Debate: We need to discuss Tou Thao, the Hmong-American cop who stood by and watched George Floyd die
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Tou Thao and the Myths of Asian American Solidarity
Good Morning!
This is Jay, here. We’re going to try something new today and use the flexibility we have with the newsletter. Think of it as a 2008-era morning blog roundup, where there’s a take at the top and a few curated links that we think you, the reader, will find interesting.
Spent much of last night thinking about Tou Thao, the Hmong cop who stood by and watched as Derrick Chauvin crushed George Floyd’s neck with his knee.
Thao is technically “Asian American” and as screenshots of his very Asian face started circulating through social media, there was an outpouring of condemnation from professional “Asian Americans.” It’s mostly stuff like this…
This sentiment has a long history. The typical move would be to trace it back to the Third World Liberation Front in the late sixties and early seventies, when Asian American activists allied themselves with Black and Chicano student organizations at San Francisco State and UC Berkeley. But that’s not exactly right — if you read Gidra (entire archive available! Please read it!) or the early founding documents of TWLF, the sentiment isn’t quite “we must examine how we benefit from White Supremacy and denounce it within our own communities,” but rather a call to understand that Asian-Americans are oppressed “Third World” people and should ally themselves with the other people who suffer under imperialism.
That’s actually quite different from the sort of sentiments expressed above, which have almost become rote at this point. (Their actual start date probably came some time during the summits after the LA Riots, when Asian-American scholars, many of whom had participated in the TWLF actions, began to put a hopeful spin on the question of Black-Korean relations.) The updated, social media version assumes a position of privilege and performatively demands an “examination” or a “calling out” of anti-blackness in “our community” without much explanation of what any of those phrases mean. And while there’s an affirmative command to go out and do something, the tone has always felt defensive, at least to me. The concern isn’t so much to come out and confront anti-blackness “in our community,” but rather to disassociate oneself from the racist in the video. He may look like me, but I am not him. ‘Real Asian-Americans’ reject him. Don’t let any of his racism splash on me.
It shouldn’t surprise anyone that these declarations almost always come from elite-educated, upwardly mobile East Asians and they’re almost always directed at poorer, or, at the very least, less genteel immigrants, whether nail salon workers, beauty shop owners, or, in this case, a Hmong-American policeman. There is almost no overlap between these groups. They might each have representatives at a summit or panel discussion in an academic setting, but Hmongs and other poorer Asian groups really only become “Asian American” when they fuck up and do something racist, or when they unexpectedly do something that falls in line with the sort of elite multiculturalism promoted by the professional “Asian-Americans.” And because these moments only really exist online, the plebes get further reduced down to video stills and images, where any of the context of their lives gets stripped away. They are just a face that kinda looks like my face, which makes them a threat.
You don’t need to be a Hmong scholar to understand the differences between the lives in a refugee community who have spent much of the past fifty years in poverty and the life of an upwardly mobile East Asian whose family came over on a skilled worker or student visa and quickly found a foothold in a town with a good school system. Hmongs and wealthy East Asians do not share a history, except at some point, one of them was oppressing the other. They also do not “benefit from White Supremacy” in the same way. Any category that includes both of them fails, mostly because wealthy East Asians define “Asian American” through their own personalized politics. So, why would the Hmong community have to carry the guilt burdens of wealthy Chinese, Korean and Japanese immigrants? And why, for God’s sake, do upwardly mobile Chinese, Korean and Japanese immigrants feel the need to launder their own class guilt through the Hmongs? It’s all nonsense.
None of this excuses Tou Thao. The point, rather, is this: Professional Asian Americans almost never reach out to populations like the Hmongs, except in the most cursory, box-checking ways. There is no “examination of our communities” because we — the wealthy East Asians — never really considered them part of our communities anyway.
Tou Thao should be condemned for being a killer cop who stood by and watched Derrick Chauvin murder George Floyd. But “Asian Americans” should ask themselves this question: When you say, “our” and “we,” who, exactly, are you talking to? And if you put it in a tweet (it’s always in a tweet), who, exactly, are you hoping faves that tweet?
Time To Say Goodbye
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This is Jay, here. We’re going to try something new today and use the flexibility we have with the newsletter. Think of it as a 2008-era morning blog roundup, where there’s a take at the top and a few curated links that we think you, the reader, will find interesting.
Spent much of last night thinking about Tou Thao, the Hmong cop who stood by and watched as Derrick Chauvin crushed George Floyd’s neck with his knee.
Thao is technically “Asian American” and as screenshots of his very Asian face started circulating through social media, there was an outpouring of condemnation from professional “Asian Americans.” It’s mostly stuff like this…
This sentiment has a long history. The typical move would be to trace it back to the Third World Liberation Front in the late sixties and early seventies, when Asian American activists allied themselves with Black and Chicano student organizations at San Francisco State and UC Berkeley. But that’s not exactly right — if you read Gidra (entire archive available! Please read it!) or the early founding documents of TWLF, the sentiment isn’t quite “we must examine how we benefit from White Supremacy and denounce it within our own communities,” but rather a call to understand that Asian-Americans are oppressed “Third World” people and should ally themselves with the other people who suffer under imperialism.
That’s actually quite different from the sort of sentiments expressed above, which have almost become rote at this point. (Their actual start date probably came some time during the summits after the LA Riots, when Asian-American scholars, many of whom had participated in the TWLF actions, began to put a hopeful spin on the question of Black-Korean relations.) The updated, social media version assumes a position of privilege and performatively demands an “examination” or a “calling out” of anti-blackness in “our community” without much explanation of what any of those phrases mean. And while there’s an affirmative command to go out and do something, the tone has always felt defensive, at least to me. The concern isn’t so much to come out and confront anti-blackness “in our community,” but rather to disassociate oneself from the racist in the video. He may look like me, but I am not him. ‘Real Asian-Americans’ reject him. Don’t let any of his racism splash on me.
It shouldn’t surprise anyone that these declarations almost always come from elite-educated, upwardly mobile East Asians and they’re almost always directed at poorer, or, at the very least, less genteel immigrants, whether nail salon workers, beauty shop owners, or, in this case, a Hmong-American policeman. There is almost no overlap between these groups. They might each have representatives at a summit or panel discussion in an academic setting, but Hmongs and other poorer Asian groups really only become “Asian American” when they fuck up and do something racist, or when they unexpectedly do something that falls in line with the sort of elite multiculturalism promoted by the professional “Asian-Americans.” And because these moments only really exist online, the plebes get further reduced down to video stills and images, where any of the context of their lives gets stripped away. They are just a face that kinda looks like my face, which makes them a threat.
You don’t need to be a Hmong scholar to understand the differences between the lives in a refugee community who have spent much of the past fifty years in poverty and the life of an upwardly mobile East Asian whose family came over on a skilled worker or student visa and quickly found a foothold in a town with a good school system. Hmongs and wealthy East Asians do not share a history, except at some point, one of them was oppressing the other. They also do not “benefit from White Supremacy” in the same way. Any category that includes both of them fails, mostly because wealthy East Asians define “Asian American” through their own personalized politics. So, why would the Hmong community have to carry the guilt burdens of wealthy Chinese, Korean and Japanese immigrants? And why, for God’s sake, do upwardly mobile Chinese, Korean and Japanese immigrants feel the need to launder their own class guilt through the Hmongs? It’s all nonsense.
None of this excuses Tou Thao. The point, rather, is this: Professional Asian Americans almost never reach out to populations like the Hmongs, except in the most cursory, box-checking ways. There is no “examination of our communities” because we — the wealthy East Asians — never really considered them part of our communities anyway.
Tou Thao should be condemned for being a killer cop who stood by and watched Derrick Chauvin murder George Floyd. But “Asian Americans” should ask themselves this question: When you say, “our” and “we,” who, exactly, are you talking to? And if you put it in a tweet (it’s always in a tweet), who, exactly, are you hoping faves that tweet?
They're gonna learn, too.
Thet have been treated like shit since corona hit. Whites blame them.
Thet have been treated like shit since corona hit. Whites blame them.
blue trumps black...the police isn't just an organization its a fraternity...its no coincidence what the first word is in their union FOP. That could have easily been a black cop or hispanic cop that stood by.
the thing is you would NEVER see a black, latino or asian/nonwhite cop do that to a white suspect. ..It hasn't happened and it wouldn't happen..
not because the white cops wouldn't allow it but that the conditioning of white supremacy makes it impossible for it to occur to nonwhite cop to even do some shit like that.
the thing is you would NEVER see a black, latino or asian/nonwhite cop do that to a white suspect. ..It hasn't happened and it wouldn't happen..
not because the white cops wouldn't allow it but that the conditioning of white supremacy makes it impossible for it to occur to nonwhite cop to even do some shit like that.
You got that right!!
Because they would immediately be brought up on murder 1 charges and "commit suicide" in their holding cell by the end of the day.
White cops won't allow it. Let it be a white woman. "Suicide" like Epstein.
What the fuck is a Hmong? Never heard of that
I blame them too but what is there to talk about? Minorities in america aren't united and never was,there was just an illusion that some carried it until they got their foot in the door and let their people in and did what whites do and that's exclude blacks;Look at how Jews,Native Americans did and look at what their doing now.
Some of you just like living in that illusion or being stuck on stupid because you mix and mingle but in reality you've been fighting by yourself the whole time and your generation are losers(60's-70's)because you have walked away from everything you were taught,things other's before you went through,you just abandoned it as if it never happened because the 80's and 90's might of made you forgot you were black for a few seconds(crack).
The white man's racism is bad but I would hate to see what them other fuckers would do if they were the majority,latino's,asian,arabs,shit even Africans might be worse.
We have no friends,we can't even befriend each other because something so simple as religion,class,skin color, will divide us,we will go hard after each other,shit even kill one another or something so simple and petty instead of thinking beyond us right here right now,the future is what's more important but to get some to think that way is hard when right now is all that matters.
https://q13fox.com/2020/05/27/man-arrested-following-rash-of-verbal-attacks-on-asians-in-seattle/
https://www.adl.org/blog/reports-of...t-and-hate-crimes-rise-as-coronavirus-spreads
Crawl your ass back under the covers and hide from the corona. You probably blame them, too.
yea he needs it too.that dude mad me so darn mad watching that video.i cant wait till he get what he deserves!
Stop believing the bullshit on the news.
Covid-2 was lab created. It takes too long for a strain of virus to naturally evolve to jump from animals to humans. That shit was accelerated. Blame the lab in China but don't blame a whole race. That's as bad as what white racists do to us.
As to the other shit: the only friends I have are the friends I make. I don't trust none of you mutha fuckers.
It's always been black people who've fell for the people of color shit. That is a result of integration. When blacks were out here yelling that people of color shit them other minorities were giving you their butt to kiss. Shit, I've always seem more whites ally with blacks than Asians, latinos, arabs, etc combined.
maybe East Asians
Like the article states
The vast majority of them are just as poor as everyone else
Hmong people especially.
Yep, and he had the deer in the head lights look .
I heard that the first day and haven't heard it mentioned since.
Apparently not, according to her divorce lawyer. Says she does have a brother who's a cop in St. Paul tho.
Guess it's just a coincidence considering her name used to be May Thao (as well as Kellie Thao and Kellie Xiong) according to her ex-husband's obituary
False claim targets wife of officer charged in Floyd’s death
Amid reports that the wife of the white officer charged with murder in the death of George Floyd filed for divorce, false social media posts emerged claiming her brother was among the officers invo…
www.twincities.com
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Apparently, the Hmong people fought alongside the US against neighboring Vietnam during the Vietnam War.
Not sure what that says about the Hmong people.
Carry on........
Muslims/Arabians were treated like shit post 911, did they ever learn? Shit even some Red Dot Indians were treated different after 912 but neither have learned.
W. Kamau Bell: Hmong-Americans redefined patriotism before my eyes
W. Kamau Bell describes the moving experience of meeting with a community of Hmong-Americans in Minnesota whose stories are inextricably tied together with the story of the United States during the Vietnam era and beyond, but whose lives and experiences have remained invisible to far too many...
www.cnn.com
The Asian family eventually befriended by Clint Eastwood in 'Gran Torino' was Hmong.
In my state if a Hmong applies themselves and graduate with a 4 year degree she can do well. She can even marry a cac even if the chick has average looks.
They ran from war and their parents got welfare here.
I don’t love all of anything. Especially a god damn male. I love Asian pussy but like anybody else you have some fucked up people in there. Shit, as you’ve seen not all Skinfolk are kinfolk. All these wack a mole coons amongst us. I know a ton of Asians more militant than some of these niggas
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