Tuesday, October 26, 2004
More Thoughts on 80-20
A few months ago, I posted a complaint against 80-20, an Asian American PAC. It came to my attention that they recently decided to endorse John Kerry, based on the fact that he agreed to enforce an Asian American equality initiative (I don't know all the details.)
My complaints back then were that 80-20 didn't seem to have a real direction, that they didn't seem to know who they wanted to endorse. Their incredibly late endorsement of John Kerry sort of points to this; neither candidate took the Asian American population seriously enough to make any effort to garner 80-20's support earlier. But that's not what I'm wanted to share. What I actually want to share, dear readers, is a retraction! Yikes! Not a full retraction, mind you; but I think I jumped the gun on condemning 80-20 for a few incorrect reasons.
I had thought that 50-50 voting splits demonstrate a sort of equality; caucasians vote 50-50, this shows that their needs are being served. This isn't totally true. Asian Americans vote 50-50 because usually their voting issues are not race-related. This might seem to imply that racism against Asian Americans is nonexistent. But all it really means is that blatant and flagrant discrimination is gone. Discrimination and racism can still occur in subtle, small ways that aren't big enough to raise a fit over, but are still wrong and need to be corrected. Like I said earlier, other people aren't going to fight this fight for you, so even though the discrimination may be slight, we do need groups to fight for equality. Although, would it really be so bad for a group to just fight for minority rights in general? Shouldn't the NAACP be concerned with racism of any kind? 80-20, too, for that matter?
It's things like this that still make me hesitant to actually like 80-20. I guess the idealist in me wants to point out that having a group fight for just Asian American rights is merely promoting racial divisiveness. But from a pragmatic standpoint, groups like this regrettably need to exist.
However, I do want to clarify my previous post. 80-20 doesn't want Asian Americans to just vote for the winning candidate as I implied. I thought that I had read an e-mail stating that fact, and maybe I did, but their main point is that they want 80% of them to vote for the candidate that they endorse, based on who serves their needs best. (Even if I think those needs are petty.) I still don't think this will work; not enough of us face discrimination to make it our hot-button issue. Most of us have already aligned ourselves with a party and will continue to vote on those lines. I suppose if enough racially minded Asian Americans vote based on 80-20's endorsement to give them a 65-35 split, that might be enough for 80-20 to consider themselves successful.
So there's my half-retraction. But... if you're an Asian American, don't vote for Kerry simply because 80-20. Vote for whoever you would have voted for.
My complaints back then were that 80-20 didn't seem to have a real direction, that they didn't seem to know who they wanted to endorse. Their incredibly late endorsement of John Kerry sort of points to this; neither candidate took the Asian American population seriously enough to make any effort to garner 80-20's support earlier. But that's not what I'm wanted to share. What I actually want to share, dear readers, is a retraction! Yikes! Not a full retraction, mind you; but I think I jumped the gun on condemning 80-20 for a few incorrect reasons.
I had thought that 50-50 voting splits demonstrate a sort of equality; caucasians vote 50-50, this shows that their needs are being served. This isn't totally true. Asian Americans vote 50-50 because usually their voting issues are not race-related. This might seem to imply that racism against Asian Americans is nonexistent. But all it really means is that blatant and flagrant discrimination is gone. Discrimination and racism can still occur in subtle, small ways that aren't big enough to raise a fit over, but are still wrong and need to be corrected. Like I said earlier, other people aren't going to fight this fight for you, so even though the discrimination may be slight, we do need groups to fight for equality. Although, would it really be so bad for a group to just fight for minority rights in general? Shouldn't the NAACP be concerned with racism of any kind? 80-20, too, for that matter?
It's things like this that still make me hesitant to actually like 80-20. I guess the idealist in me wants to point out that having a group fight for just Asian American rights is merely promoting racial divisiveness. But from a pragmatic standpoint, groups like this regrettably need to exist.
However, I do want to clarify my previous post. 80-20 doesn't want Asian Americans to just vote for the winning candidate as I implied. I thought that I had read an e-mail stating that fact, and maybe I did, but their main point is that they want 80% of them to vote for the candidate that they endorse, based on who serves their needs best. (Even if I think those needs are petty.) I still don't think this will work; not enough of us face discrimination to make it our hot-button issue. Most of us have already aligned ourselves with a party and will continue to vote on those lines. I suppose if enough racially minded Asian Americans vote based on 80-20's endorsement to give them a 65-35 split, that might be enough for 80-20 to consider themselves successful.
So there's my half-retraction. But... if you're an Asian American, don't vote for Kerry simply because 80-20. Vote for whoever you would have voted for.
# posted by Stuart @ 1:31 AM 
