Tag: anti-black racism

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Anti-Black Racism is Still the Fulcrum of White Supremacy

In a highly globalized society, with mass migration driving rapid change in the racial demography, both of the world and of the U.S., racial attacks and racism itself have grown much more complex, making last century understandings of the racial context less useful or even misleading. Whiteness, however, is still at the center of American culture, even as its power as a normative force is slowly eroding while it simultaneously becomes less invisible in the ways it exercises power.

Even with all of these changes, I continue to view anti-black racism as the nut of American racism. Poor black people … Read more “Anti-Black Racism is Still the Fulcrum of White Supremacy”

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A Letter to My Chinese Immigrant Father About American Racism

The Peter Liang conviction was a reminder of the space between my father and me. Usually the space hangs there, pregnant but unperturbed. Every now and then, however, something like Liang’s conviction forces us to actively confront this truth: that he, a first-generation Chinese immigrant who embraced the “American Dream,” and I, his queer Chinese-American daughter, are very different. It seems obvious, but we rarely speak of it, because I’m expected to not be different.

In the weeks following Liang’s conviction, I’ve composed many unsent letters to my father. The first ones, composed after he called to proudly tell me … Read more “A Letter to My Chinese Immigrant Father About American Racism”

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What Asian Americans Are Bringing to Campus Movements for Racial Justice

On November 9, 2015, a tent encampment set up on the University of Missouri Columbia’s campus quad erupted in celebration. President Tim Wolfe, who student protesters charged with failing to address campus racism, had announced his resignation.

Amidst cheers, tears, and a mass rendition of “We Shall Overcome,” a new controversy emerged. A six-minute viral video clip showed a student reporter named Tim Tai, who is Asian American, being physically blocked by a group of protesters demanding the media stay out of the encampment.

“I don’t have to move back. I have a job to do,” the video shows an … Read more “What Asian Americans Are Bringing to Campus Movements for Racial Justice”

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Today’s API movement: confronting racism, capitalism, and war

 

Over the past year, growing numbers of Asian Americans have taken up the call for #ModelMinorityMutiny, rightly pointing out the falsehood of Asian American uplift, but more importantly, rejecting the very idea that chasing after such a precarious and inhumane notion of success is something even worth doing. In reality, Asian Americans have been mutinying for a while now. In this spirit, several people asked me to share the following remarks, given during a recent panel discussion titled, “What Can Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders Do About Racial Justice?” at the National CAPACD conference in Washington, D.C. Hopefully … Read more “Today’s API movement: confronting racism, capitalism, and war”

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The Bernie Sanders Kerfuffle, #blacklivesmatter, and White Progressive Colorblindness

I lived for nearly 25 years in Portland, Oregon. There I staffed an organization dedicated to fighting vigilante white supremacists. In order to fight the white right, we built a base that was made up almost entirely of white progressives. I also served as the Executive Director of the McKenzie River Gathering Foundation, a financial resource for progressive causes in Oregon. The foundation is supported almost entirely by wealthy white progressives. During my years in Portland, I also worked to end the prison build-up through a group made up of incarcerated people and their loved ones. The prison population … Read more “The Bernie Sanders Kerfuffle, #blacklivesmatter, and White Progressive Colorblindness”

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When Blacks and Asians Clash

Pictured Above: RadAsians a group of anti-racist, feminist, anti-homophobic, trans-inclusive Asian-identified students at UNC Chapel Hill. For more information please check out:

Media stories about clashes between Asians and Blacks during the ongoing uprising in Baltimore, Maryland have been getting a lot of attention over the last week or so. There was this one on NPR, that at least attempted to offer a balanced view, and this one in the Daily Beast that, not surprisingly, didn’t. In the end, most of the coverage is incomplete, and more designed to drive page views than provide real news.

Jeff Yang … Read more “When Blacks and Asians Clash”

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I dream of Asian America #JusticeForAkaiGurley

This February, a grand jury indicted rookie NYPD Officer Peter Liang on charges related to the fatal shooting last November of 28-year-old Akai Gurley. Gurley, an unarmed African American man, was killed when he stepped into the stairwell of the public housing building where his girlfriend lived with their two-year-old daughter. At the time, Liang and another officer were conducting a vertical patrol, a routine tactic in which police officers sweep public housing buildings in search of criminal activity. Liang drew his gun and fired a bullet that hit Gurley in the torso, killing him.

Liang’s indictment has sparked protests … Read more “I dream of Asian America #JusticeForAkaiGurley”

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We Can’t Breathe: Why We Need to Give Racism a Chance

In the wake of the Mike Brown and Eric Garner decisions, of the excessive additional unarmed youth who have been killed in the short weeks following the injustice, and in the face of vast disparities facing our country at every level, I believe that there is an important discussion that we need to be having, but one being generally avoided. 

In our society, we’ve demonized the “R Word” so much so, that people pretend it doesn’t exist in our communities, and certainly not in our government, legal system, or other public spaces. That word, and problem, is racism.

A recent … Read more “We Can’t Breathe: Why We Need to Give Racism a Chance”

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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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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”