May Our Boys Never Grow Up to Be A Jackass Like Kenneth Eng

When Pooks, SHMT and Halmoni went to pick up BHS from kindergarden yesterday, I thought I'd sneak in my daily dose of tabloid trash and other offal from SFGate.com. I was shocked by this jackass's column. Kenneth Eng is in his early 20's, according to one source. I'd like to believe his painfully racist opinion is based on his youth, that he is so painfully narrowminded because of a limited experience that will one day be a part of his past, buried with all the hurt that Eng has experienced from all those he hates.

If you haven't already heard about Kenneth Eng's "Why I Hate Blacks" and the outrage its causing, read on. A copy of the article as well as Eng's column entitled "Why I Hate Asians." is posted on Rafael Ebron's website http://www.rebron.org/.

I can understand what's eating at his craw (and I mean craw, not "oh lookee a da bird craw!"). I've experienced a rainbow array of discrimination. My supervisor (who happened to be black) hired me at below minimum wage, citing her business right to pay students less than minimum, yet she hired another student (who happened to be black) from my school later at minimum wage. This same supervisor had me do dirty clean up work while the other workers (all whites and one black) got by doing non-menial tasks. As for the numerous racial slurs from in my life from whites, they are way too many and too painful to recount. When I moved to San Bernardino, a Mexican boy harassed me mercilessly every day for weeks until my teacher moved me to another class under the guise of advancing me to a higher-demanding course program.

So I'm no stranger to the racist bullshit that goes with living in this country. But what probably took the cake was around 2003, when I was shopping in Downtown LA's Koreatown, in a Korean-owned retail shop where there was security everywhere, following customers in a very discriminatory manner. They shamelessly followed me like I was a thief, and I felt like every black person must have in a Korean-immigrant-owned store. I recall my parents making me shadow the customers (black and Latino) in our liquor store when I was as young as 8.

Discrimination and racist tendencies are in us all. I've never had to drink from a 'Colored Only' water fountain. Pooks had to ride at the back of the bus when he lived in Louisiana as boy! I suspect I've had job and housing discrimination despite the laws that have only been on the books for the last 30 (40?) years. I probably have had more discrimination based on my gender than my race though.

And no matter what whites say about being discriminated upon in Asia or other parts of the world or this country, there's the fact that Caucasians, specifically Americans and western Europeans enjoy a certain cachet of power that being colonialists and opportunists of late has given them that people of color in this country do not enjoy equally, even though we are "Americans" too.

The institutions of Law and Education are just two places that I know of where recent changes have occurred, and we all know that laws and policies change at a different rate (sometimes slower, sometimes faster) than the mores at heart of society. How many houses burned and continue to burn when racial lines were/are crossed? Hell, in what 2004 or 2005, Ohio still had a county where the water lines were segregated based on the color line. And you all know if you're a person of color, what happens when you drive through the South.

I won't even get into discrimination against gays.

Although I can sympathize with the hurt and anger that Kenneth Eng clearly exudes in his two columns, I cannot condone his hateful distortion of the facts concerning "black inferiority" and I cannot accept ridiculous reasons for discriminating against blacks, whites or for that matter fellow yellows. I think this young man clearly needs therapy and a few, good colorful friends. If you're reading this, Kenneth, Go out and get a friend! The world is full of nice colored people, pick a color, any color! Just get out of your house!

Although I can understand people being outraged, I felt it myself and still do, and wanting to punch some sense into this guy, I don't think this guy needs more hurtful/hateful experiences from blacks, Aryans, and us "sycophantic" Asian suck ups.

If anything, I hope some little girl or boy or old lady of any of the offending colors befriends Eng and some how helps him to release all his anger, helps him to understand that although there are plenty of assholes in many hues on this tired yet beautiful planet, Kenneth Eng does not need to be one of them.