Sunday, April 12, 2009

Texas Rep. Betty Brown: She Didnt Insult "Asians"--She Insulted CHINESE-Americans

Here is the text, cited from Thinkprogress, below.

The problem with her subsequent apology is that it is directed at Asian Amnericans, when her racist comment was directed at CHINESE AMERICANS IN PARTICULAR.

This is an important distinction. Because the discourse of racism directed specifically Chinese either born here in the U.S. or foreign born becomes erased, elided, invisible, by the discourse of "Asian Americans" and the supposed collective group that forms.

Sorry, but Asian Americans are not a discrete group. But Asians encompasses South Asia (such as India), Southeast Asian (Thailand, Vietnam, for example) and East Asia (China, Japan and Korea). So "Asians" is not a cohesive group.

Imagine how insulted Northern Europeans would be to be confused with someone from, say, Italy, and you'll understand.

Who says racism is latent in America?

"“Rather than everyone here having to learn Chinese — I understand it’s a rather difficult language — do you think that it would behoove you and your citizens to adopt a name that we could deal with more readily here?” Brown said.

Brown later told [Organization of Chinese Americans representative Ramey] Ko: 'Can’t you see that this is something that would make it a lot easier for you and the people who are poll workers if you could adopt a name just for identification purposes that’s easier for Americans to deal with?'

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