I was in a bathroom stall last week which was positioned so that I could see the foot of the person in the next stall. And this was at a Vietnamese restaurant, so I was trying to figure out if, like me, this person had any Southeast Asian in their blood. The foot didn’t really look like mine, though, which is straight-up Thai, no question.

We both exited our stalls at the same time, at which point the foot’s owner was revealed to be a white woman who looked like she was probably lesbian and probably not a lipstick lesbian.  “Damn,” I thought. But at least our feet didn’t look the same, which would have suggested that my Southeast A’-dar was off, though I was sort of hoping for a foot-based moment of camaraderie in the women’s room.  (Yes, I am “unique”.)

As I was washing my hands, though, it occurred to me that this woman and I probably have plenty of shared experiences. I mean, I dressed like a tomboy for the first twenty years of my life. And in middle school it was basically assumed I was a lesbian.  So in terms of people treating me a certain way and me not fitting into the normative femininity box, it’s very possible that this woman and I have had more shared experiences than a person who may have had the same kind of foot that I have.

And that’s when it hit me.  Identity politics turn not only other people into “flat, appalling stereotypes”; they turn oneself into a flat, appalling stereotype. By proclaiming, I am Asian-American this or brown people that, I am reducing myself into just an Asian-American. But I am more than that, just as “white dudes” are not just “white dudes” any more than gay men are gay men or crips, crips.

Anyway. Took me long enough!

So, to recap:

• It took me 20 years to realize that I was not white
• It took me 15 more years to realize the irrelevance of that discovery

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Related:

• The aforementioned Vietnamese restaurant
  
• April 27, 2006 in Moscow (xoxoANP.com)
  
• Flat, appalling stereotypes (May 2009)

OMG! I was an anecdote in an Oprah mag article entitled “How To Stop Sweating“!

Last autumn, at a bustling event for a friend’s new book, I chatted with a college classmate who, after perhaps 10 minutes of catching up, reached back to take a paper towel off the drinks table. She gave it to me without comment—I’m not sure she even broke eye contact—and with matter-of-fact graciousness, as if she were handing her business card to a prospective client.

Do unto others, as they say, so when you see me sweating up a storm as I am wont to do, fetch me a napkin?

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Tangential:

• Warning To Class Secretaries (July 2007)
• ANP In The New York Observer! (February 2008)
• Live From New York (June 2008)

My friend Andrea posted a video of Mr. Rogers and apparently a young man named Jermaine Vaughn kickin’ it old school on FB, which then brought me to this remix of said video:

The hoi polloi chatter for the original video includes the following fascinating glimpses inside the skulls of our fellow humans:

these days kids like him go round shopping centres with their hoods on jacking? old ladies.

Mr. Rogers was an absolute gem.? He did this at the time when most white people associated breaking with crack and ghettoes. What a wonderful guy.

I KNOW MR. ROGERS IS A GOOD DUDE BUT HE ACTS? LIKE A RAPIST SOMETIMES!

well back to slums? with you, my little negro friend.

i heard after? this aired housing prices in the land of make-believe dropped 30%

Mr. Rogers was only making-believe that he didn’t know? anything about popping and locking. Popmaster Fred invented breakdancing and his spine was a like a trainwreck.

Don’t let trolls ruin your childhood memories. Mr. Rogers was one of the good guys. Today there is so much depravity that we (as a society) think that everyone has some kind of ulterior motive. (ie. they must be a molester if they are friendly toward children.) I believe that children, for the most part as well as animals, have a sense about predator-adults. A sense that we as adults can no longer comprehend. Teach your kids self defense. Give them mace to carry?? ?

(Children CAN act like animals, to be sure.)

Do a little research. If Mr. Rogers was a pedophile, he wasted a lot of potential molesting time as an educator, music composer, fighting for money to continue public television funding, and being married to the same woman for 50 years. It’s easy to call someone who genuinely cares about children a pedophile. His soft spoken demeanor was intentional. In all his years, no one ever spoke out about him? being a molester, nor was there ever the least amount of suspicion about him.

These are sad times. I know that molestation is a real? life problem, but come on, lets say your grandad was walking down the street and he saw say a young child who had fallen off his/her bike. He comforts them and makes sure they are ok. Then before you know it, you have a narow minded person (like the 75% of twats on here) who jump to the conclusions, accuse him of touching up this child. Then your Grandad is being victimised in the street by mobs of angry parents. For what? Being decent! The morale of the story is, teach your children to know what a pervert is, and what is right and wrong. If your unsure about a child being in the presence of someone, its up to you as the parent, but at least have the? decency to have proof of someone being a perv, instead of just accusing.  For all that people know, you (the accuser) could be the pervert. Hows about we brand you a perv, no evidence btw. I just think you might be. Now feel what its like to be looked down on!

so i tried map quest and google earth and? i still cant find mr.rogers neighborhood

all of the comments saying that he’s creepy or a rapist or something just perpetuates the fact that our views and our kids today aren’t like they used to be. it makes me so sad that no kid today would watch mr rogers, they would just make fun of him. he was a wonderful man with countless wonderful messages to children, and hopefully adults, and it’s my hope? that we don’t continue down this worsening path but it’s my fear that we will

No comment on my end.  I’ll just borrow this guy’s comment:

awwww? yeah thats my nigga mr rogers all you bitches shut da hell up wit yo bitchass moleser pedophile comments

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Related:

• The original Mr. Rogers Breakdancing video
• My source for the remix video
• Teach your children to breakdance

Poor Seth Zucker! Over a decade after his request that he be allowed to major in something of his own creation, “New Media”, a mash-up of art and interwebz et cetera:

[Julie Dorsey, a professor at Yale] also started a new major, computing and the arts, which combines computer science with art, theater or music to teach students how to scan and restore paintings or design theater sets.

This is from an article in the Times regarding a surge in interest in computer science degrees. [via Matthew A. on FB]

Most popularly-researched variants of ye olde computer science graduate degree? From ye olde GradSchools.com:

1. Computer science grad programs
2. Online comp sci grad programs (691)
3. CS master’s degree programs
4. Online CS master’s degree programs (495)
5. Campus-based CS master’s degree programs
6. Campus-based CS grad programs
7. Online CS doctoral programs (68)
8. Doctoral programs in CS
9. CS grad programs in New York
10. Campus-based doctoral programs in CS

Of course, after watching Social Network, (”row crew“; bah!) I too wished I’d majored in computer science.  Alas. Woulda, coulda, shoulda …

Click the true statement:

• I want to improve the CTR on my PPC ads
• I am a PPC analyst in Seattle
• I like black and white photographs

Unrelated cat photo:

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Tangential:

• I Hate The Word ‘Folksonomy’ (January 2008)
• Social Awkwardness Begets UX Expert Status (July 2009)
• How Should I Organize My Keywords? (December 2009)

Take a moment to close your eyes and just sit, with your hands resting on your lap, palms down. Settle yourself into the experience, noting how it feels to sit here, physically and energetically… Then, maintaining your attention, turn your palms upward and note if there’s a change in the feeling tone.

It is at the junction between feeling and reactivity that mindfulness provides the possibility of freely choosing how to respond to any given situation.

From p. 39 of the July 2009 issue of Shambhala Sun.

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Tangential:

• A man with no bookshelves is a man with no ANP! (November 2007)
• Thought-provoking health care article (August 2009)
• Illuminate your conscience or it’ll kill ya (June 2011)