Category Archives: race

blog, news, race

Dismissal of Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s case is bad news for victims

With the media attention on the DSK affair, I now take an extra look at the maids whenever I check into a hotel.  Depending on the region, the workers represent the lowest immigrants on the totem pole, newcomers from Asia, Mexico, Africa, the Caribbean. I have relatives who work “housekeeping.”  They are generally overworked and underpaid.

As a hotel guest, I am quick to show my empathy. I try to leave a few dollars more as a tip.

Unlike  Dominique Strauss-Kahn,  I don’t see the workers as being at my disposal to be used as if they came complimentary like the bathroom toiletries.

So there’s my bias.

Initially, I cheered when they got DSK because his arrogance is so ripe.  He seemed ready for a fall. Man of power taking his imperial liberties with a housekeeper, that’s so Masterpiece Theatre.

But it’s just his luck to have a victim who appears to have so little credibility the prosecutors lost faith in the case and in her.

Reportedly, the victim lied about a gang rape that had happened previously to her. When it couldn’t be verified, what other conclusions could the prosecutors come to? They knew they couldn’t win a “he-said she said” case with a victim who could be discredited so easily.

So they punted.  Too bad.

They’ve just created a new climate for every victim going forward. They’ll now have a double burden.

Convincing a jury is one thing, but considering how hungry and overzealous prosecutors tend to be at putting someone behind bars, convincing a prosecutor is just a formality.

Not anymore.

Getting justice just got harder for the innocent.

I kept wondering could this be a cultural thing, a language thing. Did they not understand the victim from Guinea?

But though the accent is thick, she had no problem communicating. Reportedly, she was so convincing to prosecutors on the fake gang rape story she was in tears.  Then later she recanted.

Great acting can be truth in art.

It just doesn’t make it as truth in court.

blog, diversity, news, politics, race

Rep. David Wu’s failed promise

The debt ceiling debate was given a little levity when politicos had David Wu to pounce on.

It’s hard not to. The guy has been flat out bizarre in his actions.

But it’s not funny, really.

The guy may have been troubled personally, stressed out on many different levels.  But he was no buffoon. He was the first Chinese American elected to the House. And that’s a big, big deal.

Read my amok column exclusively on the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund website: 

http://aaldef.org/blog/farewell-to-tigger-wu.html

blog, journalism, news, politics, race

Old Dish: Wendi Deng, Murdoch’s Tiger Mom? Or the fully evolved Asian anchor babe?

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We all saw Wendi Deng Murdoch sit behind her man this week like she was in a TV studio perched on an anchor chair. (They have chairs instead of old-fashioned anchor desks these days because consultants realized it hid one of an anchor babe’s best assets).  

Wendi watchers will recall the conflict in her life at the beginning of her career while at Star TV in Asia.

Smart enough to run the business.

Pretty enough to be a host, like the second coming of Connie Chung.  

Conniving enough–oh let’s give her the benefit of the doubt–lucky enough to get herself the job as chief interpreter to the Chairman of the Board. 

Quandry of quandries!  What’s a girl to do? It was enought to give a pretty young thing a real headache!

But it all came together this week at that parliamentary hearing for Wendi. She knew exactly what to do when it mattered.

Given all in her past, what better time to summon up her god-given  talents, including going claws up in defense of poor Rupert, a victim of all sorts these days,  a cream pie being the messiest.  (Why the mess makes it worse than a phone hack, don’t you think?) 

Don’t let the pink fool you, Wendi knows what she’s doing.

If you don’t know jack about Deng, here’s a primer on her back story:

 http://aaldef.org/blog/dengs-paw-showing-some-claw-in-defense-of-her-murdoch-1.html

blog, diversity, journalism, news, politics, race

Jose Antonio Vargas–the undocumented, not the illegal

Talked to an editor friend about Jose Antonio Vargas, an award winning Filipino American reporter who revealed his life as an undocumented person recently in a  New York Times Magazine article.

The editor pal said he’s not “undocumented.” He just had fake documents.

But I pointed out since the documents were fake they are non-documents, hence Vargas is still technically “undocumented.”

To which the editor-friend replied, that to the people Vargas presented the fake documents it appeared he had documents, which actually  would make Vargas a “falsely documented person.”

OK. But still basically undocumented.

The reason we have debates like this is that people tend to call the undocumented  “illegals.”

Illegal  is used as a noun, which is not proper and offensive when applied to people who should be presumed innocent.

“Illegal” can  be used appropriately, as an adjective or adverb. You can be a person who enters illegally. But you can’t be an illegal.

Sure, the shortcut is lost on texters and butchers of the language, but once explained you can see why “undocumented” is the  preferred term for people who entered  this country outside the law, or illegally.

But they aren’t “illegals.”  Those are sick birds.

They may be  illegal entrants, but as people they are undocumented.

My editor pal objected still and  said undocumented is like a sanitized euphemism. Like calling a janitor a “sanitary engineer.”

But I tell him insisting on “undocumented”  doesn’t sanitize or euphemize, it humanizes. It’s an appropriate balance to calling them “illegals” which only  vilifies and criminalizes unfairly.

For my take on Vargas, the new face of the undocumented, check out my blog at:

 http://aaldef.org/blog/vargas-the-undocumented2.html