Calling on McCain to talk about race

Calling all journalists in cyberspace: can you please start asking John McCain to talk about race? I know that there has been scrutiny placed on both Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama over the topic of "race" during this presidential election season. But has anyone asked John McCain about his views on race in America? Don't we think that he HAS opinions about race in America?

The other day a friend and I were talking about the remarkable speech on race delivered by Barack Obama last Tuesday. And she said that he was the only person qualified to talk about race in the way he did--honestly, openly, directly--among the presidential contenders. I agreed, but then I pointed out that there was one other person. I pointed out that John McCain was in a unique position to also talk about his experiences with race in America--most specifically, his relationship with the Vietnamese American community, in particular, and Asian Americans, in general, regarding his use of the slur "gook" back in the run-up to the 2000 presidential elections, when McCain's "Straight Talk Express" took him to use the racial slur, unabashedly--telling reporters that:

"I hate the gooks. And I will hate them as long as I live. You can quote me on this."

I have to say this for McCain--he is a "Straight Talker," if by straight talk you are unabashed in your use of hate-speech.

He immediately issued an apology as the Straight Talk Express headed into the multiracial (and heavily Vietnamese American populated) state of California. And eight years later, very few people (except for some random blog sites and chat boards) seem to have remembered this flap, which also received very little press eight years ago. For more on the original incident back in 2000, you can read about it in The Nation (which also details the free "pass" that McCain seems to have gotten from the news media back in 2000, and which seems to echo the treatment he's getting now), an Orange County article about a small protest by Asian American students, and a San Jose Mercury News piece that also has an excellent op-ed by William Wong at the bottom.

[Aside: if you click on the link for the chat board--the discussion (which began a month ago) is VERY DISTURBING and points to the ways in which anti-Asian sentiment doesn't seem to disturb very many people. In addition to using the phrase "gook" continually, other people have added the full list of racial slurs against Asians, and others recount stories of harassing and beating up Asian American kids they grew up with. Apparently, this is a source of humor, and yet I can't find anything funny about violence and racial profiling]

So why am I bringing it up now?

Because lets imagine that his apology was sincere--that he only meant to refer to the "gooks" he hated as his North Vietnamese torturers (the Asian American studies professor in me has to switch off the critical thinking/skeptical part of my brain here). Lets imagine that he really hasn't used that racial epithet again (or at least in public) and that he has truly worked with the Vietnamese American community in their anti-communist agenda. [aside: these are all things included in his apology--that when he used the phrase "gook" it was meant to refer to his captors rather than to all Vietnamese people or to Asians in general, and McCain is often popular among Vietnamese (specifically South Vietnamese Americans) living in the U.S. for his anti-communist positions--with some leaders going so far as to say that if you are anti-McCain you are pro-communist.]

This places McCain in a unique position to talk openly and honestly about race. To talk about the challenges of being able to distinguish between an enemy abroad during a time of war and a community of people living in the U.S. It would also give him the opportunity to descry anti-Asian violence, since much of anti-Asian violence starts with mistaken ethnic identity (like that enacted against Vincent Chin and others--like Ming Hai "Jim" Loo--a Chinese American man attacked in Raleigh, NC by two brothers who stated that they "hate all Vietnamese").

So why aren't we asking McCain how to have a clear dialogue on race in this country? Shouldn't the man riding (and running) the Straight Talk Express bus be the ideal person to talk, openly, honestly, and directly, about race in America?

The Vietnamese Touch

Today I got pounded on the back by a middle-aged Vietnamese woman at a nail salon. I went with my cousins and an aunt for some female bonding and manicures. There were a string of about three different nail salons on one block, all of whom looked to be run by Vietnamese/Vietnamese American women. And this is, I have to say, a commonality in the Bay Area--nail salons run by Vietnamese people.

It's an interesting ethnic niche market--the Vietnamese nail salon. I can't quite figure out how they make any money since it was $10.00 a manicure, which included, as I alluded to above, a sound back pounding, neck rub, and full arm massage, along with the manicure. It feels as if nail salons in CA are almost synonymous with Vietnamese Americans. And yet, I do wonder if I'm stereotyping--and I don't mean to be. So I suppose it does raise the question: when does something cross the line between being a description to being a stereotype?