As if we don’t have enough of the “home grown” variety of racial prejudice to deal with, we have to “import” more of it

Yesterday during the opening of the public phase of the impeachment hearings into Donald Trump’s attempt to extort a “favor” from Ukraine’s newly-elected president for what was plainly for his reelection benefit—an action no less impeachable conduct than was the Watergate break-in that was carried out by Richard Nixon’s CREEP—Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio when on one his usual mud throwing tantrums, hoping something would stick to the wall. When he claims that “Americans” know that this is all a “fraud,” one wonders who exactly counts in his world as an “American”; apparently this does not include the majority who favor both the impeachment and removal of Trump from office. 

People like Jordan tend to forget that a lot of blood was shed in this land to make this country the so-called beacon of freedom and equality. Not all of it was shed for a “noble” cause, of course—it is estimated that by 1900 at least 90 percent of the original native population was killed-off in a virtual genocide either through wars, massacres and diseases brought by Europeans. Blacks in the South and Mexicans in the Southwest were habitually lynched to maintain the white “order”; it goes without saying that the Hispanic fight for civil and labor rights is usually ignored by historians and the media, but it was just as significant in the shaping of anti-discrimination law as that of blacks were. It is just that they are not “real” Americans, whose human rights can be habitually ignored, as was Marine veteran and U.S.-born citizen Jilmar Ramos-Gomez, who was detained by ICE after a Grand Rapids police officer contacted them because, as the Michigan ACLU charged, he was a “Latino with a Latino sounding name,” and thus had no right to expect to be treated like a “real” American. 

And after all of these many decades and many battles fighting against race-based discrimination, it seems that the fight is not only not over, it has every appearance of starting all over again—and it isn’t just due to an administration that is inherently hostile to enforcing civil rights and anti-discrimination law: it is due to this country “importing” favored immigrants who come from societies that are inherently racist and class “conscious.” I recently mentioned Washington’s Referendum 88, which purported to restore as a consideration a person’s status as a historically discriminated against group in publicly-funded activities to encourage diversity. Although factors like gender, sexual orientation, veteran status and disabilities were included to “sweeten” the pot, it is more likely that nearly everyone saw this as solely applying to race and “ethnicity.” And it wasn’t just whites who saw this as an “attack” on their “privilege” and “entitlement,” but Asians as well. A large majority of whites voting against the referendum was to be expected; but it was a group of whom many were not even eligible to vote but had a profound influence through social media channels like WeChat who did very likely turn the tide in what turned out be a less than one-percent “victory” for racial bigots in the state: Chinese immigrants.

While no one can say for certain what percentage of Asians voted against the referendum, Chinese immigrants were front-and-center in opposing it for their own selfish and racist reasons. Chinese immigrants, who are also the “face” of the Trump Justice Department’s lawsuit against Harvard University’s attempt to diversify its student body, were the largest group present in a crowded public hearing in Olympia, all there to protest the legislature’s vote that went largely by party-line in support of 1-1000, which was intended to overturn the state’s infamous anti-affirmative action I-200 (I have already spoken about this at length last week, so I won’t rehash).  Kan Qiu, whose mendaciously-styled “Washington Asian Americans for Equality” was the primary sponsor of the anti-I-1000 push  via a “no” vote on 88, gave  the lie to so-called progressives’ claim that white conservative groups used Asians as a “wedge” against other minorities. Qui and many Chinese immigrants (and you could probably throw in more than a few next-generation Chinese-Americans) are racist to the core, despite their claims that “they” are themselves “victims” of discrimination—overlooking the tiny little detail that they are vastly over-represented in publicly-funded universities where even white students are not even half representative per their population, and that many Asian (particularly Indian) businesses actively discriminate against non-Indian groups.  

Since there is no reason to believe that this country really makes any effort to convert racists into racial “progressives,” let’s examine the reality of the racism that Chinese immigrants bring with them to this country. On the SupChina website, which sometimes provides translated overviews of material from the mainland, Zheng Churan writes in an article entitled “China Has No Problem With Racism, and That’s A Problem”, based on a Chinese article whose title was less subtle: “Chinese Auntie and African Monkey: The Racism of Domestic Elites Hits the Big Stage,” which appeared briefly on WeChat before the “authorities” ordered it removed for providing an “unsanctioned” look at a country where many people were “shocked” that a black man could be elected president of the United States, given the prevailing stereotype that “Africans” in America only did the most menial work, if they even worked at all.  The article provides the following description of the “informational” program that featured mainly Chinese actors in blackface:

 

For example, at the skit’s start, Zheng Kai (the “emcee”) wears a Western suit amid fake monkeys and role-playing tribal Africans hopping to music by Latino singer Shakira, “Waka Waka.” An African girl proudly asserts: “Since becoming a [train] attendant, my status has changed, I’m so gorgeous now, [if I] marry Mr. Perfect, it’ll be a win for life!” A Chinese person (Lou Naiming) wears fake buttocks and puts on an accent to play an African mother. 

Just think, what if a white person applied black face paint and used an exaggerated accent to say, “I love America!” It’d be pilloried by the whole world. Upon closer inspection, the monkey on stage is actually played by a black man. 

And then, the girl proudly says, “I want to study in China, I want to be like Chinese people, pull up my sleeves and keep working hard, [let] people from around the world all give us a thumbs-up!”

 

The blatant racism in this skit is no accident. As a matter of fact, in May 2016, a Chinese detergent ad, due to racist elements, caused controversy among online users at home and abroad. In the ad, a black male painter cozies up to an Asian woman. The Asian woman stuffs a detergent tablet into his mouth and stuffs him into a washing machine. A moment later, he “changes” into a glistening white-skinned Asian man…The many Chinese people who claim “this is not racism” are in fact endorsing racism. 

Zheng further comments on the racist hypocrisy of many Chinese:

 

On the one hand, they object to their own being discriminated against by white people. On the other hand, they discriminate against other nationalities, such as Africans and Indians. When they see Chinese people in foreign countries being struck on the subway, or the Oscars discriminate against Asians, they become outraged and even go so far as to hop the Great Firewall to curse on Facebook. But they are unaware of how many people of various races, even in this modern age, are willing to fight for racial equality. Some have been fired, some have been arrested, some have even sacrificed their lives. Sometimes, even though they recognize the existence of civil rights movements, even though the movements are relevant to their own race, they’ll still not care one iota.

Zheng goes on to note that on the Chinese WeChat platform, some of the more popular articles are those that portray “black people are a parasitic race, they specialize in seizing our women and impregnating them, they’ve come to China to spread viruses, and are ferocious, unreasonable, ill-mannered, and defecate and urinate in public.” Black businessmen in the country are “attacking their livelihoods,” a propaganda that “nouveau riche” propagates much like the slave-holding class in the antebellum South to keep poor whites in line by providing them with an “alternative” enemy to vent their frustrations toward. She observes that while the Chinese media ignores protests against the anti-worker practices of Chinese companies in Africa and South America that mirror American “banana republics” in Central America, they highlight attacks made on Chinese businessman—which recalls the George Orwell novel 1984 “to preserve a country’s stability, it must create enemies. As long as there are external enemies, internal conflicts can all be temporarily set aside as people pull together to fight against the bad guys. Public opinion tacitly accepts the discrimination and alienation of black people as rightful and just, and permits and wantonly propagates the opinion of racial superiority. We can’t help but worry that fascism, in these complicated times, might again rear its head.”

China is not the only country that has been an increasing source of immigrants that bring race-based class bigotry to this country. I was recently walked into another Indian-owned convenience store where I was “eyed” with suspicion, but when a white man walked in right after me, he was greeted with “Hello, brother.” If the white man was his “brother,” then what did he think I was? Indians, who are practically taking over entire segments of the U.S. economy, and practices de facto hiring discrimination against non-Indians, has a serious “African” problem as well. As there are Chinese-Americans like Zheng who have the courage to admit these faults, there are social activists in India who also can admit the faults of their own people. A YouTube video composed by IndiaTimes revealed that the racism that most Africans, mainly students and businesspersons, experience in India can be quite grotesque. It starts out with some Africans revealing how they are typically “greeted” on the street: “sister f***er,” pschyo, female monkey, dog, blackie, idiot, monkey.  They had been told that India is a “loving” country, and they report that they have found the opposite to be true. 

Besides these “greetings,” Indians “run away from you” and say to those who just want to talk “I can’t be your friend.” If you get too close to an Indian on a bus or train, they “slowly” move away and face away from you, or when they see you, they cover their face with a handkerchief “as if you have a disease or are smelling.” Indians act like “Move away, a monster is around.” The African respondents all report how Indians get together, talking and point at them and start laughing. They say that Indians want you to react to their insults so they can have an excuse to “beat the hell out of you”; a clip of a mob of Indians attacking three Nigerians is provided, in which some were shouting what could be characterized as fascist chants about “Mother India.” Several of the African respondents revealed they were assumed to be drug dealers or prostitutes. One man told of seeing an Indian child misbehaving, and the child’s mother, as a way of punishing it, turned the child towards him and told the child that “this man is going to take you away”—teaching the child to fear Africans. An African woman noted that Indians often “spit” when they see her. 

How are we not supposed to assume that many Indians bring such responses to “people of color” with them? I can tell you by first-hand observation where I work that these people tend to “hang” with themselves even in mixed work environments—and they do so by choice.

What we usually hear about, of course, is that Chinese immigrants are not “racist,” but that they merely espouse “conservative” views about educational achievement and “pulling your own weight”—as opposed to other racial groups which expect to be “given” things. But in China, where most Africans in residence are foreign businessman and university students, such racial stereotyping should not apply. But as Zheng suggested, most Chinese will apply anything regardless of merit to Africans and other despised minorities to justify their bigotry. WeChat, the Chinese-language forum for Chinese nationals and those residing in the U.S. has served as conduit to persuade Chinese-Americans who might favor affirmative action laws like I-1000 into believing that it is meant to “discriminate” against them personally. Currently the Chinese provide the largest percentage of Asians in this country, although Indians are catching up.  One must be cognizant of the fact that racism also exists within the Asian community. For example, the Chinese view the Vietnamese as a lesser subgroup, thus it should come as no surprise that the Vietnamese have no particular fondness for the Chinese, either. The attitudes of most Southeast Asians toward other groups tend to be less prejudicial in practice, while those of Chinese extraction—like the Japanese—often see themselves as some sort of “master race.” 

Universities in California, like Stanford University and UC Berkeley, have warned that the state’s history shows “an automatic suspicion of people based on their national origin can lead to terrible injustices” in “justifying” the vast over-representation of Asian students even compared to the native white pool of students. These universities’ attitude—and their liking of the dollars that international students bring-in, usually paid for by their governments for a reason—is not only demonstrative of an astonishing lack of acknowledgement of the history of and battles against racism and discrimination perpetrated on under-represented minorities, but it is also suggests that white Americans are not up to snuff.  The universities that permit the vast over-representation of Asians defend their admission policies as promoting “diversity,” but in reality, like the University of Washington, what they are really “promoting” is their own survival rather than the public good. Washington rubs shoulders with states like Mississippi for the lowest per-capita state expenditures for education. Behind the scenes, calculations are made how many international students can safely be added to cover costs without inviting accusations of discriminating against American citizens. They are in fact perfectly content to allow under-represented minorities to take the brunt of white ire.

The claim, of course, is that Asian students are better students and score higher on tests. That is certainly true of testing where rote memory significantly improves test scores over simple common sense. Rote memory may yield high scores on tests, but it doesn’t necessarily translate into positive outcomes that advance society to make a better world. A couple months ago, a New York Times story discussed the 737-Max crashes and the poor safety record of many Asian airlines, and the lack of “airmanship” qualities of pilots who only know how to fly a plane by rote fly-by-the-numbers:

Dave Carbaugh, the former Boeing test pilot, spent his first 10 years with the company traveling the globe to teach customers how to fly its airplanes. He mentioned the challenge of training pilots in Asia. “Those were the rote pilots,” he said, “the guys standing up in the back of a sim. They saw a runaway trim. They saw where and how it was handled in the curriculum — always on Sim Ride No. 3. And so on their Sim Ride No. 3, they handled it correctly, because they knew exactly when it was coming and what was going to happen. But did they get exposed anywhere else? Or did they discuss the issues involved? No. It was just a rote exercise. This is Step No. 25 of learning to fly a 737. Period.” I asked about China specifically. He said: “The Chinese? They were probably the worst.” He spent every other month in China for years. He said: “They saw flying from Beijing to Tianjin as 1,352 steps to do. Yet if they flew from Beijing to Guangzhou, it was 1,550 steps. And they didn’t connect the two. It would get so rote that they just wouldn’t deviate. I remember flying with a captain who would never divert no matter how many problems I gave him. I asked him, ‘How come?’ He said, ‘Because the checklist doesn’t say to divert.’ 

I mentioned yesterday a Chinese-American named Mina Chang, who is proof positive that merely being stereotyped as a “model” minority can get you into high places, not matter how unqualified you actually are. In promoting her “qualifications” for a position in the Trump State Department, Chang released a video that included, among many other questionable “facts,” that she had made the cover of TIME magazine, and that she was a “graduate” of the Harvard Business School and the Army War College. When contacted, a TIME spokesperson said the cover was “inauthentic.” She apparently only attended a seven-week course at Harvard, and only attended a four-day seminar at the War College. Furthermore, it seems likely that she doesn’t hold a degree from anywhere at all; her bio mentions that she attended an unaccredited “University of the Nations,” but there is no mention of receiving a degree from her time there. In fact, Chang’s only “qualification” was that she was a “friend” of a donor who Trump wanted to do a “favor” for. 

Underrepresented groups in this country who have faced discrimination in this country for centuries long before Asian immigrants came to this country now have to face another scourge of discrimination. This country has fought many battles to fight discrimination in its many forms (including by whites and Asians who “prefer” their own company in work environments). As if we don’t have enough of the “home grown” variety of racial prejudice to deal with, we have to “import” more of it.