Macguffined!

How Anti-Anti-Blackness Failed Asian-America.

In the hours and days following the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11th 2001, President Bush was quick to separate Islamic belief from the actions of Muslim terrorists. Perpetrators of terrorist acts carried out in the name of Islam were, it was, and is, suggested, not acting in accordance with the true tenets of the faith. Additionally, the mainstream media largely supported this sentiment. The aim here was to guide society away from reprisals against Muslims and stave off anti-Muslim sentiment. Given America's history of racism, this political and media approach was quite remarkable.

It might be naive to think that our political/ruling classes simply and suddenly developed a conscience about racial and religious minorities that prompted this response. More likely, a combination of successful activism/lobbying by Muslim-American activists along with the need to avoid offending our oil-rich, Muslim allies around the world, led to this progressive-seeming reaction.

From an Asian-American perspective, these responses reveal what is possible for minorities to achieve politically. At the same time, it lays bare just how far Asian-Americans have yet to go to be considered an integral part of America. It is at times when America's other phobia - Sinophobia - rears its casual and normalized head that this contrast in attitudes becomes most starkly apparent.

Sinophobic sentiment is an issue that all Asian-Americans of East and South-East Asian descent need to be concerned about since casts a shadow of suspicion and hostility on Asians of all backgrounds and not just those of Chinese descent. Although politicians and the media scramble to assert the "American-ness" of Muslims in the aftermath of terrorist attacks, few, if any, take the time to reassure the Asian minority or the American majority of our Americaness during times of Sinophobic sentiment that is typically focused on alleged unscrupulous Chinese trade practices, claims of sneaky spying, sly intentions of conquest, as well as theft of technology.

So, how can we account for this disparity in the relative political and social empathy displayed by politicians and the media towards Muslims that is largely absent in its dialogue on Asians? The clear answer is that Muslim advocacy has embraced and pushed the interests of the Muslim community, succeeding in a relatively short period of time in positively changing how politicians and the media engage with, and describes them. By comparison, Asian-American advocacy has embraced a different strategy that leaves our community as a largely invisible non-entity who are given scant political consideration, and practically zero media empathy.

During the radical sixties, Asian-American activist groups were roundly criticized by Asian feminist factions for ignoring sexism within Asian organizations themselves. Many such feminists felt aggrieved at, apparently, being told that these issues should be placed on the back-burner and that feminists should "wait their turn" in the interests of the greater Asian-American good. Fast forward fifty years, and the Asian-American community faces a similar problem today: the "greater good" for Asians, we are informed, is in supporting the strategy of "centering anti-blackness" whilst placing Asian interests on  the back-burner.

Centering anti-blackness is a somewhat nebulous and - deliberately, perhaps - intangible notion. Not really comprised of many concrete, measurable goals, it seems to me to be more of an allusion to a kind of virtue ethics consisting simplistic, ad-hoc acts of "virtuous" centering anti-blackness behaviour, emphasizing the development of virtuous thought to this end.

This strategy places Asian interests on the back-burner by essentially denying the significance or severity of anti-Asian racism with the implicit reminder that "African-Americans have it worse!" Asian "advocacy", thus, pushes Asian-Americans into a falsely dichotomous position of either shutting up about Asian interests or be labeled as an unvirtuous anti-black racist. In other words Asian-American advocacy attempts to uphold the long defunct and never accurate notion of a black/white narrative to explain America's race woes.

Awkwardly, America has beaten Asian-American progressive racial trailblazers to the punch by several decades since the "righting" of anti-black wrongs has been central to much of American social policy since the nineteen-sixties. Securing the black vote is the priority of politicians at every election cycle, ensuring a commensurate black presence in all aspects of our society is considered a moral goal, and shooting of unarmed black men by the police is roundly centered in the media. That short list is indicative of a good degree of centering of black needs and the obstacles faced by black people.

This essentially means that Asian progressivism has been flogging a dead horse - the idea that we are achieving something that has already gone a very long way to being achieved (by black people themselves) and that to push Asian interests will, by definition, be an unvirtuous act of anti-blackness. Unfortunately for our virtuous friends, the success of Muslim activism in bringing Islamophobia to the social and cultural fore has obliterated the very premises of Asian progressive moral grandstanding.

Muslim advocates' success in bringing the concept of Islamophobia to the forefront of our political discussions, such that politicians are careful to clearly separate terrorist acts from Islam and Muslims, has expanded the scope of America's race dialogue beyond the archaic black/white narrative that Asian-American progressives insist upon. Even though "Muslim" is not a race, to all intents and purposes it is discussed in our society as though it is a race. This defining of Islamophobia in terms of race, itself, shows further evidence of how successful Muslim advocates have been in making the issue as relevant and significant as the issue of anti-blackness. I would even go so far as to say that America's race dialogue now, effectively, consists of a black/white/Muslim/Hispanic polychotomy with Asians silenced by their own activists.

Asian progressives have shaped our contribution to the race dialogue so that Asian voices are largely irrelevant except as mouth pieces screaming support safely from behind the dynamic activism of these other groups. Asian-American progressivism has largely undone the good work of previous generations of Asian-American activists by pushing an agenda of Asian submission to the black/white narrative that no other minority group seems to act in accordance with. Evidently, these other minority groups accept that the reality of America's race issues is that it has never - ever - been a black/white issue.

Even worse for our grandstanding friends on Asian-America's progressive left is that there is no indication that the success of Muslim advocacy has, or does, in any way detract from the interests of the black community - as has been suggested by the "centering anti-blackness" Asian activists who castigate other Asians for daring to speak for Asian interests. Surely, expanding the scope of America's race dialogue only weakens the power of white supremacy because it leaves less room for any outsider groups that can be harmed by it? Isn't the weakening of white supremacist power and thought a success for all people of colour?

Yet, it seems to me that this is exactly the place where Asian progressivism has led Asian-Americans. After, all, who would argue that anti-Asian stereotypes and mockery are still largely normalized in American culture, and that anti-Asian/China rhetoric is a significant detrimental factor in our society's conception of us as potentially treacherous permanent outsiders and foreigners? This represents an abject failure on the part of Asian progressivism.

Even as Presidents defend, propagate, and represent positive attitudes towards Islam and American-Muslims, at every opportunity, there are few, if any, equally glowing defenses of Asian-Americans in general, and Chinese-Americans in particular coming from any US politicians, at any level during times of high tension between the US and any Asian power. Just think about that for a minute: US Presidents are contributing to positive attitudes and media representation towards the Muslim minority - something that they don't even do for African-Americans. This is a clear indication that Muslim advocacy has succeeded in ways that Asian-American progressivism has not begun to conceive of as even a possibility.

Asian-Americans and Muslim-Americans share many similar experiences, such as originating from countries that have been on the receiving end of US military aggression, being subject to xenophobic ignorance, poor media representation, and being seen as potential fifth-columnists for foreign powers. Yet whilst Asian "advocacy" utilizes liberal media platforms to attack other Asians for being anti-black, privileged, misogynistic, and generally "in the way" of black advancement, Muslim advocacy seems to have actually striven to advocate for the interests of Muslims.

The result is that a Muslim minority of under 4 million are being positively represented in the media by US Presidents, in a surprising number of culturally popular TV shows, as well as a number of high-profile films featuring complex characters who challenge stereotypes. By contrast, Asian-Americans number nearly 20 million, and only two years ago, Hollywood racially mocked Asians live at the Oscars. An article from the "The Whisp" describes sixteen Muslim characters from film and TV who have been represented positively. I can barely think of a handful of positive, complex, representations of Asian characters in American film and television.

Asian progressivism's hegemonic appropriation of Asian-America's voice in order to push an anti-anti-blackness agenda - which black activists have already been in doing, successfully, without our help - has failed our community. It has been replaced with a delusional Asian progressive narrative that asserts that Asians are willing and sneaky beneficiaries of white anti-blackness, and those who speak up for Asian interests are labeled as implicitly anti-black. Thus, Asian progressivism has set our community back decades, and been successful only in marginalizing Asian interests from the mainstream.

The success of Muslim advocacy has exposed the absurdity of these Asian progressive claims. It has shown that America's race dialogue has changed forever beyond the archaic confines of the black/white narrative. Furthermore, the success of Muslim advocacy has shown that moving beyond the black/white narrative and pushing the interests of any group that is not black, does no harm, whatsoever, to black interests. This means that the entire dialectic of Asian progressivism of the past few years has been based on rhetoric alone with no meaningful epistemology to support its claims.

Asian-America has been Macguffined.

LOOK!! A Squirrel!

Progressive Subject-Changers Gone Wild.

There's a scene in the sci-fi movie "I Am Legend", starring Will Smith in which his character encounters a group of diseased zombie-like humans huddled together in the dark recesses of a dilapidated building of post-apocalyptic New York. The image of the zombies is brief - see it here, first twenty seconds or so - but they gather in an extremely disturbing, bestial manner, their bodies twitching uncontrollably, and positioned in a circle with their backs to the outside world as if to emphasize their separateness from, and obliviousness to, the uninfected human world of Smith's character. 

Sadly, my ability to suspend belief was itself suspended when I realized that the zombies looked like they were in the finishing stages of shooting a bukakke scene, or like a gaggle of macho males at the club, standing around the edge of the dance floor, heads bobbing uncontrollably from excessive testosterone and the struggle to control roid rage, to such an extent that you can't tell if they are trying to dance or are in the beginning stages of a group epileptic fit. 

Most interestingly of all, the zombies in the scene reminded me of early twenty-first century Asian-American progressives. Similar to the infected feral humans in the movie, our progressive friends seem to have a singular, inward turning focus that ignores and mythologizes those members of their community not like them, seem to be engaged in a circle-jerk of self-involvement, and, most hilariously of all, they act like poseurs at the club. Childlike moral reasoning, and internet-only militant posturing complete the picture of the modern-day Asian progressive as a gaggle of macho poseurs trying too hard to impress.  

I've written previously about Asian-progressive activism and its abandonment of any pretense of being an Asian focused movement. While our zombie friends in the movie respond most ferociously to the scent of human blood, our Asian progressive friends seem to lie dormant until spurred into action by anti-black racism - usually the shooting of innocent black people. The difference is, that zombies smell blood and attack the source of it, but when black people get shot by the police, Asian progressives smell only the opportunity to draw attention to themselves, usually by attacking other Asians and refocusing attention away from the issues of judicial collusion in enabling police excesses. So, while the disgust at police excess is worthy, the response of turning their rage inward at their own community is bizarre.

The recent shootings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile have unleashed a never before seen level of Asian progressive impotent fervor, and of course, the attention has been deflected away from the issue of police excess and refocused on the real issue: Asian immigrants and their supposedly rampant - but so far unproven - anti-black racism that causes them to be complicit in anti-blackness by not supporting Black Lives Matter. In particular, the killing of Castile was of grave concern as initial reports claimed that he was shot by a "Chinese" (Chinese-American, thank you very much) officer, although subsequently the officer was revealed to be a four-year veteran of Hispanic origin. The subsequent sighs of relief are believed by Norwegian scientists to have increased the greenhouse effect for at least half a day.

I think that when it comes to fobby Asian "anti-blackness", the truth is far more mundane than our progressive friends might have us believe: our ignorant-seeming, broken-English speaking antecessors, and recent immigrants are simply not reactionary. This is probably why they don't jump up and down, pointing accusatory, self-promoting fingers at those around them - they might want to base their beliefs on evidence, not wishful thinking, or made-up narratives that assert guilt by association, or some kind of racism by default of circumstances.

In the wake of the Castile killing, progressive reaction was swift and an open letter composed that really was quite an epic effort of backflipping out of their Asian-ness, moral grandstanding, pompous lecturing, and an embarrassing inability to actually express what exactly Asian "parents" and other Fobby immigrants are doing that warrants such scrutiny. It's not as though Asian immigrants are going around shooting black people - although guns may have helped resolve issues where our vile, racist Asian parents deservedly got themselves beaten, killed  and thrown onto train tracks several years back. And they deserved every burned out product in their illegal and implicitly racist corner stores in black urban areas. But, yeah, this letter should go a long way in helping to eradicate unwarranted police violence towards the black community.

What seems to lie at the root of this letter, is the fear that Chinese "parents" will once again embarrass their mind-numbingly progressive kids by protesting in favour of someone who they thought was the Chinese cop who killed Castile like they did with Peter Liang. The letter says this.....

When someone is walking home and gets shot by a sworn protector of the peace -- even if that officer's last name is Liang -- that is an assault on all of us, and on all of our hopes for equality and fairness under the law. 

Thoughts like these are what prompts my disillusionment with our latest crop of Asian progressives. Liang was an inept rookie cop, whose poor training and lack of aptitude for the job resulted in a tragic accident that warranted both the trial and the proportionate sentence that he received. Liang never intended to fire his weapon and thus never intended to kill Akai Gurley, he neither knew, at first, that he had actually shot anyone, and there is no evidence whatsoever that he deliberately targeted a black man - even the prosecutor agreed with this. The Asian progressive viewpoint insists on labeling Liang a murderer - against all the evidence - and someone whose racist heart (stemming from his racist immigrant parents, no doubt) was so full of anti-blackness that even an accidental shooting must, by definition, be an act of racist violence.

The embarrassing thing for Asian progressivism is that it is our fobby generation of, perhaps, older immigrants whose English language skills may be poor or non-existent, that have actually grasped the nuance of American racism with far more clarity than the self-promoting American-born progressive wannabes. I have greater faith in their ability to reason that the killing of Castile - even if it had been perpetrated by a Chinese cop - is not anything like the accidental shooting of Akai Gurley and they would, thus, not jump to his defence with the same passion. It is the progressives who are incapable of discerning these kinds of differences as evidenced by their bizarre insistent delusion that Liang committed murder.

Almost as bad, yet unsurprisingly, the letter plays the oppression Olympics and diminishes the extent of the Asian racial experience as well as shows a disturbing lack of comprehension for what Asians report experiencing on a day to day basis....

It's true that we face discrimination for being Asian in this country. Sometimes people are rude to us about our accents, or withhold promotions because they don't think of us as “leadership material.” Some of us are told we're terrorists. But for the most part, nobody thinks “dangerous criminal” when we are walking down the street. The police do not gun down our children and parents for simply existing.

Not getting promotions because of your race is a pretty serious act of discrimination despite the attempts to play it down. It is such a serious act of discrimination that nations have felt compelled to change their constitutions to address the problem. But in a typical moment of short-sighted reactivism, Asian progressivism undoes the work and efforts of previous generations of activists by diminishing the seriousness of the problem and creates a problem for the generations that come after us: logically, if we can reason that discrimination against one group can be hand-waved away, then there are no reasons to apply this to all minorities. If workplace discrimination is not that bad (and even the UN and other international organizations say it is), then it is not that bad for anyone.

That is where Asian progressive grandstanding leads us and I'm sure feminists who have struggled for decades to win equality in the workplace will be horrified by the stupidity in this poorly thought out diminution of one of the major struggles of civil rights movements throughout the world.

Additionally, the letter's diminishing of racial rudeness effectively denies Asians the racial experience that is, perhaps the most common to all of us. Even something as normal as walking down the street for Asian-Americans can often be a terrible experience. For us, racial harassment in the form of random people calling out to us with mockery seems to be a universally and regularly experienced thing that many of us, at times, find quite threatening. Asian women, in particular report routine racialized sexual harassment that I would suggest they find problematic too. Asian progressives, however, think these women should stop whining.

Consider, also, that often this street level harassment is also expressed openly in the media - notably this years Oscars ceremony - such that it has become normalized to harass Asians to the extent that the prevailing mainstream wisdom seems to be that it isn't racist at all. We have to wonder if the sentiments expressed in the letter were written by some modern-day, stealth version of the Asian Exclusion League.

You don't convince people by attacking or lecturing them, and this is why I view these pompous tactics of open letter-writing, trashy attempts at public shaming, and transparent self-promotion as doing more harm to the cause of BLM than the supposed racism of the Asian fobs they're targeting. It speaks of an overwhelming failure of ideas when your movement's most prominent activities for the mattering of black lives involve lecturing and attacking Asian immigrants with poor English, and elevating some vague minor act of racial insensitivity to the same level of significance as violent police excesses.

Echo Chambers

And The Perils Of Self-Importance.

It would be something of an understatement to say that the Peter Liang trial has heavily divided the Asian-American community - particularly Chinese-Americans. On the one hand stand those who offer unequivocal support for his conviction, and on the other are those who argue that Liang is being scapegoated for political expediency.

Liang's supporters have caused some significant surprise having turned out by the thousands in several cities around the country to voice their concerns that Liang has been hit with disproportionate charges for what every legal entity involved with the case agrees was an accidental shooting. They also note the unequal application of the law - white officers who have committed observably intentional killings have escaped prosecution entirely.

It is worthwhile to note that even amongst Liang's supporters, there is a marked diversity of opinion. The underlying sentiment is that Liang has run afoul of political maneuvering and is being offered as a morsel of reprise to stave off black rage at the lack of accountability for mainly white officers who kill unarmed people in suspicious circumstances. Although some of Liang's support decries the manslaughter charges as excessive and merely the result of political expedience, others are focusing on the sentencing and calling for the judge to show leniency.

Noticeably, the idea that Liang should not on any level be held accountable seems to not be a prominent sentiment amongst his supporters. Their concerns are that he is being disproportionately charged for what everyone agrees was a tragic accident, that this incident would not have been afforded the same legal significance if previous cases of police excess had been brought to account, and not only that his race makes him a convenient scapegoat, but that prosecutors would not have gone after him with such perceived disproportionate harshness if he had been of any race other than Chinese. I think they raise points that demand our attention but, as you might have guessed, our new money progressive friends within the community disagree.

Following the widespread demonstrations, a council of the righteous high and mighty was convened on Google hangouts in which four of Asian-America's moral superiors and a credibility-providing African-American friend (and here) expounded on the "problem" of this surge of support for Liang. All participants introduced themselves as very important activists for all kinds of causes except Asian- American ones. The stated aim of the council was to "reframe" and "re-center" the conversation via an "open and honest dialogue about true racial solidarity."

No, that isn't canned laughter you are hearing.

Far from engaging in an open and honest dialogue, the participants simply repeated each other's biased and uninformed views with several of them coming close to slapping themselves across the head in frustration at the lack of compliance coming from the Chinese FOBs who, apparently, have made our progressives look bad - which seems to be the primary cause of angst for these guys. Coming across very much like a council of some religious inquisitor, the participants took turns at self-righteous condemnation of Liang's supporters, utilizing such tactics as name-calling and racial stereotyping. I could not help but feel as though there was an ironic element of fobby face-saving going on stemming from a kind of horrific realization that Asian progressives are not only out of touch with Asian immigrants, they have grossly underestimated their own understanding of America's racial quagmire.

Against all progressive proclamations, it is the Chinese FOBs - not the American-born progressives - who have shown a deeper and far more nuanced understanding of the complexities of a multi-racial society in which racial thinking and racist injustices do not flow in a solitary direction from white to black, but do, in fact, encompass a multi-directional experience in which racist attitudes and behaviours manifest amongst all groups.

Maybe it would have helped their case if the panel has exhibited some small degree of charisma, yet I couldn't help but wonder if they had shot up with a downer like heroin, or gotten deeply stoned and watched the movie Magnolia in preparation for the podcast. Suffice it to say, the proceedings were so mind-numbingly dull that I had to slap myself on the head with an old insole to keep myself awake and remind my brain that I wasn't watching an hour-long slow-motion replay of a kettle boiling.

A hugely significant issue that I had with the panel was that there were no representatives present from Liang's supporters to give a balanced and fair representation of their side in their own words. Of course, when podcast host, Diane Wong of 18 Million rising, proclaimed at the very beginning that the aim was to "reframe and recenter...honest dialogue", I should have guessed that I would be in for a treat of misrepresentation, inflammatory stereotyping and outright self-delusional lies.

For example, at around the 5:20 mark, Wong accuses the Chinese media of pushing a polarizing and anti-black narrative, yet she fails to provide any evidence for this. That must be what "re-framing" means; to make inflammatory assertions without evidence. With Wong having set the tone of the podcast, Oi Yan Poon (who, apparently, is a respected academic) continues with a lengthy name-calling screed in which she asserts - again without a shred of evidence - that privilege and anti-black racism is motivating Liang's supporters.

Poon goes on to reinforce the extremely racist stereotype that these Chinese FOBs are overly deferential to authority and, somehow, their political activism is an act of subservience. The double-think is strong with this one. She continues with the accusation that Liang's supporters are driven by a desire to enter whiteness - again, a claim asserted without evidence. Yet, rather than show a moral failure on the part of Liang's supporters, it is the intellectual limitations of the panel that comes through most clearly here; Liang's supporters genuinely think that he has been scapegoated by the white judicial system in order to further protect and deflect attention away from white officers who murder. The progressive panel seem to lack the wherewithal to present a coherent argument that counters this simple belief.

Poon's claim, therefore, makes no sense and can only be an emotional outburst to make herself feel better. This is a huge logical error on her part that could have been avoided if only the panel had bothered to actually engage with their opponents in a constructive way that fostered the flow of ideas. Instead, they opted for a kind of primal scream therapy in which they unleash their ignorant self-induced resentments without reference to facts.

Unbelievably, it gets worse - much worse. Poon ends her screed by trying to explain the actions of these 21st century Chinese FOBs by citing a couple of civil-rights cases from almost a century ago that involved Asian plaintiffs. Poon never bothers to illustrate how these cases have influenced Liang's supporters, nor does she offer any evidence that they have even heard of these cases. All this seems to actually show is that Poon and the panel have no idea what they are talking about when it comes to the motivations of Liang's supporters and are relying on made-up narratives to slander them. 

The other Asians on the panel merely echoed Poon's distasteful and racially inflammatory comments, not really adding anything different and only repeating the buzzword "anti-blackness" and their dehumanization of Chinese immigrants, never once offering any evidence to justify their claims nor bothering to hide their blatant bigotry.

The only interesting moment during the whole podcast came from the black panellist - "Fresco" - which was priceless and worth enduring the horrific dullness of the the rest of the show. Having listened to the "reframed and re-centered " narrative of the Asians on the panel, she quietly asserts a bizarre narrative of her own which seems to stun the Asians. The seconds of awkward silence were awesome after she claims that Asian anti-blackness derives from a history of global chattel slavery that Asians apparently participated in and not from an appropriation of whiteness as had been claimed. The Asian panellists looked like they had been slapped with a wet sock and I loved it.

Although her claims were largely nonsensical, Fresco exposed the flimsy foundational premise of making anti-blackness the focus of Asian-America's race conversation. Asian progressivism agitates to force the Asian racial experience into the limited confines of the black/white narrative. This means that we have to abandon our history in order to contextualize our experience relative to African-America's and implicitly accepting any black historical narrative even though it is clearly false on occasion. It is clearly false that chattel slavery of Africans was a significant phenomenon in East or SouthEast Asia, yet our panellists could not challenge the untrue claims of the black panellist without abandoning their primary principle - centering anti-blackness.

The Asian racial experience has to be examined relative not only to our position to whites but also to other ethnic groups, and the simplistic - to the point of being dumb - premise that our past can only be understood through the filter of the relationship between blacks and whites is merely a way of giving up our identity and avoiding the heavy lifting of establishing Asians as a concept within our nation's cultural, social, and political milieu.

To emphasize just how out of touch with reality the panel was, at around the twenty-eight minute mark Wong describes Gurley's killing as a murder - a charge that not even prosecutors tried to make. Either through dishonesty or self-delusion, the panel could not even get the basic facts of the case right, choosing, instead, to increase potential tension between Asians and African-Americans by "re-framing" the facts of the case. If we do find ourselves in a situation where Asian immigrants come under increased violent attacks from African-Americans, then we can thank our progressive friends for contributing to this state of affairs.

The most telling part of the podcast came at around the forty-seven minute mark, again from Doc Poon. Describing her response to e-mails from those who disagree with her worldview, she proudly admits that she simply dismisses and deletes their e-mails. It takes a huge amount of self-involvement to openly admit to dismissing other people's points of view in the midst a podcast in which she asserts with certainty that she knows what is motivating Liang's supporters.

Poon's sentiment was repeated in a blog post she wrote, titled "What are we fighting for?" published on the AngryAsianMan website in which she - with a kind of hysterical melodrama - ponders the apparently difficult question of why these Chinese FOBs have risen up in support of Liang. These happen to be stupid questions since in order to find out why Liang has so much support, all she would have to do is ask his supporters why they support him. Yet, she dismisses and deletes any communication from his supporters and wonders why she cannot understand their point of view. Go figure!

Thus, Poon should understand that there is no "we" per se, because creating a "we" would entail not dismissing people who have a different way of approaching issues. There is no "we" because Asian progressives have chosen to dehumanize Asian-America with blanket accusations of rabid anti-black racism, and reinforce inflammatory stereotypes that can only lead to more black/Asian tensions and anti-Asian violence. 

Sadly, many Asian-Americans will be swayed and impressed by the self-righteous moral grandstanding exhibited by the panel on this podcast, which only means that we can expect a steady increase in anti-Asian attitudes from our fellow Americans who might cite the "proof" of Asian progressive rantings to justify their prejudices.

On the bright side, the prosecutor in the Liang case recently revealed that he will be recommending leniency in Liang's sentencing - a smidgen of sanity amidst the frenzy to scapegoat someone who killed a man accidentally due to poor training and not hatred for black people as our progressive friends have deluded themselves into believing. Liang's training was so poor and shoddy that he barely received any practical training with handling his weapon. 

None of these significant facts resonate with our progressive panel - they choose, instead, to simply makes things up, ignore facts, and elevate their uninformed opinions to the status of objective truth. Oblivious to their own failures to utilize reasonable epistemological inquiry, the Asian panel is simply incapable of understanding why the FOBs aren't doing what they want them to do. Laughably, they draw the conclusion that the language barrier is the significant problem and that there needs to be more proselytizing via language-appropriate technology.

Not once do these guys consider that dialogue is a two-way street, a give and take of opinions, ideas, and attitudes. That means not just inundating people with your unsubstantiated opinions that you "re-frame" as truth, nor does it mean sitting around in a podcast, boring everybody with your racist diatribes against people you are almost certainly ignorant of.

There are two main prerequisites to changing other people's point of view: firstly, you have to stop talking and trying to brainwash people with mindless repetition of the tenets of your faith and instead, listen to what they have to say and what concerns them. The arrogance of early 21st-century Asian progressives is matched only by their ignorance - according to them, FOBs are mindless automatons (just like the white racists say they are) who need to be brow-beaten into doing what our authoritarian progressive friends want them to do. I disagree with this attitude - I think FOBs are free of the racial experiences that have scarred many American-born Asians and thus, have none of the conditioning that might influence the behaviour and attitudes of the American born. Perhaps they see things with far more clarity than we do.

Secondly, you need something compelling to say and a compelling way to say it. So far, all I've seen Asian progressives do is deflect attention away from pervasive white racial habits and proclaim Asian racism to be its equal. Not only is this silly, it is not particularly inspiring. Lying to and about people and their beliefs that Asian progressives haven't even bothered to study only helps white racism by changing the subject. This means that not only are Asian progressives contributing to anti-Asian racism, their absurd rantings serve as an obstacle to addressing the very real needs of black America.

In short, if you want to convince people of your ideas, then come up with good, realistic ideas that are based on reasonable inquiry and not on subjective opinions and feelings which you frame as truth. So far, Asian progressivism has failed to either formulate an inspiring philosophy or even properly identify the attitudes of the majority of their own community - but other people are at fault for "not getting" the progressive agenda.

When White Racism Turns Fatal....

...Asian-Americans Change The Subject.

A reader sent me an e-mail drawing my attention to yet another Asian-American article on the apparently rampant anti-blackness within Asian-America. It was nice to hear that there are others out there who agree that Asian-American progressive thought has become complicit in white supremacy and largely irrelevant as an advocating force for their community.

The piece, written by Kim Tran at the "Everyday Feminism" (also on Hyphen's Facebook) website is titled "6 Ways Asian Americans Can Tackle Anti-Black Racism in Their Families", and illustrates what is so wrong about Asian progressive thought.

She begins thusly.....

The deaths of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Sandra Bland, Ty Underwood, Mya Hall, and so many others have brought waves of protesters to the streets................Yet many of us who have our boots on the ground in solidarity with Black community dread the prospect of bringing our anti-racist work home to our parents, siblings, and friends......... 

What a strange juxtaposition of ideas; police killings of unarmed African-Americans, and alleged anti-black racism amongst Asian-Americans. It's almost as though Tran is presenting her case in a way that seems to elevate this unsubstantiated Asian anti-blackness to the same level as extrajudicial police killings. She goes on.....

Asian Americans have a different challenge than other non-Black people of color when it comes to uprooting anti-black racism. The model minority myth and the criminalization of Black and brown folks in our communities have given many Asian Americans a false sense of honorary whiteness and severed us from building coalition with other communities of color.

Of course, it is never a good idea to make assertions about people's motives unless you have solid evidence to prove it. Sadly, Tran fails to present any actual evidence to show that Asians have adopted this sense of "honorary whiteness", or even that this is the reason for this apparent barrier that prevents Asians from towing the progressive line. Whilst it would be silly to deny that there exists a fair degree of separation between Asians and blacks, Tran offers little evidence for the implication that Asian attitudes are largely responsible for it. Assertions don't count as evidence. As one might expect, Tran fails to mention the "other", perhaps, more significant, factor that leads some Asian-Americans to, apparently, assume honorary whiteness.

Does it really require explaining why this is such a poor start? Tran has diverted the conversation away from an extremely serious issue (police killings of unarmed African-Americans) and implicitly elevated this supposed Asian anti-black racism to an equal parity with what some are calling extra-judicial murders. Even worse, perhaps, Tran makes sweeping, but unsupported, assertions about the motivations and attitudes of Asian-Americans in a process otherwise known as racial stereotyping. How any of this helps to address the far more serious issue of murder is never specified by Tran.
Almost impossibly it gets worse......

A surprising aspect of the class was troubleshooting about how to bring anti-racist work home. Within the specific context of Ferguson, we wondered how we could shift the “vandalism” or“looting” narratives popular in news coverage........Finally they were frustrated enough to ask, “What would make you angry enough to break a window?”

I don't agree that news "narratives" about "looting" were actually mere "narratives", but the problem here is that several local business were looted  and destroyed and there is some suggestion that Asian stores were specifically targeted whilst black-owned stores were spared. Tran seems to suggest that those Asian business owners who lost their livelihoods over incidents that they had no part in should merely be thought of as necessary collateral damage. We should avoid all of the clues that at least in some cases, there may have been racial motives in targeting Asian stores.

Thankfully, Tran is willing to ignore it all on behalf of the looting victims although I doubt that she ever bothered to actually go down to these neighbourhoods to investigate these "looting narratives" or even to speak to any of the Asian business owners whose ruined livelihoods she seems so willing to gloss over. In short, I suspect that Tran has absolutely no idea what actually happened in any of these neighbourhoods - nor what the day to day experience of these Asians who live there might be - but while she decries "narratives" as mere "narratives", she seems to create one of her own off the top of her head that dismisses both the experiences of Asian victims of looting and denies them a voice in their own story. Asian business owners be damned - sad, but too bad.

Tran goes on to suggest that Asian progressives bombard their racist families with stats and history lessons, tailor their assaults to each family member, and to be persistent! Being around Tran sounds a lot like being around an uncharismatic, pushy, Evangelical Christian Amway rep who tricked their way into your house with the promise of salvation but then assails you with a sign up spiel that suggests that multi-level marketing is closer to Godliness. I would not be surprised if family gatherings at the Trans' are becoming few and far between as family members politely decline the invitations to be around such charming company.

One point in particular stands out for me. Number five reveals, perhaps, more than Tran expected. Under the title "Tailor that shit!", she says.....

Who is your mom, aunt, uncle, parent? If the fancy numbers, data, or plain ol’ anger don’t work, consider what makes sense with this specific person? What resonates with their story?
Here’s my all-time favorite personal example. Once I was talking to my mom about welfare when she went on a super anti-black racist rant about a time she was in line at the social services office. There was a Black woman in line behind her who she said was “lazy.” Swerve.
The thing is, the only reason my mom even had this story was because she was in the welfare office herself! Collecting a welfare check!
The mental gymnastics required in that moment for my mom to stigmatize someone in the exact same situation as her took her a minute to realize, but when she finally came around to seeing the personal similarities, the tide of the conversation began to shift.

Finally! Tran tells us the nature of this insidious anti-black racism that runs rampant through Asian veins - and to be quite honest, it's extremely difficult to muster too much worry for such a trite example. Yes, Tran's mother goes on a rant about a black woman being lazy so let's shift focus away from police killings of unarmed people and talk about this serious problem!

Another problem here, though - and perhaps more significant - is the swift over-simplification of the motives and drives of Tran's poor mother. Based on Tran's tale, I can see several different interpretations of this event - perhaps her mother feels embarrassed and ashamed to be drawing welfare, or views it as some kind of personal failure, or maybe she simply feels some sense of injustice at being in a circumstance that she feels is undeserved. Perhaps Tran's mother's words reflect a need to separate herself emotionally from such a humiliating situation, perhaps she was merely projecting onto others what she thinks people might be saying about her.

Of course, I cannot possibly know what prompted Tran's mother's words, but I do know that it seems as though Tran has ignored these possibilities and ridden rough-shod over the nuances of human drives and motivations in her efforts to label her mother (her poor, poor mother!) as an anti-black racist whose actions (like ranting about someone at the welfare office) warrant shifting the focus of our attention away from extrajudicial police killings and charging entire swathes of our community as racists - all without a shred of evidence to support her claims. This is known as dehumanization.

That, ultimately, is the issue that Tran seems to not even bother trying to overcome - she never once makes a successful case that Asian-American attitudes towards race (particularly towards African-Americans) are driven by any internalization of white racism, any appropriation of the model minority stereotype or whiteness, and she certainly provides absolutely no evidence that there is a problem of rampant anti-black racism amongst Asian-Americans that comes anywhere near the kind of racism that prompted the formation of the BlackLivesMatter movement.

Despite Tran's grandiose, quasi-messianic claims to possessing special knowledge on how to bring Asians to atonement for their supposed anti-blackness, she founders on this foundational concept in her failure to provide any support for the claims she makes about the inner workings and psychological framework through which Asians form their attitudes towards blacks. She simply cries racism and makes up a causal relationship between various aspects of the Asian experience and anti-black racism and asserts that this is the truth.

The relationship between blacks and Asians and any tensions arising from it are far more complex than Tran and other Asian progressives would like us to believe. It is not only dishonest, but it is morally questionable to address any black/Asian subject matter by hand-waving away the Asian experience and hence the Asian voice. Even worse, is the absurd brow-beating of Asian immigrants with a progressive ideology that itself marginalizes and, often excludes, Asians.

Just like all the other Asian progressives I have written about, it seems as though Tran cannot be bothered to actually do the work necessary to understand the Asian community. Instead, such progressives merely rely on stereotyping of a community that has very little media opportunities to answer the charges being made against them. In that regard, Asian progressives are becoming the main source of negative stereotyping of Asian-Americans such that both conservatives and liberals draw on this myth of rampant Asian racism to push their agenda, allowing white America to shift attention away from its own deeply rooted racism.

It is no wonder that, thanks to our friends in the progressive movement, white supremacists - and Bill Maher - love Asians. The shrill manner of Asian progressive unsubstantiated assertions of anti-blackness within our community provide a superb excuse for white America to deflect attention away from their own racism. If I wasn't a rational person, I could almost ponder the possibility that Asian progressivism might actually be a Ku Klux Klan funded infiltration movement charged with the purpose of changing the focus of the race dialogue by accusing Asians and providing an excuse for white racism to rationalize its existence.

A Defence Of White Anti-Blackness..

Acts of Contrition In Asian Progressivism.

In my previous post I suggested that Asian-American progressivism and so-called advocacy seems to be pushing a narrative that exaggerates alleged anti-black racism in Asian communities and elevates it to a level that is equivalent to the white racism that seems to be at the root of the oppressive policing in black communities. I came to notice how Asian progressive commentary in mainstream media outlets seems to be little more than a tactic of deflection away from the far more serious and deadly issue of white racism that supports a contention amongst some ethnic minorities; white liberals and the liberal media are merely racists in denial.

How else can one explain the platforms given to Asian progressives that have little to say about the deep-rooted anti-black prejudices in police forces that seem to induce unreasonable levels of violence towards blacks, and lenient local judiciaries that offer impunity to police officers who engage even in obvious abuses? A recent article in the Huffington Post gives such a platform to white liberalism's latest Asian-American Progressive Useful Idiot to divert attention away from white racism.

Entitled "What Asian Americans Owe African Americans", the piece - written by Christopher Punongbayan - serves as an example of what is wrong with Asian-American contributions to America's racial discourse.

The first point is that it is difficult to determine how to categorize the piece. It cannot be called "news", or "investigative" since it provides no news per se (i.e. we are not being informed of an event or series of events, and neither are events being described), and there is no evidence of an investigative element - i.e no information was gathered and presented as an argument that makes the case for the piece.

Instead, what the piece presents is an inflammatory generalization about Asian-Americans - with a heavy implication that it is Asian immigrants (yes, the wicked FOB's again!) who are being referenced - that asserts the existence of a "problem" (Asians "distancing" themselves from killings of unarmed blacks) but never gets around to specifying exactly how, where, or when this "distancing" has taken place. It never builds a case to support that initial assertion, choosing, instead, to assert - again without a supporting argument - a vague claim that Asian-America "is what it is today" because of an African-American led civil-rights movement.

Finally, the piece ends as it started - by not making any sense and without any kind of significant conclusion. Having riled up its readership with wild, unsubstantiated claims of Asian-American distancing from black suffering and (of course) a general attitude of anti-blackness within the community, the article leaves us limp and flaccid by offering absolutely no meaningful solution to this apparent problem.

In other words, having made inflammatory statements about Asian-American racial attitudes - that are never substantiated with meaningful examples of how this hurts African-American prospects in society - the article has nothing useful to say about how Asian-Americans can approach this problem and find a solution. The reason for this is obvious; Punongbayan has presented no reason to believe that his assertions are true or - even if they are true - that they have any detrimental effect on African-American social and economic aspirations. Thus, without a rational and reasonable argument to support the case that "Asian distancing from blacks" is a real phenomenon, it is impossible for him offer any real world remedy.

Put plainly, Punongbayan has presented an article that serves no purpose, has no meaningful input into real-world solutions to America's race issues, seems not to be even capable of presenting a rational (or intelligent) description of his own community's racial attitudes. Furthermore, he seems to have only a very rudimentary and simplistic understanding of the complicated racial and geopolitical circumstances that informed America's shift towards liberalization of its race and immigration policies.

What can be taken from Punongbayan's piece is that it reinforces two negative aspects of the Asian-American racial experience: firstly, it utilizes the same racialization strategies used by the mainstream by making wild, unsubstantiated generalizations about the community and representing them as facts; secondly it reinforces the notion of Asian immigrants as insular ignoramuses who have no concepts of justice and equality - like the Asian cultures they come from - and who are thus, different in fundamental ways from the Americans they live amongst.

I would have loved to have been able to dissect  Punangbayan's piece point by point, but sadly, he has not made any reasonable arguments that can even be seriously addressed. This makes me wonder who the article was aimed at. As the Executive Director of the Asian-Americans Advancing Justice Asian Law Caucus I have to believe that Punagbayan is well acquainted with the history of Asian-America's contributions to the civil rights struggle and thus should be aware that other Asian-Americans would find his contentions troublesome.

Yet he seems to willfully ignore the significant contributions made by Asian-American civil rights activists since the early days of Asian immigration independently from the black struggle which laid the groundwork for many of the subsequent rights enjoyed by Asians and non-Asians alike in addition to laying the groundwork for non-European immigrants to be given the same rights to citizenship as their European counterparts. It can be easily argued that Asian activism was a major factor in bringing about the liberalization of America's draconian and racist immigration laws that has benefitted millions of non-white immigrants - mainly non-Asians.

Since it is already obvious that the gist of Punangbayan's piece is not to advance any positive perspective on Asian-Americas, or their contributions to the civil rights struggle, then I can only assume that his article is aimed at non-Asians who are not interested in the Untold Story of the independent Asian civil rights struggle. Worse still, Punangbayan seems to want to reach an audience that comfortably accepts wild generalizations about Asian people told in a manner that is insulting to both rational thought and intellectual integrity.

Punangbayan claims the following.....

The 1960s is perhaps best known for laws like the Civil Rights Act. But 50 years ago today, on October 3, 1965, the Immigration and Nationality Act was also passed in the midst of the social upheaval of that period. This immigration law has been absolutely transformational for American society because of the drastic demographic shifts that were brought about in its wake. 

From 1820 to 1965, only 1.5 million Asians immigrated to the US. After 1965's immigration act, more than 10 million Asians have immigrated to our shores. Were it not for the centuries-long struggle led by African Americans on behalf of all excluded communities, we as a nation would not only have a lot fewer civil rights, we would not have nearly the racial diversity we do today.

The irony here is that Asian-Americans are almost never included in questions of diversity when it comes to America's race dialogue. In fact, Asians are explicitly and unabashedly excluded from considerations of diversity when it comes to issues such as college admission and attendance rates and diversity in the tech industry. If anything, the significant presence of Asian-Americans in education and the tech sector are largely viewed as not reflecting diversity at all and even viewed by some as an impediment to "true" diversity.

More pertinently, the subject of the liberalization of immigration policies carries a far more nuanced history than the article would like us to believe. Punangbayan's piece does not deserve a reasoned rebuttal on this subject since it offers no reasoned case to support its single-minded focus on the black civil rights movement as the primary reason for immigration reform. Suffice it to say that I would suggest that other, equally necessary factors influenced the US administration of the time to appear less despotic in its racial attitudes towards non-white immigrants.

Furthermore, it is Hispanic immigration that has seen the most dramatic increase since 1965 - surging past Asians to the tune of 55 million. Thus, by Punangbayan's reasoning Hispanic's owe a huge debt to black America. Of course, though, Hispanic's seem to never be invited to publish articles in mainstream liberal publications that deride their own communities and make gross generalizations about them. The reason for this could well be that Hispanic commentators don't seem to generally have negative perceptions of their own community and they are able to place the Hispanic experience into a reasonable context of the human experience that is sympathetic to the concept of an autonomous Hispanic identity and worldview.

Asian progressive commentators eschew this kind of self-conceptualization and condemn it as implicitly anti-black. Hence, whilst proclaiming diversity, Punangbayan effectively diminishes diversity by ignoring diverse historical experiences. Thus, the question of who is the target audience for the piece becomes one of great importance that sheds light on the limitations that seem to shape the content and scope of Asian-American commentary in the liberal media.

To answer this question it helps to point out that Punangbayan's points are fundamentally trite. What could possibly be a more significant issue than extra-judicial shootings of unarmed citizens and the failure of the courts to provide justice for victims and their families? What could be more significant to all communities than the failure of our democracy to insist on accountability of those entrusted with carrying out law-enforcement? According to Punangbayan - and other Asian progressives - an equally serious problem is the "distancing" of Asians from blacks that has to be addressed, thus diverting the discourse away from the actual issues. If it was not as serious as extra-judicial killings by law-enforcement that has equally deleterious effects, then why write about it at all as a related subject to these killings?

It may have escaped Punangbayan's notice, but since the spate of high-profile shootings of unarmed black men - and women - by the police in recent years, Asian-Americans have been (cloyingly) prominent in speaking out against it, participating in efforts to organize and attend demonstrations, and have dedicated the efforts of many of their "justice" organizations to supporting black rights.

Yet, Asian progressives consistently engage in self-righteous moral grandstanding in mainstream publications insisting that anti-blackness in Asian-America is a peril that threatens to swamp our society. This is insulting not only to the FOBs that progressives continually target for character assassination, but also for those Asians - and they are many - who do and have supported the black cause.

What all of this is suggesting to me is that the liberal media seems intent on pushing a narrative that elevates claims of anti-blackness in Asian communities - which to be honest upon investigation appear to be trite and parochial prejudices - to the same level as police shootings and alleged judicial complicity in enabling them. What this looks like to me is that there seems to be a process within the liberal media to create a "liberal model minority" that shares the burden of white accountability through primally screaming the apparent horrors of Asian anti-blackness. Yet, never are we made privy to the actual incidences that provide us with a reasonable cause to believe that "Asians distancing themselves from blacks" has anywhere near the detrimental effects that Asian progressives and their white liberal media johns seem to want us to believe.

I happen to believe that alleged police oppression and unexplained killing of unarmed citizens is a serious issue that deserves thorough investigation and that nothing should deflect attention away from the main issues. Yet, trite and nonsensical moral grandstanding by Asian progressives that actually permits the discourse to be shifted away from the issues at hand seem to be the custom of the liberal media. Not only is that insulting to our intelligence, it is a morally reprehensible act of self-aggrandizement,

Thus, whereas conservative media only mentions Asians when their experience can be used to bolster claims that racism is no longer a factor in our society, the liberal media permits Asians to have a voice when they somehow agree to make fantastical insinuations that Asian anti-blackness is as serious an issue as police murders of innocent people. In other words, articles like Punangbayan's serve only to deflect attention away from far, far more serious issues of racialized social injustice and suggests that the liberal media is equally invested in using Asians to deflect attention away from white racism. Fortunately for them, there seems to be no shortage of Asian-American useful idiots willing to act as the assuager of America's racial sins. Salvation through Asian progressive idiocy, indeed.

But, there is another potential outcome that I find extremely disturbing. The narrative of Asian immigrant anti-blackness may be sowing the seeds for more racial discontent between black and Asian communities and exposing Asian immigrants who do business in black neighborhoods to more violence and hostility than they already face. Whilst self-righteous Asian progressives cast judgement on working class immigrant Asian communities from the comfort of their safe-neighborhoods that are well-protected by predominantly white police forces who may well use the tactics of intimidation and harassment of blacks passing through in order to "keep the streets safe", it is the working-class immigrants who live and work in poor black communities who will no doubt bear the brunt of any negative reactions to these sweeping moral proclamations.

It is becoming ever more apparent that hostility to Asian immigration and anti-immigrant sentiment is an implicit part of Asian progressive discourse. The relentless (but never substantiated) accusations of endemic anti-black racism amongst Asians has placed the Asian progressive movement into a strange position - claiming to be speaking up for the the black victims of police violence and murder, instead it deflects the dialogue away from that very issue by making a mountain out of the molehill of "Asians distancing" themselves from blacks. This places them very firmly in the category of de facto apologists for the racism that makes police abuses inevitable.

But none of that matters, let's just point the finger at the Asian FOBs - it is easier than actually formulating an original perspective on America's race discourse.

Dylann Roof And Asian Racists.

Asian Progressives Again!

One of the unusual footnotes in the recent tragic Charlotte church shootings perpetrated by Dylann Roof was the revelations of his complex racial thinking as recorded in his so-called manifesto. Of special note was Roof's attitude towards Asians - while he voiced hatred for African-Americans, and a somewhat love/hate attitude towards Hispanics, he absolutely adored Asians.

He had this to say.....

I have great respect for the East Asian races. Even if we were to go extinct they could carry something on. They are by nature very racist and could be great allies of the White race. I am not opposed at all to allies with the Northeast Asian races.

Naturally - and appropriately - Asian-American commentators reacted with horror to these assertions. Some pointed out the prejudices faced by Asian-Americans and argued that racism is present in all communities. Others took the road of contrition and sought to lay bare the apparent depth of anti-black racism in Asian communities. My take is that both of these perspectives missed the most significant question raised by Roof's assertions about Asians - why does, or would, he believe that Asians could be allies in anti-black racism?

This question is significant because there are no reports of Roof ever having had any Asian friends, or even having lived amongst Asians, he does not seem to have traveled to Asia, or in any way been exposed to Asian-Americans to any great degree. His friends seemed to have been either white or (strangely) black and there is simply no evidence that he had any significant exposure to Asians either on a personal or acquaintance level. Yet, Roof had formed this opinion - no, this certainty - that Asians would, by nature, support his racist beliefs.

To me it is extremely bizarre that the question has not been raised of why he would assign these qualities to a demographic that he seems to have had no exposure to. If Roof (apparently) had no Asian friends and had no significant personal interactions with Asians, then discovering why he would hold a belief about a people whom he simply is unacquainted with would seem to necessarily be the predominant question that needs answering rather than reacting with contritious angst, or merely reacting.

If Roof truly had little or no exposure to Asians that fostered his beliefs about them, then obviously, he formed these beliefs based upon secondary sources. In other words, his beliefs about Asians must be based on information he read or was exposed to either in the media or, far more likely, the internet. The internet as a source for his formation of these attitudes seems more likely because it is there that we see issues of race, accountability, and complicity being most vigorously discussed amongst Asian-Americans, whereas the media general portrays Asians monotonically negatively, the internet affords Asians an opportunity to be more integral to how they portray themselves.

This raises intriguing possibilities for this discussion; is it possible that Roof formulated his beliefs in the acute racism of Asians by reading Asian-Americans' own commentaries about themselves that they post to the internet? I would suggest that this is, indeed, the case and that Roof's ideation of Asians as soul-mates in racism may derive from these commentaries rather than from other sources.

I won't argue here that there is no racism amongst Asian-Americans, but I will argue that the idea (an idea that is rapidly becoming a stereotype) that Asians are a virulently racist group is one that has been formulated and exaggerated by Asians themselves.

Now there are a number of different avenues where this notion of virulent Asian racism could derive: firstly, there are the various Asian forums where racist attitudes seem to crop up from time to time; secondly, there are websites that are accused of being racist, although such sites seem explicitly against whites as much as anyone; thirdly, there is the racial commentary by Asian anti-racist writers who offer an Asian perspective on America's racial issues in the wake of instances of anti-black racism.

The question is; which of these platforms could offer the most accessible and plausible source for Roof to formulate his belief in virulent Asian racist attitudes? The first two options seems like weak contenders - in my experience, racist attitudes on Asian forums are rapidly isolated and condemned, and any supposedly racist/nationalistic Asian websites are few and far between, if they exist at all. Furthermore, there are certainly no nationalistic/racist Asian-American groups that operate within society that have formulated or propagate any racist theories or perpetrate racist crimes. That leaves the third option; Asian social commentary on larger issues of race in America.

Logic would dictate that any commentary on a platform with a larger readership potential than those with niche participation are more likely to have their ideas more effectively propagated throughout the culture. Put another way, a commentary written for a national or internationally read internet publication will probably have more influence over social opinion than a one sentence diatribe posted onto a web forum, or a blog post written on an alleged racist website. Thus, race commentary written by Asians in widely read and accessible news and magazine sites will reach a wider audience, meaning that it is reasonable to assume that commentary on race written by Asians in widely read, mainstream platforms will be the most likely to shape society's beliefs about Asian and Asian-American attitudes towards race.

If Roof believes that Asians are inherently race-supremacists and we accept that he could have formulated this belief based upon Asian-American race commentary then might we expect this commentary to be racist in nature? While that would make sense, you would struggle to find any Asian-American commentary in mainstream publications expressing white supremacists leanings. On the contrary, Asian commentary on race in mainstream ( and, therefore, most readily accessible) publications are almost uniformly anti-racist. So, why could someone like Roof form the opinion that Asians are racist by reading anti-racist Asian commentaries?

Content may be the culprit. Although thematically, Asian-American commentaries follow anti-racist notions, they often also tend to use the opportunity to simultaneously highlight anti-blackness in Asian communities. So, what we tend to find is that a piece written in response to instances of - usually - oppressive policing, often ends up being a diatribe against Asian anti-blackness. It's almost becoming a cliche and there are numerous examples.

Of course, Julia Carrie Wong's piece in Al Jazeera, is a good example of how the Asian experience is framed such that it forces Asians into the black/white narrative and denounces them - by virtue of their achievements - as collaborators in anti-blackness. Another piece, from March of this year and also authored by Julia Carrie Wong, in the mainstream liberal news magazine, Salon, again refocuses our attention away from white racism in order to spotlight what she terms, "ongoing", and "unchecked" anti-black racism within immigrant (it's those rampantly hateful, unenlightened FOBs again!) Asian-American communities.

A piece written in another online magazine by Liz Lin that was also published in the Huffington Post mulls over the reasons for "Why Asian-Americans Might Not talk About Ferguson". Lin has this to say about her experience of being given the benefit of the doubt by the maintenance man when she tried to break into her friends apartment (for benign reasons).....

....he unlocked the door and immediately left, not bothering to wait around and make sure that I didn’t ransack the place. He let a complete stranger into an apartment that wasn’t his and walked away.........As I entered the apartment and started looking for the box, I was incredulous — and I was never more aware of the privileges I have as an Asian American woman.

That is weird, but maybe the maintenance guy was merely not very bright, or just didn't care, or did not like the tenants who lived in the apartment. Was he making a judgement based on race? Can we be sure? But at least she acknowledges that being an Asian woman in this culture confers privileges.

She continues....

Would this person have ever let me into the apartment if I were a black man? I’m not a betting person, but even I would put serious money on the answer being no. I probably would’ve been asked to leave the premises, too.

The problem here is that she implicitly presumes that her privilege as an Asian woman is conferred on all Asians and, therefore, she cannot even conceive of the possibility that an Asian man could also have been treated differently. But then, after running through a gamut of racial presumptions about Asian passivity, single-minded focus on out-competing others, and the tired and completely unsubstantiated notion that Asians are somehow culturally predisposed towards political disengagement, she finally gets to the real gist of her piece; Asians are racist. Yes, Asians have and do experience racism and prejudice, but, we are racist........

And then you have the anti-black sentiment that pervades Asian and Asian American communities. In Asian countries, where the overwhelming majority of people have black hair and brown eyes, it’s especially easy to generalize about those with different phenotypes, either positively or negatively. And immigrants bring those attitudes with them to the States.

And there you have it, Asians are racist and they bring it with them from the old country. In and of itself it is odd to claim a race's racial characteristics makes it easier to generalize about others who have different ones. Could she really be meaning to say this? Phenotypal homogeneity makes it easier to stereotype others? Because Asians all look the same, that makes it easier to generalize about others?

Caucasians are certainly not phenotypically homogeneous (and neither are Asians for that matter), yet they don't seem to have had any trouble generalizing about others, and I see no evidence that it was ever harder for them to do so because they are phenotypically diverse. I hope this assertion sounds as silly to you as it does to me. Worse still, remember that this piece made it to publication with the HuffPo. Plus, funnily enough Lin's piece doesn't actually talk about Ferguson.

Influential progressive magazine, Colorlines, also weighs in with this notion of Asians as passive and active participants in anti-black racism. Commenting on some problems it found with a Time article written by Jack Linshi, the piece, written by Julianne Hing, says this...

Asians have actually been the subject of quite a lot of public fascination, mainly as props used to denigrate blacks and Latinos and programs designed to support them and other people of color--including segments of the Asian-American population. All too often, Asians are willing to play along.......Asian-Americans are subjected to the model minority myth, and yet also reap the social, cultural and economic benefits of not being seen as black......In the end, Linshi's article reads more like an extended whine for Asian-Americans who've bought into model minority-buttressed myths of white supremacy but wake up from entitled slumber surprised to find themselves stifled by it.

There you have it; Asians reap rewards because they are not seen as black and Asians play along through their achievements. In other words, just by virtue of the fact that any given Asian has "succeeded", they have played along with white supremacy. Despite the numerous progressive assertions of this "playing along", I am yet to actually find evidence for it.

But the list goes on - blog posts, Twitter, online magazines, literary websites, news sites, even cartoons, all written by Asian-Americans, and all testifying to the rampant racism that, apparently, is gushing through our veins and seeping out of our pores as we scheme and connive with white power to prevent African-Americans from owning their own Seven-Elevens and becoming computer whizzes.

Those who abhor Dylann Roof's conclusion of a commonality between white supremacy and inherent racism amongst Asians and wonder why such an opinion could exist, need only look at the wisdom of Asian Advocacy to find out from where such ideas derive. We cannot blame the white media for this one; this is the one stereotype that the white media is not propagating - Asians are the one's propagating this idea of a rampant and implicit anti-black racism in our communities. Asians are themselves denouncing their own communities as inherently and rampantly racist.

The irony is that this merely "takes the heat" off of white racism, and acts as means to deflect attention and the discourse away from it. On this point, should we have suspicions that the white media seems so open to these kinds of Asian confessionals? Doesn't it dilute the gravity of white racism to have Asians make arguments to the effect that "we do it too"? Isn't it suspicious that in the midst of self-evident instances of severe and deep-rooted anti-black prejudice in America's local governments and police forces, white (and often liberal) media sites are publishing articles that deflect attention away from it and onto Asians? Sadly, to quote Julianne Hing, all too often, Asians are willing to play along with this.

What this implies is that Asian activist commentators are colluding with the white media and ultimately with the white patriarchy (nudge nudge, wink wink!) to create this stereotype about Asians and their inherent racism. Asian activism is contributing a narrative of Asian complicity - which is mostly overly simplistic, and often unreasonable and vague - that runs parallel to white racism and may help to divert our interrogation of it.

Some sociologists have suggested that in the wake of increasing Asian and Latino immigration, America's racial hierarchy is evolving from white/non-white into black/non-black in which immigrants who are neither white nor black assume a social positioning that places them above blacks in a kind of pseudo-white category that maintains social inequalities based upon race. But all this does is squeeze non-black minorities into the black/white dichotomy without consideration of the possibility that such a black/non-black "divide" could evolve away from the implicit injustices of white superiority and is in no way subject to unassailable determinism.

There is nothing implicitly wrong with the idea of a non-black identity - what makes such a thing anathema is that it asserts that any black/non-black categorization must follow the rules of white supremacy. And here is where we see the damage caused by Asian activism's insistence on conceiving of the Asian minority in terms of black or white. One can be non-black without being anti-black, and non-black without adopting whiteness. This implies that the nature of the relationship between blacks and non-blacks (Asians or Latinos) is one that can be shaped by blacks, Asians and Latinos without the baggage of white supremacy. In other words, it is up to us to decide what it means and how it will affect racial justice.

The obstacle to this - an obstacle that Asian activism is already reluctant to address - is that an actual healthy relationship of peers between Asians and blacks would require one, an autonomous Asian cultural identity (which is defined as anti-black by Asian activism), and two, reciprocity, that is, an acknowledgement that black/Asian tensions are far more complicated than merely "Asians are anti black".

By ignoring the obvious non-blackness and non-whiteness of Asians, our activists are preventing this necessary dialogue from taking place and in so doing upholding the power of white supremacy to shape black and Asian interactions. By insisting on framing Asians as complicit in whiteness simply because some succeed - or merely want to succeed - activists are shutting down the very avenues for dialogue that disempower white influence over how minorities view themselves and interact with each other.

It is because of Asian activism's narrative of rampant racism in our communities which have the effect of shielding white racial crimes, as well as its refusal to advance an autonomous Asian narrative not derived from the black/white dichotomy, that white supremacists like Dylann Roof are able to form the belief that Asians are brothers and sisters in spirit to white racial ideas. Asian commentators have created a narrative of Asian-American attitudes based on little more than their subjective impressions and reframing of the Asian immigrant experience as implicitly anti-black.

How creating stereotypes through the over-generalization of Asian-American attitudes helps to alleviate racial injustice is by no means clear. Asian activism needs to do better and if it is unable to do better, it should probably keep mum.

Asian-American Complicity In Anti-Blackness!

Asian Connivers And Schemers.

I came across an article written for Al Jazeera by Julia Carrie Wong that illustrated perfectly why I view Asian-American progressivism as a vapid and intellectually bankrupt vehicle for shameless self-promotion rather than a legitimate ideology that contributes valuable insights into America's racial dialogue.

In short, the piece explores the concept of "whiteness" arguing that it is an artificial racial category designed to construct a social hierarchy that associates whiteness with "goodness" and non-whiteness with whatever remains. According to Wong, whiteness only impacts race insofar as it delineates between black and "non-black". Contrary to what I had presumed were established historical facts, the article claims the following......

But the induction of Asian-Americans into whiteness doesn’t alter the meaning of whiteness; rather, it’s a reminder that whiteness has never been defined by a person’s country of origin or genetic makeup.

Wong's belief that Asian-Americans have been inducted into whiteness stems from a television show and a solitary study of the demographic makeup of the tech industry that actually cannot reasonably be said to shed light on the racial attitudes of anyone. Worse, whiteness has very much been defined by country of origin and, indirectly, genetic makeup - this is a simple fact of history. "Whiteness" has largely excluded those of non-European origin, explicitly denied the humanity of those of Asian, African and Native-American origin, as well as excluded non-European Caucasians. Clearly, "whiteness" has been founded on an inclusiveness based on genetic makeup and country of origin.

Of course, the problem is that Wong has tied herself up in intellectual knots from which she cannot extricate herself. Since she has claimed that whiteness has no real definition, she cannot really expound on what whiteness entails. If we follow her reasoning to its logical conclusion, then whiteness is a useless heuristic by which to discuss America's race issues - which is blatantly absurd.

Yet, I cannot help but think that this vagueness is deliberate and that this fuzzy definition of whiteness suits Wong's agenda - whatever that may be - because it allows her to make sweeping generalizations and wild claims about Asians without actually having to apply any kind of intellectual rigor to the process. By obfuscating on what "whiteness" means - and I admit, I don't know myself - then it makes it easier to deflect attention away from Wong's shaky reasoning.

While vagueness about what whiteness entails seems to suit Wong's skewed reasoning, it also happens to suit the racial status quo that exists in America - by placing (inaccurately) Asian-Americans in the role of co-conspirators Wong is effectively deflecting attention away from an insistence on white self-reflection and action. By unreasonably inserting Asians into the power dynamic of whiteness, she affords it the luxury of avoiding its own culpability. This goes beyond merely acknowledging racism within Asian-America - it actually deflects attention and resources away from the very source of America's racial injustices. Ironically, this is Model Minority behaviour at its finest - it protects white supremacy by passing, or sharing, responsibility for it to Asian-Americans. Bill O'Reilly could not have done a better job himself.

Of course, the assertion that high Asian-American representation in any particular field - Wong cites the tech industry - is somehow an indication of an induction into whiteness is itself an extremely fuzzy claim. This vagueness is fatal to Wong's thesis since it is almost impossible to decipher what she is trying to say. What it seems like she is saying is that Asian success is implicitly racist and detrimental to African-Americans or she is merely arguing guilt by association - Asians are well represented in an industry normally the reserve of "whites", therefore, whiteness? Asians are complicit because they succeeded? Disturbingly, this sounds like the reasoning and rhetoric of California's 19th Century white nativist bigots who cited the acceptance of low wages amongst Chinese immigrants as a sign of complicity in Capitalism's war on the white working class and utilized this slander to justify the pogroms against Chinese workers all over the West Coast.

The main problem with associating tech industries with whiteness is that it ignores the historical contributions made by Asians in the field and in so doing bypasses the fact that Asians have been present and innovating in the sector since long before it became racist for Asians to be well represented in the industry. Furthermore, Asian countries have also contributed to the conceptual progress of the industry. So to imply that Asians are somehow interloping on a white industry at the expense of blacks and Latinos is beyond absurd - Asians have been integral to the development and growth of the tech industry right from the get go and bear a not insignificant responsibility for its existence as a viable avenue for enterprise for a community that believes that prejudice has limited the options available to them in other industries.

What this means is that Wong's piece is clearly not about relaying facts, but is about rhetoric, hence the use of the term "complicity".

Complicity in this context is an extremely inflammatory term - no doubt deliberately so - that asserts, without offering a shred of evidence that Asians are actively and intentionally engaging in "anti-blackness" by being so well represented in stem fields. A look at some synonyms for the word illustrate this....

Complicity - the state of being an accomplice; partnership or involvement in wrongdoing: complicity in a crime.

And a couple of its synonyms.....

Connivance -  to cooperate secretly; conspire

Collusion - a secret agreement, especially for fraudulent or treacherous purposes; conspiracy

What is most noticeable is that these words - slurs if you will - have featured extensively in both the philosophy and specific episodes of anti-Asian sentiment. The notion and belief that Asians are implicitly sneaky, conniving and treacherous are foundational concepts in justifying anti-Asian hostility, exclusion, and, also, drives xenophobia in foreign policy considerations. The idea that Asians are untrustworthy is as old as anti-Asian racism itself and is a prejudice that continues to haunt Asian-Americans. I would actually feel better about Wong's utilization of this fundamental element of anti-Asianism if I thought that she was being deliberately polemic, but I just don't see that degree of intellectual sophistication in her piece or her reasoning.

It has to be said that any discussion on the phenomenon of high Asian representation in the tech industry - and STEM fields in general - is meaningless without mentioning the prejudices and racism that motivates Asian families to push their kids to pursue these careers in the first place. One reason that Asians are encouraged to enter STEM careers - as opposed to the arts, for example - is because of the belief that the greater subjectivity in assessing capabilities in many non-STEM fields leaves Asians more vulnerable to prejudices and disadvantage than in STEM where capabilities can be more objectively assessed. The experiences of aspiring Asian actors and the hostility directed at Jeremy Lin lend credence to this belief.

To me, this is a significant aspect of the phenomenon of the high representation of Asians in STEM. Just as in the past, sport - particularly boxing - was seen as a way for young black men to circumnavigate racism and achieve social mobility, STEM has come to serve that same purpose for the Asian-American community that faces a subtle, poorly defined, and easily denied prejudice in industries where success and ability are measured more subjectively.

This illustrates the grand opportunity that Wong - and Asian-American progressives in general - are squandering with ridiculously childish reasoning and juvenile moral proclamations. There is value in pointing out that it is anti-Asian racism that influences the decisions of many Asian-Americans to enter STEM fields, and that we can, and should, widen the dialogue on race to enable us to include this hugely significant fact. Asian-American progressives seem unable to intellectually juggle the multiple perspectives that America's racial story requires.

There is no conflict of interest to say that in order to create more room for under-represented minorities in STEM we should concurrently put forward ideas for policy drives that creates avenues of opportunity that promotes and encourages Asians to enter non-STEM fields. In other words, instead of labeling Asian-Americans as racist and connivers in "whiteness", why not actually consider ways to create opportunities for Asians outside of STEM fields where the casual racism and exclusion in industries, like, for example, acting, are mitigated. Instead of smug presumptions about the motivations of Asian parents, why not actually put forward ideas for how we can make non-STEM fields less prejudiced towards Asians and create programs that target Asian-Americans for industries outside of STEM?

Unfortunately, this seems too conceptually difficult for Asian progressives to imagine. Their uninspiring answer is to cut Asians out of STEM - where they do not belong -  and let them end up anywhere but "here". It's time for Asian-American activists to start exercising their minds instead of their mouths.

Putting forward strategies for addressing the anti-Asian racism that impels Asians to enter STEM fields is implicitly beneficial to the cause of fighting anti-black racism. If you expand opportunities for Asians in non-STEM careers and address prejudices they might face there that are disguised as "subjective criteria", then you create more room for African-Americans in STEM.

That should be obvious to any reasonable person, why hasn't Asian activism made the connection?

Finally, it needs to be noted that the major elephant in Wong's article is her omission of any commentary on high out-marriage rates of Asian women to white men - yes, The Disparity! - as an indicator of "complicity in whiteness". According to social scientists, inter-marriage is the primary indicator that an ethnic or racial minority has  integrated into the majority culture.

Wong writes.....

The cost of becoming white is hard to measure. It is ethical rather than material. By passively accepting the privileges of whiteness, Asian-Americans become complicit in America’s present system of hierarchy, a system in which the nation’s institutions inflict ongoing injustices on a racial underclass.

What greater acceptance of the privilege of whiteness can there be than to be inducted into intimate union with the group that holds the most privilege and power? What greater complicity could there possibly be? Don't get me wrong here, this is not a diatribe against IR, I am simply holding Wong's reasoning up for analysis and finding it inconsistent. If the cost of becoming white is ethical more than material, then surely there is a greater ethical cost required of those millions of Asian women who are in intimate union with whiteness and who, therefore, have greater opportunities to sway it?

Yet, I do not see - and have never seen - any "progressive" purveyors of the notion of Asian privilege and complicity point the finger at the 30% or so of Asian women married to white men (plus however many are in intimate partnerships) and tell them they have to use their unique position to speak out on racial injustice. There are no other minority demographics of any persuasion in a better position than those Asian women married to white men who can utilize the power of the privilege when - literally - being in union with whiteness to "change the status quo".

If high Asian representation in tech industries is - as Wong suggests - synonymous with whiteness and its anti-black sensibilities, then how much greater must be the implicit racism of high Asian representation in intimate partner unions with whiteness. There is no implicit acceptance of whiteness in striving for a good education and a successful career. There is, however, a hugely implicit acceptance of whiteness and the privileges it confers when one marries or dates into it.