Black and brown, but never yellow
Jan. 17th, 2008 04:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
unusualmusic_lj_archiveFrom http://www.reappropriate.com/?p=970
January 14th, 2008
Black and Brown, But Never Yellow
Categories: '08 Presidential Stock, Activism, U.S. Politics and Politicians, Asian Americans
This morning on MSNBC’s “Meet the Press” with Tim Russert, Senator Hillary Clinton called this year’s Democratic primary “the most exciting election we’ve had in such a long time”. While Clinton was speaking of the historic show-down between a viable African American candidate and a viable female candidate for the Democratic nomination, I think that this year’s Democratic primary is proving to be an exciting election because of the unprecedented attention being placed on identity politics, and consequently, the communities of underprivileged racial minorities.
With the increased number of debates in this year’s primary season, several have focused on minority issues. Tavis Smiley’s All-American Presidential Forum last year grilled Democratic and Republican candidates on African American issues. At an annual conference held by the NAACP, Democratic candidates were again asked to focus on issues affecting minority communities, while most of the Republican candidates snubbed the event. In Iowa, the 6th Iowa Black and Brown Presidential Forum was held to question candidates on African American and Latino issues. And this Tuesday, in Nevada, where 24% of the population describes themselves as Hispanic or Latino, 7% are African American or Black, and another 6% are Asian Pacific Islander American, MSNBC is co-hosting a second Brown and Black Presidential Forum with the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and other local minority-oriented organizations.
While I applaud the growing consideration of African American and Latino issues in the debate between presidential candidates, I am deeply concerned about the exclusion of Asian American issues from the debate. The Iowa Black and Brown Presidential Forum was formulated with the specific intention of drawing underrepresented minority issues into the spotlight, and has done so for a number of years. However, no such tradition exists for the newly-organized Nevada Black and Brown Presidential Forum.
By excluding the concerns of Asian Americans (and indeed, Native Americans) from Tuesday’s Nevada Black and Brown Forum, we are perpetuating the invisibility of Asian Americans and other politically underrepresented minority groups from the debate. We risk playing Oppression Olympics by arguing that African Americans and Latinos are more deserving than Asian Americans or Native Americans of a specially-focused presidential debate, when race and racism affects us all so profoundly. And since the size of the Asian American population is statistically identical to the size of the African American population in Nevada, no good reason exists to perpetuate national ignorance of Asian American sociopolitical issues in a forum that supposedly caters to underprivileged racial minorities.
Rest here: http://www.reappropriate.com/?p=970
January 14th, 2008
Black and Brown, But Never Yellow
Categories: '08 Presidential Stock, Activism, U.S. Politics and Politicians, Asian Americans
This morning on MSNBC’s “Meet the Press” with Tim Russert, Senator Hillary Clinton called this year’s Democratic primary “the most exciting election we’ve had in such a long time”. While Clinton was speaking of the historic show-down between a viable African American candidate and a viable female candidate for the Democratic nomination, I think that this year’s Democratic primary is proving to be an exciting election because of the unprecedented attention being placed on identity politics, and consequently, the communities of underprivileged racial minorities.
With the increased number of debates in this year’s primary season, several have focused on minority issues. Tavis Smiley’s All-American Presidential Forum last year grilled Democratic and Republican candidates on African American issues. At an annual conference held by the NAACP, Democratic candidates were again asked to focus on issues affecting minority communities, while most of the Republican candidates snubbed the event. In Iowa, the 6th Iowa Black and Brown Presidential Forum was held to question candidates on African American and Latino issues. And this Tuesday, in Nevada, where 24% of the population describes themselves as Hispanic or Latino, 7% are African American or Black, and another 6% are Asian Pacific Islander American, MSNBC is co-hosting a second Brown and Black Presidential Forum with the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and other local minority-oriented organizations.
While I applaud the growing consideration of African American and Latino issues in the debate between presidential candidates, I am deeply concerned about the exclusion of Asian American issues from the debate. The Iowa Black and Brown Presidential Forum was formulated with the specific intention of drawing underrepresented minority issues into the spotlight, and has done so for a number of years. However, no such tradition exists for the newly-organized Nevada Black and Brown Presidential Forum.
By excluding the concerns of Asian Americans (and indeed, Native Americans) from Tuesday’s Nevada Black and Brown Forum, we are perpetuating the invisibility of Asian Americans and other politically underrepresented minority groups from the debate. We risk playing Oppression Olympics by arguing that African Americans and Latinos are more deserving than Asian Americans or Native Americans of a specially-focused presidential debate, when race and racism affects us all so profoundly. And since the size of the Asian American population is statistically identical to the size of the African American population in Nevada, no good reason exists to perpetuate national ignorance of Asian American sociopolitical issues in a forum that supposedly caters to underprivileged racial minorities.
Rest here: http://www.reappropriate.com/?p=970
