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Last September, when the House passed a resolution condemning anti-Asian bigotry and discrimination, all Democrats voted for it, joined by just 14 Republicans.
Why has this symbolic vote become a partisan battle?
Republican House Whip Steve Scalise said lawmakers were “wasting their time with this measure,” but Democratic sponsor Grace Meng said “people’s lives were at stake.”
The terrible shootings in Atlanta have plunged the country into acute awareness and a difficult debate about the hatred directed against this community. And, as with every mass murder or terrorist attack, the political score was immediately incorporated into this very raw discussion.
Whether the murder of eight people, including six women of Asian and American descent, in three spas meets the strict legal definition of hate crime, is up to the police. President Biden is traveling to Atlanta today to show his concern over what he has called “brutality” against Asian Americans. What is beyond doubt is that many members of the community are scared, which is understandable.
We have spent much of the past year fighting the racial injustice in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, as well as the unacceptable violence in the riots that followed. The media devote a great deal of time and energy to recounting the prejudices and crimes against certain communities: violence against blacks. Violence against Jews. Violence against Muslims.
Sadly, Asian Americans are very low on the radar screen.
Despite a long history of discrimination – from the Chinese exclusion law of 1882 to Japanese internment during World War II – they have been viewed in recent decades as a model minority. The image is of people who work hard, don’t create problems, and whose children get excellent grades.
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They have also been stereotyped as calm and subservient. They do not tend to reach the highest political positions and have little visibility in the media. Vice President Kamala Harris, daughter of an Indian immigrant mother, is an exception, as is Andrew Yang.
Experts say there is no revolting symbol of bigotry, like the noose or the swastika, against people of Asian descent. So sometimes there are disputes over whether stealing from a small Asian-American business, for example, is a hate crime.
But when Amara Walker, a Korean-American reporter for CNN, was doing a live photo for Don Lemon, someone walked by and yelled “Virus!”
Which brings us to the renewed complaints about Donald Trump referring to the “Chinese virus”, as he did again this week, or the “Wuhan virus”, or “Kung flu”, as he did in the past. Liberals and Democrats have long complained that Trump was contributing to a climate of bias against Asian Americans.
I hate how the Chinese regime originally covered up and mismanaged the coronavirus, but I also thought Trump’s use of these terms was an unappealing attempt to score political points.
There is a huge difference between that and the connection in any way between the former president and the violence in Atlanta.
As with all of these mass shootings, it comes down to a mad person with a gun. And I say after every tragic case that it is unfair to say that politicians have blood on their hands because some lunatics had access to destructive weapons.
The Oklahoma City bombing was not Rush Limbaugh’s fault, as Bill Clinton implied. The filming of Gabby Giffords was not Sarah Palin’s fault. The police firing was not Barack Obama’s fault. Steve Scalise’s shooting in a Republican baseball practice was not the fault of the Liberals the shooter admired. And Atlanta is not Trump’s fault.
It’s fine to debate and criticize the rhetoric of a president or a former president, but going beyond that quickly falls into the feverish swamps of partisanship.
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Speaking in the House yesterday, Representative Doris Matsui, who was born in a Japanese-American internment camp, said that last year, “as I have heard, at the highest levels of government, people use racist slurs, like the “Chinese virus.” to spread xenophobia and blame innocent communities, it was all too familiar. “
But Republican Chip Roy, after denouncing Beijing’s handling of the virus, said: “My concern about this hearing is that he appears to want to venture into policing rhetoric.”
This debate may or may not get ugly, but it is long overdue.
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