AA Activism and IR

I've heard the opinion expressed multiple times that Asian Americans who are dating or married to white people should not be activists. I disagree with this opinion because it does not take multiple facets of activism into consideration.

There are many different ways that a person can help out Asian Americans, regardless of their race or the race of their spouse. If you are going to be a high-profile spokesperson, I would say yes, ideally your spouse should be Asian American, or you will alienate a lot of people.

However, if you are going to support Asian American artists/film, donate money to causes, teach a class about racism, protest a racist incident, pretty much anything where other people will not be turned off by your personal life because it's not a question, then it's fine.

We don't have the numbers or the support to "kick out" everyone who marries "out". As for their white spouses, white people can do a lot in dismantling racism by talking to other white people, who are more likely to listen to whites.

Before anyone talks about "divided loyalties" and how people with "divided loyalties should keep their mouths shut", it's not the fault of people like Secret Asian Man (who is married to a white lady) for stepping up. I would argue that he does far more good than harm with his comic, bringing to light many issues about racism in a funny way.

Does his marriage shape the way he looks at the world? Of course. But saying "this white person is acceptable as my spouse" is NOT saying "I condone and try to uphold white privilege and racism". Too often, we forget that white PEOPLE are not the enemy, RACISM and white PRIVILEGE are. Look at Tim Wise and all his writings about white privilege.

If you're concerned about over-representation of AAs in relationships with non-AAs, you should consider that well over half of AAs are married to other AAs (yes, I know this doesn't include dating or gays). We should galvanize them (us?) to be just as vocal.

Also this focus on being "acceptable" as an activist is pretty unhealthy for relationships. Because activism and the Asian American community are things I care deeply about, I feel pressured to be with an AA guy. But I doubt that any guy wants to be used as my "credibility", which would make for a pretty f*cked up relationship.

A few things:

1. Yes, I know my post focused mostly on IR with whites. This is because I've the opinion is usually "IR with white people is unacceptable, but if you must be in an IR, have it be another minority". Any thoughts on this are welcome too.

2. There was another thread in which I posted a great article: http://www.thefighting44s.com/archives/2007/07/18/inter-racial-dating-by-asian-americans/ , but I can't find it, so I started a new thread. If someone finds it and links it here, I can repost in that one.