Why Did the Mayor of New York Apologize to Asian Americans and Why Won’t it be Accepted
After seven years and dozens of protests by Asian Americans Mayor De Blasio apologized for being wrong on two of several mistakes he’s made with the community but his remorse is not satisfactory to the community and here’s why.
At his daily news briefing, news reporter Arthur Chi’en asked him this question as he shuffled with his papers, “My question is one on race. You articulated the Tale of Two Cities early on. The question is which of the two cities do Asians belong to? And I ask this because your actions on specialized high schools, which was dropped, in effect, treated Asians as a class of New Yorkers who are deemed okay to take hard-earned opportunities from in their perspective, yet Asians are a minority and despite the myths, as you all know, the vast majority of Asians struggle as their fellow citizens that are African-American and Latinos do in the city with things like income and housing and education”. “ So, the question is, in which of the two cities do Asians belong to?”
Mayor De Blasio: “I apologize to members of the New York City Asian-American community who felt that the specialized high school vision was meant to exclude them. It was not. It was meant to help ensure that Black and Latino New Yorkers who are being excluded painfully, horribly from specialized high schools would have opportunity, but not to in any other way, take away from another group. And we simply didn’t handle that right, and that’s my fault. I’ll take responsibility for that. But the issue is still very much alive, Arthur.”
To his credit it appears the mayor is agreeing with the Asian community that his solutions to achieve his racial equity goals in schools ignore them, make them expendable, disrespects them, disparages them and leads them to conclude there is underlying anti-Asian racism involved. Though he is sorry and admits he was wrong, he is not backing off. He is continuing his effort to get rid of the entrance exam known as the SHSAT even though it smacks of historic anti-Asian discrimination and fits the pattern of enacting laws to get rid of Asians for working too hard.
The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 that lasted until 1944 was based on keeping Asians out of the country because they were perceived as working too hard as miners, laborers and laundry workers and displacing others. The mayor’s proposals indeed intend to displace and replace Asian Americans at the specialized schools where they are currently the majority. With limited capacity at the three large and five smaller schools its not possible to do otherwise under his plans. What else can the Asian American community conclude if he does not consider the solutions which can achieve his goals without stepping on the civil rights of others.
He has better options. He has the full authority under state mandate to add seats to accommodate the 30,000 students that wish to attend a specialized high school each year. No exclusion, displacement, racism, or long term educational turnarounds required. Opportunity will be expanded for all students of any color, gender, religion, sexual orientation or income level who are willing to take on a fast paced curriculum, a win-win solution. But even if he were to acquiesce on the high school issue, there still remains his insensitive policies towards Asian Americans on other issues.
Arthur Chi’en asked him about Asian Americans and the M/WBE Minority and Women-owned Business Enterprise program. In July, because of the pandemic, the Mayor signed an executive order directing the M/WBE to focus on Black and Latinx entrepreneurs to help them find opportunities including government contracts and creating online networks for the subset of people of color. No Asians were mentioned. Council member Peter Koo tweeted “sick and tired of constantly having to remind this administration that we exist.” . Justin Yu the president of the influential Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association similarly protested. Weeks later the Mayor’s wife Chirlane McCray held a round table for the M/WBE and once again Asians were excluded from any mention and excluded in the press release only this time the mayor’s wife had to apologize. A new study by the University of Kansas found that Asian Americans were affected the most by the unemployment caused by the pandemic and the China-flu rhetoric magnified the losses for Asian small business owners. Still, after all the criticism about being excluded the answer to Mr. Chi’en’s question “can you say right now that you will direct the M/WBE to include Asian businesses?” was essentially,- can’t say, I’ll get back to you. In other words a resounding NO.
Couple these issues with his attempt to put a jail in Chinatown, kicking off his homeless hotel initiative 7 years ago in an Asian neighborhood, turning his back on a Chinese business owner in mid sentence on his rare visit to pandemic plagued Chinatown and having his Chancellor hold a meeting in a Chinatown school with a Spanish translator but not a Chinese translator, one has to ask, What’s up with the Mayor and Asian Americans? And what can they do about it ?
For one, Asians are going beyond protesting. Their political legislative efforts have helped put the mayor’s SHSAT plans on hold for 7 years. The Chinatown community stopped their jail and all other community jails from being built putting his reform plans for Rikers on hold. The Flushing Main St. Busway has been put on hold. His schools chancellor is being named in a bullying and discrimination lawsuit and the city itself has a federal civil rights lawsuit on its hands concerning specialized high schools. Asians are really showing signs of being motivated to run for office and to vote. Their issues are also encompassing other groups who are similarly fed up with many of the Mayor’s policies.
2021 municipal candidates should be aware, apologies like promises to the Asian American community can ring hollow, if they want their community’s support words must be followed by action, otherwise Asian Americans will be the ones taking action.
