Just like my old NPR commentaries…
I read so you don’t have to.
Is that not the deal of the century!
Tag Archives: Asian American
Sports: Asian-spotting the NFL: Claiming Robert Griffin III
By his place of birth, Redskin quarterback Robert Griffin III could be an Asian American.
Born in Japan, where his parents were serving in the Army, Griffin and his family moved back to the U.S. and lived in a number of places before settling on Texas.
Certainly, there are no shortage Asian American/Pacific Islander lineman and defensive stars in the league. But who wants to root for blockers all day? After his first day on the job, RGIII is going to be a massive offensive star in the NFL.
Before things get out of hand and he does more than Subway commercials, Asian Americans should just outright claim RGIII as one of ours.
We should learn from the Tiger Woods lesson. Let’s get him to at least acknowledge he’s an “NFL-sei.”
Why not? If he were born in Mexico, the GOP would call him Mexican and want him deported. Especially, if the immigration officials weren’t Redskins fans. Oh, and by the way, that name Redskins. Still? Really? You can’t be diversity’s team with a name like that.
I bet you the guy’s good at math, too.
For his incredible debut, RG3 for Asian American of the Week!
Should Oikos University take some blame in how it treated Goh?
One L. Goh, the Oikos University gunman gets his perp walk today. It’s not the nursing school graduation he hoped to have some day.
Hard to see how it could have been any different as more is revealed about Goh.
The Chronicle has an interview with Romie Delariman, Goh’s nursing instructor.
She calls Goh “mentally unstable” and “paranoid.”
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/04/04/MNLR1NU3F1.DTL
But if the intstructor was correct in her assessment, why didn’t the small school attempt to address the issue?
In the Virginia Tech shooting, much was made of how the local mental health care responders did come in and make a difference in 2007, but it was all after the fact.
All the post-mortems of that tragedy still come to the conclusion that the overall access to mental health care at the school was lacking leading up to what became the most violent school shooting in U.S. history.
But that was big Viriginia Tech. This is small Oikos U. It seems that given the more intimate setting of the Oakland nursing school there should have been a little better effort to connect Goh to the help he obviously needed.
Instead, it seems it help usher him out the door. Was Oikos Goh’s safety net that failed?
Go to my original piece posted on the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund blog:
http://aaldef.org/blog/no-model-minority-the-alienation-of-oaklands-one-l-goh.html
Michigan’s Hoekstra’s race huckstering: Will it get him votes?
Come on folks, let’s play “Are you offended?”
Michigan Republican Peter Hoekstra wants to engage the Asian American community!
http://www.debbiespenditnow.com/
Good thing Peter Hoekstra puts his claim on this, and has approved this message.
Usually people are too ashamed to own up to such blatant racist actions. That’s why God created hoods.
But Hoekstra says he’s using “satire.”
If it’s satire, I’m not laughing. Are you?
I’m a big fan of satire, and admit to using a little of it myself.
Satire uses humor, or exaggeration, against big targets to make a point.
If Hoekstra is making China a target here, that’s fine. Political leaders are fair game. China is a strange hybrid now of capitalism and communism. Debbie isn’t the right target in a policy debate. Blame Debbie only if your real intent is to create anti-Chinese sentiment in the U.S., whipping up the kind of xenophobic reactions that lead to real misunderstanding and spills over into acts of Anti-Asian American violence.
Sounds like a good divisive strategy in Hoekstra’s Michigan, where many are still trying to recover from a slow economy.
Hoekstra’s simplistic “satire” is the kind of sentiment manipulation that leads to a real misunderstanding of the imbalance of trade between China and the U.S.
It doesn’t lead to people writing Congress and demanding action. It doesn’t even lead to something that might make a difference–like not shopping at Wal-Mart.
But is sure fuels emotions that lead to street level tensions and scapegoating.
Don’t forget, when the U.S. auto industry was besieged by the Japanese more than a generation ago, an autoworker took a baseball bat to the head of Vincent Chin.
Thank you Peter Hoekstra for your part in opening up another chapter of “Yellow Peril” in America.
The truth is Americans shouldn’t fear China as much as race hucksters like Hoekstra.
Hoekstra needs votes and is willing to do anything to get attention. Just as Romney doesn’t care about the poor, Hoekstra doesn’t seem to care about the racial sensitivities of Michigan voters.
If it’s a satire, the last laugh is on Hoekstra, who approved that message.
