Credit: Indymedia
The black-on-Chinese-street-crime story in Oakland and San Francisco has generated a lot of heat, anger, fear, frustration, and searches for solutions.
I’ve posted two blogs, and gotten a lot of response, both publicly and privately. Some of that public response has been quite ugly, mean, ignorant, and racist.
The story and the underlying issues – racism, racial profiling, social disconnectedness, ignorance, socioeconomic disparities, parallel but separate universes — defy easy solutions and reasonable, rational discourse.
Yet there is more to be said, even if much of the public discourse – including what I have to say – may not calm things down, or reduce either the risks to Chinese on both sides of the bay or the anti-social behavior of some African American young men.
This topic especially challenges fair- and open-minded progressives of all racial and ethnic backgrounds who are well educated, who may be relatively privileged economically, and who embrace a multicultural social environment.
My previous posts reflect these values, and I stand by them. Yet, more extreme views, expressed in public comments spewing racism, hatred, and stereotypes, are voluminous and unabating.
I’d like to share some of my private emails (which are less hateful), not because I agree or condone them, but because it’s important to hear stories and views that are not “politically correct.” These are blunt, honest, and real in ways that we who are somewhat removed from the more dangerous neighborhoods of Oakland and San Francisco don’t experience viscerally. The quotes are as is, uncorrected in grammar and spelling:
- From a Chinese writer whose mother lives in senior housing in uptown Oakland said Asian seniors are afraid to venture out because of repeated muggings by African Americans. “They (Asian seniors) are in jail without the wall… Please do not white wash the incident (the fatal beating of Tian Sheng Yu allegedly by two African American youth on an uptown Oakland street)…We need this incident to raise the awareness of the situation. I am not promoting race tension. But we need to tell them we have enough! We need to target the aggressor asking them to stop. If the 90% of the aggressor is black so be it.”
- From someone who said he used to support Jack London Square businesses “but has been avoiding that city (Oakland) like the plague”: “Using euphemisms and PC language to hide the reality about an out of control city overrun by desperate angst ridden youth who brutally beat a senior citizen because they feel superior to the hapless immigrant, is doing a disservice to Oakland and the country at large.”
- From a 50-something man who grew up in Oakland’s Chinatown and still lives there: “My mom says a lot of seniors at the senior center where she goes are now scare to walk around downtown Oakland even in the daytime. My mom was mugged several years ago while walking down 8th street by the new Dragon Park.”
- From another Oakland Chinatown 50-something native: “I along with at least 15 people I know (parents, friends, myself) were either robbed, beaten, bullied by blacks. I, myself was robbed twice at gunpoint in Oakland, had a knife pull on me, once at a store had to lay face down while it was being robbed. My father was beaten and sent to the hospital twice while being robbed, my granduncle was beaten badly and stay in the hospital for a week, numerous Asian friends of mines were pick on and the list goes on and on and on. All these crimes were done by “BLACKS”!!!”
A Japanese American man who went to a Southern California high school in the 1980s with roughly equal populations of Japanese Americans, African Americans and Latinos, and who lived in San Francisco in the 1990s, emailed me that it’s “no secret” that black people and Asian people are not “politically correct” behind closed doors, nor are black-on-Asian crimes a new phenomenon.
“I’ve had many Black people tell me how their friends and other Blacks in general just don’t like Chinese people. They don’t even know why or have the most ignorant reasons why that is the way they feel… There is a very serious problem in their community when Black youths grow up thinking that beating and killing elderly Asians is cool.”
About African Americans and Latinos “in the lower socioeconomic levels,” he wrote, “I can assure you of the ignorance that flows through those two groups when it comes to racial stereotypes and Asian peoples…They have a tendency to think Asians are ‘easy to take advantage of’ and ‘weak.’ With that level of ignorance, it’s easy to see why they believe Asians are easy targets. What I don’t get is how it’s also okay with them to attack the elderly.”
You get the picture. Again, I highlight those raw thoughts and emotions not because I want to toss more fuel onto the roaring flames of the currently explosive black-Chinese/Asian relationship at the street levels of Oakland and San Francisco, but because these sentiments are foremost in the experiences of some Chinese and other Asians in both cities, and they rarely, if ever, are aired publicly in English.
Next time: Context and solutions?
William Wong
William Wong was born to Chinese immigrants and grew up in Oakland’s Chinatown. As a journalist, he has written for, among others, The Wall Street Journal, The Oakland Tribune, The San Francisco Chronicle, and The San Francisco Examiner. For one year, he was a regional commentator for The News Hour with Jim Lehrer on PBS. He is the author of Yellow Journalist: Dispatches from Asian America, and Images of America: Oakland’s Chinatown. 
It’s always the “in private” discussions which are tell-tales of how groups REALLY feel and think about things. I find it unfortunate that we have the current situation.
To be quite honest, this sort of public airing of grievances, suspicions, etc… is actually helpful. Driving both sides to understanding the other is where the real hard work begins.
Rome wasn’t won in a day… peace /pgr
I wanted to thank Bill Wong for writing this article. Asians and Asian Americans including myself identify with the anger and fear expressed at the meeting as many of us have been victims of hate violence (both criminal and non-criminal) committed by whites, Blacks, Latinos, and other groups. As an Asian American who has written a Black-Asian unity column for Asianweek.com, is married to a Black woman and has written a May 6 article here (go to http://www.oaklandseen.com/2010/05/06/black-asian-unity-racing-to-talk-in-tense-times/ ) and heard many reactions from Blacks and Asians, I can only say that it is healthy for all of us to air our feelings (good and bad) as opposed to acting on them negatively. I hope that the Asians who have expressed their anger do something constructive about it including helping Black people, especially the youth, in whatever way they can and continue to listen to what Black people of all classes and experiences say about the Yu incident. We must begin to speak up and work for each other as Blacks & Asians have done throughout history. Work for the common good of each other. It is a healthy way of healing anger which should not just be preached to one’s own choir.
Agree with Sam’s comment. +1
This is hard stuff to unveil – thanks so much for sharing it. Must note that immigrants from Asia and African-Americans have been coexisting mainly peacefully for decades in Oakland. I’m thinking of my hairdresser from N. Vietnam, my neighbors down the street and their stories. I want to know what is happening that makes people violent in the urban conflict zones. Time to build new bridges.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVYbLz6jx8A
@Aimee I believe that what makes people violent in the urban conflict zones is the hopelessness and despair that they feel in their lives. I remember reading one article that said one of the guys that attacked Mr. Yu told the reporter that he didn’t see his life going anywhere and that he had no opportunities. Hearing that really moved me and made me feel more and more that this Black-Asian conflict issue is more a social one than a criminal one. It motivated me to want to reach out to groups that serve youth which I started to do today. If everyone did something good here and there, we wouldn’t be in these crazy situations where we’re only talking when stuff like this goes down. I also know nothing but 99% peace, love and happiness in socializing, politicking, and romancing with Black people. I wish the positive stuff were mentioned when these things break out.
Greatly appreciated that Bill’s blog provokes more thinking and discussion. While the attacks on Asian/Chinese elders may be racial in nature, it is also a matter of socioeconomic status. Sam Cacas’s comments express this well. When violences occur, they can be attributed to disadvantaged and poor youth who exercise what power they think they have by taking it out on whom is perceived to be vulnerable and weak. It was painful for me to read that one of the young black men said he was frustrated with his life and just wanted to hit someone. They picked on the Yus with a tragic outcome. I am a senior, Oakland born and raised, and know that cross-cultural, cross-racial and cross-gender work in our communities do make a difference. We’ve got to talk and work together.
Where is the “black” Civil rights leader Al Sharpton? I guess he just worries about black and Mexican civil rights.
[...] Divide: Lessons From History By William Wong | Published May 18, 2010 In my previous blog, I shared raw, honest feelings of a few ethnic Chinese and Japanese email correspondents responding [...]
What William Wong published of the e-mails he’s received, is only the tip of the tip of the iceberg that sunk the Titanic and swirls in the bellies of the many fellow Chinese Americans I know since the 1950s. I’ve also felt it in high school, when O. J. Simpson was our star senior, I’ve felt it from behind a counter and in a classroom and a gym class and when I’ve been in Oakland, Berkeley, and the Bayview, Visitacion Valley, Western Addition, Fillmore, Tenderloin, the old housing projects across from Fisherman’s Wharf, and I’ve also felt it from whites in North Beach, the Marina, and the Sunset – the it being bullying, racial epithets, ridicule and attempted intimidation. Our parents told us and taught us to keep our cool, to take it and don’t get hurt — because no one and no law will help you. Now that Obama is president we think things have gotta change.
Bottom line is people got to be held accountable for their actions. Everyone has social problems, to varying degrees, but it’s time to take responsibility and make some changes and quit making excuses or expecting special treatment or resenting other people for doing better than you. Whatever your color, if you think this applies to you, it does!
[...] the Yu killing four months ago, there too was anti-black rhetoric uttered privately or in anonymous blog comments by some Chinese and other Asians [...]
Blacks and Chinese in Memphis as well as other parts of Tennesse gets along pretty good and we love eating in their restaurants!!!! Personally I love the Chinese people here in China. I have lived in China for five years. They are humble citizens created by the SAME GOD who created all.