Public figures’ remarks about Asians stoke anger

Atide of anti-intellectualism and prejudice has been lurking in this country for some time. Many of the people we expect to see in the public eye in the US — politicians with integrity and compassion, and professors upholding academic independence and political neutrality — have gradually vanished.

Outrageously, some in the vanguard have stoked contempt of Asians, even after thousands in the community have been the victims of racist attacks ranging from verbal abuse to physical violence, to even death.

Mike Huckabee, 65, who was Arkansas’ governor from 1996 to 2007, in mocking some US corporations’ criticism of changes to voting regulations in Georgia and Major League Baseball’s subsequent decision to pull its annual All-Star game from Atlanta, tweeted Saturday: “I’ve decided to ‘identify’ as Chinese. Coke will like me, Delta will agree with my ‘values’ and I’ll probably get shoes from Nike & tickets to @MLB games. Ain’t America great?”

US Congressman Ted Lieu, a California Democrat, accused Huckabee, a Baptist minister, of “adding fuel to anti-Asian hate”.

Lieu tweeted that “Coke likes me, Delta agrees with my values, I wear Nikes and my hometown (Los Angeles) Dodgers won the World Series. But it’s not because of my ethnicity.”

Lieu asked Huckabee’s daughter Sarah Huckabee Sanders — who served as former president Donald Trump’s press secretary and now is running for governor of Arkansas — if she agrees with her father.

“Do you condone Mike Huckabee adding fuel to anti-Asian hate?” Lieu tweeted.

Investigative journalist Victoria Brownworth tweeted: “Six Asian American women were massacred on March 16. Last weekend, an Asian woman your age was beaten and kicked in NYC and is still in hospital with broken bones and a concussion. Every day Asian/AAPI people are victimized by hate crimes.”

In Texas, a GOP congressional candidate recently made anti-Chinese remarks. On a question about US immigration issues at a GOP forum in Arlington, Sery Kim said she would oppose Chinese immigrants.

“I don’t want them here at all. They steal our intellectual property, they give us coronavirus, they don’t hold themselves accountable,” she said. “And quite frankly, I can say that because I’m Korean.”

Working in the Small Business Administration during the Trump administration, Sery Kim may have learned from her big boss the election strategy of “China bashing” and mimicked some of the former president’s derogatory terms such as “China virus” and “kung flu” when referring to the coronavirus.

Kim’s comments were condemned by Asian American advocacy groups, and she lost two prominent endorsements from Young Kim and Michelle Steel, two Republican Korean American members of Congress.

In a statement rescinding their endorsements, the two lawmakers said they have spoken with Sery Kim “about her hurtful and untrue comments about Chinese immigrants and made clear that her comments were unacceptable”.

Regrettably, professors and scholars at some prestigious universities are betraying principles of political impartiality and academic independence. Instead, they are embracing ideology, taking the side of American politicians and engaging in finger-pointing.

In academia, the Faculty Senate at Cornell University, after months of debate, rejected a resolution on a proposed dual-degree program between its School of Hotel Administration and China’s Peking University.

Mainly citing Western “allegations of genocide and other human rights violations against China”, opponents of the program voted against the academic partnership on March 31.

“(If we have) partnerships with organizations and universities under the sway of authoritarian regimes, we risk degrading and compromising the university’s mission, function (and) reputation,” said Joanie Mackowski, faculty senator for the Department of Literatures in English.

Although the Chinese government, some Western civic groups and individual journalists have refuted the campaign that the West has launched against China, in particular its handling of affairs in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, information to the contrary is not being considered.

“It’s completely discouraging to find some professors nowadays enjoying the spotlight of politics,” said Emily Chang, a senior at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “I’m hesitant now whether I should accept Cornell’s master’s program offer, as I feel hostility from the top down there.”

The concerns of Chang, who is from China, are well grounded.

Chang Jun