America has a long history of racism. But the country has come a long way since the outright brutality of much darker days of the bloody birth of the nation.
It’s pretty hard to understand the racism of today if you don’t know this history.
…
Recently my student’s mom proudly told me that she signed a campaign letter demanding justice for Peter Liang. I just smiled. I didn’t quite know what to say. Days later I discover a story with a most cogent argument that I could not have written myself, but expressed exactly my sentiments on the matter: Peter Liang Was Justly Convicted- He’s Not A Victim, Says This Niece of Vincent Chin. It basically said that, however unfortunate, the real victim was Akai Gurley, not the rookie police officer Peter Liang.
Yes, I agree that it is not right that scores of white police officers have literally gotten away with murder; while a Chinese police officer is punished for an ostensibly accidental death. They should all be punished.
But shouldn’t we live in a world where police officers don’t wantonly kill innocent people?
A fellow classmate, of Chinese origin, sent me a link to a website supporting Peter Liang. Later that student said they no longer supported Liang.
It’s not easy to know where to stand.
Wouldn’t it benefit all of us, from all ethnicities and persuasions, to stand together as one to demand an end to police brutality and have a justice system based on fairness to everyone? That day will never come if only care about our own groups.
Let’s stand together. That is the only way forward to better days.
———-
Noteworthy:
Trials Set To Begin For 6 Baltimore Police Officers In Freddie Gray Case
Brian Lehrer: Chinese Americans Express Frustration Over Liang Conviction
(Much thanks to Shahana Hanif for the Annie Tan article link:
Medium·“If we are to move forward from this, we all need to stand against the systems that brought Peter Liang into the stairwell where Akai Gurley stood. It was no accident that Officer Liang was in a public housing stairwell and not one in a private housing complex. Decades of “broken windows” and “stop and frisk” policing, housing and income segregation, prison-industrial complex, and flat-out anti-Black racism led Officer Liang’s superiors to place him there. We must re-imagine what policing looks like in our communities so that such tragedies are avoided in the first place.” #JusticeForAkaiGurley#Asians4BlackLives) Asians4BlkLives
