This is a question that I've encountered a lot, and have not really been able to articulate in a way that I feel is satisfying. Another friend also jumped in the fray to say that Perry was merely "enamored by the beauty of a culture". So here are my responses (with hers interspersed):
"I think the question to ask is, would this have been ok if she did this in blackface? Asians and Asian Americans are an invisible minority in this country. Just look at our education system. We learn about MLK and the civil rights movement, so we are sensitive to black/AfAm issues. We're coming up on the immigration issue now, which has largely been focused on Hispanic and Latino undocumented workers, again making invisible working class Asian immigrants (although this has been talked about a lot in grassroots organizations taking this on). Here's a link from Psychology Today that had been going around today about this performance."
"And then, there was this incident too. It's different than the appropriation of culture (since the judge really makes some awful stereotypical and offensive remarks), but it likewise demonstrates this mentality that appropriating or stereotyping and making offensive jokes about Asian individuals and culture is 'ok.'"
Friend's response:
"Um. I liked the performance. I didn't think it was racist. I didn't think it was looking down or mocking on the Japanese culture. *shrug* The only thing I didn't like about the performance was the song itself. :)"
My response:
"Everyone's entitled to their own opinions about things based on their own lived histories and experiences. But if there's a public discourse going on about a piece like this one, we have to at least listen to it and think about why so many other people find it offensive or problematic. I mean, if one person is making a big hooha about it, that one person is probably an outlier. But if there are multiple people and groups who represent social minorities (in this case, Asians), who are speaking up about it, shouldn't we at least try to consider WHY this MIGHT be "racist"? Again, I ask, what if this were blackface? Would you still like it then? Are we really becoming too culturally sensitive, too PC a society? Or is it that there's something else going on here, that people really are getting offended? And if a group of people are actually getting offended by this performance, should we still brush it off as "sensitivity"?
Here's a more even-handed article I found on this issue."
Her response:
"I can't even compare what she did to blackface. Not even a little bit. I didn't sense any malice or mockery with her performance. I didn't feel she was showing how she has power over other minorities as a white person (as the dude says in his article). All I saw was a PERSON (doesn't matter what ethnicity) who is enamored by the beauty of a culture and wanted to showcase it. At what point do we stop calling out white people for being racist when it seems like they just want to show appreciation for other cultures? That's enough for *me* personally to think it's not racist. But if other people want to think so, they are free to. I'm also free to think they're being way too sensitive."
And then my long response:
"Uuugghhhh ok, I really tried to avoid sounding like a mumbo jumbo academic, but i feel like it's gotten to the point where I must... Keep in mind that exoticization and fetishization often take the form of celebrating a culture that's not your own. As "unfair" as it may seem, it's hard to erase a history of Western colonization and imperialism that shapes the invisible power structures in which we live. Most acts of racism or stereotyping or discrimination often does not come from a place of intent. Oppression succeeds when its mechanisms are utterly invisible to the public, when we ourselves consent to the reinforcement of our own oppression, often without knowing it.
"This is the difference between traditional racism, where things like this are done with mockery and malice, overt prejudice, and obvious discrimination, and structural (or institutionalized) racism, a more invisible form of racism in which historical context and a broader racial power dynamic is disregarded because it's not obvious, because there's no direct way to point to that and say it's racism - because plausible deniability of racism is, well, plausible. It's what killed Trayvon Martin, it's what killed Vincent Chin. (ok, Vincent Chin was likely just good ol' traditional racism) Like it as not, a performance like Katy Perry's, innocuous as it may seem on the surface, reinforces the objectification of the Asian culture, and therefore anyone who wears an Asian face. It reinforces structural racism in that it's even having Asians themselves questioning whether yellowface is ok. Katherine Hepburn, in yellowface, was arguably trying to accurately portray the struggles of the Chinese in The Good Earth (and won an Oscar for it too). She certainly wasn't out to make a mockery of it, and yet, that portrayal is unarguably very problematic. Why? On one hand, it denied the role of the part to other Asians. On the other hand, it's sort of like saying, "Look, I can play an Asian role, or I can wear a geisha costume, as well or even better than Asians themselves." Bam. White superiority reinforced. I realize this is really murky, and things like this are also hard to substantiate. After all, how does one have "evidence" of superiority or oppression? It's sort of like saying, I'm pretty sure my husband is cheating on me, but I can't find any evidence to the contrary. It's not something that is rationalized, it's something that is felt. I often equate trying to describe structural or institutionalized racism as trying to describe water to a fish. "What's this water of which you speak??"
"Also, just the fact that she is "enamored" by the culture makes "the culture" (in this case, the Japanese historical culture doesn't even really match today's Japanese culture) into an object that CAN be enamored. It ceases to be an actual lived experience, rooted in history and tradition, but rather, a superficial object - a costume - to take up and discard as she feels like. That is the problem here. It objectifies a culture, and the individuals associated with that culture (read: Asians). It places that culture outside of oneself, thereby drawing lines between "us" and "them", legitimate and other, powerful and not. It subconsciously reinforces the idea that Asians, as a group, are "less than," and thereby can be as easily discarded as the costume that Perry wears.
"Sorry I'm going on a bit. This debate, and the argument that something like this (yellowface, costuming) isn't offensive, it's just people "enamored" by the culture and "appreciating" its "beauty", is nauseatingly familiar, and I've never really been able to articulate why "celebrating" a culture is problematic, so this is a good exercise for me too.
"Keep in mind that a lot of it is subconscious, and therefore done without intent. That is why structural/institutionalized racism is so hard to pin down, and so hard to place blame - it's very squishy...like an overripe persimmon...uh, never mind. Do I blame Kate Perry for this? No, I don't think she is aware of these dynamics, and in this case, I believe she was truly ignorant and had no malicious intent. However, I do think that this performance happened because she was unaware of her own privilege as a white person, and hope that the backlash will, well, make her a bit more aware of racial dynamics in society and the power that she has, as someone in the public eye, to influence it."
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