Forgetting our own ‘American Experience’

By LEANDRO D QUINTANA Updated December 29, 2009 12:00 AM

WITH the advent of the Internet age it has become very much easier to engage in individual “mass communications”. This usually takes the form of forwarding and disseminating news articles and videos that reflect our own values and points of view.
I was recently the recipient of one such mass mailing by Filipino friends. The article was an excerpt of Patrick J. Buchanan’s March 24, 2008 diatribe, “A Brief for Whitey”.
In it Buchanan makes the outrageous assertion that slavery was good for the 600,000 or so slaves transported from Africa to the plantations in the south. And that America has been the best country for blacks. Buchanan made this and several other points to refute Barack Obama’s assertion that more investments need to be made in minority prevalent schools and communities.
The Filipino friend who forwarded Buchanan’s column made the assertion that “at last somebody finally said it”, i.e. that, in his opinion, someone had expressed opposition to any further amelioration of the racial imbalance that continues to exist in most parts of the US.
This friend was echoing a theme common within conservative white American thought that taxes be spent on matters other than social programs. The same sentiment is reflected in matters such as “affirmative action”, i.e. that it was wrong to continue this program.
Buchanan further asserts that there is preponderance of violence linked directly to black criminal behavior whereas there is minimal white on black violence. His piece was a direct response to
President Obama’s call for more meaningful dialogue on race matters.
I found it absolutely necessary to speak my mind and respond to this piece being passed around the Filipino-American community.
It is correct, as Buchanan avers, that most crimes against whites, and blacks, are perpetrated by blacks; black families are victims of robberies, muggings, murders and rapes. It is also true that perpetrators of these crimes, even if not often enough, end up in jail. Which is why a very large number of the US prison population are black. The issue needs to be approached not only from a law enforcement effort but a socio-economic perspective as well. Now, just because there is a heavy incidence of crime involving African-Americans, does not mean that as a society we will no longer attempt to achieve some degree of racial rapprochement among all races and segments that comprise this vibrant and diverse nation of ours.
Buchanan is ranting at Barack Obama over the many ills associated with black society as if the president was impervious to these ills.
Buchanan obviously has not heard, or refused to listen, to the many instances when the President addressed black conventions, meetings and the black community in general admonishing them to take responsibility for the upright upbringing of their children and youth. He has openly berated young African American males for not taking paternal responsibility for the children they have sired out of wedlock. He has been a leading voice in urging black children to take their education seriously. He has harangued black parents for not taking control over their children’s upbringing by taking away the play stations and reduce television time and instead read to them and support their educational aspirations.
President Obama has also openly advocated that affirmative action programs in schools should include disadvantaged white youth who should be given preference over affluent or middle class blacks. Affirmative action as it relates to education has been a driver in higher Hispanic and Asian American college enrolments, not black students alone.
Buchanan cites the welfare system that was introduced by Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society program of the mid 1960s as a largess bestowed upon African Americans.
I agree that the welfare system has been and is the wrong approach to address poverty because it removes the incentive for work and in the process also demeans the recipients of the “dole”. This is why the “workfare” program passed during the Clinton presidency finds much favor. My point, however, is that blacks were not the sole beneficiaries of the welfare system. Millions of impoverished whites, Hispanic, Asian and Native Americans have, and continue to benefit from, the welfare system.
What I find most abhorrent about Buchanan’s piece is his perverted contention that capturing, imprisoning in dingy west African prisons, transportation in slave ships packed like sardines, sale to slave masters in the US and lifetime bondage as slaves, was beneficial for the 600,000 Africans affected.
Indulging for a minute Mr. Buchanan’s line of reasoning, it is valid and safe to say that America is the best thing that ever happened to the Irish, the Italians, the Scandinavians, the Germans, the Eastern Europeans, the Jews, the Asians and all kinds of nationalities who immigrated to these shores. The big difference is that all of these immigrants came here by choice. And when they arrived they had opportunities for employment and advancement.If they worked hard enough, and most did, they could partake of the American dream and better themselves. They were not enslaved and unpaid and bonded to their masters in perpetuity; they were not treated like one would a plow or a work animal that could be sold and bartered away. How many million children of black slaves were torn away from their families to be sold to other slave masters? How many of the slave children born between the 1600s to the 1800s were sired by white masters of these slaves who treated slave women as their personal property and the object and recipient of their proclivities?
Imagine for a moment the psyche of a man whose ancestors were treated with such humiliation and indignity. Try to remember how we in the Philippines grew up hating the Spaniards for atrocities we only learned of thru word of mouth from previous generations.
Buchanan is quick to take credit for the ‘60’s programs for blacks yet he makes no mention of the fact that after Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation it took another 100 years before passage of the voting rights act that empowered blacks in the south to vote. In the interim the descendant of slave masters in the south enacted Jim Crow laws that in effect maintained the status quo. They continued lynching black men. They continued to oppress them in every way imaginable.
(The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws in the United States enacted between 1876 and 1965. They mandated de jure segregation in all public facilities, with a supposedly “separate but equal” status for black Americans. In reality, this led to treatment and accommodations that were usually inferior to those provided for white Americans, systematizing a number of economic, educational and social disadvantages.)
As late as the 1950s it was not uncommon to see black men hanging from treetops sometimes for the very simple sin of looking at a white woman or for not bowing and deferring to a white man. So, how can Buchanan look at this history and chalk it up as something positive that this country has done for African Americans?
Finally, we are Asian Americans, I ask that we also ought to look at our own attitudes towards blacks. We seem to have a predisposition to discriminate against them. In many Asian cultures we tend to look at “white” as “good” and black as “bad” or “inferior”. Yet, we have our own history of being at the receiving end of discrimination in the hands of whites. As late as the 1940’s the “Asian Exclusion Act” prevented Chinese and other Asians the right to own property and to marry or “mingle” with white women. In fact if an Asian man were found in the same room with a white woman it was quite likely he would end up in jail if not get lynched altogether.
For Filipino Americans, I would recommend reading Carlos Bulosan’s “America Is In The Heart”, a journal of his experiences in the 1930’s when he had to ride freight trains to move from one west coast city to another because movement via regular transportation was prohibited by the exclusion act. Our generation of immigrants are extremely fortunate that we arrived at a time when American society was more welcoming of legal immigrants and we have enjoyed the bountiful blessings of this great country that we are now proudly and rightly calling our own. Our generation and our children’s generation ought to be at the leading edge of the effort to espouse and enhance racial harmony.
The election of Barack Obama has accomplished one thing, among others: blacks and other minorities can no longer make race an excuse for the failure to achieve. His election validates that great American spirit and character that has enabled our nation to look beyond the superficial and reward meritorious achievements regardless of race, color, creed or station in life. This is indeed an opportune moment that could lead to a more harmonious union of all the segments and races that comprise the American nation. Let’s not waste this away by yielding to the self serving rants of fear mongering demagogues who are bent on fanning the flames of hate and discord.
(The author was at one time one of the editors of Philippine News in San Francisco, Philippine Press Weekly and Asian American News in Los Angeles.)
Below is some information lifted from Google re Bulosan and the Asian Exclusion Act.
Editorial Review – Kirkus Reviews Copyright (c) VNU Business Media, Inc.
The author of The Laughter of My Father now presents the seamier side of his youth in the Philippines, and from thence to his experiences in America. His story is one of poverty, misery and oppression — suggesting Black Boy in its parallel of tragio, hopeless incident seen through the eyes of sensitive, intelligent youth. But the dominant tone is different, for Bulosan withstands the slum life of the West Coast, its gamblers, murderers and prostitutes, its starvation, race prejudice and brutality, without losing his innate belief in the dignity of all men and his dream that this dignity can be achieved in America. In the same simple, episodic style that made his first book significant, he records his wanderings, his odd jobs, his organizations of American Filipinos, his experiences of the horrors of victims of “”racism”" and dire poverty. And yet his high courage and spirit prevailed- his belief in America survived. Important as another window on our own national portrait.
(The roots of the Asian Exclusion Act lie in the Chinese Exclusion Act, passed in 1882. The Chinese Exclusion Act prevented all Chinese immigration specifically, and it was renewed in 1892 after it expired. In 1902, the Chinese Exclusion act was renewed again, this time for an indefinite period.
Both pieces of legislation were passed in response to the idea that Asian immigrants posed a threat to American society. Along the West Coast especially, Asians had been seeking their fortunes since the mid 1800s. Some of these immigrants worked hard to achieve their goals, but they were still unable to become citizens or own land. They also faced serious discrimination from European Americans.
Despite the already severe legal and social restrictions on Asian immigration, some European Americans felt that immigration should be forbidden altogether with a specific Asian Exclusion Act. In arguments which seem familiar to modern followers of the immigration debate, Asians were accused of taking white jobs and causing social unrest. Especially in California, Asians and Chinese in particular were already limited to Chinese ghettos, highly dense housing clusters which were prone to fire and violence. Modern-day Chinatown may be a popular tourist destination, but it was once the only place in which Chinese could safely live.)