Racist Ugliness in Our Civilized Society

Here's a news flash: racism still exists. As we regroup from that shocking revelation, it's evident that we still have a long way to go until people are judged not by the color of their skin, but the content of their character. And it's not just the "under-represented" minorities such as blacks and Hispanics that get shafted and mistreated. Even the so-called "model minorities", the minorities which closet racists don't mind moving into their neighborhoods and going to their schools, the Asian-Americans, face racism and are exposed to ugly prejudice and stereotypes.

Two articles that I read recently illustrated this point. The first was news about the disturbing details emerging from the case of Private Daniel Chen, an army private in Afghanistan who was subjected to constant verbal and physical abuse from his fellow soldiers, leading to his death, initially deemed as suicide but still under investigation. Private Chen, a Chinese-American, was subjected to constant jokes and insults about his ethnicity, with reports that soldiers "used a mocking accent while calling him Jackie Chen; others allegedly told him to 'go back to China'." And the verbal abuse was accompanied with physical abuse, including being dragged out of bed and over gravel, and being forced to crawl while other soldiers threw rocks at him.

The second article was an op-ed about racism against Chinese Britons written by a Elizabeth Chan, a performing artist in England, another progressive and civilized society where you'd think that we would see a lot less blatant racist hatred, but that's sadly not the case. But her experience isn't that different than what I (or many of my other Asian-American friends) have experienced in my lifetime, many more times that I would like to remember, "being targeted by shouts of "Jackie Chan!" and kung-fu noises from random strangers continue to greet me in the street."

And while we all wish we could wipe this away and explain this by blaming this on ignorant and uneducated yokels, that's just not the case. Note this eye-opening paragraph from Chan about her experiences in cosmopolitan London in the midst of highly-educated sophisticated people:

Going to drama school in London was a revelation; I was told I couldn't perform in a scene from a play because it had been written for white people. The scene was two girls sitting on a park bench talking about boys, and the year was 2006. Worse was when it came from my contemporaries; one (white, liberal, highly educated) helpfully suggested I did a monologue from The Good Soul of Szechuan instead, and another rushed up after one performance to tell me how delighted her parents had been that I'd spoken perfect English (I'm from Bradford).

It's the modern day equivalent to "You're really a credit to your race" or "Some of my best friends are Asian." But where the op-ed really hits the mark that Asians need to take responsibility for this. The reason why these things don't get play is because Asians are often too conciliatory in the face of racist slights or offense, rationalizing that the (1) the actions are actually benign or non-malicious in intent or (2) there's little to be gained by confronting the issue at hand. Otherwise, the Asian plays into and reinforces the stereotype as the harmless, weak and meek servant who smiles as they're bullied by supposedly more superior and assertive races.

This isn't about political correctness, this is about the willingness to rightfully take claim of the same respect that has been afforded people of other races and segments of society, and that respect comes in the form of the fear of outrage and repercussion when lines have been crossed. Take for example the most promoted comments on sports website Deadspin.com that followed the announcement of basketball player Jeremy Lin's relegation to the D-League:

moesman83 Tue 17 Jan 2012 9:02 PM

Man, what an eye opener.

Bourbon_Meyer Tue 17 Jan 2012 7:08 PM

Number 17, no MSG, ready for pick-up!

DonCherry'sHockeySchtick Tue 17 Jan 2012 6:54 PM

This was really just a numbers thing with Baron Davis returning, I'm sure Lin did the math and knew he would be sent down.

I can't help but wonder if the everyone would find it funny if jokes were made about Dwight Howard's slavery-bred body or Jason Pierre-Paul eating bananas at the zoo. The jokes, the taunting and crimes such as the ones committed against Private Daniel Chen will sadly continue as long as sin exists in the world. But people who stand for righteousness - especially Asians themselves - need to stand up and speak up so that these actions are treated as just as unacceptable as similar those against people of other affinity groups.