As I said on Twitter, don't mean to undermine anything you're saying here. But I think that the history of state-sponsored discrimination against Chinese-Americans in California should probably be more prominent here. Not to equate it to the experience of Black people. But it's not exactly a modest amount of discrimination.
The legacy of anti-Chinese and anti-Japanese discrimination is quite prominent in California and affects those Asian Americans whose ancestry traces back to that time but as I hinted at the vast majority of Asian immigrants to the U.S. came after the 1965 immigration act. They certainly dealt with xenophobia and racism but I don't know how relevant Sinophobia in old California is to most Chinese Americans today.
Modest amount? Oh, I'd say it absolutely compares to the discrimination that Blacks have endured in CA. When you trace this from the beginning of the state's development, when the immigrants were brought to create the railroad, on through today's violence, it never stops. And Asians in general, with the internment camps? We're absolutely not recognizing this.
I'm all for recognizing and discussing Sinophobia but as I noted in the piece the majority of Asian immigrants came after 1965 immigration act. 57% of all Asian Americans were born outside the U.S. and obviously a plethora are second and third generation. That compares with about 10% of Black people (i.e. the African immigrants who perform well as I mentioned). I do think we discuss Japanese American interment more that Sinophobia, Chinatown riots and Yellow Peril although unlike slavery and Jim Crow, interment was both officially apologized for and given a meager reparation. And as the documentary I linked above illustrates, in San Francisco particularly, Asian households were allowed into white neighborhoods like the Sunset more easily than Black ones. It doesn't invalidate Asian bigotry or the long legacy of anti-Asian laws and policies in California, rather racism is not experienced the same way and the point is to understand these perspectives.
Thank you for writing such a thoughtful and nuanced piece that goes deep into how intensely local these issues are. I moved to the US as an adult and live in a majority Black city that was very segregated (Baltimore) before moving to the Bay Area, and I've learned over the years how different issues are in each local community and how many layers exist that need to be peeled back to understand the dynamics at play.
This was an excellent article Darrell. I've been waiting for this since you said that it was coming, and it did not disappoint. You're able to broach subjects and open a discourse in a way that's really lacking for us in the Bay, and this is really needed.
But this issue is a tip of an iceberg that is simply not being discussed. That there is an incredible lack of self awareness and refusal to take ownership that Black community leaders are committing. First off, there is no justifying the violence, period. There is absolutely no justification for why these attacks are happening on a nearly daily basis. And outside of the mayor and DA Jenkins, there has been zero said by people like Amos Brown. Real community leaders should recognize the incredible damage being done by these attacks, and do whatever they can to get the word out that this behavior will not be tolerated.
The Black community in SF is not massive. People know each other. People know who is committing these crimes, and they're not policing their own. Again- there's no justification here for this. It's urgent, and it needs to be done. The silence right now is deafening, and it's wrecking the community's credibility.
The Anne Hsu situation may actually be a casualty of this refusal to address the violence. Your kids are out committing vicious crimes and stats recently came out that show 63% of Black students are habitually truant. Responsible parents do not let their children habitually miss school. It's not HUD's fault. It's not a property realtor that won't sell a home to a Black family. It's theirs. Anne was doing nothing but stating the obvious.
But no community leader or pundit has even addressed the truancy issue. What they do instead is concentrate on shooting the messenger. No issue with Anne Collins, no problem whatsoever when Shamman behaves the way that he does. And ultimately, hypocrisy destroys credibility. So I'm not remotely alone in thinking that the next time Black community leaders scream racism, I'll take it with a grain of salt.
Over history, SF's Black community has indeed endured real hardship and gross discrimination. But there's little recognition done as to the massive steps that have been taken to rectify this. Nearly every city procedure and action is done with the Black community in mind. Black students are 6% of SFUSD's student body (when they show up), and yet the entire curriculum is consumed with the welfare of this group, to the point that we're willing to destroy merit-based education.
And are these steps as they're taken even making a difference? Is it really worth us adjusting behavior expectations and the curriculum in schools and scholarship offerings if 63% don't show up? Is criminal justice reform worth it if these violent attacks continue? Are the hiring preferences doing any good?
Harsh points to make, I know. But this refusal to take ownership for shortcomings is a major issue.
I agree that the attacks against Asians is nobody's fault but the perpetrators. I agree that parents should do more to take care of their kids.
But you have to be more curious about the why. Why we see the patterns we do. It's very easy to say "you Blacks go fix your problems, it's not our problem!" But we've been saying that for decades, it's not going to do anything. I initially put this in the piece but scrapped it for space, however I can't move to another country and then lecture it's racial minorities about how their situation is their fault. Well I can, but it doesn't accomplish anything.
63% of Black students are habitually truant because most Black people in S.F. are poor. It's the most segregated city for Blacks in California and it's the worst performing school district for Black students. The question I have to ask then is, if you think it's a matter of personal choice, what explains that discrepancy and other districts and communities without these problems? S.F. is clearly unique here and it doesn't make sense to chalk it up to just personal problems.
"Anne was doing nothing but stating the obvious"
That's certainly how a lot of Asians in SF feel, just as Blacks feel that Collins was doing nothing but stating the obvious to Black people. Clearly their opinions are formed by lived experiences. So who's going to do the hardwork of figuring out what those experiences are the way they are?
OK, but is poverty a reason for truancy to happen? SF has the transportation programs to get kids to school free of charge, fairly efficiently. And there are poor people all over the world that don't have issues to this level. So I truly do not know what the answer is as to why SF is different here. But here's a wild stab at it.
The city certainly practices a brutal form of capitalism sometimes. But it's also unique in the extent that it bends over backwards to accommodate Black student needs. Whether its school zoning or curriculum standards, extremely important policies are dictated largely by the needs of the 6% of Black students. Here's a fairly common complaint that I hear: thanks to concerns over discrepancies in punishments, schools are letting Black students get away with bad behavior. That's not healthy for anyone. When you add all of this up, then mix it with a legal system under Chesa that refused to punish criminal behavior, you see a permissiveness that might be creating an unhealthy lack of standards and in turn expectations.
On a side note, I'm from Oakland like you. And maybe I'm thinking wishfully about my hometown (it happens), but I just don't see this playing out the same way in Oakland. For one thing, there's a violence prevention infrastructure consisting of police and community members that spring into action. But secondly, if someone in the community stood up and said that lack of home support was hindering school progress, I feel like the more prominent voices would use that as a cue to actually try and solve. It might not succeed, but there would not be the same political points scoring as what happens in SF.
Thank you for having the courage to write this long needed article. Why do crimes against Blacks, especially hate crimes, not get any reporting? The press pursues a deliberate political strategy to drive a wedge between Black and Asian communities.
There are four times as many hate crimes against Asians last year but there are 7 times as many Asians, so about twice as many for Blacks. In past years, there were even fewer hates crimes against Asians so about 1/8th per capita.
Most hate crimes against all races are perpetuated by White people but you would never know this watching the news, which shows the same Asian elder being kicked by a Black person over and over and over.
to the extent that's true of the statistics, it's because nobody categorizes targeted racial violence against white people as a hate crime. e.g. no stats reflect that reports targeted violence by black ppl in oakland against white and asian people as hate crimes, even though it is racially motivated violence.
"Hate crime" has a legal definition, it's not whatever your feelings tell you it must be. What evidence do you have that "no stats reflect" racially motivated violence as hate crimes? In fact, most if not all reported hate crimes are exactly that. What do you think reported hate crimes are?
And why do you believe that racially targeted violence against Blacks is more likely to be reported than racially targeted violence against other ethnic groups? If anything, I would suspect that the bias goes the other way, given how often people in different ethnic groups are likely to report other crimes.
I assumed you were talking about racially-motivated violence generally, not the 422.6 vague hook that requires "interference with a right".
A group's propensity to report crimes aligns more with their immigration status and language ability than anything else, so asian and latino groups are the least likely to reach out to the authorities, at least in my experience with doing pro bono asylum cases for SE asian, eritrean, and central american asylum cases and encountering those communities in the bay and SF.
That is borne out for Oakland - tho the last data i can find is 2013, will poke around for more recent data - https://www.sfgate.com/file/762/762-2013%20Victim%20and%20Suspect%20Race3.pdf where 8000/9000 of robbery suspects/arrestees were black but only 1075/6515 robbery victims were black. that's in contrast to murder and assault where both victims and suspects where predominantly black. given the current and historical geographic segregation in oakland, that means lots of criminals are going out of their way to target asian and white people for violent crime.
most prosecutors won't bother with a 422.6 charge in those instances, but i don't know how you could argue those disparities don't show racial motivation.
I believe it is because robbers are mostly rational and target people who they believe are most likely to have money or other valuables. If you mean that it is racist to target Whites and Asians because they are more likely to have money, then I think you are twisting the word "racist" to mean something that I don't think that it means.
If racial animus were the primary motivation for violent crimes then we would see the same disparity in assault victims that we see for robbery.
Thanks for the good data on crime suspects and victims. I really appreciate that kind of rigor of thinking. Careful examination leads me to believe that Hispanics are disproportionately being targeted. Is that what you see as well?
I'd like to see these stats broken down. It smells to similar to the "but crime is down i n SF" narrative that Chesa's people used to yell until even they realized how absurd that sounded.
“You cannot reason a person out of a position he did not reason himself into in the first place.”
You claim about crime is BS, but I won't bother you with facts. You feel a way so it must be true. You dismiss evidence that does not support your biases but cannot come up with any that supports your claims.
The fact is that both violent and property crimes in San Francisco were lower in 2021 than they were in 2019 and most types of crime were down as well.
Thank you for writing this article. As a product of San Francisco public and private schools and San Francisco college education, I want to say we need more than luck to obtain equality. I am a generational Black San Franciscan (at one time 4 generations in this city). Most of the wealth that was accumulated by both sides of my family coming out of WWII was lost through various systematic pressures. I often think I was lucky to not get swept up into one of those systems as many of my family members or peers. Black ppl have been been pointing out the dismal education system in this city since as long as I can remember. When we talk about digital and tech literacy the access is a joke for a place that claims "the tech capital of the world."
This article is v important to actual solutions to equality and equity. And I can't believe anyone is arguing against literacy. It's the low hanging fruit. Again thank you. I vote for $$ for literacy programs.
I hope I've been clear enough that there's never any need or justification to assault or belittle Asians. But someone's got to step up and say something, right? Not only against the other community but my own. Now that's where it gets hard. I'm showing a willingness to critique, explain and open the forum up on this issue without judgements.
To be clear I'm not saying its Asian people's jobs to end racism by whites, but what I'm saying is that just as the policies which made upwards mobility possible for Asian Americans to achieve at the expense of Black people, so too should folks in the Asian community not resist efforts to help Black people. I'm not saying Asians need to sacrifice and get on their knees, but simply understand why we put subsidized housing in those high opportunity neighborhoods or push for school diversity. Because in doing so we solve the racialized poverty problem which stops attacks on Asians in the long run.
As I said on Twitter, don't mean to undermine anything you're saying here. But I think that the history of state-sponsored discrimination against Chinese-Americans in California should probably be more prominent here. Not to equate it to the experience of Black people. But it's not exactly a modest amount of discrimination.
The legacy of anti-Chinese and anti-Japanese discrimination is quite prominent in California and affects those Asian Americans whose ancestry traces back to that time but as I hinted at the vast majority of Asian immigrants to the U.S. came after the 1965 immigration act. They certainly dealt with xenophobia and racism but I don't know how relevant Sinophobia in old California is to most Chinese Americans today.
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/04/29/key-facts-about-asian-americans/
Modest amount? Oh, I'd say it absolutely compares to the discrimination that Blacks have endured in CA. When you trace this from the beginning of the state's development, when the immigrants were brought to create the railroad, on through today's violence, it never stops. And Asians in general, with the internment camps? We're absolutely not recognizing this.
I'm all for recognizing and discussing Sinophobia but as I noted in the piece the majority of Asian immigrants came after 1965 immigration act. 57% of all Asian Americans were born outside the U.S. and obviously a plethora are second and third generation. That compares with about 10% of Black people (i.e. the African immigrants who perform well as I mentioned). I do think we discuss Japanese American interment more that Sinophobia, Chinatown riots and Yellow Peril although unlike slavery and Jim Crow, interment was both officially apologized for and given a meager reparation. And as the documentary I linked above illustrates, in San Francisco particularly, Asian households were allowed into white neighborhoods like the Sunset more easily than Black ones. It doesn't invalidate Asian bigotry or the long legacy of anti-Asian laws and policies in California, rather racism is not experienced the same way and the point is to understand these perspectives.
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/04/29/key-facts-about-asian-americans/
Thank you for writing such a thoughtful and nuanced piece that goes deep into how intensely local these issues are. I moved to the US as an adult and live in a majority Black city that was very segregated (Baltimore) before moving to the Bay Area, and I've learned over the years how different issues are in each local community and how many layers exist that need to be peeled back to understand the dynamics at play.
This was an excellent article Darrell. I've been waiting for this since you said that it was coming, and it did not disappoint. You're able to broach subjects and open a discourse in a way that's really lacking for us in the Bay, and this is really needed.
But this issue is a tip of an iceberg that is simply not being discussed. That there is an incredible lack of self awareness and refusal to take ownership that Black community leaders are committing. First off, there is no justifying the violence, period. There is absolutely no justification for why these attacks are happening on a nearly daily basis. And outside of the mayor and DA Jenkins, there has been zero said by people like Amos Brown. Real community leaders should recognize the incredible damage being done by these attacks, and do whatever they can to get the word out that this behavior will not be tolerated.
The Black community in SF is not massive. People know each other. People know who is committing these crimes, and they're not policing their own. Again- there's no justification here for this. It's urgent, and it needs to be done. The silence right now is deafening, and it's wrecking the community's credibility.
The Anne Hsu situation may actually be a casualty of this refusal to address the violence. Your kids are out committing vicious crimes and stats recently came out that show 63% of Black students are habitually truant. Responsible parents do not let their children habitually miss school. It's not HUD's fault. It's not a property realtor that won't sell a home to a Black family. It's theirs. Anne was doing nothing but stating the obvious.
But no community leader or pundit has even addressed the truancy issue. What they do instead is concentrate on shooting the messenger. No issue with Anne Collins, no problem whatsoever when Shamman behaves the way that he does. And ultimately, hypocrisy destroys credibility. So I'm not remotely alone in thinking that the next time Black community leaders scream racism, I'll take it with a grain of salt.
Over history, SF's Black community has indeed endured real hardship and gross discrimination. But there's little recognition done as to the massive steps that have been taken to rectify this. Nearly every city procedure and action is done with the Black community in mind. Black students are 6% of SFUSD's student body (when they show up), and yet the entire curriculum is consumed with the welfare of this group, to the point that we're willing to destroy merit-based education.
And are these steps as they're taken even making a difference? Is it really worth us adjusting behavior expectations and the curriculum in schools and scholarship offerings if 63% don't show up? Is criminal justice reform worth it if these violent attacks continue? Are the hiring preferences doing any good?
Harsh points to make, I know. But this refusal to take ownership for shortcomings is a major issue.
I agree that the attacks against Asians is nobody's fault but the perpetrators. I agree that parents should do more to take care of their kids.
But you have to be more curious about the why. Why we see the patterns we do. It's very easy to say "you Blacks go fix your problems, it's not our problem!" But we've been saying that for decades, it's not going to do anything. I initially put this in the piece but scrapped it for space, however I can't move to another country and then lecture it's racial minorities about how their situation is their fault. Well I can, but it doesn't accomplish anything.
63% of Black students are habitually truant because most Black people in S.F. are poor. It's the most segregated city for Blacks in California and it's the worst performing school district for Black students. The question I have to ask then is, if you think it's a matter of personal choice, what explains that discrepancy and other districts and communities without these problems? S.F. is clearly unique here and it doesn't make sense to chalk it up to just personal problems.
"Anne was doing nothing but stating the obvious"
That's certainly how a lot of Asians in SF feel, just as Blacks feel that Collins was doing nothing but stating the obvious to Black people. Clearly their opinions are formed by lived experiences. So who's going to do the hardwork of figuring out what those experiences are the way they are?
OK, but is poverty a reason for truancy to happen? SF has the transportation programs to get kids to school free of charge, fairly efficiently. And there are poor people all over the world that don't have issues to this level. So I truly do not know what the answer is as to why SF is different here. But here's a wild stab at it.
The city certainly practices a brutal form of capitalism sometimes. But it's also unique in the extent that it bends over backwards to accommodate Black student needs. Whether its school zoning or curriculum standards, extremely important policies are dictated largely by the needs of the 6% of Black students. Here's a fairly common complaint that I hear: thanks to concerns over discrepancies in punishments, schools are letting Black students get away with bad behavior. That's not healthy for anyone. When you add all of this up, then mix it with a legal system under Chesa that refused to punish criminal behavior, you see a permissiveness that might be creating an unhealthy lack of standards and in turn expectations.
On a side note, I'm from Oakland like you. And maybe I'm thinking wishfully about my hometown (it happens), but I just don't see this playing out the same way in Oakland. For one thing, there's a violence prevention infrastructure consisting of police and community members that spring into action. But secondly, if someone in the community stood up and said that lack of home support was hindering school progress, I feel like the more prominent voices would use that as a cue to actually try and solve. It might not succeed, but there would not be the same political points scoring as what happens in SF.
Thank you for having the courage to write this long needed article. Why do crimes against Blacks, especially hate crimes, not get any reporting? The press pursues a deliberate political strategy to drive a wedge between Black and Asian communities.
That's because those crimes don't happen. And if they do the media throws a full on nervous breakdown.
https://www.ebar.com/story.php?316883
"The attorney general noted that the state's Black community is the most heavily impacted but numbers were up for many other groups."
"Although, as was noted earlier, Black Californians have had to deal consistently with the largest numbers of bias crimes over the years."
In San Francisco:
https://www.ebar.com/story.php?312445
There are four times as many hate crimes against Asians last year but there are 7 times as many Asians, so about twice as many for Blacks. In past years, there were even fewer hates crimes against Asians so about 1/8th per capita.
Most hate crimes against all races are perpetuated by White people but you would never know this watching the news, which shows the same Asian elder being kicked by a Black person over and over and over.
to the extent that's true of the statistics, it's because nobody categorizes targeted racial violence against white people as a hate crime. e.g. no stats reflect that reports targeted violence by black ppl in oakland against white and asian people as hate crimes, even though it is racially motivated violence.
"Hate crime" has a legal definition, it's not whatever your feelings tell you it must be. What evidence do you have that "no stats reflect" racially motivated violence as hate crimes? In fact, most if not all reported hate crimes are exactly that. What do you think reported hate crimes are?
And why do you believe that racially targeted violence against Blacks is more likely to be reported than racially targeted violence against other ethnic groups? If anything, I would suspect that the bias goes the other way, given how often people in different ethnic groups are likely to report other crimes.
Sorry, you're completely correct about the definition of "hate crime" under 422.6.
The absolute number of hate crimes under 422.6 are pretty low, only 600 referred for prosecution last year and 60% conviction rate on those - https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/attachments/press-docs/Hate%20Crime%20In%20CA%202021%20FINAL.pdf
I assumed you were talking about racially-motivated violence generally, not the 422.6 vague hook that requires "interference with a right".
A group's propensity to report crimes aligns more with their immigration status and language ability than anything else, so asian and latino groups are the least likely to reach out to the authorities, at least in my experience with doing pro bono asylum cases for SE asian, eritrean, and central american asylum cases and encountering those communities in the bay and SF.
That is borne out for Oakland - tho the last data i can find is 2013, will poke around for more recent data - https://www.sfgate.com/file/762/762-2013%20Victim%20and%20Suspect%20Race3.pdf where 8000/9000 of robbery suspects/arrestees were black but only 1075/6515 robbery victims were black. that's in contrast to murder and assault where both victims and suspects where predominantly black. given the current and historical geographic segregation in oakland, that means lots of criminals are going out of their way to target asian and white people for violent crime.
most prosecutors won't bother with a 422.6 charge in those instances, but i don't know how you could argue those disparities don't show racial motivation.
I believe it is because robbers are mostly rational and target people who they believe are most likely to have money or other valuables. If you mean that it is racist to target Whites and Asians because they are more likely to have money, then I think you are twisting the word "racist" to mean something that I don't think that it means.
https://www.epi.org/blog/racial-disparities-in-income-and-poverty-remain-largely-unchanged-amid-strong-income-growth-in-2019/
If racial animus were the primary motivation for violent crimes then we would see the same disparity in assault victims that we see for robbery.
Thanks for the good data on crime suspects and victims. I really appreciate that kind of rigor of thinking. Careful examination leads me to believe that Hispanics are disproportionately being targeted. Is that what you see as well?
I'd like to see these stats broken down. It smells to similar to the "but crime is down i n SF" narrative that Chesa's people used to yell until even they realized how absurd that sounded.
“You cannot reason a person out of a position he did not reason himself into in the first place.”
You claim about crime is BS, but I won't bother you with facts. You feel a way so it must be true. You dismiss evidence that does not support your biases but cannot come up with any that supports your claims.
The fact is that both violent and property crimes in San Francisco were lower in 2021 than they were in 2019 and most types of crime were down as well.
I read this when you first published it. Just wanted to say thanks for writing it and providing some broad perspective.
Thank you for writing this article. As a product of San Francisco public and private schools and San Francisco college education, I want to say we need more than luck to obtain equality. I am a generational Black San Franciscan (at one time 4 generations in this city). Most of the wealth that was accumulated by both sides of my family coming out of WWII was lost through various systematic pressures. I often think I was lucky to not get swept up into one of those systems as many of my family members or peers. Black ppl have been been pointing out the dismal education system in this city since as long as I can remember. When we talk about digital and tech literacy the access is a joke for a place that claims "the tech capital of the world."
This article is v important to actual solutions to equality and equity. And I can't believe anyone is arguing against literacy. It's the low hanging fruit. Again thank you. I vote for $$ for literacy programs.
I hope I've been clear enough that there's never any need or justification to assault or belittle Asians. But someone's got to step up and say something, right? Not only against the other community but my own. Now that's where it gets hard. I'm showing a willingness to critique, explain and open the forum up on this issue without judgements.
To be clear I'm not saying its Asian people's jobs to end racism by whites, but what I'm saying is that just as the policies which made upwards mobility possible for Asian Americans to achieve at the expense of Black people, so too should folks in the Asian community not resist efforts to help Black people. I'm not saying Asians need to sacrifice and get on their knees, but simply understand why we put subsidized housing in those high opportunity neighborhoods or push for school diversity. Because in doing so we solve the racialized poverty problem which stops attacks on Asians in the long run.
Huh, thats a weird block. Anyways, unblocking. Thanks for reading. Dunno why i wouldve blocked you. Mightve been impulsive.