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Yellow Bodies

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Clarissa

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Note to the wise: the expression “black and brown bodies” has been expanded to include “yellow bodies.” Not by me, mind you. It would have never occurred to me to use it.

In the book I’m reading – which is a mainstream novel and “A Good Morning America Book Club Pick”, as well as “Best Book” by Glamour, TIME and Cosmopolitan – “yellow bodies” are Japanese, and I’m not sure I want to know who else might count.

Unlike “black and brown bodies” where only the “bodies” part is iffy, the expression “yellow bodies” is even more disturbing because isn’t “yellow” an insult when applied to East Asians?

The novel, titled Mika in Real Life, is actually quite good but I’m only 12% in. I’ll post a review when I’m finished.

6 responses to “Yellow Bodies”

  1. el Avatar
    el

    Asking for advice re TV series for my mother. We are at summer vacation and she really wants something nice. She loved “Downton Abbey” , but finished it. Would be grateful for any help. Movies are fine too, but TV series are better since they are long. The longer, the better.

    Have you finished Bykov’s book re Zelensky? How is it so far?

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  2. Avatar
    Anonymous

    Weirdly enough, I could’ve predicted this based on the cover. There’s a certain kind of book cover that heavily correlates with wokeness (only seen on light reads targeted at women; other genres have different conventions.)

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  3. Avatar
    Anonymous

    Yes yellow has long been considered racist and not used. A very cute old book was criticized for having the Chinese people colored yellow.

    Amanda

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  4. methylethyl Avatar
    methylethyl

    OT: but since the subject had come up in another thread…

    https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2024/07/a-self-inflicted-tragedy-in-gaza.html

    for those still confused by the “OMG they’re killing children” thing.

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    1. Hyakujo's Fox Avatar
      Hyakujo’s Fox

      Oh god! This was horrifying to read!

      How much confidence do we have in such reporting? It is difficult for _me_ to imagine people would use children that way, but then human beings can be absolute monsters, far worse than any one of us can imagine. I’m very distant from this conflict and it’s difficult for me to judge the veracity of any account from either side.

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      1. methylethyl Avatar
        methylethyl

        He’s mostly not talking about Gaza. He’s talking about his experience in the South African military. I see no reason to doubt his reminiscences, as he references his military experience fairly frequently on his blog, and not in a “look-at-my-badass-self” kind of way, but more usually in a “look at this neat airplane” kind of way, which is half the reason I keep tabs on that blog– gives me things to pass along to my aviation-crazy kid. Geek bonding and stuff.

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A conservative literary critic and college professor

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