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On Asian American Privilege

The explosion of online race talk about Asian Americans lately is enough to make your head spin. Are we progressive or conservative? Are we rich or poor? Are we privileged or oppressed? And the thorniest of all: are we allies or colluders on the question of anti-blackness?

The challenge of discussing race on Twitter is that nuance gets stifled by character limits and thumb fatigue. But the short answer is: Asian Americans are all of these things. This can be seen in research on Asian American political views and poverty, and in our reports on Asian Americans and race. … Read more “On Asian American Privilege”

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A Word on Amy Chua

When I first saw the New York Post’s scathing review of Amy Chua’s new book, The Triple Package, the phrase “triple threat” immediately came to mind. Surely Chua’s PR hawks would’ve warned her off using the word “threat” to describe select, successful, largely immigrant “cultural groups.” After all, today’s white U.S. workers are rightfully anxious about the future, but wrongfully suspicious of “the other”– undocumented workers, Muslims, China as a whole, young black women who knock on the door asking for help… But I believe “threat” would’ve been a more honest word choice.

I haven’t read the book, nor am … Read more “A Word on Amy Chua”

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Sirius XM: Does that Umbrella Come with a Pink Slip for Babchik?

“I want to buy an umbrella [that comes] with an Asian girl…In my experience, girls who stand next to me longer than 20 seconds get a creampie.” Mike Babchik, Host of “Man Banter” on SiriusXM to an Asian American woman at Comic Con, October 2013

You may have heard about the racist misogynist Mike Babchik who sexually harassed at least one Asian American attendee at Comic Con this month, right here in my hometown of New York City. Mike Babchik is a creep. But we’re all familiar with creeps like him. All you have to do is walk outside or … Read more “Sirius XM: Does that Umbrella Come with a Pink Slip for Babchik?”

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Those Studious Asians

A September 19 article in The Atlantic asked the question How Much Homework Do American Kids Do? The answer? According to a MetLife survey, not much. Considering the dismal state of education in the U.S. this should come as no surprise. But then the article made this claim:

Race plays a role in how much homework students do.

Asian students spend 3.5 more hours on average doing homework per week than their white peers. However, only 59 percent of Asian students’ parents check that homework is done, while 75.6 percent of Hispanic students’ parents and 83.1 percent of black … Read more “Those Studious Asians”

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Race Beyond Black and White: Four Reasons to Move Beyond the Racial Binary

I was recently featured as a guest on the National Public Radio program Tell Me More in the week leading up to the 50th Anniversary March on Washington, The interview was a discussion of a piece I wrote called Three Things Asian Americans Owe to the Civil Rights Movement. Close on the heels of that broadcast was the release of a video interview I did with GritTV’s Laura Flanders about the unique place of Asian Americans in our national civil rights history.

Too often, the history of race and rights in this country is a story told only in … Read more “Race Beyond Black and White: Four Reasons to Move Beyond the Racial Binary”

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Asian America’s Overlooked Diversity: A Video Interview with Scot Nakagawa

[youtube_sc url=”http://youtu.be/r9TpomsIj50″]

The above interview was conducted by Laura Flanders of Grit TV and The Nation on the occasion of the release of the Pew Research Center’s report, The Rise of Asian Americans and my response, here, on Race Files.

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Racism is Like Cell Phones

 

I might’ve become one of those people who buy into the whitewashing hype that race no longer matters in America. Having grown up in the environment in which I did, if I ever commented on racism, people would typically dismiss it with, “Don’t be so touchy.” Racism was a thing of the past. The End. As I wrote in an earlier post, as a young person, I had few tools to understand my own racial oppression as anything more than a hangup that I needed to get over. If I hadn’t met the remarkable racial justice organizers that I … Read more “Racism is Like Cell Phones”

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Where I Come From

White supremacy works best when we’re isolated from each other. When I ask people where their politics come from, it’s because I’m hoping to find something in common, those places of overlap in how our hearts and minds are constructed, and the political commitments rooted therein. As uncomfortable as it is, it’s in this spirit that I offer some of my back-story here. I hope others will do the same.

It should come as no surprise that as a kid, I was marked as different in the ways that many Asians growing up in white America experience;  name-calling, eyelid pulling, … Read more “Where I Come From”

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The Sensitivity of White People and the Problem of Race in America

A recent post on this site, Why Are White People So Touchy about Being Called Racist?, touched off a debate that basically served to support my general thesis that white people are, in fact, pretty damn touchy about being accused of racism. Among the responses was this one: “come on Nakagawa, you know Japanese people are just as touchy.”

I’m not going to say that this is not a potentially true point. However, I never said Japanese people or any other people aren’t touchy about being called racist. I just said white people are touchy, a point that the cognitive … Read more “The Sensitivity of White People and the Problem of Race in America”

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Asiana Airline Crash Brings Out the Racists on Twitter

Yesterday, an Asiana Airlines passenger jet crashed at the San Francisco International Airport. Upon impact, the plane was smashed to pieces and then caught fire. At least two passengers are reported dead and 181 more were injured among whom at least 26 are children. Hilarious, right?

What, you don’t think so? Then you obviously haven’t been following twitter where a bunch of people heard about the crash and then laughed so hard their racism popped out. Some cringe worthy examples of the kind of ranting joking going on are on the Public Shaming tumblr. Here’s a taste:

 

 

That … Read more “Asiana Airline Crash Brings Out the Racists on Twitter”