The Really Important Things in Life

Stereotypes REALLY get to people. They're like a blatant slap in the face, especially when they're on national TV or backed by really powerful corporations. Remember how upset people got over those Abercrombie shirts? Or Memoirs of a Geisha? Or that Gay or Asian spread in Details magazine? Petitions and internet outrage flew so fast they probably broke the speed of sound.

During one such outrage, a friend of mine told me that he didn't get fired up over these stereotype battles. Not because they weren't important, but because they happened too often to be worth his time. He had better things to do. Better things to do, like build positive images of Asian Americans and communicate to people as individuals, I suppose.

He's probably right. Harold and Kumar have probably made a bigger impact on perceptions of Asian Americans than any of those petitions that circled around after Details magazine compared gay and Asian men. I mean, John Cho and Kal Penn made us look funny. Petitions make us look like whiny sallies.

This is a piece on tactics. In resistance, we can be reactive or proactive. We can respond or we can create.