Ever wonder how your ideas and opinions on China were formed and shaped? And here, specifically, I do mean your ideas. I do - quite often. Because, mostly, I adamantly disagree with your views.

Why do hold these views and how did you come by them?

While I am not unmindful of the presence of Black teachers in China, their numbers are still quite small and for the purpose of this post, while whites are a minority of the global population, the 'power base' is still very much a 'white' power base and I've purposely portrayed the world as viewed by whites.

Who is one to believe when it comes to fairness and accuracy in reporting world events? China events. How, during the course of your lifetime, have the media influenced what you believe in?

Many posters to this board continually and unabashedly belittle, berate and vilify China for her racist attitudes and other worldly shortcomings. Unwilling and unable to accept that the Chinese perceived lack of sophistication, education, cultural differences, a spoken and written language created by and for the exclusive use of elitists, the transition from agrarian-feudal society to an industrial society with - unprecedented - breakneck speed, and the inherent tolls exacted, ever witnessed in the course of human history, wealth extracted and lives destroyed by the Imperialists......thousands of years of hunger and abuse, as events that have shaped the Chinese. None is a valid argument in defense of China and the Chinese, so say the Sages of the ESL Teachers Board. Why?

Some posts are merely rants, others are by those who have genuinely had bad experiences in China. Most have simply brought baggage and dirty laundry with them from their home country and are unable to change, or will not attempt to change, their behavior even in the face of facts. Their unwillingness to accept truth carries with it the stench of putridness. A man drowning in a stagnant pool of lymph and vomit. Death by asphyxiation in his own bodily expectorants. Embodied in their arrogance; an arrogance fueled by ignorance, the subjugation of what is right.

Regardless, I would like to address the veracity of the media, especially, the printed word, when reporting on China events. And further, how racist ideas, known or unknown, realized or otherwise, have been incorporated into the literature of our times and therefore unconsciously shaped our views of China and the Chinese. To qualify this even further, I'd like to add that these are views expressed by whites, for consumption by whites, and involves their 'whiteness.'

Literature. Read a good book lately? How many good novels have you read where the central theme and characters are Chinese? I'll give you one. There are others, many, many others but for the sake of time and space, the example of Pearl S. Buck and THE GOOD EARTH will suffice.

Here, excerpts from an eyebrow lifting article; Americana: The Journal of American Popular Culture (1900 - present), Spring 2002, Volume 1, Issue 1

Highlights, for emphasis, are mine.

http://www.americanpopularculture.com/journal/articles/spring_2002/spencer.htm

The opening paragraph; In Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination, Toni Morrison charges that "silence and evasion have historically ruled literary discourse" concerning race (9). Twentieth century literary discourse, rooted in linguistic and textual criticism, according to Henry Louis Gates, "rendered implicit" the idea of race (47). Gates suggests that as literary critics identified the "master" texts of the western tradition, race was overshadowed by discussions of form, structure, and language. Building on the work of Morrison and Gates, many critics have taken on the task of analyzing the implicit nature of race, and more recently, the discourse of whiteness in literature.

Even though whiteness, like all racial categories, is not an objective, self-evident entity, it is privileged in a system in which whiteness is constructed as the standard or norm against which all other racial categories are measured. Despite the subjectivity of racial categorization, non-whites are, as Derrick Bell argues, "marked with the caste of color in a society still determinedly white" (75). Thus, being white is to be non-raced, normal, or neutral, and discussions of race have traditionally applied only to those who are perceived as other than white. Toni Morrison has called scholars to the task of creating a critical reading practice that foregrounds the construction and representation of whiteness in fiction and allows readers to recognize literature's complicity with the discourse of white supremacy. The reading of whiteness into texts that are not explicitly about race is essential if we are to challenge whiteness as racial norm. Pearl S. Buck's novel, The Good Earth, provides an example of a popular text that, while not overtly concerned with racial construction, contains a subtle discourse that must be read critically from the perspective that Morrison suggests. An examination of the position of Chinese immigrants in the United States in the novel's initial publication and Buck's own racial politics provide crucial elements in an analysis of the subtle racial discourse in The Good Earth.

Omissions.

In a conversation after Buck gave a speech to a group in Harlem in 1932, Buck traced her attitudes about race to her childhood experiences living as a minority in China. The racial attitudes of Buck's father, Absalom, had also been shaped by his own childhood. Absalom's family owned at least two slaves and did not seem troubled by the moral dilemma this presented. His family taught him that racial hierarchy is natural, an attitude that would explain his sense of superiority over Chinese people, whom he was determined to save by leading them to a higher way.

Reading The Good Earth in these ways reveals how a novel not overtly concerned with race may contain a subtle discourse that, in fact, says much about racial construction in American culture. Whiteness, as Elizabeth Ellsworth argues, is a dynamic of cultural production and interrelation, of learned social and cultural performances (260). Whiteness is always shifting, always historically framed and situated. And as Martha Mahoney writes, "whiteness, like other racial constructions, is subject to contest and change" (330). "Whiteness," Mahoney continues, "is historically located, malleable, and contingent" (330). Since whiteness is not a real, inherent, natural phenomenon, it must be understood, Rebecca Aarenud argues, as "a highly orchestrated product of culture and nature" (43). She believes that we must recognize whiteness not as a matter of skin color, but as a phenomenon that must be continually reproduced in order to disrupt the belief of whiteness as the status quo, as the norm, as the standard. By analyzing the production of whiteness in The Good Earth, we may disrupt the privileged position of whiteness and, as Morrison suggests, recognize the subtle ways in which the novel is complicit in the discourse of white supremacy.

Got it. Okay, let's turn now to the media. SPECIFICALLY, and recently, The New York Times. Further testament to the death of journalism. There is no 'fair and honest' reporting of the news, only stories shaped by those who wish to make their own news, regardless of the truth. Dan Rather anyone?

Read this China GEEKS blog article;

http://sun-zoo.com/chinageeks/2009/07/27/the-new-york-times-enrages-netizens/

The New York Times Enrages Netizens
Jul 27th, 2009 by C. Custer

For example, the New York Times ran this photo with the caption: Uighurs injured at a hospital in the city during a media tour by the authorities on Monday. When Anti-CNN netizens noticed the name tag (as well as the mans face) clearly indicate that he is of Han ethnicity, they contacted Reuters, where a photo editor explained that the original caption of the photo was People who were injured during riots in Urumqi, rest in a hospital in the city during an official government tour for the media and further noted that ReUTERS that Reuters cannot control whether clients change their photo captions.

Omissions

What was originally reported as a Uighur riot by the AFP was changed to a clash between rioters and police in the New York Times. Other examples in the thread do indicate that the Times appears to have been rewriting captions to play up the police vs. Muslims angle, and to play down the Muslim-rioters-killed-lots-of-innocent-people angle.

Continued?

In conclusion, it seems to me that those of you who have had nothing but negative experiences in China can blame it on one thing - while here you view(ed) her inhabitants as Chinese - I see them as people.

What say ye?