Protesters at the Million Hoodies Union Square in New York demand justice in response to the shooting of Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida. (Photo by David Shankbone)

Many opponents of hate crime legislation argue that hate crimes are no more harmful than ordinary crimes. I beg to differ. Hate crimes are a constant reminder that prejudice is not only alive and well but also thriving in American society.

As dozens of residents take to the Los Angeles streets today in tribute to Trayvon Martin, the black 17-year-old fatally shot by a neighborhood watchman in Florida, it’s hard not to realize that a post-racialized American is far from our reality.

Martin serves as a current reminder that we live in a racialized world. For the Asian-American community, there was a reminder in the Vincent Chin case.

This year marks the 30^th anniversary of the murder of the 27-year-old Chinese American beaten to death in June 1982 by two white autoworkers who went virtually unpunished for the crime.

Students at the University of Southern California are asked about Vincent Chin in connection a documentary on Chin presented by the Asian Pacific Americans for Progress in association with Tony Lam Films.  (Courtesy of Vincent Chin Film)

“The decision was made to go public because we felt we had to fight and let everyone know the anger and sense of injustice that we had suffered,” explained Jim Shimoura, a civil rights attorney on the Chin case.

The killing of Chin and Martin sparked and continues to ignite a public outpour of support and outrage that hauntingly mirrors one another.

In response to the courts slap-on-the-wrist punishments for Chin’s murderers, diverse groups of people flooded the streets holding up signs that demanded justice. Signs that read “Chin Up for Justice,” “A Job is a License to Kill,” and “$3000 for a Human Life?”

On Monday, in the City of Angeles, one march for the slain teenager was dubbed the “1 Million Hoodie March for Trayvon Martin,” to highlight the ridiculous notion that wearing a hooded sweatshirt, which Martin was at the time of the murder, can evoke justifiable suspicion. Click to watch video footage of the march.

“I’ll bet you money, if he didn’t have that hoodie on, that nutty neighborhood watch guy wouldn’t have responded in that violent and aggressive way,” Fox News host Geraldo Rivera said Friday. Click to watch full video clip.

People were livid by the insinuation that Martin was partly to blame because of what he was wearing. Rivera later tweeted that “critics of my hoodie comments think they’re mad at me but they’re really mad at the undeniably unfair reality of young male black/brown life.”

I agree that it is this undeniable reality of young men of color that needs to be addressed. However, you shouldn’t be justified in killing someone because of what they are wearing any more than you should be justified in killing someone because of the color of their skin. These two prejudging justifications are one in the same – both beyond the spectrum of reasonable human dignity. Playing off of the protest signs in the Chin case, a hooded sweatshirt shouldn’t give someone else a license to kill.

George Zimmerman, 28, called the police about following a person acting suspiciously in his gated community. Zimmerman was told to stop pursuing Martin, but he did not.

The self-proclaimed neighborhood watchman claimed he shot Martin in self-defense.  But why would any person feel threatened by a young man whose arsenal consists of a bag of Skittles and some ice tea?

With that said, a hate crime is undoubtedly tough to prove, which leaves me fearful that at the end of this tunnel Martin and his family will not find justice.

In the call to police, Zimmerman didn’t immediately described Martin as suspicious black man. Martin was simply a person acting suspiciously who, after being asked by police, happened to be black. Was that characterization brought on by the fact that he was a young black male wearing a hooded sweatshirt in a predominately white neighborhood? We will never truly know. Listen to 911 call.

The heart of the problem lies in the fact that our socially constructed racialization of different minority groups is invisibly subconscious and deeply engrained in our society. Although it allows us to live blissfully in blindness, our rose-colored submission to the myth of a post-racialized America doesn’t allow us as a society to deal with our internalized racism.

As Americans, we need to realize that racial hierarchies and stereotypes still prosper. We are all part of an audience constantly being fed a social narrative that tells us what we should think and about whom we should think it.

Nonetheless, we are not totally powerless. It is our responsibility to realize that this narrative exists and figure out how to counter that narrative in our everyday lives.

We shouldn’t assume that people with tattoos are gangbangers. We shouldn’t assume that people speaking Spanish aren’t Americans. We shouldn’t assume that black teenagers wearing hooded sweatshirts are dangerous.

As a society we have built tall walls with bricks of racial biases and it’s imperative that we acknowledge and understand these walls in order to tear them down.

Related stories —

Huffington Post: Trayvon Martin March in Los Angeles Brings Hundreds of People Downtown

Los Angeles Times: Geraldo Rivera Sort of Apologizes for Hoodie Remarks

Rafu Shimpo: From Vincent Chin to Trayvon Martin

By Michelle Banh

How many big-name Asian Pacific American (APA) athletes can you name?

Tiger Woods, champion golfer, drives the ball down range during the inaugural Earl Woods Memorial Pro-Am Tournament, part of the AT&T National PGA Tour event, July 4, 2007, at the Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Maryland. Woods donated 30,000 tournament tickets to military personnel to attend the event honoring soldiers and military families. (U.S. Navy photo)

Tiger Woods, Michelle Kwan and Michael Chang are some of the names that come to mind. Considering these athletes’ sporting events (golf, figure skating and tennis, respectively), it is no surprise that most APA athletes have careers in sports outside of what Americans consider the holy trinity: football, baseball and basketball.

To the casual sports observer, it’s rare to ever spot an APA logging game time in these three all-American athletic events. For decades, Americans considered the “Asian” physique far too diminutive and feeble to match the likes of Caucasian and African American counterparts on the field or on the court. However, the corporate attitude has moderately improved in recent years as more APA athletes are being drafted to the professional leagues: National Football League, Major League Baseball and National Basketball Association

According to the 2010 Racial and Gender Report Card, the NFL boasted 39 APA players, making up two percent of the league. MLB followed close behind with 23 APA players—1.2 percent of the league—while the NBA came in with just three players, totaling one percent. In the 2011 RGRC, MLB surpassed the NFL with 2.1 percent of its baseball players citing APA heritage.

While these statistics are encouraging, they are still low compared to those of other racial groups.

“There is promise, but not yet prominence, for people of Asian descent in American sport,” said Richard Lapchick, chairman of the DeVos Sports Business Management Graduate Program at the University of Central Florida.

According to the 2011 RGRC, Caucasians have dominated MLB and African Americans have overwhelmingly monopolized the NFL and NBA since 1990.

So what are aspiring APA athletes to do when the racial standards of these all-American sports seem stacked against their favor? How can APAs hope to attain the glory and recognition the American dream has come to associate with making it big in the NFL, NBA and MLB?

For many APA athletes, the answer lies in redefining and expanding what people consider an all-American sport.

Essentially American sports, like football, tend to pit one athlete against another in a battle of brute force. In these sporting events, physical strength and stature translate into success more readily than would cerebral qualities like mental focus and finesse. APA athletes, however, strike a fine balance between the two as they excel in more individualized sports like golf, figure skating and tennis.

Tiger Woods, of Thai heritage, could not have made it to the top of the golfing arena had he not capitalized on the value of his intense mental strength and focus.

“His [Woods’s] mental game is every bit as good as his physical game. If he’s seven shots out, he still thinks he can win,” said professional golfer Bob May.

At the 1998 national championships, Chinese American Michelle Kwan stepped onto the rink in spite of a foot injury that could have derailed her whirlwind figure skating career.

“She [Kwan] just went out there with such determination and focus that nothing phased her,” professional figure skater Peggy Fleming recalls, “and she went out and skated a brilliant performance.”

Many of Kwan’s fans consider this performance the program that defined her lifetime.

Michelle Kwan performs her signature spiral at a practice session at the 2002 U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Los Angeles, CA. (Photo: Kevin Rushforth)

During the 1989 French Open, 17-year-old Chinese American Michael Chang embarked upon an over four-hour long match against Ivan Lendl, number one ranked tennis player in the world, knowing that the odds were against him. Even though Chang demonstrated speed and athleticism, he had to rely on strategy and mental strength to get him through the excruciating remainder of the match when severe muscle cramps set in early on.

“Michael showed that with patience and mental toughness you could get close to players who were supposed to beat you, and even beat them,” said former Grand Slam champion Tony Trabert.

With their blend of physical and mental prowess, these historic APA athletes evoke in Americans a rallying spirit that is truly irrelevant of race and ultimately at the heart of every all-American sport.

As consumers of sports media, we must contribute to the effort of such APA athletes by using our buying power to advocate sports that operate blindly with respect to the race of its players.

By choosing to support other sports like golf and figure skating where APAs have a fair chance at success, you communicate to corporate big shots at the NFL, MLB and NBA, that racial profiling needs to end in their recruitment techniques.

Related Stories —

USA Today: Michelle Kwan Elected to World Figure Skating Hall of Fame

Agence France-Presse: ‘Tiger Woods of Bangladesh’ Leads in Delhi

Los Angeles Times: Jeremy Lin has Lunch with Writer of Offensive Headline

Through all the controversial debate surrounding the discriminatory bake sale, writer urges naysayers to take a look at bigger picture.

By Jessie Wong

What’s your flavor: red velvet, creamy chocolate, or French vanilla? For UC Berkeley students the only color that mattered was the one on your skin. Well, sort of.

There were protests in response to the racist bake sale at UC Berkeley. Some argued for SB 185 and others against.

The point was to raise awareness

and get a message across. And in this writer’s opinion, the members of the university’s College Republicans did just that.

Gov. Jerry Brown seemed to receive the message loud and clear as he vetoed Senate Bill 185 on Saturday. It was a bill that would have allowed public universities to consider one’s race, ethnicity, gender, national origin, and other relevant factors in their admissions process.

According to The Daily Californian, Shawn Lewis, president of the Berkeley College Republicans, issued a statement supporting Brown’s decision to veto the bill, stating that college admissions decisions should be based on “the qualifications of the applicant and the individual challenges he or she has faced” rather than race.

But it all started with a little bake sale.

The now infamous “Increase Diversity Bake Sale” held last month involved cupcakes and cookies sold at different prices according to the buyer’s race:

• $2 for white students
• $1.50 for Asian students
• $1 for Latinos
• 75 cents for African Americans
• 25 cents for Native Americans

And of course, all women received a 25-cent discount.

Yes, it was a racist bake sale. I don’t think anyone is denying that. But those that decried it missed the whole point of the bake sale.

“We agree that the event is inherently racist, but that is the point,” Lewis wrote in response as reported by CNN. “It is no more racist than giving an individual an advantage in college admissions based solely on their race (or) gender.”

The racism in the sale clearly parallels the racism in the controversial and discriminatory state bill.

Regardless of your position on affirmative action, the amount of anger and hurt feelings over this bake sale was overblown and unjustified. University campuses, especially one as liberal and tolerant as Berkeley, are supposed to be bastions of free speech even if the stance is in the minority.

There was no need for Associated Students to gather in an emergency meeting and condemn the use of discriminatory methods for all occasions. This sent the message that students are unable to freely voice their opinions and share in deep and provocative discourse.

If deep and provocative discussion isn’t safe in the academic atmosphere of college life, where is it safe?

The College Republicans did not obstruct anyone’s way or physically harm anyone.

So, why did this story pick up so much press? The idea of hosting “bake sales” to prove a point certainly wasn’t unprecedented. Bake sales have been used on other college campuses to make a political argument or stir up public discussion.

And this sale was a piece of cake compared to other more radical protests at the top teaching and research university.

Everybody needs to take a step back and examine the bigger picture. The story isn’t about race and a petty bake sale, but the construction of race and its role in a piece of legislation that threatens to reinstate affirmative action in California.

Cupcakes are colorblind or are they? Photo: Flickr.

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