How Asian-American Leaders Are Grappling With Xenophobia Amid Coronavirus vs Black History

[Ish Gibor]

Maybe it's because I come from the West Coast so I know the history, but the Chinese in particular were treated like shyt on the coast. Chinese workers basically built the railway system: Op-Ed: Remember the Chinese immigrants who built America's first transcontinental railroad

And as one example of a race riot towards Chinese folks in Seattle, white folks burned down Chinese homes and chased them back up off the water and into the hills: Seattle’s Anti-Chinese Race Riot—February 7, 1886: The Day Seattle Imploded | International Examiner

Obviously, there were multiple Exclusion Acts passed to target Chinese immigration to the U.S.

I'm not caping for Chinese people or anything, and obviously black Americans have had it worse than any Asian community here, but there are numerous race riots toward Asians in America on the West Coast.

Obviously, you've got Japanese Internment as well. So there is history there. It's just that when white people are worried that they'll be outnumbered, they'll accept compliant and complicit Asians into their group in order to keep their boots on the necks of black folks.

Notice the author: “GORDON H. CHANG”.

I did see this once on a discussion panel (at Stanford, if I remember this correctly), a few years ago, but "City of Seattle - Resolution 31605" on these immigrants between 1864 and 1869 was indeed informative. So yeah, they did had somewhat uncomfortable experiences, but it was still miniscule. And what skips on me is how this is used for "all Asians" who came after 1965, who make up the bulk of the Asian demographic?

I dislike the narrative that "Chinese workers basically built the railway system", when that is not even true. The legacy of "John Henry" is too significant to ignore.

"…nearly every rail line built east of the Mississippi River and south of the Mason-Dixon line before the Civil War was constructed or run at least partly by slaves.”[1]

If the tracks were laid out in a straight line, it would have been enough to span the width of the continental United States nearly 3 times… a staggering amount.

Because we often take railroads for granted, it is easy to forget the increased income and security that comes as a result of them. Although the Midwest (and particularly Illinois) saw a boom in railroad construction during the 1850s, the South was growing quickly, too—and demand for a robust rail infrastructure was high. Railroads lowered internal transportation costs for farmers and expanded commerce.[3] At times, the South even exceeded the number of tracks built in the North, even opening up new frontiers for cotton plantations.[4] Farmers could quickly and efficiently move goods from one city to another—a game changer for the entire nation.

In 1860, nearly 15,000 African Americans were enslaved by railroad companies in the South.[6] The demand that the railroads created for slave labor meant that the cost of slave labor rose rapidly in the late-antebellum South.[7]"

These slaves weren’t just grown men, either.

https://www.nrrhof.org/single-post/2017/11/06/Stories-Lost-Slavery-and-the-Railroads

"During the construction of the railroad, thousands of Chinese migrants came to the United States to find a better life. Instead, they found severe racial discrimination and dangerous working conditions—all for very little reimbursement. At the height of construction, over 11,000 Chinese workers were involved in the construction of the Central Pacific Railroad."

https://www.nrrhof.org/single-post/2017/05/19/Chinese-Workers-of-the-First-Transcontinental-Railroad

Railroad history in the United States is nearly as old as the country itself, dating back to the mid-1820s.

Railroad History (USA): Timeline, Statistics



Ps. with you being from the West Coast, can you tell/ explain what happened to the "Los Pobladores"?

 

[IllmaticDelta]

Maybe it's because I come from the West Coast so I know the history, but the Chinese in particular were treated like shyt on the coast. Chinese workers basically built the railway system: Op-Ed: Remember the Chinese immigrants who built America's first transcontinental railroad

And as one example of a race riot towards Chinese folks in Seattle, white folks burned down Chinese homes and chased them back up off the water and into the hills: Seattle’s Anti-Chinese Race Riot—February 7, 1886: The Day Seattle Imploded | International Examiner

Obviously, there were multiple Exclusion Acts passed to target Chinese immigration to the U.S.

yeah, they were discriminated against but on a much smaller level

Remember, most Asians immigrated to the USA, AFTER the AfroAmerican Civil Rights movement paved the way for them.

They were pretty insignificant prior to that time

I'm not caping for Chinese people or anything, and obviously black Americans have had it worse than any Asian community here, but there are numerous race riots toward Asians in America on the West Coast.

yeah, they mostly got it bad from whites out west because they were more visible; the chinese that lived in JIM CROW ERA SOUTH, didn't get treated like that.

 

[.r.]

.

 

[Ish Gibor]

Thanks for the contributions on the historical perspectives. So we see a few mishaps that happened decades ago and have no effects whatsoever on the immigrants that came after 1965.

I am really trying hard to make the comparison, but I simply can't find it. Even in the stats unarmed people begin shot by corrupt police officers, we see Black people, and in particularly Black males, with occasionally "some" Asian.

I did look up mutual sources, to make sure the research is done evenly. What I found was a killed spree of unarmed Black people, at the hands by corrupt police officers, with Asian barely making it to the statistics. So what is Matt Stevens talking about, when he says the political momentum that has been bubbling in recent years?

Some of those interviewed expressed cautious hope that the events of the past several weeks might unite the sprawling and diverse Asian-American community in a productive way that could build on the political momentum that has been bubbling in recent years.”

~Matt Stevens

I wonder what data Matt Stevens using and where he is pooling this from?

"In the U.S., African Americans are 2.5 times more likely to be killed by police than white people. For black women, the rate is 1.4 times more likely.

That’s according to a new study conducted by Frank Edwards, of Rutgers University’s School of Criminal Justice, Hedwig Lee, of Washington University in St. Louis’s Department of Sociology, and Michael Esposito, of the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research. The researchers used verified data on police killings from 2013 to 2018 compiled by the website Fatal Encounters, created by Nevada-based journalist D. Brian Burghart. Under their models, they found that roughly 1-in-1,000 black boys and men will be killed by police in their lifetime. For white boys and men, the rate is 39 out of 100,000."

~Brentin Mock
AUGUST 6, 2019
Race and Police Shootings: What New Research Says - CityLab



"How do racial biases play into deadly encounters with the police? Researchers wrestle with incomplete data to reach answers.

They are mining the new numbers to address pressing questions, such as whether the police are disproportionately quick to shoot black civilians and those from other minority groups. But methods and interpretations vary greatly. A pair of high-profile papers published in the past few weeks1,2 come to seemingly opposite conclusions about the role of racial biases.

Scientists are now debating which incidents to track — from deadly shootings to all interactions with the public — and which details matter most, such as whether the victim was armed or had had previous contact with the police. They are also looking for the best way to compare activities across jurisdictions and account for misreporting. “It’s really contentious because there’s no clearly right answer,” says Seth Stoughton at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, a former police officer who now studies the regulation of law enforcement.

Although the databases are still imperfect, they make it clear that police officers’ use of lethal force is much more common than previously thought, and that it varies significantly across the country, including the two locations where Brown and Garner lost their lives. St Louis (of which Ferguson is a suburb) has one of the highest rates of police shooting civilians per capita in the United States, whereas New York City consistently has one of the lowest, according to one database. Deciphering what practices and policies drive such differences could identify opportunities to reduce the number of shootings and deaths for both civilians and police officers, scientists say.

[…]

In December 2014, spurred by unrest in the wake of Ferguson, then-US president, Barack Obama, created a task force to investigate policing practices. The group issued a report five months later, highlighting a need for “expanded research and data collection” (see go.nature.com/2kqoddk). The data historically collected by the federal government on fatal shootings were sorely lacking. Almost two years later, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) responded with a pilot project to create an online national database of fatal and non-fatal use of force by law-enforcement officers. The FBI director at the time, James Comey, called the lack of comprehensive national data “unacceptable” and “embarrassing”.

Full data collection started this year. But outsiders had already begun to gather the data in the interests of informing the public. The database considered to be the most complete is maintained by The Washington Post. In 2015, the newspaper began collecting information on fatal shootings from local news reports, public records and social media. Its records indicate that police officers shoot and kill around 1,000 civilians each year — about twice the number previously counted by the FBI.

Recognizing that ‘lethal force’ does not always involve a gun and doesn’t always result in death, two other media organizations expanded on this approach. In 2015 and 2016, UK newspaper The Guardian combined its original reporting with crowdsourced information to record all fatal encounters with the police in the United States, and found around 1,100 civilian deaths per year. Online news site VICE News obtained data on both fatal and non-fatal shootings from the country’s 50 largest local police departments, finding that for every person shot and killed between 2010 and 2016, officers shot at two more people who survived. Extrapolating from that, the actual number of civilians shot by the police each year is likely to be upwards of 3,000.

Recognizing that ‘lethal force’ does not always involve a gun and doesn’t always result in death, two other media organizations expanded on this approach. In 2015 and 2016, UK newspaper The Guardian combined its original reporting with crowdsourced information to record all fatal encounters with the police in the United States, and found around 1,100 civilian deaths per year. Online news site VICE News obtained data on both fatal and non-fatal shootings from the country’s 50 largest local police departments, finding that for every person shot and killed between 2010 and 2016, officers shot at two more people who survived. Extrapolating from that, the actual number of civilians shot by the police each year is likely to be upwards of 3,000."

~Lynne Peeples
NATURE | VOL 573 | 5 SEPTEMBER 2019
What the data say about police shootings

 

[Ish Gibor]

yeah, they were discriminated against but on a much smaller level

Remember, most Asians immigrated to the USA, AFTER the AfroAmerican Civil Rights movement paved the way for them.

They were pretty insignificant prior to that time

yeah, they mostly got it bad from whites out west because they were more visible; the chinese that lived in JIM CROW ERA SOUTH, didn't get treated like that.

Indeed when you look at this data independently it looks shocking. When you look at American history in total it's a blips in time, because it is totally overshadowed by the Black experience.

“After enduring decades of exclusion, racism and discrimination that include some of the darkest chapters of American history, Asian-Americans entered 2020 with reason for optimism on the political front.

A wave of second-generation Asian-Americans had come of age, sparking hope that they could help break voter turnout records in the fall.

~Matt Stevens

 

[Ish Gibor]

Wasn't they originally considered white?
The Chinese were white, until white men called them yellow

They went from being the model minorities, to being the biggest self procalimed victims in American history. However, the vast majority are 1st or 2nd generation immigrants, who came to fulfill the American Dream.


More than half of immigrants from South and East Asian countries (52.1%) had a bachelor’s degree or more in 2016, which is in part explained by Asian countries being the largest source of foreign college graduates who stay to work in the United States. Asian immigrants also make up a majority of H-1B visa holders and foreign students.

Education levels of U.S. immigrants are on the rise


Here is another article where these weird narratives are being created.


"There is no “Asian Advantage” — there are only skewed stats to purport the model minority myth and a divide within the racial justice movement.

First off, when people say “Asian American,” please remember that this describes a massive conglomerate of 48 countries, with distinct cultural differences and political histories in the United States (from exploited railroad labor, to the brain drain, to war refugees). By nature, anything that describes “Asian America” will essentially be a broad generalization.

[…]

The overall poverty rate in the U.S. is 14.3 percent; relative to their unique populations, the poverty rate for whites is 11.6 percent and Asian Americans is 11.7 percent. Yet no one is talking about the fact that Asian Americans have a higher poverty rate than whites. Why not? Probably because it doesn’t fit their portrayal of Asians as the model minority. Average per capita income for whites is $31k, while for Asian Americans it’s $24k. Asians make up 12 percent of the undocumented population (that’s 1.3 million undocumented Asians), while whites make up a reported zero percent. But nobody wants to talk about the poverty, unemployment and immigration problems when it comes to the Asian American community, because to do so would accurately align us in the fight for racial justice and hurt the white supremacist agenda (which historically, thrives with divide and conquer tactics).

Here’s where everyone loves to sensationalize the model minority myth: 18.5 percent of whites have a bachelor’s degree (roughly 45.7 million people), while 30 percent of Asians have a bachelor’s degree (roughly 5.1 million people). But don’t forget everything I just described above about the brain drain; in addition, universities (especially public ones like the University of California, which have 40 percent Asian student population) are welcoming to wealthy international students who pay higher international tuition. Regardless, while 30 percent versus 18.5 percent may draw a scary picture that Asians are taking over university seats, the truth is white Americans still dominate college campuses dramatically in actual numbers.

Again, when people talk about the Asian American population and its “disproportionate level” of higher educational attainment, the two largest ethnic groups in this conglomerate are Chinese and Indian, the same two groups most targeted by the U.S. brain drain. A more nuanced approach would be to disaggregate the information, and recognize that only 17 percent of Pacific Islanders, 14 percent of Cambodians, 13 percent of Laotians and 13 percent of Hmong people have a bachelor’s degree in the United States. Marginalized communities within the Asian American umbrella become overlooked and underserved because of false notions such as the “Asian Advantage” and “model minority myth.”

In moving forward, my suggestion is to stop asking the wrong, misleading questions which paint a false picture of the Asian American community. If we want to better understand the diverse and complex Asian American community, we need to start asking better, more informed questions, such as, “How can we provide a solution for the 1.3 million undocumented Asian people in the U.S. to live safely with their families? How can we increase college access and retention rates for Southeast Asians and Pacific Islanders? How can we better represent the the Asian American community through disaggregated data and locating non-identifying Asians whom struggle with language and cultural barriers? How can we better understand and support mental health issues within the Asian American community, also known for having the highest depression and suicide rates in the U.S.?”

How can we recognize when the narrative, regardless of whatever claimed attempt to be nuanced or liberal, is actually forwarding a white supremacist agenda over everything else? When white liberals pat Asians on the back and say “Good job at being the model minority,” who does that ultimately serve? Asian Americans have long been involved in the fight for racial justice, from demanding reparations for the Japanese Internment camps, to fighting for Ethnic Studies in San Francisco, to leading the Third World Liberation Front, and to marching alongside the Black Panther Party. The fight for racial justice must continue with more Asian Americans speaking their truths, rather than allow others to co-opt our narratives.

I celebrate the success, resilience, brilliance and hard work ethic of the Asian American community, while acknowledging that we have a long way to go before racial justice is achieved for ourselves and everyone else. So let’s continue doing what we’ve always done — working hard and knocking down walls."

The Truth About "The Asian Advantage" and "Model Minority Myth" | HuffPost

 

[Ish Gibor]

.

Where are the #While being Asian, that have been a "political momentum that has been bubbling in recent years"?


#While being Black

#Can’tCleanMyOwnYardWhileBlack

#BabySittingWhileBlack

#MovingWhileBlack

#ShotInYourHomeWhileBlack

#DeliveringNewsPaperWhileBlack

#BarbecuingWhileBlack

#ShoppingWhileBlack

#StudyingWhileBlack

#SleepingWhileBlack

#DrivingWhileBlack

#WaitingWhileBlack

#TrainingWhileBlack

#GolfingWhileBlack

#EatingWhileBlack

#RentingWhileBlack

#WalkingWhileBlack

#WorkingWhileBlack

#SwimmingWhileBlack

#SellingWaterWhileBlack

#HavingAGunPermitWhileBlack

etc.

 

[CEO of Morgan Industries]

Good response that I snipped out.

1. You are right. I overstated things when talking about who built the railways. The Trans-Pacific railway was built heavily by Chinese workers, but the railways were built in general by more than Chinese people, and there is absolutely a history of black railworkers, especially across the east and south. Good point.

2. I want to emphasize again that no East Asian demographic has had it nearly as bad as black folks in America. I was just posting to give a fuller historical picture here and to contribute to the thread.

 

[Red Shield]

Asians have been discriminated against for decades, that part is FACT but it was clearly not to the level that black people faced. Most of the time, white people didn't pay too much attention to them in areas where they had low numbers. Chinese talking how they were seen in Jim Crow era Mississippi







and



Chinese in Mississippi: An Ethnic People in a Biracial Society | Mississippi History Now








The Asian, Brown vs Board was: 1927's Gong Lum v. Rice in Mississippi, in which a Chinese-American girl fought for the right to attend the white school rather than the black school. The Lum family made the case that the girl wasn't black. The court ruled she wasn't white, allowing school officials to categorize children as they saw fit.









How a Chinese Family's 1927 Supreme Court Case Set a Precedent for School Segregation

I thought there was just that one japanese case where they argued against being "colored", didn't know there was a chinese one.



And black folk argued against the chinese exclusion act

 

[IllmaticDelta]

I thought there was just that one japanese case where they argued against being "colored", didn't know there was a chinese one.

And black folk argued against the chinese exclusion act

 

[Ish Gibor]

I thought there was just that one japanese case where they argued against being "colored", didn't know there was a chinese one.



And black folk argued against the chinese exclusion act

It's not that the Chinese Exclusion Act didn't happen, it's that the vast majority of Asians now have no root in this. Most are recent immigrants who came after 1965, long after the Chinese Exclusion Act. As a matter of fact over half of them came with academic degrees, within even more recent times. The Chinese Exclusion Act had some discriminatory act, but these Chinese became the buffer class between Blacks and whites and were allowed to make an economy for themselves. The one thing we know is that they never wanted Black people to create a self sufficient economy. It was even recently reported with stats.

 

[Ish Gibor]

So, that's the oppression and the darkest chapter in American history that Matt Stevens is talking about?

If so, Black immigrants can make similar claims and more.

 

[David_TheMan]

So, that's the oppression and the darkest chapter in American history that Matt Stevens is talking about?

If so, Black immigrants can make similar claims and more.

Thanks for this thread brother.
You have dropped a lot of good info.

 

[Ish Gibor]

Where is the memorandum condemning and combating racism, xenophobia and intolerance against Black Americans?

Memorandum Condemning and Combating Racism, Xenophobia, and Intolerance Against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the United States | The White House



Update

Hate crimes 2019

"48.5 percent were victims of crimes motivated by offenders, anti-Black or African American bias." vs “4.3 percent resulted from anti-Asian bias”.

Victims

Table 1

They haven’t yet updated 2020, but I’m sure it’s the same.

 

[Ish Gibor]