Tag: white supremacy

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We Can’t Breathe: Why We Need to Give Racism a Chance

In the wake of the Mike Brown and Eric Garner decisions, of the excessive additional unarmed youth who have been killed in the short weeks following the injustice, and in the face of vast disparities facing our country at every level, I believe that there is an important discussion that we need to be having, but one being generally avoided. 

In our society, we’ve demonized the “R Word” so much so, that people pretend it doesn’t exist in our communities, and certainly not in our government, legal system, or other public spaces. That word, and problem, is racism.

A recent … Read more “We Can’t Breathe: Why We Need to Give Racism a Chance”

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The Language of Anti-Racism

The term “anti-black racism” seems to be gaining in popularity lately. Liberal and progressive pundits use the term with regularity when describing the remarkable frequency of officer-involved shootings of Black people, or the fact that one in thirteen African Americans have been stripped of their right to vote by felon disenfranchisement, a form of collateral punishment that has always disproportionately affected Black people.

By the way, in case you were wondering why felon disenfranchisement is listed among expressions of racism, these laws were first popularized in the U.S. in the late 1860s through the 1870s. This was the … Read more “The Language of Anti-Racism”

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The Bamboo Ceiling in the Tech Sector Is a Story About Race

Recent reports indicating a lack of racial and gender diversity at major tech companies like Google, Apple, and Yahoo, among others, have rekindled discussion among Asian Americans about a phenomenon known as the bamboo ceiling. The bamboo ceiling is the Asian equivalent of the glass ceiling, that invisible yet all too consequential barrier that prevents women from rising to executive positions in public and private sector employment.

The reason for all the talk is that, while African Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans are underrepresented in tech sector employment, Asian Americans aren’t. In fact, we’re over-represented.

Asian Americans … Read more “The Bamboo Ceiling in the Tech Sector Is a Story About Race”

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State Power and Police Violence in Ferguson

In my last post, I recalled an incident that occurred decades ago in Hawai’i. In that incident, I was assaulted by police officers on my 18th birthday. I assume I was targeted because I lived in a small town where I had developed a reputation as a trouble-maker. I opened the door to violence by resisting arrest by asserting my rights.

The cops involved in this incident were white, and they were acting on a description of a perpetrator that was so loose as to invite the kind of harassment I faced: “young, black hair, brown eyes, some kind of … Read more “State Power and Police Violence in Ferguson”

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American History 2.0

The mainstream media had a heyday last week when Rep. Mo Brooks’ (R-AL) went on the radio with Laura Ingraham and declared that the Democratic Party is waging a “war on whites.” Brooks’ follow-up, “if you look at federal law, there’s only one skin color you can lawfully discriminate against. That’s Caucasions – whites…” added fuel to the fire.

Brooks’ comments are no doubt reprehensible. But, what is of real consequence to us is not that Brooks is a racist, there’s no surprise in learning elected representatives are racial conservatives, it is  that he is appealing to a … Read more “American History 2.0”

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The Model Minority is a Lever of White Supremacy

The Asian American model minority myth has been getting a lot of attention lately. Articles like this one, in Colorlines, and posts here on Race Files like this one and this one are just a few among a growing number of attempts to speak to the origins and meaning of the Asian American model minority. To me, that’s great news. Anti-black racism may be the fulcrum, or pivot point, of white supremacy, but the model minority myth is one of white supremacy’s many levers.

The articles referenced here all make the important point that the model minority is … Read more “The Model Minority is a Lever of White Supremacy”

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Segregation in Education: Reading Between the Lines

According to the national civil rights organization, Asian Americans Advancing Justice, students in the U.S. continue to attend schools organized by race. 69.9% of Asian American students, 85.2% of Black students, and 88.1% of Latino students attend schools that are majority non-white. Meanwhile, 29.7%, or less than a third, of white students attend majority non-white schools. This statistic matters, and not just because of what it tells us about the persistence of racial segregation 60 years after Brown v. Board of Education.

School segregation matters because $733 more will be spent per student at schools that are … Read more “Segregation in Education: Reading Between the Lines”

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NYT Sunday Edition: “All the Propaganda That’s Fit to Print”

I bought The New York Times on Sunday for the first time in years this weekend. When I was growing up, we had a subscription and my father would insist that I and my siblings read the Week In Review, which, of course we didn’t, but the few times I tried I had no idea what any of it meant. I lugged the stack to a diner for a little self-date with some waffles and coffee. These were 4 of 5 of the front page headlines, reading left to right, above the fold to below the fold:

Wall St. Mothers, … Read more “NYT Sunday Edition: “All the Propaganda That’s Fit to Print””

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Asian Americans Are the Same as Other Americans, But Not in the Way Frank Wu Seems to Think We Are

Frank H. Wu (author of Yellow: Race Beyond Black and White, a useful if not entirely satisfying examination of the racial status of Asian Americans) has been making waves with his recent Huff Post editorial, Jeremy Lin and the End of Asian Americans? In it, he makes the point that Asian Americans are distinct from Asians globally, both because Asians in Asia don’t share a pan-Asian identity, and because Asian Americans are neither well known to nor very much like the peoples of the countries in which we are ethnically rooted.

Good enough. I don’t disagree with that point. But … Read more “Asian Americans Are the Same as Other Americans, But Not in the Way Frank Wu Seems to Think We Are”

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Why I’m an Anti-Racist

People often ask me why I’m so obsessed with anti-racism. I talk about it, read about, and, obviously, write about it constantly. People wonder why I devote so much time, thought, and virtual ink to just one source of human suffering when there are so many to choose from.

I get where they’re coming from. There’s lots of injustice out there. Children live in poverty and suffer hunger and abuse. Women are denied reproductive justice. People with disabilities are routinely denied access to public life. And then there’s the privatization of everything, from basic services to water. Surely, turning shared … Read more “Why I’m an Anti-Racist”