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A Letter from a Yale student to the Chinese American Community

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Content warning: White supremacy, racial stereotypes, violence

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한국어판(Korean Version)

 

This article is part of The WeChat Project, an initiative that aims to bring more progressive narratives to the Chinese diaspora. To read more articles like this, visit The WeChat Project 心声

Content warning: White supremacy, racial stereotypes, violence

To the Chinese American Community: 

My name is Eileen Huang, and I am a junior at Yale University studying English. I was asked to write a reflection, maybe even a poem, on Chinese American history after watching Asian Americans, the new documentary on PBS. However, I find it hard to write poems at a time like this. I refuse to focus on our history, our stories, and our people without acknowledging the challenges, pain, and trauma experienced by marginalized people—ourselves included—even today. In light of protests in Minnesota, which were sparked by the murder of George Floyd at the hands of racist White and Asian police officers, I specifically want to address the rampant anti-Blackness in the Asian American community that, if unchecked, can bring violence to us all. 

We Asian Americans have long perpetuated anti-Black statements and stereotypes. I grew up hearing relatives, family friends, and even my parents make subtle, even explicitly racist comments about the Black community: They grow up in bad neighborhoods. They cause so much crime. I would rather you not be friends with Black people. I would rather you not be involved in Black activism. 

The message was clear: We are the model minority—doctors, lawyers, quiet and obedient overachievers. We have little to do with other people of color; we will even side with White Americans to degrade them. The Asian Americans around me, myself included, were reluctant—and sometimes even refused—to participate in conversations on the violent racism faced by Black Americans—even when they were hunted by White supremacists, even when they were mercilessly shot in their own neighborhoods, even when they were murdered in broad daylight, even when their children were slaughtered for carrying toy guns or stealing gum, even when their grieving mothers appeared on television, begging and crying for justice. Even when anti-Blackness is so closely aligned to our own oppression under structural racism. 

We Asian Americans like to think of ourselves as exempt from racism. After all, many of us live in affluent neighborhoods, send our children to selective universities, and work comfortable, professional jobs. As the poet Cathy Park Hong writes, we believe that we are “next in line … to disappear,” to gain the privileges that White people have, to be freed from all the burdens that come with existing in a body of color. 

However, our survival in this country has always been conditional. When Chinese laborers came in the 1800s, they were lynched and barred from political and social participation by the Chinese Exclusion Act—the only federal law in American history to explicitly target a racial group. When early Asian immigrants, such as Bhagat Singh Thind, attempted to apply for citizenship, all Asian Americans were denied the right to legal personhood—which was only granted to “free white persons“—until 1965. When Pearl Harbor was bombed, Japanese Americans were rounded up, tortured, and detained in concentration camps. When the Cold War reached its peak, Chinese Americans suspected of being Communists were terrorized by federal agents. Families lost their jobs, businesses, and livelihoods. When COVID-19 hit the US, Asian Americans were assaulted, spat on, and harassed. We were accused of being “virus carriers”; I was recently called a “bat-eater.” We are made to feel like we have excelled in this country until we are reminded that we cannot get too comfortable—that we will never truly belong. 

Here’s a story of not belonging: On June 19, 1982, as Detroit’s auto industry was deteriorating from Japanese competition, Vincent Chin, a 27-year-old Chinese American, entered a bar to celebrate his upcoming wedding. Ronald Ebens, a laid-off White autoworker, and his stepson, Michael Nitz, were there as well. They followed Chin as he left the bar and cornered him in a McDonald’s parking lot, where they proceeded to bludgeon him with a metal baseball bat until his head cracked open. “It’s because of you motherf––ers that we are out of work,” they had said to Chin. Later, as news of the murder got out, Chinese Americans were outraged, calling for Ebens and Nitz’s conviction. Chin’s killers were only charged for second-degree murder, receiving only charges of $3,000—and no jail time. “These weren’t the kind of men you send to jail,” County Judge Charles Kaufman said. Then who is? 

Watching Asian Americans, I was haunted by the video clips of Chin’s mother, Lily. She is a small Chinese woman who looks like my grandmother, or my mother, or an aunt. Her face crumples in front of the cameras; she pleads and cries, in a voice almost animal-like, “I want justice for my son.” Yet, in all of Lily’s footage, she is surrounded by Black civil rights activists, such as Jesse Jackson. They guard her from news reporters that try to film her grief. Later, they march in the streets with Chinese American activists, holding signs calling for an end to racist violence. 

Though we cannot compare the challenges faced by Asian Americans to the far more violent atrocities suffered by Black Americans, we owe everything to them. It is because of the work of Black Americans—who spearheaded the civil rights movement—that Asian Americans are no longer called “Orientals” or “Chinamen.” It is because of Black Americans, who called for an end to racist housing policies, that we are even allowed to live in the same neighborhoods as White people. It is because of Black Americans, who pushed back against racist naturalization laws, that Asian Americans have gained official citizenship and are officially recognized under the law. It is because of Black activism that stories like Vincent Chin’s are even remembered. We did not gain the freedom to become comfortable “model minorities” by virtue of being better or hard-working, but from years of struggle and support from other marginalized communities. 

On May 25, 2020, George Floyd, a Black man, was accused of using a counterfeit 20-dollar bill at a deli in Minneapolis. In response, Derek Chauvin, a White police officer, tackled Floyd and knelt on his neck for seven minutes. In videos that will later circulate online, for three minutes, in a pool of his own blood, Floyd is seen pleading for his life, stating that he can no longer breathe. Instead, Chauvin continues to kneel. And kneel. Meanwhile, in the background, Tou Thao, an Asian American police officer, is seen standing by the murder, merely watching. And watching. And saying nothing as Floyd slowly stops struggling. 

I see this same kind of silence from Asian Americans around me. I am especially disappointed in the Chinese American community, whose silence on the murder of Black Americans has been deafening. While so many activists of color are banding together to support protesters in Minneapolis, so many Chinese Americans have chosen to “stay out” of this disobedience. The same Chinese Americans who spoke out so vocally on anti-Asian racism from COVID-19 are suspiciously quiet when it comes to Floyd’s murder (as well as Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Tamir Rice, Sandra Bland, Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Freddie Gray and countless other Black Americans who were killed merely for existing). I do not see us sharing sympathy for Black mothers who appear on television, begging, like Lily Chin, to see justice for their sons. I do not see us marching with Black protesters. I do not see us donating to Black-led organizations. 

I do not see our outrage as White murderers, such as Vincent Chin’s killers, receive no jail time for killing innocent Black Americans. I do not see us extending any solidarity toward the Black protesters who have been sprayed with tear gas and rubber bullets—only a couple weeks after White COVID-19 “protesters,” armed with AR-15s, were barely even touched by policemen. Instead, I see us calling them “thugs,” “rioters,” “looters”—the same epithets that White Americans once called us. I see us, such as members of my own family, merely laughing off President Trump’s tweet about sending the National Guard to Minnesota, as if it were a joke and not a deadly threat.  

I imagine where we would be if Black Americans did not participate in Asian American activism. We would still be called Orientals. We would live in even more segregated neighborhoods and attend even more segregated schools. We would not be allowed to attend these elite colleges, advance in our comfortable careers. We would be illegal aliens. We—and everyone else—would not remember stories like Vincent Chin’s. 

I urge all Chinese Americans to watch media such as Asian Americans, to seriously reflect not only on our own history, but also on our shared history with other minorities—how our liberation is intertwined with liberation for Black Americans, Native Americans, Latinx Americans, and more. We are not exempt from history. What has happened to George Floyd has happened to Chinese miners in the 1800s and Vincent Chin, and will continue to happen to us and all minorities unless we let go of our silence, which has never protected us, and never will. 

Our history is not only a lineage of obedient doctors, lawyers, and engineers. It is also a history of disrupters, activists, fighters, and, above all, survivors. I think often of Yuri Kochiyama, a Japanese American survivor of internment camps who later became a prominent civil rights activist, and who developed close relationships with Black activists, such as Malcolm X. “We are all part of one another,” she once said.

I urge you all to donate to the activist organizations listed below. I refuse to call for the racial justice of our own community at the expense of others. Justice that degrades or subordinates other minorities is not justice at all. At a time when many privileged minorities are siding with White supremacy—which has terrorized all of our communities for centuries—I want to ask: Whose side are you on?

 

Eileen Huang studies English at Yale University. You can find her on Twitter @bobacommie and Instagram @eileenxhuang

 

中文版(Chinese Version)

한국어판(Korean Version)

All of those who have signed below have pledged to address/end anti-Blackness in our Asian American communities by committing to the following actions:


  • Donating to Black-led organizations and Black Lives Matter activists in MN

  • Protesting (either in person or on social media) against White supremacy and anti-Blackness

  • Engaging in uncomfortable/difficult conversations with Asian Americans/non-Black people on anti-Blackness in our own communities

  • Committing to educating yourself on anti-racist theories, actions, and histories that can help dismantle White supremacy


Click the following link of Google Form to sign your name if you are with us: [name, opt. affiliation]

   https://bit.ly/3djTtuE

Eileen Huang, Yale University

Isabelle Rhee, Yale University

Biman Xie, Yale University

Saket Malholtra, Yale University

Lauren Lee, Yale University

Adrian Kyle Venzon, Yale University

Michael Chen, Yale University

Lillian Hua, Yale University

Dora Guo, Yale University

Kevin Quach, Yale University

Pia Gorme, Yale University

Alex Chen, Yale University

Emily Xu, Yale University

Avik Sarkar, Yale University

Evelyn Huilin Wu, Yale University

Angelreana Choi, Yale University

Cindy Kuang, Yale University

Karina Xie, Yale University

Tulsi Patel, Yale University

Kayley Estoesta, Yale University

Renee Chen, Wellesley College

Sara Thakur, Yale University

Eui Young Kim, Yale University

FUNDS AND COMMUNITY EFFORTS TO DONATE TO:

Compiled by the Asian American Students Alliance at Yale. 

FAMILY FUNDS:

I Run With Maud

George Floyd Memorial Fund

BAIL FUNDS:

Atlanta Solidarity Fund

Brooklyn Bail Fund

Chicago Community Bond Fund

Columbus Freedom Fund

Los Angeles - People’s City Council Freedom Fund

Louisville Community Bail Fund

Philadelphia Community Bail Fund

People’s Breakfast Oakland

Richmond Community Bail Fund

COLLECTIVES, MUTUAL AID FUNDS, AND OTHER GRASSROOTS ORGANIZATIONS:

Black Lives Matter

Black Visions Collective

Black Owned Business GoFundMe Thread

Lake Street Council

Minnesota Youth Collective

North Star Health Collective

Reclaim the Block

Women for Political Change Front Lines Fund and Mutual Aid Fund

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Hi Eileen :> I definitely agree that we should protest more for the George Floyd incident. I watched the video of Floyd being killed mercilessly by the police officer, and I for one, am equally horrified and disgusted by the treatment he received. We Asians may not have been out protesting as much as other communities, but that DOES NOT mean that we like to ‘degrade’ black people and we like to side with white Americans. We are our own race. We neither side with white Americans nor do we side with the Black Americans. We side with ourselves, and what we believe is right. Also, regarding the Vincent Chin incident, there has been no reaction, no support given to it. I think the Asian community need to protest for themselves first, before protesting for others. Thankyou for reading this! :D
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indira

Dan Povey is a world renowned expert on speech recognition, a former professor at Johns Hopkins University. He was a victim of political correctness. He was so fed up with the toxic environment in US, he went to China. Below is a link to his farewell message to his students/researchers. https://www.danielpovey.com/leaving
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indira

Update, August 16th,2019: I will now no longer will be working for Facebook. I was to start Monday the 19th as a full-time employee; they told me yesterday, Thursday the 15th, that that was not going to happen. Technically they did not rescind the offer; I would be allowed to work for them as a full-time contractor for a period of up to 6 weeks while (with my co-operation) they would conduct their own investigation into what happened. My FTE offer would be dependent on the results of that investigation. Meanwhile I would be excluded from Facebook property. I declined that offer; the whole thing was giving me déjà vu. Interesting tidbit: about half an hour before the phone call from their HR person, I got this accidental chat message from someone with the job title “Diversity Operations Programs Specialist”. Which to my mind exposes their claim that it was purely a “safety issue” for the lie that it is. Of course I knew that leaving this page up would almost certainly be the end of my job at Facebook. Everyone around me was begging me to take it down; but I said, how can I tell others to man up and then be a coward myself? In case anyone is curious, my plan is to work for a Chinese company and maybe get a part-time position at a Chinese university. Update, October 28th: I have signed with Xiaomi and will be moving to Beijing sometime in November 2019). The arm of the American left is long, though... some of China's biggest internet companies had concerns about potential US political blowback if they were to hire me. Leaving Hopkins Everyone, I am leaving to take a private-sector job in Seattle, starting August 19th. I will still be working with my students and collaborators here remotely. As you'll see from this letter, I have been fired from Hopkins effective the 31st of August. I had arranged a backup plan beforehand, so will be leaving a bit earlier. Please don't blame the Whiting School or Andrew Douglas for this; this comes from higher up. You'll see from the letter that I am not supposed to communicate with (almost) anyone at Hopkins... technically I am just putting this on the web; and if you find it, you find it. I don't expect all this will come as a surprise to most of you, given that three months ago I organized a counter-protest against the student occupation of Garland hall, and a number of people were extremely triggered about that; but I thought you might like a little background. What was never in dispute is that, being frustrated as the prospect of a long siege at Garland where our computer servers live, I organized a group of what I called “counter-protesters” to try to regain control of the building from the students. This was on the evening of May 8th; there was a scuffle and I was carried out of the building by the protesters. They then made allegations to the Office of Institutional Equity (OIE), saying that I had attacked them. The OIE seems not to have been able to substantiate the allegations that I attacked the protesters, but university leadership still decided that I still needed to be fired. (The attached letter claims that they are still investigating... I think most likely the true story is either they found the protesters were lying or realize that they'll never know what happened). What the administration seems to be saying is that I put the students in danger by bringing outsiders into what could have been a dangerous situation. You'll see that the letter states that I believed the group I brought with me “could become violent"... the actual conversation with their lawyer went like this: after I stated that everyone was under strict instructions to not retaliate if attacked, I was asked whether I was confident that they would be able to follow those instructions no matter what happened; and I shrugged. So essentially I am being fired for what might have happened, while the students are getting off scot free for things that actually did happen. They actually made false allegations against me, both in public (on Twitter) and to the university authorities. They actually attacked me and hurt me; many of you saw the big scratches on my back. They also threw a lot of punches at the people with me, who showed admirable restraint, although I understand one punch was thrown by a person in my group. They actually shut down Garland and inconvenienced thousands of people, requiring the fire department to cut open the doors to get them out. But they suffer no consequences. Am I sensing just a liiiitle bit of a double standard? I mean, obviously faculty will be held to higher standards than students, but that's nowhere near enough to account for the difference in treatment. Where could this double standard come from? Well, obviously there's the fact that they were protesting for a left-wing cause, and I was opposing them. I'm not convinced that that's enough to explain it, though. My feeling is that this mostly has to do with underrepresented minorities, specifically black people (and trans people). There seems to be nothing that Americans, or American institutions, fear more than being accused of racism (or similar ism's), which leads to ridiculous spectacles like what we're seeing here, where such a huge organization can be paralyzed by a handful of deluded kids. Now if I had known in advance that everyone inside the building was black (that was what I saw; although from media coverage it seems that there may have been a white trans person in the core group)— I wouldn't have gone ahead with the counterprotest. I'm not an idiot; I know that as a person who demographically ticks all the 'oppressor boxes', I would have to be severely punished for opposing such a group. I miscalculated by trusting the coverage in JHNewsletter, which seems to have given a false impression of the demographics of the protest; their photos showed mostly white people. Now many of the people sitting outside the building were white, but that seems to have been window-dressing; they were just bystanders and didn't do anything except take a bunch of cellphone video. All the people that I saw fighting and screaming were black. If it were simply a matter of difference of opinion I expected that Hopkins would at least pretend to be even-handed; but once race and transgender status enter the picture I don't think that's possible any more. I'm aware that it's a huge violation of social norms for me to say publicly that I think whites, or males, are being discriminated against1. As far as I can tell there are three specific circumstances in which it's acceptable for a white male in left-of-center America to allude publicy to these types of double standards: To justify them To advocate for their adoption To deny that they exist at all Clearly what I am doing here doesn't fall into any of those three categories. But the truth is, I left the bounds of left-wing respectability quite some time ago. 1. Some people seem to be taking this statement out of context. This is not a blanket statement that white males are discriminated against in general, just in the context of campus politics. White males in this environment seem to be expected to constantly atone for their existence by telegraphing their exclusive concern for every demographic group but their own, like a neutered puppy-dog or some Justin Trudeau man-child. It's pathetic, in my opinion; and I don't accept it at all. I am not prepared to apologize for being who I am. I don't think that empathy should preclude critical thinking or basic self-respect. I don't accept that a person should have carte blanche to disrupt everyone's lives just because of their minority status; and I don't feel it's right that I should be fired just for opposing a group whose victimhood makes them politically unassailable. This might sound very controversial to some people here, but to me it seems like common sense. After writing the words above, I can hear in my head a chorus of marginalized voices crying: “But.. but.. but.. we're triggered!” “Hate!” “White supremacy!” “Transphobia!” and demanding special protection. I expect that some people will characterize my plea for equal treatment as an incitement to genocide. Let them. Unlike some people here, I have the mental strength to not be manipulated by these kinds of histrionics. I don't need the approval of victim groups to bolster my self-esteem; and I'm capable of weathering a little outrage. (The fact that I have career options helps, obviously). There's a difference between tolerance and cowardice; there's a difference between broad-mindedness and self-hatred; and no-one should claim they are bravely defending ‘oppressed classes’ when in reality they are just too timid, self-conscious or mentally feeble to stop themselves from being manipulated by their advocates. Males educated here in America seem to be uniquely supine in this regard. Is it something they put in the cafeteria food? Perceptive readers may see the above as an appeal to masculinity. Yes, that's essentially what it is. The obvious response, for a progressive, would be to put the adjective “toxic” in front of that word “masculinity” and throw it back at me. OK. I'm aware that in the progressive world male is bad and female is good, just as in Orwell's “Animal Farm” it was “four legs good, two legs bad”. To round it out you can add: “non-white good, white bad”; “diversity good, uniformity bad”; “majority bad, minority good”; “powerful bad, powerless good”, and so on; and you have a nice little moral system, one that may be perfectly self-consistent. Now, I view moral systems as arbitrary and subjective: it's just a particular assignment of people, actions, thoughts, events, artifacts and so on, to the categories “good” and “bad”— typically reinforced by myths or cherry-picked facts, and held together by some more general principles or concepts. So from a certain abstract point of view, the progressive moral system as on the same footing as any other. What I do find very odd, though, is that any straight white male would buy into it. It's the same as if a gay Jew were to join the Nazi party and begin endlessly apologizing for his ancestors having lent money to Aryans at too-high rates of interest; and agreeing that he needs to recognize his “problematic Jewishness” and “toxic homosexuality”, stop talking, and make space for Aryan voices to be heard. He might even take pride in having acknowledged the uniquely cancerous and exploitative nature of the Jewish people, despite being one himself. So is this person virtuous, or is he just too-easily manipulated? You decide. I know we're approaching cerebral-haemorrhage territory here, for left-of-center readers, but it's true: there are many things said by American progressives where if you replace “white patriarchy” and “women of color” with “Jewish capital” and “Aryan youth”, and add a picture of a blond boy and a swastika or two, you'd have a very serviceable Nazi propaganda poster. Think about it. Of course, there are differences. Genocide of one gender by the other, or of a more-powerful majority by a less-powerful minority, is perhaps not historically common. The point is, the language used to describe the more-successful demographic (Jews in Nazi Germany; white males here) is similar; and the psychological states of the people involved are no doubt similar as well. This isn't about moral equivalence; it's about that hypothetical gay Jew's reaction to being told that his demographic characteristics are “problematic” and “toxic”. Do we see him as virtuous and strong, or as weak? Suppose we say that he's weak. What is it about a white male social justice warrior today who's constantly “checking his privilege” and “making space for minority voices” that might make us admire him? Yes, white males now are overrepresented in some respects; but so were Jews in early-20th-century Germany— much more, in fact. See “World on Fire” by Amy Chua, which says, IIRC, that they had a 10-times-larger-than-average income; and according to this they seem to have been 25-fold overrepresented at the top tier of business. (Hitler might have been a little bit triggered by that). So what exactly is different? Our guy might have been in more physical danger; but doesn't that give him more of an excuse to act the way he did? I've heard the objection that unlike the situation today, the Jews were not oppressing the non-Jewish Germans. My response is that oppression is something that's in the eye of the beholder. No-one today would suggest that they were— not in polite society, at least— but at the time, many Germans felt that they were being oppressed. If you apply the logic of today's progressives, where differences in outcomes are automatically assumed to be the result of some kind of bias, I find it difficult to see how you'd argue that there was no oppression of any kind. Today, even a 10% salary difference can lead to cries of discrimination; a factor of 10 is much harder to ignore. You might also say that the Nazis were wrong about the Jews being bad (or at least, worse than non-Jewish Germans), whereas it's actually true that white males are bad; and that history proves it. But that's a subjective judgement, because facts alone can never tell you what's good or bad unless interpreted within a moral framework. And if you use a moral framework that was constructed with the specific goal of proving that women and non-whites are good and white men are bad (because it originated in women's-studies and black-studies departments at universities), then that's the conclusion you will reach. By singling out these academic disciplines I certainly don't mean to tarnish all women or black people. In fact, I feel that in the long term those academic communities are doing a disservice to the people they represent, by taking extreme positions that inevitably cause a backlash. Black people seem to be generally more sensitive to this concern than whites, as you can see from their greater support for moderate candidates in the current Democratic primary. Whether that's because they perceive it more clearly or because they actually have skin in the game, I don't know. I also want to be clear that I'm not in favor of any political or cultural movements that are animated by resentment. The choice isn't, and shouldn't be, between demonizing one demographic group or demonizing the other. But to join a movement that's specifically against one's own group? That's retarded. Man up, America! You're better than that. Leave that ideology to the man-haters and racial agitators that generated it, stop apologizing, and start living your lives! Anywho: as for me, I may not have my job, but at least I still have my dignity and my independence of thought. I'll leave you with some words of Bob Dylan: I ain't sorry for nothing I've done I'm glad I fought, I only wish we'd won Please send my regards to the OIE, and say that, thanks to them, my career prospects have greatly improved. Sayonara! PS I am aware that some people are trying to “cancel” me and get me fired from my next job. See if I care! I have lots of other career options. When this whole thing started I told my friends, if the worst comes to the worst I can always go to China or Russia. I'll tell you this, though: whatever happens, I will never apologize and I will never back down. I know the normal script is that I am supposed to get down on my knees and beg, “Please accept me back into your midst, liberal America! No way. Fuck you. PPS They have now posted some video of the incident. Misleadingly captioned, but if you look at the video itself, and bear in mind it's what they felt was most advantageous to release from the much larger amount of video they collected, it doesn't really bolster their story that I attacked them. For me the funniest part is where they ominously zoom in on— da da da dah! — a Guns'N'Roses t-shirt. Like it proves we're white supremacists or something. Dudes! Guns'N'Roses isn't even metal; it's just mainstream hard rock. Plus I'm pretty sure that Axl Rose is Jewish. Did you guys even realize that it was the name of a band? (shakes head). Also: when they say I am pulling on one of their people, I believed I was pulling on the arm of the guy with me in the blue shirt. When I freeze-frame the video, it does actually look like the hand of a black person; I might have been confused. PPPS As you can see from how this document starts, it was intended to be read by some of my colleagues at Hopkins, as an attempted workaround for a ban on communicating with them (we'll see whether Hopkins will decide to advance the date of my termination as a result of that). I did not provide any public link to it, and didn't really intend for it to go viral. But now that it has gone viral I don't plan to remove it, because I would see that as backing down in the face of pressure from ideologues; and that's not something I would do. Afterword written August 12th: Some people seem to be interpreting this statement as motivated by anger against Hopkins, or against specific demographic groups. While I'm certainly not happy about my treatment, that is not the primary intent; in a sense they were doing me a favor by firing me. I don't even have that much interest in the legality or rightness of my firing, or the details of the events themselves, or the specific groups involved. This is about a broader cultural issue in the Western world, and the United States in particular. White people, and particularly white males, seem to be presented with a choice of either hating themselves, or hating others; and the left is then surprised and outraged when they choose the latter. I am saying: that's a false choice. Respect for others doesn't have to be at the expense of respect for oneself, and demonizing the majority is just as dangerous as demonizing minorities. Contact The Center for Language and Speech Processing Hackerman Hall 226 3400 North Charles Street Baltimore, MD 21218 dpovey AT gmail DOT com Back to my homepage
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indira

It is a dead issue, idiot .
I

indira

Message for Eileen Huang You could get your father fired from his job sine you revealed in public that he dislike black. do you feel comfortable with that ?
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mary

of course, she does
I

indira

A letter from a UC Berkeley Professor to his/her colleague Dear profs X, Y, Z, I am one of your colleagues at the University of California, Berkeley. I have met you both personally but do not know you closely, and am contacting you anonymously, with apologies. I am worried that writing this email publicly might lead to me losing my job, and likely all future jobs in my field. In your recent departmental emails you mentioned our pledge to diversity, but I am increasingly alarmed by the absence of diversity of opinion on the topic of the recent protests and our community response to them. In the extended links and resources you provided, I could not find a single instance of substantial counter-argument or alternative narrative to explain the under-representation of black individuals in academia or their over-representation in the criminal justice system. The explanation provided in your documentation, to the near exclusion of all others, is univariate: the problems of the black community are caused by whites, or, when whites are not physically present, by the infiltration of white supremacy and white systemic racism into American brains, souls, and institutions. Many cogent objections to this thesis have been raised by sober voices, including from within the black community itself, such as Thomas Sowell and Wilfred Reilly. These people are not racists or ‘Uncle Toms’. They are intelligent scholars who reject a narrative that strips black people of agency and systematically externalizes the problems of the black community onto outsiders. Their view is entirely absent from the departmental and UCB-wide communiques. The claim that the difficulties that the black community faces are entirely causally explained by exogenous factors in the form of white systemic racism, white supremacy, and other forms of white discrimination remains a problematic hypothesis that should be vigorously challenged by historians. Instead, it is being treated as an axiomatic and actionable truth without serious consideration of its profound flaws, or its worrying implication of total black impotence. This hypothesis is transforming our institution and our culture, without any space for dissent outside of a tightly policed, narrow discourse. A counter-narrative exists. If you have time, please consider examining some of the documents I attach at the end of this email. Overwhelmingly, the reasoning provided by BLM and allies is either primarily anecdotal (as in the case with the bulk of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ undeniably moving article) or it is transparently motivated. As an example of the latter problem, consider the proportion of black incarcerated Americans. This proportion is often used to characterize the criminal justice system as anti-black. However, if we use the precise same methodology, we would have to conclude that the criminal justice system is even more anti-male than it is anti-black. Would we characterize criminal justice as a systemically misandrist conspiracy against innocent American men? I hope you see that this type of reasoning is flawed, and requires a significant suspension of our rational faculties. Black people are not incarcerated at higher rates than their involvement in violent crime would predict. This fact has been demonstrated multiple times across multiple jurisdictions in multiple countries. And yet, I see my department uncritically reproducing a narrative that diminishes black agency in favor of a white-centric explanation that appeals to the department’s apparent desire to shoulder the ‘white man’s burden’ and to promote a narrative of white guilt. If we claim that the criminal justice system is white-supremacist, why is it that Asian Americans, Indian Americans, and Nigerian Americans are incarcerated at vastly lower rates than white Americans? This is a funny sort of white supremacy. Even Jewish Americans are incarcerated less than gentile whites. I think it’s fair to say that your average white supremacist disapproves of Jews. And yet, these alleged white supremacists incarcerate gentiles at vastly higher rates than Jews. None of this is addressed in your literature. None of this is explained, beyond hand-waving and ad hominems. “Those are racist dogwhistles”. “The model minority myth is white supremacist”. “Only fascists talk about black-on-black crime”, ad nauseam. These types of statements do not amount to counterarguments: they are simply arbitrary offensive classifications, intended to silence and oppress discourse. Any serious historian will recognize these for the silencing orthodoxy tactics they are, common to suppressive regimes, doctrines, and religions throughout time and space. They are intended to crush real diversity and permanently exile the culture of robust criticism from our department. Increasingly, we are being called upon to comply and subscribe to BLM’s problematic view of history, and the department is being presented as unified on the matter. In particular, ethnic minorities are being aggressively marshaled into a single position. Any apparent unity is surely a function of the fact that dissent could almost certainly lead to expulsion or cancellation for those of us in a precarious position, which is no small number. I personally don’t dare speak out against the BLM narrative, and with this barrage of alleged unity being mass-produced by the administration, tenured professoriat, the UC administration, corporate America, and the media, the punishment for dissent is a clear danger at a time of widespread economic vulnerability. I am certain that if my name were attached to this email, I would lose my job and all future jobs, even though I believe in and can justify every word I type. The vast majority of violence visited on the black community is committed by black people. There are virtually no marches for these invisible victims, no public silences, no heartfelt letters from the UC regents, deans, and departmental heads. The message is clear: Black lives only matter when whites take them. Black violence is expected and insoluble, while white violence requires explanation and demands solution. Please look into your hearts and see how monstrously bigoted this formulation truly is. No discussion is permitted for non-black victims of black violence, who proportionally outnumber black victims of non-black violence. This is especially bitter in the Bay Area, where Asian victimization by black assailants has reached epidemic proportions, to the point that the SF police chief has advised Asians to stop hanging good-luck charms on their doors, as this attracts the attention of (overwhelmingly black) home invaders. Home invaders like George Floyd. For this actual, lived, physically experienced reality of violence in the USA, there are no marches, no tearful emails from departmental heads, no support from McDonald’s and Wal-Mart. For the History department, our silence is not a mere abrogation of our duty to shed light on the truth: it is a rejection of it. The claim that black interracial violence is the product of redlining, slavery, and other injustices is a largely historical claim. It is for historians, therefore, to explain why Japanese internment or the massacre of European Jewry hasn’t led to equivalent rates of dysfunction and low SES performance among Japanese and Jewish Americans respectively. Arab Americans have been viciously demonized since 9/11, as have Chinese Americans more recently. However, both groups outperform white Americans on nearly all SES indices – as do Nigerian Americans, who incidentally have black skin. It is for historians to point out and discuss these anomalies. However, no real discussion is possible in the current climate at our department. The explanation is provided to us, disagreement with it is racist, and the job of historians is to further explore additional ways in which the explanation is additionally correct. This is a mockery of the historical profession. Most troublingly, our department appears to have been entirely captured by the interests of the Democratic National Convention, and the Democratic Party more broadly. To explain what I mean, consider what happens if you choose to donate to Black Lives Matter, an organization UCB History has explicitly promoted in its recent mailers. All donations to the official BLM website are immediately redirected to ActBlue Charities, an organization primarily concerned with bankrolling election campaigns for Democrat candidates. Donating to BLM today is to indirectly donate to Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign. This is grotesque given the fact that the American cities with the worst rates of black-on-black violence and police-on-black violence are overwhelmingly Democrat-run. Minneapolis itself has been entirely in the hands of Democrats for over five decades; the ‘systemic racism’ there was built by successive Democrat administrations. The patronizing and condescending attitudes of Democrat leaders towards the black community, exemplified by nearly every Biden statement on the black race, all but guarantee a perpetual state of misery, resentment, poverty, and the attendant grievance politics which are simultaneously annihilating American political discourse and black lives. And yet, donating to BLM is bankrolling the election campaigns of men like Mayor Frey, who saw their cities devolve into violence. This is a grotesque capture of a good-faith movement for necessary police reform, and of our department, by a political party. Even worse, there are virtually no avenues for dissent in academic circles. I refuse to serve the Party, and so should you. The total alliance of major corporations involved in human exploitation with BLM should be a warning flag to us, and yet this damning evidence goes unnoticed, purposefully ignored, or perversely celebrated. We are the useful idiots of the wealthiest classes, carrying water for Jeff Bezos and other actual, real, modern-day slavers. Starbucks, an organisation using literal black slaves in its coffee plantation suppliers, is in favor of BLM. Sony, an organisation using cobalt mined by yet more literal black slaves, many of whom are children, is in favor of BLM. And so, apparently, are we. The absence of counter-narrative enables this obscenity. Fiat lux, indeed. There also exists a large constituency of what can only be called ‘race hustlers’: hucksters of all colors who benefit from stoking the fires of racial conflict to secure administrative jobs, charity management positions, academic jobs and advancement, or personal political entrepreneurship. Given the direction our history department appears to be taking far from any commitment to truth, we can regard ourselves as a formative training institution for this brand of snake-oil salespeople. Their activities are corrosive, demolishing any hope at harmonious racial coexistence in our nation and colonizing our political and institutional life. Many of their voices are unironically segregationist. MLK would likely be called an Uncle Tom if he spoke on our campus today. We are training leaders who intend, explicitly, to destroy one of the only truly successful ethnically diverse societies in modern history. As the PRC, an ethnonationalist and aggressively racially chauvinist national polity with null immigration and no concept of jus solis increasingly presents itself as the global political alternative to the US, I ask you: Is this wise? Are we really doing the right thing? As a final point, our university and department has made multiple statements celebrating and eulogizing George Floyd. Floyd was a multiple felon who once held a pregnant black woman at gunpoint. He broke into her home with a gang of men and pointed a gun at her pregnant stomach. He terrorized the women in his community. He sired and abandoned multiple children, playing no part in their support or upbringing, failing one of the most basic tests of decency for a human being. He was a drug-addict and sometime drug-dealer, a swindler who preyed upon his honest and hard-working neighbors. And yet, the regents of UC and the historians of the UCB History department are celebrating this violent criminal, elevating his name to virtual sainthood. A man who hurt women. A man who hurt black women. With the full collaboration of the UCB history department, corporate America, most mainstream media outlets, and some of the wealthiest and most privileged opinion-shaping elites of the USA, he has become a culture hero, buried in a golden casket, his (recognized) family showered with gifts and praise. Americans are being socially pressured into kneeling for this violent, abusive misogynist. A generation of black men are being coerced into identifying with George Floyd, the absolute worst specimen of our race and species. I’m ashamed of my department. I would say that I’m ashamed of both of you, but perhaps you agree with me, and are simply afraid, as I am, of the backlash of speaking the truth. It’s hard to know what kneeling means, when you have to kneel to keep your job. It shouldn’t affect the strength of my argument above, but for the record, I write as a person of color. My family have been personally victimized by men like Floyd. We are aware of the condescending depredations of the Democrat party against our race. The humiliating assumption that we are too stupid to do STEM, that we need special help and lower requirements to get ahead in life, is richly familiar to us. I sometimes wonder if it wouldn’t be easier to deal with open fascists, who at least would be straightforward in calling me a subhuman, and who are unlikely to share my race. The ever-present soft bigotry of low expectations and the permanent claim that the solutions to the plight of my people rest exclusively on the goodwill of whites rather than on our own hard work is psychologically devastating. No other group in America is systematically demoralized in this way by its alleged allies. A whole generation of black children are being taught that only by begging and weeping and screaming will they get handouts from guilt-ridden whites. No message will more surely devastate their futures, especially if whites run out of guilt, or indeed if America runs out of whites. If this had been done to Japanese Americans, or Jewish Americans, or Chinese Americans, then Chinatown and Japantown would surely be no different to the roughest parts of Baltimore and East St. Louis today. The History department of UCB is now an integral institutional promulgator of a destructive and denigrating fallacy about the black race. I hope you appreciate the frustration behind this message. I do not support BLM. I do not support the Democrat grievance agenda and the Party’s uncontested capture of our department. I do not support the Party co-opting my race, as Biden recently did in his disturbing interview, claiming that voting Democrat and being black are isomorphic. I condemn the manner of George Floyd’s death and join you in calling for greater police accountability and police reform. However, I will not pretend that George Floyd was anything other than a violent misogynist, a brutal man who met a predictably brutal end. I also want to protect the practice of history. Cleo is no grovelling handmaiden to politicians and corporations. Like us, she is free.
I

indira

Did she care to read and respond to your story ? Not a chance
M

Mary Legault

I did say that the City of NY did not admit any wrong doing. I did not say the compensation was sufficient to compensate what they had to go thru. Guess it was stupid to remind you of the compensation details, but smart or convenient for you to leave the full details out so that they can get more sympathy..
M

Mary Legault

I can't be racist . I am black.

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