Racial Profiling?

Erewhon—

So I was at the Erewhon at the Culver City steps, and I came in frantically looking for a cup of coffee, also dressed like a homeless person. One of the guys who was working there, taller older looking Caucasian guy may be in his 50s, with grey hair, came up to me and asked me “Do you need help finding anything?” Which is essentially a low-key way of saying “I think you’re going to steal something… and I’m going to be fake friendly nice to you, to approach you.

Why is this an issue? Well… I am Asian American, Korean American, and it is the funniest thing because this has never happened to me. Typically people don’t think that Asian people or Asian guys are going to steal something. But I guess because I dressed like a homeless person, it set off some sort of red flag.

I actually had a very funny response. Knowing that I came and dressed like a homeless person, I joked and said “don’t worry, I’m not a homeless person.” he was actually quite shocked, taken aback and said… “No no no, we don’t judge people like that around here…“, Which means, we do.

If you look like a homeless person, or if you look like you might steal something… should it make sense for people to profile you this way?

tricky. Maybe it is OK if you’re a small mom and pop shop, but if you’re a big corporation, perhaps not.

Why? If you’re a big chain like Erewhon or whatever, even if somebody does steal some thing it’s not really that big of a deal. They could take the loss.

Therefore my simple heuristic; assume that everyone is a billionaire who steps inside, unless they are obviously a mentally unwell person.

Therefore, my simple thought is any sort of profiling based on appearances, your clothing, your skin pigment or your facial morphology is bad.

From a simple ethics perspective, we could start off by not doing it ourselves. Whenever you meet everybody, that they’re the billionaire beggar, we’re also… treat the janitor with more respect than the big boss (Taleb).

How is this an issue?

I was talking to one of my buddies here, who works at the Culver City steps as a janitor, and he is kind of a short Mexican American guy, with a shaved head. He told me a similar story, not sure if it is the same guy or not (tall Caucasian guy), but he was tailed the whole time, which essentially means:

I think you might steal something because you are a Latino guy.

As a consequence, I think this is a critical thing to consider because that we should consider… if you are Mexican-American, Latino, African-American or whatever… Consider all of this annoying racism that happens to you?

If you see something you suspect as racism, call it out!

Another really annoying thing; I’ve been kicked out of about one or two gyms in the last year, because people thought that I might “hurt myself“. This is a hidden low-key racism towards Asian Asian American guys; why?

In America, and popular western media, we think of the Asian guy the Asian man as being goofy awkward, weak anemic, effeminate, quiet and passive and meek.

As a consequence, when people see you lifting 7, 8, 9 plates 10 plates and beyond… I break their worldview. The thought is:

An Asian man cannot be strong masculine and demigod like Hercules.

As a consequence, I’ve been starting to discover more more… People are low-key trying to bully me? That they’re trying to stunt on me flex on me or trying to put me down?

Now, if a similar thing like this happens to me in the future… When somebody is “trying to educate me”, because there are somehow trying to bully me or trying to demean me… I’m going to call them out on it.

If somebody tries to bully me, I’m going to bully them back!

Zero tolerance

Another example; I was lifting weights at the gym, and I don’t know where, when I was about to lift nine plates on the squat rack, a random guy comes up to me and tells me off saying that I might fuck up the equipment or something… And that “this might not be the right gym for me“. I first I said sorry and that I would re-rack the equipment, assuming that it was the owner, and also assuming that I was going to get kicked out of the gym again. But on second thought, it actually just might be a member; some sort of loser weak anemic looking Caucasian guy, who might have felt intimidated by me?

… “but be careful…”

Another funny thing when I was working out at the golds gym in Venice Beach, iconic one, apparently I shocked everybody when I lifted up the legendary 330 pound dumbbells, everyone assumed that I was either going to hurt myself or be unsuccessful?

Also, when I was doing my typical atlas lift, I think I did eight plates or something… A day or two later one of the strong powerlifters came up to me and asked me:

… “what was the significance of you lifting all that weight yesterday?”

He was shocked, because I’m not a fat guy, I am highly lean and muscular, very little body fat on me. And also I think it’s because I am Asian, Asian American; my low-key suspicion is that if I was African or African-American, people might not really be shocked.

For example, if you’re at the gym and you see an African-American guy uplifting seven plates, would it really shock you? Not really, because in American popular consciousness we equate African-American men as being the Apex of strength masculinity and athletic ability. But if you saw an Asian guy do it, would you be shocked? And also assuming if the Asian guy wasn’t a fat guy, yes he would be shocked.

It is true everyone is a little bit racist

One of the best bits from the play Avenue Q is “everybody is a little bit racist, it’s true!”

Then my question: what should we do about it?

If you suspect racism, racial profiling, or maybe even appearance profiling… call it out!

A simple one is blog about it, vlog about it, YouTube it or whatever… be the asshole.

My simple heuristic:

If you have a 1% suspicion that somebody is racially profiling you, trying to bully you, or whatever… Call that shit out!