It directly concerns me because if douche bags who date girls based off nationality live in Vancouver (which I'm sure they do) and give international students that impression, it makes me look bad. That's the exact reason while living in Korea I NEVER had any foreign friends. All my friends were Korean because I didn't want to be placed into the douche bag American army category. In Korea if you are white everyone assumes you are an American which is a huge insult. A direct example of how others affect me, I had some Korean talk to me only after they found out I was Canadian because they didn't want to talk to Americans.
IMO it's a two way street from both sides.
First, you give those international students (and the like) far too little faith by assuming that
all of them are incapable of judging for themselves and will automatically assume that
every white male is an American douche. If you try in earnest to befriend a person, only to be ignored because they assume you're a douche, is it even worth pursuing a friendship/relationship with that sort of person? I think it's less of a personal attack (assuming you're a douche) and more of an indication of their personality/character (someone who is disingenuous).
Second, sure, there are guys who date girls only because of their race. There are also girls who take advantage of their own non-caucasian ethnicity in order to hook up with those guys. Are those necessarily the kinds of girls you want to befriend?
Third, I find the contention "no foreign friends because I would be labeled a douchebag" dishonest. Surely there are some Americans who aren't douches, and yet you've gone and labeled all foreigners "American army douchebags" solely on their race (because they are "foreign"), and consciously chosen not to befriend any of them based on their race. To me, choosing friends "because they aren't foreign" is no better than choosing friends "because they're Asian".
[I realize you didn't actually say "all foreigners are douchebags", but that's what you've implied: you believe that if you had any foreign friends, Koreans would think you were an American douchebag; because if
you were Korean, you believe that
you would assume all foreigners were American douchebags (because that's what other Koreans have done), which is why you choose not to befriend any foreigners in the first place.]
Moreover, shouldn't it be obvious that such a belief is susceptible to backfire? If you
only have non-foreign friends, some people may start to think that you're
only interested in Koreans/Asians. Which itself is already a partial truth because of choosing not to have foreign friends. So by disassociating yourself from those American douchebags, you've successfully convinced others that you're an asianophile (which, maybe subconsciously you might be). But again, would you necessarily want to be friends with people who label you an asianophile?
And it's not like choosing
not to have any foreign friends does anything to break the stereotype that "all foreigners are douchebags". It's the difference between "
I have no non-Asian friends, because all foreigners [except me] are douchebags", and "
I have both Asian and non-Asian friends, because I realize [just as you should] that race does not determine whether a person is a douchebag or not."
Here in Japan, I have both Japanese friends and non-Japanese friends. I choose them not because of their race, but because of their character. When I meet new people, I don't worry about what they might assume about me based on my image [just as in like kindness, I don't judge them solely on their image]. The
character of my friends speaks more about me than the
race of my friends, and anyone who can't appreciate that or who is too ingrained in their racial prejudices probably isn't someone I want to be friends with -- and to that end, there are plenty of Japanese and non-Japanese who I am
not friends with.
The only reason I have more Japanese friends than foreign friends here is simply because there are few foreigners in Japan, and I meet far more Japanese people in my everyday life than foreigners.
Or maybe everyone in Korea is extremely judgmental, and this is all reactionary. (But hey, that in itself is an unfair assumption on my part with zero basis, so why should anyone listen to me?)
:evillaugh:
uzzled:
