Why Ferguson is important to Asian Americans

[Yakno1]

For weeks I have been in awe of the organizers and writers – Rev. Osagyefo Sekou, Jamala Rogers, Malkia Cyril, Ta-Nehesi Coates, john a. powell, Falguni A. Sheth, and so many others – who have placed the situation in Ferguson into critical historical and political context. This despite persistent attempts by police, elected officials, and mainstream media to erase that context with vilifications of black political protest and black life. I write this post to express my solidarity and rage, and to offer a response to the disturbing question that I've heard asked, and that demands an answer: Does Ferguson matter to Asian Americans?


First and foremost, the murder of Mike Brown by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson is causing profound grief at the violent loss of yet another black mother's child. The expression of that grief by the Brown family, and the pained words of solidarity from Sybrina Fulton, the mother of Trayvon Martin, are necessary bedrocks for understanding the human toll that anti-black racism takes. What makes this a national political crisis is that Mike Brown's death was not an isolated incident. It was excruciatingly unexceptional – one more deadly outcome of white supremacy in a human rights crisis that spans cities, nations, centuries.


The predictable and familiar response – mainstream media pondering whether Mike Brown deserved to die, the City of Ferguson sending in a militarized police force to occupy an already disenfranchised neighborhood, whites denying that this is about race, and the indictment of black rage rather than the indictment of the murdering police officer – these are the mechanics of how America normalizes black death.

http://www.insightnews.com/news/12863-why-ferguson-matters-to-asian-americans

 

[Yakno1]

Upp

 

[3rdWorld]

Asian Americans dont ever deal with the Police..and we are not related in any way to Asians so I dont get what this has to do with anything. Asians are safe even though ISIS members etc are more likely to be Asians than Blacks. This has nothing to do with them unless you mean when cacs tell us about Asians being the model minority.

 

[kaldurahm]

... ???

 

[newarkhiphop]

For those that dont feel like readin the whole thing, this is what the author is claiming

Asian American, black rage occupies an important and intimate place in my heart and mind for at least two reasons.

First, I have said before that I come from war.

There is a word in Korean culture, han. It is hard to define, yet it deeply shapes Korean consciousness. To quote Elaine H. Kim, it loosely means "the sorrow and anger that grow from the accumulated experiences of oppression... When people die of han, it is called dying of hwabyong, a disease of frustration and rage."

Coming from a people who were controlled, occupied, and threatened with erasure by outside forces over centuries, and brutalized as silage in a war between the United States and the Soviet Union, han was not something that I consciously embraced. It is in my blood. Han is Korean rage. It was expressed in protests against Japanese colonial rule in 1919, in the struggle for self-determination as the Korean war broke out in 1950, during student protests against the oppressive U.S.-backed South Korean government in 1960, and again during the democratic uprising in Kwangju in 1980.

I would never equate my inheritance of han to the real and imminent threat of violence that Ferguson's black community and so many others face now. But I will say that I hold my own rage close to me, as part of my identity. I understand the need to defend, protect, and express it.

Secondly, America normalizes and indulges in black death in service to a dehumanizing narrative of black criminality. The exalting of Asian Americans as a model minority reinforces this narrative. And Asian death is rendered invisible when it has no value to the power structure. If Asian life falls outside of model minority and Orientalist narratives, if it doesn't prop up ideas of American exceptionalism and meritocracy, it doesn't register much. I was reminded of this a few weeks ago, when the story broke (but did not go viral) of Sandeep Singh, a 29-year-old Sikh man, who was run over and dragged 30 feet by a white man driving a pickup truck in Queens, shouting "Go back to your own country, Bin Laden!" That was less than a week before the two-year anniversary of a white supremacist shooting rampage that killed six people at the Sikh Temple in Oak Creek, WI in 2012.

The invisibility of Asian death, and the denial of any form of Asian American identity that doesn't play by the model minority rulebook, is another reason why black rage holds such importance to me

 

[Yakno1]

... ???

 

[Da King]

Asians are safe, they wish they were white in the first place

 

[el_oh_el]

For those that dont feel like readin the whole thing, this is what the author is claiming

 

[ℒℴѵℯJay ELECTUA]

Asians cover more than the chank types for the record, making it clear for coli kiddies.

 

[TLR Is Mental Poison]

For those that dont feel like readin the whole thing, this is what the author is claiming

This is still too much for the brehs who will respond the loudest here to read.

 

[trick]

I feel a lot of Asians who immigrated here don't really know the history of how Asians were treated in North America in the early 20th century (Head Tax, Chinese Exclusion Act, internment camps, the thousands of Chinese that died during the Gold Rush and the construction of the railroads, lynchings to repel Chinese immigration) and they choose to ignore how the British and French took over our ports and our land to expand their own territories. It bothers me like crazy and I wish a lot of Asian men and women would understand that they are not our friends and that they will take everything from you in a heartbeat.

 

[GetInTheTruck]

Asians choose to come here, whole different dynamic. I'm getting sick of these whiny interest groups taking advantage of the plight of black Americans and their struggles, and I say that as a south Asian.

"If your skin color cocoa beware of the honky tonk man " live by that rule in America and just hope for the best.

 

[Taadow]

Hol' up...

I was told here by multiple people that Asians have it made here, and this kinda thing doesn't happen to them
because they've built up their communities and have political and ecomonic growth...

 

[skeetsinternal]

If Asians were physically capable of picking cotton they would be the more viable option for use in slavery times

 

[Cabbage Patch]

For those that dont feel like readin the whole thing, this is what the author is claiming

Asian bytches too busy trampling over Asian men in order to fukk white dudes, to pull a 'concerned black woman' and lead a response against brutality directed towards Asian fathers, brothers and sons.



Just some real talk.

Thinking about Elliott Rodgers right now, even though he's the fukked up side of the equation...