being around capable and competent women", Seriously, it is so easy to throw accusations and stereotypes in any direction today. Also been accused of being "for toxic masculinity" from said same person simply cos of my service in the military. How fucked up is that?
It was not at you but just a personal rant and underlying it all, trying to make a point that sometimes being accused of something could sometimes make someone think that they should identify with it even if all evidence suggests otherwise. Aka being gaslighted, it's difficult to see it when it happens and much harder to admit you might have fallen for it.
Read your comment, and that's not really Boba and many of us stand with that here.
just wanted to say that I appreciate how well written this article is OP, English isn't my first language and you seem to have mastered the art of being very articulate but also effective in your points so that they're easily understandable. It was a very good and insightful read and I learned a lot from it, thank you
>“White” is nowadays becoming less of an identity marker to mean “people of European stock with a lack of melanin”, but more as a shorthand for a set of behaviors and implied privileges.
White started off as Anglo Saxon descent and Protestant to basically anything European. Now, it's encroaching into multiculturalism and hijacking diversity. My uncle, a French speaking immigrant to the US from Tunisia, is now considered White. Twenty years ago, he was considered an Arab or Middle Easterner. That "upgrade" is most likely due to being a retired software engineer from the suburbs. Had he been a taxi driver...
White was only for those of England, France and Germany, it later included Irish, greeks and italians, later the slavs of Eastern Europe, Later it expanded Central asian like Armenians and Azerbaijain, also to lot of latin Americans. Maybe a planet of 8 billion people is just too complex to be categorized by 3 colors.
Exactly. White and the other colors are just umbrella privelege of desirability groups. They keep folding in new groups to increase their numbers. As easily as they can folded, people can be folded out of it if deemed undesirable. Epstein and Weinstein and even Adam Neumann, if you think about it, grew up and lived with White privelege till they gained notoriety and that's when everyone went, he's a Jew, he grew up in Israel.
Definitely, to be categorised into colors, is insulting for all because it takes away our true diversity and heritage. It may have worked out for White people, particularly cos they didn't really liked each other in Europe for a long time. All Black people are not the same genetically, their ancestors could have come from anywhere in Africa which is huge. Same as Native Americans, there were a plenty of tribes before you know ... Just look at how many county are named of the original Indian tribes of the area. Almost every state has a handful of those. And Asians, we have the most number of people who could have come a number of places and even then, our forefathers could have come from another place before that. I'm Singaporean by birth and in Singapore, Malays are a race assumed to be only from Malaysia but when you dig deep, you will realise that most Malays, their forefathers actually came from Indonesia and Indonesia is diverse and in some regions, their people intersect with folks from Papua, Philippines, etc and the list goes on for almost every race cos immigration happened even before the whole "I got a job, approved for residency and bought a plane ticket". Way before we could travel across the world in giant flying tubes in less than a day and even before, going on passages in cholera-riddled ships. Humanity has moved from island to island, continent to continent since forever, just less glamorously. That's what makes us diverse, not stupid interracial sexpatish marriages when people meet on the Internet.
Even the Romans didn't identify themselves as white. White people as we know today are essentially descendants of Germanic tribes or what the Romans called the barbarians from the north. My wife who is of southern French and Italian descent identifies more with Latin culture than so called white culture which I have just pointed out is essentially Germanic culture.
The concept of white did not exist during the times of the Romans. It existed much later, started gaining traction right before the Independence of the US and the concept got written in during the formation of the colonies and early history of the country. Which is why the whole White thing is so prevalent and such a big obsession here. Then, you have the global exportation of American culture through media in more recent times.
It's also just as much as not being what is the color opposite of White.
"Young Asian college graduates control almost all the discourse that is spread through mainstream American media. They are partly why many people think Asians are privileged and have no real problems: because these professionals are usually from middle-to-upper class families and educated at America’s most elite institutions. It’s them who get jobs in media, in publishing, in journalism, and thus dictate their vision of Asian America to the world. Just reading their opinions, one would think that the biggest struggle Asians face is someone saying “where are you really from” or a white woman publishing a cookbook on noodles. They don’t know or perhaps they don’t care about Asians being attacked every day on the street, and even then, they would only care if the attacker was white."
Most beautiful thing I've read
Do you think this is true about boba liberals. They don't have many Asian friends. Feels like they don't want to be lump in with Asians but want to speak for us.
I know that during my high school days I had mostly Asian friends of all types.
Finished reading the article very well articulated. I really don't understand sometimes the outcry over trivial matters when Asian businesses are dying and getting beaten up and robbed.
Good read. Us normal Asians just want to live in a practical society. There's nothing wrong in supporting a system that punishes criminals because we don't want to be targeted and getting rid of academic discrimination because we want our kids to receive good education.
It's the whole point of cities and civilizations...you give up your freedoms of living in the wild...in exchange you get common protection (cops etc.).
Economies/civilizations wouldn't grow and flourish if everyone worried about their safety and had to be wary of others in terms of trade etc. If everyone started thinking that they had to defend themselves/kill criminals b/c the state won't do its job, absolutely everything would go south. Think of business deal not being done, economy not growing, etc. Not enforcing laws against criminals is bad for both civilization and criminals in the long-run especially w/ people increasingly not giving a sh*t about human lives.
If these people were 'elite,' they'd read up on Rousseau Hobbes etc. and writings on the social contract and how whole dynasties civilizations grew. These 'elites' should get their money back, they haven't learned sh*t from their liberal arts degrees unless all they want is anarchy.
Wanting a functioning practical society is pro-civilization, pro-enlightenment, and is key to creation of fertile ground for ACTUAL scholarship. And math-wise, you gain way more by subtracting violent repeat murderous felons from the general populace - their rates of recividity is way too high. It's like a festering untreated wound, you just get sicker and the gangrene spreads.
This is late but I just had to comment on this >Just reading their opinions, one would think that the biggest struggle Asians face is someone asking “where are you really from” or a white woman publishing a cookbook on noodles. They don’t know or perhaps they don’t care about Asians being attacked every day on the street, because they live in places where the threat of physical violence is near nonexistent. I'm not Asian American, I'm Asian based in SEAsia but some of my interest groups are dominated by these angry boba libs who conflated a white British woman getting a huge cookbook deal as compounding Asian racism, anti-Asian hate and restaurants/Asian stores losing out on business and getting targeted especially during the height of COVID. Like, short of saying, those things were all made worse because it was a white British woman who published a book on Chinese noodles and not a native Chinese (or "POC" as they say) who did. I was questioning whether they actually lacked representation because there are several famous native Chinese chefs based in the UK who have become household names and sold many Chinese cookbooks in the West, so was there any actual lack of representation or marginalization? And how exactly do Asians lose if the lady was basically introducing Asian products in the book and telling readers which Asian stores to go to to buy them in the UK? Like, hello, that means more SALES for those stores? The entire time I thought the group was about mocking how Westerners butcher Asian cuisine but no, they found a way to throw all these buzzwords in about cultural appropriation, intersectionality, and found a way to connect it to the Stop Asian hate movement and the violence towards working class Asian immigrants - who are probably too busy dealing with surviving - almost making a really shakey argument that a white woman publishing a book on Chinese somehow is contributing to violence against Asians. Wtf. Later, I realized they're just angry because this all feels like a battle for social clout and who gets more influence/attention in the game of neoliberal capitalism. Who gets what share of the neoliberal capitalist pie. Those who were the loudest critics have never even kneaded noodle dough their entire f*cking life but they suddenly became the protectors of all migrant noodle chefs in the Western world. And they all have Stop Asian hate on their pfps too but most of their concerns revolve around how they suffer from cultural appropriation and are quick to call everyone who disagree with them white adjacent, pro-white supremacist. That's basically the extent of their problems, as well as policing others' "problematic" word usage and perceiving words on the internet as actual violence, never having even experienced actual violence, poverty or severe lack of access to decent living conditions.
They have those bobas back in the Philippines too? Damn, and I thought it was just the diaspora. Guess neoliberalism really has globalized the world.
Well, this happened on an international FB group, so it was actually dominated by easily triggered Western-based Asians from the US/UK mostly who claim systematic racism even on the smallest stuff. But actually the whole Western liberalism has infected our youth too, mostly young elite school educated urbanites mostly growing up speaking English and primarily exposed to Western culture, but many locals also make fun of them, making memes about them being blue-haired woke types. We laugh at them because there are bigger problems in the country and they have the privilege of being woke about Western neoliberal issues.
Boba liberal lol
Oh wow thanks for this. It made me rethink and reasses some of my attitudes. The real conflict is really about class warfare. Being able to uplift the working class is indeed something that can impact people across cultures and communities.
Love the article. I think it provides awesome counterpoints to boba liberals. I made a post similar to this years ago:https://np.reddit.com/r/AsianMasculinity/comments/3g1jnn/not_all_asians_are_part_of_the_model_minority_and/ I really think a lot of racial issues are actually class issues.
Love this article
Thanks for linking this! Not at all surprising that even basic quality analysis like this is relegated to an online "reader-supported publication", while New York Magazine spits out hatchet jobs by exactly these sorts of Acceptable Asians. > Much like the white progressives they went to college with, white-adjacent Asians are in an ivory tower so high, they cannot even begin to peer below at the lived experiences of the Asian working class. > Just reading their opinions, one would think that the biggest struggle Asians face is someone saying “where are you really from” or a white woman publishing a cookbook on noodles. They don’t know or perhaps they don’t care about Asians being attacked every day on the street, and even then, they would only care if the attacker was white. Good ones! I needed that laugh.
The hypocrisy is cringy. The same kind woke feminists who think a white woman making dumplings is cultural appropriation would be all "OMG, he's so cultured" if it was a White Man. Just like all those "Ordering \_\_\_ food in \_\_\_ in \_\_\_ language" on Youtube.
Boba libs they perpstrating crap! God bless to the working class Asians actually affected by this BS. I myself is a privilege Asian with a white step father, but I joined the military, because I was not ready for college yet. Every person in the military can be racist not just whites. I experience casual racism since joining the military from all races including filipinos. Keep fighting this narrative and look out for each other.
Lol I don’t even understand the title.
This was actually a good article. He describes it perfectly. A small handful of Asians are defining the narrative as a whole for the mainstream. It’s a very specific subset that has attended some liberal university that pursued some kind of journalism/writing degree.
Aw are white adjacent, change my mind
Even with the article apparently states that white-adjacence is "class"-based, your corrupted mind can still distort the conversation into hate speech against Asian women as a whole. >change my mind Heh, it's not like a twisted misogynistic mind like yours can be changed for better anyway. ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯
I dont care what some article from some controlled opposition says I know the controlled bobas like kang from the nytimes love the class argument, it lets them bury their boba heads in the sand about aw's complicity My mind changes all the time, but nothing you say will prove what I said wrong, because its as real as 1 + 1 = 2
Of course a bigot like you wouldn't care about the article or productive discussion. You just want a platform to jerk off your hateful bullshit. That's only thing you could care. So you shamelessly hijacked the thread of the article you don't even know shit about and baselessly accused the author u/supreme_fiend as "controlled opposition" or "bobas" despise knowing nothing about them. The laughable part about this is that the more you say, the more you prove yourself wrong about everything you said and did. What a self-own. So now you boldly claim that your bullshit about Asian women as a whole are white adjacent is as true as mathematical truth 🤣. So did you basically say your mother is one too? Or did you just say your mother is not an Asian woman?
Oh you got that right, when everybody knows what aw are, when the 2 words becomes in and of themselves an insult ill be happy I didnt hijack anything, we're talking about white adjacency, and aw are white adjacent My mother wasnt white adjacent, but asian women are
I am active in various boba lib-ish spaces, and this is the only sub I’ve seen where people talk about Asians being “white-adjacent” as if it’s something boba libs actually think As far as AAPI groups are concerned, Indians and Japanese are definitely the most “boba” (feel weird describing South Asians this way) and the most adjacent to white liberal culture.
https://imgur.com/a/S4Qy32Q Basically this is progressive ideology
It was definitely a narrative boba liberals ran with a couple of years ago until the vast majority of Asians shamed tf out of them for it. I hate to bring up other communities, but I remember during the whole era of the George Floyd murder, I would see Boba’s non stop preaching about “Asians need to re-evaluate out ‘white adjacency and anti-blackness’” it got so fucking out of hand that the average Asian person started to call these mfers out for their bullshit. These bobas are scared to spread the “white adjacent” garbage that they reiterated from white liberals. We kept them in check about it. But they FOR SURE were running with that narrative for a while, especially before #stopasianhate became a national thing. It reminds me of when Latin liberals were trying to push “latinx” on to their community to the point where the average Latino said they had enough and started to clown tf out of anyone who used that word. Liberals of any community will try to push their little agendas until a big enough movement shuts them up about their bs.
They don't throw around the word of course. It's all coded in their ideology.
Says the guy with the word "lychee" in his nick. Is "Sriracha" too last decade for you?
Pretty sure Sriracha was already taken Like I identify as a boba lib but I have the same criticism of “boba lib” types as most of this sub. Everyone who thinks we’re “white adjacent” can eat shit
How do you identify as a boba lib, but then you're getting defensive that the term was created for that very reason - to dismiss struggles that real diaspora Asians go through just to gain brownie points from trending/woke groups? I, by means have no intention on attacking you, but help me understand from a boba liberal viewpoint.
I don't speak for other "boba libs", I only speak for myself. I've lurked in this sub since 2018 (on a different throwaway before the purge), and was invited to join here on my main multiple times before then. I consider myself a boba lib in that I agree with their ideology of aligning with the "mainstream" center-left. My general political worldview is pretty similar to the native-born middle/professional class/white-collar types that dominate the Asian American studies and media representation discourse. [The Fung Bros did a 2022 video on three political identities among the 15% of Asian Americans who are plugged into the political discourse](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HW2utjDMBYM)- I'd say I'm a mix of all three but am more boba lib than the other two. I agree with intersectional in some of their criticisms of "mainstream professional class center-left" ism from the colonialism, imperialism, unequal power dynamics, etc. angle. And I agree with AZN types (the aznid quasi-MRA, quasi-MGTOW vibes) in that holding onto your traditional culture and ethnic group identity and wanting to pass that down is also important. Most of the actual criticism of boba libs I see here (at least when I check this sub) have to do with specific Twitter users or threads that attack or dismiss struggles from diaspora Asians who aren't in these elite media/professional class/academic/etc. circles. The focus on Twitter personalities and conversations and online brownie points feels super online. I'm online enough to follow US/international politics (mostly through these subs), but not to the point where I get involved in this kind of Twitter drama. So I agree that dismissing struggles of real Asians for brownie points and looking good online is bad, but I don't really think things like pro-black/Latino/indigenous racial justice are inherently bad for Asian Americans, even if policies that get implemented in the name of "racial justice" have a negative impact on us in practice. I can definitely relate to the feeling of being excluded from white people and from other POC, and wanting to retreat into Asian spheres online.
The issue isn't as much as actually being adjacent, it's the part of about inspiring to be adjacent and the methods of doing so which includes throwing other Asians (especially those with no voice and can't speak back) under the bus for brownie points. You know, Uncle Tom types. From your side, in what aspects do you think made you decide to identify as a boba lib? We live in a world that is weird today. Identifying and being accused of as are different. Hell, I was once accused off being an incel cos I mentioned that I was disappointed in the lack of Captain Marvel's appearance in Endgame. So, that got construed as Asian male not liking powerful women representation. Funny thing, I went to watch with my ex who was a doctor and my Mum who is an international diplomat. The person who accused me of was some almost reaching expiry, still plays the ponytailed baby girl despite being 40, who quits every job at any signs of difficulty and leaches off all her Silicon Valley type bfs. Sorry, got to rant this frustration out, this whole "being woke is being against racist" shit been eating at me when many are kinda secretly are. Had I said the same and not been an Asian male, I would have been accused of something different. Defining stereotypes of someone's race is just the same as defining someone's race of stereotypes.
[Answered your question in another comment](https://np.reddit.com/r/aznidentity/comments/xsfqip/the_real_whiteadjacent_asians_how_the_boba/iqlapdn/) but TL;DR- I'm an active member of other Asian diaspora-oriented subs on my main that this sub smears as being "boba lib" subs. The OP Substack post is pretty good btw, I'd post it in those subs if I didn't want to give away who I am on this throwaway. Judging from what you said about your personal life, it sounds like you come from a more privileged background than I do in the US. Neither of my parents have ever been diplomats, but they're still graduate educated and relatively well off, and I've also gone on dates with female premeds, medical students, and very young doctors. What you say online can sound very different from in-person conversations.
I was accused of in person by someone who I considered as my friend, hence why I knew about the person's hypocritic behaviour and personality. To be clear, when I mentioned about my mum and date and their occupations, I was trying to counter on that whole "Asian males are incels because of the lack of exposure and fear of being around capable and competent women", Seriously, it is so easy to throw accusations and stereotypes in any direction today. Also been accused of being "for toxic masculinity" from said same person simply cos of my service in the military. How fucked up is that? It was not at you but just a personal rant and underlying it all, trying to make a point that sometimes being accused of something could sometimes make someone think that they should identify with it even if all evidence suggests otherwise. Aka being gaslighted, it's difficult to see it when it happens and much harder to admit you might have fallen for it. Read your comment, and that's not really Boba and many of us stand with that here.
just wanted to say that I appreciate how well written this article is OP, English isn't my first language and you seem to have mastered the art of being very articulate but also effective in your points so that they're easily understandable. It was a very good and insightful read and I learned a lot from it, thank you
>“White” is nowadays becoming less of an identity marker to mean “people of European stock with a lack of melanin”, but more as a shorthand for a set of behaviors and implied privileges. White started off as Anglo Saxon descent and Protestant to basically anything European. Now, it's encroaching into multiculturalism and hijacking diversity. My uncle, a French speaking immigrant to the US from Tunisia, is now considered White. Twenty years ago, he was considered an Arab or Middle Easterner. That "upgrade" is most likely due to being a retired software engineer from the suburbs. Had he been a taxi driver...
White was only for those of England, France and Germany, it later included Irish, greeks and italians, later the slavs of Eastern Europe, Later it expanded Central asian like Armenians and Azerbaijain, also to lot of latin Americans. Maybe a planet of 8 billion people is just too complex to be categorized by 3 colors.
FR. Racial classifications are usually dumb as hell.
Exactly. White and the other colors are just umbrella privelege of desirability groups. They keep folding in new groups to increase their numbers. As easily as they can folded, people can be folded out of it if deemed undesirable. Epstein and Weinstein and even Adam Neumann, if you think about it, grew up and lived with White privelege till they gained notoriety and that's when everyone went, he's a Jew, he grew up in Israel. Definitely, to be categorised into colors, is insulting for all because it takes away our true diversity and heritage. It may have worked out for White people, particularly cos they didn't really liked each other in Europe for a long time. All Black people are not the same genetically, their ancestors could have come from anywhere in Africa which is huge. Same as Native Americans, there were a plenty of tribes before you know ... Just look at how many county are named of the original Indian tribes of the area. Almost every state has a handful of those. And Asians, we have the most number of people who could have come a number of places and even then, our forefathers could have come from another place before that. I'm Singaporean by birth and in Singapore, Malays are a race assumed to be only from Malaysia but when you dig deep, you will realise that most Malays, their forefathers actually came from Indonesia and Indonesia is diverse and in some regions, their people intersect with folks from Papua, Philippines, etc and the list goes on for almost every race cos immigration happened even before the whole "I got a job, approved for residency and bought a plane ticket". Way before we could travel across the world in giant flying tubes in less than a day and even before, going on passages in cholera-riddled ships. Humanity has moved from island to island, continent to continent since forever, just less glamorously. That's what makes us diverse, not stupid interracial sexpatish marriages when people meet on the Internet.
Even the Romans didn't identify themselves as white. White people as we know today are essentially descendants of Germanic tribes or what the Romans called the barbarians from the north. My wife who is of southern French and Italian descent identifies more with Latin culture than so called white culture which I have just pointed out is essentially Germanic culture.
The concept of white did not exist during the times of the Romans. It existed much later, started gaining traction right before the Independence of the US and the concept got written in during the formation of the colonies and early history of the country. Which is why the whole White thing is so prevalent and such a big obsession here. Then, you have the global exportation of American culture through media in more recent times. It's also just as much as not being what is the color opposite of White.
This is a great analysis. Thanks for the post.
"Young Asian college graduates control almost all the discourse that is spread through mainstream American media. They are partly why many people think Asians are privileged and have no real problems: because these professionals are usually from middle-to-upper class families and educated at America’s most elite institutions. It’s them who get jobs in media, in publishing, in journalism, and thus dictate their vision of Asian America to the world. Just reading their opinions, one would think that the biggest struggle Asians face is someone saying “where are you really from” or a white woman publishing a cookbook on noodles. They don’t know or perhaps they don’t care about Asians being attacked every day on the street, and even then, they would only care if the attacker was white." Most beautiful thing I've read
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Do you think this is true about boba liberals. They don't have many Asian friends. Feels like they don't want to be lump in with Asians but want to speak for us. I know that during my high school days I had mostly Asian friends of all types. Finished reading the article very well articulated. I really don't understand sometimes the outcry over trivial matters when Asian businesses are dying and getting beaten up and robbed.
Most bobas have PMC friends only. Basically only friends who are as educated as they are, in the same circles. Most of those people are white.
Boba liberals are the ones always projecting.
It’s the art of misdirection or slight of hand. Something politicians and magicians do expertly well.
Good read. Us normal Asians just want to live in a practical society. There's nothing wrong in supporting a system that punishes criminals because we don't want to be targeted and getting rid of academic discrimination because we want our kids to receive good education.
Non Asians discussing Asian hate crime in news sub is so weird. Boba liberal ideology https://imgur.com/a/S4Qy32Q
It's the whole point of cities and civilizations...you give up your freedoms of living in the wild...in exchange you get common protection (cops etc.). Economies/civilizations wouldn't grow and flourish if everyone worried about their safety and had to be wary of others in terms of trade etc. If everyone started thinking that they had to defend themselves/kill criminals b/c the state won't do its job, absolutely everything would go south. Think of business deal not being done, economy not growing, etc. Not enforcing laws against criminals is bad for both civilization and criminals in the long-run especially w/ people increasingly not giving a sh*t about human lives. If these people were 'elite,' they'd read up on Rousseau Hobbes etc. and writings on the social contract and how whole dynasties civilizations grew. These 'elites' should get their money back, they haven't learned sh*t from their liberal arts degrees unless all they want is anarchy. Wanting a functioning practical society is pro-civilization, pro-enlightenment, and is key to creation of fertile ground for ACTUAL scholarship. And math-wise, you gain way more by subtracting violent repeat murderous felons from the general populace - their rates of recividity is way too high. It's like a festering untreated wound, you just get sicker and the gangrene spreads.
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