If Hello Kitty Had A Mouth She’d Be Screaming By Now
by Guest Contributor Czerina Salud, originally published at the Huffington Post
Alec Baldwin’s apology over his Filipina-mail-order-bride comment hit the web this past Wednesday. While there were over 400 comments posted to his blog, a strikingly relevant voice was missing from this discussion. Sadly, the discussion was missing (what seems to me, a Filipina-American woman) an essential voice in this public dialogue — that of a Filipina woman.
So I’m throwing my two cents in because it pains me to see this voice under-represented in this discussion. It feels like you are that troubled kid in the room everyone is talking about but no one is talking to.
Nowhere is the invisibility of the Filipina woman in this dialogue more evident than in the endless comments to Mr. Baldwin’s post that unbelievably condone his behavior from both sides of the Pacific:
“Regarding Alec Baldwin’s comments on ‘mail-order brides’ — it was a joke!” — weber1633
“As someone from the Philippines, the apology was a nice gesture, but there was no need.” — Biboy Hernandez
“Frankly, I think it’s ridiculous that you even had to apologize; I don’t personally know anyone, including any Filipinos, who found that offensive.” — lz1982
Oh really?
Well, I do know where there are Filipinos that find referring to Pinays as mail-order-brides offensive. Just hop a plane to Chicago — a city both myself and President Obama are proud to call home.
Back in 2007 there was a protest that took place in front of the H&M store on Michigan Avenue over another Filipina-mail-order-bride incident:
The Filipino American nurse is filing a complaint against the corporate clothing behemoth for an alleged racial slur one of its employees made to her in mid-September at an H&M in downtown Chicago. According to Richards, she had just entered the store and was browsing the racks when an employee near her raised his hand and exclaimed loudly, ‘Mail order bride in the house!’ before running over to a fellow employee and bursting into laughter.
News about this incident rapidly spread through my community. The woman filing the lawsuit was far from a mail-order bride. She is, in fact, an educated woman, a professional in the medical field and a veteran. Bloggers from Angry Asian Man to Filipino Moms urged supporters to attend the protest. Media coverage of the protest was minimal as I
recall. Maybe two local news outlets gave it any play.
Two years and an actor’s careless comment later and the world really doesn’t look all that different to me. From where I’m sitting we’re not quite post racial yet.
When the sexual currency of Filipina women is appropriated by everyone from American actors to Filipino nationals to H&M workers, something is not right. When does anyone stop to ask — ‘Why?’ Why is it so easy to ‘go there’? Why is it such an effortless act to choose such a disempowering representation of a race and gender to turn into a joke?
Mr. Baldwin’s comment was just a reminder of a more pervasive social undercurrent that curtails our ability to connect and care for each other. People who care for one another, people with compassion — help to strengthen each others weaknesses, not exploit them. We don’t ask the question “Why are people so sensitive”, we ask “Why are people so insensitive?”
This isn’t some can’t-we-all-just-get-along sentiment I’m talking about either.
The necessity of connecting to one another is one that social neuroscientist John T. Cacioppo affirms in his book Loneliness which traces “…the need for connection to its evolutionary roots. In order to survive, humans needed to bond to rear their children. In order to flourish, they needed to extend their altruistic and cooperative impulses beyond narrow self-interest and immediate kin.”
Now there’s an ambitious idea — flourishing, not just surviving. Daring to look at the root cause of a problem rather than dismissing its critics.
Let’s move beyond mail-order brides.
Yes we can.
—
Updated Author’s Note:
ON HELLO KITTY
Hello Kitty has been used as a symbol of the silenced Asian American woman’s voice by Asian American artists like Margaret Cho and Kristina Wong.
I don’t want to model myself after Hello Kitty. She has no mouth. Hello Kitty can’t even say hi back to you after you say ‘Hello, Kitty!’ – Margaret Cho
ON HUFFINGTON POST
Currently the editors at Huffington Post do not offer readers on Alec Baldwin’s blog post a link to read the alternate perspective offered on my blog post, although they managed to edit my blog post to include a link back to Alec Baldwin’s blog post.
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of
Eva wrote:
I’m always asking why people are so insensitive, if more people were sensitive there wouldn’t be dumb comments like Mr. Baldwin’s.
I never even connected women from the Philippines as mail order brides. I knew a woman who had been a mail order bride and she was from Eastern Europe.
Posted 28 May 2009 at 2:08 pm ¶
Fiqah wrote:
I’m embarrassed to say that until someone pointed it out recently to me, I didn’t even really notice that Hello Kitty has no mouth. All those trips to Sanrio in middle school and the signficance of this didn’t even register. SIGH. At any rate, Baldwin’s an asshat, and I’m glad you wrote this piece; that whole “silent passivity” meme is VERY real and very damaging.
Posted 28 May 2009 at 2:21 pm ¶
Brandon wrote:
I feel like this piece needs more background, or at least a link. What did Baldwin say? I followed the link to his apology… and I’m not seeing any specific connection between his remark and Filipino women.
And what about Hello, Kitty?
Am I missing something here?
Posted 28 May 2009 at 2:49 pm ¶
quirkyrocket ❤ wrote:
You know, this plus that whole Desperate Housewives “Filipino medical school” thing really makes me wonder if this is what The Philippines is to the mainstream non-Filipino media…why is it okay that an entire country has become shorthand for “an uneducated populace and women that can be bought”?
Full disclosure: I’m Filipina, born in the Philippines, pretty much raised in the Northeastern US, and I definitely was offended.
Posted 28 May 2009 at 3:01 pm ¶
Fiqah wrote:
Related (sorta) aside: I remember watching “The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert” and feeling uncomfortable with the use of Bob’s Asian wife (Gold-digging sex worker? Opportunistic stripper? Really?) as comic relief. Both Aboriginal and LGBT issues received somewhat sensitive portrayals in the film, so it seemed…well, off. Probably reading too much into it (again).
Posted 28 May 2009 at 3:02 pm ¶
Barbara wrote:
I hadn’t ever noticed the lack of mouth on HelloKitty either. Not a big fan of hers anyway.
I’ve heard the “Why are you so sensitive?” question so many times I could scream, and it’s rare to hear someone turn it around to “Why the phuque are you so insensitive?” Does it shame the other person the way being accused of being “so sensitive” does? It’s almost like being too cool to care is too much a part of American culture.
Posted 28 May 2009 at 3:24 pm ¶
Joseph wrote:
“Mr. Baldwin’s comment was just a reminder of a more pervasive social undercurrent that curtails our ability to connect and care for each other. People who care for one another, people with compassion — help to strengthen each others weaknesses, not exploit them. We don’t ask the question “Why are people so sensitive”, we ask “Why are people so insensitive?” ”
Quoted for truth.
Beautifully put.
Posted 28 May 2009 at 4:45 pm ¶
dan wrote:
It seems amongst 20 year old male internet users that whine about it, being PC and sensitivity are bad things that infringe on their freedoms and can slippery slope to other freedoms being limited. They honestly can’t see it as just being respectful as opposed to another thing they can’t do which is just selfish.
Add Family Guy to the shows with weird Filipino perceptions. The only male Filipinos on the show were all homosexual and the only females mentioned were all by one character talking about/in the act of his sexual exploits. Heck, it’s Asian women in general on that show.
About the Desperate Housewives incident, has anyone else heard of media questioning Filipino medicine prior to that? Because I’ve never heard of anyone having a real problem with Filipino medicine, and what happened on the show sounded like something forced and even more deliberate which shocked me even more.
Posted 28 May 2009 at 7:04 pm ¶
RCHOUDH wrote:
Besides the mail order brides jokes, I once read about some US soldiers joking about how they wished Pentagon would fly over “Thai, Filipino, and Russian prostitutes” to Iraq and Afghanistan for them/Disgust! It’s like women of these ethnicities are predominantly the butt of jokes revolving around global prostitution and the mail order bride service. It’s disgusting and sexist enough to label any woman that way, but I feel it’s made worse when women of specific ethinicites are targetted for such slurs. It’s like thought to be ok to joke about these women like that because “hey most of them are into prostitution and being mail order brides anyway! What’s the big deal if a joke is made at their expense?”
Posted 28 May 2009 at 7:33 pm ¶
Chris Diaz wrote:
Funny how “just joking” is okay to people as long as the joke isn’t on them. As far Filipino or Filipino-Americans saying it’s no big deal, I wonder how much the fee is to have their sellout cards renewed.
Posted 28 May 2009 at 10:30 pm ¶
Paz wrote:
@quirkyrocket – I immediately thought of Desperate Housewives as well. I thought it was ironic they picked the Phillipines to make fun of, given how many Filipinos contribute to the nursing community.
My main reason against comments like these is that although they may just be jokes, they still reinforce stereotypes. Filipino women are for sex. The Phillipines is a dirty country that could not possibly have real medical standards. So on.
Posted 29 May 2009 at 1:25 am ¶
Evan wrote:
I have heard much worse than Baldwin’s lame attempt at a joke. There was one episode of “Family Guy” when the character, Quagmire, made a comment about Filipina women and venereal disease. Seth McFarlane got away with that one. This was not the first time that I heard the Filipina women=sexual transmitted diseases linkage either.
It’s urban myth garbage started by American military personnel when they were stationed at Clark AFB and Subic Bay in The Philippines back in the day.
Posted 29 May 2009 at 1:46 am ¶
Nate wrote:
Mod please pull my last post. telling someoe to go fuck yourself isn’t really called for. However, I am pretty pissed that the whole sellout meme is still going on here. Seems to be a blatant disregard of the mod policy. And I’m sure I’m not the only person getting pissed about it.
Posted 29 May 2009 at 4:54 am ¶
merq wrote:
Czerina,
For a place as (often) filled with intelligent articles as HuffPo, I’ve found the comments section to (like 99% of Comment areas on the web) be off limits to me.
Although it’s not quite as embarassingly sophomoric as your average blog’s comment area, I find HuffPo’s to be caught in an endless treehouse war between White Liberals and White Cons. Minority voices are only embraced by either side (usually the liberals) when their grievances help bolster their already-formulated attack on the opposing treehouse.
The rest of the time, all you get is a chorus of “cry baby”s and rocks thrown at you from both sides.
Not saying it’s right, but that’s how it is in HuffPo land… and in America. Sucks to be us.
Posted 29 May 2009 at 7:20 am ¶
Jess wrote:
@Chris– nobody is required to be offended (or not) at anything. And sometimes people don’t draw a distinction — especially here — between “I find it offensive but there are more salient things for me to worry about” and “I don’t find it offensive at all.”
I get so tired of people being called “sellouts” when it’s over whether they are as mad as you or anyone else. People have different thresholds for what drives them batty.
My wife’s family is Filipino, but they don’t start organizing marches every week for whatever cause, does that make them sellouts? Or just people with lives to get on with? Their big concern is watching Pacquiao, and paying rent, you know?
I hear Jew jokes occasionally (nothing like when I was much younger, but still) but I don’t whip out the “I am offended at… ” thing every damned time. I have better things to do with my life.
Now I certainly think Baldwin’s joke was in poor taste, and is pretty insensitive. And he mentioned that in his apology, and it wasn’t some non-apology apology, he said he did wrong and owned up to it. That puts him up a bit in my book. I haven’t heard the same from a lot of other people in the same boat.
Before the flameage starts, I am not endorsing what he said or saying jokes like that are okay. The H&M incident in the post is pretty awful, and actually, for me, more outrage-worthy. But again, that’s just me, your mileage may vary.
Posted 29 May 2009 at 7:50 am ¶
Beth wrote:
I can certainly believe that there are many people who don’t find these comments “offensive”. I hear similar things from my Filipino relatives, who make mail order bride comments about my uncle’s met-through-another-relative wife all the time. I think it’s because this racist stereotype is explicitly sexist, which my relatives refuse to see as offensive to anyone. Racism is that thing that keeps men from exerting their patriarchal power, right?
Even the women in my family often seem to see themselves as just that kind of commodity. A cousin said, of being called a mail order bride, “I’m flattered; he was willing to spend money for me!” Needless to say, I spend a lot of time at family reunions biting my tongue.
It’s not just that this stereotype is “offensive”. These comments are alienating, silencing, degrading and dehumanizing, all of which are far stronger words and harder to dismiss than “offensive” and its connotations of hurt feelings.
Posted 29 May 2009 at 1:52 pm ¶
PatrickInBeijing wrote:
I remember being in SF in the early 90’s and people were making fun of the mail order bride web sites out of Russia. The women were all so impossibly thin. They were starving, I thought.
Who can blame them for trying to find a better life (with a full belly and a home)? The real issue becomes not attacks on individuals and the choices they make, but on a global system that devalues women, and has no sincere interest in ending poverty.
I didn’t see the quote (probably don’t need to, I can guess….. sigh).
A man I know (not a friend) came here and married a women he met on the net (similar to a mail-order bride?). I had typical thoughts, then it turned out, she is divorced and older (not so easy to find a new husband) and has serious health problems which made having a baby difficult (he does too, so they turn out to be a match). Over time, I have had to stop and see them as people, not my stereotypes. I owe them thanks for that.
I wish we could talk more about eliminating poverty, providing universal education and health care, and empowering women (no order intended). We seem to nibble at symptoms, while avoiding the causes.
Still, I liked the post. Alec, ewwwwwww.
Posted 30 May 2009 at 8:11 am ¶
Sarapen wrote:
Ah shit, that was my cousin who made one of those comments absolving Baldwin. Oh, he is so getting an email from me later.
Posted 30 May 2009 at 5:59 pm ¶
Marianna wrote:
Good for you and anyone else who spoke out.We can’t know what it means to be anyone else; the best we can do is communicate.
Posted 30 May 2009 at 8:58 pm ¶
Neville A. Ross wrote:
About the offense towards the Filipino community, a few Filipinos had this to say at The Huffington Post:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alec-baldwin/an-apology-regarding-my-l_b_205766.html
Posted 31 May 2009 at 12:34 am ¶
Sax wrote:
You don’t need to look far for evidence that jokes like this are the expression of racism ingrained into a culture. This seems to be a stereotype that doesn’t exist elsewhere in the world the way it does in the US.
I’m familiar with the stereotype of mail order brides and south-east asian women, but judging from the comments and OP it’s really very strongly attached to Filipina women in the US. Shockingly so. I’m just north of the border in Canada, and it’s alien to read that the stereotype is so very focused and so very alive in daily life.
That isn’t to say that Canadians are better or racism-free—just that we don’t seem to share that *particular* bit of racism. What I’m saying is that it’s so specific to the US that it can’t be anything but an expression of how US culture specifically sees Philippine culture and people.
Posted 31 May 2009 at 6:18 pm ¶
Alston wrote:
I think that an interesting art piece might show Hello Kitty screaming at asshats and bigots, and those same bigots paralyzed by the fact that she defended herself.
Posted 03 Jun 2009 at 2:39 pm ¶
Jota wrote:
Hey all:
I am a disabled man and light skinned latino (this is the only blog I go to where I feel I have to mention these things to add to the conversation)… and I realize there are a lot of bigots in this world. There are also a lot of well-intentioned people who just don’t necessarily think through what they say every time they open their mouths. These people exist in virtually every community and culture. Additionally, there are stereotypes about our respective communities that are out there in the collective consciousness of our cultures / societies. Sometimes the stereotypes have a cultural basis, like when people joke about Latinos having a bunch of people living in the same house. That is part of my culture… la abuela comes to live with us, not some nursing home. I think what Alex Baldwin said was unfortunate and insensitive. This is a crack I often hear made about Russians, not Filipinas, so that surprised me a bit. I guess it probably comes from lumping in people from “the third world” or the “exotic peoples from afar” and anecdotal stories.
I also hear people make cracks about the disabled all the time. Plenty of groups get made fun of and stereotyped, even, I might add, Anglos. While I love this blog for what it does to inspire intelligent people to have intelligent discussions about race (much needed), there are occasional posts that seem to highlight how overly sensitive we can be sometimes. Do we really care what some over-the-hill comedian / actor thinks when he has a case of verbal diarrhea? Its like we’re giving the underlying stereotypes more power by obsessing about them. Yes, I hear jokes and comments about Hispanics, the disabled in the media and throughout our pop culture. It can be hurtful, but to be honest, sometimes I laugh myself, because sometimes there is a kernel of truth to them. I also laugh because I realize that the ones making the joke just don’t understand us and I laugh at their ignorance. Hopefully, I can help dispel those stereotypes through the way I live my life and the example I lead, but I don’t think getting indignant and “being offended” helps the cause.
Posted 04 Jun 2009 at 12:39 am ¶