I swear, if I see one more study about American teenage life that compares “whites” and “minorities” and defines “whites” as whites but “minorities” as black-and-Hispanic, I will throw up all over myself.
I still remember having detention once with the bizarre and entertaining Ms. Bryant and talking about race. She said, “it’s hard being black,” I said, “you sure about that? Because so far it’s all right being Indian.” And she gave me this look like I was from another planet. As if only someone from another planet would compare the black and Indian experience alongside each other. “You’re not part of a minority that enjoys a lot of negative stereotypes.”
Actually, there are plenty of negative stereotypes about Indians, just visit England, the land where Winston Churchill once referred to Gandhi as “a dirty little man in a loincloth” and yet still counts as a national hero. Fuck you too, Churchill. However, this is America, so we’re all in the “Fuck Churchill” boat together.
Nonetheless, Ms. Bryant had a valid point. I was hanging out in college with a bunch of kids once. And we were chilling and talking about race (by the way, I chill and talk about race all the time with nonwhite friends. In case anyone’s wondering) And one of the kids made a comment about how a lot of kids who were white just didn’t get it sometimes, and one of the others said, “Chill out, there aren’t any white people here – just an Italian and an Indian.” Guess which one I was (there were about twenty of us hanging around). The point is, sure, these folks didn’t consider me white, but it’s not like I was in the great big black-and-Hispanic boat either. It’s not even like there is such a boat, as anyone who hangs out in Chicago’s gang-controlled neighborhoods can probably tell you (I haven’t, so I can’t tell you.)
My point is personal. I want to see separate stats for “non-white, non-black, non-Hispanic” populations because I think those stats would be very different. And let me present a case study, where I contrast my experiences with those of that arbiter of teenage behavior, the CDC. The CDC recently released a “landmark” report about teen sex and drug use. Although in general I think people who use the phrase “teen sex and drug use” are not teenagers (since the most common teen term for “sex and drug use” is “party”) I also think they erred by presenting the entire population as a breakdown of “black, Hispanic and white.” In other words, the CDC simply ignored everyone else.
Which is fine, except that I think the behavior of Asian Americans is different from that of several other ethnic groups. At the risk of playing to type, while the average kid may define “party” as “teen sex and drug use,” most of the Asian kids I know (I’m kinda including myself in this sample) spent their formative years with a very different definition. It probably involved textbooks.
I know. How sad. But the thing is, the culture is so overwhelmingly different. We’re talking arranged marriage different. We’re talking when I was twelve, my aunt sat me down on the couch after a NickKids video and said, “These films you see, they show all these kids holding hands and things like that before marriage. Indian girls don’t do that.” My cousin’s parents told her she couldn’t date until her junior and senior year of college, and then too only guys she was interested in marrying. (This was a bad parenting strategy for several reasons I probably don’t need to explain to anyone who remembers being a teenager.) I have dozens of these stories I can tell you. I remember talking to a friend I met in college who’d been dating the same guy since she was twelve, and my first thought wasn’t, “Wow, you could be getting so much more variety out of your young years” it was “Wait, how do your parents feel about this?” And on that note, I’m going to stop sharing stories.
Anyway, my point. I suspect – in fact, I am pretty much positive – that the sex stats, like many other stats, would be different. Remember that condom manufacturer who couldn’t turn a profit in China because unmarried people weren’t having enough sex? That’s what I’m talking about. That is no accident.
So on to the second part of my argument. Which is: why do expanded, more inclusive studies matter? I’m not sure they do. Perhaps Asians don’t get that much action because, as Jezebel kindly suggested, they’re spending too much time with World of Warcraft and not enough with Jim Beam. This is the saddest but most likely cause.
However, as this other study suggests, maybe there is another reason. A reason rooted in biology and environment, a reason related both to culture and to varying development of sexual maturity.
A reason not related (let me establish this for the record, and contravene Walling’s study) to the absence of attractive Asian men, or the un-impressiveness of their “swords” as the green swordtails would put it.
(Although we here are big believers in Walling’s theory. Definite believers. In fact, we have spent long, painful afternoons believing in Walling’s theory long before we knew who the hell Walling was. But I’m not going to tell any more personal stories.)
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