By Saswat Pattanayak
AsianWeek
controversy has been quite an upset. For one, it
claims to be the voice of the Asian Americans, and
then goes on to publish an article written by a
racist bigot who has absolutely no knowledge of his
own history, and then the paper goes on to apologize
while
refusing to single out editors.
If only Kenneth Eng would have been the problem of
it, the problem would have been solved by now,
considering that he has been fired and even his
article has been withdrawn from the
AsianWeek website. On the contrary, bloggers are
highlighting
how immensely published is Eng and how his
arguments might have some merit or how disgusted they
are at this character. Now we have his photographs
appearing on several sites and discussions on his
student days in a New York film school. For someone
who loves limelight (and any PR charmer can tell you
any publicity is good publicity), Eng is having a
field day. Amidst all this diplomatic efforts to
showcase how not-so-racists we are in comparison to
Kenneth Eng, the question must be redirected at the
holier of the factions.
The truth of the matter is Kenneth Eng is a product
of our system, not a creator of it.
Just as
Michael Richards was. Has Richards’ apologies
helped any bit more than would Eng’s? Or did Mel
Gibson really lose out all that deal after his
apologies? Such politics of apologies are aimed at
individual ‘atonement’s, not at social remedies.
Eng/Gibson/Kramer are trying to say something. And so
also those who bear with these bunch. And again those
of us readers who comment at the end of the blog
entries reinforcing their myopic views. Now, deleting
their comments and their articles and apologizing for
the same is not the solution. Far from it, such
responses are what I would say constitute the “Crash”
actions. Remember that movie which won Oscar last
year and promised everything was fine on the racial
front and that Dubois was inherently wrong.
No, Dubois was not wrong. In fact he is more relevant
today than ever before. America, the metamorphosed
country of illusions lulling its “diverse” people to
sound amnesia by preaching “equality and liberty” is
condemned to grapple with its color-lines. Any amount
of diplomatic legerdemain by community “leaders” and
public figures, college professors and filmmakers
cannot hide this reality. The problem of 21st century
America is the problem of Capitalism that thrives on
inequalities based on several of its social
locations. How else does one justify the continued
consolidation of most wealth and power in the hands
of a few white men in this country? How does one
justify the saga of discriminations against people of
color in the workplace? How does one justify the
annual raise of bonuses to the tune of two hundred
percent for the owning class while the workers beg
for a five percent up?
Individualism leading to
Community-ism
In hostile situations of cut throat capitalistic
competitions, everyone is up for the battle of
interests. In place of individual rights that this
country so proudly enshrined in its constitution that
merely focussed on the wealthy and powerful (only the
truly free enjoyed the rights, not those they
enslaved), the group rights started forming
impressions following several reformist movements
last century.
Group reformist movements, just like the individual
rights movements, engage in competing to garner
support from those from whom the rights flow. The
ruling classes who devise and define individual
rights to their interests (for example it is alright
to be a Christian, but not alright to be a Communist;
its your right to have family, but not to have it if
you are not heterosexual) also describe the scope of
group rights. However just as illusive are individual
rights, so are the group rights, in a capitalistic
setup where the romance of rights are not inherent,
but gifted.
To preserve the gifts (‘scope of rights’ that come
with charity, although rights themselves may have
been fought for, within limits set by the
capitalists), groups often tend to resort to
squabble, mud-slings and outright racism. People like
Kenneth Eng are products of such society divided into
groups competing to attract favors from charity
masters. Even as the Engs hate racism targeted
against them, they rarely stop to find out the true
reasons behind the same.
Its utter ignorance of some people about their own
history that leads to culmination and growth of
racism in our world. Are young students like Kenneth
Eng taught in their school about the role of black
people in shaping the free America? Are young black
students taught about the systematic biases that
continue circulating against Asian-Americans in
mainstream entertainment industry? Are young south
asian students told of the role of black Muslims in
enlightening the conscience of this country when it
was deep asleep in evil contentment? Are young white
students taught of the role of Latino working class
in wealth creation of the superpower at the cost of
their own exploitation over debates surrounding
minimum wage? Are the minority students taught about
how majority of white workers indeed are at receiving
end of en exploitative economic system?
Need of the hour:
What needs to be done at this juncture is not for
black commentators attacking Asian press or South
Asian commentators condemning Kenneth Eng. For all we
know, Eng could well become a celebrity in a few
months. The root cause of racism is not one bigoted
mind. Its capitalism that we largely let go unchecked
for in its practice. We must address the manner in
which private capital creation safeguards specific
group interests rather than working for the
betterment of the world. The racial tensions in the
US are economic in nature. There is no place for
moral preachings here. No place for Crash finale!
Lets admit and accept that as long as we refrain from
critiquing the capitalist causes (private monopolies)
we will have to accept racism as part and parcel of
the deal. Till now, people other than white are being
called in their suffixes. American history is
differently noted than African-American history! How
will we expect Engs of the world to even feel
grateful for immense sufferings of generations of
black people that must be acknowledged at every
mention of America even as an idea? How will we
expect white people to understand that Columbus was
not after all some hero and that this land was indeed
“made for you and me”, and not just for the English
speaking elites. Such expectations will bear fruit
only if people are treated equally irrespective of
race in this country and elsewhere. However that
would mean perhaps to quote Paul Robeson, “adopting
the nature and politics of Soviet Union where people
are treated as people, not as black or white”. Even
adopting one-tenth of former Soviet policies would
entail the reversal of centuries-old capital
accumulation policies that are in place in a
flourishing capitalism. As long as a society is built
on bedrock of money as the only thing that
matters--to buy health insurance to higher
education--people will always be treated as secondary
subjects. And where people need to be treated as
secondary subjects, to refrain those very people from
fomenting a revolution against their secondary
status, it becomes imperative for the capital masters
to wage a divide and rule policy that keeps people
ignorant about their collective struggles in everyday
lives. While at it, the economic system goes
unchecked in its biases against working class by
deliberately playing one group against another when
it comes to economic parity, share holding and
accountability. No wonder, thousands of
discrimination cases at the workplace are filed every
week based on racial disparities.
We need to shed our racialisms and embrace the
collective history of struggles of working class
people of this country and the world against their
class antagonists in our everyday observations.
Careful and conscious efforts must be made towards
deconstructing problems such as Eng’s while observing
the need for such racism not to take place again.
One thing is to condemn racism, which is all good,
but entirely useless. Since we know no one can feel
unscathed from racist attacks under capitalism which
bases itself on human inequality, today’s condemned
group will become the condemner tomorrow. The other
thing is to actually ensure that we do not produce a
new generation of racists in our own households.
There would be no end to this Ghettopoly-Tsunami
saga, if we did not really address the issues
critically. That some Blacks despise some Asians,
some Asians despise some Blacks, and some Whites
despise some immigrants and vice versa is a well
known fact. How many Indian families actually
encourage their doting daughters to make friends with
Blacks and Muslims? How many of us actually stop
thinking about people beyond their colors the moment
we fail to receive our due share? How long will the
“good” people refuse to acknowledge that? How long we
will keep condemning Kenneth Eng?
We must make every efforts to acknowledge collective
contributions to working class struggles. White
people should be educated about Whiteness history
that must detail not the struggle of black people
alone, but also the struggle of good white people
while dealing with slavery and racism. Neither
slavery nor racism should be treated as subjects of
the past, for both are going to remain in full
function as long as there is an owning class of
minority people--those that traditionally were
slaveowners and who own us mentally now with their
monopoly media misinformation tirades.
South Asian Journalist Association (SAJA) which is
composed of really nice people some of whom I have
had the opportunity to have interacted with, must
make every effort to include black people on its
editorial board. No issues of journalism that
pertains to people of South Asian origin precludes
people of other races. Likewise good Asian folks at
the AsianWeek should include Latino people on their
boards. The black television programs that have been
accused of making fun of some Asians should include
some enlightened Asians in their team. And together
all of them should include some white people in their
efforts to understand and strengthen collective
efforts to uproot racism from this country.
Although racism, like sexism, is a byproduct of
capitalism, capitalism will not vanish as long as we
do not treat these diseases on a preventive manner.
If we really wish to eradicate racism, and not merely
talk about it, we must look beyond our own group
interests and then we shall be able to address racism
among our own communities in a more informed manner.
Accusing the ‘other’ becomes easier when we are
refusing to look outside our ‘own’ comforted walls.
It is perhaps more true when we are dealing with a
subject such as race--one that will not go away, but
one we must deal with.
Time has come to look beyond our own races, and look
for commonalities with the others in order to find
the links that have been deliberately kept missing.
Until then, we will be demanding an apology, not the
solidarity. Because until then we are perhaps
intending to let capitalism succeed at any cost in
enslaving us while giving us an illusion of freedom,
because we refuse to look beyond the windows to
understand why some of us out in the rain will
continue to suffer at the hand of the same system
that can turn us against each other. For racism to
go, we need to embrace human beings, not private
wealth monopolists. For that to happen, we need to
address issues of capitalism at its systematic level,
not at its symptomatic level.
Tags: Saswat, Racism, Immigrant, USA, Capitalism, Law, Korea