Friday, August 8, 2008

Are Asians the New Invisible Man?

Story is here.

Hey John, do me a favor: ask Mark Ridley-Thomas and Maxine Waters their views on Asian-Americans, specifically Korean-American store owners. And how about gangs of blacks attacking Korean-American business during the Rodney King Riots, which Waters continues to call an insurrection rather than a riot that only produced death and economic damage, while accusing Korean-Americans of stealing from the black community?

I have lived in Asia and it is stuff such as the above that has given blacks a horrendous image in that region. One of my female students in Korea, who was trilingual (Korean, english and Japanese) and held a Phd, even asked me if all blacks were thugs.

When it comes to Asians and Asian-Americans, too many blacks start waxing David Duke-like. There has even been some grousing by blacks in major league baseball about Japanese players coming here and taking what they see as roster spots that rightfully belong to African-American players.

Oh, and just as an aside, the next Asian-American analyst on ESPN's main panel shows (NBA Fastbreak, Baseball Tonight, NFL Live) will be the first even as myriad African-Americans are filling that role (and most ably, I have to say; Chris Singleton has been a godsend to Baseball Tonight, for example).

Approved

Note: I don't know if it was Ridley or the moderator of this section of the HuffPo who was judgsing the comments, but finally they allowed me to call out Maxine Waters and other black leaders on their bigotry against Asians and Asian-Americans. Kudos to whomever made that decision to allow this post to go through.

It elicited a lame reply from another reader that I should ask Waters and Ridley-Thomas about their gripes with Asians myself, but obviously I don't have the media cred to do that. They woudl hang up on me. So it is up to the media to call Waters and her ilk on their racism.

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