Week 6

I found the Waters article eye opening, and interesting and I was able to relate quite a bit.  My friend Alice would often call our other friend Joanna  a "Twinkie", or a "Coconut" because she was so Americanized in her eyes. It was usually used in jest, and after a while Joanna began to wear it as a sense of pride when she she moved to rural Connecticut. She said it it was how she knew she fit-in in her new community, and I did not understand what she meant at the time.
 In her  family, it was okay that she no longer responded in Khmer to her family members. It was okay that she dated white boys. It was also okay that began dyeing her hair red and putting highlights in it. It wasn't okay when her brother became Americanized. Their parents enrolled him in martial arts, and pulled him out of gymnastics, and began urging him to go into business or medicine instead of linguistics. I didn't recognize it at the time, but now looking back I can put faces and names to what Waters was describing in her Article. I'm not sure if my friend's parents were trying to "man-up" her brother, but the evidence is there for that.
 The article also speaks about how teens noticed how their peers spoke. I thought this was interesting.  Choice of vocabulary, tone, accent, and language proficiency are often good indicators of where a person is from, been, education, and age. The students pointed out and ostracized the boy who did not speak like them. Acting white was a negative thing and they made that known by calling the boy a homosexual. ( I really hate the word that was actually used.)
  In pop culture this  negative image of acting white is perpetuated. A good example of this can be found in the "Dave Chappelle Show." There are multiple skits in which Chappelle "acts white" and looks ridiculous doing it. This gives the idea that a non-white man looks silly acting like a white man. It also perpetuates the idea, within multiple cultures, that when a man "acts white" they can not be taken seriously or it is a detriment to his manhood. Personally I don't even notice when non-white men "act white", but that is probably because I am white.
 I was not a fan of the Kimmel article. I found the article to be out dated and I did not agree with Kimmel's use of Freud in determining how someone becomes gay, or why homophobia exists. Homophobia is not the result of men being afraid of men. Homophobia is the result of a society teaching hate, bigotry, and not promoting compassion and understanding, and is the result of bad parenting.  Freud may have been right about many things, but he was also a drug addict.
What I do find to be credible in Kimmel's article, is his idea that immigrant men are often looked at as feminine and not masculine. Once again, I will prevail to pop culture. The character of Fez on "That 70's Show" a perfect example of how society views male immigrants. He talks with a feminine lisp, and makes the audience believe his sexuality is questionable. He is in no way what we would describe masculine. I think the word dandy would be more appropriate.