User Comments

youknowwhat on Mar 07, 2007 at 00:25:11 said:

Basically the foundation of American education should be:

1) African Americans in the civil rights movement, including the Black Panthers helped pave the way for the Immigration Act of 1965, which helped many Asians immigrate to the US.

2) One of the founding fathers of the Black Panthers, Richard Aoki, was an Asian American

I think those two acknowledgements are the foundation of an American education on Black and Asian relations.

Diana Pei Wu on Mar 06, 2007 at 12:19:17 said:

Hey there, V. Smith,

You know, the sentiments you raise in your response basically echo the kind of mostly ignorant and hateful speech that Kenneth Eng wrote in AsianWeek that started the whole debate in the first place.

Do you write off all African Americans because of the Black person that treats you like a sex object, or all white people because most of them are ignorant and treat a person of color like an exotic curiosity and ambassador of their race, nation, and kind at best, and as a subhuman or target of hate crimes, at worst? Being Asian, do i write off all Asian brothers and sisters cuz of the ones that treat me or my sistahs and brothers in struggle poorly? No. You want to talk about justice, you want to talk about hatred? the two can't go together.

Individual interactions are very different and a product of the history that you speak of. The systematic injustice that created slavery for African Americans is the same system that brought Asians to the Americas -- in fact, it was white slave masters and colonizers who brought Asians in to be a buffer -- because of the successful slave revolution in Haiti, because then if they could set people of color against each other, it would take the focus off of white supremacy. Looks like you bought it. They transported Chinese, Indians and Filipinos in the same damn ships they used to move Africans to the Americas. In the same conditions. Those people are known as the stolen people back in their home countries, though on this side of the Pacific we don't usually hear that history.

I know hella Asian descent organizers, community activists, scholars, youth who have studied the movements of Civil Rights, of Third World Liberation, and claim as our mentors people of many races, experiences. Many of us work in agencies, organizations, collectives and communities that support the struggle of the oppressed, and we work in coalition, for instance, to build alliances between the different neighborhoods in Oakland, which are often racialized. And we also have Black colleagues who do the same. It takes all of us. For you to make those generalizing statements negates all the work that the panelists on the NAM panel were trying to do in terms of building real alliances and real understanding. What you are writing and saying basically shows that you haven't done that work, cuz it's hard, it's humbling, and it requires you to let go of a lot of what you write. Roll up your sleeves, open your ears, because listening HAS to be a many-way process.

In addition, the Civil Rights movement and the radical movements that you refer to have always been inspired by the liberation struggles in the rest of the world, and they all showed real solidarity with each other -- Vietnam, China, Algeria, most of the African and Asian independence struggles. Our struggles and movements have always inspired each other, and continue to. What you see on the street is different than the movement. Most Black Americans did not participate in the Civil Rights movement either, until much later, and to be clear, the ones who have benefited the most from the gains of civil rights and in particular affirmative action, have been white women.

You writing hateful ignorant articles about white women too?

I agree with you that there needs to be a lot of education on the struggles of African Americans and Native Americans for immigrant communities. However, many people who are here now, as refugees, are here because of the wars the US perpetrated in their home countries, from Liberia to Vietnam. The situation of immigrant and refugee communities, the histories that bring them to the US, there is also a lot to learn and understand about their struggles.

And don't let the Black bourgeoisie, or indeed, the elite and middle calsses of any race, get away. They're the ones who often are doing the worst to all of our communities.

You know, this has happened to me several times. I am in a meeting working with mostly African American community leaders and people will be like, oh, we need a Chinatown. And every time, I feel this surge of pain. The reason Chinatowns exist is because white folks were burning Chinese folks out of their homes, killing them, especially in the late 1800s. In California, the major targets of KKK activities were Chinese and Mexicans. That's the same organization as was lynching Africans and African Americans and whites in the US South. Chinatowns were organized as the outskirts of the cities, then, because the Chinese, in California, in NY, and in certain other areas, were the service sector. As the cities grew, they basically engulfed the outskirts, often displacing or erasing the neighborhood itself. Most Chinatowns, in Philadelphia most recently, in Oakland and LA, are still currently under threat of erasure by city governments, whenver that land use comes into conflict with something more profitable. Barbershop 2 illustrates a similar struggle that is going on at the same time in Afircan American neighborhoods throughout the US.

For my friends, I say, yes I can see that there should be thriving business districts in low income Black communities and we should work to make that happen, but let's hope that it doesn't come at the cost of burning people out of their homes.

By the way, Asian and Pacific Islander Americans here in the US recognize that we have shared struggle and some shared oppressions, but in our home countries, Japan was and is still considered an imperial aggressor. They bombed Nanjing, they enslaved thousands of Korean and other women as sex slaves for their military. Learn yourself some history, and again, one guy doesn't reflect most of us.

V. Smith on Mar 05, 2007 at 21:12:26 said:

It is sad that I must finally confirm what many have said and have experienced dealing with persons in the Asian community-- a level of disdain. disrespect and an air of superiority.

This is to persons in whose community they exploit daily for economic wealth with the many Chinese restaurants/vegetable stores on every block in the Black community.

They have used/taken their distinction as "Americas Model Minority" to bash other minorities, particulary, Blacks. That they have penned their hatred of us.That is helpful. But please, since we are putting everything on the table, so as to speak-- actions speak louder than works. Asians never seem to undertand/or want to undertand the Black struggle for empowerment and justice.

Althoug there was a time when they were not wanted in the US and were strongly barred from coming here. The Black civil rights struggle gave them and many East Indians the opportunities to come into the US and establish themselves. How have they used it?
They have seen it fit to use that advantage to "bite the hand that paved the way".

What has been confirmed by the article is that Asians, particularly the Chinese and Koreans ( who are also hated by Japanese) " have arrived" so that they can display their hatred to another community that pre-dates their arrival in this country and get away with it.