A terrifying gang assault on Sydney train passengers has left two international students seriously injured and caused a media storm in China.
The alleged robbery, including racist taunts, drew a social media pledge from former foreign affairs minister Kevin Rudd and led to emergency talks at Sydney's Chinese consulate general.
Police said six people, aged 14 to 18, robbed passengers on a train between Central and Rockdale about 12.30am yesterday
Officers were called to Rockdale station about 15 minutes later, where they arrested three men, two aged 18 and one 19, a 14-year-old boy and two girls, aged 16 and 17.
They were all charged with a number of robbery and assault offences.
Yesterday's attack came just days after two safety warnings from the Chinese embassy in Canberra for citizens travelling in Australia. Many Chinese students studying in Australia have expressed their fear over growing violence directed against them.
Last year, Ming Qu and Ying Wu set off on a well-trod path for success-seeking Chinese. They left their native country, enrolled at a prestigious American university and plowed toward degrees that could ensure them respect — and a better future — when they returned home.
The USC graduate students, focused intently on their electrical engineering program, hunkered down in a neighborhood just west of campus. It was quieter, a better atmosphere for studying, residents said. But it was also widely considered less safe.
That's where, in Wednesday's wee hours, Qu and Wu's immigrant tale ended tragically: with the students shot to death, a gunman on the lam and the university's Chinese community in mourning.
Chinese students comprise about one-third of USC's 7,200 international students, a number that has risen in recent years as the college wooed scholars from abroad. So many Chinese residents have flocked to U.S. colleges in recent years that the deaths of Qu and Wu made headlines in Beijing.
The latest Marion Barry controversy burned bright Thursday, but it’s now mostly burnt out.
In case you missed it: Barry (D-Ward 8) made comments late Tuesday at his primary night victory party suggesting that the Asian-American owners of businesses in his ward run “dirty shops” that “ought to go.” After the comments were reported late Wednesday, the rebuke was swift, and by Thursday evening, Barry had tendered an apology of sorts.
But the episode — which gave new voice to decades-old tensions between the residents of largely black inner city neighborhoods and the many Asian owners of the businesses that serve them — deserves a coda.
I’m happy to give some space here to Mark L. Keam, a Democrat who represents a portion of Fairfax County in the Virginia House of Delegates. He’s the first Korean-American and the first Asian-born immigrant elected to serve in that body, and he has valuable experience bridging the longstanding divide between Asian businesses and their black customers.
WHEN she was a philosophy student at Harvard College eight years ago, Liane Young never thought twice about all the interracial couples who flitted across campus, arm and arm, hand in hand. Most of her Asian friends had white boyfriends or girlfriends. In her social circles, it was simply the way of the world.
But today, the majority of Ms. Young’s Asian-American friends on Facebook have Asian-American husbands or wives. And Ms. Young, a Boston-born granddaughter of Chinese immigrants, is married to a Harvard medical student who loves skiing and the Pittsburgh Steelers and just happens to have been born in Fujian Province in China.
Ms. Young said she hadn’t been searching for a boyfriend with an Asian background. They met by chance at a nightclub in Boston, and she is delighted by how completely right it feels. They have taken lessons together in Cantonese (which she speaks) and Mandarin (which he speaks), and they hope to pass along those languages when they have children someday.
LOST YEARS is an epic documentary mini-series touching on the largest exodus in humankind, covering over 150 years of history of the Chinese in Canada and abroad.
An epoch that delivers an important message, namely, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." (Spanish philosopher, George Santayana (1863-1952), in Reason in Common Sense, The Life of Reason.)
We witness how man's inhumanity to man continually plays out in world history and affairs, in part through the advances of new media and the vastness of our global village.
The journey in Lost Years begins in old China in 1910 and concludes with the movement to embrace redress as a concept of social justice in the modern world of Canada, the United States, New Zealand and Australia, exactly one century later.
Upcoming Community/Non-Profit Screenings
CBC TV National Telecast (PREMIERE)
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2012
Episode 1 (of 2) - The Loh Wah Kiu - Absolutely Canadian
published by RelationshipsAsArt on Sun, 01/15/2012 - 22:00
Below are two voicemails a tall blonde and blue eyed white girl left on my phone. She was a model for a very famous clothing line that begins with the letter “H” with a very recognizable logo, especially on their t-shirts. Their advertisements often feature female models in bikinis or very revealing t-shirts, but in a classy way.
.
After listening to the voicemails a friend of mine said she sounds “crazy and desperate”. I agreed; the voicemails were indeed very unbecoming of a model for a famous clothing line. However, she is not crazy and desperate in the way we would normally envision women fitting that description to be. In public and social situations she is very calm and very well put together. She’s even rather intelligent. Men throw themselves at her, try to hit on her, buy her expensive gifts and pay for her meals.
White men hate women. All women, Black, Yellow, Brown, Red, White. White men aren’t interested in sex, they are addicted to power. Sex is a power trip for the white man. He needs the woman to be hurt, humiliated, broken. He feeds off female suffering. That is why white men have went so batshit insane over the modest gains of white feminism. That is why he used to have Jungle Fever for Sally Helms, but now finds Black women manly and unfeminine.
The one race of women, that white men supposedly promotes feminism for is Asian women. What does feminism mean for Asian women? Obeying and serving her white colonial masters. That is a feminism the white man can get behind.
Or can he?
Lets see how a white man reacts to a genuine Asian feminist, and to her scholarly work exploring WM/AF relationships, here are excerpts from a WM 1-star review-
“I anticipated reading this book with pleasure. It covers an interesting and important topic.
In western culture, many social animals like to associate drinking to social skill and ability, more particulary in males who measure theier masculinities with one's alcoholic tolerance ie. holding down their drink.
With this in mind, many Asians have long been on the subjected to stereotypes and made fun of when they preduce a flush reaction to their alcoholic drink.
These stereotypes can easily be debunked, as people become more clued in with a fact that the assumption is not a race matter. To imply asians are weak simply because they turn red is nothing more than ignorance and social racism, many of us do not flush.
Here is the story:
New Shanghai-based research reverses the stereotypical Western notion that Chinese people cannot hold their liquor – at least, when it comes to pounding back grain-based alcohols like baijiu.
Asian Americans endure far more bullying at US schools than members of other ethnic groups, with teenagers of the community three times as likely to face taunts on the Internet, new data shows.
Policymakers see a range of reasons for the harassment, including language barriers faced by some Asian American students and a spike in racial abuse following the September 11, 2001 attacks against children perceived as Muslim.
“This data is absolutely unacceptable and it must change. Our children have to be able to go to school free of fear,” US Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Friday during a forum at the Center for American Progress think-tank.
The research, to be released on Saturday, found that 54 percent of Asian American teenagers said they were bullied in the classroom, sharply above the 31.3 percent of whites who reported being picked on.
As Yao makes exits from the American Basketball association, most of us would have already seen some of the
signs surrounding his injuries, though most of us would have hoped he would return to see him take the Rockets to the finals.
It was unfortunately that he had to end his career and move on to something else. Nonetheless, he has already made history.
"The NBA can survive without Yao Ming, the Houston Rockets can survive without Yao Ming, but we cannot survive without Yao Ming," read a comment on a Chinese Twitter-like tribute page that received 1.5 million entries within hours."
On July 29, 2011, Asia Pacific Arts online magazine is hosting “A Celebration of Asian American Soul” at the Far Bar Lounge in Little Tokyo -- featuring performances by special guest singer Judith Hill (from Michael Jackson’s This is It), and singer/songwriter Dawen. DJ O-Dub will be spinning sets around the musical acts.
The Asia Pacific Arts fundraiser is co-hosted by InVenture, a non-profit organization that supports women entrepreneurs in developing countries to help them lift their communities out of poverty.
This will be a celebration of the spirit of creation and entrepreneurship, from Asia to the United States. By harnessing the soul of those whose music touches the hearts of their audiences -- Judith Hill with her sultry blues and Dawen with his awakening jams -- both organizations hope to inspire the community to empower themselves and support each other.
Not so long ago, the phrase “New York’s Chinatown” meant one thing: a district in Lower Manhattan near Canal Street. Now it could refer to as many as six heavily Chinese enclaves.
Koreatown was well known as a commercial zone in Midtown Manhattan, but now parts of Flushing, Queens, where tens of thousands of Koreans have moved, feel like suburban Seoul. The city has spawned neighborhoods with nicknames like Little Bangladesh, Little Pakistan, Little Manila and Little Tokyo.
Asians, a group more commonly associated with the West Coast, are surging in New York, where they have long been eclipsed in the city’s kaleidoscopic racial and ethnic mix. For the first time, according to census figures released in the spring, their numbers have topped one million — nearly 1 in 8 New Yorkers — which is more than the Asian population in the cities of San Francisco and Los Angeles combined.
STRENGTHEN AND UNITE COMMUNITIES WITH CIVICS EDUCATION AND ENGLISH DEVELOPMENT (SUCCEED) ACT
Washington, D.C. – The Asian American Center for Advancing Justice commends U.S. Representative Mike Honda (D-Ca) for reintroducing the Strengthen and Unite Communities with Civics Education and English Development (SUCCEED) Act. The bill would provide much-needed assistance to populations that are limited English proficient (LEP), allowing these vulnerable community members to learn English, integrate more quickly and fully into American society and maximize their social and economic contributions to our society.
“English language acquisition resources are hugely needed,” said Karen K. Narasaki, president and executive director of AAJC. “More than 12% of Americans, over 37 million, in our country are foreign born, and that close to 55 million Americans speak a language other than English at home.”
LOS ANGELES, CA -- The Asian Pacific American Legal Center, a member of Asian American Center for Advancing Justice, welcomes long-time public interest attorney Doreena Wong as the project director for APALC's Health Access Project
Wong, a long-time civil rights lawyer and expert on health policy and language access issues, spent the prior 11 years as a senior staff attorney at the National Health Law Program (NHeLP), which is a national public interest law firm focused on health care issues. Wong is also a well-known social justice advocate who has helped to found several Asian/Pacific Islander lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights group, including API Equality-LA.
She has also worked at other notable civil rights and public interest organizations, including the Asian Law Caucus in San Francisco, the ACLU of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, the National Women's Law Center in Washington, D.C. and a Los Angeles civil rights firm specializing in enforcement of consent decrees in race discrimination cases.
However the rebellion in Libya began, it was both inevitable and entirely predictable that it would quickly become an opening for imperialist intervention and counterrevolution in the oil-rich North African country.
The fact that the “rebellion” received sympathetic, screaming headlines, ferociously hostile to the government of Moammar Gadhafi from the very beginning, should have been sufficient to put the entire anti-imperialist movement on guard. The boiler-plate propaganda about “massacres,” without the slightest evidence, was repeated as if it were the gospel truth. That should have been further evidence of the plans for “great power” intervention (“great” in their oppression, as Vladimir Lenin pointed out long ago).
As white Americans move into the minority, some are claiming they're the ones now subject to racial oppression. Do they have a case?
For a small, nerdy cluster of folk -- social science and cultural studies wonks, market researchers, armchair political pundits -- this month is the Super Bowl, Oscars and Olympics rolled into one. That's because the next few weeks will see the gradual, yet grand unveiling of data from the 2010 U.S. Census, an event literally 10 years in the making.
LOS ANGELES, CA– The California Association of Human Relations Organizations (CAHRO) will present its 2011 CAHRO Leadership Award to Stewart Kwoh, the president and executive director of the Asian Pacific American Legal Center (APALC), a member of Asian American Center for Advancing Justice.
Kwoh, a nationally-recognized civil rights advocate who has received dozens of awards, including a MacArthur ‘Genius’ Grant, will be honored during CAHRO’s statewide training conference, “California: The State of Human Relations” at The California Endowment’s Center for Health Communities on Feb. 7. More than 100 human relations and civil rights leaders from governmental and community-based entities statewide are expected to attend the conference.
“I am honored to receive the CAHRO Leadership Award and believe deeply in CAHRO's mission and values,’’ Kwoh said. “Collaboration and coalition-building are key to effective and lasting social change in our communities.”
Q & A with Sandeep Roy. Descartes famously said, “I think therefore I am.” But in America we
might say instead, “I choose, therefore I am.” The holidays are all
about choosing the right present. From a sandwich to Medicare Part D, we
are forever trying to choose the right option. But in a country as
diverse as America, does choice mean the same thing for everyone? Do
Asian Americans choose the same way as Caucasians? Sheena Iyengar is a
professor of business at Columbia University and the author of the book The Art of Choosing. She spoke to Sandip Roy on the radio program New America Now.
You did an experiment in an elementary school in San Francisco of
Asian-American children and Anglo-American children. What was the
impetus of the study?
When I was Ph D student, I was studying
Japanese. So I went to Japan for a couple of years. A strange thing
happened to me on my first night. When I ordered this cup of green tea,
the waiter brought it over and I asked for some sugar. The waiter said
Maclean's article sparked overdue rebellion against powerful voices claiming racial discrimination is not a problem Maclean's magazine has struck a match. Now a firestorm of criticism is headed its way. Canada may never be the same.
On Nov. 25, Victoria city council unanimously adopted a motion, submitted by veteran councillor Charlayne Thornton-Joe, criticizing Maclean's for their article 'Too Asian' in their widely read special university rankings feature edition (Nov. 2010). The motion, unanimously adopted, described the title of the Maclean's article as "offensive and intolerant" and criticized its contents for "propagating a litany of racial stereotypes."
I agree and Thornton-George and the council deserve credit for speaking out against a media giant. Their action demonstrates how far we have come from the bad old days.
A Recap on the past news about "Too Asian" in Maclean's publication that triggered off public anger over it's racist content targeting Asian Canadians in higher education.
CCNC Statement on Dialogue with Maclean’s Monday November 22, 2010
The Chinese Canadian National Council (CCNC) and Chinese Canadian National Council Toronto Chapter (CCNCTO) held a media briefing today to report back on the dialogue with Maclean’s magazine on their article entitled “Too Asian”?
Toronto, ON – The Chinese Canadian National Council (CCNC) and Chinese Canadian National Council Toronto Chapter (CCNCTO) held a media briefing today to report back on the dialogue with Maclean’s magazine on their article entitled “Too Asian”?
CCNC and CCNCTO and a number of community organizations met with Maclean’s on November 12th and again on November 17th for hour each time. Maclean’s had offered to publish a letter from CCNC in a future edition. CCNC and CCNCTO, after consulting with various community organizations responded with a 4 point proposal:
BEIJING - Chinese analysts have refuted criticism that China is not acting responsibly enough to address the recent increase in tensions on the Korean Peninsula.
It is evident that China is actively making diplomatic efforts to ease the tensions and pushing for contacts and talks among relevant parties, they said, adding that these facts should not be ignored.
John McCain, a senior U.S. senator said China "is not behaving as a responsible world power" in dealing with the Korean Peninsula situation.
The U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs and the House Armed Services Committee has called on China to suspend economic and energy assistance to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) to show the DPRK consequences for its "aggression."
China does not control the DPRK, and China's actions are made out of a respect for other sovereign states and humanitarian considerations, said Zhu Feng, professor at Peking University's School of International Studies.
From our work at WTC, we have come to see racism and the internalization of racism as the primary assaults on our love for ourselves and each other. I understand love here as our ability to care for ourselves and each other spiritually, emotionally, physically and intellectually and to do it in a way that does not split us off from ourselves - body from mind, spirit from emotion, individual from community and so forth.
Like most progressive anti-racism trainers, we define racism as having to do with power. Separating it from the human flaws we all share such as prejudice and scapegoating, we see racism as a system of oppression based on race that in this country is perpetrated by white people against people of color.
It involves an unequal distribution of systemic power for people with white-skin privilege in four main areas:
1. the power to make and enforce decisions; 2. access to resources, broadly defined; 3. the ability to set and determine standards for what is considered appropriate behavior; and 4. the ability to define reality.
SAN FRANCISCO, CA - Today, the Asian Pacific American Legal Center (APALC) and the Asian Law Caucus (ALC), members of the Asian American Center for Advancing Justice, applauded the California Supreme Court in upholding California law AB 540 in the case, Martinez v. Regents of the University of California. AB 540 is a state law that allows both documented and undocumented students to attend California's college
s and universities and pay in-state tuition rates.
Last September, APALC and ALC, along with a coalition of nearly 80 Asian Pacific American (APA) civil rights, legal, social service, and community organizations, filed an amicus ("friend of the court") brief with the California Supreme Court, supporting immigrant college students' ability to pay in-state tuition under AB 540. The brief describes how thousands of APA students have been able to afford college under AB 540, how undocumented students would be harmed if AB 540 was eliminated, and how APA youth become undocumented and the challenges they face.
There has been some recent discussion surrounding a racist piece of media that had recently surfaced on the Maclean's website about the increasing number of Asian students in their academic institutions (racist...ahem).
Not only has this article unnecessarily making an issue of race but also implying that Universities and colleges are "too Asian" for their liking, a very racist emitting but also at the same time hideous at a glance.
Although the original article has been edited the original version can be found here "Too Asian" (Thanks to Angry Asian Man's post).
So you might ask should Chinese Canadians be concerned? of course not, because we are not the ones complaining. Obviously all those who are enrolled in higher education is obviously there to study and nothing else.
Last month was exciting in terms of entertainment news. Musicians made Asian American history, San Diego hosted its annual Asian Film Festival, Jon M. Chu’s career took off, Yao Ming returned to the basketball court, and Brenda Song received an award. Let’s get started! Making beautiful music — for the mainstream!
For the week of Oct. 30, members of Far East Movement became the first Asian Americans to hit the top of the Billboard charts. Even more exciting was the fact that the number two spot was held by singer-songwriter Bruno Mars, who is of Filipino and Puerto Rican descent. Far East Movement is made up of Kevin Nishimura “Kev Nish,” James Roh “Prohgress,” Jae Choung “J-Splif,” and Virman Coquia “DJ Virman.” In a New York Daily News story, Oliver Wang, an assistant professor of sociology at California State University-Long Beach, said, “Far East Movement and Bruno Mars didn’t come just out of nowhere. There’s been a slow push to make it happen through social media. It’s finally hit that tipping point.”
Far East Movement, the Los Angeles electro/rap group, reached a notable milestone recently. Not only did its third album, "Free Wired," debut at #24 on the Billboard charts, one of the highest charting debuts by any all-Asian American group, but its latest single, “Like a G6,” is the #1 single in the country (having already crowned digital charts for weeks).
By coincidence, on Oct. 12, 2010, the day "Free Wired" dropped, TV’s "Glee" featured Asian American actors Jenna Ushkowitz (Tina) and Harry Shum Jr. (Mike) joyfully singing and dancing their way through “Sing!” from "A Chorus Line." Three nights earlier, "Glee" star Jane Lynch hosted "Saturday Night Live" with musical guest Bruno Mars, the Filipino-Puerto Rican crooner whose iTunes-topping “Just the Way You Are” was just pushed aside by "Like a G6.”
This confluence seemed to be a long time coming. Prior to FM, the last group of Asian Pacific Islander descent to run the dance floor might have been the Jets, the Tongan-German, Minneapolis-based family band that had a string of dance/R&B hits, including “Curiosity” and “Crush on You.” That was back in 1985.
C.I.V Blog - The following is a letter of complaint we received over the weekend. It reminds us of how racism against the Chinese in North America (especially when at a time so many US politicians are playing the anti-China card in the mid-term election).
I am beginning to think that racism and racial hatred cannot be abolished. I used to think we could. I treat others well, I respect others, and living here in Vancouver, I was confident that here we tend to look past the colour of one’s skin.
Now, I am fighting against racism as I experienced it in Vegas. But fighting racism once you experience it so blatantly is more difficult since your sense of objectivism and your ability to identify what is right and wrong and your ability to move past bad experiences become very very limited.
As technology advances and the world becomes smaller, we are becoming as a nation, increasingly sophisticated and diverse. In this new global landscape, few understand this international perspective as much as Schema Magazine. As one of Canada’s premiere sources for “ethnic cool,” Schema has been making waves with its coverage of pop culture news, feature interviews, and perspectives that speak to the minds of the new multicultural generation of Canadians. With its popular in-depth feature series, “But Where Are You Really From?” Schema asked readers to describe their experiences defining their identities. Now, Schema seeks to probe further into the quest for cultural definition, by hosting Balikbayan, Schema’s first-ever travel writing contest!
In partnership with Dot Asia, Schema invites its Canadian readers to answer this thought-provoking question:
“As a second or third generation Canadian, how has international travel to your country of cultural origin changed your worldview?”
CSU Fullerton - Eleven students and their professor spent the past year engaged in a community project that has resulted in heightened awareness of sexual and reproductive health issues in the Asian American and Pacific Islander communities in Orange County.
Through a $9,000 grant from the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum, Tu-Uyen N. Nguyen, assistant professor of Asian American studies, conducted a year-long service-learning course that produced surveys and delivered results in the form of health education campaigns.
“Prior to taking the class, I had little awareness of reproductive health issues that Asian American and Pacific Islander women face,” said Juliane Nguyen, a senior health science and Asian American studies major, who is continuing work on the project. “I didn’t know what to expect from this class at first, but I was very interested about learning how many factors affect health. I learned about reproductive justice and how women are still fighting to have sovereignty over their sexuality, gender and reproduction.”
Here is some interesting news that was passed to me recently.
to my surprise this article was on the Wallstreet Journal website, wallstreet is probably the heart of Corporate America and it would probably be the last place that cares about the dignity of the Chinese people; let alone expose any political propaganda on anti-China campaigns.
But if you want an example of classic American xenophobia, racial profiling and even the "Yellow peril" it is all in this commercial.
Last year, Ming Qu and Ying Wu set off on a well-trod path for success-seeking Chinese. They left their native country, enrolled at a prestigious American university and plowed toward degrees that could ensure them respect — and a better future — when they returned home.
The latest Marion Barry controversy burned bright Thursday, but it’s now mostly burnt out.
White men hate women. All women, Black, Yellow, Brown, Red, White. White men aren’t interested in sex, they are addicted to power. Sex is a power trip for the white man. He needs the woman to be hurt, humiliated, broken. He feeds off female suffering. That is why white men have went so batshit insane over the modest gains of white feminism. That is why he used to have Jungle Fever for Sally Helms, but now finds Black women manly and unfeminine.
In western culture, many social animals like to associate drinking to social skill and ability, more particulary in males who measure theier masculinities with one's alcoholic tolerance ie. holding down their drink.
Asian Americans endure far more bullying at US schools than members of other ethnic groups, with teenagers of the community three times as likely to face taunts on the Internet, new data shows.
On July 29, 2011, Asia Pacific Arts online magazine is hosting “A Celebration of Asian American Soul” at the Far Bar Lounge in Little Tokyo -- featuring performances by special guest singer Judith Hill (from Michael Jackson’s This is It), and singer/songwriter Dawen. DJ O-Dub will be spinning sets around the musical acts.
Not so long ago, the phrase “New York’s Chinatown” meant one thing: a district in Lower Manhattan near Canal Street. Now it could refer to as many as six heavily Chinese enclaves.
STRENGTHEN AND UNITE COMMUNITIES WITH CIVICS EDUCATION AND ENGLISH DEVELOPMENT (SUCCEED) ACT
However the rebellion in Libya began, it was both inevitable and entirely predictable that it would quickly become an opening for imperialist intervention and counterrevolution in the oil-rich North African country.
As white Americans move into the minority, some are claiming they're the ones now subject to racial oppression. Do they have a case?
LOS ANGELES, CA– The California Association of Human Relations Organizations (CAHRO) will present its 2011 CAHRO Leadership Award to Stewart Kwoh, the president and executive director of the Asian Pacific American Legal Center (APALC), a member of Asian American Center for Advancing Justice.
A Recap on the past news about "Too Asian" in Maclean's publication that triggered off public anger over it's racist content targeting Asian Canadians in higher education.
BEIJING - Chinese analysts have refuted criticism that China is not acting responsibly enough to address the recent increase in tensions on the Korean Peninsula.
There has been some recent discussion surrounding a racist piece of media that had recently surfaced on the 
Far East Movement, the Los Angeles electro/rap group, reached a notable milestone recently. Not only did its third album, "Free Wired," debut at #24 on the Billboard charts, one of the highest charting debuts by any all-Asian American group, but its latest single, “Like a G6,” is the #1 single in the country (having already crowned digital charts for weeks).
C.I.V Blog - The following is a letter of complaint we received over the weekend. It reminds us of how racism against the Chinese in North America (especially when at a time so many US politicians are playing the anti-China card in the mid-term election).
As technology advances and the world becomes smaller, we are becoming as a nation, increasingly sophisticated and diverse. In this