By Dr. David Chai, 7/29/2014
I come in front of you today to demand the immediate firing of Bob Beckel due to his insensitive, ignorant and bigoted racial remarks on Chinese people in America. Does he know anything about what the Chinese immigrants contributed to America, and how they were treated? For example:
1. The Chinese were here to prospect on the discovery of Gold in California in 1848, and when the white men could not compete, the CA Legislature enacted a “foreign miner’s tax” aimed at the Chinese in 1852.
2. Then they moved on to build the Western-end of the Transcontinental RR in the 1860’s, contributing significantly to the dangerous low-tech of dynamiting thru the Sierra Mountains. Yet, when it was finished with a final Golden spike by Mr. Leland Stanford of the future Stanford University on May 10, 1869, no Chinese were invited to participate in the ceremony. Then they were laid-off en-mass.
3. When the Civil War broke out in 1861, many Chinese fought on both sides of the war, just like many white men. But their patriotic sacrifices were never covered in the text books.
4. After the Civil War and after completion of the Transcontinental RR, most of them moved on to build the CA Central Valley levees to reclaim farm land; and when it was finished in the 1880’s, they were chased out, as they were not eligible to buy properties of their own.
5. Then to top it off, the US Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 to forcibly kick out Chinese, with or without citizenship.
6. Then when war broke off with Pearl Harbor bombing in 1942, the US government begged the Chinese government as an Allied force to fight against the Japanese Imperial military in Asia.
7. Finally, the CEA was repealed in 1943, with new immigration of Chinese to the US to study in Universities and obtaining graduate degrees, mostly in STEM fields. This time, they were asked to stay to teach the white men [and women] and to create new innovations and patents in the US.
8. Here in Silicon Valley, the ethnic Chinese make up more than 30% of high-tech work-force, creating new technologies to compete world-wide.
So, why is Beckel ranting on the video: “You know what they just did? As usual, we bring them over here, and we teach a bunch of Chinamen– uh, Chinese people how to do computers. They go back to China and they hack into us.”
Soooo,
Who is “they” that he ranted?
Who is “we” that brought them over here?
Who is teaching whom on computers?
And who is hacking whom? Apparently, he has not heard of Edward Snowden!!
Need I say more?
