
On Being Black in China - patrick-james
http://www.theatlantic.com/china/archive/2013/07/on-being-black-in-china/277878/
======
temphn
This author has an incredibly solipsistic worldview:

    
    
      Mao issued another statement of support in April 1968 after 
      the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. But despite 
      these expressions of support, there is scant evidence to 
      prove Mao or any other Chinese political leader at the time 
      would have been willing to align themselves actively with 
      the Civil Rights Movement. In fact, Chinese foreign policy 
      in the 1960s mirrored much of that of the West, due in part 
      to the Sino-Soviet split and the coming détente with the 
      U.S.
    
      After the deaths of Mao and Zhou Enlai, the era of 
      alignment with the developing world and oppressed peoples 
      gave way to Deng Xiaoping's pragmatic plan for economic 
      development epitomized by his statement, "To get rich is 
      glorious." From the 80s to the present, this new mantra has 
      fueled a single-minded devotion to the pursuit of wealth, 
      leaving little room for concern with past ideals. 
    

The "past ideals" promoted by Mao included the mass murder of tens of millions
of Chinese and almost thirty years of terror and poverty, from the Great Leap
Forward through the Cultural Revolution. Not even a single mention or nod to
this in the paragraph, which would have you believe that a mass murderer who
gave lip service to the US civil rights movement is preferable to a man who
brought a billion people out of darkness.

One might even call such a view - that all that matters is a person's
professed attitude towards a black American - _culturally imperialist_. As the
author notes in passing, post-Deng China is substantively doing a lot more for
people of African origin via trade than Maoist China ever did. But all that
matters are the "past ideals". A modern expression of the modern American
religion: thou shalt not be saved through works, only through lip service
towards MLK alone.

~~~
pradocchia
The passage you quote seems fairly neutral to me, and you appear to bring more
baggage to the conversation than the author himself.

There was in fact a qualitative change in popular Chinese outlook from Mao to
Deng, never mind the damage Mao inflicted on the country. China became more
materialistic, less ideological, less idealistic. White people were associated
with rich and powerful western nations, so their prestige increased. Black
people were associated with poor African nations, so their prestige decreased.
This was independent of any preferences for light and delicate features.

And I think this was one of the author's points, that shifts in popular
outlook have affected Chinese perceptions of black people. What might once
have been an asset (perception of shared suffering under
capitalist/imperialist oppression) is now a liability ("we're poor but not as
poor as you!").

~~~
temphn

      never mind the damage Mao inflicted on the country. China 
      became more materialistic, less ideological, less 
      idealistic. 
    

"Never mind" the damage Mao inflicted? 65 million people died during his
reign. Post-Mao China is more realistic, more productive, much wealthier, and
much less insane (aka "ideological/idealistic"). It is less likely to foment
violent revolution nearby and more interested in profitable stability. It is
an improvement on every front that matters.

[http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-
entertainment/books/news/m...](http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-
entertainment/books/news/maos-great-leap-forward-killed-45-million-in-four-
years-2081630.html)

    
    
      Mao's Great Leap Forward 'killed 45 million in four years'
    
      Mao Zedong, founder of the People's Republic of China, 
      qualifies as the greatest mass murderer in world history, 
      an expert who had unprecedented access to official 
      Communist Party archives said yesterday.
    
      Speaking at The Independent Woodstock Literary Festival, 
      Frank Dikötter, a Hong Kong-based historian, said he found 
      that during the time that Mao was enforcing the Great Leap 
      Forward in 1958, in an effort to catch up with the economy 
      of the Western world, he was responsible for overseeing 
      "one of the worst catastrophes the world has ever known".
    
      Mr Dikötter, who has been studying Chinese rural history 
      from 1958 to 1962, when the nation was facing a famine, 
      compared the systematic torture, brutality, starvation and 
      killing of Chinese peasants to the Second World War in its 
      magnitude. At least 45 million people were worked, starved 
      or beaten to death in China over these four years; the 
      worldwide death toll of the Second World War was 55 
      million.
    
      Mr Dikötter is the only author to have delved into the 
      Chinese archives since they were reopened four years ago. 
      He argued that this devastating period of history – which 
      has until now remained hidden – has international 
      resonance. "It ranks alongside the gulags and the Holocaust 
      as one of the three greatest events of the 20th century.... 
      It was like [the Cambodian communist dictator] Pol Pot's 
      genocide multiplied 20 times over," he said.
    

But he said something nice about MLK once. Really, methinks that some
"baggage" \- aka knowledge of history - is quite necessary here.

~~~
coldtea
> _" Never mind" the damage Mao inflicted? 65 million people died during his
> reign._

First, the huge majority of those deaths were due to famine.

Second, it was in a country in great turmoil, civil war, and a revolution
(regime change, if you prefer). In places where such things happen -- as
opposed to an country with a stable political climate like the US, people die
(including by execution).

Someone from a stable country cannot relate, but think of the Civil War and
the tons of deaths. Or the French revolution. Those doesn't mean one leader or
a handful is the only one to blame, like one does not pin civil war deaths to
Lincoln or the confederate leaders. Such are the times.

Countries do not get into such messes by one "bad apple" leader. On the
contrary, the leaders represent the general problems in the society in
general. Even Hitler was voted by a majority of Germans, which ascribed to the
same ideals long before he came to power (and for the "philosophical" parts of
nazism, even decades ago, e.g Nietchze, Wagner, Heidegger, Carl Schmitt, and
tons of lesser intellectuals).

~~~
samspenc
> First, the huge majority of those deaths were due to famine.

Sir, that famine was in large part due to movements commandeered by Mao - such
as the Great Leap Forward which completely decimated Chinese farming and
agriculture.

~~~
coldtea
Yes, but that does not make it a deliberate policy of killing people. It was
what it was thought at the time as necessary to bring China in the modern age.
One has to ask if without it China would be what it is today -- or perhaps
some broken half-aggrarian society, more third-world than one of the world's
economic powers.

Same way, as one has to ask if without Stalin's forced industrialization, USSR
would be able to stand to the Nazis (and, if it could not, if Europe could).
Besides the tragic human aspect, one has to see these kind of events with an
impartial eye, just for their long term effects.

~~~
RockyMcNuts
but by the time Mao died, China was a broken way-more-than-half-agrarian
society, and below a lot of third world countries. Kind of like North Korea
today.

The best one can say is, China was a basket case before Mao, he established a
strong system of central control and a level of human development ie literacy
and medical care, and those paved the way for development after Mao.

------
olalonde
I live in China and there is indeed still some racism towards black and even
asian people. A black English teacher in China will have a much lower salary
then a white person for example (though this is also true of English teachers
who are asian). As crazy as it sounds, schools will often prefer to hire a
white teacher who is not a native speaker to a black/asian teacher who is a
native speaker.

~~~
lambdasquirrel
You see some of the opposite here in America. For some reason or another,
people tend to prefer an Asian-looking kung fu teacher to a Caucasian or
African-American one.

The present-day East Asian cultures have become strangely obsessed with image.
There was one Taiwanese pop star, I think her name was Jolin or something,
she's rumored to have had 3 different plastic surgeries in the last however
many years, and come out looking quite different in each one. It's supposedly
kind of scandalous now in Korea, when a husband and wife marry and then the
kids turn out looking nothing like the parents.

~~~
noname123
> when a husband and wife marry and then the kids turn out looking nothing
> like the parents.

Doesn't seem like a bad thing, just means that there should a good market for
plastic surgery for the next generation.

~~~
cm2012
Yeah, I'm not sure what the common 20-something intellectual culture has with
plastic surgery. We're all assigned a certain level of genetic prettiness at
birth, out of our control (as measured by how people perceive you, facial
symmetry, etc.) Isn't plastic surgery a great equalizer?

~~~
kalleboo
It's not an equalizer if not everyone can afford it, instead it creates an
even larger gap between the haves and the have-nots.

------
munificent

        creating a vacuum of knowledge, drawing in stereotypes and prejudice
    

That's a beautiful turn of phrase.

------
peter303
For me living in China as a white American student in the 1980s was to wake up
to minority prejudice. That is to be treated different, sometimes better,
sometimes worse than native Chinese. Its something I had not felt in the US.
An amusing thing was is that I could understand what people would say about me
in public because they assumed most foreigners did not understand Chinese. Or
to visit a tourist site and read the prices in English ten times higher than
in Chinese.

------
steele
Not to minimize the overall message, to be fair, those students would probably
would complain about a ethnic Chinese English teacher.

~~~
yapcguy
Just like how non-Chinese expats in Hong Kong get higher salaries and packages
including housing allowance, whereas oversea born Chinese are treated as
locals despite being expats.

------
cloudwizard
I grew up on the Canadian Prairie. The only black people in the entire city
were part of the professional football team. At school, the few black kids
were tall and very athletic. It may be a stereotype but it was real in my
city.

~~~
shef_hauwanga
Are you certain that you knew every black student at your school or just the
popular ones? If there are few blacks it makes sense that the ones you'd
notice would be tall and athletic as these are qualities that tend to engender
popularity for school children. Did you conduct a formal or even semi-formal
survey? I've heard similar suggestions to this before and they rarely conform
to reality. This sounds more likely to be a case of conformation bias.

~~~
philwelch
When you go to a school with very few black people, noticing one is already
surprising enough that you won't miss many through confirmation bias.

------
j_s
See also: "You'll never be Chinese"
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4366203](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4366203)

------
beachstartup
i'm an american and i'm not white, or black.

at some point you have to just stop giving a shit what other people think of
your race/skin color.

------
pessimizer
I've been asking for this for years, but if anybody can come up with a method
(website?) for me to figure out how black people are seen in different
countries and regions, that would help me a lot. Seems like the only way to
tell is to fly somewhere, then find out that your experience there is not
going to be like your friend's was.

Racist heatmaps?

~~~
VladRussian2
"how black people are seen" \- i don't think it can be answered by one number
on the scale from 1 to 10. For example, Russians are pretty racist,
nationalistic chauvinistic, antisemitic ... you name it, basically Equal
Opportunity Haters ... and there are a lot of disrespectful jokes about black
people as well. On the other side - we drank a lot with the black students we
had at our University and at other places and the girls liked them as well.

>then find out that your experience there is not going to be like your
friend's was.

yep, he may be a cool guy and you're a party pooper or vise verse :)

~~~
auctiontheory
Reminds me of this old joke:

A CIA spy is on his first day scouting Moscow. Fluent in Russian, he is
confident of blending into the crowd. First, he stops at a store to get an
apple. The lady there gives him a big smile, "Morning Mr American, how can I
help you?" Shocked, he quietly buys an apple. Next stop, an old lady on a park
bench. "Morning ma'am, can I have the time please?" "Sure, Mr American, it's
9.15." He's really worried. Is his disguise that thin? He meets a cop and asks
directions. Having received the usual "Certainly Mr American, it's the third
block on your left," he asks, "Excuse me, how do you know I'm from the US?"
"That's easy," replies the policeman, "you're black."

~~~
VladRussian2
Yep, many years ago a friend who just moved to VA near Langley was a bit
surprised seeing first time a couple of black guys in suits shopping in
specialized Russian food store and speaking perfect Russian :)

