She is attractive, effervescent and has an appealing voice. But these qualities alone would not have made Lou Jing the most famous television talent show contestant in China and the subject of national debate in the world's most populous country. The reason they are talking about Lou is because she is black.
My first reaction to the article and the video was disgust. But as I thought about it more my eventual reaction is a bit more nuanced. First, being an African-American that has lived many a year, I've been called a lot worse than chocolate boy … so it's not like this is a first and most definitely won't be the last. Second, being an African-American from America … where some people still feel in 2009 that bi-racial relationships are bad (see here) … this again really does not come as a shock. I mean what would you expect. It goes with the territory. But still it viscerally angers me when I run into such blatant racism and just because that is just the way it is doesn't mean I can't do something about it (like express myself in a blog post and hopefully touch on another to also think about it). On the other hand, what I find/found interesting is precisely who (at least in my relationship network) feels as strongly against Lou Jing as some of those hateful commentators that also expressed themselves in no uncertain terms. From an un-scientific survey of about 20 Chinese friends and colleagues on what they think of Lou Jing … amazingly (to me) most of the better educated people felt a Chinese-Black mix was improper and that Lou Jing should not win (My take is that although her talents were good she should have lost because she's not "Chinese". Conversely, most of the lesser educated people I asked either didn't feel strongly one way or another or outright liked Lou Jing and felt she should win. So what I will take away from this is that China is not a monolith and while there are more than plenty racist knuckleheads out there to spew their hate there are also more than a few open-minded individuals that are willing to look past a person's skin color and at the person individually. And it's those open-minded ones that we need to seek out and connect with. Cheers to you Lou Jing. May the gods shine on you!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/01/lou-jing-chinese-talent-show
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