This Black Vs Asian Drama Show

I had started writing this a few weeks ago and had stopped, but then I read another article about “Black/Asian tensions”and I had an exchange with a Chinese man that spoke with a clear undertone of resentment for “these young kids nowadays” (read Black kids nowadays). So, I’ma put this out there.

In the past few weeks, there has been a lot of drama and pervading tension surrounding the recent assaults on Asians by young Black men in the Bay Area. Being a Black man who grew up in San Francisco and Oakland, with a 2 year stint in Daly City, and who has spent the last 6 years living and travelling throughout Asia, I figure may be able to offer another perspective. A perspective that can see beyond the stereotypes of both communities and go a little deeper into why these events went down.

If you haven’t been following local news lately, here’s a brief rundown of the main events;

- In January, Huan Chen, 83, was kicked and beaten as he left the Muni stop at Third and Oakdale in the Bay View. He died about two months later (March 19th).

-On March 22nd, five Black teenagers surrounded a 57-year-old Chinese woman at the same Muni stop. Surveillance camera video from the second incident shows one of her assailants grabbing the victim by the neck and throwing her from the platform.

-On March 27th, a group of Black teenagers assaulted a Chinese Muni rider on Third and Williams streets.

-April 16th, Tian Sheng Yu, 59, died a few days after he was beaten into a coma by two Black teenagers, after coming to the aid of his son, who was beaten. This was the tipping point leading to the open anger currently being expressed by the Chinese community toward the Black community.

(Here is an unofficial city incident that took place on a Muni bus in October 2009; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nx6FRSemW38 . Take note of the number of views)

Before I speak to the above events, i’m going to share a few incidents. One personal, two cinematic and another real life incident…..

About a month ago, I walked into a Louisiana Soul Food joint on Adeline in South Berkeley. The door was locked, so i knocked on the glass and to my surprise, a little old Asian man , about 5’2, thin gray hair and large round glasses came, unlocked and opened the door. “Good evening” he said in a soft lightly accented voice. “You want take-out? We will close soon.” “Yes” i replied and walked in. I looked around at the decor and I was sure this was a Black owned joint. Maybe the owner is just helping the old man out and hired him. He then brought me a menu and sat down at the register. Out from the kitchen came an old Asian woman wearing an apron. She handed the man a piece of paper and hurried back to the kitchen. It tripped me out for a sec, because the visuals weren’t addin’ up. What the hell were these two lil elderly Asians doing running a full on Soul Food joint?! I ordered my food and began talking to the lil old man. I wasn’t sure if he was Japanese or Korean, so i asked him where he was from and he said Korea. He and his wife had been living in the Bay for 20 years, “Just working and learning”. He asked me if I had ever been to Korea and I told him that i spent about 5 hours in Seoul Airport a couple months ago, on my way back to SF from Indonesia. He said, “Oh..very cold now”. Sheeeit, cold was an understatement. It was -7 degrees coming off the plane and the airport was an ice box. We continued with small talk until the woman brought out my take away bag. “Annyong haseyo”, I said attempting to say “good evening”, the one word I know in Korean. The woman’s face lit up in surprise, “Oh! You speak Korean?! “No no no” I replied “I only know that word. Was that correct?”  ”Very good!” She said. She then taught me how to say “Good night” (which i’ve forgotten) and “Thank you” which is “Kashamnida” (I don’t know if that’s spelled right). I left with a smile on my face and they closed their lil Soul Food joint with a smiles on theirs…..we all went home and slapped that “We Are The World”.

Okay now, do you remember this?:

Alright now, reflect on what you felt when you first watched this movie scene:

You were most likely like me, saying, “Oh shit!”, no matter what your racial background is. Clearly, this scene is an extreme case, oozing with stereotypes, but the scene also holds the underlying sentiment that is most definitely felt in interactions between many Black Americans and Far East Asians. I must emphasize “Far East” and more specifically Koreans & Chinese (Interestingly, not the Japanese or South East Asians, for reasons i’ll get into in a bit) whom are the Asian ethnic groups most often operating businesses in Black neighborhoods and in San Francisco, increasingly moving into homes once occupied by African Americans, changing the demographics of the community.

And finally;

All of the above scenarios possess information that can be learned from. In reality, the common experience is somewhere in the middle of my personal experience and Radio Raheem’s, but if you listen and read the media over the last couple of weeks, you may be inclined to think that Black and Asian relations are somewhere between Radio and O-Dog. This misconception are the leaves on a huge tree that has quite a few branches, but one big root…..Fear. This Fear is perpetuated and maintained by steady flow of negative stereotypical media images of Black Americans, positive stereotypical images of Asians and cultural ignorance on the part of (a segment) of both communities whom buy into those stereotypes. The stereotypes of the other community, as well as the stereotypes of ones own community.

Not all Asians are smart and rich. Believing this to be true leads to a false since of superiority and arrogance if you are Asian and a false since of inferiority if you are African-American.  Not all Black men are criminals. If you are Asian, believing that all young Black males are criminals, will make your body language tense and overall vibration radiate fear, which will actually increase your chance of having a negative encounter. Believing, as a Black male or female of any age, that possessing careless attitudes, criminal mannerisms, attributes and violent actions are somehow being “real”, is to buy into a system that has told you to hate yourself and community. A system that has told you that being a criminal, literally or artistically, is your ticket to freedom. Just harboring these ignorant perceptions sets up the stage for the drama to play out, all to the monetary benefit and continued dominance of a White media structure.

Do I think that these recent attacks are cases of Blacks “targeting” Chinese in a racist way, like Whites have targeted Blacks? No. I do not for a few different reasons, the main one being that a certain segment of  young black males are just looking for victims, who usually happen to be other young Black males (No uproar there right?). Does the Chinese community have a right to be angry and speak out? Hell yeah they do and from there perspective it would seem they were being targeted, even though crime stats show that prior to this wave, serious Black on Chinese crime is close to non-existent. But the manner in which that anger is being expressed is not productive whatsoever. Many Chinese folks are spewing hella racist shit, despite the fact the victims of these crimes were assisted by Black people after the crimes were committed and Black people were also showing up to the rallies organized in support. Those Chinese also are just a segment (though a very large one) of the Chinese community. Both of the segments pretty much have no interaction with the other community beyond, bus rides and Chinese food pickups and deliveries.

Allow me to do what I do here on PitchBlackGold’s path, and step into a more metaphysical space of perception. Chinese are NOT being targeted by Black people any more than Chinese school children are being targeted by Chinese adult males. What does this have to do with metaphysics? First, let us notice that both are waves of serious violence, occurring in a relatively short span of time. Here are the dates to note:

March 19th – Huan Chen dies from a result of being beaten by a group of Black teens in January

March 22nd (eve-PST) – Black teenager throws 57 year old Chinese woman from train platform

March 23rd (7:20 am UTC) – Chinese man kills eight children with a knife in a school in Nanping, China

The above took place within hours of each other. Chinese time is 15 hrs ahead

April 16th – Tian Sheng Yu is beaten in by 2 teenage African Am. males in downtown Oakland and dies a few days later on the 20th

April 28th – Another knife-wielding man at a different elementary school wounded 16 students and a teacher in Guandong, China

April 29th – In Jiangsu, China 47-year-old Xu Yuyuan went to a kindergarten and stabbed 28 students, two teachers and one security guard; most of the Taixing students were 4 years old.

April 30th – Wang Yonglai used a hammer to cause head injury to preschool children in  Shandong, China

May 12th – An attacker named Wu Huanming, 48, killed seven children and two adults and injured 11 other persons with a cleaver.

There are two main factors that link both of these waves of events. Media and fear, the latter being the being the core energy and the former being the amplifier. Like attracts like energy is a metaphysical law, which means whatever ones state of being is or whatever vibration one is projecting out, will attract more of the same vibration to the person. With this in mind, we can look at violence against Chinese in The Bay, with the violence against children in China.

An act of murdering children is an extremely intense negativity generator in and of itself. The negativity can get amplified 1000 fold if media gives detailed attention to it, allowing scores of people to charge the collective consciousness with anger and fear. This charge, due to the like attracts like law, increases the chance of  a similar, if not the same, type of attack occurring. Couple this with specific astrological factors concerning China and this time period, and a deeper, more esoteric explanation begins to emerge.

So, the horrible events beginning with the death of Mr Huan Chen on March 19th and ending with the rampage in a school in China on May 12th, were not targeted attacks rooted in racism or child hating. The perpetrators of these attacks are individuals with serious problems in their own lives and unbeknown to them, the negativity in which they harbored was drawn out by media amplified (via t.v., radio, blogs) fear and anger. The negative feelings which already existed in a subtle -and sometimes overt- context, attracted an extreme overt expression when the astrological window was opened up. I do believe that window is closed now, but in the Bay Area Chinese community is still very hot.

Maybe, I’ll come back with some possible solutions to this Blasian soap opera. Dr. Marshall, you can hit me up for assistance on this if you wish. No need for the NAACP to come in and such. I actually lived in China for a bit. I could speak on a few things that are relevant to this situation. I could talk about what Chinese/Koreans could learn from Filipinos and Japanese about how to interact with Black folks. I could also talk about how Feb 8th, 11th, 12th and 14th of 2008…school shootings took place in the U.S.  killing a total of 9 people and wounding a total of 19 and relate that to the series of events that have taken place. I could also talk about how Hip-Hop culture proves….

….we’ll see if i’m moved to continue this.