As The Advocate decrees..

I'm sure you've all read The Advocate's reflection piece about the Details fiasco. You might be surprised that a magazine, such as The Advocate, would go so far out there to talk about a topic that could very much alienate most of their hardcore readers. Somehow this article was declared a great milestone in raising awareness about our communities' plights, but I got to say to you, "What's the big fucking deal?" Ahemm, we've been talking about this issue since the dawn of gay time...or at least our earliest gay memory. Even though magazines, such as The Advocate, claims to cover the lives of GLBT folks out there, our issues has only superficially been touched upon. If you've been an avid reader of my Xanga, you'll know that this topic is not new and I've written volumes about it...much to the joy and dismay of some people.

Yes, I'm very happy for some folks who got the spotlight in the article, including my old friend, Patrick Mangto, whom I helped to start a program out in LA. It was certainly a litanie of some influential queer Asians in the movement, but the article truly (and I'm not just complaining) missed the target. What it failed to talk about was the very apparent piece about racism. If you were counting, there was no mentioning of the word, "racism" in describing the Details fiasco nor any discussion about the racism that Asians and Pacific Islanders face in the gay community. This is where The Adocate's articles diverges from my pieces of writing. I don't treat you, the readers, like immature children who can't handle the scary topic of racism.

So, we should be proud to read about this highly positive and optimistic article. Unfortunately, let's never get fooled by mainstream gay media and their rather disengenous attempts to expose the the seedy underbelly of prejudice affecting the queer Asian and Pacific Islander community. I certainly appreciate all the sound bytes out there...it's worthy of praise. However, we are nearing an important step in our own civil rights movement where we must not be flattered with merely sound bytes; we must express profound and critically-thought-out statements that succintly capture our struggle for independence and equality. Trust me...this is not a cake walk, but we certainly should not be letting someone else frame the scope and magnitude of our fight.