Anti-Racism 102
Monday, September 29th, 2008 04:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jesse_the_kI love Dmae Roberts's radio pieces. She explores vital, difficult issues and they're full of laughter. Listening to her voice helps me experience her insights more directly.
Her "Secret Asian Woman" explores the costs of passing. Her parents are White and Chinese, and she looks "White enough" to witness countless racist comments. She browses labels—"White," "half-Oriental," "Eurasian," "half-breed," "multiracial," "HAPA," "mixed,"—comparing their histories and fit. I laughed at her fellow-feeling with "Secret Agent Man," the 60s TV show: by being able to pass she inhabited the mysterious-infiltrator role into which many Asian women are cast.
You can preview some of her work on YouTube or at her site. She's a frequent contributor to the Hearing Voices series. Her mind-blowing & award-winning radio doc Mei Mei: A Daughter's Song combines documentary and dreamscape as she wonders at the lack of communication between herself and her Taiwanese mother. You may have heard it on NPR, the CBC, the BBC or Radio Netherlands. I'm glad she sells her work as reasonably-priced downloads from her site, Mediarites.org. I prefer to pay her directly, rather than hope my contributions to public radio or tax dollars eventually reach her.
What are we but a collection of secrets? as we move through our lives, as we choose to reveal our lives, our stories, our very being to strangers—or not. 'How did your parents meet?'Being visibly different in our racist society, she daily experiences rude questions from strangers. (Some of those same folks likewise see my power wheelchair as permission to say remarkably intrusive & thoughtless things.)
Her "Secret Asian Woman" explores the costs of passing. Her parents are White and Chinese, and she looks "White enough" to witness countless racist comments. She browses labels—"White," "half-Oriental," "Eurasian," "half-breed," "multiracial," "HAPA," "mixed,"—comparing their histories and fit. I laughed at her fellow-feeling with "Secret Agent Man," the 60s TV show: by being able to pass she inhabited the mysterious-infiltrator role into which many Asian women are cast.
You can preview some of her work on YouTube or at her site. She's a frequent contributor to the Hearing Voices series. Her mind-blowing & award-winning radio doc Mei Mei: A Daughter's Song combines documentary and dreamscape as she wonders at the lack of communication between herself and her Taiwanese mother. You may have heard it on NPR, the CBC, the BBC or Radio Netherlands. I'm glad she sells her work as reasonably-priced downloads from her site, Mediarites.org. I prefer to pay her directly, rather than hope my contributions to public radio or tax dollars eventually reach her.