Tag Archives: racism

Add Another Woman of Color to SCOTUS, Please

Civics, General, Social Justice, Women, ,

“People ask me sometimes, ‘When do you think it will be enough? When will there be enough women on the court?’ And my answer is when there are nine.”

~ Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, PBS Interview, February 5th, 2015

Imagine that: NINE women on the U.S. Supreme Court!

And why not?

The Supreme Court has been in existence since 1789. That’s 232 years and counting. One hundred ninety-two years passed before President Ronald Reagan nominated the first woman nominee, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1981.

Since then, only four women have become U.S. Supreme Court justices.

That is slow-as-molasses progress, don’t you think?

The sex ratio in the United States continues to favor females. In 2010, there were 7.43 million more women, with the difference projected to decrease to 7.42 million by 2025.

Simply put, there are more females than males in America!

Why can’t our nation’s highest court reflect that fact? We’ve had over two and a quarter centuries’ worth of mostly (white) men deciding issues for everyone in America.

Now, President Joe Biden has the privilege of nominating a woman to join SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the United States). An African American one no less.

‘Bout time!

These politicians whining about Biden being politically correct for making good on his campaign promise to nominate the first Black woman to SCOTUS have convenient amnesia. What they don’t say is that Presidents Reagan and Trump each made a similar promise and nomination during their presidencies.

Here’s a tiny sampling of the cynical, racially-tinged bellyaching out there:

“But which Black woman, exactly? Biden didn’t tell us. Biden didn’t mention the Supreme Court nominee’s legal qualifications or judicial philosophy or ability to perform one of the most important jobs in the country. He didn’t even tell us she was a nice person. All he said was she’s going to be Black and she’s going to be female, because to him, that’s all that matters.

Bridget Floyd would be the obvious choice. She is not a judge or a lawyer or whatever, but in this case, who cares? Clearly, that’s not the point anymore – this law stuff.”

~ Tucker Carlson, Fox News host

“Objectively best pick for Biden is Sri Srinivasan, who is solid prog & v smart,”
“Even has identity politics benefit of being first Asian (Indian) American. But alas doesn’t fit into latest intersectionality hierarchy so we’ll get lesser black woman. Thank heaven for small favors?” [tweet]

~ Ilya Shapiro, Vice President, Cato Institute, and incoming executive director of Georgetown Law School’s Center for the Constitution

“The fact that he’s willing to make a promise at the outset, that it must be a Black woman, I gotta say that’s offensive. You know, you know Black women are what, 6% of the US population? He’s saying to 94% of Americans, ‘I don’t give a damn about you, you are ineligible’.

And he’s also saying — it’s actually an insult to Black women. If he came and said, ‘I’m gonna put the best jurist on the court and he looked at a number of people and he ended up nominating a Black woman, he could credibly say, ‘OK I’m nominating the person who’s most qualified.’ He’s not even pretending to say that he he’s saying, ‘If you’re a White guy, tough luck. If you’re a White woman, tough luck. You don’t qualify.'”

~ Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX)

Oh, boo hoo hoo!

(Note: in 2019, Black women represented 7% of the U.S. population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.)

Black women have too often been dehumanized throughout our history, from the days of slavery to the present day. For example, enslaved women were used for gynecological experiments because of a prevailing perception that Blacks had a higher tolerance for pain – a perception that persists today. African American women and girls are seldom seen as victims and instead seen as deserving of harm or unable to be harmed, a dangerous perception that has perpetuated a long legacy of impunity for violence against them; when abuse occurs, they are less likely to be believed and supported. A report published by Georgetown Law Center found that “adults view Black girls as less innocent and more adult-like than their white peers.” The men mentioned above and their like-minded supporters seem to think Black women have little or no brains. That they can’t possibly be qualified enough to be a judge, let alone a SCOTUS justice.

But of course there are Black women who are qualified! They are part of a very long line of trailblazing women from many fields who continue to contribute to our society. I only included one link about extraordinary African American women under my Sources, but there are countless links to explore!

Those men and their colleagues will say whatever brings in the bucks or votes, of course. Likely appealing to their fan base or voters with more puke-worthy, disgusting comments that reek of racism and misogyny, similar to the ones mentioned above.

Meanwhile, may President Biden choose the best candidate possible. And hopefully, may he get another opportunity to choose another female SCOTUS justice before the next election, maybe even a Chief Justice. That’d be a good bit of progess.

Methinks Justice Ginsberg would have made a good Chief Justice.

Sources

PBS
Wikipedia – Supreme Court of the United States
Supreme Court
Wikipedia – History of the Supreme Court of the United States
Statistica
Population USA
Salon
Daily Beast
Portside
New York Times
The Guardian
CNN
Business Insider
ACLU
Ohio State University
Huffington Post

Dumbing Down America: Outlawing Critical Race Theory

Civics, General, Social Justice,

I’ve been feeling rather hot lately, both literally and figuratively.

Literally, I am feeling too hot and sweaty because it’s just blazing hot outdoors. Figuratively, I am hot because certain people want to dumb down America’s future generations by creating laws to ban the teaching of Critical Race Theory (CRT).

What is CRT you ask?

Critical race theory is a field of intellectual inquiry that demonstrates the legal codification of racism in America.

Through the study of law and U.S. history, it attempts to reveal how racial oppression shaped the legal fabric of the U.S. Critical race theory is traditionally less concerned with how racism manifests itself in interactions with individuals and more concerned with how racism has been, and is, codified into the law.

CRT recognizes that racism is not a bygone relic of the past. Instead, it acknowledges that the legacy of slavery, segregation, and the imposition of second-class citizenship on Black Americans and other people of color continue to permeate the social fabric of this nation. 

So far, Tennessee, Texas, Iowa, Oklahoma, and Florida have passed laws to ban the teaching of Critical Race Theory. And state legislators in Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina, and West Virginia have introduced legislation banning what they believe to be critical race theory from schools. Apparently, these states’ legislators are highly sensitive about teachers asking young people to consider how systemic racism has impacted the fabric of our society.

These laws push back against the heightened awareness of the nation’s history of racial injustice in the wake of the popularity of the 1619 Project and last summer’s massive protests over the murder of George Floyd.

The 1619 Project, is a long-form journalism project developed by Nikole Hannah-Jones, writers from The New York Times, and The New York Times Magazine which “aims to reframe the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of Black Americans at the very center of the United States’ national narrative”. The project was first published in The New York Times Magazine in August 2019 for the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in the English colony of Virginia.

Here are sections from identical legislation in Oklahoma and Tennessee that propose to ban the teaching of the legislators’ imagined conception of CRT:

(1) One race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex;

(2) An individual, by virtue of the individual’s race or sex, is inherently privileged, racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or subconsciously;

(3) An individual should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment because of the individual’s race or sex;

(4) An individual’s moral character is determined by the individual’s race or sex;

(5) An individual, by virtue of the individual’s race or sex, bears responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex;

(6) An individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or another form of psychological distress solely because of the individual’s race or sex.

David Miguel Gray, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Memphis asserts that as a philosopher of race and racism, he can safely say that Critical Race Theory does not assert the aforementioned concepts:

“What most of these bills go on to do is limit the presentation of educational materials that suggest that Americans do not live in a meritocracy, that foundational elements of U.S. laws are racist, and that racism is a perpetual struggle from which America has not escaped.”

Take a look at number 6:

An individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or another form of psychological distress solely because of the individual’s race or sex.

Is there some sort of projection going on here?! Who in their right mind would dream up a concept that children should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or another form of psychological distress solely because of the individual’s race or sex?

WHO is really experiencing discomfort and psychological distress here?!

Fragile politicians who’d rather sweep ugly history under the rug and who don’t want their children and grandchildren to feel the same as they do, I think. (Or not-necessarily-fragile politicians who just want to be re-elected and who don’t want to hear from constituents who might be fragile.) Fugeddabout slaves, generations of brutal injustices and discrimination, eh?! Systemic racism – it is what it is, ok? Let’s move on. Tough shit!

To my mind, these legislators appear to want to pretend racial injustice isn’t real (especially if they’ve never been affected by it). They seek to diminish or erase Critical Race Theory as if racial injustice is a thing of the past, or worse, doesn’t exist – the way they do with the Insurrection of 1/6.

Kimberlé Crenshaw, a law professor and central figure in the development of critical race theory, said in a recent interview that critical race theory “just says, let’s pay attention to what has happened in this country, and how what has happened in this country is continuing to create differential outcomes. … Critical Race Theory … is more patriotic than those who are opposed to it because … we believe in the promises of equality. And we know we can’t get there if we can’t confront and talk honestly about inequality.”

As someone who has always loved history and appreciates people like Kimberlé Crenshaw who dig into the past and critically analyze it to understand our present, I wholeheartedly share her sentiments.

Why limit students’ exposure to the history of racial oppression? These state legislators may be okay with suppressing information and creating amnesia on certain matters, but I certainly am not okay with their actions! I’m not into dumbing down American citizens. Especially young American citizens.

Sources

The Conversation
Alternet.org
Wikipedia
American Bar Association

Happy, Happy Juneteenth National Independence Day!

Civics, General, Social Justice, Women,

Can you believe it: Juneteenth (June 19th) – is finally a national holiday – a nationwide holiday commemorating the end of slavery?! Yay! Officially it is called Juneteenth National Independence Day and historically known as Jubilee Day, Black Independence Day, and Emancipation Day.

On Thursday, June 17th, 2021, President Joe Biden signed a bill that was passed by Congress to set aside Juneteenth, or June 19th, as a federal holiday. “I hope this is the beginning of a change in the way we deal with one another,” he said.

The Senate approved the bill unanimously; however, 14 House Republicans — many representing states that were part of the slave-holding Confederacy in the 19th century — opposed the measure. Fourteen white male Republicans.

Although the Emancipation Proclamation declared “that all persons held as slaves” within the rebellious states (that had seceded from the United States) “are, and henceforward shall be free” on January 1st,1863, it could not be enforced in many places until after the end of the Civil War in 1865. Places like Galveston, Texas, where slaves didn’t get word of their official emanicpation until a certain Union Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger and his troops arrived at Galveston on June 19, 1865, with news that the war had ended and proclaiming freedom for slaves in Texas. That was more than two months after Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in Virginia.

The following year, the now-free people started celebrating Juneteenth in Galveston. Its observance has continued around the nation and the world since. It is celebrated with concerts, parades and readings of the Emancipation Proclamation.

Now the rest of America has (officially) caught up. ‘Bout time!

Well, 14 House Republicans might still be living in the 19th century. Why didn’t they support the bill to make Juneteenth a national holiday?

Here’s a sampling of their mindset:

“We have enough federal holidays right now. I just don’t see the reason in doing it,” he said. “I don’t think it rises to the level I’m going to support it.”
– Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas

“Let’s call an ace an ace. This is an effort by the Left to create a day out of whole cloth to celebrate identity politics as part of its larger efforts to make Critical Race Theory the reigning ideology of our country. Since I believe in treating everyone equally, regardless of race, and that we should be focused on what unites us rather than our differences, I will vote no.”
– Rep. Matt Rosendale, R-Montana

“I don’t believe it’s healthy to reach into the dead past, revive its most malevolent conflicts and reintroduce them into our age,”
– Rep. Tom McClintock, R-California

“Juneteenth should be commemorated as the expression of the realization of the end of slavery in the United States – and I commend those who worked for its passage. I could not vote for this bill, however, because the holiday should not be called ‘Juneteenth National Independence Day’ but rather, ‘Juneteenth National Emancipation (or Freedom or otherwise) Day.’  This name needlessly divides our nation on a matter that should instead bring us together by creating a separate Independence Day based on the color of one’s skin.”
– Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas

And Tom Tiffany, R-Wisconsin, told a tv station that House Democrats had “used their majority to balkanize our country and fuel separatism by creating a race-based ‘Independence Day.’”

Oh, for fuck’s sake! Get over your yourselves!

Race-based ‘Independence Day’?! No comment.

“We have enough federal holidays” – how much is too much, Rep. Jackson? How does Juneteenth not rise to your level, sir? WHAT is your level? Celebrating the end of slavery in America isn’t worth having an official day to remember?

“It’s not healthy to reach into the dead past”, Rep. McClintock? Is it healthier to keep your mind narrow and closed? Is it healthier to sweep the ugly and painful aspects of our history under the rug than to address and acknowledge past wrongs?

This isn’t about YOU.

Pooh on you!

You could learn a thing or two from Ms. Opal Lee, the 94-year-old activist from Fort Worth, Texas, who is oft-referred to as the “Grandmother of Juneteenth”. At age 89, Lee was determined to walk 1,400 miles from Fort Worth, Texas, to Washington D.C. in an effort to create the holiday (she logged 300 miles) and spent years focused on this effort. She told a story to an online audience hosted by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, that highlighted how far the nation has come, even as recent months have illustrated how far it still has to go on rights and inclusion.

When she was a child growing up in Texas – a week after nine-year-old Lee moved with her family to an all-White neighborhood – an all-white mob of about 500 surrounded the house, prompting her mother to send Lee to stay with friends. When her father showed up with a gun to protect his home, a local police officer said, in Lee’s telling to the online audience, “If you bust a cap, we’ll let the mob have you.”

Her parents slipped away when it got dark, and the mob tore the house apart and burned it, she said.

The date of the attack was Juneteenth.

“If those people had allowed us to stay in that community, they would have found that we were just like them. All we wanted was a decent place to stay, and my father had a job. My mom was working two,” said Lee. “That was all we wanted. We would have been good neighbors, but they didn’t give us the opportunity to show them that.”

Do those 14 people who voted NO on the bill to make Juneteenth a national holiday even have the slightest clue of the hate and pain that Opal Lee and her family had to endure for decades? Do they give a rat’s ass?

Ms. Lee’s determination and passion to make Juneteenth a holiday is incredibly inspiring to me and so many others. As a former educator whose job involved social work, Lee now strives to ensure future generations know about Juneteenth. She authored a children’s book entitled, “Juneteenth: A Children’s Story” (which I just now learned as I am writing and researching this post).

Lee told her online audience that what’s important is to continue to seek equality and push back when fairness and equality are denied, as with the recent spate of legislation to restrict voting rights and bar some public school teaching on racism:

“We are going to soldier on. We are not going to let those kinds of things stop us from getting over to our children what they need to know.”

Days before she witnessed Congress pass a bill to make Juneteenth a nationwide holiday commemorating the end of slavery, she told CNN:

“I’m not just going to sit and rock, you know?”

Hear hear!

Sources

PBS
CNBC
National Archives
Wikipedia – Emancipation Proclamation
Crosscut
Mvorganizing.org
NPR
USA Today – Juneteenth 2021 celebrations: What to know about the holiday
Wikipedia – Juneteenth
CNN
The Harvard Gazette
MSN
USA Today – Who are the 14 House Republicans who voted against a Juneteenth holiday? And why?
The New York Times

A Bit of Dirty Laundry on Ethnic Cleansing

General, Social Justice, ,

Can you imagine a stranger coming to your home that your family lived in for generations and the stranger squats right there in your abode, as if it were their home all along, waiting for you to pack up and leave because the state gave him or her the right to do so? A government that has unfailingly discriminated against you and your people of a certain ethnicity, race, or religion for generations?

Who could be so cruel?

People who don’t like another group of people. And willing to use violence if need be.

I can NOT even fathom such a scenario of being forced from my home for no other reason than because of who I am, what I look like, or what I believe (or don’t believe). But it has been the painful reality for too many around the globe. For centuries.

It’s called ethnic cleansing.

Political leaders have long made up excuses to “soften” their actions toward those they oppress – like expelling people as a supposed “punishment” for war crimes, although though the ones being displaced are only “guilty” for being of the same ethnic background as the actual persons who committed crimes against humanity – as was done in December 1944 when Britain’s Prime Minister Winston Churchill announced to a startled House of Commons that the Allies had decided to carry out the largest forced population transfer – what is nowadays referred to as “ethnic cleansing”, in human history. Millions of civilians living in the eastern German provinces that were to be turned over to Poland after the war were to be driven out and deposited among the ruins of the former Reich, to fend for themselves as best they could.

What was planned, he forthrightly declared, was “the total expulsion of the Germans… For expulsion is the method which, so far as we have been able to see, will be the most satisfactory and lasting.”

Greed (or revenge) for land or other resources is another excuse, such as in 146 B.C. during the Battle of Carthage the Romans broke through the city wall of Carthage – now modern day Tunisia – the city was leveled and after its citizens surrendered, they were sold into slavery. And the land surrounding Carthage was eventually declared ager publicus (public land), and it was shared between local farmers, and Roman and Italian ones.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg.

But at the end of the day, a primary objective was and still is to get rid of a group of people.

According to Wikipedia:

Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal or extermination of ethnic, racial and/or religious groups from a given area, often with the intent of making a region ethnically homogeneous. Along with direct removal (deportation, population transfer), it also includes indirect methods aimed at coercing the victim group to flee and preventing its return, such as murder, rape, and property destruction.

Although many instances of ethnic cleansing have occurred throughout history, the term was first used by the perpetrators as a euphemism during the Yugoslav Wars in the 1990s. Since then it has gained widespread acceptance due to journalism and the media’s heightened use of the term in its generic meaning.

The Final Report of the Commission of Experts established pursuant to Security Council Resolution 780 defined ethnic cleansing as “a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas”.

The official United Nations definition of ethnic cleansing is “rendering an area ethnically homogeneous by using force or intimidation to remove from a given area persons of another ethnic or religious group”.

There are too many examples (unfortunately) of ethnic cleansing in human history to include here, but I’ll give you some glaring examples:

China

c. 350 AD: Ancient Chinese texts record that General Ran Min ordered the extermination of the Wu Hu, especially the Jie people, during the Wei–Jie war in the fourth century AD. The Wu Hu, or The Five Barbarians, refers to five ancient non-Han peoples who immigrated to northern China in the Eastern Han dynasty, and then overthrew the Western Jin dynasty and established their own kingdoms in the 4th–5th centuries.

People with racial characteristics such as high-bridged noses and bushy beards were killed; in total, 200,000 were reportedly massacred.

Europe

c. 1250–1500 AD: Many European countries expelled from their respective territories the Jews on at least 15 occasions. Spain was preceded by England, France and some German states, among many others, and succeeded by at least five more expulsions.

Nova Scotia

1755–1764: During the French and Indian War, the Nova Scotian colonial government, aided by New England troops, instituted a systematic removal of the French Catholic Acadian population of Nova Scotia – eventually removing thousands of settlers from the region and relocating them to areas in the Thirteen Colonies, Britain, and France. Many eventually moved and settled in Louisiana and became known as Cajuns. Many scholars have described the subsequent deaths of over 50% of the deported Acadian population as an ethnic cleansing.

United States of America

1830-1850: The Trail of Tears was part of a series of forced displacements of approximately 60,000 Native Americans by the United States government known as the Federal Indian Removal Act of 1830. Members of the Cherokee, Muscogee (Creek), Seminole, Chickasaw, and Choctaw nations (including thousands of their black slaves) were forcibly removed from their ancestral homelands in the Southeastern United States to areas to the west of the Mississippi River that had been designated ‘Indian Territory’.

The forced relocations were carried out by government authorities after the passage of the Indian Removal Act in 1830 and signed by President Andrew Jackson.

The relocated peoples suffered from exposure, disease, and starvation while en route to their newly designated reserve. Thousands died before reaching their destinations or shortly after from disease.

Ottoman Empire

1894–1896: in an effort to Islamize the Ottoman Empire, Sultan Abdul Hamid II ordered the killing of ethnic Armenians (along with other Christian minorities) living in the Ottoman Empire, based on their religion. These killings later became known as the Hamidian massacres, named after Sultan Abdul Hamid II. It has been estimated that the total number of people killed ranges from 80,000 to 300,000.

Canada

You’re familiar with the horrific treatment of thousands of Japanese Americans by the United States government during WWII, yes? Forced from their homes and shipped to faraway concentration camps? Did you know that Canada not only did the same thing, but at the end of the war, they forced many of their own citizens back to Japan, a war-torn country that many of them had never even seen before?

After Canada declared war on Japan, Major General Ken Stuart stated, “From the Army point of view, I cannot see that Japanese Canadians constitute the slightest bit of menace to national security.” Sadly, his words didn’t matter at all, and by February 1942, orders were given to evacuate all Japanese Canadians and relocate them into what were deemed “protective areas.”

Just like their Japanese American counterparts, thousands of Japanese Canadians were given a matter of hours to collect what they could before being loaded onto trains and taken to ghost towns. With no running water or electricity, the ghost towns of British Columbia became holding centers for thousands of men, women, and children. About 20,800 people were moved, and of those, more than 13,000 were Canadian citizens who were born in the country. Their property was seized and much of it sold to finance the cost of moving them.

When the war ended, those who were moved to internment camps were given two choices, and neither was good. In order to prove their loyalty to their new nation (which was the only country that many had ever known), they were told that they needed to move to the eastern part of Canada. Those who didn’t want to leave their homes in British Columbia were given only one other choice – repatriation to Japan.

What a raw deal, to put it mildly.

Palestine

The 1948 Palestinian exodus occurred when more than 700,000 Palestinian Arabs – about half of prewar Palestine’s Arab population – fled or were expelled from their homes, during the 1948 Palestine war.

The exodus was a central component of the fracturing, dispossession and displacement of Palestinian society, known as the Nakba (Arabic: al-Nakbah, literally “disaster”, “catastrophe”, or “cataclysm”) in which between 400 and 600 Palestinian villages were destroyed and Palestinian history erased, and also refers to the wider period of war itself and the subsequent oppression up to the present day.

The precise number of refugees, many of whom settled in refugee camps in neighboring states, is a matter of dispute but around 80 percent of the Arab inhabitants of what became Israel (half of the Arab total of British-created Mandatory Palestine) left or were expelled from their homes. About 250,000–300,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled before the Israeli Declaration of Independence in May 1948, a fact which was named as a casus belli (“occasion for war” – an act or event that provokes or is used to justify war.) for the entry of the Arab League into the country, sparking the 1948 Arab–Israeli War.

I regret to tell you that there are SO many more ethnic cleansing events throughout history to the present day. You may be aware of some of them, as I am, particularly the more notorious ones in during the 20th century, including the Turkish massacre of Armenians during World War I; the Nazis’ annihilation of some 6 million European Jews in the Holocaust; the forced displacement and mass killings carried out in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda during the 1990s.

But I didn’t know about the many lesser known ones and thought they were just as notable to share with you; however, I don’t want to overwhelm you with too much detail and historical facts, important as they are. But if you’ve read this far, you’ve got an idea of what horrors humans can inflict on one another.

Regarding Palestine, you’ve no doubt heard of the horrible conflict now raging between Israel and Palestine if you’ve been watching the news. What’s not being covered, at least on broadcast news as far as I can tell (even on liberal-leaning MSNBC), is what lies at reason for the confrontations: the likely Israeli takeover of Palestinian homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of occupied East Jerusalem.

This sort of thing between Israeli settlers and Palestinians has been going on for decades, but intensified yet again over the last weeks. The New York Times reports that since the start of the May, the prospect of the evictions has prompted daily protests, arrests, and confrontations between Palestinians and the Israeli police and Jewish extremists.

Tensions reached a peak at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound – Islam’s third holiest site – in Jerusalem on Friday night, May 7th, where police officers threw stun grenades and fired rubber-coated bullets as worshipers attempted to pray, and worshipers threw bottles and stones. Some of the stun grenades landed in the mosque. Injuries, deaths, and destruction continue as I write this.

To pour salt on the wound, the upsurge in violence came during the last week of Ramadan as Israel celebrated “Jerusalem Day“, marking its capture of East Jerusalem in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

I won’t attempt to describe the fear and pain felt by Palestinians threatened by the loss of the only homes they’ve known for generations, so I will just share the link to a video made by a Palestinian writer describing what is going on:

‘We are very scared’: Palestinian writer explains Israel’s ‘forced ethnic displacement’ in powerful clip

On Sunday, May 9th, the Israeli Supreme Court delayed a decision on whether to expel six Palestinian families from their homes in East Jerusalem after the attorney general requested more time, in part because of the tensions the case has stirred. The court was to decide on Monday, May 10th, whether to uphold an expulsion order for the families in the Palestinian neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem, in a hearing that many feared would set off a wave of unrest.

Instead, the case has been delayed by up to 30 days to allow the attorney general, Avichai Mandelblit, to review it. The Israeli government has argued that the Sheikh Jarrah case is a private real-estate dispute between the Palestinian families and a secretive Jewish settler group, which bought the land two decades ago on which the Palestinians’ homes were built in the 1950s.

This is the present day: The New York Times notes that for many Palestinians, the families’ plight has become emblematic of a wider effort to remove Palestinians from parts of East Jerusalem and of the past displacements of Arabs in the occupied territories and within Israel – the only home they’ve known for centuries.

Getting rid of people. Because of who they are. Threatened with losing their homes, their livelihoods (or worse), just as many of their forbears lost their homes over the past decades. Because for any number of reasons, one group of people feels they can and will dispose of another group of people.

It is the 21st century and we are still witnessing ethnic cleansing.

Let that sink in.

Sources

Alternet
Wikipedia – List of ethnic cleansing campaigns
Wikipedia – Ethnic Cleansing
History.com – Ethnic Cleansing
Wikipedia – Trail of Tears
History.com – Trail of Tears
Britannica
HuffPost
Listverse
The New York Times
Wikipedia – 1948 Palestinian exodus
MSN
AlJazeera

Impunity is Not an Option Here

General, Social Justice, , ,

Can you imagine how you would feel if a lunatic burst through the door of your workplace, accusing you and your coworkers of something you did not do, threatening you, and berating you with racially tinged words?

Last Tuesday, April 6, 2021, a 50-year-old woman identified as Sharon Williams by police, stormed into Good Choice for Nails Salon near Manhattan’s Chinatown, berating and threatening the workers. “You brought coronavirus to this country!” she yelled, according to police.

Then she went outside, continued her rampage, and spewed hateful remarks at an Asian pedestrian on the sidewalk.

When a male bystander intervened, she called him “a Chinese motherfucker,” according to police. But he wasn’t just any bystander: he was an undercover NYPD officer.

Hahahahahaha!! Serves you right, Ms. Williams.

The officer then called for backup, and Williams was arrested and charged with “harassment as a hate crime and aggravated harassment as a hate crime,” officials told the The Washington Post.

Sharon Williams may not have been armed with a lethal weapon, but her mouth spewed the sort of vitriol that has targed Asian Americans since the start of the pandemic. Sometimes resulting in physical harm – and death.

Data released by Stop AAPI [Asian American Pacific Islander] Hate showed that almost 3,800 incidents of anti-Asian hate were reported over the past year during the pandemic. The number only accounts for those reported, so the actual number of crimes is expected to be much higher. Additionally, of the 3,800 anti-hate incidents reported, 68% targeted women and over 500 occurred in 2021 alone, according to Stop AAPI Hate.

I wonder how Ms. Williams would feel if she were in a workplace where everyone looked like her and a lunatic burst through the door, spewing racist vitriol and accusing her and her coworkers of something she did not do nor had any control over?

Did she need her 15 minutes of fame?

Was Ms. Williams’ mind so embroiled in racist animosity toward Asian Americans that she just HAD TO give her piece of mind to anybody who appeared Asian – assuming perhaps that the people she harassed were Chinese just because she went to Chinatown? Did she assume that just because the virus supposedly started in China that every person she may perceive as Chinese is guilty? Did she think she’d get away with her very public racist harassment of people who don’t look like her?

Where the hell does she get her information about COVID-19 anyway? Has she drunk the former president’s racist rhetoric around the coronavirus referring to it as “kung flu” and “China virus”? (ethnicity is not a virus nor does a virus have an ethnicity, Ms. Williams!)

She isn’t someone I’d want to be in the presence of.

Last year, in an effort to stop the rise in attacks against Asian Americans, the NYPD created an 18-member Asian hate-crime task force. And last month NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea announced the department would increase its outreach to Asian communities and deploy plainclothes Asian American officers in Chinatown and other areas of the city with larger Asian American population. This announcement created immediate backlash from some reform advocates, who noted that the department had agreed last year to disband its plainclothes “anti-crime” units; those officers were involved in a disproportionate number of civilian complaints and shootings. However, this announcement sparked immediate backlash from some reform advocates, who noted that the department had agreed last year to disband its plainclothes “anti-crime” units that have long been involved in a disproportionate number of civilian complaints and shootings.

One critic, Joo-Hyun Kang, the director of Communities United for Police Reform, said the new initiative is “a toxic plan that’s being imposed on our communities for the NYPD’s public relations goals.”

She added,

The NYPD routinely protects white supremacy, has no track record of preventing hate violence in any community and in Asian communities regularly harasses and targets elders who collect bottles and cans, delivery workers, sex workers, youth and others.

Apparently, no plainclothes Asian American officer was present when an Asian-American man was attacked in Central Park in broad daylight while walking through the park with his wife and five-year-old son…likely because it isn’t an area with a heavily concentrated Asian American population. The attack reportedly took place around 1:00 p.m. on Saturday, March 27.

The assailant allegedly started whispering something in the man’s wife’s ear that was sexual in nature; when the Asian American man tried to reason with the attacker, he got sucker punched. His injuries were serious enough to land him in nearby Mount Sinai Hospital.

That attacker is still on the loose.

I lost count long ago of how many stupid racist comments, dirty looks, and harrassments I’ve received over the years and to the present day because of who I am and what I look like. I can only count ONE time (thankfully) when my life was threatened for that reason. So when I learn about people who are attacked (or worse) for who they are – especially those with whom I identify ethnically and culturally, it pains me. It makes me sad and it makes my blood boil.

Reading details about racist attacks on people is sometimes visceral for me because it brings back unpleasant memories which are all too relatable. I can empathize with them. And it can be news I don’t want to think about too much because it’s too close for comfort – I imagine the victim could have been one of my family members.

I’d likely be fit to be tied if that were to happen, which I hope it never will, of course.

I shall keep writing about this as long as anti-Asian hate crimes keep happening. Name the perpetrators and name their crimes. Why remain silent and sweep their misdeeds under the carpet?

This is not the 19th century, when the perpetrators of one of the worst mass lynchings in U.S. history in Los Angeles’ Chinatown in 1871 literally got away with murder. Nineteen Chinese immigrants were killed, 15 of whom were hanged by the mob in the course of the riot. According to the first Associated Press account, the mob consisted of at least 500 people, or 8 percent of the city’s population.

Authorities arrested and tried 10 people. Eight were convicted of manslaughter and sent to San Quentin prison. Their convictions were overturned on appeal due to a legal technicality.

So yes, the convicted got away with murder. Never mind the hundreds of other participants who committed goodness knows what else. The tragedy was quickly forgotten; the local newspapers made no mention of it in the year-end recap of major events of the year, according to the Los Angeles Public Library.

Go beyond Los Angeles to Rock Springs, Wyoming, where on September 2, 1885, 150 white miners in Rock Springs, Wyoming, brutally attacked their Chinese coworkers, killing 28, wounding 15 others, and driving several hundred more out of town. The massacre was defended in the local newspaper, and, to a lesser extent, in other western newspapers.

Or Seattle, Washington, where on February 6–9, 1886, anti-Chinese sentiment caused by intense labor competition – and in the context of an ongoing struggle between labor and capital – erupted in violence between the Knights of Labor rioters and federal troops ordered in by President Grover Cleveland. The incident resulted in the removal of over 200 Chinese civilians from Seattle and left two militia men and three rioters seriously injured. Congress paid $276,619.15 to the Chinese government in compensation for the rioting, but the actual victims never saw any such compensation. Though 13 men were tried in court in relation to the riot, not a single one was ever convicted of a crime.

Throughout the American West (and particularly in California) during the second half of the 19th century, countless Chinese immigrants were attacked: lynched, murdered, assaulted, and their homes and businesses were pillaged and burnt. No one was ever held accountable then.

So in this 21st century, whenever ignorant, hateful people choose to broadcast their racial animosity by harming others, let’s overwhelm them with bright sunshine for the whole world to see!

Impunity is not an option here.

I may have osteoporosis of the spine, but I’ll be damned if I become spineless about today’s anti-Asian hate crimes and other injustices by remaining silent. I hereby take this vow – to myself.

Sources

Daily Kos
Washington Post
Alternet.org
TMZ
Wikipedia – Anti-Chinese sentiment in the United States
History.com
Wikipedia – Rock Springs Massacre
Wikipedia – Seattle riot of 1886
Teaching Resources – University of Illinois
Today
Los Angeles Public Library
Orange County Register
China Underground
Wikipedia – Chinese massacre of 1871
LA Times – The racist massacre that killed 10% of L.A.’s Chinese population and brought shame to the city
My Central Oregon
LA Times – Column: Chinese immigrants helped build California, but they’ve been written out of its history
US Department of State – Office of the Historian
Wikipedia – History of Chinese Americans
Gothamist
Stop AAPI Hate

Blood Boiling Material

General, Social Justice, Women, ,

My blood has been boiling over in recent days due to the mass murder on March 16th, 2021 in Georgia. A young man aged 21 killed eight people – seven women and one man at three different massage spas.

He told investigators he targeted these places because he wanted to “take out that temptation” from his “sexual addiction” issues. And according to some reports, he had spent time in rehab for sex addiction in 2019 and 2020.

Robert Aaron Long, the gunman, has been described by former classmates in news reports as a highly religious baptist who took a bible to high school with him every day and was on a crusade to remove “temptation” when he opened fire in the massage spas.

Oh, it’s the women’s fault, is that what you mean by removing “temptation”, Mr. Long?

It’s so easy to blame others for your problems, isn’t it?

What happened to personal responsibility? Like avoiding places you claim “tempt” you?

Or managing your problem by pouring ice cold water on your junk?

Mr. Long, I think your deep religiosity has fucked up your head. Badly. Bringing a bible to school every day doesn’t make you a “good” person. If you believe your heavenly father is in control, then why did you wrest that control from him and take out eight people’s lives yourself?

Those people whose lives you took weren’t responsible for YOUR feelings of “temptation”. You decided to end their lives.

You told police you were not motivated by race?

That is hard to believe given that you went to three different Asian spas and that six out of your eight victims were Asian women.

And news reports have you saying you told authorities that you claim you targeted Asian women to eliminate “temptation.”

Your objectification of Asian women as “temptation” is disgusting. Dehumanizing.

Eight lives are gone, eight families are suffering a loss of their loved ones because of you. On top of that, since you nearly killed another man during your killing spree, that man will now have a long and painful recovery thanks to you.

And you’ve shaken the Asian American community not only in Georgia, but across the nation. To date, nearly 3,800 anti-Asian hate incidents have been reported over the course of the pandemic by reporting forum STOP AAPI (Asian American Pacific Islander) Hate. Women make up a far higher share of the reports, at 68 percent, compared to men, who make up 29 percent of respondents. (The nonprofit does not report incidents to police.)

Mr. Long, you’ve just shone the stadium lights on anti-Asian hate in the worst possible way.

America will be much safer with you in a cage.

There is someone else who has got my blood boiling.

He is Capt. Jay Baker of Georgia’s Cherokee County Sheriff’s office, who has come under fire for his comments on gunman Long:

He was at pretty much fed up and kind of at the end of his rope, and yesterday was a really bad day for him and this is what he did.

Well, golleeeeee, Capt. Baker! We all have bad days, don’t we?! Would there be any human being left on earth if we each acted out on our “really bad day” as Mr. Long did?

Just a “really bad day”? I think a lot of people are having trouble wrapping their head around that. Apparently Mr. Long’s parents kicked him out the night before the shootings, according to the news reports – and they also turned him in after the shootings. Small comfort to the families of his victims.

Saying a mass murderer had a really bad day is beyond the pale. I’m sure the victims’ families really loved hearing that from you, Capt. Baker. Must have felt as comforting as Arctic air biting their skin against their burning, overwhelming grief.

It’s not helpful that in defending you, your colleague, Cherokee County Sheriff Frank Reynolds, said,

In as much as his words were taken or construed as insensitive or inappropriate, they were not intended to disrespect any of the victims, the gravity of this tragedy or express empathy or sympathy for the suspect.

And noted that your remarks launched “much debate and anger.”

Really?!

Are you wondering WHY your remarks launched much debate and anger?

I’m not.

And now the public learns that you apparently promoted shirts on your now-deleted Facebook account that featured racist language and blamed China for the pandemic. “Covid 19 IMPORTED VIRUS FROM CHY-NA,” the shirts said, in the same spirit as former President Donald Trump.

Your alleged words:

• “Place your order while they last,” – with a smiley face emoji alongside a picture of the shirts in a post on March 30 last year.

• “Love my shirt… Get yours while they last,” you reportedly wrote alongside pictures of the shirts in April.

If this is true, then Georgians deserve far better in a public servant. Especially one entrusted with the power to ensure the safety of their fellow citizens.

How can anyone in their right mind implicitly trust a law enforcement officer with a record of racist and/or misogynistic behavior to keep them safe on the streets?

I would not want to be in the presence of that officer. At. All.

May the eight victims killed by Mr. Long rest in peace and may their families find some measure of solace in community support and solidarity with them.

And may the gentleman Mr. Long gravely wounded recover fully; I hope he can give damning testimony against Long so that justice may prevail.

Sources

The New York Times
NBC News – Asian America
NBC News – ‘Stop AAPI hate: Around 3,800 anti-Asian incidents recorded in the past year (video)
ABC News
MSN
USA Today
USA Today – Asian women: Shooting points to racist tropes (video)
heavy
CBS News
CBS Atlanta
WWL-TV
The Wrap
Hide Out
My Central Oregon
The Independent
Newsweek

Hello, Media? Asian. American. Lives. Matter. Wake UP!

General, Media, Social Justice, ,

On the same day that I signed a petition created by Asian American Collective that asks mainstream media to get up and cover the issues of the Asian American community, mainstream and cable media (except Fox News) finally brought to America’s attention the recent spate of murder and multiple assualts against Asian Americans.

Hey! Public pressure can work!

Early last week, I signed this petition:

Get Mainstream News Coverage Of National Elderly Asian American Assaults

It reads in part:

Over the course of the past year, the unfortunate inflation of racist rhetoric associated with the origin and spread of the Coronavirus has resulted in an uptick of deadly hate crimes against Asian Americans.

In the past week we’ve seen murders and hateful assaults skyrocket across America but have noticeably felt ZERO pressure to cover from America’s mainstream news sources. Why is it that in the eyes of American media, Asian lives do not matter?

President Biden very recently signed an Executive Order to help combat hate crimes toward the Asian American community. He even outlined his agenda on the campaign trail for the AAPI Community.

Because Asian Americans still have not been given a voice in mainstream America and it’s time they covered OUR struggles, fights and needs. We are Americans and deserve to live without constant fear, or the fear of our elders being senselessly murdered. 

Why does it take public pressure to compel the media to inform Americans about their fellow human beings becoming targets of racial hostility? And in particular, elderly Asian Americans?

Is it just convenient to pretend we’re invisible? Especially elderly people?

Asian Americans have been in the Americas for a long time. According to Wikpedia’s page on Asian immigration:

the first Asian-origin people known to arrive in North America after the beginning of the European colonization were a group of Filipinos known as “Luzonians” or Luzon Indians. These Luzonians were part of the crew and landing party of the Spanish galleon Nuestra Señora de Buena Esperanza.

The ship set sail from Manila and landed in Morro Bay in what is now the California Coast on October 17, 1587 as part of the Galleon Trade between the Spanish East Indies (the colonial name for what would become the Philippines) and New Spain (Spain’s colonies in North America).

And according to a historical pamphlet, Timeline: 400 Years of Chinese in The Americas produced by The Museum of Chinese in the Americas (MoCA) in New York City, the Spanish documented Chinese settlements in Acapulco “as early as 1600s and later in Mexico City by 1635”.

Filipino sailors were the first to settle in the U.S. around 1750 in what would later be Louisiana.

And the arrival of three Chinese seamen in Baltimore in 1785 marks the first record of Chinese in the United States.

We’ve been here a while, people!

After all these centuries, are Asian Americans still reduced to only cultural things from which non-Asians enjoy and benefit?

Things like martial arts: kung-fu, karate, and jujitsu? Foods, including sushi, No. 1 Chinese take-out that, in my opinion, no-self-respecting Chinese person would consume, and bobo drinks? Movies that portray women as either submissive and docile or conniving “dragon” women – and men often portrayed as emasculated nerd scientists or good guy-bad guy martial artists? Or somewhere in between but invisible – an extra in a movie – an office worker or random person walking in the street but silent or having a bit speaking part of no signficance?

Asian Americans have built America’s railroads, have turned California’s swamplands into farmlands to feed America, have fought patriotically in its wars (like my father and uncles), have taken care of our fellow citizens when they become ill via countless medical personnel, fought for rights and better living conditions in Congress, have worked tirelessly as scientists among their colleagues to find cures for diseases, and so much more.

And what thanks have we gotten? I’ll give you a sampling:

• The Nazi-like 1882 Chinese Exlusion Act – renewed repeatedly until the 1940s;

• Lynchings, physical violence, pillaging, and other untold crimes during the 19th century;

• Chinese detained at Angel Island (the Ellis Island of the West) to answer asinine questions from authorities to determine the authenticity of their identities;

• Japanese internment camps across the country during WWII;

• Racial hostility that continues to this day – magnified in the past year thanks to our now-former U.S. president who cruelly referred to COVID-19 as the “China virus” and “kung flu” and who inspired some of his most rabid followers to spew the same racist rhetoric to complete strangers of Asian heritage – sometimes accompanied by spitting or violent physical assault.

• Invisibility from the media, unless it suits them somehow.

I guess a spate of assaults against elderly Asian Americans isn’t sexy, titillating news.

Allow me to indulge you with naming some of the people who were attacked.

Vicha Ratanapakdee, 84 – knocked to the ground while on his morning walk January 28, 2021, by a teenager. Mr. Ratanapakdee’s fall resulted in his head hitting the pavement and him sliding into a garage door. Ratanapakdee died two days later as a result of his injuries after being taken to a hospital. He was originally from Thailand. (Bay Area, CA)

Yik Oi Huang, 88 – beaten by a teenager with her own cane before stealing her keys and leaving her to die in the sandbox of a playground across from her home on Jan. 9, 2019. Huang suffered a skull fracture, brain bleeding, numerous facial fractures, and injury to her spine, hands and ribs,. She was bleeding heavily from her head, face and nose. She died January 3, 2020, nearly a year after her injuries. (Bay Area CA)

Noel Quintana, 61 – was on his way to work on the L subway train when he got into a dispute with another man and was slashed across the face on Wednesday morning, February 5, 2021. Mr. Quintana claimed the man was kicking his backpack during the commute, according to ABC7. When Quintana asked him to stop, the suspect slashed the 61 year-old man on the right cheek with a box cutter causing physical injuries and ran away when the train made another stop. Mr. Quintana told ABC News he feared for his life since nobody was helping him. He was taken to a local hospital for treatment. (New York City, NY)

Mauricio Gesmundo, Sr., 83 – was getting ready for dinner when he heard loud sounds from inside his house on December 31, 2020 (New Year’s Eve). His son recalled, “All he remembers is whoever it was covered his face and then beat him.” His family found him bound and duct-taped. He died from his injuries on January 18, 2021.(Philadelphia, PA)

There are so many more Asian Americans who’ve been attacked as well. A New York NBC station reports that while the pandemic’s long-lasting impact has affected public health and the economy, the Asian-American community has also experienced the fallout of COVID-19 – being unfairly blamed for the pandemic and becoming the target of discrimination and violence.

According to the Asian American Bar Association of New York (AABANY) report “A Rising Tide of Hate and Violence against Asian Americans in New York During COVID-19: Impact, Causes, Solutions,” they found:

Anti-Asian hate incidents increased dramatically in the wake of the 9/11 attacks and then surged after the election of Donald J. Trump. South Asian, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu and Middle Eastern communities all faced recurring cycles of harassment and violence. Since the onset of the pandemic, however, anti-Asian hate incidents now primarily directed at East Asians have skyrocketed according to both official and unofficial reports.

Across the country, there were more than 2,500 reports of anti-Asian hate incidents related to COVID-19 between March and September 2020. And this number understates the actual number of anti-Asian hate incidents because most incidents are not reported.

The report goes on to say that, as of Dec. 31, 2020,

there were 259 anti-Asian incidents in New York reported to “Stop AAPI Hate,” a report center sponsored by the Asian Pacific Policy & Planning Council, Chinese for Affirmative Action, and San Francisco State University’s Asian-American Studies Department. Although the majority of the incidents reported involve verbal harassment, shunning, physical assault, as well as being coughed and spat on are being reported at an alarming rate, according to the published study.

I’m not going to insult the people I mentioned who were attacked by discussing their attackers. They don’t deserve my time and space. Last I checked, two perpetrators have been arrested and at least two are still on the loose.

Mr. Ratanapakdee, Ms. Huang, Mr. Quintana, and Mr. Gesmundo. These individuals all had families. They were someone’s father, great-grandmother, mother, grandfather, auntie, and uncle.

Many of us have grandparents, parents, aunties, uncles we love – or loved and remembered, if they no longer are with us. The individuals I mentioned could have been one of our own parents, grandparents, relatives, or loved ones. The violence of their attacks numbs my mind and turns my stomach, and I can’t fathom the searing pain their families have endured. What a horrible way to have left this world.

With thousands of anti-Asian hate incidents related to the COVID-19 reported – and likely many unreported according to multiple news sources, why is America seemingly unaware of this? One night of mention on the news will not make an impression in our attention-deficit world. I thought multiple attacks against vulnerable people would garner worthy news attention.

But maybe not if they’re Asian American and apparently deemed invisible by mainstsream and cable news? Is omission of Asian American elder attacks what corporate media desires – to convey to the American public that we really don’t matter?

If so, that’s pretty downright sick.

Asian Americans…they exist?

Damn right we exist!

I’m grateful for activist organizations like Asian American Collective to bring to my attention the injustice of the violent attacks against elderly Asians and to bring national attention to the plight of our fellow human beings.

So hello, American media – yes, that includes you, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, WaPo, LA Times, NY Times, and even those who mentioned the rise in Asian American hate crimes:

ASIAN. AMERICAN. LIVES. MATTER.

We exist. A one-time mention isn’t sufficient.

With more than a couple thousand recorded complaints of anti-Asian hate crimes and counting, throughout the pandemic, you’ve no excuse not to follow-up on this. Tell us about those who’ve been attacked, about their lives, who they are or who they were, how their families are coping, how their respective communities have responded.

Wake UP!

Your silence is deafening. If you proclaim to provide “fair and balanced” news that has an impact on American lives, then treat ALL Americans with respect and tell them when their fellow citizens are being harmed repeatedly. Name names!

Don’t dehumanize and reduce us as just a group.

SAY their names: Vicha Ratanapakdee. Yik Oi Huang. Noel Quintana. Mauricio Gesmundo.

They’re just the tip of the iceberg.

Peace.

Sources

Change.org – petition
Change.org – petition update
SF Examiner
Next Shark
CBS Philly
Newsbreak
SF Examiner
ABC7 News
AsAmNews
Next Shark
ABC7 News
The Hill
NBC4 New York
Wikipedia
Asian-Nation
Archives.gov
Times of Israel
Wikipedia
Britannica
History.com
NBC – Asian America
American History USA
Teaching for Change
Asian American Bar Association of New York