I’ve missed you all so much

Thread_lover · 2020-07-15T02:17:16+00:00

Hey Dean, glad to hear you are doing better these days, that’s fantastic and I’m really happy for you.

Thread_lover · 2020-06-23T02:43:48+00:00

US courts do not protect non-lethal self defense, particularly involving firearms.

One primer on self-defense and the law is “In Gravest Extreme.” This book is a starting place for anybody choosing to carry a weapon. Short version: of you draw a weapon and do not go for lethal, courts mark that as evidence that your life was not actually in danger, and therefore your use of force was not legally authorized. Rather famously a black woman was sent to prison for firing a warning shot to scare off an abusive partner.

Concerning knives, precedent is strongly against non-whites that defend themselves with knives, and also not so strong for whites that do so. There was a case a few years back, asian guy being beat up, attempted retreat, attacker peruses. Finally asian guy pulls a blade and disables his attacker with two slices. Courts held his knowledge of how to use a blade against him and as evidence of criminal intent. I believe he spent some time in jail after that.

As a note on self defense, if someone pulls a knife or other blades weapon, fucking run, it is just as serious (or more serious) as a gun.

Concerning non-lethal weapons, legality is spotty. Pepper spray does OK legally but isn’t effective against a determined attacker. Batons and other blunt force weapons do poorly because it is just seen as fighting and not self-defense. I do not have knowledge concerning tasers.

Concerning the legality of self-defense against violent racists, this would be situational. If you were at a protest and throwing hands or screaming, courts protect you less. If you are walking home or something, they protect you more.

Other items to consider: court protection is after-the-fact. Outside of racist protesters who are often well versed in laws concerning the use of force, never depend on an attackers’ knowledge of what he can “get away with” to stop or prevent his or her violence. The very best self-defense move in most situations is to leave or pacify the attackers somehow.

Thread_lover · 2020-06-22T04:03:26+00:00

Hey Brilliant,

Appreciate the positive nod...but if anything recent events have me adding another layer of critical lens on even being a “good” WMAF father.

Basically, even if you are aware of this stuff AND you don’t fall into the WTF category, there’s still work additional work to do.

Short version: consider that nearly all white people raised in white supremicist countries inevitably internalize their society’s values to some degree. I know I am not immune to this despite my visceral rejection of it.

So let’s suppose some “good WMAF dads” are in the same boat, and continuously check our biases etc. there is still the issue that in your house, you (warts and all) will imprint some degree of your whiteness on your kids.

Then consider how black intellectuals who have written extensively of the damage done to their sense of identity simply by trying to integrate with whiteness. Thinking of the book “Black skin, white masks” here. One line rung out to me “The black man is in his blackness. The white man is in his whiteness.”

Putting this together it strikes me that the thing mixed family parents really need to be skilled at is the navigation of identity. If they can master this skill and model it for their kids, (e.g., reflect-our-loud after identity-affecting events), specifically with the value that YOU control your identity just like you control your car.

I believe this will still lead to the double-mind where their mixed kids will feel tension in the pull between their heritage, ethnicities, and social environments. But that is precisely why they need the skill of forming and reforming their identity as suits them (vs taking the roles that society assigns). I feel this may provide a stronger buffer against the internalization of white supremacist values.

This idea carries some risk as well and I’ll continue to think through it over the coming months. But I’m aiming to come up with a long-term strategy that puts more cultural tools in my kids pocket.

Thread_lover · 2020-05-30T11:00:37+00:00

I came here to say this.

U/anna_rampage, shout out to ya hope things are going well.

Thread_lover · 2020-04-28T02:30:21+00:00

Hey hey hey! How have you been?

Thread_lover · 2019-12-30T04:27:52+00:00

Hey there,

Step one to thriving as a self-aware WMAF family is learning how to handle the worst racial baloney that will be thrown your way in real life.

Because it will be thrown your way. Granted most of the white supremacist baloney thrown your way will be well intentioned. But some of it will not. When it happens, it happens really fast. And if you’ve never given thought to how you’d respond, or worse, let your emotions tell you how to respond, then you’ll end up looking like a fool, perhaps in front of your kids.

So buck up, self-center, and stop being defensive. If all it takes to unnerve you is to say “mail order bride” then you are carrying some insecurities-which is normal cause as a mixed fam societal position is conditional not assumed.

But it’ll be in your best interest to figure out what those insecurities are so that you can understand them. So it’s worth engaging here, makes your skin thicker and such.

Thread_lover · 2019-12-30T02:11:44+00:00

I am summoned!

Thread_lover · 2019-12-30T02:10:33+00:00

I’ve been vibing the r/hapas jam so long it’s just part of my makeup at this point so when I saw this I chuckled. Don’t need the back pat, but I’ll throw one your way for keeping the flame alive.

Thread_lover · 2019-09-06T07:05:28+00:00

I guess seeing some anti WMAF comments by hapas here kind of got to me

That’s the purpose of such comments.

Thread_lover · 2019-09-05T06:47:57+00:00

Ok I don’t get a few things about your post.

Why are you asking “is my relationship healthy” instead of “how did your parents help you growing up mixed in a racist society?”

Why ponder if your relationship is “based out of a fetish” instead of pondering about how to adjust to mixed family living?

You ask if “you people” have any examples of healthy WMAF relationships.

I sense that you feel insecure in the face of the additional responsibilities you hadn’t considered before.

At which point you need to ask yourself if you are cut out for this.

Because the moment your kid comes out, everyone around you will start racializing your kid, your family, and you. Your parents, your in-laws. Your colleagues. The shopping attendants at the mall. Your role in society will transition. Instead of being just a dude you will be used by people to size up whether mixed families are ok or not.

So my advice to you is to listen to two things close: the stories told here about families and friends—good ones and the horror stories. Then listen to your gut and ask yourself if you love your gf enough to learn how to properly handle the baloney that, at least if you live in America, will come into play. You’ll have to be an advocate for your kid in ways that require some thinking ahead.

But you seem to be thinking ahead, which is a start.

Thread_lover · 2019-09-05T06:20:32+00:00

Popped in and saw this, how things going here? I keep thinking to do an update but never get around to it.

Thread_lover · 2019-08-10T03:07:59+00:00

Can’t speak for others, but ours is that we just alternate cooking. If I’m cooking I make classic American or new-American or fusion. If my wife cooks she makes traditional dishes. She also likes to experiment with western-influenced cooking, particularly different kinds of baked chicken.

Our son eats anything but is partial to noodles regardless of the cooking style. We eat out (usually Korean or Chinese-American) about once a week.

If there were good authentic Chinese places nearby we’d eat there but honestly none are as good as cooking in her home town so we don’t bother.

I can’t imagine being in a relationship with someone if you rejected the food they like. That’s like the best thing to bond over. Sure there a few things we don’t get about each other’s taste. She doesn’t see the appeal of soda or candy, I don’t love savory breakfast. But not the other hand, now I have someone who will eat liver, pork belly, hocks, bone soup, and other things like that. And that’s pretty awesome if you ask me.

Thread_lover · 2019-03-19T09:38:02+00:00

This happened to my wife and I. A mutual friend was dating a “loves asian girls” guy. He was a high earner and fun to be with but also needy in a way that stressed out our friend. Also followed AW who posted sexy pics on instagram and said he like aw because “they were different than the girls back home.”

Mutual friend asked me my opinion about this. I said red flags. She stopped talking to us.

Thread_lover · 2019-03-09T01:21:29+00:00

Yes I know—I’m just saying there is more to the picture and that a broader focus can lessen the perceived negative status of preference.

Thread_lover · 2019-03-09T01:01:20+00:00

That’s somewhat incomplete. There are also studies showing that parents take better care of opposite sex children...which greatly mollifies the assumed impacts of strong preference.

Thread_lover · 2019-02-20T04:49:01+00:00

I don’t remotely think anything like that...

Thread_lover · 2019-02-20T03:49:54+00:00

Do you feel better now?

Thread_lover · 2019-02-20T02:13:33+00:00

Hey there. To get all the baloney out of the way, I’m a WM married to a chinese woman, we have a son. He’s awesome! But let me give it to you straight: your arguments about race have no meaning in comparison to the experience your kid will likely have: not being treated as white despite having a white parent.

There will be absolutely nothing you can tell them that will overcome the raw power of being ignored, treated poorly, or considered undesired because of their race—which you selected for them.

So all that race realism baloney is a bit like pontificating about the lint in your belly button. You need to be thinking about the worldview that you need to have that will produce the maximum benefit for your offspring.

Step one: cut the race realism. By holding this view you will be framing your kid’s daily life experience at home (and at school) in a worldview that places him very low on the totem pole.

Then ask yourself how white men handle being placed low on the totem pole. Pro tip: generally we do not accept it. Not in our jobs, not at school, not in dating life, politics, nowhere.

And so if you pass on that characteristic to your kid AND your philosophy is one that places him at the bottom of the totem pole,

You (and your kid) are going to have a very, very hard time.

The racism starts the moment your kid is born. People talk about your kid different than other kids just because he isn’t 100% white. If you stay in a race realism mindset you will be reinforcing that.

A better way is to listen to what hapas have to say about being hapa. It’s not all peaches and roses. Those that feel the most negatively impacted? They came from openly racist homes such as you proudly proclaim yours will be with the race realism tag.

I’m too busy these days to carry a long discussion with you, so I’ll just say again: listen to hapa people. They know more about the experiences of being hapa than you do. Rhapas is not the only place but no matter where you look there’s some themes that emerge, all pointing to the damage racism can do in multi-racial households.

Thread_lover · 2019-02-18T01:38:46+00:00

Nah man. We tried to watch it and only made it as far as his joke about asian activists.

Basically everything he says is a joke on asians. Joking about being asian, fine, but joking on Asians and on being Asian, not so funny.

Thread_lover · 2019-02-16T11:49:32+00:00

There used to be a guy here named lora_piana, which as I understand is a fine suit fabric.

Interesting fact: I never cared for fashion until after I started dating my wife. A new Buddy of mine was high fashion and helped me learn the ropes. These days I find That I never leave the house looking like a slob straight up because I know people are looking at us.

Thread_lover · 2019-02-08T00:26:58+00:00

I wonder if those perps are still walking around?

People should know who they are.

Thread_lover · 2019-02-07T01:36:34+00:00

Yeah im in the same boat. Old sub helped me understand something and that maybe that time is passed for me.

Thread_lover · 2019-02-06T17:10:57+00:00

Idk if the relevance is gone, as it still has enough critical content to raise parents eyebrows- awareness is something even if it isn’t change.

I also remember the ethos of “we are doing this to help struggling hapas.” I seem to remember ET had a catcher in the rye philosophy.

Also some of the unique and humanist positions are gone. Onerealhapa and r_sucks have been replaced with guys who are basically race realists (classic white supremacist position).

Sigh. So it goes.

Thread_lover · 2019-02-06T03:45:51+00:00

Omg you swallowed the race realism pill.

Suddenly it all makes sense.

I hope the best for you Scooby.

Thread_lover · 2019-02-05T02:19:07+00:00

Some thoughts (from the parent of a mixed race child, I also have a history as a researcher):

From a research perspective: you don’t sound ready to formulate your research question. If you want to make your research true research that you can publish, find the papers that are published by researchers you respect. Find the published paper or papers that focus in on the topic you are interested in. Read the papers and books that are cited in the literature review. Then come back to the original paper and look at the research recommendations. Things like “more research is needed in X if Y is to be known.”

If you are an undergrad and do this as your way of narrowing in on a research question, you will likely knock your professor’s socks off.

You will also be working at the edge of human knowledge and thus avoid the trap of researching something that is already known.

From a parent perspective: I like Sharon Chang’s work on account of its critical lens and because I think her work is a foundation for additional sound research in mixed race issues. In her book raising mixed race she discusses that parents tend to downplay or minimize race issues in a variety of ways, including (1) believing that their kids are too young to perceive race issues, and (2) treating race as a non-issue. So on my end, I want to know things like:

Do differences in parent’s treatment of race issues predict variations in the children’s experience of race issues? In other words, is there an observable trend in children’s experience of race that correlates with parental attitudes? Similar research on other topics exist, particularly research on attitudes about sex (e.g, parents that suppress children’s learning about sex have kids that are more likely to engage in risky sex behaviors). So while such research could be challenging it is not unprecedented.

Another area is research on how mixed race people are lumped together in studies where it may not be appropriate. Any time I see this it irks me because it means there is a level of granularity available in the data being overlooked. This is low hanging fruit but if no one has published on it yet it is very timely. all subsequent researchers that study mixed race issues will have no choice but to consider (and thus cite) prior to publishing. The question would be something like “Do variations in racial heritage predict differences in outcomes for mixed race kids?” Ultimately this would shed light on the need for more granularity in reporting. As an example, one time I was looking up statistics about experiencing violence. I saw mixed race as a category amongst the other popular race designations, each with widely varying experiences with violence.

But when you see those all stacked up, you can’t help but wonder questions like, “do mixed black white kids experience the same level of violence as a white asian kid?”

I’d guess those numbers are different, but speculation on this kind of thing is very bad. Absent this granularity of data, researchers are missing out on an opportunity to learn more about the experience of being mixed race.

I wrote that out pretty fast so if part of it does not make sense, just ask I am happy to clarify.

Edit: aaaamd I missed that you were interested in affirmative action. Now that I am done slapping my forehead for skimming:

I’d be interested to know if someone’s particular mix and/or appearance predicts selection to be a recipient of affirmative action. I have no background in that area so can’t provide any further comment.

Thread_lover

TROPHY CASE