JRE, Bruce Lee, and Model Minority (Patreon)

(Peter Yew police brutality protests in front of New York City Supreme Court. Source: Corky Lee/Interference Archives)

By Sam (@StuffFromSam)

Wild that it was Bruce Lee who put a rift among Joe Rogan Experience fans. But since it's JRE, it's still chud vs. chud. You got orientalizers vs. white nationalists (different faces of anti-Asian racism with different goals), both turning Lee into a different cartoon. They all still think of COVID as the "China Virus" and are either silent or only have bad things to say about Sha'Carri Richardson and Gwen Berry right now. Non-Black Lee/JRE fans are often either quiet as fuck to anti-Black racism or promote anti-Black racism. The JRE pro-Tarantino, pro-Lee sides are ultimately still members of the same team. This is why the rift is only temporary—like all rifts within American masculinity culture. I say American because though Bruce Lee is an international star, only Americans care what Tarantino said on the Joe Rogan Experience. (Like only Americans cared what John Cena said in Chinese.)

As an Asian person, I admire Bruce Lee a lot. Still, in another way, as an Asian person in America, I cringe when he's brought up. Because I've never had him brought up to me in a conversation where I ended up feeling more humanized or more listened to. If they bring Lee up to me because I'm Asian, I've already lost them. I'll only be a cartoon. But it's not just about Lee; martial arts in America didn't make the country less white supremacist. In fact, white supremacists like anything to do with fighting and combat. Potential for violence and cartoonish "warrior culture" is sort of their lane. They fetishize discipline and honor. They love conversations around the most "realistic" ways to kill. They love conversations around who would beat who in a fight because it's really about masculinity, which is an indispensable part of white supremacy. This is why supremacists also often like Bruce Lee. (Nearly all conversations around Bruce Lee are centered around who he could beat, or kill, in a fight.) This is why so many JRE fans are Lee fans are MMA fans.

Self-defense scenarios of unknown assailants almost always use the fear of the Black Other. Martial arts often ends up de facto military or police training without being in the military or police. After George Floyd, martial arts stood mostly on the side of the police. (Why wouldn't it?) Look at who ends up in martial arts, who teaches martial arts, whom martial arts teaches, caters to, is contracted by. Then look at JRE guests. 

Shannon Lee herself recently talked about how Lee is turned into a "caricature" by many fans. But she differentiated positive stereotypes as coming from "some sort of nugget of love for the man and his work." Love or fetish? There are two definitions of fetish, both apply to Asians: 

1. a form of sexual desire in which gratification is linked to an abnormal degree to a particular OBJECT, item of clothing, part of the body, etc.

2. an inanimate OBJECT worshiped for its supposed magical powers or because it is considered to be inhabited by a spirit or deity.

If we mistake this for love, then the Magical Asian caricature is better than the Yellow Peril caricature (Tarantino uses both). But this is just the model minority myth. (Note how there was little controversy when Tarantino used the exoticized Magical Asian caricature or when Lee fans turn Bruce Lee into a Mr. Miyagi minstrel. That's because Asian Americans of past generations loved or still love the "positive" AKA model minority myths even though it's not a fully realized person and still subject to the white gaze and standards. This is why I don't necessarily trust the takes of other Asian Americans because I've seen too many rely on white expectations, standards of white masculinity and beauty, Crazy Rich Asian success, individual excellence, or plain old neoliberal achievement culture. Stares in Andrew Yang.) But to call it a myth isn't just denouncing the stereotypes themselves, but also to say the stereotypes achieve no positive end. Though whites vs. everyone else seems more insidious at face value, it creates solidarity among the outgroup. This is why the clever ones use model minority because it divides and conquers.

Right now, people are using Bruce Lee as a proxy for Asian Americans. From that logic, a negative portrayal is obvious. To erroneously believe Lee faced more oppression from Chinese people than white society is not only obvious but laughable. What's less obvious and the cause of so much anxiety and depression for Asian Americans is the belief that you have to be the best at something—you have to be perfect—to be worthy. This is the blight of the model minority myth.