Arlene Ackerman
Wikipedia describes the Russian word “pogrom” as a form of “violent riot, a mob attack, either approved or condoned by government or military authorities, directed against a particular group, whether ethnic, religious, or other”. Education Week reports “The courage of Asian students to describe the harassment and violence they experienced at South Philadelphia High School led members of the Pennsylvania Human Rights Commission to act on their behalf, reports The Philadelphia Inquirer.”
Those of you who are part of the truly politically correct rainbow coalition learned in college in the 70s to 90s that racism can only be committed by whites against blacks because of the nature of the racist power structure. Well somebody forgot to tell the groups of predominantly African American students who weren’t feeling particularly multicultural on December 3, 2009 to not beat up 30 Asian students who were English Language Learners. The Asian-American Legal Defense and Education Fund also filed the complaint with the federal government.
USA Today reported that gangs roamed the halls searching for Asians. After they found and attacked their first victim in a classroom, another 70 students mobbed the cafeteria, beating several others. Another 35 students who were undeterred by a police officer were turned back from what they called the “Asian floor”. After school, Asian students were escorted home, but still targeted by toughs. 30 Asians were injured that day and seven were hospitalized.
Apologists said race had nothing to do with it. Community specialist Wali Smith who saw the violence explains blacks were marginalized by Italians and Irish. Now as the schools are 100% “diverse”, 70% black with an 18% Asian minority they resent seeing Asians given a special second-floor sanctuary for language programs, while the staff doesn’t care about black students. The gangster mentality also drives some to target weak people, so when they mugged Asians in the bathroom and they didn’t report it “they’ll just keep riding it until the wheels fall off.”
I can tell you that such reports certainly put a dimmer on consideration of Philadelphia area colleges such as Drexell and Villanova. From my own experience as a visitor at an Asian American conference there a few years back, the predominantly African American staff was extremely professional. The city of brotherly love has a vibrant Chinatown along with the Liberty Bell. It was remarkable to check the six radio stations on the rental car, and find six different black radio stations, with all of them were different.
Asians were most angry at the school district which had failed to protect them. If anything it seemed that the African American staff and administration was taking sides and looking the other way. They seemed to put the blame it on a racist and capitalist society with a centuries long history of injustices towards African Americans rather than the individual perpetrators as criminals. District superintendent Arlene Ackerman said “These problems are long-standing and go beyond the school and into the community.”
Now this really brings up the contrast between the Progressive White/African American and Asian attitudes towards education. Compare the African American party line of affirmative action, black history, and structural racism / capitalism with that of student Duong Ly from Vietnam: “If I study hard I will get a lot of opportunities, scholarships, grants…,” he says. “It’s rewarding to work hard and study hard here, more than in Vietnam. I can go to a better school, go to college, get a career, then I can take care of my parents. So I like it more here.” Students from the other side declined to be interviewed, but if they did, how many of them (excluding African immigrants) would say anything remotely as optimistic about their future in America?
The primary directive of Asian immigrants is not “demanding racial justice from whites”, even if that is what 70s college educated “Ho Chih Minh is my hero” Asian American Movement™ hippies were taught. They try for and get BETTER grades and scores than majority whites. If the low income immigrants score lower than their counterparts in Cupertino and go to San Jose State instead of Stanford while their parents work 6 jobs 25 hours a day, they still think they’re ahead of the game instead of vowing to bring down suburban Koreans and Mandarin Chinese.. They see America as a land of limitless opportunity. They are thankful they have been given the chance to climb over obstacles placed in their path rather than cursing the races and economic systems responsible for their misery.
Asians do not see America as an inhuman, morally bankrupt capitalist system whose dominant whites and new pet Asians have stolen unfair wealth, restaurants, corner stores and Acuras on the backs of the oppressed. To their tormentors, Amerika is a system that must be smashed. Petty theft is merely payback for “problems that are long-standing and go beyond the school and into the community.” Young predators do not comprehend the concepts like individual accountability or guilt, or advancement through virtue. They only understand the language of “racial equality” and “social justice”.
Black conservatives like Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams would certainly agree that White Nationalists could not concoct a more evil system to happily brainwash a once-proud people into a self-destructive cycle dooming them to the bottom rungs of society for generations. There is a multi-million if not billion dollar industry which enriches a leadership (obviously not Sarah Palin or Glenn Beck) enriched by their cut of the profits of the 21st century slave trade of “racial justice” which keeps people in chains. It was South Pacific that explained how babies born into innocence are “carefully taught” to pull others down rather than look for and grab a helping hand up. Perhaps that is what creates jobs for so many full time activists, academic and government officials training poor, Hispanic and African Americans to see American 180 degrees of how Asians see it, and why they carefully exclude Asians from any of their studies of “economic justice”
But Asians do have the African Americans to thank for shoring up the one big Asian weakness – having the guts to stand up and complain. It was local activists, god bless them for once, who came up with the idea of 50 Asian students boycotting school for a week to make a bold statement, a tactic seemingly inspired by the original civil rights era boycotts like the bus boycott. Economic success is not an either-or proposition. Yes you must protest injustice and unfairness. But once you put a stop to violence and hatred, it is ultimately up to the individual to raise him or herself and their people as high as they can go.
Unflattering blog on Ackerman’s performance
Her bahavior was so inexcusable that it even offended frequent race-baiting Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Annette John-Hall:
Her bahavior was so inexcusable that it even offended frequent race-baiting Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Annette John-Hall:
It’s bad enough that you waited four days to publicly respond to a gang attack at one of your schools. But it was even worse on Wednesday, watching you sit there dispassionately, as though you were listening to your voice mails, when students asked for an apology.
You know, a simple but powerful gesture that says, ” ‘I’m sorry that this happened to you, I’m sorry for the slow response time, I’m sorry that we have not stood with you earlier,’ ” said Ellen Somekawa of Asian Americans United.
Which is the human thing to do.
But how did you, the chief executive officer of the Philadelphia School District, respond?
With silence. Defensive, deafening silence.
And then, you didn’t take questions afterward.
MIT electrical engineering computer science graduate has written conservative columns on politics, race / culture, science and education since the 70s in MIT The Tech and various publications in including New Republic and National Review.
Wow, this is crazy. thanks so much for the news.
Thanks for noticing. What I really disliked about the civil rights movement is that it eneded up being an excuse for just being nasty to an entirely different bunch of people and feeling good about it. Everybody needs to be as nice as possible to everybody. NOT JUST WHITES BEING NICE TO BLACKS. (BTW, Asian immigrants tend to be if anything MORE racist than PC-educated whites, especially the liberal ones)
The Asian American movment bought into it hook, line and sinker back in the 60s and 70s ("We’re not white… .We’re BLACK and PROUD") and it brings to to THIS DISASTER. Google Arlene ackerman and you’ll see how many people are mad as heck about her. I was thinking of using the “queen” photoshopped picture one “fan” made. In fact she’s just ONE example of an industry of incompetent bureaucrats when districts hire expensive placement companies to find overqualified, overpaid (I don’t know how much she makes but I’ll bet it’s between $150,000 and $250,000 per year plus life retirement, and $500,000 just to fire her) administrators (usually of color, every single one of Seattle’s half-dozen finalists but one was black) who’s #1 job is to save the minority population, always (for some strange reason) fail to eliminate the "mysterious" achievement gap (gee’s it’s just to complicated to figure out why Asians and whites get better grades than African Americans, nobody seems to know, can’t possibly have anything to do with attitude, studying hard, or doing what you’re told to do….) then they get run out of town for failing, then they get hired by another big urban district across the nation for a $80,000 raise. Rinse, repeat.
Why doesn’t America use the same education policy it uses towards Asians (AIYEE YOO GET B PRUSS YOUR GRANDPARENTS ESCAPE COMMUNIST SACRIFICE ALL FOR YOU FOR THIS WATER BUFFALO CRAP!!? just let them study their little hearts out) as it uses towards African/Hispanic Americans (it’s not your fault, let us raise taxes for expensive programs so that we can take the time we’d be using to actually teach you math and reading for civil rights and social equality and ethnic studies and hiring more staff and buying more textbooks with pictures that look like you)
Why hasn’t this been in the main stream media? Where is the OCA and the CACA on this incident? Asian Americans must learn to speak up and out!
passed it on thanks
More shocking stuff here:
http://youngphillypolitics.com/topics/antiasian_violence
Evidently the black leadership cast one of the victims as a gang member who assaulted a crippled African American with a completely fabricated spin story to create a conspiracy theory to justify rage against Asians. One victim suffers from loss of vision after his beating, and the parents were kept from meeting with the principal who pretty much backs “her community” The story is still pretty much restricted to local Philly and Asian American press, though an Australian blog has picked up this Asian Week article, the conservative press has also ignored this story. Like the Robert Wone story, it does not fit into the “coalition of oppressed minority” that Asians are supposed to fit into, so if Asians are attacked from within this “friendly coalition”, it’s just not a story. Somehow Asians should leverage from the Tiger Mom story into this nightmare of when moms and kids deep dive in the anti-achievement direction and are driven by “rage for racial justice” rather than “bragging about achievement”.
There is an underlining racism toward Asians in Phil metro area. Most Asians in Phil metro area are first generation. The area do not attract the best and brightest Asians. Most professional or rich Asians that have options will not choose Philadelphia metro as their home. If given an option many Asian businesses and students will not locate in Phil. Most successful Asians have opt to move out of the area. The area has a lot of old money and does not attract a lot of new money. Given its location and history you think otherwise but the area seems to be stuck in limbo and the economy is basically health care and education. The area including the government is riddled with crime and corruption. The badlands is located Phil and Camden is a haven for convicts.
If this is the way the city handles race relations, then they’ve inherited the legacy of Mississippi burning but the African Americans have gone from noble victims to ingnomious terrorists. Perhaps some Asian American so-called civil rights organizations who thankfully had enough spine to at least raise the issue locally should take it national and declare an Asian American boycott of Philadelphia until the community owns up to its sins, properly punishes those guilty, and gives Asian Americans a reason to send their children to Philadelphia public schools instead of fleeing them like the Irish and Italians before them, and for Asian to not fear sending their children to colleges like Drexell and Villanova. Otherwise, Asians will continue to flock to places like Boston, NYC, California and Texas and skip over the “city of brotherly love”.
I sent a copy of this to Walter Williams (yes the very same black guest host of Rush Limbaugh) who as it turns out has already written about this topic in July 2010. Most of you are not aware that it is only CONSERVATIVE Blacks who have spoken out against senseless violence against Asians committed by blacks who do NOT blame everything on white racism. I still fail to see why the majority of Asian voters continue to side with liberalism which clearly fails to stand up to genuine Asian American interests.
See: http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/wew/articles/10/RacismOrStupidity.htm
Professor Walter E. Williams
George Mason University
Department of Economics
A MINORITY VIEW
BY WALTER WILLIAMS
RELEASE: WEDNESDAY, JULY 28, 2010
Racism or Stupidity
Black intimidation of voters, to my knowledge, is rare, but black intimidation of Asians is not. Recent reports out of Philadelphia and San Francisco tell of black students beating up Asian students. The Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, in the wake of serious black-on-Asian violence at South Philadelphia High School, charged the district with “deliberate indifference” to the harassment of Asian students and with “intentional disregard” for their welfare.
After reading this article I understand why Asians will always succeed. A strong work ethic and a sense of gratitude for opportunities. Personally it warms my heart to see that immigrants can still come to this country and be economically successful often in one generation. Instead of whining like entitled Americans Asians overcome the many obstacles placed in their path. As a native born American I am pleased to have the Asian community here and I wish them well in all of their endeavors.
awarthurhu – It is unfortunate that it was the “tiger mother” controversy that outraged the world and not the opposite problem, that of accepting and even encouraging the sort of juvenile delinquency problem that white Americans were lamenting back in the 1950s , and choosing to focus their energies on attacking Asians rather than learning lessons from them and encouraging MORE Asians to come to improve their schools in the name of integration after having chased the “racist” Euro-Americans away.
You understand why Asian immigrants will always be successful in this country?? Maybe some groups. Asian immigrants are a diverse population and if you look at the statistics on the acheivement gap and other statistics you will see that certains groups like Cambodians, Laotians, and people of Hmong ancestry often are not doing better than whites. I appreciate this post, the situation at that HS what about racism, prejudice and hatred spouted by the African American lower class Philadelphia community. They pick on Asian students, and black student immigrants because they are foreigners. It is enfuriating that the staff and administration chose to make excuses for them instead of holding them accountable for their actions. Exactly, why I left Philadelphia and the US.
Those Afican-American who comitted hate crimes against asian students are fighting for “Civil Wrongs”.
This is the same way blacks treated Asians [actually Hasidic Jews] in Crown Heights. Look up Yankel Rosenbaum and Isaac Bitton. I’m embarssed that no one will defend the victims when the perps are black
More from Walter Williams, conservative friend of Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh on blacks racist attacks. Which side defends Asians more against racist attacks? Certainly not the left.
http://townhall.com/columnists/walterewilliams/2011/06/22/americas_new_racists/page/2
Racist black attacks are not only against whites but also against Asians. In San Francisco, five blacks beat an 83-year-old Chinese man to death. They threw a 57-year-old woman off a train platform. Two black Oakland teenagers assaulted a 59-year-old Chinese man; the punching knocked him to the ground, killing him. At Philly’s South Philadelphia High School, Asian students report that black students routinely pelt them with food and beat, punch and kick them in school hallways and bathrooms as they hurl racial epithets such as “Hey, Chinese!” and “Yo, Dragon Ball!” The Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund charged the School District of Philadelphia with “deliberate indifference” toward black victimization of Asian students.
Oh please you cannot blame an entire race for what a few idiots did
The incident that happened to those asian students was unfortunate
and should not have happened . But all of the people who are indicting
the black race for those few little animals are just as bad as they are