We are calling upon the Asian American community at large to join the third October 22nd National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation.
A poisonous political atmosphere continues to permeate this country since last year's second October 22nd National Day of Protest. In New York, since the NYPD torture of Haitian immigrant Abner Louima, police beatings, unannounced break-in and killings continue unabated. NYC mayor Rudolph Giuliani's so-called "quality of life" campaign is a national model of open disdain and cruelty, where victims of police shootings are berated and demonized, where cops are walking the hallways of our children's schools, where hollow-point bullets are introduced to the police arsenal for "public safety", where protesting South Asian cabbies are labeled "terrorists", where TV cameras on the streets and parks routinely follow your every move.
Since last year, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have released reports on a wide range of human rights abuses--killings and use of excessive force and torture--by U.S. police forces, including the U.S. Border Patrol. We have seen the campaign of terror escalate against immigrants, especially those from Latin America and from Asia. Killings at the border have increased significantly. Immigrants without papers are routinely locked up without due process.
Police brutality has always been a feature common to life in communities of color, especially Black and Latino communities. In Chinatowns, immigrant youth--without provocations--are routinely harassed. Southeast Asian youth in southern California suburbs are being hauled in and photographed by police. In San Francisco's Tenderloin district, Vietnamese youth must walk a gauntlet of porn shops and drug-infested streets just to get to school. Only to be harassed by school guards and the police for their so-called "gang attire", and face unannounced INS raids.
Recently events has bolstered the perception that a war has been declared on Asians as police and racists have habitually targeted Asians. Last year anti-Asian violence went up 17%. People have reported of increased cases of police harassment of Chinatown merchants in New York. On September 20, three white men brutally attacked and beat an Indo-Caribbean man with baseball bats in Queens, NY. In Washington, D.C., while riding a bike, a Chinese graduate student was rammed by a car, and then brutally beaten by the three white men riding in it.
These cases all share similarities in how cavalierly Asians are treated--just as in the case of the recent apartment raid and beating of Dr. H. Huang, a retired, 78 year old CCNY professor who was thrown and beaten by NYPD cops and then suffered a stroke two days afterwards. Despite protests from the community, including from the local Organization of Chinese-Americans, the police were exonerated from blame. (Ironically, the professor was the brother of Dr. Henry Lee, the Connecticut pathologist of O.J. Simpson fame, and who is now heads the Connecticut State Police!)
And in a case of police murder which so outraged the Bay Area Chinese and Asian American community last year, the senseless killing of Kuanchung Kao, a Chinese immigrant engineer, by Rohner Park (CA) police, has been whitewashed by Federal and state authorities, who have judged the shooting "justifiable".
It's time that Asian Americans come together to take action on a national basis which can impact on this political system. Police brutality and murder has become more a visible feature of the political climate we live in. This is a climate in which immigrants and other peoples of color are targeted, and the Abner Louima police torture case in New York provides another punctuation to this intolerable situation.
The October 22nd Coalition recognizes that police brutality is at the tip of the overall war being waged against us. We need to dialogue over our differences--but it's time to unite to fight the epidemic of police brutality nationally. The October 22nd National Day of Protest Against Police Brutality provides that linkage. Demonstrations, rallies, prayer meetings and other activities are planned for New York, San Francisco, Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles, New Haven, and many other cities.
We also call upon those veteran immigrant and Asian American political activists to step forward with funds and resources. We need funds for flyers, posters and stickers in Bengali, Chinese, Korean, Tagalog and Vietnamese. We also need to make announcements in the various ethnic language press about October 22nd National Day of Protest. A national movement needs to be built, and Asians should be a part of that mix. In some areas there will be Asian contingents at October 22nd demonstrations. Call 1-888-NO BRUTALITY for information in your area.
[This statement is initiated by Steve Yip, an Asian American movement veteran, and an organizer of the October 22nd Coalition (212-673-5533 or 212-713-5084, yipz at erols.com). ]
signed:
Colleen Akai (San Francisco CA) Diane Fujino (Santa Barbara CA) Dolly Veale (Berkeley CA) Duoaly Xaykaothao (New York) Dylan Rodriguez (Berkeley CA) Eric Mar (San Francisco) Fred Ho (New York) Grasshopper (New York) Janet Hedani Yip (New York) Mancheui Leung (New York) South Asians Against Police Brutality (NYC) Steve Yip (New York) Wayne Lum (New York) Yuri Kochiyama (New York)
------------------------------------------------ Oct 22 - NYC - Rally at Union Square, 4PM (very short rally, be on time) March to City Hall, arrive 6PM; Info: Steve @ 212-673-5533 or 212-713-5084, yipz at erols.com.
SF, CA - Gather 2:00 pm at 24th and Mission in San Francisco; March to City Hall, 401 Van Ness/Mc Allister for a rally at 4:00pm; Info: Colleen @(415)864-5153.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Eric Mar Northern California Coalition for Immigrant Rights 995 Market Street, 11th Floor San Francisco, CA 94103 (415) 243-8215 X310 fax (415) 243-8628 email: eric at nccir.org; ericmar at worldnet.att.net web site: www.nccir.org -------------------------------------------------------------------