There's More To It Than Scholastics

My heart goes out to this kid Jerry Liu. I've never even met the guy, but I know or have met a lot of guys like him. One of them in fact was me during my younger days.

I found this video a few weeks back and meant to share it with you earlier, but didn't know how to approach it without offending or ridiculing the guy. Take a look here if you're interested (he's restricted video embedding).

First off, I give Jerry props for putting himself out there in the public sphere like that on YouTube. It's not easy by any means. I'd also like to give props to his mother for being so supportive of her son. I've heard of other dismal stories about Chinese mothers raising their sons into becoming average frustrated chumps, but luckily his mom seems very supportive of him and does what a moms should do - listen.

I posted a comment on one of Jerry's videos asking him what the point of the whole "Would you ever date an Asian-American male?" section was about, but he removed my comment. My intention wasn't to impart ill will on Jerry, but rather help him see that the way he and many other Asian American guys carry themselves is only reinforcing the very negative stereotypes we all condemn. To be quite honest, I didn't see much of a difference between Jerry and the Asian male characters in the referenced films. Did you? Don't get me wrong. It's not a bad thing to be nerdy and intelligent. Frankly, I think it's awesome BUT...

...herein lies the problem...