Wrestlin’ with race

I’ve been thinking about “Harold and Kumar.” First, I was thinking that the extreme sports guys are, despite their loutishness and racism, really, really painfully funny. For example, the plump man who communicates only by making pterodactyl sounds, and who bobs and weaves in this fantastically reptilian way. I mean, that was killer. And then there’s the guy who yells, “extreme cheddar!” Man, what the hell was that? I’ll tell you what that was: hilarious. There was also the “extreme mix,” which rocked the hot Wilson Phillips track (I know that there is pain / but you / hold on for one more daaaay: this song is the story of my life). Essentially, the extreme sports guys delivered non-stop. Very impressive. (It occurs to me that some of you—one of you? Anyone out there?—haven’t seen this movie yet. I can understand only if you have only ten dollars to your name and need it to buy your mother a new kidney from an unscrupulous cut-rate organ thief, in which case you ought to quit reading blogs and instead start your own “revenge-for-hire” business a la “Dirty Work,” to which, inexplicably, and I’m mortified to this day, I dragged my gentlemanly father and highly sophisticated sister many years ago. And which, I say shamefacedly, I now own, though this shouldn’t lead you to question my enthusiastic endorsement of “Harold and Kumar,” in that said endorsement has been seconded by many high-tone, sophisticated types, whom I’ve identified by their penchant for burying their noses in Harper’s and wearing glasses. I call them “nerds.”) Second, I was thinking about race. Debra Dickerson has this essay in Slate on being a bigot:

In a nation riven to its very core by race, I appear to be the only remaining racist. Off and on, I’m homophobic and anti-Semitic, too, but mostly, I’m racist. Yet unlike the rest of you, I’m honest about it.

Whoa, there! You speak too soon! I’ve long struggled to get over my burning hatred for the Irish, the Greeks, and the Armenians. No, no, I’m kidding. I love the Irish, the Greeks, and the Armenians. I mean, I’ve had problems with individuals Greeks, but there are just as many Greeks, if not far more Greeks, I love dearly. I loved Middlesex (a two-sittings read)! Also Maria Menounos (obviously) and, in a spirit of gender equity, the late, lamented Telly Savalas. (You’ll notice that the “Stunningly Gorgeous Crescent,” like “The Democratic Crescent,” starts in the Mediterranean rim. I won’t specify where it goes from there for fear of alienating the stiletto-wielding “newsies” who wait outside of my office and threaten to steal my lunch money.) As for the Irish, it’s not that I dislike them, but I do resent this notion that the Irish are singularly, faultlessly delightful, and I imagine many Irish would agree. You’re as likely to get mugged and beaten in Ireland as anywhere else in Western Europe, and rest assured, you won’t be beaten with a magical shillelagh. (Wait, wait. It seems that Mischa Barton, whom we have to thank for “less bling, more elegance,” is Irish. Do with this information as you will.) What about the Welsh? I’ll bet they have colorful folk traditions, and yet they get diddly, apart from a reputation as untrustworthy and shiftless when it comes to honoring agreements. Honestly, I love Armenians and threw them in for no reason at all. They get a bum rap, and have had a rough time historically. I wouldn’t wish the Turks or the Reds as imperialist aggressors on any ethnonational collectivity. Back to Dickerson. She vividly describes her “problem with whites,” a “problem” it’s easy to cop to. No one’ll give you a hard time for that, really. I should point out that I have no problem with white people, in large part because of “Jackass: The Movie”—three thumbs up. (Can you imagine anyone else making that movie? I can’t.) I do think we need more creative slurs for white people, however. My favorite is “Napikwan,” a term used by some of the Indian nations of the Northern Plains. “You damn Napikwan!” has a nice ring, as does “Naps.” White people could then appropriate the term for themselves, and scowl angrily when non-whites use it. I like this idea. The point of Dickerson’s anecdote on her problem with whites is that racial solidarity endures, that it has weight; she suggests that this is a bad thing, and I’d agree, emphatically. But it’s not that simple. Insofar as the solidaristic pose is defensive, part and parcel of preserving self-esteem, it’s difficult to dismiss outright. In “Harold and Kumar,” Harold dreads the prospect of pursuing a romantic relationship with “Cindy Kim,” a straight-laced Korean American co-ed at Princeton meant to evoke the stereotypical Asian American overachiever. She is a crashing bore. “Maria,” this shapely bombshell he worships from afar, is decidedly not Asian (she’s of indeterminate Latin origin, it seems—one assumes that making her a classical Anglonormative blonde would’ve been too much), though it’s never clear that she’s not also a crashing bore. They never really speak at length. I mean, one could argue that being a shapely bombshell is intrinsically unboring, but we’ll bracket that. Settling for Cindy Kim represents a listless embrace of mediocrity. Harold explicitly says, when Kumar insists that he make an earnest attempt to win over Maria, something to the effect of, “I’m going to end up with Cindy Kim whether I like it or not.” Ouch. Kumar maintains that she’s actually quite fetching and that Harold needn’t be so fatalistic regardless, but it’s a sentiment that’s worthy of note. Harold gives every indication of preferring a life free of any romantic entanglements, save for an underinformed infatuation with the aforementioned bombshell, to a serious relationship with, let’s be explicit, a fellow Korean American. That’s not entirely fair. Cindy Kim is, after all, really, really boring. It could be that Harold, when bemoaning the prospect of ending up with Cindy Kim, simply means that he’s doomed to end up with a profoundly lame young lady of refined taste and dubious sex appeal. Race doesn’t enter the picture. Let’s flip the script: Harold’s disinterest in Cindy Kim is about race, and Harold isn’t attracted to Korean American women, but wait—do we condemn people for not being attracted to brunettes, or really tall people? Of course not. It’s an arbitrary preference, and it’s not question-begging in any way. That’s one take, and I’m sympathetic to it as a prescriptive matter: this is probably how we ought to treat the preferences of others, because we certainly can’t look into the souls of others, and as a result we don’t have a very good vantage point for making judgments with teeth. (I’d like to read this book, as I hear the author touches on related matters.) But it’s unconvincing. I don’t know a lot about theory. I have, however, heard of this Lacanian concept known as “the mirror stage.” Google, in its infinite goodness, has thrown up this little summary:

Drawing on work in physiology and animal psychology, Lacan proposes that human infants pass through a stage in which an external image of the body (reflected in a mirror, or represented to the infant through the mother or primary caregiver) produces a psychic response that gives rise to the mental representation of an “I”. The infant identifies with the image, which serves as a gestalt of the infant’s emerging perceptions of selfhood, but because the image of a unified body does not correspond with the underdeveloped infant’s physical vulnerability and weakness, this imago is established as an Ideal-I toward which the subject will perpetually strive throughout his or her life.

What happens to the racialized children of immigrants, who encounter one image of the mother in the home and, in theory at least, an imaginary mother in the wider world? (I’m very fond of my mother—this is a stereotype of South Asian and South Asian American men that holds true in my case. If I had an imaginary mother, well, I don’t know who it would be. Nell Carter from “Gimme a Break!”?) My sense is that a number of Asian Americanists in the universities have taken this line of inquiry as far as it’ll go. Regardless, it raises interesting questions concerning the ways in which sexual attraction is bound up with aspirations. Could it be that Harold needs Maria to affirm his own attractiveness, and his self-identification? Man, I don’t know. My intention isn’t to condemn the filmmakers. That would be odd, as they are literally, when gathered in the same room, an explosive force so destructively powerful as to merit the moniker “the bomb.” I’m just curious. P.S.- On a tangential note, I’m told that the consensus among sociologists is that women seek mates of higher status, and this makes sense to me. As women’s rates of educational attainment skyrocket, surpassing those of men, it’ll be interesting to see the consequences of a dwindling pool, and whether or not the norms shift. My plan is to cryogenically freeze myself until they do. Hot-cha! P.P.S- The Maltzenstein has a winning post on legalizing drogas and criminalizing rhinoplasty. Because I love the Roman nose, the bump, the serious schnoz, I heartily endorse this proposal. One might ask, “How can you advocate imposing this ban on grounds of your peccadilloes?” My reply is to give you “the gasface.” Others who get “the gasface”: Jacques Chirac (Go Sarko!) and Wilmer Valderrama, who needs to start dating women his own age. P.P.S.- Oh my lord, it’s true. The new ABA really does have racial teams! Finally, we can establish the utter supremacy of diminutive Bengali men on the basketball court! I mean, I never learned how to dribble, but … This could be the beginning of a beautiful thing. I mean, a terrible, terrible thing. I’m stoked.