I’ve been feeling uneasy about the huge push by big media and Hollywood (neither of whom I associate myself with even on friendly terms) are pushing so hard to have more minority presence in stories they tell. (As in movies, TV shows and other fictional work like novels.

Let’s drop out of warp speed and into a space where we can and do consider race in their self centered perspective. Majority Caucasian people in America decides they want to integrate more of minority and foreign cultures to enhance their own lives. Better stories because of variety. Or perhaps they want to absorb some good bits that foreign people and culture has experimented for a long time (like yoga and meditation). Okay, this makes complete sense.

The minority races, those that do come to America, are eager to provide these aspects of their persons and culture because they were essentially free for them to get and otherwise valueless. It makes sense to dish out the sacred teachings of yogis, mavens and senseis because those wisdom and secrets are kind of useless because everyone there knows them well. But to your red blooded white American boy, it is the heavens and nirvana combined.

At least, that’s what the producers and show creators are thinking when they scream for more minority presence on screen. YMMV though depending on the exact mixture of ingredients.

There could also be rational explanations for why American minority stories are being sought. The essence of this truism, btw, this is one of those cultural secrets from China: is that many minorities suffer from creatively engineered indignities and pains. The centuries or lopsided society created by white majority discriminating against colored people have not only given white people comfortable lives, but also the leisure and freedom to engage in active, sustained and targeted tormentation of minorities. The result is that American minorities had to work much harder to get anything from basic living necessities to comfort items. The net result is that true minority stories tend to be more interesting because of the straining and maneuvering they had to perform to live here.

It’s hard to describe. For example, if white peoples were naughty boys and they had nothing better to do than to rip off two legs from the left side of an insect. They discover that the 4-legged creature, after some struggling times, figured out how to crawl in gradually shifting circles in order to achieve a forward motion towards its food which it continues to strive for in order to bring it to its children. The insect is surely in miserable pain and horrific depression. But to the boys, this dance looks beautiful! He might even reward the insect by feeding it and taking it away from its children to dance for him full time. Modern version of this story may inspire the boy to use reinforcement learning to train a tiny robot that he trains to mimic the biological insect… how absolutely fascinating are our lives!

Of course, it is quite possible that American minorities, despite their sufferings, did not create interesting stories. This would be the ultimate sad story, that we minorities not only got the worst end of the birth lottery, but also that it happened to no greater good that we can claim part of. We suffered for naught.

That insect might have stepped on its trailing entrails and pulled everything out thereby accidentally committing suicide. It’s children eventually finding him will eat his corpse out of hunger. Disgusting and not that interesting… at least not to me atm. Please do not make a movie about that!

All these thoughts, mainly because I see a lot of Asian-centric entertainment coming online in America. But I do not feel like there are very identifiable, trustworthy, reasonable, powerful and honorable cultural leaderships in America.

Maybe music stars and movies stars did this for previous generations? Maybe presidents and other politicians did this for previous generations? Maybe school teachers and maybe even police provided this for everyone in the past? Who is showing us the way today? Who will show modern American minorities the way today?