"Amerasians" in Vietnam:A rant our impotence to critique non-European racism

[MarxSchmarx]

There is this tendency on the left to decry racism by caucasians in the first world whilst the racism that non-caucasian groups exhibit is generally ignored or, as in the case of Rwanda or Sudan, largely set aside as a relic of a pre-capitalist past. And there is perhaps no more compelling example of the fact that many non-white societies are just as bigoted and willing to systematize and institutionalize this reactionary tendenancy than the case of children of American soldiers and Vietnamese women.

Here you have a group of people that are just as Vietnamese as their neighbors, but people in Vietnam and people abroad do not regard them as fully, or even at all, Vietnamese. As a result, they have all but renounced their heritage, their language, their own people, because the world at large, and possibly the left as well, refuses to pressure the bigots in the Vietnamese government to recognize them as just as much a member of their society.

To be sure, such prejudices existed against children of German occupiers of say France. But if they kept their past hidden, the children of German soldiers in France could pass as French and as long as their name was changed no one would be any wiser. To greater or lesser extents, the same could be said for Serbs and Bosnians, Hutus and Tutsis.

And make no mistake, sometimes the sense of racial superiority does descend directly from white-supremacist ideology. Arguably something like that is, and has been, behind the insistance of some in places like Sudan to regard themselves as the "more white" Arabs against the "blacks".

But this is not the case for the children of American occupiers in Vietnam.

I think the left should not shy away from denouncing such racism, even in a country/society as subjugated to white supremacy as Vietnam. The fate of orphans of American occupiers and Vietnamese women speaks volumes about the fact that racism is not unique to European societies, and that it is not unique to capitalism.

What angers me is that there are leftists who would agree that these people are somehow "not really Vietnamese". In my travels I have encountered people who, rightfully, denounce the racism of America, the bigotry of the Serbs, the insensitivity of the Han chinese to the Tibetans, but who would be just as unwilling to see people like the "Vietnam war babies" as less than fully Vietnamese. This kind of patronizing refusal to recognize racial issues in non-white countries is what perhaps fuels the left's apparent indifference o racism in places like Vietnam.

Indeed, we have an impressive vocabulary and discourse of critiquing white supremacy. But we are singularly unable or even unwilling to express it when basically the same form of material discrimination is perpetrated by non-whites.


http://www.globalpost.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/gp3_full_article/vietnam_orphans_nhung_2011_09_01.jpg

http://www.globalpost.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/gp3_full_article/vietnam_orphans_dang_2011_09_01.jpg

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/vietnam/110901/vietnam-war-babies-US-visa-GIs-troops

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Yeah, that's because the left is penetrated through-and-through with New Left crap. It's all based on personal actions and ideas, white liberal guilt, and "rooting for the under dog."

Of course race is a social construct, not a biological reality. It's used to divide. Racism itself came in with a boom with capitalism, which was able to utilize it perfectly.

"If you know the history of the whole concept of whiteness—if you know the history of the whole concept of the white race, where it came from and for what reason—you know that it was a trick, and it’s worked brilliantly. You see, prior to the mid to late 1600s, in the colonies of what would become the United States, there was no such thing as the white race. Those of us of European descent did not refer to ourselves by that term really ever before then." - Tim Wise, The Pathology of Privilege

"Historically, 19th century Europeans classified peoples in their colonies into a hierarchy of categories which placed northern Europeans at the top of a pseudo-evolutionary scale. They saw the dark, primitive peoples of the colonies as suitable for enlightenment by the civilized nations of Europe which often translated into economic and social exploitation and sometimes genocidal policies." - "Race" as a Social Construct
(http://www.gossamer-wings.com/soc/Notes/race/tsld002.htm)
"The European colonists who founded the United States ... accepted the idea of racial hierarchy that was prevalent in Europe at the time. It was just too convenient: The socially constructed concept of race was a powerful tool that aided them in the conquest of the continent... Because they believed that races were genetically different (although they didn't describe it in those terms), many saw the exploitation of the Indians and Africans as no different from the use of farm animals. For such thinkers, the fact that the Bible had no explicit proscription against slavery justified the importation of millions of slaves from the western shores of Africa to meet the growing needs of agricultural production in the colonies." - The Problem, Simply Stated. The Race Myth: Why We Pretend Race Exists in America (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.enotalone.com/article/5043.html), by Joseph L. Graves Jr., Ph.D.

The construct continues on today as an element of this society. It won't be eliminated by "anti-racist action," "diversity," "reverse racism," or any other activist method which actually works to strengthen the concept of racial division, to the detriment of the international working class.

It will only be overcome and eliminated when it's source is, through the activity of the working class. Seeds of this were seen in historic episodes like the Coal Creek War (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_Creek_War)in Tennessee. White miners there were being replaced with mostly black prison laborers. The miners repeatedly freed the prisoners and burnt down the stockades they were being held in. These monumental acts, which had more effect than ten thousand vigils could, were done not because someone had convinced them that racism was morally wrong, but rather because it was in their interests to do so.