RE: Reply "Why I hate blacks"
Posted by Black in Beijing on Mar 02, 2007
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I was forwarded this several days ago and hesitated to post this. Why is this article so disturbing and why
is everyone bending over backwards apologizing for what this man has said?
If this is what this person has experienced he's entitled to his feelings and the right to express them. We are all doing ourselves a great
disservice to silence voices that are not palatable to our ears. I have the
unique experience of hearing it from both sides, having spent much time in
Asia and the Asian community and growing up black. There is quite a bit of
racism in the black community that goes unsanctioned and is tolerated
because we are "victims" of white racism. Somehow its ok for blacks to call Asians, regardless of ethnicity, "chinks" and worse. At the same time I've heard extremely racist things from Asians both subtle and unsubtle. I'm constantly asking myself why is it somehow not surprising when a White American in China starts rattling off in Chinese but when I do, shock waves go around the room? Is the presumption that as a Black woman, I'm incapable of learning in Chinese?
Quite frankly, he has a point about slavery and the "enslaved" mentality
most blacks have in the United States. The Black community is missing out
on the benefits of globalization by continuing to spin its energy fighting
"the man." It kills me how much time is spent by the Black community
"responding and reacting" to racist comments (i.e. a la Joe Biden). We
would be better off spending the time and energy wasted on writing and hand
wringing, educating and loving our children, investing what little (or much) money we had in our future and strategizing on how to take advantage of what opportunities do exist and creating new ones.
Asians face as much discrimination, albeit different, in the US as Black
Americans, and I see that the next decade or so it will actually become much worse for them as the forces in the US that create enemies within will
parlay the "China threat" into a truly nasty environment for them. Instead
of condemning this young man, maybe Black Americans should look at the not
so pretty truths and own up to them, yes,there are a lot of racist Blacks,
yes, there are not a lot of Blacks in AP courses and, I may get struck down
for this one, but maybe we shouldn't be giving that 10% to the Black church
every week and put that money into a mutual fund that is investing in
emerging markets and creating jobs for people who look more like us than
"the man."
What's more, we need to stop making excuses for why Black children continue
to fall behind academically. The current generation of poor Black children
are far better off than that off my father, who grew up in the Jim Crow
South (no computers, no books, 1 teacher for 6 grades), yet he persevered
and got a PhD. Parts of the Asian community have excelled academically for
many years now and there are many reasons for this, so there's a lot that
Blacks can learn from their experiences. Blacks have excelled in organizing
politically to combat institutional racism. Asians historically have not
been nearly as organized and could benefit from the Black experience.
Instead of making this article a reason to fulminate about the thoughts of
one person, maybe this letter should be a wakeup call for Blacks to open a
dialogue and start learning from the Asian community and in turn Blacks can
share their hard won experience with the Asian community in how to prepare
for the next decade in which the politics of race in the US will become
uglier.
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