So I am mad at grayscale. I am mad at grayscale because it has made me seethe at the wrong sell-out racial group for some time now (indeed, in my post minutes ago I was trying to remember some feminine outrage I experienced on the subway, but couldn't, quite). This is because I had thought that Michelle Malkin in her little grayscale glamourshots was some sort of black traitor to her race, which, given her stands against affirmative action I found offensive enough. But no, she's a Filipina, as she declares in her most recent column, "The Mollycoddling Milksops of Manila", or rather the Jersey-raised descendant of Filipino immigrants, which makes her xenophobia the greater hypocrisy, though of course it's always ironic when an archconservative Connie Chung clone is against affirmative action. Because really, now, how many ugly old Asian women are now on TV, network, cable, or otherwise? Yet, of course, that's not affirmative action but the furtherance of a whole other agenda: what I mean to point out is that the conservative anti-affirmative action argument of a person's inherent qualifications rather than any checkbox status is something that is inconsistent with her very existence as a syndicated columnist. And if that's not true, then why include ethnic headshots with your columns? If we value your ideas and not your background, the ethnically-zero byline would be enough.

My point here isn't to weigh in on the internal politics of the Philipines or to fact-check her article. I'm more concerned about the ethos with which she so vehemently likens President Arroyo to a fried lumpia wrapper. It's this self-representation and this self-granted authority to speak for an entire nation which is problematic: if you're living in Maryland with your two kids and husband (is he Filipino? do you make lumpia for him? or only on special occasions?) and you sound otherwise just like any of your other Fox News Channel buddies, at what point do you remember your heritage, so obscured by surname, to make a dig at a thrice-imperialized nation fighting its own civil war against Muslim insurgents and separatists and still dependent on US military aid? The transformation is from Filipina woman to white man, as is evident in the deeply chauvinist, homophobic language around mollycoddle and milksop.

And this last is perhaps a cheap shot, but I love the matter-of-fact absurdity of her bio, including such lines as "Covered school board meetings and pole sign ordinances. Exposed Rep. Maxine Waters' gang-infested job-training center boondoggle. Received a death threat from the Mexican mafia. Moved to the Pacific Northwest..". I wonder what my bio on my blog ought to look like.