In response to Marion Barry's racist statement and subsequent justifications: “We got to do something about these Asians coming in and opening up
businesses and dirty shops,” Barry said. “They ought to go. I’m going to
say that right now. But we need African-American businesspeople to be
able to take their places, too.” (more here)
Dear Council Member Marion Barry,
Let me begin by telling you that I think you’re right… sort
of. You are right to want healthy food for your community. You are right to
have a problem with Plexiglass walls in stores. You are right to be concerned that
there are not more businesses owned by African American residents in an African
American community. However, your string of hateful remarks about Asian storeowners
was based on nothing more than your own racism, and you have yet to identify
the real problems affecting your community.
It is an uncomfortable thing to see Asian-owned stores in low-income
African American communities. We easily picture this situation as one of exploitation,
and start thinking that the problems in the area must be caused by the most
visible “other.” Without some critical thinking, it’s easy to assume that this
“other” must be the one siphoning all the wealth away from the community. The
visibility of the Asian “other” in a poor community makes them easy targets and
convenient explanations for all economic problems, and the visible disconnect between these "others" and the rest of the community makes them the clearest enemy.
These Asian storeowners are an especially easy target for
you as a politician because you recognize they are immigrants without much of a
political voice, and you understand what you can gain by igniting racial
tensions between African American and Asian American communities. This is a
tension that has been happily exploited by the white mainstream for decades, and
has created a division that has damaged us both.
So let’s take a closer look at your proposed solution: if
you go ahead and evict all these Asian businesses from your community, would
life for your constituents actually get better? Would an organic fruit market
rush in to fill the void left by the Chinese take-out joint? Would Whole Foods eagerly
heed the call to come save your district? If these dirty Asian businesses left your
ward, would this magically give the people from the community the resources to
start their own businesses in their place? After all, the only thing in their
way must have been that the prime real estate was being occupied by these dirty
Asian stores. And if none of these things happened as you imagined they would,
would you then be appeased if a McDonald’s came in to provide your community
with other forms of cheap shit? Never mind the fact that McDonald’s makes billions
of dollars of profit each year, special thanks to poor communities everywhere.
Now, let’s talk about the Plexiglass. You retweeted one
person’s comment to the effect that Asian business owners put up Plexiglass
because they’re scared that all these “animals” will rob and kill them. That’s
really inflammatory, and I’m sure great politics. I would love to live in a
world without Plexiglass, locks and gates. Plexiglass is a very obvious statement
that the person behind it is trying not to get robbed, and I’m really sorry
that the people in your community have to deal with that. But does that mean
that the storeowners are fundamentally racist and scared of every person who
comes through their doors? Or are they just aware that they are a place of
business in a place where robberies happen, and if there’s just one person out
there looking to rob them, they can lose everything, even their lives.
As an Asian American, I can’t help but feel deeply pained by all
the stories of loss in my community, as I’m sure you feel for the losses in
yours. And I become more frustrated and angry every time I see yet another
story about an Asian storeowner or delivery man who was senselessly murdered on
the job. These are just people with families working hard for a fair shot at
life. There is a troubling pattern of violence against Asian Americans, and when
the perpetrators are African American as they often are, many express their
inability to see these Asian bodies as fully human. And it’s our youth who are
suffering the most, stories like South Philadelphia high school come to mind.
I’ve stayed silent on this issue too often, and I see other
Asian Americans doing the same. Our community is the last to make waves about the
injustices we face. In our country’s black-white dichotomy, many Asian
Americans don’t feel entitled enough to even enter the conversation, and racism
against our community is never taken very seriously, even when it results in lost
lives. Also, Asian Americans like myself often seek to be allies before all else in conversations about racial justice, so we hesitate to talk about the racism and violence against us by other people of color. But will we ever change anything by remaining silent? Or will the void of
understanding between these two communities continue to be filled by simmering
resentments that eventually explode?
It's interesting how you continue to refer to these wok and deli owners as
“businessmen.” You are projecting onto them privilege and opportunity that they
do not have. If they had more options in life, would they have chosen to work
in these stores? How much money do you think these people actually make? They
are doing the best they can to support themselves, with the cards that this
world has dealt them. They are not cheating your community or brainwashing you
to buy their products, they are working in Plexiglass boxes selling things like
really cheap Chinese food to people who want to buy cheap Chinese food.
They are often immigrants, not by choice, but economic
necessity. The causes of all the injustices in our world are wrapped up into
many of the same root causes, from slavery and colonialism to the global
capitalism of today. The fact that immigrants come to the United States, leaving
behind their lives and all they know, to work in places where they are
disrespected, unwanted, and targeted, should signal a much larger problem in
this world that has hurt both your community and mine. As a self-proclaimed
civil rights activist, you should understand that there is always so much more
going on than what others, bent on hating you, will recognize.
As someone with options in life, I promise to you I will
never come to your ward to make money off of your constituents. I’m privileged
and educated and enfranchised enough to make my money elsewhere. I can choose a
career that I love, in a great neighborhood to which I can also belong. I can choose
a job in which I go around “helping” people, even though the reality is that my
non-profit job is more complicit in the capitalist system, which continues to
impoverish your community, than those Chinese takeout owners will ever be.
The real enforcers and beneficiaries of institutionalized
racism and systemic poverty in this country will probably never step foot in
your ward. They have created a world in which they never actually have to
interact with poor people, or black people for that matter, and they can simply
forget that you even exist. They can continue to exploit poor communities en masse
and watch from above as the poor fight for crumbs. They never have to deal with
the hard work and small change of running a takeout business. They sit in skyscrapers
and in our government, enriching themselves off of poor communities of color by
making our laws and our prisons, creating our debt, producing our music and
movies, owning our big food corporations, and determining our fashions. Why
don’t you take issue with them, and not the people who are struggling to eke
out a living in this world?
I’m a Korean American and when I go to a Chinese-owned restaurant,
I’m not shocked when the person behind the counter is curt with me, and I don’t
expect much communication beyond placing my order because we don’t speak the
same language. When I’m not given any fake smiles or small talk, I don’t take it
as a sign of disrespect – I take it as the reality of living in a world of many
different cultures and ways of being and people who are just trying to get by. And I even
feel a little guilty for existing in a world in which these people have to sit
in their “dirty” stores and make cheap food for me because the money in my
pocket commands that they do so.
In your attempts to villainize these Asian storeowners, you
contrast them against a picture of your community that appears to be a lot like
Mister Roger’s neighborhood, where everyone loves each other and is working
together to build the community, except for the Asian exploiters. What would
you like these storeowners to do to participate in a way you find appropriate? Come to a block party? And since we live in a
country in which English is not the official language, should this friendly
engagement have to take place in a language that these immigrants do not speak?
I’m tired of Asian American communities constantly being scapegoated
for problems that are so much larger than ourselves, problems from which our
communities suffer as well. I’m tired of people wanting to heap our nation’s
injustices onto my struggling immigrant parents and the hardworking, resilient, struggling community
in which I was raised.
My parents came here with absolutely nothing. My dad worked
at a gas station attendant and both my parents worked and saved until they were
able to open their own auto repair shop in Koreatown, Los Angeles, home of the
LA Riots. Now that my father has passed away, my mother works 60+ hours per
week at a clothes store and doesn’t have health insurance, which is taking a harsh toll on her body. My parents were always largely
unaware of our country’s toxic race relations (one thing about them that might be
considered un-American). They were too focused on making sure that I had a
chance to make it in this world, and too good of people to treat anyone with
anything less than kindness and respect. I’m tired of having people project
their own racist upbringing onto others and forcing us into a broken narrative that
is not ours, though we do have a responsibility to make it better.
I’m tired of politicians like you who do not help
marginalized communities to build and heal, but exploit your own people and gain
reelection by stirring up hate and misunderstanding against other marginalized
groups. This will only hurt the people you claim to be advocating for. The
person who is truly exploiting these people is you.
And please don’t say one more word about your “track record”
with the Asian American community if, at the end of the day, you will throw us
all under a bus and resort to hateful, exploitative race-baiting to take care
of yourself.
As an elected official who claims to be representing the
best interests of his people, I ask that YOU “do better,” and actually do some critical thinking to come up with some solutions that will create real opportunities
for your community, rather than resorting to hateful memes that will inevitably
lead to more violence and misunderstanding and no solutions. And lastly, I ask
that you extend your noble desire for the African American community to be
understood and justly treated to other communities as well.
Sincerely,
Esther
