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by Fred C. Wilson III
December 16, 2011
“How I wish we lived in a time when laws were not necessary to safeguard us from discrimination.”
-Barbara Streisand-
The Asian Explosion
Asian Pacific Americans are increasingly using to their advantage their rising number and high incomes as leverage to get what they want. They’re letting non-Asian Americans know they won’t be pushed around anymore. This year I skipped my annual Holiday Special to get down to business. High end neighborhoods and suburbs are witnessing an Asian explosion as more APA’S move in. What was once all white is now 40% APA and growing.
Asian-Americans are roughly 5% of the general population. Large numbers of APA’S (Asian Pacific Americans) households are earning well above the $200,000.00 mark. That number is rising! Next year 2012 the number of APA’S living in high end neighborhoods may reach 50%. Salaries are expected to rise exponentially as APA populations increase. (Sources: www.higley1000.com and www.goldsea.com)
Asian Faces in the News
Good looking Asian-American women are a major media presence. View any news program and viewers will more than likely see attractive women of Asian ethnicity anchoring whatever news program may be on. Despite the media’s newfound obsession with pretty Asian-American females parading across TV screens, is this a realistic depiction of APAs in the media? What about front offices/boardrooms? The so-called ‘Asian Explosion’ isn’t an American-Canadian phenomenon. In the UK BBC non-executive Shmir Shah stated his belief why there are so many Asian faces in the mass media. Visibility compensates for their absence in corridors of power. Similar situations exist in the United States. (Source: www.guardian.co.uk from ‘Organ Grinder’ blog.)
Top Notchers-Top Schools
A few minutes into typing this article I took a short break. I perused the Internet. I noticed a newly published Yahoo feature article announced that the Siemens Foundation awarded $100,000.00 to Cupertino, California high school senior Ms. Angela Zhang. She captured 1st place in their individual contribution Science award! APA 17 year old Ms. Zhang designed a particle (scientific method) to be used to deliver a powerful anti-cancer drug to persons sick with terminal liver cancer. Unlike current anti-cancer drugs on the market, Ms. Zhang’s particle kills cancerous cells sparing healthy ones. This young woman’s invention is a major breakthrough in the war against cancer. (Source: Yahoo News)
In the same story another $100,000.00 was awarded to Mr. Ziyuan Lio and his partner Ms. Cassee Cain both of Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Mr. Lio is Asian-American. Ms. Cain is bi-racial. Both will share their winnings 50/50 after winning 1st place in team competition. The pair developed a project that uses Kinect for Xbox 360 and Computer Vision to analyze human gait. Their invention provides an ‘accurate and affordable method to detect abnormal gait patterns.’ Their machine tells if there’s something wrong with the way you walk. As a layman I can only guess that their devise is used to see if you have medical problems detectable by our gait. (Source: www.ornl.org)
Anti-Asian Resentment
Asian students accuse top schools of maintaining racial quotas that bar some of the best APA’S from entering more prestigious schools. Despite their tremendous achievements Asian-Americans still find it difficult to enter top colleges and universities in the United States. A few weeks back in a similar article I mentioned how Filipinos and other Asians were discriminated by some of America’s top schools. Some college and university officials fear that at their current enrollment rate APAs will eventually overwhelm their white counterparts. Professionally and academically Asian-Americans appear to be people-driven. Parents, peers, and relatives drive their children and each other to succeed at being the very best in their chosen fields. My ‘take,’ why do something half*** backwards when you can do the job right?
Prior to the liberalist mid-1960’s non-Asian Americans had a similar work ethic. That mentality has fallen by the wayside. Case in point: while so-called ‘nerdy’ Asian-American kids are busy studying, many non-Asians are out partying, rioting over beer prices, and engaged in hooliganism. Given the situation no wonder APA’S out score non-Asians on tests, get the highest grades, and are model students. This lead to general mistrust if not downright hatred by non-Asian students that have led to confrontations of a most violent kind. (Source: ‘Too Asian’ and ‘Racism in American Schools’ by Scott Jaschik)
Anti-Asian Resentment
People only persecute persons and institutions they fear. Read the Yahoo comments section at the tail end of most of their articles especially the ones about religion. The hatred is laid on so thick that you can almost walk on it. Same holds true for APAs. Resentments of the achievements by others are more deadly than envy or jealously combined. Go ask the Jews who’ve been put down for thousands of years by anti-Semitism. Jews are top notch businesspeople as are the Chinese, Armenians, and East Indians. They all face similar persecution by the majority people among whom they reside.
Racism between blacks and whites can be traced to a single word-sex. It’s been medically proven that black men usually have larger male appendages as opposed to white and Asian men. As a result many white males hate black men whom they mistakenly think use their maleness to target white women. During war times women and girls are special targets for violation by men bent on destroying their beauty. Same with Asian-Americans; many non-Asian Americans detest them because they’re smart, work hard, and adhere to traditional family values of love, loyalty, and dedication. Your writer can personally relate to the African-American community’s hatred for mixed-race people and ‘nerdy’ blacks who ‘act white.’ Read ‘Race and Resentment’ by Thomas Sowell. Go to: www.townhall.com.
How Fil-Ams fare
Fil-Ams have it easier at assimilation into American culture. Filipino-Americans came to the United States fully acculturated. Thanks to the American Occupation Filipinos where ready-made Americans. Other Asian-Americans have to struggle with language, cultural, and religious difficulties.
My mother used to tell me when I was little that, ‘the brown race shall rule the world.’ I didn’t take her seriously then but seeing how China own our economy, Asian children are academically superior to the best that white America can throw at them, Asian-Americans work harder in general and frequently out achieve non-Asians, at this juncture I would say that ‘Mommy’ knew best. Merry Christmas and GOD bless. (vamaxwell@yahoo.com)