Check out a snippet from an article posted on New American Media:
Editor’s Note: The continuing scandal embroiling the only Asian American on San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors has the city’s Asian-American politicians and activists worrying whether the shadow over one will affect them all. Eugenia Chien monitors Chinese-language media for New America Media.
SAN FRANCISCO — The residency scandal surrounding Ed Jew, the only Asian-American city supervisor, may have a lasting negative impact on the political participation of the Asian-American community, but many young Asian-Americans remain hopeful that their community can overcome this. Jew is facing criminal charges that he does not live in the Sunset District that he represents and allegations that he actually lives in Burlingame in San Mateo County. The scandal broke when Jew was being investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for allegedly accepting $40,000 from Quickly, a tapioca tea chain, to help with city permit issues. Following intense media attention over the last month, City Attorney Dennis Herrera has asked the state attorney general for permission to file a lawsuit that could unseat Jew “If the allegations are true, it would represent a great corruption of the public trust between a public official and voters who put him in office,” says David Lee, executive director of the nonprofit Chinese American Voters Education Committee in San Francisco. “Asian-American politicians may have to regain the trust of the community. They need to show that they are different, and they need to restore the trust and overcome people’s cynicism,” Lee says.
To be honest I could care less about Ed Jew. The fact that he’s being investigated by the FBI for possibly taking kickbacks tells me he’s just one of many of the other corrupt government officials (allegedly). He just happened to get caught.
What concerns me is the fact that Asian-Americans themselves are the ones coming forward and going “We’ll have to regain trust….” or “This hits close to home”, or “He was Asian, so I hope other people don’t think Asian politicians are corrupt.”
THEIR APOLOGIZING FOR THE ACTIONS OF ANOTHER ASIAN-AMERICAN. Which basically gives credence to the inane thought that Asian-Americans are one big collective and we all know each other or even worse yet - have allegencies to other Asian-Americans OVER everyone else - and that’s just not true.
I know there’s the “Chink Tax”, just like there’s the “Black Tax” and the “Pussy Tax” - I’m not saying we shouldn’t say that it exists, because it does - and it needs to be addressed.
But Ed Jew is just some corrupt official (allegedly) - let his ass hang in the wind like any other politician and stop apologizing for him just because he’s Asian.
