Race and Ethnicity: An Open Letter to “Disappointed”

Someone wrote a comment in response to yesterday’s entry. He didn’t give an e-mail address, so I thought of responding to him in the comments section, but then I thought maybe this deserved its own entry.

To avoid unnecessary clickage, here’s what he wrote:

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Ugh. Don’t you just HATE it when Asian guys who truly and utterly don’t interest you at all, don’t get you hard and therefore merit no consideration whatsoever try to engage in some friendly conversation? I mean, an ASIAN guy, fer Chrissakes. As if he and an insecure, neurotic, short hairy guy could possibly have anything in common! Tinman, you can’t choose who you’re attracted to and should never have to apologize for what gets you off. OK, so he wasn’t your type. But you seemed unable to see beyond his Asian features and seemed more than eager to dismiss the facts that 1) you had something in common and 2) amiable banter on the PATH is somewhat of a rarity, given all our urban armor. I guess I just expected that someone both Jewish and gay would be able to see beyond overly-broad categorizations. We’re more than the sum of all the identities we adopt. Should I bump into you somewhere in the East Village, I promise I won’t get in the way of your cruising, or intrude into your sacrosanct circle of whiteness. Yet another GAL (Gay Asian and, yes, Lawyer).

disappointed – posted at 17:33 GMT 13/6/01

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Disappointed,

I’m sorry you were offended. But I think you’re reading things into my words that aren’t there. It’s true that the guy didn’t turn me on physically. I just don’t find myself particularly physically attracted to Asian guys, and as you say, I don’t need to apologize for who I am or am not physically attracted to. (At any rate, I have in fact slept with Asian guys before.) But just because I’m not physically attracted to someone, that doesn’t mean I want nothing to do with that person. At the risk of using a cliché, I’ve known and been friends with people of all different races in my life.

And, sacrosanct circle of whiteness? Unable to see beyond his Asian features? Eager to dismiss the fact that we had something in common? Jeez, I did have a conversation with the guy. I did see it as kind of funny — and weird — that a complete stranger enthusiastically struck up a conversation with me about a series of fantasy novels, because, as you correctly note, “amiable banter on the PATH is somewhat of a rarity, given all our urban armor.” Not only that, but as I wrote in my entry, the guy was going on and on about something I really didn’t want to know too much about. Maybe I’m weird for not wanting to know too much about this long-awaited movie before I see it; fine. This had nothing to do with his being Asian.

Are you saying I shouldn’t have described him in as much detail as I did? I was trying to be descriptive, and with all due respect, it’s not too often that I see an Asian guy with dyed-blond hair and wearing a tank top, at least not on the PATH train. And those are the attributes I used in describing him. Anyway, as someone who spent three years living in and travelling around Asia, immersing myself in unfamiliar cultures and thereby learning a great deal about them, I feel that I am, in fact, “able to see beyond overly broad categorizations.”

Again, I’m sorry you were offended, but no offense was meant.

Sincerely,

Tin Man

Now I’ll open up the floor. I think this brings up some interesting questions:

1) If you become aware of a person’s racial or ethnic background — if you are struck by it even in the slightest way — is that inherently racist? Or is it racist only when that difference causes you to judge or treat people better or worse than others? Or is it impossible to notice such a difference without evaluating it?

My thoughts: If you believe that we should ignore each other’s racial/ethnic differences completely, then I guess it can be seen as inherently racist to be aware of them. But in my view, there are different racial and ethnic groups in the world, and it’s natural to notice those differences, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re making an evaluative judgment.

Read about what Psionic’s father used to say about “Phil, the black guy” (scroll down).

2) Physical/sexual attraction: If you’re not physically/sexually attracted to people of a particular race or ethnicity, is that racist? Or is it the same as basing physical/sexual attraction on height? Weight? Hairiness? Or are all of these bad? Or are all of these okay?

Or do people just tell themselves that they’re not attracted to a particular race when in reality they’re just uneasy about sleeping with someone of a different race?

Discuss.

Hmm, I wonder if this could go on Metafilter.

Oz

This morning I woke up in Chelsea. I’d stayed overnight with Bryan and his boyfriend after an evening of bar-hopping, and it felt pretty cool to walk out of their building at 8:15 this morning and be in the heart of gayville. It had been more than a year since I’d last been in Manhattan on a weekday morning; I felt like I was seeing a whole new side of the city. I felt like I was part of a privileged community of people. Even though the streets are pretty ordinary at 8:15 in the morning, it felt kind of magical.

Several years ago I read the first book in this fictional series by John Jakes about a man and his descendants establishing themselves in America. I read about the young Philippe Charboneau of France arriving in colonial Boston and transforming himself into the American Philip Kent. When I read that book, I was moved by the descriptions of a fresh, bustling, colonial American city, a brand new world bursting with secrets, a place that could give you the chance to make a new life for yourself.

How great it would be to come home to Manhattan on a summer night! Come home to my apartment, change my clothes, go back out into the world.

That’s what last night was like. After a good therapy session (much more upbeat than last week), I arrived at Bryan’s place with my work bag and a backpack of clothes. I’ve been inside so few Manhattan apartments in my life, and it’s always a shock to walk up the front steps and through the front door of a narrow apartment building, sandwiched between other buildings, and see its insides. There’s always the illusion of more space than there really is.

I changed into a t-shirt and shorts and then Bryan gave me a photo-and-video introduction to the world of flag-dancing. Then we went out and had dinner at the Bendix Diner on Eighth Avenue, a good, decent place with good, decent food where I’ve had several meals before, and we talked for quite a while. New York City. Getting established. Different types of relationships. The wondrousness of trying new things.

From there we went to Barracuda, where Bryan’s guy met up with us. Thence to Blu on 23rd Street, where we had a few drinks and talked of cabbages and kings. After the boyfriend went home, Bryan and I walked over to the Lure, a leather bar, for a brief visit, for reasons I won’t get into. It was my first time inside a leather bar, although it was a Tuesday night, so the place was pretty empty. But I saw some chains in the bathroom, and the bathroom walls were painted black. From the Lure we went over to XL, a pretty (and pretty new) bar in Chelsea that’s very shiny and fluorescent, like something out of the Jetsons.

By that point I was pretty tired. It was a weeknight and I’d had three drinks. So we went back to their apartment at about 12:30. The boyfriend was asleep, but there was a futon bed already set up for me, which was essentially in the same room as the bedroom. They have three cute cats, and I have to admit I didn’t sleep too well, but not because of the cats. Several times during the night the air conditioner cycled on and off, and whenever it came on, there was this loud noise that woke me up and scared the bejeezus out of me. On top of that I kept waking up from rather explicit dreams.

I got up at 7:30, showered, left their place at 8:15 and got to my office in Newark at 9:00. Not a bad commute at all. But I feel like I’m among the walking dead today.

What a weekend.

Did I say weekend? Well, it felt like a weekend. It was a little sliver of weekend snuck into the middle of my workweek. A nice way to break things up. And despite the fact that I’m in Manhattan several times a week, last night was new. In some ways I felt like I was visiting the city again for the first time.

That settles it. As soon as I’ve figured out what I’m doing job-wise, I’m going to look for a place in Manhattan. Even though I only live 20 minutes from the West Village right now, there really is a big difference. If I screw up, I screw up. I can always look for a new place if the first one doesn’t work out.

I flew out of JFK Airport with my family one warm summer evening when I was 18. We were going to Israel for two weeks. I had spent much of that summer coming to terms with my sexuality and daydreaming about being gay in New York. As we were sitting in the airplane on the runway, I could see the sun setting over the Manhattan skyline; the sky was purple and orange and I could almost see the heat rising from the distant buildings. I stared out the airplane window, stared out at the distant silhouette, my eyes fixed on the low valley of buildings stretching between the Empire State Building and the World Trade Center. Somewhere in that valley were the streets of Chelsea and the West Village. It was a Friday night and I started to imagine what all the gay men there would be doing that night; they’d be getting dressed up, getting ready to go out to all the bars and clubs, where they’d meet people and fall in love on a romantic summer night. As the plane taxied down the runway and we took off into the air, I stared and stared, trying with all my might to see the streets of lower Manhattan. But we were too far away.

Everything on the ground became smaller and smaller as we flew up and out over the water. We were off to a distant land. But at that moment I desperately wanted to go back.

Coming Distractions

On the ride home from Manhattan last night, I was sitting on the PATH train, reading The Fellowship of the Ring. Sitting across from me was an Asian guy whose hair was either highlighted or dyed blond. He wore a tanktop that showed off his defined arms. My gaydar went off, but I’m not really into Asian guys, and anyway, he seemed absorbed in his book.

More appealing was the guy sitting next to me, a white guy in a blue soccer shirt and orange athletic shorts. I love athletic shorts, particularly orange ones. He had thin, sinewy arms and toned, hairy legs. While looking down at my book I kept glancing over discreetly at his skin, and I was getting a little hard.

I got off at my stop, and he got off as well. So did the Asian guy, and so did a bunch of other people. My eyes lingered on the soccer guy’s legs as I was getting off the train, and I was still lusting after him when I heard, “Are you reading that because of the movie?” It was the Asian guy with the dyed hair, and he was saying this to me. Of course, being an ordinary gay male, I wondered if I was being picked up. I wasn’t particularly interested, but I told him that I was in fact reading the book because of the movie, and also because of the recent article on Salon, and that I’d actually read The Lord of the Rings before. He told me he’d read it seven or eight times. As we were walking up the stairs he told me about all the miniatures they have for sale that are based on the images from the movie. “Wow, already?” I said, seeing as how the first movie isn’t coming out until December.

We both took the same stairway out of the station and wound up walking along the same street, which I always take to my apartment. We were walking along and he was telling me all about who he’d heard was in the movie. I didn’t really want to know any of this, because I’m trying to avoid as much information about it as possible so I can watch it in December with a fresh eye. But then he mentioned that a particular twentysomething actress was in the movie, and that he’d seen pictures of her in costume. “She looks really hot,” he said, sounding exactly like a frat boy standing at a keg. “Oh really,” I said, laughing politely.

We walked on a little further. “Well, good night,” he suddenly said with a friendly smile on his face, walking into a parking lot.

“So long,” I said, continuing on to my apartment.

Unfortunately, I have no idea what happened to the soccer guy.