Lily Salter's Blog, page 994

Let’s be honest, they’re idiots: The embarrassing truth about the unqualified, underprepared GOP field

With Russia’s surprise decision to launch airstrikes against Syrian rebels, the Afghan government’s failure to defend Kunduz, and the flood of Syrian refugees in Syria, we’ve entered a surprising moment in American politics where the right answer, contrary to all conventional political wisdom, might be “It’s complicated, stupid.”  Oliver Wendell Holmes famously said, “I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity.” In the coming months, every presidential candidate worth their salt might consider creating a winning political message by taking Holmes up on his advice and leaning into complexity.  They could promise that they’ll work hard to design intricate policies that mirror the world’s actual challenges.  And they could (convincingly) argue that Americans should trust them precisely because of that approach. Of course, what I’ve just written totally violates campaign orthodoxy.  Back in 1996, I participated in a campaign training academy at a hotel in New Brunswick.  For a week, we studied political campaigns with the best political consultants in the country.  To this day, I remember one adviser scrawling “KISS” in large letters on a blackboard, which stood for “Keep It Simple, Stupid.” I’ve since worked on many campaigns (including my own), and I can tell you that in politics KISS has the gravitational pull of the Death Star.  Resisting is the right thing to do, but it feels impossible and can be fatal. While KISS particularly dominates today’s Republican field, it hasn’t seemed to bear much fruit for anyone but Donald Trump (more on him in a moment).  Last December, Rick Perry (now, out of the race) said of Hillary Clinton, “And this secretary of state, and this president of the United States, both did a miserable job. I would put it in the feckless foreign policy category.”  Both Chris Christie and Rand Paul (they of the moribund campaigns) have also criticized Obama as “feckless.” Here’s the dictionary definition of that word: “having or resulting from a weak character or nature.”  The Republican candidates are conflating willful simplicity with good moral character.  That sounds appealing in theory, but its hollowness immediately appears when you tap on their Iraq policies, where, as former senior Obama defense official Derek Chollet recently wrote in the Washington Post, there’s virtually no difference between their ideas and what Obama and Clinton have actually done. “[I]t is seductive to trumpet solutions as ‘tougher’ or ‘stronger,’” Chollet wrote, “but Republicans are finding it is difficult to define a way forward, especially when they must first grapple with the ghosts of their past.” The reason their policies are bankrupt and that they’re falling back on character attacks is that they don’t know what to do in a world that’s vastly more confusing than ever before. There has been no more egregious example than Donald Trump, who this week on "60 Minutes" framed our foreign policy choices in Syria and Iraq as so simple they might as well be a game of Risk. Of ISIS in Syria, he said, “Why aren't we letting ISIS go and fight Assad and then we pick up the remnants?”  Of Syria, he said, “Russia wants to get rid of ISIS.  We want to get rid of ISIS. Maybe let Russia do it.  Let ‘em get rid of ISIS.  What the hell do we care?”  And of ISIS in Iraq, he said, “Look with ISIS in Iraq, you gotta knock 'em out.  You gotta knock 'em out.  You gotta fight 'em.  You gotta fight ‘em.” This was beyond slogans and bumper stickers.  It is a foreign policy of bombast alone. Out of the Republican field, it’s the most experienced candidate—Ohio Gov. John Kasich—who alone seems to go out of his way to repudiate Manichaeism, framing the challenges facing the nation as complicated and requiring experience and judgment rather than bombast. Kasich alone seems to recognize that, contrary to the Death Star’s dictates, there’s political gold in the hills of complexity.  He seems to see that Barack Obama’s unlikely victory in 2008 represented a repudiation not only of the Iraq War but of the broader impulse (apotheosized by his opponent, John McCain) to oversimplify matters. Obama’s whole approach was in the context of the neoconservatives who took power in the George W. Bush administration, who never wanted to accept that we’d moved beyond the reassuringly Manichean simplicity of the Cold War.  When Obama said he was “not against all wars, just stupid wars,” it was a courageous nuance beyond the black and white “global war on terrorism” framework. During the 2008 campaign, when the economy collapsed, Republican nominee John McCain suspended his presidential campaign and flew back to Washington. Obama avoided that black and white response and stayed on the campaign trail. His choice was seen as measured, balanced, mature and professional by the voters. The strongest moments of Obama’s presidency have also been when he’s rejected false simplicity. Remember the Ebola craze? Politicians like Rick Perry said the only option was for Obama to shut down air travel with West Africa. Here’s what Obama said: “What we’re seeing now is not an ‘outbreak’ or an ‘epidemic’ of Ebola in America. This is a serious disease, but we can’t give in to hysteria or fear. We have to keep this in perspective. Every year, thousands of Americans die from the flu.” There is ample precedent in American history for complexity defeating simplicity. In 1788, at the Virginia convention in Richmond to ratify the U.S. Constitution, for instance, James Madison—an introverted intellectual more at ease with research and argument than politicking—had to face off against the revolutionary hero Patrick Henry, a brilliant orator skilled at pulling heartstrings. Henry sought to turn the complexity of the document against it, mocking the Constitution’s “specious, imaginary balances,” and “rope-dancing, chain-rattling, ridiculous ideal checks and contrivances.” Madison defeated this bluster precisely by embracing how necessary the Constitution’s complex checks and balances were to stability and progress.  He won when delegates criticized Henry’s “endeavouring to prove oppressions which can never possibly happen.” And the same could be said today.  This time around, the American people could see bloviation for what it is.  They could recognize that to get our arms around the new world order, we’ll need fine-tuned distinctions, multifaceted approaches, and our best minds concentrated on evidence and outcomes, rather than posturing and ideology. And here’s the other thing about complexity: It recognizes that things change. We can’t know what the status of ISIS in Iraq will be next year, nor the strength of Assad’s government in Syria. What appears “feckless” in 2015 might instead look courageous in 2016, which is all the more reason to use scalpels rather than sledgehammers when describing issues and our policies to the American people. 2016 will be no ordinary presidential year, and our political campaigns shouldn’t be, either. Presidential candidates ought to create campaigns that respect the American people—that mirror the reality of the all-too-real challenges our nation will face in the years ahead.With Russia’s surprise decision to launch airstrikes against Syrian rebels, the Afghan government’s failure to defend Kunduz, and the flood of Syrian refugees in Syria, we’ve entered a surprising moment in American politics where the right answer, contrary to all conventional political wisdom, might be “It’s complicated, stupid.”  Oliver Wendell Holmes famously said, “I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity.” In the coming months, every presidential candidate worth their salt might consider creating a winning political message by taking Holmes up on his advice and leaning into complexity.  They could promise that they’ll work hard to design intricate policies that mirror the world’s actual challenges.  And they could (convincingly) argue that Americans should trust them precisely because of that approach. Of course, what I’ve just written totally violates campaign orthodoxy.  Back in 1996, I participated in a campaign training academy at a hotel in New Brunswick.  For a week, we studied political campaigns with the best political consultants in the country.  To this day, I remember one adviser scrawling “KISS” in large letters on a blackboard, which stood for “Keep It Simple, Stupid.” I’ve since worked on many campaigns (including my own), and I can tell you that in politics KISS has the gravitational pull of the Death Star.  Resisting is the right thing to do, but it feels impossible and can be fatal. While KISS particularly dominates today’s Republican field, it hasn’t seemed to bear much fruit for anyone but Donald Trump (more on him in a moment).  Last December, Rick Perry (now, out of the race) said of Hillary Clinton, “And this secretary of state, and this president of the United States, both did a miserable job. I would put it in the feckless foreign policy category.”  Both Chris Christie and Rand Paul (they of the moribund campaigns) have also criticized Obama as “feckless.” Here’s the dictionary definition of that word: “having or resulting from a weak character or nature.”  The Republican candidates are conflating willful simplicity with good moral character.  That sounds appealing in theory, but its hollowness immediately appears when you tap on their Iraq policies, where, as former senior Obama defense official Derek Chollet recently wrote in the Washington Post, there’s virtually no difference between their ideas and what Obama and Clinton have actually done. “[I]t is seductive to trumpet solutions as ‘tougher’ or ‘stronger,’” Chollet wrote, “but Republicans are finding it is difficult to define a way forward, especially when they must first grapple with the ghosts of their past.” The reason their policies are bankrupt and that they’re falling back on character attacks is that they don’t know what to do in a world that’s vastly more confusing than ever before. There has been no more egregious example than Donald Trump, who this week on "60 Minutes" framed our foreign policy choices in Syria and Iraq as so simple they might as well be a game of Risk. Of ISIS in Syria, he said, “Why aren't we letting ISIS go and fight Assad and then we pick up the remnants?”  Of Syria, he said, “Russia wants to get rid of ISIS.  We want to get rid of ISIS. Maybe let Russia do it.  Let ‘em get rid of ISIS.  What the hell do we care?”  And of ISIS in Iraq, he said, “Look with ISIS in Iraq, you gotta knock 'em out.  You gotta knock 'em out.  You gotta fight 'em.  You gotta fight ‘em.” This was beyond slogans and bumper stickers.  It is a foreign policy of bombast alone. Out of the Republican field, it’s the most experienced candidate—Ohio Gov. John Kasich—who alone seems to go out of his way to repudiate Manichaeism, framing the challenges facing the nation as complicated and requiring experience and judgment rather than bombast. Kasich alone seems to recognize that, contrary to the Death Star’s dictates, there’s political gold in the hills of complexity.  He seems to see that Barack Obama’s unlikely victory in 2008 represented a repudiation not only of the Iraq War but of the broader impulse (apotheosized by his opponent, John McCain) to oversimplify matters. Obama’s whole approach was in the context of the neoconservatives who took power in the George W. Bush administration, who never wanted to accept that we’d moved beyond the reassuringly Manichean simplicity of the Cold War.  When Obama said he was “not against all wars, just stupid wars,” it was a courageous nuance beyond the black and white “global war on terrorism” framework. During the 2008 campaign, when the economy collapsed, Republican nominee John McCain suspended his presidential campaign and flew back to Washington. Obama avoided that black and white response and stayed on the campaign trail. His choice was seen as measured, balanced, mature and professional by the voters. The strongest moments of Obama’s presidency have also been when he’s rejected false simplicity. Remember the Ebola craze? Politicians like Rick Perry said the only option was for Obama to shut down air travel with West Africa. Here’s what Obama said: “What we’re seeing now is not an ‘outbreak’ or an ‘epidemic’ of Ebola in America. This is a serious disease, but we can’t give in to hysteria or fear. We have to keep this in perspective. Every year, thousands of Americans die from the flu.” There is ample precedent in American history for complexity defeating simplicity. In 1788, at the Virginia convention in Richmond to ratify the U.S. Constitution, for instance, James Madison—an introverted intellectual more at ease with research and argument than politicking—had to face off against the revolutionary hero Patrick Henry, a brilliant orator skilled at pulling heartstrings. Henry sought to turn the complexity of the document against it, mocking the Constitution’s “specious, imaginary balances,” and “rope-dancing, chain-rattling, ridiculous ideal checks and contrivances.” Madison defeated this bluster precisely by embracing how necessary the Constitution’s complex checks and balances were to stability and progress.  He won when delegates criticized Henry’s “endeavouring to prove oppressions which can never possibly happen.” And the same could be said today.  This time around, the American people could see bloviation for what it is.  They could recognize that to get our arms around the new world order, we’ll need fine-tuned distinctions, multifaceted approaches, and our best minds concentrated on evidence and outcomes, rather than posturing and ideology. And here’s the other thing about complexity: It recognizes that things change. We can’t know what the status of ISIS in Iraq will be next year, nor the strength of Assad’s government in Syria. What appears “feckless” in 2015 might instead look courageous in 2016, which is all the more reason to use scalpels rather than sledgehammers when describing issues and our policies to the American people. 2016 will be no ordinary presidential year, and our political campaigns shouldn’t be, either. Presidential candidates ought to create campaigns that respect the American people—that mirror the reality of the all-too-real challenges our nation will face in the years ahead.

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Porn and sex addictions: Real or bullsh*t?

Porn addiction does not appear in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. And yet the label seems to pop up everywhere. There are counselors who warn against the addictive nature of pornography. Anti-porn advocates have been quick to blame the industry for the degradation of human relationships. And others have begun advertising treatment plans to remedy the "disorder." But without much reliable empirical data on the subject, the idea of lumping sex and porn into the list of addictive substances remains a matter of debate. Of course, that hasn't stopped certain outlets from doing so. The Sexual Recovery Institute website offers a sex addiction screening quiz to visitors worried they may be addicted to pornography or have a “hypersexual disorder” (the clinical term for sex addiction). The men’s quiz presents 27 questions about sexual history and habits. The women’s quiz brings you to a broken link. There are individuals who lose hours — even days — to pornography. There are also a number of individuals who have spent all their money on porn products and escorts. That’s a real problem. Compulsive behavior patterns are a real problem. And those consumed by them need professional help. What’s curious, however, is that these individuals don’t seem to make up the majority of self-identifying “porn addicts” out there. Joshua Grubbs of Case Western has been examining the concept of porn addiction for the past five years. He told AlterNet, “I noticed that people, particularly religious people, were really quick to use the addiction label. They were really fast to say, ‘I’m an addict, I’m an addict, I’m addicted to this. I can’t control myself.’ And I started to think, ‘Well, something’s not adding up.’” He added, “You know how hard it is to convince [an addict] that they have a problem? They don’t just come out and say, ‘Oh, I’m an addict.’ They don’t do that until they’re in recovery.” So when are these labels most likely to come up? And by whom are they assigned? Some experts suggest that the concepts of “porn addiction” and “sex addiction” are used to explain away behaviors condemned by socially (and sexually) conservative societies. Think about celebrities like David Duchovny and Tiger Woods, and what led them to come forward with their “addictions.” Dr. Mark Griffith writes, “It becomes a problem only when you’re discovered.” Grubbs suggests most self-identifying “porn addicts” simply don’t meet a clinical criteria. In January 2015, he published research finding that religiosity tended to be more closely related to porn addiction than porn consumption itself. “Porn addiction, sex addiction are so closely related to religious and moral beliefs about sexuality," Grubbs says. "If you’re coming from a religious tradition that says that indulging sexual desires outside the confines of heterosexual committed marriage is wrong, any sexual impulse that you have that doesn’t fit that prescribed criteria is going to produce guilt and distress. “Conceptually, it would make sense that it’s easier to say ‘I’m an addict’ than to say that what I believe about sex is maybe not the healthiest belief.” At Grubbs’ suggestion, we went to Amazon to check out its selection of books on “porn addiction.” No fewer than 404 results popped up in the Religion & Spirituality category. Less than half that number appeared in the Psychology & Counseling section. Grubbs’ most recent research suggests that porn addiction does indeed cause harm, but not in the way that you may think. Grubbs and his team found that the “psychological distress” caused by porn addiction relates to the label itself, not the material it refers to. According to his research, identifying as a porn addict was likely to bring on feelings of depression, anxiety, anger and distress. Porn use itself had no “reliable relationship” to these symptoms. Grubbs asks, "What is driving people to think they have a problem? And does assuming you have a problem actually create problems for you? “We need to think before we throw out these labels, because clearly, people self-diagnosing these labels over time is related to other mental health problems," he explained. "Let's think about what we're saying." For Grubbs, the question of whether “porn addiction” exists remains secondary to the fact that the label causes distress to those who are assigned it. His goal, primarily, is to home in on why people see themselves as addicts. He explained, “You can swap out the word ‘porn’ for ‘video game’ or ‘online shopping’ or ‘binge watching’ — any behavior that is getting in the way of the rest of your life and that you want to work on. Sex has its own kind of unique flavor to it, but you’re still going to use the same clinical technique. That’s a very different thing from someone coming into the office depressed because they’re a ‘porn addict,’ and when you asked the last time they viewed porn they say, ‘Well, two weeks ago.’" Clinical psychologist David Ley, author of "The Myth of Sex Addiction," told AlterNet in an email, “Decades of research shows that sex and porn are not addictive. Instead, the notion of porn addiction reflects people's moral and social fears of sex.” He added, “I've seen countless people who were taught to fear and be ashamed of their sexual desires, all because they were told they were addicted to sex. But the idea that there is such a thing as too much sex is based on a subjective, relative judgment: too much sex compared to what? Or who?” In 2003, Eric Blumberg authored a study called “The Lives and Voices of Highly Sexual Women.” Of the 44 women interviewed, all expressed the desire to have six or more orgasms a week, either solo or with partners. All considered having lots of sex an important element in their lives. And all admitted to having labeled themselves “sluts,” “nymphomaniacs” and “sex addicts” in the past. Grubbs says, “Ideally what we’re doing now will help people change their approach to treatment. Just because someone identifies as a porn addict doesn’t necessarily mean you need to treat them like an addict. You need to treat them like someone who is experiencing a lot of self-stigma.” Carrie Weisman is an AlterNet staff writer who focuses on sex, relationships and culture. Got tips, ideas or a first-person story? Email her. 

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“Every ounce of homophobia I ever experienced was firmly rooted in sexism”

In March of 2013, Ma’lik Richmond, one of two teenage male football players accused of sexual assault of an intoxicated teenage girl in Steubenville, Ohio, told ABC’s Elizabeth Vargas, “I didn't rape anybody. I didn't witness a rape going on. And if I would have thought that somebody was being raped or anything like that, I would have stopped it.” Days later, he was found guilty of rape in court. A 2013 JAMA Pediatrics study of over 1,000 youths between the ages of 14 and 21 found that “nearly 1 in 10 youths (9%) reported some type of sexual violence perpetration in their lifetime.” As summarized by Melissa Healy in the Los Angeles Times, disturbingly, “The study also found that perpetrators of sexual violence of all types were unlikely to accept responsibility for their acts. One in seven believed that he or she was ‘not at all responsible for what happened,’ and almost 4 in 10 said they considered the victim somewhat or completely responsible for the reported incident.” Amid this sobering landscape, young adult fiction has been tackling the topic of sexual assault head-on. The Steubenville case inspired Aaron Hartzler, author of the memoir "Rapture Practice," about growing up gay in a religious family in Kansas City, Missouri, to humanize the story with his recently published novel "What We Saw." Like in the Steubenville case, there’s a party where teens are drinking, followed by rumors aplenty about sports stars possibly having assaulted a drunken girl—in this case, basketball players. There are photographs and video posted on social media, although some surface only to disappear quickly. The story is told from the point of view of Kate Weston, who was at the party, and even had her photo taken with said drunk girl, Stacey Stallard, but left early, so isn’t quite sure what happened. She quickly finds that sides are forming among her peers, and her entire community, with very little effort going into finding out what truly happened. Her peer group is soon torn apart, especially when Kate refuses to go along with sentiments like her friend Christy’s that “Stacey went to that party looking for trouble.” Like its inspiration, there’s a group akin to Anonymous that threatens to publish a video taken the night of the fictional assault. Hartzler homes in on both Kate’s growing skepticism of the handling of the case by the school, and the chasm that forms in the community in its aftermath, one that affects the entire town. Hartzler emailed Salon about his goals for the book, the feminist meaning of the story, and why parents of teens can’t ignore the topic of sexual assault.  Why were you inspired to fictionalize the Steubenville rape case?  As I watched the screaming match that Steubenville inspired on social media during 2012, I kept thinking about my youngest sister who was just graduating from high school. I wondered what it must be like to live in a small town like Steubenville and be coming of age in the middle of a national conversation about sexual violence. So much of that early conversation was centered on how these allegations would "ruin the lives" of the perpetrators, with zero empathy for the victim. In the slut-shaming and flash-judgment that ensued on Twitter, the town of Steubenville became synonymous with an evil place, where evil people did and allowed evil things. I kept wondering about the kids who had been at that party who weren't directly involved—the ones who weren't aware that a rape had occurred, and only found out about it after the fact. The character of Kate started talking in my head at that point. What kind of impact or reach do you think this novel will have with teenagers that straight news stories might not? As the situation in Steubenville was reported, it increasingly became a larger conversation about rape culture. Writers like Lindy West and Roxane Gay tirelessly took the bull by the horns and helped us see how the sexism in our culture at large was so insidious and pervasive. This was an excellent thing, but it also took the focus away from the adolescent experience, and I was eager take this story and put it back in the context of a high school. It's my hope that the young people who read this book will relate more readily with a narrative that is less about abstract concepts, and more about watching characters they can identify with make choices they may have been or will be faced with themselves. At its heart, "What We Saw" is a feminist story about a young woman who is learning to define herself by the courage of her own choices, and not the opinions of her friends, her family, her community or the news media. So often, when I talk to young people at schools or book festivals, the girls who ask a question or state an opinion will begin with an apology. "I'm sorry but..." The guys never apologize for sorting out what they think aloud. Kate is a character who must decide if she will speak up without apology, even when it means enduring the consequences and inevitable changes that will occur when she does so. Do you have a goal or message with this book? To tell a compelling story. I always approach writing from a character perspective. I believe that characters make choices, and those choices give you a plot. I didn't sit down to write an "issue book," per se. I wanted to write a book I'd want to read. I cried for a couple of the characters as I wrote them. I wanted to make their lives easier, but I couldn't. The major themes that emerged were the complicity in silence, and inevitability of change, both things that I didn't necessarily have a clear perspective on when I was a teenager. If there's a takeaway here, I hope it's the personal responsibility each of us has—at any age—to speak up for and defend those who can't defend themselves. What kinds of reactions have you gotten so far from teenagers? What about parents, teachers and/or librarians? The response has been overwhelmingly positive—especially from teenagers, but also from adults, who have thanked me for giving them a way into a conversation about these kinds of choices with their own kids. I've heard from teenagers who have experienced similar situations at their own school. I've been able to recommend other books that have tackled these themes recently as well, like Courtney Summers’ "All the Rage" and Jennifer Mathieu’s "The Truth About Alice." This is Banned Books Week, and I'm sure some parents don't want to even think about their kids being anywhere near a situation like the one in Steubenville, much less talk about it. However, just because your child isn't talking to you about these issues, doesn't mean they aren't talking about them. If you want to be a part of that conversation, but don't know how to get it started? There are a lot of authors out there who have already done it for you. Do you have anything else to add? I've been asked several times if it was "a challenge" to write from a female perspective, and my response is that at the core of any good story isn't a "male" experience or a "female" experience. It's a human experience. I think we humans (of whatever gender or gender expression) are equals, and not so wildly different on the inside that one gender can't write from the point of view of a different gender. Growing up gay in the middle of the country, every ounce of homophobia I ever experienced was firmly rooted in sexism. If calling somebody a "girl" is the worst put-down you can think of, then we have a problem culturally. It's something I love to talk to teens about, and hope that these conversations turn on a light, one reader at a time.In March of 2013, Ma’lik Richmond, one of two teenage male football players accused of sexual assault of an intoxicated teenage girl in Steubenville, Ohio, told ABC’s Elizabeth Vargas, “I didn't rape anybody. I didn't witness a rape going on. And if I would have thought that somebody was being raped or anything like that, I would have stopped it.” Days later, he was found guilty of rape in court. A 2013 JAMA Pediatrics study of over 1,000 youths between the ages of 14 and 21 found that “nearly 1 in 10 youths (9%) reported some type of sexual violence perpetration in their lifetime.” As summarized by Melissa Healy in the Los Angeles Times, disturbingly, “The study also found that perpetrators of sexual violence of all types were unlikely to accept responsibility for their acts. One in seven believed that he or she was ‘not at all responsible for what happened,’ and almost 4 in 10 said they considered the victim somewhat or completely responsible for the reported incident.” Amid this sobering landscape, young adult fiction has been tackling the topic of sexual assault head-on. The Steubenville case inspired Aaron Hartzler, author of the memoir "Rapture Practice," about growing up gay in a religious family in Kansas City, Missouri, to humanize the story with his recently published novel "What We Saw." Like in the Steubenville case, there’s a party where teens are drinking, followed by rumors aplenty about sports stars possibly having assaulted a drunken girl—in this case, basketball players. There are photographs and video posted on social media, although some surface only to disappear quickly. The story is told from the point of view of Kate Weston, who was at the party, and even had her photo taken with said drunk girl, Stacey Stallard, but left early, so isn’t quite sure what happened. She quickly finds that sides are forming among her peers, and her entire community, with very little effort going into finding out what truly happened. Her peer group is soon torn apart, especially when Kate refuses to go along with sentiments like her friend Christy’s that “Stacey went to that party looking for trouble.” Like its inspiration, there’s a group akin to Anonymous that threatens to publish a video taken the night of the fictional assault. Hartzler homes in on both Kate’s growing skepticism of the handling of the case by the school, and the chasm that forms in the community in its aftermath, one that affects the entire town. Hartzler emailed Salon about his goals for the book, the feminist meaning of the story, and why parents of teens can’t ignore the topic of sexual assault.  Why were you inspired to fictionalize the Steubenville rape case?  As I watched the screaming match that Steubenville inspired on social media during 2012, I kept thinking about my youngest sister who was just graduating from high school. I wondered what it must be like to live in a small town like Steubenville and be coming of age in the middle of a national conversation about sexual violence. So much of that early conversation was centered on how these allegations would "ruin the lives" of the perpetrators, with zero empathy for the victim. In the slut-shaming and flash-judgment that ensued on Twitter, the town of Steubenville became synonymous with an evil place, where evil people did and allowed evil things. I kept wondering about the kids who had been at that party who weren't directly involved—the ones who weren't aware that a rape had occurred, and only found out about it after the fact. The character of Kate started talking in my head at that point. What kind of impact or reach do you think this novel will have with teenagers that straight news stories might not? As the situation in Steubenville was reported, it increasingly became a larger conversation about rape culture. Writers like Lindy West and Roxane Gay tirelessly took the bull by the horns and helped us see how the sexism in our culture at large was so insidious and pervasive. This was an excellent thing, but it also took the focus away from the adolescent experience, and I was eager take this story and put it back in the context of a high school. It's my hope that the young people who read this book will relate more readily with a narrative that is less about abstract concepts, and more about watching characters they can identify with make choices they may have been or will be faced with themselves. At its heart, "What We Saw" is a feminist story about a young woman who is learning to define herself by the courage of her own choices, and not the opinions of her friends, her family, her community or the news media. So often, when I talk to young people at schools or book festivals, the girls who ask a question or state an opinion will begin with an apology. "I'm sorry but..." The guys never apologize for sorting out what they think aloud. Kate is a character who must decide if she will speak up without apology, even when it means enduring the consequences and inevitable changes that will occur when she does so. Do you have a goal or message with this book? To tell a compelling story. I always approach writing from a character perspective. I believe that characters make choices, and those choices give you a plot. I didn't sit down to write an "issue book," per se. I wanted to write a book I'd want to read. I cried for a couple of the characters as I wrote them. I wanted to make their lives easier, but I couldn't. The major themes that emerged were the complicity in silence, and inevitability of change, both things that I didn't necessarily have a clear perspective on when I was a teenager. If there's a takeaway here, I hope it's the personal responsibility each of us has—at any age—to speak up for and defend those who can't defend themselves. What kinds of reactions have you gotten so far from teenagers? What about parents, teachers and/or librarians? The response has been overwhelmingly positive—especially from teenagers, but also from adults, who have thanked me for giving them a way into a conversation about these kinds of choices with their own kids. I've heard from teenagers who have experienced similar situations at their own school. I've been able to recommend other books that have tackled these themes recently as well, like Courtney Summers’ "All the Rage" and Jennifer Mathieu’s "The Truth About Alice." This is Banned Books Week, and I'm sure some parents don't want to even think about their kids being anywhere near a situation like the one in Steubenville, much less talk about it. However, just because your child isn't talking to you about these issues, doesn't mean they aren't talking about them. If you want to be a part of that conversation, but don't know how to get it started? There are a lot of authors out there who have already done it for you. Do you have anything else to add? I've been asked several times if it was "a challenge" to write from a female perspective, and my response is that at the core of any good story isn't a "male" experience or a "female" experience. It's a human experience. I think we humans (of whatever gender or gender expression) are equals, and not so wildly different on the inside that one gender can't write from the point of view of a different gender. Growing up gay in the middle of the country, every ounce of homophobia I ever experienced was firmly rooted in sexism. If calling somebody a "girl" is the worst put-down you can think of, then we have a problem culturally. It's something I love to talk to teens about, and hope that these conversations turn on a light, one reader at a time.

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“Every man reads one book in his life, and this one is mine”: E.B. White’s lifelong conversation with Thoreau’s “Walden”

On Oct. 1, 1985, in an 11-room house on 40 acres of saltwater farm in the Maine town of North Brooklin, E.B. White died. In the latter days of his life, suffering from senile dementia, he’d occasionally charitably mistake his bedroom for a suite at the Algonquin. Out the door, down by the cove’s edge, his typewriter rested in the wooden boathouse where he wrote his most enduring works, including much of "Charlotte’s Web." He might have taken the boathouse for somewhere else, too, for at 10-by-15-feet it was the same size as Henry David Thoreau’s cabin off Walden pond. This was not White’s design, though it may as well have been. “Every man, I think, reads one book in his life, and this one is mine,” he wrote of "Walden" in a 1953 New Yorker piece. “It is not the best book I ever encountered, perhaps, but it is for me the handiest.” He first read the book as an undergraduate at Cornell, according to his biographer Scott Elledge. The copy he carried with him throughout his life is a small blue Oxford World’s Classics edition, purchased some time later in 1927. The copy that remains with his papers at Cornell is a brown and green edition from 1964 with an intro by White and a Duraflex cover, just in case the reader wishes to ramble off to the woods with it. But there were many others throughout his life, each encompassing a side to the avuncular essayist most readers didn’t see. There was the "Walden" an anxious White read in college, the wisdom of which sustained him through the spectacular failure of his early working days (four jobs in seven months) and, in March 1922 when he was 22, launched him on an 18-month jaunt across the country with his friend Howard Cushman. The "Walden" a smitten and shy 28-year-old White gave to Rosanne Magdol, a 19-year-old secretary at the New Yorker, when she set off for a few months at a yoga camp. The elegant edition a 29-year-old White gave to Katharine Angell, at Christmas, the year before they married. The copy a 68-year-old White gave to his step-granddaughter, Caroline Angell, at Christmas 39 years later in 1967. Throughout his life — in letters, three famous essays and an introduction to the work — White paid homage to and gently mocked Thoreau, a man who bravely isolated himself in a cabin walking distance from his mother’s house and mused on the absolute failures of his society. “Thoreau’s assault on the Concord society of the mid-nineteenth century has the quality of a modern Western,” White wrote in the summer of 1954. “He rides into the subject at top speed, shooting in all directions.” It’s an apt description. Thoreau sets "Walden’s" self-reliant tone in the original more or less immediately with his epigraph — a quote from his own book. It turns out he may be the only man worth quoting. The next 70 or so pages are a spectacular sequence of attacks and blustery principle. He suggests that slavery to one’s own false beliefs is worse than physical slavery (though he abhorred both sorts); he famously declaims, “the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation”; he critiques all old people, writing, “I have lived some thirty years on this planet, and I have yet to hear the first syllable of valuable or even earnest advice from my seniors.” His vitriol transcends space and time, as made amply clear when he launches a fresh critique with a mutinous, “As for the Pyramids...” No one — reader nor pharaoh — is safe. White found a humor in Thoreau that Thoreau didn’t quite see in himself. Like White, he was ill at ease in the working world, a fate that continued well past his time at the pond. A year before returning to civilized life on Sept. 6, 1847, the 29-year-old Thoreau was imprisoned for refusing to pay taxes on moral grounds. A mysterious friend—assumed to be his aunt—frustrated his protest and, to his chagrin, bailed him out. Thoreau turned the evening into an essay on civil disobedience. His friends had different conclusions. The next year, the storm clouds of self-reliance forming again, Thoreau deigned to pay only because, if he didn’t, his friends would. “Thoreau is unique among writers,” White wrote, “in that those who admire him find him uncomfortable to live with … I would not swap him for a soberer or more reasonable friend even if I could.” A century on, he was still paying Thoreau’s taxes. White found in Thoreau a moral compass — the emphasis on simplicity that defined both writers’ honest voice and intentions. Thoreau’s comical resistance to all standard careers gave White an ideological basis for setting out after the life he wanted to lead. From Thoreau’s dyspeptic and euphoric ramblings, he developed a sense that you shouldn’t take yourself too seriously, but should take life very seriously indeed. “If our colleges and universities were alert,” he wrote on the hundredth anniversary of the book, “they would present a cheap pocket edition of the book to every senior upon graduating, along with his sheepskin, or instead of it.” As White grew older, worried youths would seek his advice, and he took up the suggestion himself. “At seventeen, the future is apt to seem formidable, even depressing. You should see the pages of my journal circa 1916,” he wrote to one such young woman in September 1973. “You are right that a person’s real duty in life is to save his dream, but don’t worry about it and don’t let them scare you. Henry Thoreau, who wrote Walden, said, ‘I learned this at least by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.’ The sentence, after more than a hundred years, is still alive. So, advance confidently.”   A few years before the end of his life, White wrote a new introduction to his now classic "One Man’s Meat." He had written the essays leading up to and during World War II when he moved his son and wife from their New York rental to their house in Maine. “Once in everyone’s life there is apt to be a period when he is fully awake, instead of half asleep. I think of those five years in Maine as the time when this happened to me.” More than a century earlier, on a pond 263 miles south on I-95, Thoreau felt the same. “To be awake,” he later wrote, “is to be alive.” White was awake. But if Thoreau was the rooster shrieking at the top of his lungs, White was the brave mouse setting you straight. If less original a philosopher, he is a better friend to his readers than Thoreau, more tolerant of all save moral weakness and the failure to resist life’s invitation. This was the common theme for the two — the danger of the sort of forgetting to which every generation, with the not-so-new distractions of its new technologies, is prone. White never forgot Thoreau. White’s son Joel wrote the last of White’s anthologized letters on July 5, 1985. White was too sick to respond to his friend Charles G. Muller, who had sent him a short note on June 26 along with an article he thought his friend would like. It was called “The Man Who Found Walden Pond.” If White didn’t read it, it’s just as well. He knew that every man is to find his own Walden Pond — that the good writer shows his or her readers the path to theirs. For this knowledge, he owed Thoreau a debt. Were they contemporaries, he would have paid it, for White is the sort of friend Thoreau could have used — laughing at him, encouraging him, and agreeing solemnly to keep in view what all living creatures are given, which to forget would be to make of life only a waiting for death. Benjamin Naddaff-Hafrey is a writer covering media, tech, music and American history. Previously, he founded the music section at Mic. Follow him at @bhafrey or email him at bhafrey@gmail.com.

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“I’m going back to the range”: Conservatives react to Oregon shooting with calls for more guns, tough guy talk

We don't yet know the identity of America's newest mass shooter, and I naively wish it'd remain that way, but already right-wing gun enthusiasts have jumped onto Twitter to defend their beloved killing machines from the all-too-familiar widespread calls for increased gun control on the social media site. A 20-year-old man opened fire at a small community college in Roseburg, Oregon, killing up to 13 people before finally being shot and killed by police today. The familiar conservative faces on Twitter rushed to denounce what they called attempts to "politicize the tragedy" -- their standard reply to stifle talk of gun control following these mass shootings: https://twitter.com/michellemalkin/st... https://twitter.com/StephenGutowski/s... https://twitter.com/DLoesch/status/64... https://twitter.com/RBPundit/status/6... https://twitter.com/NolteNC/status/64... There was also the standard "false flag" nonsense: https://twitter.com/PopulationWatch/s... And of course, the sick push for more guns: https://twitter.com/bob_owens/status/... https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status... Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson echoed Twitter conservatives, reacting to the shooting on right-wing radio host Hugh Hewitt's program today by denying that gun control could help to prevent such an incident. “Obviously, there are those who are going to be calling for gun control,” Carson said. “Obviously, that’s not the issue. The issue is the mentality of these people.” He argued that instead of focusing on guns, “early warning clues” should be heeded by people closer to the shooter in order to prevent such shootings:

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10 dead, 20 reportedly injured in shooting at Umpqua Community College in Oregon

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Amy Schumer negotiated a seven figure raise on her book deal

Next time you're planning to ask for a raise, take a peg out of Amy Schumer's book. According to a new report in The New York Times, the comedy darling signed a $1-million book deal with HarperCollins for a book of humorous essays back in 2013. A year later, perhaps sensing that her star was rising following the premiere of “Inside Amy Schumer,” she bailed out of the contract. Now, Schumer has parlayed her success into a reported $8 to $10-million deal with Simon & Schuster’s Gallery Books, trouncing Tina Fey’s and Lena Dunham’s deals of $5 and 3.5$-million, respectively. As she told GQ earlier this year, "I had a whole deal, but I decided to wait — I thought I would make more money if I waited.” So there you have it: The best way to get a seven-figure raise of your own? Just wait. And make a hit show. And a hit movie. And win an Emmy. And become best friends with Jennifer Lawrence, for good measure. Easy!    Next time you're planning to ask for a raise, take a peg out of Amy Schumer's book. According to a new report in The New York Times, the comedy darling signed a $1-million book deal with HarperCollins for a book of humorous essays back in 2013. A year later, perhaps sensing that her star was rising following the premiere of “Inside Amy Schumer,” she bailed out of the contract. Now, Schumer has parlayed her success into a reported $8 to $10-million deal with Simon & Schuster’s Gallery Books, trouncing Tina Fey’s and Lena Dunham’s deals of $5 and 3.5$-million, respectively. As she told GQ earlier this year, "I had a whole deal, but I decided to wait — I thought I would make more money if I waited.” So there you have it: The best way to get a seven-figure raise of your own? Just wait. And make a hit show. And a hit movie. And win an Emmy. And become best friends with Jennifer Lawrence, for good measure. Easy!    Next time you're planning to ask for a raise, take a peg out of Amy Schumer's book. According to a new report in The New York Times, the comedy darling signed a $1-million book deal with HarperCollins for a book of humorous essays back in 2013. A year later, perhaps sensing that her star was rising following the premiere of “Inside Amy Schumer,” she bailed out of the contract. Now, Schumer has parlayed her success into a reported $8 to $10-million deal with Simon & Schuster’s Gallery Books, trouncing Tina Fey’s and Lena Dunham’s deals of $5 and 3.5$-million, respectively. As she told GQ earlier this year, "I had a whole deal, but I decided to wait — I thought I would make more money if I waited.” So there you have it: The best way to get a seven-figure raise of your own? Just wait. And make a hit show. And a hit movie. And win an Emmy. And become best friends with Jennifer Lawrence, for good measure. Easy!    Next time you're planning to ask for a raise, take a peg out of Amy Schumer's book. According to a new report in The New York Times, the comedy darling signed a $1-million book deal with HarperCollins for a book of humorous essays back in 2013. A year later, perhaps sensing that her star was rising following the premiere of “Inside Amy Schumer,” she bailed out of the contract. Now, Schumer has parlayed her success into a reported $8 to $10-million deal with Simon & Schuster’s Gallery Books, trouncing Tina Fey’s and Lena Dunham’s deals of $5 and 3.5$-million, respectively. As she told GQ earlier this year, "I had a whole deal, but I decided to wait — I thought I would make more money if I waited.” So there you have it: The best way to get a seven-figure raise of your own? Just wait. And make a hit show. And a hit movie. And win an Emmy. And become best friends with Jennifer Lawrence, for good measure. Easy!    

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“If I win, they’re going back”: Why Donald Trump’s threat to refugees is the key to his campaign

In a recent interview with CNBC’s John Harwood, Donald Trump pushed back against the idea that his remarkably successful presidential campaign was, as Harwood put it, “appealing to fearful, anxious, white Americans and encouraging the belief that their problems are because of people who look different than them.” Trump said the description was wrong. He was popular with “the blacks.” He then cited an unidentified poll — which, given Trump’s track record, could very well not exist. It wasn’t an impressive answer. But in fairness to “the Donald,” it’s hard to imagine any answer he could give that would be strong enough to overcome what, for the past few months, has been staring everyone outside the Trump bubble in the face. A campaign that is simply more reliant on bigotry, resentment and tribalism than anything presidential politics has seen since Pat Buchanan’s run in 1992. A campaign whose seeming raison d’être is to champion an ugly and reactionary version of Americanism. Since a kind of neo-nativism is the true heart of Trump’s campaign, examples are easy to find. In fact, the most recent one happened just Wednesday, during a Trump appearance at a New Hampshire high school. In the midst of one of his reliably rambling and meandering speeches, Trump, according to the New York Times, mentioned the plight of Syria’s millions of refugees. “Now I hear we want to take in 200,000 Syrians,” Trump said, which elicited “some boos in the crowd,” reportedly. “If I win,” he promised, “they’re going back.” As you might expect (but still hope against), the crowd’s response this time was much more favorable. And when Trump explained that the millions of refugees — more than 50 percent of whom are children — “could be ISIS” and be engaged in “one of the great tactical ploys of all time,” with “[a] 200,000-man army, maybe” creating “problems,” no one laughed. Not because they were too appalled into silence by the grotesque mix of comic book juvenilia and dehumanization; but because they agreed. The distance between Syrian refugees in the real world and the menacing hordes of Trump’s nightmares is so vast, the case puts his specific brand of Americanism in starker relief. That makes it easier, in turn, to see how it diverges from not only the liberal conception of Americanism, but that of the mainstream, too. For example: America likes to tell itself that one of its guiding principles can be found on the Statue of Liberty. But “The New Colossus” is literally about welcoming refugees. If Trump had to truly consider the poem, it’s hard to imagine it winning his favor. Yet that wasn’t the only revealing statement Trump made on Wednesday. He also said he was “putting the people on notice that are coming here from Syria as a part of this mass migration.” That may sound just as stupid — and no more dangerous — than the rest of his rant, but it isn’t. Because whether he knew it or not, his talk of “mass migration” was bound to be understood as a dog-whistle to a certain segment of his most ardent fanbase: white nationalists (a.k.a., white supremacists or neo-Nazis). Not incidentally, Pat Buchanan plays an important role in the intellectual history of this movement, too. His 2001 book, “The Death of the West: How Dying Populations and Immigrant Invasions Imperil Our Culture and Civilization,” is cited by many white nationalists as their gateway. It was here they learned of a global plot to lower (white) birthrates in the West and thus allow an “invasion” of fecund immigrants to take-over from within. So when Trump rails against “mass migration,” there is no doubt that a significant number of his supporters think they know what he really means. But whether or not Trump is dog-whistling on purpose doesn’t matter. Because the sentiment he communicated with his threat to Syria’s refugees, which has really animated his whole campaign, does not require intellectual rigor. It is extremely simple. It understands Americanism not as a philosophical orientation — not as an outgrowth of the Enlightenment — but as a physical thing. Instead of liberty and equality, blood and soil. Instead of the principles that you've chosen, the accidents of your birth. Instead of sanctuary for "your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free," deportation for refugees.In a recent interview with CNBC’s John Harwood, Donald Trump pushed back against the idea that his remarkably successful presidential campaign was, as Harwood put it, “appealing to fearful, anxious, white Americans and encouraging the belief that their problems are because of people who look different than them.” Trump said the description was wrong. He was popular with “the blacks.” He then cited an unidentified poll — which, given Trump’s track record, could very well not exist. It wasn’t an impressive answer. But in fairness to “the Donald,” it’s hard to imagine any answer he could give that would be strong enough to overcome what, for the past few months, has been staring everyone outside the Trump bubble in the face. A campaign that is simply more reliant on bigotry, resentment and tribalism than anything presidential politics has seen since Pat Buchanan’s run in 1992. A campaign whose seeming raison d’être is to champion an ugly and reactionary version of Americanism. Since a kind of neo-nativism is the true heart of Trump’s campaign, examples are easy to find. In fact, the most recent one happened just Wednesday, during a Trump appearance at a New Hampshire high school. In the midst of one of his reliably rambling and meandering speeches, Trump, according to the New York Times, mentioned the plight of Syria’s millions of refugees. “Now I hear we want to take in 200,000 Syrians,” Trump said, which elicited “some boos in the crowd,” reportedly. “If I win,” he promised, “they’re going back.” As you might expect (but still hope against), the crowd’s response this time was much more favorable. And when Trump explained that the millions of refugees — more than 50 percent of whom are children — “could be ISIS” and be engaged in “one of the great tactical ploys of all time,” with “[a] 200,000-man army, maybe” creating “problems,” no one laughed. Not because they were too appalled into silence by the grotesque mix of comic book juvenilia and dehumanization; but because they agreed. The distance between Syrian refugees in the real world and the menacing hordes of Trump’s nightmares is so vast, the case puts his specific brand of Americanism in starker relief. That makes it easier, in turn, to see how it diverges from not only the liberal conception of Americanism, but that of the mainstream, too. For example: America likes to tell itself that one of its guiding principles can be found on the Statue of Liberty. But “The New Colossus” is literally about welcoming refugees. If Trump had to truly consider the poem, it’s hard to imagine it winning his favor. Yet that wasn’t the only revealing statement Trump made on Wednesday. He also said he was “putting the people on notice that are coming here from Syria as a part of this mass migration.” That may sound just as stupid — and no more dangerous — than the rest of his rant, but it isn’t. Because whether he knew it or not, his talk of “mass migration” was bound to be understood as a dog-whistle to a certain segment of his most ardent fanbase: white nationalists (a.k.a., white supremacists or neo-Nazis). Not incidentally, Pat Buchanan plays an important role in the intellectual history of this movement, too. His 2001 book, “The Death of the West: How Dying Populations and Immigrant Invasions Imperil Our Culture and Civilization,” is cited by many white nationalists as their gateway. It was here they learned of a global plot to lower (white) birthrates in the West and thus allow an “invasion” of fecund immigrants to take-over from within. So when Trump rails against “mass migration,” there is no doubt that a significant number of his supporters think they know what he really means. But whether or not Trump is dog-whistling on purpose doesn’t matter. Because the sentiment he communicated with his threat to Syria’s refugees, which has really animated his whole campaign, does not require intellectual rigor. It is extremely simple. It understands Americanism not as a philosophical orientation — not as an outgrowth of the Enlightenment — but as a physical thing. Instead of liberty and equality, blood and soil. Instead of the principles that you've chosen, the accidents of your birth. Instead of sanctuary for "your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free," deportation for refugees.

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John Oliver has a blast on “The Late Show”

For those late-night observers who’ve spent the week watching Trevor Noah’s first week on “The Daily Show” with a kind of Talmudic focus, the arrival of John Oliver on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” registered as a kind of sensory overload. So far the most-quoted lines from the host convergence was Oliver’s assertion that he simply doesn’t care about Donald Trump. “I couldn’t give less of sh*t,” Oliver said of the truculent candidate. “It’s the 2016 election. And it’s 2015 right now. So I don’t care until we’re in the same year as the thing that I’m supposed to care about.” (For what it’s worth, because the term was bleeped, some think he may’ve said that he did not give a “f*ck.”) It’s also intriguing to note that neither the Birmingham-born, Cambridge-educated Oliver nor Johannesburg native Noah, are American citizens: So two of the most influential commentators on American politics cannot vote in U.S. elections. In any case, Oliver talked about the importance of political issues not tied up in the election, which is not a bad niche given how pointless a lot of the horserace coverage has been. Instead of a brand-new “Daily Show” host trying to find his feet, here were two veterans of the Jon Stewart-era show who have grown into their new roles and not only know who they are, but can riff with each other in a way that’s both entertaining and smart. It almost makes you want a buddy movie. It’s also hard not to notice that before and after Oliver showed up last night, Wednesday’s installment of “The Late Show” was straining a little. The bit on virtual reality, in which Colbert pretended to experience a GOP debate through a new headset, demonstrated his gift for physical comedy. But it still went on too long. That goes double for “Big Questions With Even Bigger Stars,” in which Colbert and Tom Hanks sprawled on a blanket outdoors and pondered the mysteries of the universe. (It started strong, as Colbert asked: “Hey Tom, why do you think bad things happen to good people?” Hanks: “Maybe it’s because God’s really old, and his eyes are going.”) By the end, Hanks just admitted it: The skit’s goal was simply “to kill four minutes before John Oliver comes out.” Colbert’s interview with Snapchat founder Evan Spiegel (how many times did Colbert say “billion” or “billionaire”?) only occasionally came to life. And while it was cool to see Bill Withers, the R&B musician and songwriter who’s experienced a well-deserved revival in recent years (and who turns out to be a serious Judge Judy fan), the three-way conversation with Ed Sheeran didn’t really go anywhere, either. But the few minutes with Oliver, who bounced onto stage and sat down with a fake bow, made up for the rough or blank spots elsewhere. After the low-key, handsome-guy boastfulness of Noah, Oliver’s self-deprecation was striking: He picked up Colbert’s praise – that his show had really caught fire -- by describing himself as “a pretty small blaze… the kind of heat that could partially toast a marshmallow.” Even the jokey sparring between the two -- with Oliver asserting that his single half-hour of television as “less is more… like heroin” – was based on undercutting his own achievement. How, Colbert asked, did Oliver’s “Last Week Tonight” come up with topics heavy enough to be worth pursuing for 18 minutes but engaging enough to matter to an audience? Oliver admitted it was never easy: “We’re on the precipice of disaster every week.” Oliver and Colbert have the practiced improviser’s combination of spontaneity, empathy, and perfect timing. It’s probably not fair to Noah to compared him to these two, or their absolute mastery when they’re together: Noah is young and still adjusting to a hosting role very different from his previous efforts as a stand-up comedian. There was a telling moment near the end, though, where Oliver and Colbert were praising Noah’s maiden voyage. “He’s taking on the impossible,” Oliver said. “You can’t replace the irreplaceable.” Colbert came back with, “I wouldn’t know what that’s like.” This was, of course, supposed to be a knowing reference to Colbert stepping into David Letterman’s shoes. But as titanic and influential a figure as Letterman proved to be, it’s difficult to imagine a lot of people pining for him the way Jon Stewart fans are still watching “The Daily Show” and waiting for the old bitter spark. Whether they’ll get it – or something satisfying in its own way -- is impossible to say at this point. But it became very clear last night that whatever else is going on in the world of late night these days, two of Stewart’s old alums are playing at the very top of their game.For those late-night observers who’ve spent the week watching Trevor Noah’s first week on “The Daily Show” with a kind of Talmudic focus, the arrival of John Oliver on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” registered as a kind of sensory overload. So far the most-quoted lines from the host convergence was Oliver’s assertion that he simply doesn’t care about Donald Trump. “I couldn’t give less of sh*t,” Oliver said of the truculent candidate. “It’s the 2016 election. And it’s 2015 right now. So I don’t care until we’re in the same year as the thing that I’m supposed to care about.” (For what it’s worth, because the term was bleeped, some think he may’ve said that he did not give a “f*ck.”) It’s also intriguing to note that neither the Birmingham-born, Cambridge-educated Oliver nor Johannesburg native Noah, are American citizens: So two of the most influential commentators on American politics cannot vote in U.S. elections. In any case, Oliver talked about the importance of political issues not tied up in the election, which is not a bad niche given how pointless a lot of the horserace coverage has been. Instead of a brand-new “Daily Show” host trying to find his feet, here were two veterans of the Jon Stewart-era show who have grown into their new roles and not only know who they are, but can riff with each other in a way that’s both entertaining and smart. It almost makes you want a buddy movie. It’s also hard not to notice that before and after Oliver showed up last night, Wednesday’s installment of “The Late Show” was straining a little. The bit on virtual reality, in which Colbert pretended to experience a GOP debate through a new headset, demonstrated his gift for physical comedy. But it still went on too long. That goes double for “Big Questions With Even Bigger Stars,” in which Colbert and Tom Hanks sprawled on a blanket outdoors and pondered the mysteries of the universe. (It started strong, as Colbert asked: “Hey Tom, why do you think bad things happen to good people?” Hanks: “Maybe it’s because God’s really old, and his eyes are going.”) By the end, Hanks just admitted it: The skit’s goal was simply “to kill four minutes before John Oliver comes out.” Colbert’s interview with Snapchat founder Evan Spiegel (how many times did Colbert say “billion” or “billionaire”?) only occasionally came to life. And while it was cool to see Bill Withers, the R&B musician and songwriter who’s experienced a well-deserved revival in recent years (and who turns out to be a serious Judge Judy fan), the three-way conversation with Ed Sheeran didn’t really go anywhere, either. But the few minutes with Oliver, who bounced onto stage and sat down with a fake bow, made up for the rough or blank spots elsewhere. After the low-key, handsome-guy boastfulness of Noah, Oliver’s self-deprecation was striking: He picked up Colbert’s praise – that his show had really caught fire -- by describing himself as “a pretty small blaze… the kind of heat that could partially toast a marshmallow.” Even the jokey sparring between the two -- with Oliver asserting that his single half-hour of television as “less is more… like heroin” – was based on undercutting his own achievement. How, Colbert asked, did Oliver’s “Last Week Tonight” come up with topics heavy enough to be worth pursuing for 18 minutes but engaging enough to matter to an audience? Oliver admitted it was never easy: “We’re on the precipice of disaster every week.” Oliver and Colbert have the practiced improviser’s combination of spontaneity, empathy, and perfect timing. It’s probably not fair to Noah to compared him to these two, or their absolute mastery when they’re together: Noah is young and still adjusting to a hosting role very different from his previous efforts as a stand-up comedian. There was a telling moment near the end, though, where Oliver and Colbert were praising Noah’s maiden voyage. “He’s taking on the impossible,” Oliver said. “You can’t replace the irreplaceable.” Colbert came back with, “I wouldn’t know what that’s like.” This was, of course, supposed to be a knowing reference to Colbert stepping into David Letterman’s shoes. But as titanic and influential a figure as Letterman proved to be, it’s difficult to imagine a lot of people pining for him the way Jon Stewart fans are still watching “The Daily Show” and waiting for the old bitter spark. Whether they’ll get it – or something satisfying in its own way -- is impossible to say at this point. But it became very clear last night that whatever else is going on in the world of late night these days, two of Stewart’s old alums are playing at the very top of their game.For those late-night observers who’ve spent the week watching Trevor Noah’s first week on “The Daily Show” with a kind of Talmudic focus, the arrival of John Oliver on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” registered as a kind of sensory overload. So far the most-quoted lines from the host convergence was Oliver’s assertion that he simply doesn’t care about Donald Trump. “I couldn’t give less of sh*t,” Oliver said of the truculent candidate. “It’s the 2016 election. And it’s 2015 right now. So I don’t care until we’re in the same year as the thing that I’m supposed to care about.” (For what it’s worth, because the term was bleeped, some think he may’ve said that he did not give a “f*ck.”) It’s also intriguing to note that neither the Birmingham-born, Cambridge-educated Oliver nor Johannesburg native Noah, are American citizens: So two of the most influential commentators on American politics cannot vote in U.S. elections. In any case, Oliver talked about the importance of political issues not tied up in the election, which is not a bad niche given how pointless a lot of the horserace coverage has been. Instead of a brand-new “Daily Show” host trying to find his feet, here were two veterans of the Jon Stewart-era show who have grown into their new roles and not only know who they are, but can riff with each other in a way that’s both entertaining and smart. It almost makes you want a buddy movie. It’s also hard not to notice that before and after Oliver showed up last night, Wednesday’s installment of “The Late Show” was straining a little. The bit on virtual reality, in which Colbert pretended to experience a GOP debate through a new headset, demonstrated his gift for physical comedy. But it still went on too long. That goes double for “Big Questions With Even Bigger Stars,” in which Colbert and Tom Hanks sprawled on a blanket outdoors and pondered the mysteries of the universe. (It started strong, as Colbert asked: “Hey Tom, why do you think bad things happen to good people?” Hanks: “Maybe it’s because God’s really old, and his eyes are going.”) By the end, Hanks just admitted it: The skit’s goal was simply “to kill four minutes before John Oliver comes out.” Colbert’s interview with Snapchat founder Evan Spiegel (how many times did Colbert say “billion” or “billionaire”?) only occasionally came to life. And while it was cool to see Bill Withers, the R&B musician and songwriter who’s experienced a well-deserved revival in recent years (and who turns out to be a serious Judge Judy fan), the three-way conversation with Ed Sheeran didn’t really go anywhere, either. But the few minutes with Oliver, who bounced onto stage and sat down with a fake bow, made up for the rough or blank spots elsewhere. After the low-key, handsome-guy boastfulness of Noah, Oliver’s self-deprecation was striking: He picked up Colbert’s praise – that his show had really caught fire -- by describing himself as “a pretty small blaze… the kind of heat that could partially toast a marshmallow.” Even the jokey sparring between the two -- with Oliver asserting that his single half-hour of television as “less is more… like heroin” – was based on undercutting his own achievement. How, Colbert asked, did Oliver’s “Last Week Tonight” come up with topics heavy enough to be worth pursuing for 18 minutes but engaging enough to matter to an audience? Oliver admitted it was never easy: “We’re on the precipice of disaster every week.” Oliver and Colbert have the practiced improviser’s combination of spontaneity, empathy, and perfect timing. It’s probably not fair to Noah to compared him to these two, or their absolute mastery when they’re together: Noah is young and still adjusting to a hosting role very different from his previous efforts as a stand-up comedian. There was a telling moment near the end, though, where Oliver and Colbert were praising Noah’s maiden voyage. “He’s taking on the impossible,” Oliver said. “You can’t replace the irreplaceable.” Colbert came back with, “I wouldn’t know what that’s like.” This was, of course, supposed to be a knowing reference to Colbert stepping into David Letterman’s shoes. But as titanic and influential a figure as Letterman proved to be, it’s difficult to imagine a lot of people pining for him the way Jon Stewart fans are still watching “The Daily Show” and waiting for the old bitter spark. Whether they’ll get it – or something satisfying in its own way -- is impossible to say at this point. But it became very clear last night that whatever else is going on in the world of late night these days, two of Stewart’s old alums are playing at the very top of their game.

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I hated not being white: The lies I told just to fit in haunt me still

“What do you think your name should be?” my dad asked me.

We were parked outside my new elementary school on Elm Street, I was excited: How many children get to choose a new name—and, by extension, a new identity?

I told my dad I wanted to be called “Ken,” a Japanese- American name, and, importantly, the name of a Street Fighter character. He suggested “Tom,” a name that would obscure any Asian ancestry.

Tom was close to the name my parents gave me: Tung, a Vietnamese name after the Tung tree meaning strength and fortitude. I had neither during my childhood; I was timid, so they called me Diệu, a girl’s name. Because of this, my identity existed in discrete units, fractioned out. At home I was Diệu, at school I was Tom, and on any official record I was Tung.

In my family, names were more than what people would call you. Parents would name their sons and daughters names that would signify traits they wanted to imbue in them. Names had powers. But when my parents and I immigrated to the U.S., names were just that: names. They were tools, not symbols. They were used to identify, not signify; utterly utilitarian.

In my family, my sister and I had the most Asian names. After my parents passed their naturalization test they changed their names to Steve and Kim. They gave the children they had after me far more white-American names: Tina, Justin and Brendon.

Why did I have to change my name?

I asked my dad this as an adult. He said he knew it would be easier for me and easier would be better. “It’s better to go with the crowd than to stand out,” he told me. And I believed him; he loved this country and the opportunities it gave him, even if at times it was awful. “Chink” and “gook” are words he didn’t understand, but I could, though I wouldn’t tell him what they meant. 

In some ways, I knew my dad was right; it probably was easier for me to make friends as Tom than it would have been as Tung. It was easier to live where we did without the stigma attached to a more ethnic name. Yet, changing my name didn’t change how I looked: Asian. Epicanthal folds, pug-shaped nose, black hair, brown eyes. These are features a person can’t escape.

In elementary school I auditioned for the lead of the school musical and instead was cast as Confucius (I was the only Asian person to audition for musical theater). At Asian restaurants, friends turned to me as an expert on cuisine and culture. In public, I’m not considered a threat but a model minority. Here is the thread that connects these experiences: I am seen as a representative of a race. Through no choice of my own, I represent Asians and Asian culture in settings where Asians are in the minority.

I never asked for this role. It’s a role that was given to me based on my identity and the perception of others. And here was the seed of my own self-hatred. I didn’t want to play the representative of some ethnic minority. I didn’t want to act as a canvas, painted with people’s expectations. I needed distance from this imposed burden.

Throughout high school and into college I was afraid of being stereotyped. I avoided other Asian people because I didn’t want that label, or any label at all. I picked interests that would differentiate me from the stereotypical Asians and limit my contact with other Asian students. I did improvisational comedy, I wrote poetry, I made short films. Instead of treating my racial peers as sources of solidarity, I felt alienated from them.

And, on some level, it felt good, this distancing. I couldn’t help feeling a sharp pang of glee every time someone would exclaim, “I never knew you did that” or “Wow, that’s totally unexpected.” I wanted to exist tabula rasa in the way that many people get to exist without any marked preconception. When they see Tom, I wanted them to think of the unlimited possibilities that could be behind that name. Or even just to think of nothing at all.

I was surrounded by people, close friends, who would say things such as, “You’re not like the other Asians” or “You’re more white than Asian.” At the time, these things didn’t bother me as much as they do today. I didn’t love comments like this but they were an affirmation that my efforts to blend in were working.

Even so, as hard as I worked to exist outside a stereotypical framework, I could never truly escape it, even if I wanted to believe that I had.

One night, at a bar, while I was trying to make conversation with a woman, she rebuffed me with, “I don’t think of Asian men as men. Sorry.” Even faced with this sort of rejection, I still found myself returning, over and over, to white women.

I also had very few non-white friends. I wanted so much to not be judged, to be neutral or blank, that I was perpetuating the racism my name and behavior were meant to avoid. While I was cleaning my own slate, I was filthying the waters around me.

I believed that because white Americans had fewer preconceptions pushed on them, they were somehow freer to choose what they would do, and that this freedom made them more interesting. I thought that because Asians were subject to preconceptions, they would in turn be more predictable and boring. I was pushing my bias onto others, seeing myself as more enlightened  than other Asians.

It was years before I realized that this was happening, that I was internalizing my racism, projecting it unconsciously. Getting there took long conversations with other people who had similar experiences. It took several talks with people in interracial relationships about dating and racial lines. It took discussions with my parents.

Where do I go from here? Now, when I see someone, I do check myself. I run through a mental flow chart to detect where my biases are. I want to identify them and I want to erase them. I don't want to live life to escape others' expectations. And the first step is to acknowledge where I have failed.

These days, when I think about my name, I feel the push and pull of Tung and Tom. I feel like I’m cheating on the past. I think of how I can compromise the tug of all my identities. Maybe people can call me T. Phan or T. V. Phan. Yet I also think of how such a compromise would affect others' perceptions of me, and my perception of myself. It would be all too easy to relinquish a culture to which I am only tenuously tied. And I’m afraid I can’t turn back.

“What do you think your name should be?” my dad asked me.

We were parked outside my new elementary school on Elm Street, I was excited: How many children get to choose a new name—and, by extension, a new identity?

I told my dad I wanted to be called “Ken,” a Japanese- American name, and, importantly, the name of a Street Fighter character. He suggested “Tom,” a name that would obscure any Asian ancestry.

Tom was close to the name my parents gave me: Tung, a Vietnamese name after the Tung tree meaning strength and fortitude. I had neither during my childhood; I was timid, so they called me Diệu, a girl’s name. Because of this, my identity existed in discrete units, fractioned out. At home I was Diệu, at school I was Tom, and on any official record I was Tung.

In my family, names were more than what people would call you. Parents would name their sons and daughters names that would signify traits they wanted to imbue in them. Names had powers. But when my parents and I immigrated to the U.S., names were just that: names. They were tools, not symbols. They were used to identify, not signify; utterly utilitarian.

In my family, my sister and I had the most Asian names. After my parents passed their naturalization test they changed their names to Steve and Kim. They gave the children they had after me far more white-American names: Tina, Justin and Brendon.

Why did I have to change my name?

I asked my dad this as an adult. He said he knew it would be easier for me and easier would be better. “It’s better to go with the crowd than to stand out,” he told me. And I believed him; he loved this country and the opportunities it gave him, even if at times it was awful. “Chink” and “gook” are words he didn’t understand, but I could, though I wouldn’t tell him what they meant. 

In some ways, I knew my dad was right; it probably was easier for me to make friends as Tom than it would have been as Tung. It was easier to live where we did without the stigma attached to a more ethnic name. Yet, changing my name didn’t change how I looked: Asian. Epicanthal folds, pug-shaped nose, black hair, brown eyes. These are features a person can’t escape.

In elementary school I auditioned for the lead of the school musical and instead was cast as Confucius (I was the only Asian person to audition for musical theater). At Asian restaurants, friends turned to me as an expert on cuisine and culture. In public, I’m not considered a threat but a model minority. Here is the thread that connects these experiences: I am seen as a representative of a race. Through no choice of my own, I represent Asians and Asian culture in settings where Asians are in the minority.

I never asked for this role. It’s a role that was given to me based on my identity and the perception of others. And here was the seed of my own self-hatred. I didn’t want to play the representative of some ethnic minority. I didn’t want to act as a canvas, painted with people’s expectations. I needed distance from this imposed burden.

Throughout high school and into college I was afraid of being stereotyped. I avoided other Asian people because I didn’t want that label, or any label at all. I picked interests that would differentiate me from the stereotypical Asians and limit my contact with other Asian students. I did improvisational comedy, I wrote poetry, I made short films. Instead of treating my racial peers as sources of solidarity, I felt alienated from them.

And, on some level, it felt good, this distancing. I couldn’t help feeling a sharp pang of glee every time someone would exclaim, “I never knew you did that” or “Wow, that’s totally unexpected.” I wanted to exist tabula rasa in the way that many people get to exist without any marked preconception. When they see Tom, I wanted them to think of the unlimited possibilities that could be behind that name. Or even just to think of nothing at all.

I was surrounded by people, close friends, who would say things such as, “You’re not like the other Asians” or “You’re more white than Asian.” At the time, these things didn’t bother me as much as they do today. I didn’t love comments like this but they were an affirmation that my efforts to blend in were working.

Even so, as hard as I worked to exist outside a stereotypical framework, I could never truly escape it, even if I wanted to believe that I had.

One night, at a bar, while I was trying to make conversation with a woman, she rebuffed me with, “I don’t think of Asian men as men. Sorry.” Even faced with this sort of rejection, I still found myself returning, over and over, to white women.

I also had very few non-white friends. I wanted so much to not be judged, to be neutral or blank, that I was perpetuating the racism my name and behavior were meant to avoid. While I was cleaning my own slate, I was filthying the waters around me.

I believed that because white Americans had fewer preconceptions pushed on them, they were somehow freer to choose what they would do, and that this freedom made them more interesting. I thought that because Asians were subject to preconceptions, they would in turn be more predictable and boring. I was pushing my bias onto others, seeing myself as more enlightened  than other Asians.

It was years before I realized that this was happening, that I was internalizing my racism, projecting it unconsciously. Getting there took long conversations with other people who had similar experiences. It took several talks with people in interracial relationships about dating and racial lines. It took discussions with my parents.

Where do I go from here? Now, when I see someone, I do check myself. I run through a mental flow chart to detect where my biases are. I want to identify them and I want to erase them. I don't want to live life to escape others' expectations. And the first step is to acknowledge where I have failed.

These days, when I think about my name, I feel the push and pull of Tung and Tom. I feel like I’m cheating on the past. I think of how I can compromise the tug of all my identities. Maybe people can call me T. Phan or T. V. Phan. Yet I also think of how such a compromise would affect others' perceptions of me, and my perception of myself. It would be all too easy to relinquish a culture to which I am only tenuously tied. And I’m afraid I can’t turn back.

“What do you think your name should be?” my dad asked me.

We were parked outside my new elementary school on Elm Street, I was excited: How many children get to choose a new name—and, by extension, a new identity?

I told my dad I wanted to be called “Ken,” a Japanese- American name, and, importantly, the name of a Street Fighter character. He suggested “Tom,” a name that would obscure any Asian ancestry.

Tom was close to the name my parents gave me: Tung, a Vietnamese name after the Tung tree meaning strength and fortitude. I had neither during my childhood; I was timid, so they called me Diệu, a girl’s name. Because of this, my identity existed in discrete units, fractioned out. At home I was Diệu, at school I was Tom, and on any official record I was Tung.

In my family, names were more than what people would call you. Parents would name their sons and daughters names that would signify traits they wanted to imbue in them. Names had powers. But when my parents and I immigrated to the U.S., names were just that: names. They were tools, not symbols. They were used to identify, not signify; utterly utilitarian.

In my family, my sister and I had the most Asian names. After my parents passed their naturalization test they changed their names to Steve and Kim. They gave the children they had after me far more white-American names: Tina, Justin and Brendon.

Why did I have to change my name?

I asked my dad this as an adult. He said he knew it would be easier for me and easier would be better. “It’s better to go with the crowd than to stand out,” he told me. And I believed him; he loved this country and the opportunities it gave him, even if at times it was awful. “Chink” and “gook” are words he didn’t understand, but I could, though I wouldn’t tell him what they meant. 

In some ways, I knew my dad was right; it probably was easier for me to make friends as Tom than it would have been as Tung. It was easier to live where we did without the stigma attached to a more ethnic name. Yet, changing my name didn’t change how I looked: Asian. Epicanthal folds, pug-shaped nose, black hair, brown eyes. These are features a person can’t escape.

In elementary school I auditioned for the lead of the school musical and instead was cast as Confucius (I was the only Asian person to audition for musical theater). At Asian restaurants, friends turned to me as an expert on cuisine and culture. In public, I’m not considered a threat but a model minority. Here is the thread that connects these experiences: I am seen as a representative of a race. Through no choice of my own, I represent Asians and Asian culture in settings where Asians are in the minority.

I never asked for this role. It’s a role that was given to me based on my identity and the perception of others. And here was the seed of my own self-hatred. I didn’t want to play the representative of some ethnic minority. I didn’t want to act as a canvas, painted with people’s expectations. I needed distance from this imposed burden.

Throughout high school and into college I was afraid of being stereotyped. I avoided other Asian people because I didn’t want that label, or any label at all. I picked interests that would differentiate me from the stereotypical Asians and limit my contact with other Asian students. I did improvisational comedy, I wrote poetry, I made short films. Instead of treating my racial peers as sources of solidarity, I felt alienated from them.

And, on some level, it felt good, this distancing. I couldn’t help feeling a sharp pang of glee every time someone would exclaim, “I never knew you did that” or “Wow, that’s totally unexpected.” I wanted to exist tabula rasa in the way that many people get to exist without any marked preconception. When they see Tom, I wanted them to think of the unlimited possibilities that could be behind that name. Or even just to think of nothing at all.

I was surrounded by people, close friends, who would say things such as, “You’re not like the other Asians” or “You’re more white than Asian.” At the time, these things didn’t bother me as much as they do today. I didn’t love comments like this but they were an affirmation that my efforts to blend in were working.

Even so, as hard as I worked to exist outside a stereotypical framework, I could never truly escape it, even if I wanted to believe that I had.

One night, at a bar, while I was trying to make conversation with a woman, she rebuffed me with, “I don’t think of Asian men as men. Sorry.” Even faced with this sort of rejection, I still found myself returning, over and over, to white women.

I also had very few non-white friends. I wanted so much to not be judged, to be neutral or blank, that I was perpetuating the racism my name and behavior were meant to avoid. While I was cleaning my own slate, I was filthying the waters around me.

I believed that because white Americans had fewer preconceptions pushed on them, they were somehow freer to choose what they would do, and that this freedom made them more interesting. I thought that because Asians were subject to preconceptions, they would in turn be more predictable and boring. I was pushing my bias onto others, seeing myself as more enlightened  than other Asians.

It was years before I realized that this was happening, that I was internalizing my racism, projecting it unconsciously. Getting there took long conversations with other people who had similar experiences. It took several talks with people in interracial relationships about dating and racial lines. It took discussions with my parents.

Where do I go from here? Now, when I see someone, I do check myself. I run through a mental flow chart to detect where my biases are. I want to identify them and I want to erase them. I don't want to live life to escape others' expectations. And the first step is to acknowledge where I have failed.

These days, when I think about my name, I feel the push and pull of Tung and Tom. I feel like I’m cheating on the past. I think of how I can compromise the tug of all my identities. Maybe people can call me T. Phan or T. V. Phan. Yet I also think of how such a compromise would affect others' perceptions of me, and my perception of myself. It would be all too easy to relinquish a culture to which I am only tenuously tied. And I’m afraid I can’t turn back.

“What do you think your name should be?” my dad asked me.

We were parked outside my new elementary school on Elm Street, I was excited: How many children get to choose a new name—and, by extension, a new identity?

I told my dad I wanted to be called “Ken,” a Japanese- American name, and, importantly, the name of a Street Fighter character. He suggested “Tom,” a name that would obscure any Asian ancestry.

Tom was close to the name my parents gave me: Tung, a Vietnamese name after the Tung tree meaning strength and fortitude. I had neither during my childhood; I was timid, so they called me Diệu, a girl’s name. Because of this, my identity existed in discrete units, fractioned out. At home I was Diệu, at school I was Tom, and on any official record I was Tung.

In my family, names were more than what people would call you. Parents would name their sons and daughters names that would signify traits they wanted to imbue in them. Names had powers. But when my parents and I immigrated to the U.S., names were just that: names. They were tools, not symbols. They were used to identify, not signify; utterly utilitarian.

In my family, my sister and I had the most Asian names. After my parents passed their naturalization test they changed their names to Steve and Kim. They gave the children they had after me far more white-American names: Tina, Justin and Brendon.

Why did I have to change my name?

I asked my dad this as an adult. He said he knew it would be easier for me and easier would be better. “It’s better to go with the crowd than to stand out,” he told me. And I believed him; he loved this country and the opportunities it gave him, even if at times it was awful. “Chink” and “gook” are words he didn’t understand, but I could, though I wouldn’t tell him what they meant. 

In some ways, I knew my dad was right; it probably was easier for me to make friends as Tom than it would have been as Tung. It was easier to live where we did without the stigma attached to a more ethnic name. Yet, changing my name didn’t change how I looked: Asian. Epicanthal folds, pug-shaped nose, black hair, brown eyes. These are features a person can’t escape.

In elementary school I auditioned for the lead of the school musical and instead was cast as Confucius (I was the only Asian person to audition for musical theater). At Asian restaurants, friends turned to me as an expert on cuisine and culture. In public, I’m not considered a threat but a model minority. Here is the thread that connects these experiences: I am seen as a representative of a race. Through no choice of my own, I represent Asians and Asian culture in settings where Asians are in the minority.

I never asked for this role. It’s a role that was given to me based on my identity and the perception of others. And here was the seed of my own self-hatred. I didn’t want to play the representative of some ethnic minority. I didn’t want to act as a canvas, painted with people’s expectations. I needed distance from this imposed burden.

Throughout high school and into college I was afraid of being stereotyped. I avoided other Asian people because I didn’t want that label, or any label at all. I picked interests that would differentiate me from the stereotypical Asians and limit my contact with other Asian students. I did improvisational comedy, I wrote poetry, I made short films. Instead of treating my racial peers as sources of solidarity, I felt alienated from them.

And, on some level, it felt good, this distancing. I couldn’t help feeling a sharp pang of glee every time someone would exclaim, “I never knew you did that” or “Wow, that’s totally unexpected.” I wanted to exist tabula rasa in the way that many people get to exist without any marked preconception. When they see Tom, I wanted them to think of the unlimited possibilities that could be behind that name. Or even just to think of nothing at all.

I was surrounded by people, close friends, who would say things such as, “You’re not like the other Asians” or “You’re more white than Asian.” At the time, these things didn’t bother me as much as they do today. I didn’t love comments like this but they were an affirmation that my efforts to blend in were working.

Even so, as hard as I worked to exist outside a stereotypical framework, I could never truly escape it, even if I wanted to believe that I had.

One night, at a bar, while I was trying to make conversation with a woman, she rebuffed me with, “I don’t think of Asian men as men. Sorry.” Even faced with this sort of rejection, I still found myself returning, over and over, to white women.

I also had very few non-white friends. I wanted so much to not be judged, to be neutral or blank, that I was perpetuating the racism my name and behavior were meant to avoid. While I was cleaning my own slate, I was filthying the waters around me.

I believed that because white Americans had fewer preconceptions pushed on them, they were somehow freer to choose what they would do, and that this freedom made them more interesting. I thought that because Asians were subject to preconceptions, they would in turn be more predictable and boring. I was pushing my bias onto others, seeing myself as more enlightened  than other Asians.

It was years before I realized that this was happening, that I was internalizing my racism, projecting it unconsciously. Getting there took long conversations with other people who had similar experiences. It took several talks with people in interracial relationships about dating and racial lines. It took discussions with my parents.

Where do I go from here? Now, when I see someone, I do check myself. I run through a mental flow chart to detect where my biases are. I want to identify them and I want to erase them. I don't want to live life to escape others' expectations. And the first step is to acknowledge where I have failed.

These days, when I think about my name, I feel the push and pull of Tung and Tom. I feel like I’m cheating on the past. I think of how I can compromise the tug of all my identities. Maybe people can call me T. Phan or T. V. Phan. Yet I also think of how such a compromise would affect others' perceptions of me, and my perception of myself. It would be all too easy to relinquish a culture to which I am only tenuously tied. And I’m afraid I can’t turn back.

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