Posted on 08/20/2014 3:23:31 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Here's a somewhat racial angle to the Ferguson, Mo., saga that you probably won't see MSNBC pick up on. The Daily Beast's Tim Mak today reported on "Ferguson's Other Race Problem: Riots Damaged Asian-Owned Stores."
"Asian-Americans own a number of the stores lining West Florissant Avenue, where more than 20 businesses have suffered damage in the wake of Michael Brown’s killing," Mak noted, adding that "At least five of these stores are Asian-American-owned, according to local sources and business records. Just 0.5 percent of Ferguson is of Asian descent, according to 2010 U.S. Census data." While he made clear that local Asian-American business owners "don’t think looters targeted them because of their race" that it's undisputable that they have suffered store damage and economic loss because of the looting and violence:
The Ferguson Market, where the teenage Brown allegedly grabbed a handful of cigars before his deadly encounter with police, is owned by the Patels, an Asian-American family. Looters have targeted the store twice. On the same block, Northland Chop Suey, a Chinese restaurant, has been looted at least two times. A second market, a beauty shop, and a cellphone store within walking distance also have been damaged; all are owned by Asian-Americans.
Jay Kanzler, the Patels’ lawyer, told The Daily Beast he believed that law enforcement authorities allowed the looting of Ferguson Market on Friday in part because it is a minority-owned small business.
“One could [ask] that if this had been a Walmart, a Starbucks…would they have done more to make sure this didn’t happen?…I believe that absolutely factored into the equation,” said Kanzler, who said 80 percent of his clients are first-generation small-business owners. “Their rights may have been placed on a lower priority for the people in charge of protecting them.”
Local Asian-American business owners, however, say they don’t think looters targeted them because of their race. Even as the protests continue, many of the owners are already back in their stores, rebuilding and serving Ferguson residents.
"[Looters] came in here two times, Sunday night and Friday night,” Chinese restaurant owner Boon Jang told The Daily Beast, before adding: “I’ve got to go, I have a customer here.”
In times of racial tension, Asian-Americans have tended to be left out of the conversation between white and black America, reflecting the prevailing sense during more peaceful times that they don’t quite belong in either camp.
That’s the result of “the role of Asians when it comes to race tensions between white and black,” said Johnny Wang, president of the Asian American Chamber of Commerce of St. Louis. “The common complaint is that we just stay on the sidelines and don’t say anything.”
Of course the plight of the shop owners, period, has been largely overlooked by the liberal media, which is a shame. Looting is not a victimless crime. It is costly to owners and eventually to consumers -- who inevitably will pay more for goods and services -- as well as employees, some of whom may have to be laid off, get a trim in pay, or lose hours as owners try to cut labor costs in response to losses from looting. In turn the damage to the tax base will be felt down the road, which could harm the city's provision of core municipal services.
But covering these issues and examining them responsibly would require the media deviate from the predictable, boilerplate fixations which give a megaphone to certain interest groups while leaving the voices of others drowned out if not altogether unheard.
On that I agree with you 100%....that census should not be asking us for race. It’s only purpose is to get federal dollars flowing to areas with what they consider “minorities”.
I have spent time in many countries in Europe and Asia.
I never saw any official inquiry of “race” anywhere. Only in South Africa of the apartheid era and USA there is the government wanting to know your race.
What is amazing is that 96% of “African-Americans” have mixed race in them and have never even seen Africa. Our president is half white and half black. What is his race???
The sooner this country abandons worrying about race and begins looking at individuals based on their ability, the better off we will all be.
Obviously the Indian run motels are getting enough customers because their numbers are increasing. You should check into more expensive motels where generally there is better service.
When WASN'T China almost entirely comprised of extremely poor, rural peasants? It's who they were and are. Despot society. They were a commie country in waiting. They were OODLES worse off than the Russians. Probably always will be.
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You don’t see the lack of hygiene and manners in any other Chinese-dominated society that hasn’t been under the yoke. It just happens that the Mainland Chinese that have this problem (open-air toilets, dirty environment etc.), unfortunately make up the vast majority of Chinese people.
True. Case in point: Singapore. It's as clean, orderly and well off as China isn't. SAME race of people but their cultures are as different as night and day.
Lol. THANK YOU for making my point.
I know.
The Chinese seem to me to be possibly SOME of the most racist, class conscious, rudest people in the world. It's my feeling that they have always felt superior to the rest of the planet. And that is saying something when including the Indians.
I taught THOUSANDS of young adult Chinese. They were always very polite to me...until they turned to each other and started speaking away in Chinese, right in front of me. Some had the gall to laugh. I always nipped THAT particular rudeness in the bud.
People who HAVEN'T had my experience with them think that the Chinese are "so polite, nice, hard working, etc." Balderdash. They are like everyone else on the planet. Just JoeSchmoes from Kokomo. Some good, some bad, most somewhere in between.
The ABCs, American Born Chinese, are just like every other American and do NOT fall into the category of the FOBs, Fresh off the Boeing, or CIAs, Chinese in America.
The Chinese in China? Different story...just like everyone else but with a huge superiority complex. It made me laugh: superior about having no toilets? about treating females like subservient animals? about binding the feet of their wealthy women? about destroying SO many female fetuses when Amniocentesis was discovered that an entire generation of men had no women to marry? Those men were called the "bare branches."
It's THEIR country and they can do what they want. I just thank the good Lord that I was born in the West.
I would advise avoiding Indian-run motels; a while back we stayed in one (a national chain with a good reputation in the past) and it was just Third World nonsense. They advertised WiFi (which is essential for my job), then connecting to it was a nightmare. An Anglo clerk kept telling me it was my PC, then I saw other customers with their laptops confronting the Indian owner (and joined in); afterwards it was sporadic at best, forcing me to do much of my work in the early a.m. They had a sign on their ice machine that it was broken, but you could buy ice in the office; the pool was never open at the stated time, and a large sign at the free continental breakfast threatened additional charges for any food thrown out. While many have issues with the sanitation of Indians, I will admit the place was clean.
Very Third World; I think their caste system prevents anyone from multi-tasking, and the merchant caste does nothing else but operate cash registers. When East Africa got their independence from Britain, they expelled the Indians as people who never planted crops or did anything other than operate as parasitic middle-men; as deplorable a state as they are in now, I don’t believe anything would have been better if they’d allowed them to stay. Unlike South Africa, where white flight cost them many educated professionals, I don’t see what Kenya and Uganda really gave up with the expulsion.
Have you ever bought a soft drink in a Quik-E-Mart? Barely colder than room temperature; anything to save a buck. A lifetime ago I was in the Village in NYC and I bought a pack of cigarettes; as I was leaving I took a book of matches from the tray-like box on the counter. The Gungha-Din character behind the counter actually grabbed my wrist and hissed that they were $.03; as I was with others who had lighters I simply dropped it back in.
I have no sympathy for anyone who thinks they’ll profit by selling to our underclass (in order to take my welfare dollars and line their pockets with them); they’re too cheap to pay for the necessary security, and they pay a price for that.
In 68 in Chicago it was Jews.
Moved out, never came back.
The area was a desert for 30 years.
I remember on my trips to Britain purchasing items in a convenience store and being "served" by a lazy ass person who appeared to be of Indian or Pakistani origin who reclined in his chair talking on his cell phone while he rang up my purchase. I wanted to go behind the counter and knock the idiot off his chair and demand he treat me with the respect afforded customers in the U.S. And I certainly would most likely have ended up in a British jail for my actions.
That was not the only time a clerk in Britain acted that way. But all the clerks that were so disrespectfully appeared to be of Asian-Indian origin. They should learn quickly to adopt the customs and habits of the country they emigrate to if they themselves want respect.
We usually stay in chains, but when you’re out west, you can’t always be so choosy. The small town we stayed in was necessary to stay on our schedule, and it did not have any chains. The motel we stayed at wasn’t horrible, but it was not up to the standards of many non-chain places we’ve stayed at. It was mostly annoying things. The place was fairly clean, I will give them that. But it looked like the owner tried to pinch every penny as far as the amenities taken for granted at most motels and hotels, chain or mom and pop.
Their attitudes are just one of the issues people have with them; don’t let a female family member gas up at one of their stations (they can be “touchy”, even taking bills from one’s hand). Their aloofness generates little sympathy when more physical types loot them.
I’ve posted before about one of them dispensing watered-down gas; as police were responding to a string of cars disabled on a particular roadway, they realized they had all just gassed-up at a nearby unbranded, Indian-owned gas station. The owner maintained the delivery truck must have left the caps off the underground tanks, and was told he was responsible for fixing the cars (almost a dozen). Fifteen minutes later the police were back at the station, as area residents complained of a gasoline smell in the air. The unassimilated import was siphoning his tanks of tainted gas into the Passaic River which ran along the rear of his property...
I have no problem with people trying to make a buck; I won’t go near Indian businesses because they can’t be trusted. Years before, my car was stalling after buying gas at one of those places; a mechanic pinpointed the problem, I never used them again, and have never had a problem since. In the past you could protect yourself by patronizing large, established chains; my motel issues arose when they also were infiltrated by Third World operators...
I have not been to Africa but I know several people who have. My Uncle died of Rift Valley Fever picked up there. Several people I consult with went there in a consulting venture and all became quite ill from the tainted food—sometimes the filth is unseen except under a microscope. It was a miserable trip for them and they were glad to get home.
I lived 6 years in Los Altos, CA, not far from little Africa some would call Oakland.
Not hard to understand WHY people migrated out of Africa so long ago. It's a miserable place to live with all the flora and fauna that make humans sick.
I can almost hear the early Africans: "Time to get outta Dodge. Wagons ho north and east." :o)
There are two parts of Oakland. The Oakland hills are posh and those folks there want to keep it that way.
The only media attention is on the ghetto areas and the working class blacks...and they couldn't care less.
My husband's family lived in the posh area, with his mother being a hair dresser...and renting.
My husband had to go to Oakland High School. It made him a real tough guy.
True story:
When he took me over to Oakland to see where he had lived we were going under a high train trestle. He stopped for a group of about half a dozen young black men. They saw him and me in our old Chevy convertible and then IMMEDIATELY slowed down to a stroll. My husband honked at them to "move it along."
They turned, started yelling obscenities at him and started coming toward us. Of course, he didn't budge. As they approached him they saw his face, the look on his face and in his eyes and stopped DEAD in their tracks. They backed off, still yelling at us but let us pass without moving toward us.
The LOOK on my husband's face said LOUD and CLEAR:
"Come on. I WILL beat the living c**p out of you. You might hurt me but YOU all will leave here with the worse end of it."
We had had to deal with punks like that occasionally but I always felt SO SAFE with my husband around. He BRISTLED if anyone gave him c**p ... lol, and that was enough for ANYONE to see my tough guy husband BRISTLE.
I am well aware of Oakland Hills. One of my best buds lived there until a great fire almost burned him about 15 years ago. Between that and the fact his kids were constantly harassed by feral affies demanding money everyday it was too much to tolerate.
With all due respect-archaeologists and the rest of the scientific community recognizes three races of humans-Caucasian, Black and Asian, based on distinct physical characteristics. They have mixed for 10’s of thousands of years, but that doesn’t make a new “race” every time they do that or move someplace else.
Japan, China, etc are occupied by various ethnic groups, but they are mostly still of the Asian race-calling them oriental, as my neighbor does refers to the fact that they are from what Europeans and others referred to as the Orient. And those from the Indian subcontinent are mostly of the Caucasian race.
We are arguing semantics. My point is “Asian” is not a race. It is a continent. “Oriental” is a race.
Your Brit friend is obviously uninformed.
Amen to your last sentence. However, it is going to be a long, long time before that day comes.
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