

Image composite from Angry Asian Buddhist

The Angry Asian Buddhist* often writes about the invisibility of Asian Americans and the dominance of white people in U.S. Buddhist media. AAB has looked at the writers published in the various Buddhist rags, created a photo composite of the Buddhist Geeks conference and now has also created one for the Under 35 project (partially pictured above).

Here’s the part I find interesting about the Under 35 post:

If we look at when Asian Buddhist authors submitted their work, we see a huge spike at the end of last year, when the Under 35 Project first went online. But during the nearly six months since Shambhala SunSpace began promoting this project by mostly reposting pieces by white authors, only one Asian author has submitted her work. She wasn’t included in the weekly Under 35 post.

Got that? It’s as if the Shambhala Sun posted a sign.



Henry Sugimoto

The message was pretty clear.

*I note that the AAB is undoubtedly an optimist too, always wishing that maybe, just maybe, somebody will surprise us.