Page 5 - Florida Sentinel 4-9-21

Editorial/Column
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Black And Asian Americans:
A Complex Rela
he recent shootings of
Asian women, and at- tacks on elderly Asians and hateful speech about Asians causing the spread of the Coronavirus, have had a negative impact on my fam- ily because I have Asian friends, Vietnamese, and Filipino relatives.
In fact, our family is a mini-United Nations. Whatever affects one affects us all, and we are speaking out against targeting Asians for verbal attacks and phys- ical assaults.
Yes, there is both anti- Black and anti-racist atti- tudes coexisting in Asian communities much like the anti-Black and anti-racist attitudes that exist in white communities.
Korean merchants be- came the target of rioters during the Watts riots in Los Angeles because of their mistreatment.
Historically, Asians have been targeted by hate groups and racist individu- als since the 1850s when the first Chinese migrated to America to work in gold mines on the West Coast. At this time, Blacks were just beginning to gain their free- dom from slavery in the South.
Blatantly, the United States government passed a law in 1882, Chinese Exclu- sion Act, that banned Chi- nese women from immigrating to the United States. Frederick Dou- glass protested the Act. It was the first and only one to have been implemented and
still stands today, that pre- vents all members of a spe- cific ethnic group from immigrating to the United States.
The law was made per- manent in 1902 except for teachers, students, mer- chants, tourists, and diplo- mats. After World War II, the Chinese were considered a threat because of their economic success. In Amer- ica, a nation that promoted a “white only” immigration policy, the Chinese were re- ferred to as “the yellow peril” – unfit and unclean for citizenship in the United States.
Japanese immigration started in 1880 when the first 100 or more Japanese arrived in Hawaii to work in the sugarcane fields. Then they immigrated to the states of California, Oregon, and Washington to become farmers and fishermen. Just as Blacks were made to look distorted – lips, eyes, color, Japanese were stereo- typed by their eyes, speech, and dress.
Quotas on the number of Chinese and Japanese who could enter the United States were lifted in 1965. During the immigration of Japanese in the 1930s and early 1940s, African Ameri- cans were still experiencing Jim Crow and segregation.
However, Black leaders still spoke against placing Japanese citizens in intern- ment camps. During World War II, a study of the reac- tions of the American Black press found one half of the
six Black newspapers ob- jected to the internment of the Japanese, while two of the papers made no men- tion of the internment of the Japanese. “All of the papers were consistent in their protest of racial discrimina- tion where they thought it existed and manifested it- self, whether the Japanese internment was mentioned or not.”
In 1982, Rev. Jesse Jackson called for justice in the beating murder of Vincent Chin in Detroit.
Several years before the incident, Asian American students at UC Berkeley and San Francisco State forged a coalition with Black and other ethnic groups to coin the phrase Asian Americans, gained inspiration from the Black Power movement, and became part of the Third World Liberation Front. Their collaboration led to equal opportunities and the creation of ethnic studies programs.
Fast forward to February 2021, Japanese American leaders in California called their day of remembrance, the 42nd year of commemo- rating their internment, a day to be marked by “sup- porting the Black commu- nity in its fight against discrimination.”
Asian Americans are now becoming more active and vocal in the struggle for justice and humanity.
Our relationship with Asians is just as complex as the Asian police officer who participated in the killing of George Floyd, and the young Asian protestor who held a sign during the protests for Floyd. The sign read, “When Black Lives are threatened, all of our lives are threatened.”
Blacks and Asians should find common ground in the complexity of these two sce- narios. Harambee.
tionship
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C. Blythe Andrews 1901-1977 (1945)
C. Blythe Andrews, Jr. 1930-2010 (1977)
Georgia Strikes Out
he passage of a clearly racist S.B. 202 law to re-
strict voting access in Georgia was a well-deserved catalyst for the Major League Baseball’s (MLB) an- nouncement to relocate the 2021 All Star Game and MLB Draft from Atlanta, Georgia. Citing their move as “the best way to demonstrate our values as a sport,” their action was supported by the team members, for- mer and current players, the MLB Players Association, the Players Alliance, and others.
Indeed, the Republican Party (GOP) has become so emboldened until they enact voting laws that make it more difficult to vote and then tell you they’re doing it to make our voting process more secure. Nevermind not telling you what was insecure about the process in the first place.
The real problem with the voting process in 2020 was that “Black Americans eligible to vote for President reached a record 30 million, and that one third of them lived in nine of the country’s key battleground states - Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Michigan, North Car- olina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin - in a higher rate than the 29% of all U. S. eligible voters who live in these states.”
Nationwide, Black eligible voters currently comprise nearly 13% of the total U. S. electorate. Formerly, Black voters were the largest non-white ethnic group of our country’s electorate until 2020 when Hispanic voters outnumbered Black voters by more than 2 million. Vot- ing strategies that helped increase Black voter partici- pation included: early voting, expanded numbers of voting sites, weekend and Sunday voting, longer voting hours, voter drop-off boxes, voting by mail, absentee voting and reasonable voter identification rules. These strategies increased Black voter turnout rates close to white voter turnout rates. No doubt, these increases are the reasons there are 253 bills restricting voter ac- cess in 43 states.
Predominantly Republican state legislatures have proposed and enacted laws that directly eliminates, re- duces length of time, or reduces the number of accessi- ble sites in more than 43 states as a result of the 2020
turnout of Black voters. Even knowing that there were Republicans observing vote tabulations in every Supervisor of Election office in the country with no reports of voter fraud, Republicans still use the “Big Lie” about “stealing votes from Trump” to shield their attack on Black voters.
Therefore, we do not see the MLB’s decision as troublemaking, thus we applaud MLB as America once applauded the MLB for bringing on board Jackie Robinson. By removing its presence from the State of Georgia, the MLB has told Georgia and the world that it will not take part in Jim Crow racism. Three strikes Georgia, and you’re out until you do better. We hope other organizations follow suit in other states.
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