Be like Nike: Nike Racism Lawsuit Settled for $7.6M, but did the slavemasters get off too easy?

So here’s the deal. According to the lawsuit the Chicago Niketown store and its managers used racial slurs against its black employees and shoppers, segregated jobs so that the higher paid jobs went to white workers, and routinely told security to monitor not just black customers but also black employees because of their race.

Accordingly - although it has taken 4 years since the 2003 claim - Nike finally had to accept defeat. They have to pay out $7.6 million to 400 employees (those who have worked from 1999-the present), hire a diversity consultant not only for the Chicago store but also for their home base in Beaverton, hire on an ombudsperson, conduct diversity training, institute a mentorship program, and review store policies from equal opportunity to theft.

It’s definitely a win and I congratulate all the workers there who had the courage to stand up and fight in what must have been an already hostile environment.

But….

If you figure the settlement to be about $20,000 per person, you have to ask yourself if Nike got off TOO EASY? I mean for 400 employees, some as far back as 1999 that got relegated to the back of the bus status - shouldn’t that be worth more?

Actually scratch the question of if NIKE got off too easy.

NIKE DID GET OFF TOO DAMN EASY.

I mean c’mon - for a company that has built its name on some of the greatest athletes and icons in the world who are people of color you’ve got to be kidding me - I mean basically Nike is saying to the world:

If you are a person of color and you are a great athlete, please come and sit at the dinner table with us, because we would love to have you. But if you’re not, go to the back of the bus, drink at the other fountain, don’t vote, stay below the ceiling, and be a nice little slave boy and girl like you should be.

If that’s the message - and it is - Nike definitely got off too damn easy.

Vietnamese Traffickers Get Nabbed….

Check it:

Six jailed for selling Vietnamese girls to Taiwan, Malaysia

A Ho Chi Minh City court sentenced Thursday a Vietnamese woman to 12 years in prison and her Taiwanese husband to seven years for selling 126 Vietnamese girls to Taiwan and Malaysia.

Tran Thi My Phuong, 35, and her husband Tsai I Hsein, and four accomplices who all got five to ten years were convicted for “trafficking women”.

One of the accomplices, 35-year-old Phan Thi Hong Yen, got 10 years.

They were also fined VND10-50 million (up to US$3,125) each.

The ring was busted after a victim, who managed to escape back, complained to Vietnamese police who arrested Phuong and Hsien in March last year.

For several years the gang cajoled young girls, mostly from rural regions in the Mekong River Delta, to go to Taiwan for marriages. Once there, they were sold like chattels.

In 2005 it switched from Taiwan to Malaysia where girls the fetched $1,500-2,000 each. Their Malaysian suitors, mostly disabled or old, could ‘return’ the girls if they were not satisfied after a week of living with them.

The gang even sold the women publicly at bars for 17,000-25,000 ringgits (up to $7,285).

At the hearing, the traffickers claimed to lose money from most of their transactions.

From victims who either managed to escape or were released after they paid off the gang the court learned that those who refused to marry would be beaten or kept in isolation.

Many were forced to work in brothels until they were ‘registered’ by a suitor.

Many escaped by walking to Thailand and were arrested there for illegal immigration.

The court rejected the defendants’ request for leniency based on the fact that some of the victims had themselves desired the marriages.

This is one of the biggest trafficking cases busted in Vietnam.

Jesus. While you’re definitely glad that these MFs got their due and you know doing time in a Vietnamese jail isn’t like a country club here in the U.S. - 12 years and a fine? PLEASE. I know it’s difficult to catch these MFs, but when caught - they gotta be harsher with their penalties….

Kate Winslet and Clive Owens: A little racist?

You may have seen the news clips on L’OREAL and how they’ve been beaten down for only hiring white women in some of their operations to promote their productcs. Some of you may also know then that the beloved Kate Winslet, and Clive Owens, are also spokespersons for L’OREAL.

At the moment they are being pressured to step down as spokespeople:

“We would ask those high-profile ambassadors to think carefully about whether or not they want to be associated with this organization,” said a spokesperson for the Commission for Racial Equality. “What a wonderful opportunity this could be to stand up to racism, to show that it simply has no place in today’s society.”

Simon Woolley of race campaign group The 1990 Trust adds, “It is shameful that those on L’Oreal’s payroll keep conveniently quiet. The correct thing to do would be to at least speak out or resign.”

Full Article

So the question that comes to mind is, if they stay at L’OREAL are they helping to keep a racist regime up and running? Are they spokespersons for racism by staying on? And then does that make them a little racist?

Does being paid by a company that just got nabbed for racist tactics make those on their payroll racists automatically?

To that question I’d have to say no - the person delivering mail surely isn’t a racist because of that - and I’m sure there are many fine people who work there, that aren’t racist or practice racist hiring practices (or had anything to do with the situation).

But when you’re a spokesperson it is different. You have power. You’re a spokesperson for a reason. And for the most part - while I’m sure the money is great - I’ll go out on a limb and say they don’t need the money they are getting from L’OREAL.

Because they have power and affluence, in this case they have only two choices:

1. Call out their employers - it happens all the time. Call a press conference - people will come. Don’t quit, but also fight it from the inside while you still take their money and use it for something good. If L’OREAL drops them - so be it.

2. Quit. Bash L’OREAL and their practices with something like “I tried talking with top executives, but we didn’t see it the same way so I’m severing my relationship with L’OREAL because of their racist practices”.

The only other option is to do nothing, continue collecting a check, and be a good little Spokesperson For Racism - hey doesn’t that kind of sound like “Springtime for Hitler”? Maybe it could be a musical….

If you’re Gay and Asian you get beaten to death

Satender Singh was having a picnic with some friends celebrating a promotion in his job. Days later he was pronounced dead because of a vicious attack on him because of his racial and sexual identity.

The tragic and sad event is a sickening commentary on how far we still have yet to go in the fight against hate crimes and in embracing diversity.

My thoughts go out to his family and friends and for those whose lives were enriched because of him.

…..

While I feel immense sadness at the death of Satender Singh, I can’t also help but feel angry and jaded.

When people like Sacramento County Sheriff John McGinness get quoted as saying “there is a strong probability” that the assault was a hate crime I’m appalled.

A strong possibility?

While there is still news that is coming out and the killers have yet to be caught there is enough information - witnesses have said the killers were shouting racists and homophobic comments previously in the day leading up to the killing.

A strong possibility that this was a hate crime?

What the fuck needs to happen for this to be fucking classified as a godamn fucking hate crime? Do people need to leave notes that say “I killed this person because….”?

What more fucking proof do you need?

THIS IS THE PROBLEM WITH SUBTLE RACISM. IT ALLOWS BULLSHIT LIKE THAT TO SEEP IN.

Go and write to Sheriff McGinness and tell him he needs to rethink his review either through the Sacramento Sheriff’s Department website or at:

2006 Sacramento Sheriff’s Department
711 G Street, Sacramento, CA 95814

…

• Beating death symbloic of local tensions



• Gay Immigrant Satendar Singh Killed in Holiday Hate Crime



• Sikh American with Fiji links dies after xenophobic attack



• Asian Americans Remain Vigilant Against Hate Crimes

Live Free Or Die Hard You Ass

I’ll just get to the point - the movie Live Free or Die Hard could have been a great action movie, but instead - because of its racist language towards Asians and Asian women - it’s racist moviemaking at its best - and I’m proud to say I walked out of that piece of trash before it was done.

Maggie Q - a great actress in her own right - plays one of the villians in what seems to be a great multicultural cast - but alas the screenwriters - and indeed Bruce Willis himself, just couldn’t resist throwing in some of the most offensive language I’ve heard towards Asians and Asian American women in a major motion picture.

Here’s the rundown of language:

1. When Bruce Willis is relaying to Timothy Olyphant (who plays the movie’s main villian Thomas Gabriel) that he just killed his partner/girlfriend Maggie Q he refers to her as his little bitch Asian girlfriend whom he just killed. Now - while I’m all for the hero of the movie kicking the villians ass - nowhere else in the movie is there a line which refers to someone’s race. It’s just for the Asian villian. The plain fact is that in this context, no screenwriter would have written, and no white actor would have agreed to say something to the effect of I just killed your little bitch black girlfriend.

But if they’re Asian - it’s O.K.

2. And that just sets you up for the most horrible line towards the end of the movie where Bruce Willis says to Timothy Olyphant that he killed his “Asian bitch hooker girlfriend” and that “she was hot” and that “he should’t have a hard time finding another one”.

WTF?

This is complete bullshit racist language which keeps the ideas alive that:

1. Asian women - and Asian American women - are whores. They deserve to be sold and traded as commodities. Plain simple hookers. Objects.

2. Asians are expendable. Hey - we’re all alike - don’t worry - you can mame and kill a couple of us because there are more of us where we came from. We’re not individuals - we’re all a collective.

Asian women? They are there to be fucked, raped, and killed - and don’t worry - there’s millions more where they came from.

And the audience - they didn’t laugh either - there were hushes and ohhs - and it makes me wonder if the studio executives - like Bert Livingston who called the character Bruce Willis plays an “everyman” - used a group of white racists for the focus group.

BOTTOM LINE - AVOID THIS MOVIE AND DON’T GIVE 20th Century Fox or Bruce Willis any of your money - SPREAD THE WORD.

Isaiah Washington says firing off Grey’s Anatomy due to racism - does he have a point?

Isaiah Washington has come out in a recent AP article and candidly stated that he was fired because of racism and that because he was a black man he didn’t get a second chance like a white person would.

On one hand you can easily and rightly say that his ass was handed to him because he didn’t have the same respect for the LGBT crowd that he expects everyone should have for African-Americans, and also (I’m sad to say) because it was so public as well - black, white, brown, woman or man - what does he expect from a TV network which is praised for the show he was on because of its diversity? It’s kind of like if you find a Klan member working for the American Jewish Archives - you kinda have to fire them for the PR alone.

At the same time Isaiah Washington does have a point when he says that white men get more chances to make mistakes than black men do. He is right. Black men have to work harder to prove they are worth the same as white men - it’s called the Black Tax - and Asians and women have it too (see the previous posts).

But does it matter in this case? Is it relevant? For the sake of the firing itself - no. You want to use the same words that people use in hate crimes (and don’t tell me you didn’t know it was derogatory and demeaning and hateful), then you need to suffer the consequences. Any employer has the right to fire you for that reason.

But then ask the question - what if it was Tom Cruise?

And then ask the question - what if it was an Asian-American actor who said all of this instead of an African-American actor? Would we even be listening?

The Truth: Ed Jew And The Chink Tax

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.

THE TRUTH: Yi Jianlian - Next Asian NBA Star?

There’s been a lot of talk about Yi Jianlian - the best prospect to come out of China since Yao - getting taken #3 in the draft. He’s been training in the U.S. and already conducts his interviews in English and drives around by himself in L.A. - all saying that he’s getting acclimated to the U.S. quicker than Yao did before him and it should do him well.

But remember - just because he’s Chinese and a baller doesn’t mean he’s anything like Yao. He’s shorter - only a mere seven feet. He’s not a center. But part of the new breed of seven footers that can handle the ball and step back for the mid-range shot.

He’s 19 and listens to Hip Hop. He wears Sean Jean and plays video games. He already has a base of screaming teenage girl fans waiting on his next move.

And he’s aggressive. Off the dribble, taking it strong to the hoop. Dunking with passion (something Yao didn’t do for the first couple of years and some would say still doesn’t). Yi Jianlin’s game is more like Kevin Garnett, Tracy McGrady or Richard Jefferson.

All of which begs the question: Yi Jianlian - Next Asian NBA Star?

THE TRUTH: Poverty & Uninsured Among Asian Americans Rising

As long as it’s APA Heritage Month, I thought I’d drop some stats from the US Census Press Releases:

• 14.4 Million Asian people live in the US. That’s about 5% of the total population. And if it seems like it’s not a lot of people percentage-wise, well it is. Consider that African Americans make up about 12.8% of the population and the Latino & Hispanic population make up about 14% of the population - Asian Americans are about 1/2 of each (if you round….). My point is simply this - 14.4. million people should be recognized and should be represented.
• 11% of Asian Americans live in poverty - and that number is up from 9.8% in 2004. That translates into over 1.5 million people who don’t have enough to live.
• 18% of Asian Americans live without health care. Translation? Over 2.5 million people living without a safety net.

So what is it all saying??

It’s just reiterating that the Model Minority Myth is just that - a MYTH. That while some, or maybe A LOT of people think that ALL Asian-Americans have no problems, that?ALL Asian-Americans are the “good minority” and overachieve - that this?isn’t the case.

There are serious needs in the APA community that need to be addressed not just by our “own”, but by everyone.

THE TRUTH: CBS Fires DJ’s Over Racist Asian Slurs

IT’S ABOUT DAMN TIME PEOPLE.

Listen - I abhor censorship - true censorship - but you know what I have to say about the two DJ’s getting fired from CBS radio because of their racist Asian “comedy”?

Finally. Good riddance. This isn’t about free speech or the First Amendment. It’s about a company who has the right to flex their muscles and make the decision as to what type of programing is actually acceptable on the air waves that they’ve paid for from the FCC.

The Asian American community is finally getting some justice and it’s about time. For too long, people have decided - because it is a decision when you don’t speak up - that it’s O.K. to make cracks about Asian Americans because somehow we’re less than everyone else. Because we don’t matter. Because somehow we’re still the foreigners that you - the rest of America - can’t trust. See what I’m saying?

Is America finally getting a clue?

THE TRUTH: Gangsters and Gardners - More on the Cinco de Mayo Racism From UD

Don’t get me wrong - that’s great that someone is apologizing and that their name is in print - but again how can you not realize the offense?

Dressing up as gangsters and gardeners with name tags like “Pedro”, “Jose”, and “Full of Tequila” - please - they knew - they just didn’t give a damn.

And Phi Sigma Pi is an honors fraternity?

We just don’t have enough money for good teachers it seems…..

And where is the formal apology by the University?

THE TRUTH: White people: You aren’t entitled to everything

Listen - this really isn’t anything except a simple rant and feeling I just need to get out in the blogosphere - white people - and you know which ones you are….but then again you may not, so listen anyway:

You don’t own everything. You don’t need to be the first in line. You aren’t entitled to speak first all the time (and that’s double for you white males).

You aren’t entitled to the same privileges that you use to have even as early as the 1950’s and 1960’s.

Are you with me yet?

Original Pub Date: 5/9/2007
Tags: Race,The Truth

THE TRUTH: That’s a lot of Junior Whoppers

According to a recent article on DiversityBusiness.com the Asian American market has an estimated $454 billion in purchasing power. So the question for me is:

When are people going to start using that buying clout to start getting political?

Racist Ad? Buy from somewhere else and let them know why. Racist comments from a DJ or VJ or T.V. host? Call in to advertisers - let them know you won’t be purchasing from a company that advertises on shows where the hosts don’t understand that Asian Americans aren’t going anywhere and that we’re as American as the next person.

THE TRUTH: CBS should let racist comments on Barack Obama stand

There’s been a story circulating around that CBS has turned off comments on articles about Barack Obama because of racist posts - like someone calling Barack a “porch monkey”. CBS has reported that they won’t tolerate it, and that comments like those don’t serve the discussion in any way.

I disagree.

Censoring plays into the hands of those who are making the comments. They hide the true feelings that many people still have in the United States and don’t allow for any dialogue on the topic. In a country where we allow groups like the KKK to stand on state capitols and let them shout their diatribes of hatred and xenophobia - what will censoring comments about Barack do that we don’t already know about this next race for the presidency?

We already know that Barack has to have a Secret Service detail - because he’s black.

We already know he may not win because he’s black.

Like it or not, Obama’s race plays a big part in the election and the dialogue surrounding it. We have to face it and deal with it head on, versus trying to cover it up like it’s not there.

THE TRUTH: I don’t know Chinese. Don’t ask me to read it.

I know this is foreign to some of you - but:

I DON’T SPEAK CHINESE.
I CAN’T TRANSLATE THE TATTOO YOU GOT WHEN YOU WERE DRUNK.
THERE IS NO GENERAL “ASIAN” LANGUAGE.

Please don’t keep asking me like I’m part of the collective.

There is no collective and no one is out to get you.

Well - sometimes I am.

But I’m not a part of the collective.