Skip to content Skip to footer
|

Stop Using Me as Your Racist Scapegoat

The attitude of Professor Hough shows how deep white supremacy runs and no manner of using Asians as scapegoats can hide it.

Duke University Professor Jerry Hough use of Asian Americans to denigrate the African American community uses Asians as a scapegoat for his plainly racist views. In response to a New York Times article detailing the racist policies impacting Baltimore, Hough commented that African-Americans were themselves to blame and that Asian-Americans had suffered racism but found a way to succeed because, “[T]hey didn’t feel sorry for themselves, but worked doubly hard.” Hough then went on to remark that Asians are successful because we have simple, old American first names and date/marry a lot of white people. If this is what passes as being accepted into white America, I think I’ll pass.

The stereotype of the hardworking, successful Asian is a convenient way to gloss over increasing inequality within the Asian American/ Pacific Islander community. Poverty is growing rapidly within the AAPI community, especially among the native-born AAPI, but it is masked by the increase in high-earning AAPI. Though the number of AAPIs living in poverty increased more than 50 percent between 2000 and 2011, the overall poverty rate remained relatively unchanged due to the increase in the overall AAPI population, including large numbers of highly skilled, highly educated immigrants. The highly skilled Asians are Hough’s chosen minority and the ones that are struggling are “feeling sorry for themselves.”

Hough’s white supremacist viewpoint comes through most clearly in the reasons he says Asians are successful: adopting very simple old American names and dating/marrying white people. Here, white supremacy is so necessary that even one’s name must be a “simple old American name.” Understanding this dynamic, my parents gave me a western first name, Julia, and I have deliberately chosen to go by my Korean name, Mijin. Very few people can pronounce my name but that’s not my problem. Unless you are Native American, your name has been imported. And, I don’t want to live in a country where everyone is a Jerry.

Finally, Hough’s commentary on Asian-white dating/marriage shows a disturbing view on inter-racial relationships. He writes, “The amount of Asian-white dating is enormous and so surely will be the intermarriage. Black-white dating is almost non-existent because of the ostracism by blacks of anyone who dates a white.” His assertion is false: of 5.3 million inter-racial couples, 13.7 percent are Asian-white and 7.5 percent are white-Black. More troubling is his idea that only the minority-white interracial coupling is desirable, an idea again based in white supremacy. The only right path is the one that brings us closer to whiteness and if one is not born white, as least one can dream of marrying white.

The fact that Hough is a professor at Duke brings his comments from being easily dismissed as just another racist rant to an issue of serious concern. To be sure, I am not calling for his censure or a restriction on his speech. But, Hough teaches young minds of all races and it is hard to see how his racism does not affect his interactions with students. Moreover, I am tired of seeing Asians used as a scapegoat for racist rants. The oppression Olympics, where people of color are pitted against each other to see who has it worst, deflects attention from the white supremacy still rooted in our institutions and our culture. The attitude of Professor Hough shows how deep white supremacy runs and no manner of using Asians as scapegoats can hide it.

Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn

Dear Truthout Community,

If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.

We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.

Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re shoring up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.

There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.

Last week, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?

It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.

We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.

We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.

Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.

We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.

With love, rage, and solidarity,

Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy