Hillary Clinton selected Virginia's former senator and governor Tim Kaine to be her vice presidential running mate. Among his the qualifications that were mentioned for him being chosen was his fluency in Spanish. He was even introduced with Clinton in Florida, a battleground state with a large Latino population.
What? I thought the Democrats had the Latino votes all locked up. The media has portrayed Donald Trump as a candidate who will lose all the Latino votes because of his plan to build a wall between Mexico and the U.S. to keep out ILLEGAL immigrants. Why the press and Latino rights groups think all Latinos, especially American citizens who can vote in November, would welcome more illegals into this country to compete for employment is beyond me. But that is the narrative that they plan to portray.
If the Democrats really want to play the racial identity political card, Tim Kaine is obviously the wrong guy. Sure, he can speak Spanish. So what? In the end he is just another upper class white guy who is granted all the usual rich white guy privileges. If the Democrats truly cared about choosing somebody who has the proper demographics to help them win the election, they would need to find a person who is black, female, Spanish speaking, lesbian, and from Ohio with experience in government. If she is married to an illegal Asian female that would be a bonus. There must be at least one of those in Ohio right? They would essentially have all their favorite demographics locked up in one running mate and leave the white male voters to Trump, which he threatens to acquire anyway.
Monday, July 25, 2016
Thursday, April 14, 2016
Peter Liang Screwed By Asian Judge
Things were looking hopeful for former NYPD officer Peter Liang. One of the jurors in his trial, Michael Vargas, was found to harbor strong anti-police feelings that were not picked up during jury selection. During the selection, Mr. Vargas denied any close family members had been involved in criminal activity. As it turned out, his father served a seven year sentence for murder. Since he was estranged from his father who has since died, he didn't consider him to be a close family member. It was also discovered that Vargas had a Facebook page with multiple postings ranting against police brutality and abuse of power. Vargas also testified that in a previous jury selection, he mentioned his father's crimes and was not chosen for that trial but he failed to mention it for Mr. Lian's jury selection.
Despite all these obvious disqualifications to participate as an impartial juror, New York State Supreme Court Justice Danny Chun somehow found that Mr. Liang received a fair trial in his conviction for manslaughter of Akai Gurley. Judge Chun stated that Mr. Vargas was "not at the top level of intelligence" and so could not have premeditated a scheme to get on Mr. Liang's trial.
What? So the judge is saying this juror is too dumb to connive his way into a trial? This is despite his acumen at using social media to propogate his anti-police viewpoints? The judge feels this guy is so unintelligent he couldn't possibly harm Mr. Liang's chances for a fair trial but his well planned Facebook postings don't matter at all? If Mr. Vargas really is so stupid, isn't that alone worth kicking him off the juror and declare a mistrial? How much does Mr. Vargas even understand of the trial if he is really as dull as the judge seems to be implying?
I suspect that Judge Chun is being unduly harsh to Mr. Liang because he is caught in a no win situation. If he overturned the conviction and declared a mistrial, he could potential start race riots in the streets. In addition, many would think that the judge was soft on the defendant because they are both of Asian nationalities. Though it obviously would not be true, it is all too easy for people to come to that racist conclusion. Ultimately it was easier for the judge to let the conviction stand and perhaps go more lenient on the sentencing next week. So Officer Liang essentially got screwed because he came before an Asian judge.
As for the black people who cheered the judge's ruling, well they just need a scapegoat for all the unarmed black people that were killed by white police officers who were never even charged with a crime. However I can't help but notice they don't remember the outrage they felt when black defendants were convicted by white jurors who harbored openly racist attitudes. If the same thing happened to another defendant of color, well that's just too bad. They are going down even if it is obvious to everybody that a juror was less than impartial. As long as somebody is convicted it doesn't matter how much injustice was served.
That's why I feel that organizations like #AsiansForBlackLives is so naive. Run by mostly young, liberal college educated Asian Americans, they can't fathom that their love and respect of black people will never be reciprocated. Black people look at them merely as curiosities, not as brothers in arms. These people need to go get meaningful jobs and discover how the real world operates.
Despite all these obvious disqualifications to participate as an impartial juror, New York State Supreme Court Justice Danny Chun somehow found that Mr. Liang received a fair trial in his conviction for manslaughter of Akai Gurley. Judge Chun stated that Mr. Vargas was "not at the top level of intelligence" and so could not have premeditated a scheme to get on Mr. Liang's trial.
What? So the judge is saying this juror is too dumb to connive his way into a trial? This is despite his acumen at using social media to propogate his anti-police viewpoints? The judge feels this guy is so unintelligent he couldn't possibly harm Mr. Liang's chances for a fair trial but his well planned Facebook postings don't matter at all? If Mr. Vargas really is so stupid, isn't that alone worth kicking him off the juror and declare a mistrial? How much does Mr. Vargas even understand of the trial if he is really as dull as the judge seems to be implying?
I suspect that Judge Chun is being unduly harsh to Mr. Liang because he is caught in a no win situation. If he overturned the conviction and declared a mistrial, he could potential start race riots in the streets. In addition, many would think that the judge was soft on the defendant because they are both of Asian nationalities. Though it obviously would not be true, it is all too easy for people to come to that racist conclusion. Ultimately it was easier for the judge to let the conviction stand and perhaps go more lenient on the sentencing next week. So Officer Liang essentially got screwed because he came before an Asian judge.
As for the black people who cheered the judge's ruling, well they just need a scapegoat for all the unarmed black people that were killed by white police officers who were never even charged with a crime. However I can't help but notice they don't remember the outrage they felt when black defendants were convicted by white jurors who harbored openly racist attitudes. If the same thing happened to another defendant of color, well that's just too bad. They are going down even if it is obvious to everybody that a juror was less than impartial. As long as somebody is convicted it doesn't matter how much injustice was served.
That's why I feel that organizations like #AsiansForBlackLives is so naive. Run by mostly young, liberal college educated Asian Americans, they can't fathom that their love and respect of black people will never be reciprocated. Black people look at them merely as curiosities, not as brothers in arms. These people need to go get meaningful jobs and discover how the real world operates.
Tuesday, April 12, 2016
Only White Police Officers Get Away With Murder
As if we need any more evidence that white police officers alone get away with shooting and killing unarmed people of color. In South Carolina, former police officer Justin Craven has just been given three years of probation and no jail time for killing 68 year old African-American Ernest Satterwhite.
Officer Craven was following Mr. Satterwhite, who was driving while intoxicated, weaving on the road and hitting parked cars. When the driver finally stopped in his own driveway, according to the police dashcam, Craven rushed to the drivers side door and pointed his gun through the window. Mr. Satterwhite's arm can be seen pushing the officer away. That's when Craven shot multiple times into the car. He was pronounced dead at the scene. No weapons were found in the car. His blood alcohol level was 0.15.
When prosecutors tried to charge him with voluntary manslaughter with a sentence of 2 to 30 years, the grand jury, despite the video evidence, refused to indict him. They did charge him with a lesser felony that carried a sentence of 10 years. Eventually the prosecutor settled for a misdemeanor misconduct in office charge that carries no jail time.
So this officer willfully ran up to the driver's side window of the victim and fired point blank into the car killing the driver. Contrast that with New York Police Officer Peter Liang who was convicted of manslaughter for ACCIDENTALLY firing his gun into a darkened stairwell. The bullet somehow ricocheted over multiple surfaces and angles, striking Akai Gurley in the heart TWO floors below. True Officer Liang did not render aid immediately upon finding his mistake. But neither did Officer Craven.
Is it any wonder Asians all over the country were protesting what they justifiably felt was the punitive justice heaped upon Officer Liang but not on any other police officers accused of killing a minority? Though it's wrong to wish Officer Liang had gotten away with murder, like all the other policemen, neither is it right that he was the only one convicted while officers such as Darren Wilson and Daniel Pantaleo were not even indicted by a grand jury. There can be no post-racial society in America until there is post-racial justice in America.
Officer Craven was following Mr. Satterwhite, who was driving while intoxicated, weaving on the road and hitting parked cars. When the driver finally stopped in his own driveway, according to the police dashcam, Craven rushed to the drivers side door and pointed his gun through the window. Mr. Satterwhite's arm can be seen pushing the officer away. That's when Craven shot multiple times into the car. He was pronounced dead at the scene. No weapons were found in the car. His blood alcohol level was 0.15.
When prosecutors tried to charge him with voluntary manslaughter with a sentence of 2 to 30 years, the grand jury, despite the video evidence, refused to indict him. They did charge him with a lesser felony that carried a sentence of 10 years. Eventually the prosecutor settled for a misdemeanor misconduct in office charge that carries no jail time.
So this officer willfully ran up to the driver's side window of the victim and fired point blank into the car killing the driver. Contrast that with New York Police Officer Peter Liang who was convicted of manslaughter for ACCIDENTALLY firing his gun into a darkened stairwell. The bullet somehow ricocheted over multiple surfaces and angles, striking Akai Gurley in the heart TWO floors below. True Officer Liang did not render aid immediately upon finding his mistake. But neither did Officer Craven.
Is it any wonder Asians all over the country were protesting what they justifiably felt was the punitive justice heaped upon Officer Liang but not on any other police officers accused of killing a minority? Though it's wrong to wish Officer Liang had gotten away with murder, like all the other policemen, neither is it right that he was the only one convicted while officers such as Darren Wilson and Daniel Pantaleo were not even indicted by a grand jury. There can be no post-racial society in America until there is post-racial justice in America.
Friday, April 8, 2016
White Racism Is Apparently Universal
A devastating op-ed in the Sunday New York Times. Bangladeshi-British writer Zia Haider Rahman laments his inability to integrate fully into British society. Even though he holds two British passports (he goes into why he holds two of them), doesn't speak Bengali, and has been honored in European writers' societies, he is still considered a foreigner.
When Mr. Rahman was invited to be on a panel for the Man Booker Prize, the other two judges were noted for their credentials as artists. Mr. Rahman was listed as "a Bangladeshi banker turned novelist," despite the fact that he is of British citizenry. The nationalities of the other judges were not listed.
He meets a sommelier in Amsterdam of Egyptian nationality. The sommelier confides to him that though he was born in the Netherlands and speaks Dutch fluently, he has never been accepted as Dutch by the white people.
Mr. Rahman ends with a plea, "After all, how much more can I integrate? What more is it you want from us? To be white? To be you?" The feeling of alienation and rejection by people of color is apparently equally strong on both sides of the Atlantic.
When Mr. Rahman was invited to be on a panel for the Man Booker Prize, the other two judges were noted for their credentials as artists. Mr. Rahman was listed as "a Bangladeshi banker turned novelist," despite the fact that he is of British citizenry. The nationalities of the other judges were not listed.
He meets a sommelier in Amsterdam of Egyptian nationality. The sommelier confides to him that though he was born in the Netherlands and speaks Dutch fluently, he has never been accepted as Dutch by the white people.
Mr. Rahman ends with a plea, "After all, how much more can I integrate? What more is it you want from us? To be white? To be you?" The feeling of alienation and rejection by people of color is apparently equally strong on both sides of the Atlantic.
Sunday, March 6, 2016
Best Places To Live (For White People)
You know those rankings that magazines put out periodically about the best places to live? Have you ever noticed that most of the time, they only apply to white people? For instance, Money Magazine puts out an annual list of best cities to live in the U.S. Invariably they are located in a small to medium sized town where the vast majority of the people are white. Sure they can boast of great outdoor recreational activities and low crime rates, but where are you going to go when you're hankering for some great soup dumplings or even trying to find some cuts of five layer pork meat in the supermarket? Will any Asian who moves there be just another token, appreciated at the job but never get any invites to after work barbecues or Superbowl parties?
Now Mercer, a human resources consulting company, has devised a list of the cities in the world with the best quality of life. Not surprisingly, virtually every single city in the top 25 are dominated by white Western culture. The top ten cities on the list are: Vienna, Zurich, Auckland, Munich, Vancouver, Dusseldorf, Frankfort, Geneva, Copenhagen, and Sydney. Vancouver is probably the most international of the cities in the top ten. All the others are dominated by a white, sometimes xenophobic culture with little tolerance for minorities.
This European-centric list of the world's best cities would probably be contradicted by citizens of some of the most modern metropolises in Asia. How could Singapore not be in the top 25 list of best places to live? Or Hong Kong? Tokyo? Sure some of the biggest cities in Asia are under totalitarian rule, but if you keep your nose clean and not stray from the law, as the vast majority of people do, they are wonderful places to reside, with low crime and cosmopolitan culture.
It's obvious that the audience for these types of lists are the white, middle to upper class society that reads these magazines and newspapers. They bear little resemblance to the actual quality of cities that can be found outside of Northern Europe and their former colonies.
Now Mercer, a human resources consulting company, has devised a list of the cities in the world with the best quality of life. Not surprisingly, virtually every single city in the top 25 are dominated by white Western culture. The top ten cities on the list are: Vienna, Zurich, Auckland, Munich, Vancouver, Dusseldorf, Frankfort, Geneva, Copenhagen, and Sydney. Vancouver is probably the most international of the cities in the top ten. All the others are dominated by a white, sometimes xenophobic culture with little tolerance for minorities.
This European-centric list of the world's best cities would probably be contradicted by citizens of some of the most modern metropolises in Asia. How could Singapore not be in the top 25 list of best places to live? Or Hong Kong? Tokyo? Sure some of the biggest cities in Asia are under totalitarian rule, but if you keep your nose clean and not stray from the law, as the vast majority of people do, they are wonderful places to reside, with low crime and cosmopolitan culture.
It's obvious that the audience for these types of lists are the white, middle to upper class society that reads these magazines and newspapers. They bear little resemblance to the actual quality of cities that can be found outside of Northern Europe and their former colonies.
Friday, March 4, 2016
White Privilege In A Rolls Royce Wraith
The March 2016 issue of Car and Driver has a story that highlights the white privilege that Caucasians take for granted. It involves two of their staff writers as they travel through the Southeast U.S. in a $390,000 Rolls Royce Wraith. The prank is that they were going to pretend they lost their wallets and ID's and would use only the Rolls Royce as evidence of their good names in order to get free stuff.
As they drove through the country, they discovered that people did in fact trust the car to vouch for their characters. They wrote that, "Perfect strangers were invariably kind and charitable." The writers were able to receive free meals at restaurants, free gas, free coffee at Starbucks, and even a free hotel room in New Orleans. Some people said they would have offered their services free anyway since that was the hospitable thing to do.
Somehow I'm skeptical that people are that generous just because somebody drives up to their place of business in an expensive car. As I read this story, I kept thinking that they are getting away with this because the writers are white. Imagine if two black men were driving around in a Rolls Royce and tried to scam restaurants and hotels for free services pretending they had lost their wallets and ID's. You know what would have happened? Instead of being offered things gratis, I suspect people would probably have called the police first. How else would two black guys be driving around in a Rolls without any ID? But if two white people do it, it's just a harmless prank.
I have similar experience with what Car and Driver pulled off but from a minority's point of view. But the results were entirely different. I experienced the racism that can still be so prevalent around the country. This is not the burning cross racism as Chris Rock would say, but sorority racism. In other words, there is no "Whites Only" sign being displayed anywhere but the effects were there.
After high school, a good buddy of mine, who is white, and I took a summer road trip together. We traveled all over the Ozark mountains, enjoying the splendid views and lakes. At the end of the first day, we needed to stop to get a motel room. Since he was driving, I was the one who got out of the car to see if we could get a room. Each time I went inside, I was told that there were no more vacancies available even though there was no signs that said so. After about three tries, I told my friend that I was feeling tired and if he could go in to get a room. After five minutes he came out and tossed me the room key.
I never mentioned how much this hurt me. He seemed too oblivious to notice the ease in which he got a room and I couldn't. To him, it was probably just a coincidence. But that is just part of the white privilege that Caucasians assume is granted to everybody else. I don't know if people in that part of the country still act that way thirty years later, but it would be interesting if Car and Driver would do the same prank with two minority drivers instead. Let's see how many free Starbucks they can get before being thrown in the slammer by some present day Roscoe P. Coltrane.
As they drove through the country, they discovered that people did in fact trust the car to vouch for their characters. They wrote that, "Perfect strangers were invariably kind and charitable." The writers were able to receive free meals at restaurants, free gas, free coffee at Starbucks, and even a free hotel room in New Orleans. Some people said they would have offered their services free anyway since that was the hospitable thing to do.
Somehow I'm skeptical that people are that generous just because somebody drives up to their place of business in an expensive car. As I read this story, I kept thinking that they are getting away with this because the writers are white. Imagine if two black men were driving around in a Rolls Royce and tried to scam restaurants and hotels for free services pretending they had lost their wallets and ID's. You know what would have happened? Instead of being offered things gratis, I suspect people would probably have called the police first. How else would two black guys be driving around in a Rolls without any ID? But if two white people do it, it's just a harmless prank.
I have similar experience with what Car and Driver pulled off but from a minority's point of view. But the results were entirely different. I experienced the racism that can still be so prevalent around the country. This is not the burning cross racism as Chris Rock would say, but sorority racism. In other words, there is no "Whites Only" sign being displayed anywhere but the effects were there.
After high school, a good buddy of mine, who is white, and I took a summer road trip together. We traveled all over the Ozark mountains, enjoying the splendid views and lakes. At the end of the first day, we needed to stop to get a motel room. Since he was driving, I was the one who got out of the car to see if we could get a room. Each time I went inside, I was told that there were no more vacancies available even though there was no signs that said so. After about three tries, I told my friend that I was feeling tired and if he could go in to get a room. After five minutes he came out and tossed me the room key.
I never mentioned how much this hurt me. He seemed too oblivious to notice the ease in which he got a room and I couldn't. To him, it was probably just a coincidence. But that is just part of the white privilege that Caucasians assume is granted to everybody else. I don't know if people in that part of the country still act that way thirty years later, but it would be interesting if Car and Driver would do the same prank with two minority drivers instead. Let's see how many free Starbucks they can get before being thrown in the slammer by some present day Roscoe P. Coltrane.
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