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new selectiveA lookDuring a rally for Washington, D.C.’s beseiged Mayor Marion Barry, United Black Fund President Calvin Rolark introduced the Rev. Willie Wilson as, “the man who had to get the ‘boat people’ straight.”Civil rights activist and Philadelphia radio personality Geor-gie Woods denounced Koreai merchants saying, “They don’t look like us. They don’t live like us. And they don’t act like us.” Elsewhere, the Los Angeles Chapter of the NAACP has called for a “selective buying campaign” against Asian merchants. Reason magazine’s October 1987 issue reports dozens of Black vs. Asian clashes in other cities including Atlanta, Chicago, New Orleans and Seattle. These have often resulted in beatings, knifings, arson, and niurder. To a somewhat lesser degree, Asians have become the target of white resentment in Revere, Mass., Houston, and parts of Florida.Part of the conflict stems from the fact that Asians have settled in many predominantly Blacki •11at thecommunities and made a success of businesses where Blacks and whites have failed. This has earned them considerable envy and hatred.According to Karl Zinsmeis-ter, who wrote the Reason article, “Bittersweet Success,” the “overarching complaint [is] the Asian small-business competition is ‘unfair’. Koreans, Vietnamese and Chinese work — they work ‘unfair’ (meaning very long) hours. As the director of the Vietnamese Fishermen Association put it, “They don’t go in for a beer. They don’t go in to watch football. That makes other peo-4 11pie mad.”recent arrivals, the so-called boat people, raises serious questions about what deepthinkers tell us are the causes of Black business problems: bank discrimination and low income.Asians have also trashed other pet theories of today’s deepthinkers. Poor Black performance on academic tests is blamed op cultural bias and low socioeconomic status. Yet what culture is more alien to ours than that of the Far Fast? Few Amer-Partial results of the Asians’ work ethic can be seen in business statistics. Zinsmeister reports that in 1982 there were 256,000 Asian-owned (as compared to 339,000 Black-owned) businesses, even though Blacks outnumber Asians seven times in the population rolls. The Asians’ success, particularly that of icans have backgrounds more humble than the Vietnamese immigrants. Despite these factors Asians have managed to academically exceed both Blacks and whites. University of Michigan Prof. Harold Stevenson explains, “There are no clear indications that Asian kids are smarter than anyone else. There are lots of indicators that they work harder.”The ratio of Asian college students far exceeds their numbers in society. In engineering and science classes, it’s not rare for classes to be comprised almost entirely of Asians. According to a July 19, 1987, Linda Mathew’s Los Angeles Times Magazine article, “When Being Isn’t Good Enough,” the Asians’academicracism 1pPhsuccess has led to discrimination. * The University of California at j» Berkeley has an Asian student population of 25 percent. Critics £ of the university’s admittance policy say, “The percentage of Asians in the student body would be even higher... if admis- £ sions were based strickly on merit.According to critics, the nation’s most prestigious schools ;; -- like Brown, UCLA, Harvard, 1 Berkeley and Stanford -- have limits for Asians similar to the Jewish quotas of some years ago ;! Mind you -- these schools are major sanctuaries for activist movements like South African ; disinvestment and other concerns for human rights.Instead of proving that racism , is acceptable providing it’s not against Blacks, civil rights acti- \ vists ought to condemn racism against our Asian countrymen. ^ Racism is racism. We should condemn it regardless of the color of the racist -- or the victim.OM THF STREET
Newspaper Details
Cincinnati Call and Post
Cincinnati, Ohio, US
Thu, Nov 19, 1987
Page 9
Full Page
Clipped by
Bowling G.
OH, USA 30 Mar 2025
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