A white guy named Michael couldn’t get his poem published. Then he became Yi-Fen Chou.

Washington Post ^ | 9/8/15 | Sarah Kaplan

[NowApproachingMidnight]

A white guy named Michael couldn’t get his poem published. Then he became Yi-Fen Chou.

[NowApproachingMidnight]

A white guy named Michael couldn’t get his poem published. Then he became Yi-Fen Chou.

[Greetings_Puny_Humans]

He should have went with a black name and claimed he was transracial.

[ClearCase_guy]

Sum Ting Wong

[GregoTX]

So who is supposed to pretend to be offended on this one?

[Tzimisce]

There is no bias in the media.

If you stupid white, racist, sexist, homophobic, teabagging crackers were smarter, you’d know that.

[Nervous Tick]

Wi Tu Lo!

[PGalt]

Yu-Fen-Mi

[Bryanw92]

>>So who is supposed to pretend to be offended on this one?

EVERYONE! it’s 2015. You don’t need a reason to be offended anymore. Being offended these days is like weed at Woodstock....there plenty to go around so don’t hog it all for yourself.

[petenmi]

It worked for Jerry Lewis.

[central_va]

Some of the comments from WaPo are good:

“When you’re doing this from a position of entitlement”

What entitlement? If he was in a position of entitlement, by definition, his poem would have been published the first time under his real name. The fact was that he was anything *but* in a position of entitlement; given that his poem was judged one of the best in the nation that year, but he still couldn’t get it published, it’s clear that he was being discriminated against because of his name, not entitled by it.

The idea that white people, especially white males, can never claim to be the targets of bigotry or prejudice, simply because they are white, is itself an extreme position of bigotry. Here we have a clear case of indefensible discrimination based solely on race, and yet the victim is somehow the guilty one for exposing it, because of his race. The only reason seems to be because the bigots are embarrassed by having been exposed for what they actually are.

Either that, or they’re claiming that Asians are the entitled ones, who deserve to be published even if they can’t write, simply because of they’re race, and he was wrong for stealing that entitlement. I’m still not sure which alternative is more racist, but either way, anyone who thinks the poet was the one in the wrong is clearly a racist bigot.

—Rob29

[central_va]

Reverse discrimination bump.

[Vehmgericht]

So Long Doe

[boycott]

So much for “white privilege.”

[Stand Watch Listen]

[daniel1212]

And he acknowledged that he was “more amenable” to the poem because he thought its author was Chinese American.

“If I’d pulled the poem then I would have been denying that I gave the poem special attention because of the poet’s Chinese pseudonym. If I’d pulled the poem then I would have been denying that I was consciously and deliberately seeking to address past racial, cultural, social, and aesthetic injustices in the poetry world.”

No bias there!

Now how would this be for a candidate:

Freedom, not Sodom

There’s freedom in America, the land of the red white and blue;

but there still must be laws, things you just can’t do.

You can’t marry your sister, your brother, or the family pet;

a sheep, or a goat - at least not yet!

That how is it with homosexuality, what the Bible calls sodomy;

men lying with men as with women, is perversity!

That they’re not designed that way, tis easy to perceive,

but yielding to sinful desires, man is soon deceived.

A moral wrong is not a civil right; like the sin itself, that’s confusion;

calling evil good and exchanging light for darkness, is sure delusion!

History tells us where this will lead, from societies now in dust,

When a nation casts off the laws of God, and follows it’s own lusts.

Promoting a sin which sends one to Hell from an early grave,

dishonors God and robs man of the Life He gave.

There’s but one answer: the Risen Jesus gave Himself for our sins;

Repent and believe, then truly follow Him!

[g.orwell]

Two wongs don’t make a wight

[Anitius Severinus Boethius]

And including a poem whose origins were racist, as Ewing put it, defeats Alexie’s stated goal of making the Best American collection more diverse.

This is the crux of the problem. Diversity is the result of a level playing field. When you make diversity the goal you skew the playing field on purpose and make it unfair.

[SaraJohnson]

This is what they call a case of institutionalized racism. No one with a whitey name can get a poem published; only if he’s Asian. That is what the liberal racists call “white privilege”.

[ViLaLuz]

Ha ha ha ha aaaaaaaaa

[Zeppo]

At least he didn’t publish under the pen name of “Bang Ding Ow”.