Thursdays: Article review day

I guess I wanted to continue from yesterday's discussion about that article from The Advocate. As you already know, I felt that it wasn't a very well-written piece about the state of the queer Asian and Pacific Islander civil rights movement. For one thing, I don't think it was even written by an Asian or Pacific Islander. Isn't it weird that they would even have a person from outside of the community try and write something about us? You might find no problems with that, but I think the double standard exists if it was a white person trying to talk about the struggles of the black civil rights movement.

If they were to do this correctly, they ought to have asked someone from the Asian and Pacific Islander community to help write an editorial or opinion piece (such as the one they feature on the last page). Of course, they had all these people providing sound bytes, but I can't imagine why they couldn't have invited one of them to write a full piece as opposed to just a line in the article. Sighh...it's diificult to say what motivations The Advocate had in publishing that article...political pressure, newsworthy, buzzworthy, or just needed some filler? Granted, the spirit of the article can't be discounted...it has a purely optimistic tone to it...perhaps a sign of encouragement that they will feature more of the political dealings in the non-white-non-black camp.

In any case, I think this article really showed that Asians and Pacific Islanders are severely underrepresented in mainstream gay media. The Advocate isn't the mecca of journalism, but it does represent a powerful (and mainstream) voice in the community. So, we're underrepresented in porn, politics, journalism.. Hmm...what other industry can I take apart? If I were to make my own magazine, it's be the gay Asian version of Penthouse...you can come for the article or cum for the pictures. Gee, don't you already see that right now? Heh..