The Chinese Bias Against African Americans

The Root ^ | February 23, 2012

[nickcarraway]

In his Daily News column, Stanley Crouch examines China's deeply entrenched racial hostilities, especially stereotypes regarding African Americans. He says that such animus within the rising economic power should not be ignored.

Though Eugene Robinson, Pulitzer-winning columnist for The Washington Post, is a serious and highly sophisticated man, I was disappointed by a recent column in which he compared the United States and China.

In eloquent terms, Robinson asserted that the Chinese, right now, look more unsentimentally at their problems and are not bluffing the world about taking them on, no matter how large, intimidating and deeply dug in by custom they might be.

Robinson suggests the Chinese seem to be addressing their most important natural resource, which is their population, as we are not -- as proven by the depressingly shallow nature of American political arguments.

Fair enough, as far as it goes.

But Robinson does not mention something about China -- something that an honest assessment of its strengths and weaknesses should not ignore.

[radpolis]

I think you bring up some good points, but I don’t agree with some of the reasoning, especially for the need not to give foreigners (especially in a country like China), national treatment because of its status as a poor or undeveloped country. I think it has more to do with racism/jingoism and double standards.

As far as being a developing country goes, the fact is the United States was an undeveloped and poor country at one point also, but didn’t have those foreign restrictions on owning your own property and businesses outright, despite the institutionalized racism and racial covenants in deed transfers. For example, a Chinese coolie could have come to the US back in the mid-18th century and still own land and a business, despite the other racist laws against them. There might have been restrictions where he could live and work, but there were no outright prohibitions.

In Asia, this is still impossible for me, regardless of the wealth of the country.

And, ironically enough, I know more about the Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia more than about China itself, and I know how the Chinese diaspora came to own much of the means of production in that region(Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines etc), then instituted laws against foreigners, notably westerners, when they came into their own political power as a result of their wealth to product their industries from outside competition.

This stuff is all very complex and deep and this really is not the place to discuss it, but interesting nonetheless.

[ponder life]

I agree, our discussion could probably last for awhile and this forum is not a good place for it.

Thanks for the discussion, though.