Good to see such an open discussion, but not sure this speaks to everyone's perspective. I married into an Asian family who are now in NYC, with an older generation grew up in the Bay area.
It's the perspective of this older generation that I don't think sits so cleanly in your post. They grew up when there were no rich tech Asians, and indeed no tech at all.
They went to school with racism piled high, plenty from white people, but even then much worse from blacks. What they went through were not high profile crimes in the media, they generally weren't reported crimes at all. Now they are retired and quietly quite racist against blacks. I'm very sure they'd oppose these developments if they were still in the area.
You talk about the Asian community establishing itself a support network-- businesses, tutoring, etc. These established communities likely have people with the same experiences growing up.
Everyone in the extended Asian family (dozens), whether I'd consider them racist or not, has plenty of stories of having random black people treat them in a racist fashion, whether in school or afterwards in public. While the non-racist members attribute this to bad individuals and the racists to a bad race, the experience is common... It's not just the media portrayals, which certainly do inflame the issue, there's real lived experiences of bigotry driving all of it.
Just for example, a week and a half ago we happened to be in a Caribbean and black neighborhood and picked up some food at a take out place. Some old asshole chose to narrate our entire trip inside the store, repeating what we ordered, telling us and staff to hurry up and other random garbage. The store was packed but this guy is just going off on the few Asians. We ignored him, it was just an annoyance from some old crank. To the older generation it's why they'd never go to those neighborhoods and we shouldn't either, blah blah.
There's some equivocation in the post about the very real oppression felt by blacks in society, and racist attacks endured by Asian victims. On a personal level I don't think it compares. An attack suffered can have lifelong medical consequences, and it gets burned in at an animal level. The attack is a concrete easy to fetch memory with a face attached. When this wave of Asian immigrants moved in, poor and often owning nothing, how can black oppression instantly be so connected to an Asian face or Asian experience? Sure, those growing up now have a different perspective--successful Asians that could be seen as owning the oppressive system--but if you really want to speak to entrenched older Asian community members, they lived with all this racism before they owned anything.
The post concludes saying the problems will and must persist until established Asians heal the racial opportunity problems caused by whites. Well, maybe that's true, but as a parent I'm gonna rely on plan b and expect to explain to my daughters after they see and experience harassment, that they shouldn't listen to their grandparents... maybe I will remind them that legal oppression of blacks only ended in the most recent 13, 14, 15% etc. of American history. I really hope I do not.
I just don't find this sort of argument persuasive to some old racist Asians who lived through decades of racism and became privately racist. That the same white economic system that hated them, that they succeeded in spite of, is their responsibility to fix.
Granted I live in a different city, but I'm also skeptical about the idea of community elder outreach really solving issues. Should we have asked our old racist parents to phone up some black church or something after we got harassed in the store? It just doesn't seem real to me. If there's really some black community leaders in SF that could choose to stop anti Asian racism, well it would be in everyone's best interest if they would just do it unilaterally.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Good to see such an open discussion, but not sure this speaks to everyone's perspective. I married into an Asian family who are now in NYC, with an older generation grew up in the Bay area.
It's the perspective of this older generation that I don't think sits so cleanly in your post. They grew up when there were no rich tech Asians, and indeed no tech at all.
They went to school with racism piled high, plenty from white people, but even then much worse from blacks. What they went through were not high profile crimes in the media, they generally weren't reported crimes at all. Now they are retired and quietly quite racist against blacks. I'm very sure they'd oppose these developments if they were still in the area.
You talk about the Asian community establishing itself a support network-- businesses, tutoring, etc. These established communities likely have people with the same experiences growing up.
Everyone in the extended Asian family (dozens), whether I'd consider them racist or not, has plenty of stories of having random black people treat them in a racist fashion, whether in school or afterwards in public. While the non-racist members attribute this to bad individuals and the racists to a bad race, the experience is common... It's not just the media portrayals, which certainly do inflame the issue, there's real lived experiences of bigotry driving all of it.
Just for example, a week and a half ago we happened to be in a Caribbean and black neighborhood and picked up some food at a take out place. Some old asshole chose to narrate our entire trip inside the store, repeating what we ordered, telling us and staff to hurry up and other random garbage. The store was packed but this guy is just going off on the few Asians. We ignored him, it was just an annoyance from some old crank. To the older generation it's why they'd never go to those neighborhoods and we shouldn't either, blah blah.
There's some equivocation in the post about the very real oppression felt by blacks in society, and racist attacks endured by Asian victims. On a personal level I don't think it compares. An attack suffered can have lifelong medical consequences, and it gets burned in at an animal level. The attack is a concrete easy to fetch memory with a face attached. When this wave of Asian immigrants moved in, poor and often owning nothing, how can black oppression instantly be so connected to an Asian face or Asian experience? Sure, those growing up now have a different perspective--successful Asians that could be seen as owning the oppressive system--but if you really want to speak to entrenched older Asian community members, they lived with all this racism before they owned anything.
The post concludes saying the problems will and must persist until established Asians heal the racial opportunity problems caused by whites. Well, maybe that's true, but as a parent I'm gonna rely on plan b and expect to explain to my daughters after they see and experience harassment, that they shouldn't listen to their grandparents... maybe I will remind them that legal oppression of blacks only ended in the most recent 13, 14, 15% etc. of American history. I really hope I do not.
I just don't find this sort of argument persuasive to some old racist Asians who lived through decades of racism and became privately racist. That the same white economic system that hated them, that they succeeded in spite of, is their responsibility to fix.
Granted I live in a different city, but I'm also skeptical about the idea of community elder outreach really solving issues. Should we have asked our old racist parents to phone up some black church or something after we got harassed in the store? It just doesn't seem real to me. If there's really some black community leaders in SF that could choose to stop anti Asian racism, well it would be in everyone's best interest if they would just do it unilaterally.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.