The long Western legacy of violence against Asian Americans

[Dill]

(03-20-2021, 09:21 AM)hollodero Wrote: If a black person is found dead, one should not assume he was killed by another black person. Though that most often is the case. (You still shouldn't, I agree with that.)
But for some reason, you can always assume a white guy is racist. Not defending that killer's honor, assume at will. But how so many politicians and media people just declare this a racist deed is astonishing. And apparently racism is more of a thing as misogyny right now, so it's not about inherent sexism, but inherent racism. Though 6 - or all, that would not hinder the bigger point - victims were women and the killer actually talked about women.

Doesn't where and when a person is found play some role here? If a black person were found dead on the roads around Indiana, PA, I would not assume he was killed by another black person. I doubt the county sheriff would either. My bet is statistics play a much lesser role than location and, perhaps, cause of death.  Sure, though, if a Crip is found murdered on Blood territory, it probably wasn't the Klan. But if we are police we don't just "assume" do we? We investigate regardless of assumptions.

I'm not sure we always a assume a white guy is racist. But there is less pushback in a case where six victims are of another race, one now frequently targeted for hate crimes. There can be non-racist reasons for the killings, I suppose. Perhaps the majority of spas in Metropolitan Atlanta are staffed by Asian women, and the sex of those who worked there was more important for the killer than race. Were the staff in the region predominately white or black, then so would the victims have been.  But you are saying maybe the media and the online condemnation have decided "racism" in this case. Prematurely. Because they can. Because, as you note below, it's the whites who have the power and influence. But also more, because its the whites who have an organized ideology of racial superiority which includes a need to defend that race, which often manifests itself in events like mosque or synagogue shootings. There are near mirror-reflections of such ideology held by a small number of Black people in the U.S., but it has so far not expressed itself in similar massacres.

In the Atlanta case the rush to judgment is not that astonishing if we listen to what some of the judges say. E.g. Rep. Meng, whose tearful response to the "lynching" comments of her colleague from Texas, was frustrated for years in her attempts to get the Trump administration to take anti-Asian violence seriously. I think she is fair in assuming that racial stereotypes, racism, played a part in that lack of interest. After all "her kind" brought the virus to the U.S., right? And I think others, like Hu, Lee, and Huang above, are not at all wrong in assuming this pre-disposition to blame Asians as a group, this license to violence against them, did not appear overnight. It is rooted in a long history of racial assumptions on the part of those calling the shots in the U.S. 

Doesn't mean you are wrong about people reaching too quickly for the racist label when ever one of us white guys kills a a non-white person. But in this case, it looks like a lot of justified, pent up frustration in the U.S. Asian community has them speaking out more often and loudly than in the past, and sympathetic liberals amplifying the message, while tone deaf whites like Chip Roy and Captain Jay Baker illustrate the problem from public platforms.

Still wrong for them to jump to conclusions in their attempt to get recognition. I am just saying I understand why their judgment may push too quickly past what the evidence authorizes.

(03-20-2021, 09:21 AM)hollodero Wrote: You also always can blame Christianity for all kinds of bad things and bad deeds. With Islam, you need to be more careful already. Islamophobia is something people are quick to assume.
Can say all kinds of shit about men. Have to be careful not to stereotype women.

I always wondered how that is. So I figured it out, of course. It's, well duh, about power and influence. The more power and influence a certain demographic has or is thought to have, the more you are allowed to assume or talk in unflattering stereotypes and call it social analysis or whatever. That seems to be the code.
I often feel there's an inherent disingenuity factored into many debates because of that, but that feeling seldomly is shared.

Sorry for not answering in a more thoughtful way. I don't have the time to smarten it up.

Er, in the U.S., one cannot blame Christianity* "for all kinds of things" with complete impunity. You think so and you get Trump for president.

I don't know if "Islamophobia" is something people are quick to assume. Certainly not more of a problem than Islamophobia. Islamophobes like Pamela Gellar dispute that it even exists.
Can't say shit about gay men, poor men, elderly men, or handicapped men, at least in reference to those attributes.

But yes, power is what un-levels the playing field in discussions of ethnicity and gender.  And whether it is "social analysis" depends on whether it is actually analysis, and not just blaming. (I understand that many do not see the difference. But I am always seeking to affirm it in discussions like this.)

I don't have trouble with the un-leveling, but I do have a problem when blame precedes or utterly replaces analysis. And I think that might be what so discomfits you now. The standards are always changing, and competing groups claim authority to define and judge. But you aren't in those groups. That one word you and everyone around you have been saying all your life was ok yesterday, but not today, and presto--you are a racist, according to some teenager. "And not surprising, given you are Austrian." Suddenly the judges practice the same kind of inherently biased hasty ethnic generalization they claim to criticize. But if you push back, that too is racist.**

This is especially confusing for people of my age, who grew up when overt racism was still common, if not always ok.*** And you were a good guy if you openly rejected that. Now my peers muddy the waters further by simply trying to flip or mirror the charge--"You said 'white,' so you are the one referring to 'race' and that makes you the racist." 

LOL am I racist for suddenly noting out loud how easy these discussions are with other white people acting in good faith?   I'll take the risk.

*Just found out the Atlanta shooter was a Southern Baptist, and getting religious counseling for his "sex addiction," and was close to being disowned by his family for this shameful behavior. This looms at least as large for me as that bystander who supposedly heard him say he was going to "kill Asians."
**If it's any consolation, some concerned minorities in the U.S. are discussing this problem, the unfair bind in which it places white people, and the fact it creates backlash, not the desired listening and understanding. Check out the Race Card Project. https://www.npr.org/series/173814508/the-race-card-project
***My sixth grade ('63-64) teacher would never let anyone in my all-white class use the N-word. But we could comment on whether Black Americans should have equal rights or, as some said echoing their parents, "Go back where they came from."  When a Japanese missionary came to visit for a week, and walked around the neighborhood smiling and waving at people, some friends and their parents were curious as to why we had a "Jap" was living with us.