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| James and Ella |
So, a number of my friends may have noticed I've been posting a lot about James Lowe, Lorde's Asian photographer boyfriend, on my Facebook recently. I'm sure more than a few of you wonder why the racist tweets and 'anti-Asian-male' talk bothers me.
First off, I might be a little biting in this post. Just a warning.
Okay, to begin!
This racist tweeting was reported a few days ago, but I knew about James Lowe for several weeks beforehand. My mom also happens to really like Lorde, so she was the one to first discover James. I remember her telling me about him and showing me pictures. I thought nothing of it.
The rage online in November, although quiet, was that he is twenty-four. The universe gets uncomfortable with a seven year age gap these days, so of course I got angry about that. I am eighteen, but I tend to find conversation easier with men who are at least twenty. I don't know why. I think it's a fascination with people who are highly intelligent but mature to go with it (so they are responsible with their intellect). But anyway, I wanted to first write the blog post about that. Until I found the comments on Lorde's instagram uploads of pictures with him.
I don't want to go into great detail. If you want to know what folks have said about James, you can get on her instagram yourself or look it up in the news. Anyway, there were some ignorant comments at first-things that I would expect from those who aren't educated or are very young.
Around the first week of December, I think, things got nasty on Twitter. One Direction and Justin Bieber fans came under the impression that Lorde called their men 'ugly'. They lashed out. Like truly stupid racist little jerks.
I don't think this is really neccesary, since I hope most everyone who knows me has figured this out already, but I find Asian men attractive.
I'd prefer if you don't think 'yellow fever'. Or Sixteen Candles.
At any rate, because I like Asian men, I've received a mild amount of criticism from people I know who grew up in this area. No one has ever walked up to me and said, "why on earth do you like him? He's ugly," but wouldn't saying, "ewwww, he looks like a girl! So gay!" be almost exactly the same thing?
The last time I told my grandfather I found an Asian attractive he thought I was kidding. I've been asked by folks "how do you know which one you like, since gosh, they all look the same, you know?!"
And of course, the people that have asked, "Isn't he, like, 4 feet tall, since all of those Asian people are really short and stuff?
This is the extent of the bizzare and unwarranted stereotypes I've been on the receiving end of in my lifetime. Not much, in short. I thought that due to ignorance, clannish living habits, and kinist religious practices, the people of Appalachia were just born this way, and I never felt like it was a crisis or a problem. I felt strange, that's for sure, but I never felt like it was a huge problem. I would grow up, move away, and the fact that I like Asian men would be a simple side feature that wouldn't make me a ridiculous alien with six arms anymore. Yep.
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| They all look like women. That's what I was told concerning this image. |
For C.N. Le, a sociology professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, “this is due to pervasive cultural stereotypes” about Asian American men -- that they are “nerdy ... or not masculine enough.” As Le explained during a WBEZ interview in 2012, these biases create a “cultural penalty” in the dating world, one with quantifiable costs.
“In crunching the numbers,” Le said, “[researchers] found on an aggregate level, Latino men have to make something like $70,000 more than a comparable white man for a white women to be open to dating them.” With African American men, that figure shoots up to $120,000, and for Asian men, it’s even higher: $250,000.
That is a hefty sum. I wouldn't want to look at those odds on any day of my life, especially if I happened to be an Asian guy and had the utter misfortune of being attracted to a white girl somewhere.
There are two groups of people that seem pretty happy about Ella and James, though-Asian guys and the white/black/Hispanic girls that think they are right on par with any other guys out there.
In fact, there is this video and the follow-up comments to prove at least a few people could look at it humorously and/or take something beneficial away from it-
What I took away from this event really changed the way I look at things; I used to think this kind of bias was restricted to my area. Now I'm discovering this is everywhere. I used to think that maybe (forgive me, please) Asian guys on the internet who were complaining about this issue were just doing it because they wanted to complain, but the stats say differently.
In the end, I have to say, for this white girl, it will never be about money. I don't like a man just because he's popular, rich, or others think he's 'hot'. I like him because he is perfectly handsome to me, even if I'm the only person who thinks he is. I like him because he's a gentleman, and loves me for who I am, despite all of my faults. I like him because no matter how much money he makes, he works his very hardest in whatever he endeavors to do. If an Asian guy falls into that category, I date an Asian guy. If he doesn't, he can keep walking like all the rest.
So Lorde dates an Asian guy, maybe because she genuinely just likes him. There's not a law somewhere which says she can't.
-Argentia Krystofel.
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