Asian Americans are voicing outrage over the refusal of the White House to help ban a song by the hip-hop artist YG that glorifies attacks on the homes of Chinese families in the US.
A reaction from the Obama administration was prompted after more than 114,000 people signed a petition calling on the president to wade into the controversy surrounding the California-born rapper’s song, “Meet The Flockers.” The nationwide drive began in September under a presidential program that allows any petition gathering over 100,000 signatures to receive an official White House response.
The petition asked the federal government to ban the song “from public media and investigate the legal responsibilities of YG.”
“The First Amendment protects the freedom of speech in the United States. The White House doesn’t make decisions about whether particular songs are available publicly. Individual platforms determine their choice of content and the rules of participation and conduct for their sites,” said a statement first posted on the White House website on November 29 and signed the “We the People Team.”
Many Asian American leaders, while affirming their support for free speech, were angry that the president chose not to condemn the song’s lyrics.
“(The White House decision) was disappointing, both in tone and substance,” said Yungman Lee, the CEO of Global Bank in Manhattan’s Chinatown and a former Democratic candidate for New York’s 7th Congressional District. “The response was delivered in soulless bureaucratic language suggesting our complaint wasn’t taken seriously … Of course there is a First Amendment right of free speech. But we learnt even in high school civic lessons that you cannot cry fire in a crowded theater. Have the rappers crossed the line? I think so. You are not free to commit a crime against a group of people.”
“I am very disappointed that President Obama refused to ban rapper YG’s song,” said Yukong Zhao, president of the Asian American Coalition for Education. “This song (constitutes) hate speech because it incites violence against Chinese Americans, a specific racial group. He should have at least condemned it. If this song had targeted African or Muslim Americans, President Obama would have immediately banned it. Just like his attitude toward college admissions, unfortunately, President Obama’s social justice only applies to some racial groups he favors, not Asian-Americans.”
Crime blueprint
YG’s “Meet The Flockers” lyrics read, in part:
First, you find a house and scope it out
Find a Chinese neighborhood, cause they don’t believe in bank accounts
Second, you find a crew and a driver, someone ring the doorbell
And someone that ain’t scared to do what it do
Third, you pull up at the spot
Park, watch, ring the doorbell and knock
Four, make sure nobody is home
The song was the focus of an October demonstration by over 700 people in downtown Philadelphia. The protesters connected the two-year-old song with the armed robberies of more than 100 local Chinese American families and businesses in 2016 and demanded more police protection. Twelve families were also said to be victims of home invasions between July and August of this year.
The large rally, timed to coincide with a concert by YG in Philadelphia on October 15, was attended by Asians as well as some members of the African American community.
“All of us together, the city of Philadelphia, must stand arm-in-arm, hand-in-hand to oppose any act of violence,” said the Reverend Robert Shine, an African American pastor who attended the rally and characterized YG’s lyrics as “reprehensible.”
Chinese American groups also demonstrated against the song in other cities across the US.
Not the first time
This isn’t the first time that rap lyrics have outraged Asian Americans. New York hip-hop station Hot 97 was blasted in January 2005 for playing a song that mocked the victims of the earthquake and tsunami that killed nearly 230,000 people in Asia.
The lyrics of the parody, sung to the 1985 tune “We Are The World,” read, in part:
All at once you could hear the screaming chinks
and no one was safe from the wave
there were Africans drowning, little Chinamen swept away
you could hear god laughing, “swim you bitches swim”
Hot 97 apologized and fired the staffers responsible for the incident — which drew criticism from non-Asian groups such as the Anti-Defamation League and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi.
“For someone to market these negative, despicable and deplorable images of people who have suffered so much is a travesty of justice. People of good will must condemn this,” said Charles Barron, an African American member of the New York City Council, at the time.
Doug Tsuruoka is Editor-at-Large of Asia Times
Quam Talk to those who are guilty of inciting this crime. I am totally against it. It is ashame and we have to do something. We have to be where these rappers are and in front of stores where their music is sold. It has to be a large organized effort. China Americans do not give up!
America?
It’s sometimes, black americans like the rapper, that treat Asians improperly, they open restaurants and supermarkets in poorer deprived neighborhoods providing and then get ripped off? Oprah should come down on her own community and smack them down for this.
When has Trump spoken against asian-americans?
Paul CB nope, I’m caribbean but I don’t have to be Asian to know that what is being done is WRONG. It hurts to be treated like that.
Free speech is the freedom to encourage and threaten the President of the United States, people of color, women and national minorities and have people of color threaten each other? This is called liberty and justice for all? If that is the case, I wouldn’t hesitate to go hunting for the rapper or so called entertainer who coined those assnine lyrics to rob and hurt Chinese Americans. The law works for the privileged……..not the few.
You filipino bro? I know how that feels even though asians like us are model immigrants, I am Chinese-Filipino myself.
oops
It sickens me to see how Asians are so easily discriminated against. I worked at a restaurant and the hispanics, african americans and anglos would be allowed to play their music on the radio, when the Chinese workers humbly asked to let them hear one of their songs, everyone laughed and insulted them. Then in the kitchen, the black french carribbeans who worked their would start making fun of their language, saying ching ching chonginggong. I called them out on it and accused them of racism! That shut them up. Asians shouldn’t have to take this CRAP!!!!
Measured by recent events, elite opinion in the United States, which is reflected in the controlled mass media and political establishment, is increasingly becoming more and more hostile toward traditional white America.
According to iconic media personality Oprah Winfrey, America is still a deeply racist country in many regards, despite the progress made since the fratricidal, destructive “Civil” War.
During a recent interview with the British Broadcasting Corp., Ms. Winfrey said that old racists “just have to die” in order for America to overcome its “racist” past. She also stated that much of the criticism leveled against President Barack Obama and “disrespect” shown for the office of the presidency since his election is based on the fact that he is a black man—a truly absurd statement to make. Ms. Winfrey is one of the richest and most powerful women in the entire world, and has amassed much of her fortune in the very country she considers marred by “racist” attitudes.
“The media goes into overdrive only when the message is that whites are evil or, as with the election of Obama, that America is at last shedding its white identity and none too soon,” explained Dr. Kevin MacDonald, author of numerous books dealing with racial issues from an evolutionary perspective. “The main source of information in today’s society is the mass media, which is controlled by an elite that is hostile to the traditional people and culture of America. Oprah Winfrey saying that critics of Obama are racist and saying that all racists have to die illustrates the deep hatred toward whites that permeates elite opinion in the U.S.”
strongly agreed! another example of hypocrisy and double standard from Obama’s point of view.
If the Chinese started a hate propaganda on another race such as whites or blacks that will be freedom of speech, right? What’s wrong of Nazis hate of Jews, if that is banned, why should the blacks inciting attack on Chinese be protected. It’s not like such crimes are not happening already and needed more encouragement! Pathetic country as it is!