I AM NOT A SPY!

Brina Sylve

ASA 02 - A02

April 19, 2015

Week 4

 

 

Oh the joys of racial profiling, it's used to uphold a hierarchy within society that puts certain ethnic and racial groups at a disadvantage against the hegemonic forces that be. What is all the more interesting about racial profiling is that it makes it so that one individual's actions or presumed action represents the ethnic group as a whole. In "The Impact of the Wen Ho Lee Case on Asian Americans" by George Koo, Koo tackles how the Wen Ho Lee case has affected the reality of Asian Americans and serves as a prime example of racial profiling and stereotypes at play.

 

For there lies a persistent little bug that scatters about purporting that Chinese and Japanese Americans in general are the puppets of a Communistic puppeteer with the goal of bringing about the downfall of American society without discriminating between citizens and immigrants seeking naturalization. What is damaging about this assumption is that Asian Americans are made out to be not "true" Americans and makes it easy to wipe out a history in which Asian Americans were present from the Gold Rushes of California to the streets during the Civil Rights movement. Therefore, when someone is made out to be not a "true" American, the discriminatory and prejudicial treatment becomes justified.

 

Which is why Wen Ho Lee was detained by police under unjust cause for hundreds of days and why he was unable to retain his career afterwards despite the fact that other white coworkers were able to continue in their careers with similar charges. And what is even nastier about these outcomes is the fact that Wen Ho Lee's charges were falsified and racially motivated, while others'... not so much.

 

Which brings me to ask:

Why is it that America continues to treat minority groups as a threat to society?