There is a saying that is often bandied about by whites feigning what might be ridiculed as an American Black person's defeatist demeanor. It is used when whites want to make fun of the kind of attitude that assumes everyone in power is somehow out to get you. It goes like this: "I'm tired of the white man keeping me down." It's an eye-rolling proclamation, but it is one that many whites assume is inculcated in Black Americans all across the country. Of course it is an unwelcome stereotype.
It is a stereotype, however, that has been adopted as reality in all too real a sense by American Universities and is posited as a raison d'etre for wasting time and money on things like "Black studies" programs. The sentiment is replicated in "Hispanic studies", "Women's studies", and "Gay studies" in equal measures and with as much illegitimacy.
The (insert group here) is keeping you down so rebel against it. Be angry. "Speak truth to power".
It's clap-trap, of course.
But, for years our Universities have cultivated this race-baiting to excuse their attempts to "right" our society's "wrongs" by spending huge piles of cash on specialty programs like those aforementioned. Naturally, the only way to lay the ground work for founding these programs, a feeling of oppression of minorities must be promulgated. It must be constantly reinforced that minorities are being put upon, ignored, and mistreated by everyone else, because, should minorities begin to feel in any way equal or able to get ahead by their own rights, such foolish preoccupations with these separatist "studies" programs would find no constituency and those who make their living from them would be out of work.
Recently, a 20-year-old Asian American penned a shocking article he titled "Why I Hate Blacks" that appeared in a little known paper called AsianWeek out of San Francisco, California (his article has since been removed from the website). Writer Kenneth Eng's rambling piece voices a sentiment that some Asians admittedly feel about Blacks in America, but it is a sentiment that should not be voiced to excuse hate or guide interaction between Asian and Black Americans.
In part, Eng wrote:
- "Blacks hate us. Every Asian who has ever come across them knows that they take almost every opportunity to hurl racist remarks at us."
- "Contrary to media depictions, I would argue that blacks are weak-willed. They are the only race that has been enslaved for 300 years."
- "Blacks are easy to coerce. This is proven by the fact that so many of them, including the Rev. Al Sharpton, tend to be Christians.
Rightly the SFChronicle gives space to the shock and displeasure that both Asians and Blacks feel for this young man's racist efforts to put further wedges between them. But they miss something in their story about this hate-filled young man, Eng. Where did he learn this radicalized behavior?
The clue is right in the Chronicle's story, but it goes undeveloped.
Eng, who is in his early 20s, according to material on the Internet promoting his science fiction writing, started at AsianWeek in November after moving from the East Coast. In 2004, for an online magazine called Down in the Dirt, he wrote about experiencing racism as an Asian American student at New York University after he "expressed my negative views on America, religion and African Americans."Other AsianWeek columns of Eng's -- including "Proof That Whites Inherently Hate Us" and "Why I Hate Asians" -- have resulted in criticism. In the first, he complained about the scarcity of Asian heroes in the media. In the second, he described Asian Americans as apathetic, brown-nosing and lacking in cultural pride.
(Emphasis mine)
I reiterate, "...he wrote about experiencing racism as an Asian American student at New York University..."
And there you have it. Eng has learned his race-baiting from an American University and was likely encouraged to vent his racist tripe therein. I'd bet his ranting was met with the grave nods of professors who solemnly celebrated his "speaking truth to power".
What we have here is just another race-baiter spewed forth from an American University.
But, who should be surprised? After all, this feeling of hate and rage is the very basis for whole departments in our Universities and serves as an underlying sentiment for how philosophy, history, psychology and the social sciences are taught.
This young Asian American racist is but carrying on in the vein in which he was taught. It should surprise no one that he has taken it all to heart as such sentiments fills every corner of the American University today. So, How can they be so angry at this dimwitted kid who has learned precisely what the University wanted him to learn?
Perhaps, though, they are mad at him because he took that prosaic University hatred and personalized it. After all, Universities only want people to feel Blacks, women, gays and Hispanics are "put down" -- not Asians. Kenneth Eng wasn't supposed to take that hate and apply it to HIS people!
The Chronicle equates young Eng's nonsense to the KKK. That's all well and good and a perfectly apt comparison. But how often do you think they do the same with Farrakhan, Jackson or Sharpton? How often do you think the Chronicle scolds "Black studies", "Women's studies", "gay studies, or "Hispanic studies"? How often do they attack the tripe that comes from someone like a Cornel West?
I'd bet not at all.
