Category Archives: racism

Asian Americans share their own encounters with racism after NY Times editor is told to ‘Go back to China!’: Shanghaiist

Follow kelwoon @kelwoonjoo@michaelluo When I was house hunting, the realtor guy said that my husband is a lucky guy to have a such a beautiful Geisha wife #thisis20168:42 AM – 10 Oct 2016 20 20 Retweets 34 34 likes

Source: Asian Americans share their own encounters with racism after NY Times editor is told to ‘Go back to China!’: Shanghaiist

@michaelluo I was eating fried rice at a friend’s store. Guy walks in and booms “HOW ABOUT THAT. CHINAMAN EAT’N CHINARICE!”

@michaelluo Ching Chang Chong Cho as I was walking out of a Wells Fargo in Chino Hills, CA.

@michaelluo “What’s your background? I can’t tell because of your accent”. My family’s been here since the 1800s.

@michaelluo That one time an employee at the Home Depot bowed with praying hands to me and my dad and said, “Ni hao”.

“Where are you from?”
Chicago.
“No really, where were you born?”
M’F’er, my mother gave birth to me IN CHICAGO. https://twitter.com/michaelluo/status/785282611178512384 

At my 15 yr olds HS, after she introduced herself, a white girl said “No your name can’t be Skye, it’s Ching Chong Oh!”

@michaelluo I was complimented recently on how well I spoke English despite being a Professor born and raised in Florida :-)!

Man on street: How do u say hi in ur language?
Me: HELLO
He changes direction to follow me: No ur real language
Me: speedwalks https://twitter.com/michaelluo/status/785447220774629376 

A woman asked me if my husband was Chinese (I’m Korean) and I said “No. He’s white.”
“You can do that now??” https://twitter.com/michaelluo/status/785447220774629376 

@michaelluo “We should’ve killed all you f***ers in Nam”. I was born in Washington DC & uncle is a US Nam vet. I’m Fil-Am.

@michaelluo I received these texts from my younger sister AS I was reading your article. We’re 1st generation Americans

i get asked all the time, “where are you from?” “california” “no, where are you FROM from” this happened today in nyc https://twitter.com/michaelluo/status/785447220774629376 

@michaelluo Interviewed a sitting Senator for 1/2 hour about Obamacare. Got up to shake his hand–he bowed instead.

@michaelluo When I was house hunting, the realtor guy said that my husband is a lucky guy to have a such a beautiful Geisha wife

Hillary Came to Debate. Trump Came to Hate | Dame Magazine

So it was abundantly clear that the GOP candidate didn’t care to discuss policies or issues with a single undecided voter at the town hall last night; he far was more obsessed with settling scores with the Clintons, mostly imaginary, and to exonerate himself (by his own standards). He eagerly brought the tenor of the debate down to the sleazy, smirking level of one of his many Howard Stern show appearances. Trump frequently gaslighted Clinton, called her “a liar” (at least nine times according to CBS News) and “the Devil,” and at one point sputtered that she had “hate in her heart.” He seemed unaware of how Congress actually worked, accusing former New York Senator Clinton for not having the magical ability to pass laws or enact legislation by herself, as if by royal decree or fairy dust. He was a hot mess of aggressive body language, crossing repeatedly into Clinton’s personal space, especially when she passed to his side of the stage to address a question posed by one of the town hall participants. He seethed and scowled over her shoulder, a furious, hulking manchild accustomed to intimidating women by proximity.

Source: Hillary Came to Debate. Trump Came to Hate | Dame Magazine

NY Times editor told to ‘Go back to China! Go back to your fucking country!’ by woman in streets of NYC: Shanghaiist

And then in an open letter to the woman that was published in The New York Times:

Maybe I should have let it go. Turned the other cheek. We had just gotten out of church, and I was with my family and some friends on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. We were going to lunch, trying to see if there was room in the Korean restaurant down the street. You were in a rush. It was raining. Our stroller and a gaggle of Asians were in your way.

But I was, honestly, stunned when you yelled at us from down the block, “Go back to China!”

I hesitated for a second and then sprinted to confront you. That must have startled you. You pulled out your iPhone in front of the Equinox and threatened to call the cops. It was comical, in retrospect. You might have been charged instead, especially after I walked away and you screamed, “Go back to your fucking country.”“I was born in this country!” I yelled back.

It felt silly. But how else to prove I belonged?

Source: NY Times editor told to ‘Go back to China! Go back to your fucking country!’ by woman in streets of NYC: Shanghaiist

Right-wing demonstrators attack police station in Magdeburg | News | DW.COM | 09.10.2016

The incident at the central station in the northeast German town of Magdeburg, 156 kilometers (97 miles) west of Berlin, had started on Saturday late afternoon with the arrest of a 32-year-old man for an attack on a pedestrian. The victim sustained head injuries.Police said they were hindered in making the arrest by several, partially-masked individuals who had taken part in a demonstration of right-wing extremists in Dessau-Rosslau, 60 kilometers to the south east.The suspect had resisted arrest, attempting to take a baton from one of the officers. Magdeburg police said he had only been arrested by using “considerable effort and with the use of pepper spray.”Eleven of the man’s associates tried to get to the arrested man but had been pushed back by police before being expelled from the station.There were also reports that the extremists were calling on a further 50 of their number to recover the man from custody.A total of nine men and two women between the ages of 15 and 33 were arrested.Right wing violence on the riseThe number of violent crimes with a right-wing political motive has been rising substantially in Germany. Figures from the interior ministry for 2015 recorded 1,485 violent far-right crimes, up from 1,029 in 2014.The ministry reported a large increase in the broader category of “hate crimes” such as offences of a racist or antisemitic nature, or targeting people because of their religion. They rose 72 percent in 2015 to 10,373 from 5,858 the previous year.At the time, German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said, “The rise in right-wing politically motivated crime is above all evident in xenophobic incidents.””That is unacceptable and will be met with strong measures by the police and justice system,” the interior minister said.

Source: Right-wing demonstrators attack police station in Magdeburg | News | DW.COM | 09.10.2016

Listen to These Ladies Make Fun of Making America Great Again – The Ladies FingerThe Ladies Finger

On a day when US presidential candidate Donald Trump defends even more (imagine, even more) misogyny as just locker-room talk, this firmly anti-nostalgia song might be the thing to watch.

Source: Listen to These Ladies Make Fun of Making America Great Again – The Ladies FingerThe Ladies Finger

The GOP’s Outrage Over #TrumpTapes Tells Us Everything We Need to Know About Them | Dame Magazine

So why are Republican leaders suddenly shrieking in horror, as if they’ve suddenly realized that this man, this Trump, is well and truly their nominee? What’s different this time around? When Trump crapped all over White Womanhood on tape, making it nearly impossible to spin, he didn’t just demean white women but insulted his entire base. Because White Womanhood is not about women as autonomous and fully human beings, but the white institutions run by men invested in protecting the virtue of “their” women as the receptacles and gatekeepers of purest ideals and morals. Many white women are equally (if unselfconsciously) protective of those institutions for the social  privileges it gives them. As a result, you get interesting fireworks when a White Woman of the ‘hood faces down a woman of color who is sick and tired of gibberish passing for journalism. On CNN, Trump surrogate Scottie Neil Hughes (whose name is fascinating on its own), professed to being offended by Trump’s predatory attitudes towards women, but she was even more offended by Ana Navarro’s saying “pussy” when quoting Trump’s own words.“Please stop saying that word, my daughter is listening,” Hughes huffed, yanking the white lady virtue chain in order to show that she was a delicate flower in need of rescuing from the mean brown person who refused to acquiesce to her orders.Navarro was not having any of it. “Don’t act outraged and offended when I say the word, [pussy],” Navarro responded indignantly, pointing out that Hughes is a Trump surrogate who still supports the man who said it in first place.In case it’s not obvious, Hughes’ rhetorical strategy attempted to project Trump’s failings onto Navarro, casting her as the repulsive vulgarian for refusing to whitewash the misogyny of Trump’s own words. Doubtless, Hughes’ feint worked on many home viewers. That Latina lady may have had a point, but did she have to be so mean? That’s the power of White Womanhood. That’s why the thing that gets not one but two ‘apologies’ out of Trump is the tears of white women,” author Heidi Heilig observed. Because Trump has well and truly shown that he obeys no authority but the impulses of his own ego, and exposed his entire party’s leadership as toothless opportunists. The annals of history will record: “Grab them by the pussy” is this election year’s version of “binders full of women.” And so, here we are, the entire country wallowing in unprintable filth. O, how the mighty have fallen.

Source: The GOP’s Outrage Over #TrumpTapes Tells Us Everything We Need to Know About Them | Dame Magazine

Another Sweden Democrat caught making anti-Jew joke – The Local – Where’s the Ironic Key on your e-mail application?

Sweden’s prime minister Stefan Löfven has slammed the anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats as a Nazi party after yet another senior MP was caught making a racist, antisemitic joke.

Source: Another Sweden Democrat caught making anti-Jew joke – The Local

Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven told the Aftonbladetnewspaper that the string of recent scandals “said it all” about the party.
“That’s what we’ve said all along, that this is a party with Nazi and racist roots. But it’s not just that they have these roots, it is there in the here and now,” he said.
“That a member of parliament from the SD submits a motion on media policy based on anti-Semitic propaganda, that says it all,” he continued. “And that the economic policy spokesperson, SD’s candidate for finance minister, is standing and cheering and laughing at anecdotes about Nazis kicking animals and referring to Jews, it also says everything.”
Herrstedt defended the email, arguing that she had found it on the internet and had sent it ironically.

Trump says ‘I was wrong and I apologize,’ then calls uproar over lewd comments a distraction – Chicago Tribune “never really apologize and claim that others are worse than you are?”

caught on tape making shockingly crude comments about a married woman he tried to seduce, Donald Trump declared in a midnight video, “I was wrong and I apologize.”Yet he claimed the astonishing revelations amounted to “nothing more than a distraction” and argued his words were not nearly as egregious as former President Bill Clinton’s marital affairs.

Source: Trump says ‘I was wrong and I apologize,’ then calls uproar over lewd comments a distraction – Chicago Tribune

Trump Still Thinks The (Exonerated!) Central Park 5 Are Guilty: Gothamist

One of the many wonderful things America’s Ambulatory Shitstain Donald Trump did before he attempted to destroy Planet Earth was get involved in the Central Park 5 case. Back in 1989, Trump took out ads condemning the five teenagers who were (wrongfully) convicted of attacking a jogger in the park, calling for the reinstatement of the death penalty. All five men have since been exonerated by DNA evidence and received a collective $41 million settlement from the city—but Trump has no time for scientific proof, and he still says they’re guilty.In a statement to CNN this week, Trump claimed the DNA evidence didn’t prove anything, and the men are still guilty. “They admitted they were guilty,” he said. “The police doing the original investigation say they were guilty. The fact that that case was settled with so much evidence against them is outrageous. And the woman, so badly injured, will never be the same.”Antron McCray, Raymond Santana, Yusef Salaam, Kevin Richardson, and Korey Wise spent years in prison for the rape and near fatal assault of Trisha Melli. But in 2002, convicted rapist and murderer Matias Reyes confessed to the crime, and his DNA matched the DNA found at the crime scene. Then-Manhattan DA Robert Morgenthau had the five men’s convictions vacated, and they received their settlement in 2014—a settlement which Trump, then just a bigoted reality-TV idiot instead of a bigoted presidential candidate idiot, called “politics at its lowest and worst form,” in a Daily News op-ed. “These young men do not exactly have the pasts of angels,” Trump opined, in his now-familiar racially loaded way.Trump shows a blatant disregard for our country’s legal process, just as he shows a blatant disregard for our political process, tax system, Constitutional rights, and hair sensibilities. These men wasted years behind bars for a crime our courts have since asserted they did not commit.

Source: Trump Still Thinks The (Exonerated!) Central Park 5 Are Guilty: Gothamist

Ken Burns Blasts Donald Trump Over Comments on Central Park Five: “The Height of Vulgarity” | Hollywood Reporter

I suppose you’ve seen the comments made by Donald Trump saying he believes the Central Park Five are still guilty and have gotten away with a heinous crime. After having spent so much time with them making your 2012 documentary, The Central Park Five, how do you respond to that? It’s just so patently untrue — and he knows it’s untrue. This is out and out racism. This is a man who finds it impossible to apologize and so he needs to double-down on what we know is untrue. We know this: They were exonerated by a court of law for the crime they served full sentences for. The reason they served the full sentences is because they refused to take a plea bargain and they refused at parole hearings to admit their guilt because they were innocent. They were proved innocent by DNA evidence and the judge vacated their convictions. Several years after that, the City of New York settled with them for time that no amount of money could possibly repay them for. In In his statement, Trump says the Central Park Five “admitted they were guilty” back in 1989.The original thing that they “admitted it” is so specious that it barely warrants a response. They had coerced confessions. They were subjected to questioning by seasoned detectives. These were two 14-year-olds, two 15-year-olds and one developmentally challenged 16-year-old. They were interrogated for up to 30 hours, without food, water or parents. They were lied to and told that if they implicated someone else they would be able to go home. When they finally did, at their parents’ urging, they not only did not go home, they went to jail for between seven and 13 years. And in fact every single one of their “confessions” has the absence of the sixth person — whose DNA was the only DNA found at the scene. As the eldest, Korey Wise, sat in jail at a maximum security prison, this sociopathic murderer named Matias Reyes, who because of police incompetence went on to murder other people that year — a woman and her unborn child, as well as rape other women — he confessed. His DNA matched the DNA, 13 years old, that they had been sitting on unable to match with anyone else. And none of the boys statements suggested that there was anyone else at the scene of the crime.

Source: Ken Burns Blasts Donald Trump Over Comments on Central Park Five: “The Height of Vulgarity” | Hollywood Reporter