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The Language of Anti-Racism

The term “anti-black racism” seems to be gaining in popularity lately. Liberal and progressive pundits use the term with regularity when describing the remarkable frequency of officer-involved shootings of Black people, or the fact that one in thirteen African Americans have been stripped of their right to vote by felon disenfranchisement, a form of collateral punishment that has always disproportionately affected Black people.

By the way, in case you were wondering why felon disenfranchisement is listed among expressions of racism, these laws were first popularized in the U.S. in the late 1860s through the 1870s. This was the … Read more “The Language of Anti-Racism”

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Purging the Electorate and the APIA Vote

“The children of…European parentage, quickly merge into the mass of our population and lose the distinctive hallmarks of their European origin. On the other hand, it cannot be doubted that the children born in this country of Hindu parents would retain indefinitely the clear evidence of their ancestry…and it is of such character and extent that the great body of our people instinctively recognize it and reject the thought of assimilation.” —United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind, Certificate from The Circuit Court Of Appeals For The Ninth Circuit, Supreme Court of the United States

Voter disenfranchisement is one of the … Read more “Purging the Electorate and the APIA Vote”

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The Bamboo Ceiling in the Tech Sector Is a Story About Race

Recent reports indicating a lack of racial and gender diversity at major tech companies like Google, Apple, and Yahoo, among others, have rekindled discussion among Asian Americans about a phenomenon known as the bamboo ceiling. The bamboo ceiling is the Asian equivalent of the glass ceiling, that invisible yet all too consequential barrier that prevents women from rising to executive positions in public and private sector employment.

The reason for all the talk is that, while African Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans are underrepresented in tech sector employment, Asian Americans aren’t. In fact, we’re over-represented.

Asian Americans … Read more “The Bamboo Ceiling in the Tech Sector Is a Story About Race”

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The Racial Justice Movement Needs a Model Minority Mutiny

 

It had cost me twelve years of my time,
to realize what a nickel and dime,
hustler I had really been,
while the real hustlers are ripping off billions,
from the unsuspecting millions,
who are programmed to think they can win. 

– Lightnin Rod, Hustlers Convention, 1973

Hip hop emerged in spite of the brutal logic of capitalism, out of centuries-old traditions, to insist upon and amplify black voices and black political consciousness. But as Brittney Cooper, Questlove, and Jeff Chang have recently pointed out, it has been exploited to the point that black cool now serves as transnational currency … Read more “The Racial Justice Movement Needs a Model Minority Mutiny”

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State Power and Police Violence in Ferguson

In my last post, I recalled an incident that occurred decades ago in Hawai’i. In that incident, I was assaulted by police officers on my 18th birthday. I assume I was targeted because I lived in a small town where I had developed a reputation as a trouble-maker. I opened the door to violence by resisting arrest by asserting my rights.

The cops involved in this incident were white, and they were acting on a description of a perpetrator that was so loose as to invite the kind of harassment I faced: “young, black hair, brown eyes, some kind of … Read more “State Power and Police Violence in Ferguson”

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Calling for a Model Minority Mutiny: #fergusonoctober

Your silence will not protect you – Audre Lorde

The almost daily news reports of police brutality toward African Americans, and the #fergusonoctober mobilization had me thinking about my 18th birthday. I know that probably sounds pretty random, but bear with me.

My 18th birthday presents included a case of beer split among friends (18 was still the legal drinking age in Hawai’i in that year), and a beat down at the hands of police officers who stopped me on my walk home from the party. The beating I took was so brutal that I was physically unable to speak … Read more “Calling for a Model Minority Mutiny: #fergusonoctober”

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Should the U.S. Institute A Travel Ban to Deal Effectively With Ebola?

With the latest Ebola scare in the U.S. generating news attention and anxiety from coast to coast, a majority of Americans now want to impose a travel ban on the West African countries hardest hit by the virus. Unfortunately, calls for a travel ban draw from America’s long tradition of xenophobia and could be counter-productive to controlling the spread of Ebola in the U.S. and globally. The current fervor for banning travel from African countries such as Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone is based more on fear-mongering than on facts, and is fully in line with this country’s history … Read more “Should the U.S. Institute A Travel Ban to Deal Effectively With Ebola?”

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Welcome to the Hunger Games: Ferguson, Gentrification, and Power

I wrote a post about Ferguson earlier in the week that got me thinking of The Hunger Games. Not the movies. I mean the books. You can call them “Young Adult” if you like, but I loved those books. And now, I feel like the author, Suzanne Collins, may be a prophet.

Play along with me for a minute. The Hunger Games is set in a dystopian future land called Panem. The center of Panem is a wealthy capitol city surrounded in concentric circles by 12 districts, each poorer and browner than the last. In order to maintain order, … Read more “Welcome to the Hunger Games: Ferguson, Gentrification, and Power”

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What Goes Down in Ferguson is an Asian American Concern – In Fact, It’s a 99% Issue

Precariat: A social class defined by the shared experience of precarity, a condition of existence without predictability or stability, particularly as pertains to employment and economic security

What the news media has euphemistically referred to as the “situation” in Ferguson, Missouri is driving home a point that too many of us have managed to miss before Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown. The Black body count resulting from police actions against unarmed African Americans is mounting. To view the situation as merely tragic (if, indeed, one can rightly put “merely” and “tragic” together) is to downplay the broad scope of … Read more “What Goes Down in Ferguson is an Asian American Concern – In Fact, It’s a 99% Issue”

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Fox’s “Cashin’ In” Cashes In on Japanese Internment

Yeah, you read that headline right. Over the weekend, Eric Bolling, the host of Fox News’ Cashin’ In went to Michelle Malkin-land and justified criminal profiling of Muslims based upon the notion that sending pretty near every Japanese American on the U.S. mainland (120,000+ people) and not a few in Hawai’i to prison camps in WWII contributed to the success of the U.S. war effort. According to Bolling, “we know how to find terrorists among us: profile, profile, profile.”

Doubling down on that sentiment, panelist Jonathan Hoenig said:

…Let’s take a trip down memory lane here: the last … Read more “Fox’s “Cashin’ In” Cashes In on Japanese Internment”