“Chinese Britons have put up with racism for too long”
I stumbled across the story of Danny Chen on Facebook, the 19 year old Chinese-American soldier who was allegedly racially bullied to death by his comrades which subsequently led me to the title article by Elizabeth Chan on The Guardian’s website.
Whilst I’m not shocked at the content of the article I was quite surprised by the feedback given by people who had commented on the link which I’d posted on various forums who stated they were unaware and didn’t know or even take notice of the racism that Chinese Brits are subjected to. The article was well written and was great in it’s exposure of a ‘minority group’ – but I was surprised at how long it took for a mainstream media publication to publish something like this.
Personally I’ve faced more racism between the ages of 11 and 16 (even now it continues) than most people in their lifetimes. My views on the reasons why it happens changes from time to time but has finally settled on not blaming the upbringing of the ‘attacker’ but the ‘risk factor’.
Ask any of the colleagues I work with in the security industry. I can guarantee you every shift there will be some smart arse who will make a ‘jokey’ remark about Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee, Kung Fu or Chinese food – the reason why? Because the risk of backlash from a Chinese person is far far less than if you were to make the same type of joke to a black or Asian person.
It’s funny to take the piss out of a Chinese guy right? “He’s not going to do anything”, let’s call him Jackie Chan and laugh drunkenly in his face as he serves us food. “Oh look he’s getting angry, ha! I bet he’ll Kung Fu us all!” is a scenario not too dissimilar to what I’ve experience before. But would they do that to a black guy? “Oh look it’s Samuel L Jackson!” let’s laugh in his face and make whipping sounds at him! “K-tssssh!!!”. It’s a guarantee that the latter wouldn’t happen.
A human being’s brain calculates risk which then affects the proceeding actions. Animals do the same thing. A hyena will calculate the risk of stealing food from pride of lions, if the risk is too great because the pride is baring it’s teeth and claws, willing to defend themselves – it’ll move on but then where does it end up? At the waterhole – hungry, curious and needing respite – so it looks over at the wildebeest. Although they’re a force in the masses, they don’t fight back often so the hyena calculates the risk. As a herd, they’re sparse and there’s not many and they certainly don’t LOOK like they could defend themselves properly – so they attack. In the same way as the pissed up student would when he’s just been told to “Fuck off” by the Chinese woman who no longer wants to put up with his small minded shit.
Risk. What are the risks?
