The Asian One Drop Rule

Gay Chinese Broadway actor B.D. Wong is really, really angry that now that Darren Criss is leaving the Tony Awards winning Broadway sci-fi musical Maybe Happy Ending about retired robots in Korea, he is being replaced by Andrew Barth Feldman, who is Darren’s Chinese leading lady’s Jewish boyfriend:

How come Wong is so filled with racist hate toward the Jewish actor?

Because Wong views the Jew as white, and therefore his enemy.

Although Criss looks like a handsome white guy and Feldman looks like a not quite as handsome white guy, Wong is adamant that the majority white Criss having a mostly East Asian (but partly Spanish) Filipina mom therefore privileges the Asian race to possess all the major roles in Mostly Happy Ending eternally. But not the Korean race (Wong has no objection to Chinese-Americans such as himself or Feldman’s girlfriend Helen J. Shen playing Koreans). This is according to the highly scientific Asian One Drop Rule, even though nobody had ever heard of it before:

Last week, MAYBE HAPPY ENDING announced that its Tony-winning hero, the charismatic Darren Criss, ending his run, will be replaced by Andrew Barth Feldman.

This essay concerns the fact that Mr. Criss is of Asian American descent, and Mr. Feldman is not.

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The Asian community, particularly actors, feels rather betrayed by the news. The show’s Asian-ness barely enjoyed, this came as a shock. I celebrate MHE’s many merits while responding honestly to this news. Wish me luck.

Re Mr. Criss’ racial identity: if you believe an Asian person with two Asian parents is “more Asian” than an Asian person with one (etc.), this essay isn’t for you. We don’t gauge someone’s Asian-ness on a “gradient scale” in my house. As for “how Asian” an actor “reads on stage”? Don’t be so shallow! Those who process race this way might be less exposed to race, understood. When one’s open to the multi-racial-ness around us, one will encounter diverse racial self-identities…but please don’t label someone a “percentage” of something. Percentages are for comparing historical family facts.

{snip}

Similarly, the New York Times news section reports that Criss is Asian and nothing but Asian, while Feldman is white:

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It’s almost like this whole multiracialism thing, while it all makes sense in theory, isn’t going to be allowed to work out in practice due to racist anti-white animus and B.D. Wong-style career grifting.