Folks, we’re going in the wrong direction- backwards.
Today is the last day of Black History Month. 28 (or 29 if it’s a leap year) short days to recognize the accomplishments of well-known African Americans. Martin Luther King Jr., Malcom X, W.E.B. DuBois, Booker T. Washington (far as I know, no relation!), Harriet Tubman, Jackie Robinson, as well as those behind-the-scenes activists, strived to make things better for their fellow African Americans and society in general. One of the positive effects of their (and other activists of other races) efforts is we are able to co-exist together, learning and living with our cultural differences.
On the flip side, sculptor from China was selected to design the Martin Luther King statue set to be unveiled in Washington, DC in 2008. “Martin Luther King is well known all around the world. In China, everyone knows about him,” Lei Yixin said through a translator. He also remembered about King’s “I Have a Dream” speech in school. He acknowledged that “this is the most important project I have ever had.”
I thought it was amusing that China is well known for its human/civil rights atrocities, and yet managed to have one of its own design the statue of a man that was against those atrocities. But here in the good ol’ U.S. of A, we are now truly a melting pot– African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, Indian Americans, Native Americans, [Insert Your Race/Nationality Here] Americans.
Or are we?
In an article entitled “Why I Hate Blacks,” Kenneth Eng listed reasons why Blacks should be discriminated against. You’ve read it right. Reasons ranged from “Blacks are easy to coerce” to “Blacks just don’t get it.” My personal favorite?
Contrary to media depictions, I would argue that blacks are weak-willed. They are the only race that has been enslaved for 300 years. It’s unbelievable that it took them that long to fight back.
Hello? What about the Jews being enslaved for 400-something years? What about the Chinese people continually getting invaded, killed, and enslaved by the Japanese for thousands of years? I may not have an iron-clad grasp of history knowledge (with apologies to my 8th grade History teacher with the colorful ties), but I do know that African Americans weren’t the only ones who were enslaved by others.
Justifiably, there’s an outrage about this article being published. Oh, did I mention that the author who wrote the article for AsianWeek is Asian himself? And that most of the outrage directed at him is coming from the Asian Americans themselves? According to capaweb.org, Gen Fujioka, Program Director of the Asian Law Caucus said:
The publication of these racist statements is completely irresponsible and damaging to all our communities. Not only should there be a retraction but a serious effort to repair the harm caused.
David Chu, President of the Asian American Bar Association also threw in his two cents:
It is critical that our Asian American community stands up and tells America — and particularly our African American brothers and sisters — that our community has no tolerance for the racism expressed by Mr. Eng.
Since it was first posted last Friday, the article has been removed from AsianWeek.com. However, there is a PDF that reprinted the article in its entirety on page 2. Apparently, this isn’t the first time Eng drew the ire of Asian Americans. He penned other articles such as “Why I Hate Asians,” and “Proof That Whites Inherently Hate Us.”
This guy is on a roll, and people are not buttering him up because, in my honest opinion, he deserves to be toast. Keith Kamisugi, Associate Director for Communcations at the Equal Justic Society summed it up the best:
Eng’s vile racism is a setback to the efforts of people of color working together against discrimination, oppression and injustice. His words alone are disgusting; that it was printed in a prominent English-language Asian Pacific American newspaper is shameful.
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what a beautiful post. Look forward to seeing Martin Luther King’s statue.
it sucks. February is such a short month. I stepped into Borders bookstore and spotted a stand honoring “African American Month” with themed books and writers. It’s as if it’s crammed very early in the year and once Winter starts to thaw, once people start to pay more attention, oh it’s March already.
One small defense of Eng: he doesn’t mess around with political correctness. He says what many people think from time to time, but have no balls to say in polite discourse. That he’s an equal opportunity offender makes his rants slightly credible but its still not a good idea to alienate half the planet. Racial tensions are very real for everyone, though, and pretending they don’t exist will not solve anything.
Interesting. Why I Hate Blacks was stupid and stereotyped. But the point he makes about other Asians “sucking up to white people” in his column Why I Hate Asians… what are we to make of that? Especially when he says that we (Asians) spend so much time fighting among ourselves… After all, he himself IS Asian. If he’s not qualified to make that observation, right or wrong, then how are we qualified to criticize the conduct of our OWN minority groups?
I look around at my fellow deaf people… I would never go so far as to say I hate THEM. But do I hate the fact that we can’t seem to get something going? Yes. Do I hate the fact that we can’t seem to bind together politically and economically at least long enough to improve our collective lot regarding issues many of us have in common? Yes. And I don’t think there’s anything politcally incorrect about saying that.
But hating deaf people themselves… no. I feel sorry for people who have internalized oppression to such an extent that they’ll deny their own needs in order to defend what amounts to second-class citizen status (imposed upon us largely by whom? Three guesses!) because that’s what they’ve been trained to do. And sometimes I get irritated when people remain difficult to break through to.
Irritation, impatience, yes. Hate, No.
Why China? no african american sculptor in the usa? and speaking of china being the biggest humane rights abuser, what do you say about america herself? isnt america ranked number one inthe world with number of people in prisons? oh and almost all your american prisons are full of young african american men?
ugh. not only was the article horrendous and racist, its historically inaccurate. Slaves fought back in all kinds of ways from the very beginning; even jumping off ships was a way of fighting back, of resisting. others fought back by singing, dancing these were all forms of resistance. what a disgusting article.
I dont think China’s “rep” matters in this case. We shouldn’t judge an individual based on the actions of its government. As someone else pointed out, the US isn’t exactly a leading figure in human rights.
I’m one of those people who reads a lot, but can never cite because I can never remember where I read something. But, somewhere in my reading life, I read that most societies that have grown and “conquered” have done so because of slavery. The difference in America, is that the slaves were black and the owners were white. In most other slave-holding societies, even if people think differently, they don’t look that different, so that former slaves can more invisibly rejoin the larger society. Something to think about when you think of racism.