This is a very interesting article posted over at Fallout Central, about minority women in White male dominated society.  I think interesting parts or conclusions of this essay (from my interpretation) are that minority women who act in blatantly Uncle Tom or self hating ways, or revel in being the token Asian ‘honorary White’ among their friends, or who try to assimilate or get their White trophy, in reality are not actually gaining in privilege, though in their minds they somehow derive self esteem from this.

Article

[A lot of the times when I see another Asian girl that is a stranger on the street, for some reason I automatically act hostile towards them. We exchange unapproachable glances, and in my mind I am judging them by the way they look, the way the dress, who they are with, and sizing them up to see if they are any threat to me. Why do I do this? Every Asian girl I have talked to admits to doing this.. Actually, scratch that, every minority girl I know acts this way towards someone of their own race. Why?

It seems Asian and minority men don’t face this same hostility with each other. When I asked my brother if he felt the way that I do towards Asian girls he asked quite shocked, “You actually feel threatened?” I got similar astounded responses from my Asian guy friends as well. Why do they not judge each other as much as Asian women do?

Perplexed by this issue, I turned to my friend Soumya (pronounced like Sonya with an “m”–Somya), a beautiful girl from California who happens to be Indian as well. I asked if she felt threatened at times, and she said yes. We were both surprised by our own responses. It seems that while many girls feel threatened or hostile, rarely do we acknowledge it. Even when we acknowledge it, we don’t even know exactly why we feel and act this way. For me, the actual reason may be a little frightening. It reveals an intense insecurity about our identity as minority and Asian women.]

[...Therein lies the ultimate paradox that Soumya and I discovered. The racial differences that limit us, make us feel insecure, and makes us feel worthless are the same differences that we have benefited from. Our racial novelty has given us a degree of social success, but we hate its implications. Thus, Soumya and I agree we judge and size up other minority women to see how big of a threat they are to the status quo of our social standing. We fear that we will be outshone.

...I size up others out of my own insecurity, but I have felt the glare as well. I wonder why other girls do it too? Is it really going to be a case-by-case reason, or are we all responding to our insecurity in our place in a white society?]