Can US stem the rot of racism?

Racism in the United States has existed since the colonial era and it involves laws, practices, attitudes and actions which discriminate against various groups based on their race or ethnicity. The demography of the US indicates that it is a country of settlers, who were welcomed with open arms. Notwithstanding the Native Americans, who were conquered and crushed, the immigrants came from different backgrounds but worked hard to make the US great.

Unfortunately, time and again politicians have exploited racism to further their own selfish goals. The advent of the Ku Klux Klan, the American Civil War, McCarthyism and later Islamophobia are clear examples of this immoral practice and its deadly repercussions. Targeting any race, religion, creed or ethnic group has also led to a public backlash against the target group.

Last year’s killing in Minnesota of George Floyd and the January 6th 2021 storming of the Capitol Hill forced the US in the words of Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch to “confront the reality that, despite gains made in the past 50 years, we (the US) are still a nation riven by inequality and racial division.”

When racial discrimination is used for challenging other countries, it can have disastrous results, affecting the whole world. The former US President Donald Trump had chosen to target China, accusing it of using unfair trade policies but also castigating its perceived policies in Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Tibet, the South China Sea and against Taiwan. He went to the extent of claiming without any evidence that China is responsible for the outbreak of the deadly pandemic of Coronavirus, thus increasing animosity towards the Chinese. Donald Trump took China-baiting to the level of having the US Congress approve sanctions against China for its alleged persecution of the Uighur Muslims.

The Atlanta shootings last week, in which eight persons including six women of Asian origin were massacred in cold blood is not an isolated incident. Time magazine pronounces that the heinous act in the Atlanta area on March 16 came after a year of intense anti-Asian racism in the US. It opines that on the platforms where news arrives first, and quickly attaches to feelings, emotions were already raw. “This mass shooter was targeting Asian women and their businesses. There have been 500+ hate crimes targeted at Asian people this year alone,”

According to a report released on March 16 by Stop AAPI Hate, from March 19, 2020 to February 28, 2021, Asian Americans reported 3,795 hate-related incidents, ranging from verbal abuse to physical assaults, because of their ethnicity. Chinese are the largest ethnic group that report experiencing hate.

The Spokesperson for Chinese Foreign Ministry, Zhao Lijian, commenting on the report states that discrimination against Asian Americans, including against the Chinese, has been on the rise in the US over the past period of time. The number of violent hate crimes has also been increasing. Defenseless elders of Asian ethnicity have been brutally attacked, their lives put in grave danger. Such despicable actions, born out of senseless discrimination, makes the Chinese furious and sad.

A lot of hopes have been pinned upon the Biden Administration that it will be fair in engaging China and instead of seeking conflict, the US will perhaps have a healthy debate with it and iron out ripples so that cooperation between the two economic giants will lead to tackling the serious challenges faced by humanity. Unfortunately, the opening day of the Sino-US Security Dialogue in Alaska, only accentuated the points of dissent.

The Biden administration made a great start in picking a team based on diversity and utilizing their individual strengths for the greater good of USA. But if racism spills into its foreign relations and is used to confront other nations on the basis of their religion, faith or creed, it will have damaging results.

Are some US politicians still using racism for political manipulation? The question is answered by renowned writer and CNN’s TV Talk Show host Fareed Zakaria, himself an Asian American. In his latest opinion piece titled ‘The Pentagon is using China as an excuse for huge new budgets’ carried by The Washington Post of March 19, 2021, Fareed shares his views on the subject candidly. The erudite scholar states that “On the eve of his visit this week to Asia, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin outlined his key concern. ‘China is our pacing threat,’ he said. He explained that for the past 20 years, the United States had been focused on the Middle East while China had been modernizing its military. ‘We still maintain the edge,’ he noted, ‘and we’re going to increase the edge going forward.’ Welcome to the new age of bloated Pentagon budgets, all to be justified by the great Chinese threat’.”

If the United States of America wants to maintain its supremacy, it will not be in terms of the nuclear warheads or warships and fifth-generation fighter aircraft it possesses, but how it uses its strength of diversity, i.e. people from different identities to work together for achieving a common goal. Moreover, the US will have to protect its different cultures and not target any one of them internally or externally. Vice President Kamala Harris, an Asian American, who fervently condemned the Atlanta shootings, will have to step up her efforts to stem the rot of racism.

The key to the greatness of USA lies in heeding the words of Abraham Lincoln, its 16th President, who had abolished slavery: “With malice towards none, with charity for all…”