"DJing as a FIlipino Thing" by Tiongson

Race has always been a touchy topic to me. I never really liked to talk about it in fear of saying something that would hurt someone else. As a result, I do not have a good understanding of races or cultures beyond my own. I was raised to accept everyone for who they are and to not judge someone based upon their background, but is this the type of liberal pluralism that Tiongson is taking a stand against?

The beginning of this reading confused me. "Authenticate" threw me off. I defined this as setting oneself apart from the rest -- essentially to be different. However, now I see that authenticate is used to show the legitimacy of Filipino DJs as DJs. According to Tiongson, Filipino DJs do this by expressing their experiences, values, and simply by the universal virtue of music. However, this does not set them apart from any other DJ. While it may legitimize their DJ status, what sets them apart from other DJs? Really, the only difference is the futuristic inspiration of their music.

While everyone may have experiences, values, and a liking for music, different cultures have variations of this. Something that I think Tiongson fails to do is to address the specific ways that FIlipinos live out different lives and have different values. He briefly mentions it on page 52: : "hip-hop constitutes an expressive form they are more intimately familiar with than the culture of their parents." Tradition Filipino values are strict and conservative and hip-hop is a means to escape this. Tiongson should have expanded upon this. I mean, how could you argue for culture and not explain Filipino society.

However, my main interest lies in the cultural vs human argument. The thing is, I don't know what is racist and what is not. For example, my grandma likes to address people to me by race. "There's this nice Mexican lady", "This haole's (white people) girl", "Is your new girlfriend Korean?". I feel like this has racist undertones because she is addressing someone solely on their race. I was always told to not see color, but today, being "colorblind" is a bad thing. Being colorblind means that you don't take into account someone's race and background. But to do so, isn't that racist? To me, both seem insulting. Tiongson seems to argue against Q-Bert's Liberal Pluralism -- the idea that we need diversity. But this is to the point where people don't see diversity -- they are colorblind. I guess to do so, people like Q-Bert "downplay the race issue."

It is definitely a valid argument to say that Filipino-American DJ to fight racial stereotypes against them. I also agree that it gives them identity in a media world that does not know what to brand them. (Asian? Pacific Islander? Filipino? American?) But I feel uncomfortable making a point that a DJ is specifically Filipino. It just, feels off to me. Racist, even. Shouldn't I address someone based on their characters and actions? I don't know.