>Doug, I believe that it is similar to Kalecki's political business
>cycle. It has to
>do with the specific stage of the economy. When there is a lot of
>unemployment, fight
>AA, cause dissention, and blame the minorities. When the job market
>is tight, go for
>AA.
I agree with Michael, Carrol, and Gordon, who all made sensible remarks. I want to add that big businesses would still fight against affirmative action, _if_ affirmative action were really legislated as _quotas_ imposed on corps by the government, since that would contradict management prerogative of deciding whom to hire, promote, and fire. As it stands (especially since it's been watered down so much, though it was a weak Yes for racial equality from the get-go), affirmative action doesn't contradict management freedom, so in principle liberal segments of capitalists should feel free to support it. Supporting affirmative action in its present form doesn't cost them much either.
As long as the war on crime & drugs continues, there is a material cause for victimization of all racial minorities, including relatively rich Blacks & Latinos. Schooling below the college level has continued to be separate & unequal (and more so than before probably, with white flight & the end of mild attempts at desegregation). While a few blacks and Latinos have been able to advance in various careers formerly closed to them, capital's counter-offensive since the last wave of mass social movements (union-busting, subcontracting, suburbanization of manufacturing, attacks on the public sector employment, erosion & even disappearance of various social programs, tax cuts for the rich, and so forth) has had a disproportionate effect on blacks & Latinos, who are richly represented in the lower tiers of the segmented & stratified working class. In this polarization of colored America, poor blacks and Latinos may suffer additionally, in that, unlike in the past when all racial minorities were equally discriminated against, there may be a little less sense of racial solidarity among better-off blacks & Latinos than before. Whites, in turn, can point to rich & famous blacks and excuse themselves, "hey, what's the problem?"
Further, as Africa continues to sink into the depth of poverty, the image & reality of poor Africans cannot but influence how blacks in America are perceived by whites and other races. There has been an international dimension to the idea of race. How the depressing fate of post-independence Africa has been reported (mostly in a way that frames Africans as solely responsible for African poverty, while excusing the history of colonialism and attendant international division of labor) in the mass media should be a matter of concern for anti-racists in America.
Lastly, America's foreign policy affects how racial minorities are treated at home also. For instance:
***** Los Angeles Times June 9, 2000, Friday, Home Edition SECTION: Metro; Part B; Page 7; Metro Desk HEADLINE: RALLY DENOUNCES CHARGES IN SPY CASE; COURT: PROTESTERS SAY ARREST OF LOS ALAMOS SUSPECT COULD LEAD TO RACIAL PROFILING OF ASIAN AMERICAN SCIENTISTS.
BYLINE: BOB POOL, TIMES STAFF WRITER
Claiming that Asian American aerospace engineers and scientists in the Los Angeles area could be the next victims of racial profiling, protesters Thursday in Westwood denounced the arrest of nuclear weapons scientist Wen Ho Lee.
Charged with mishandling classified government information, Lee has been turned into a fall guy by U.S. officials desperate to figure out how China apparently obtained secret details of America's newest thermonuclear warhead, asserted nearly 100 demonstrators who gathered outside the Federal Building.
The Wilshire Boulevard protest was part of a "National Day of Outrage" organized by Asian American groups angry over the treatment of Lee. Demonstrations were also held in Detroit, New York, Salt Lake City, San Francisco and Washington.
Thursday marked the sixth month that the 60-year-old Lee, a U.S. citizen born in Taiwan, has been in jail. Held without bail, he is charged with 59 counts of mishandling top-secret information at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Although under suspicion of providing nuclear secrets to China, Lee has not been charged with espionage.
Protesters wearing bright yellow shirts and carrying signs reading "I'm Asian--Arrest Me Too" and "You Say He's a Spy, We Say That's a Lie" heard speakers call for Lee's release on bail while he awaits a November trial date.
"His imprisonment is inhumane and unjustified. He's not a flight risk," said Saykin Foo, a Los Angeles resident who is vice president of the 105-year-old National Chinese American Citizens Alliance. "He's a scientist working to protect American freedom."
The crowd was told that Asian Americans working in sensitive positions at defense firms in Southern California are at risk if hysteria over national security leaks spreads.
"This sort of thing could happen to any of us because of our look or our ancestry," warned Charles Sie, an engineer and retired vice president of Xerox from Palos Verdes. He is vice chairman of the Committee of 100, a national group of Chinese Americans active in international issues.
Alfred Foung, a Granada Hills resident and head of the Los Angeles chapter of the 80-20 Pac, a national civil rights group, agreed.
"It's clear racial profiling and political scapegoating," Foung charged. "'It can happen to all of us. We have to tell the politicians we don't want stereotyping."
Investigators have denied singling out Lee as a possible spy because of his ethnicity. They say Lee was among 12 people--nine whites and two others of Asian ancestry--working at various U.S. facilities who had access in the mid-1980s to information about U.S. nuclear warheads that China might have stolen. China, meantime, has denied it engaged in spying.
Lee was arrested last December and accused of violating the Atomic Energy Act and the Federal Espionage Act by moving classified nuclear weapons data from a secure computer at the Los Alamos lab onto 10 portable computer tapes. If convicted of violating the Atomic Energy Act, he could face life in prison and a $ 250,000 fine. A conviction under the espionage act carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in jail and a similar fine.
Pretrial hearings scheduled for Wednesday and next Monday were delayed earlier this week in Albuquerque when a federal judge unexpectedly removed himself from the case. There is speculation that the change in judges will delay the scheduled Nov. 6 start of Lee's trial.
Protesters Thursday asked that bail be authorized for Lee so he can adequately prepare his case. Stewart Kwoh, head of the Asian Pacific American Legal Center of Southern California, urged those in the crowd to demand that U.S. Atty. Gen. Janet Reno intervene in the case.
Legal Center colleague Kathay Feng complained that the computerized material Lee is alleged to have downloaded was actually "low-security information" that the government reclassified later in hopes of making the charges against him stick.
Protester Sharon Lee, an El Monte television executive who is unrelated to Wen Ho Lee but is from his Taiwanese hometown, said she knows in her heart he's innocent.
"He's from Taiwan. He'd never give any information to China. No way," she said.
GRAPHIC: PHOTO: Dr. Paul Chow, a physics professor at Cal State Northridge, is gagged and chained for protest Thursday against arrest of scientist. PHOTOGRAPHER: CAROLYN COLE / Los Angeles Times *****
***** The New York Times July 16, 2000, Sunday, Late Edition - Final SECTION: Section 1; Page 1; Column 4; National Desk HEADLINE: FALLOUT IN ARMS RESEARCH: A special report.; Amid Race Profiling Claims, Asian-Americans Avoid Labs BYLINE: By JAMES GLANZ
Asian and Asian-American scientists are staying away from jobs at national weapons laboratories, particularly Los Alamos, saying that researchers of Asian descent are systematically harassed and denied advancement because of their race.
The issue has long simmered at the laboratories, but it came to a boil last year with the arrest of Dr. Wen Ho Lee, who is accused of mishandling nuclear secrets at Los Alamos. Though officials vehemently deny it, many Asian-Americans said Dr. Lee, a naturalized citizen born in Taiwan, was singled out because of his ethnicity.
In any event, Asians and Asian-Americans said, security procedures implemented after Dr. Lee's arrest fall hardest on them. Since the arrest, some scholarly groups have even called for a boycott of the laboratories, urging Asian and Asian-American scientists not to apply for jobs with them.
Whether because of the calls for a boycott, the underlying claims of discrimination, or both, all three national weapons laboratories -- Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore and Sandia -- have seen declines in Asian and Asian-American applicants for postdoctoral positions, according to their own statistics. Other Asian and Asian-American scientists have left voluntarily.
Los Alamos, for example, has seen the number of Asian applicants (those granted formal reviews by committees) dwindle to 3 in the first half of 2000 from an average of 28 in 1998 and 1999. The number accepting jobs at Los Alamos fell from 18 in 1998 to 9 in 1999 to 3 in the first half of 2000.
The combined acceptances of Asians and Asian-Americans at Sandia and Livermore, which compile statistics by fiscal years ending in late September, are similar to Los Alamos, falling to 3 so far in 2000 from 21 in 1998. At Los Alamos, the number of Asians applying for jobs declined in percentage as well, to 4 percent of total applications from 12 percent in 1998. Over all, postdoctoral appointments of Asian and Asian-American fell to 7 percent from 14 percent when the three laboratories, with their slightly different record keeping, are combined.
"To me, this is an indicator that some of the best have decided either not to apply, or even when they do apply, not to come when they're offered a position," said Dr. John C. Browne, director of Los Alamos.
The decline is troubling for two reasons. First, Asians and Asian-Americans represent a huge pool of talent -- more than a quarter of all Ph.D.'s awarded in science and technology at American universities each year. Second, postdoctoral appointments, which are generally filled by researchers who have recently earned Ph.D.'s, are an essential source of candidates for permanent positions. The appointments constitute "the primary means of recruiting future scientists and engineers for Los Alamos," said Jim Danneskiold, a spokesman for the laboratory.
In May, the National Science Foundation, a major source of research money, reported that "heightened security concerns" at the laboratories were hindering efforts to recruit and retain Asian and Asian-American scientists.
And last week, speaking before a panel of the House Armed Services Committee on reorganizing the Energy Department, Representative Ellen O. Tauscher, Democrat of California, referred to suspicions of racial profiling at Livermore and Sandia.
Mrs. Tauscher said there was "the sense that Asian-Americans are targeted or scapegoated as potentially coming to work at the labs because they can spy," adding that the problem "has a deleterious effect on our ability to recruit and retain."
Observers say they are not surprised by the comments.
"There's no question in my mind that the Asian-Americans are conscientiously avoiding working in Los Alamos and the other labs like the plague," said Prof. L. Ling-chi Wang, chairman of the department of ethnic studies and director of the Asian American studies program at the University of California at Berkeley.
Two organizations, the Asian Pacific Americans in Higher Education and the Association for Asian American Studies, have called for a boycott, urging Asian-Americans not to work at the laboratories.
Professor Wang, who helped organize the boycott calls, is not alone in thinking that they have contributed to the flight from the laboratories.
Dr. Browne said that an "overall black cloud" caused by the boycott was driving Asian and Asian-American scientists away, but said that he did not believe racial profiling had occurred at Los Alamos.
Still, it is difficult to say whether anger over security measures is the sole reason for the sharp drop in Asian and Asian-American applicants, particularly with laboratory budget cuts and a booming economy creating lucrative jobs in private industry. But the impact is apparent.
"The labs are falling apart," said Dr. Jonathan Medalia, a specialist in national defense at the Congressional Research Service and the author of a study on the laboratories, which he presented at a conference but has not yet delivered to Congress.
The loss of talent is most severe in computer science, Dr. Medalia said, and if it continues, could threaten the nation's ability to ensure the safety and reliability of its nuclear weapons.
He said that tightened security measures increased the losses among all ethnic groups, but that the economy and other effects contributed.
Accusations of racism have also led to formal complaints.
In December, nine Asian-American scientists and engineers at Livermore filed a discrimination complaint with the State of California that the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing is investigating.
The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has also begun an investigation, said officials at the laboratory and a lawyer for the scientists.
Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson, whose agency oversees the laboratories, conceded that political pressures from Congress had created "an atmosphere of fear" among foreign-born scientists.
A year ago, Mr. Richardson named a committee to investigate complaints of racial profiling, and he appointed Dr. Jeremy Wu, a former official in the Agriculture Department's office of civil rights, as the department's ombudsman to review diversity issues and hear employee complaints. But the problems are so ingrained, scientists said, that those measures are not enough.
"For years, a lot of these things have festered, and it was typical of the Asian way to say nothing," said Kalina Wong, an American-born scientist of Chinese and Hawaiian descent who tracks inventories of nuclear materials at Livermore, and one of the employees who filed the complaint. Now, Ms. Wong said, "Pandora's Box is open."
Laboratory officials deny any systematic discrimination. If anything, they said, administrators are eager to promote members of ethnic groups.
The Complaints A History Of Discrimination
The new security directives do not explicitly mention Asian-Americans or any other group; moreover, Mr. Richardson accompanied the directives with a warning that they should not be seen as an excuse to question the "loyalty and patriotism" of Asian-Americans as a group.
But the directives required scientists to report "close and continuing contact" with nationals of sensitive countries -- a designation that covers Russia and most countries in Asia, but few countries in Europe.
"If you have relatives in sensitive countries, you are under the microscope," said Dr. Aaron Lai, a climate researcher at Los Alamos and a naturalized citizen born in Taiwan. "Before the Wen Ho Lee case, the chance of getting promoted was very low," Dr. Lai said. But with the new rules, he said, "it's getting worse."
Joel Wong, an engineer at Livermore, who is from Hong Kong and is now an American citizen, said, "They associate foreign-born with being a threat."
The 19-member committee appointed by Mr. Richardson, issued a report earlier this year, based on interviews with workers. Its recommendations included appointing an ombudsman, as Mr. Richardson has done, and compiling data on minority groups across the department. Existing data are sketchy at best. The report also described pervasive feelings of unease and fear.
In October, the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus heard from several scientists who said Asian-Americans faced discrimination at the laboratories.
Ms. Wong, the Livermore scientist, told the group of a lagging salary, racially insensitive comments from officials, her removal from sensitive projects and an unexplained erosion of authority.
"The whole Chinese spy allegation has set us back further," said Ms. Wong, whose family has been in the United States for five generations and who has worked at Livermore for more than two decades. "It seems now that there is license to do as was done to me because we Asians are potential spies."
Livermore officials said racial bias has not played a role in the treatment of scientists, either before or after the Lee case.
"There is no underlying discrimination," a Livermore spokeswoman, Susan Houghton, said. "If anything, it's the opposite. It is still very much a goal to increase minority representation in management."
In an interview, Ms. Houghton and Tommy Smith, a mechanical engineer who is the laboratory's director of affirmative action and diversity, said Livermore had established goals for increasing the numbers of Asians and other minorities in management and held a one-day workshop for employees in April. "Obviously, we can always do a better job," Ms. Houghton said.
She also noted that the investigations into discrimination claims were not proof of wrongdoing.
Los Alamos has about 7,000 employees, including 3,500 scientists, said Mr. Danneskiold, the laboratory spokesman.
Over all, Asians or Pacific Islanders make up 2.4 percent of the staff and about 4 percent of the scientists, he said.
But of 99 senior managers, only 1 is of Asian descent, Mr. Danneskiold said. And of 322 leaders of technical groups, a lower rung in management, only 3 are Asian-American.
Similar if somewhat less pronounced disparities exist at Livermore; at Sandia, the proportion of Asians in management and the laboratory are nearly the same.
Michael Trujillo, the equal employment opportunity officer at Los Alamos, also rejected the idea that Asian-Americans' relatively low representation in management was a result of bias. But Mr. Trujillo said he could not offer an explanation. "I don't think that there's an easy answer on that," he said.
The Rules Response That Some Called Racial Profiling
The Energy Department ombudsman, Dr. Wu, said in an interview that he believed new security rules had infringed on "individual rights and scientific freedom" and added that he hoped he could improve the situation.
He has been on the job since January, but he began visiting the laboratories last year and has already investigated several bias complaints. In two cases, involving the loss of a security clearance and the termination of a grant, rulings against Asian and Asian-American scientists have been overturned, he said.
Edward J. Curran, who directs the Energy Department's counterintelligence office, said a review almost two years ago led to increased reporting requirements for many employees and to polygraph testing of some scientists. He said the rules were intended to make intelligence officials aware of any unusual inquiries from foreign nationals and to help catch any American scientists who were spying, whatever their ethnicity.
Among the directives are two that Mr. Richardson issued last July in which scientists are required to report certain "close and continuing contact" during unclassified visits with people from countries deemed sensitive.
Dr. Al West, a security director at Sandia, said that at least one Asian-American scientist, whose fiancee was from Hong Kong, left for a longstanding job offer in private industry "because they got tired of dealing with all the inquiries into their personal affairs" as a result of the new rule.
And Dr. Shao-Ping Chen, a physicist at Los Alamos, criticized a requirement to list all contacts and relationships with people in sensitive countries.
"Where it should stop is not easy to tell," said Dr. Chen, originally from Taiwan but now an American citizen. "If you have a big family, those people are large numbers."
Henry Tang, chairman of the Committee of 100, a group of Chinese-Americans engaged in public policy issues, said that in enforcing the new rules, security officials "are no different than a highway patrolman suspecting someone merely by virtue of their physical characteristics."
Dr. Paul D. Moore, who was the F.B.I.'s chief of Chinese counterintelligence analysis for more than 20 years and is now at the Center for Counterintelligence and Security Studies, a nongovernmental training center in Alexandria, Va., said that belief was mistaken. But Dr. Moore said that it had ultimately taken root because, in his view, the Chinese government specifically courts ethnic Chinese in the United States when looking for potential spies. As a result, he said, counterintelligence agents focus on Chinese-Americans. "It's unfair," he said, "but what are you going to do?"
The Boycott A Mixed Reaction Among Scientists
As racism accusations simmer, the moves that have sparked the most discussion -- and dissension -- are the calls for a boycott.
Dr. Shujia Zhou, who left Los Alamos last year, said, "The Asian people feel hit hard."
Dr. Zhou published research in journals like Science and Physical Review Letters but said he left the laboratory because officials made continuing his work difficult, revoking his computer access, for example, and because the atmosphere had soured for Asians.
He easily found another job. Dr. Browne, the Los Alamos director, said that revoking computer privileges for some Asian scientists was an "unfortunate" overreaction and that fairer procedures had been put in place.
The calls for a boycott have generated mixed reactions at the laboratories. Dr. Manvendra K. Dubey, a Los Alamos scientist and chairman of its Asian-American Working Group, said he opposed a boycott "because if we disappear from within, we will have no voice." Some say the heightened sensitivity to race may eventually help the laboratories.
But for now, the security concerns about Asian countries, the lack of data on where and how Asian-American scientists work, and the near-absence of Asians in upper ranks are hindering progress at the laboratories, many Asian-American scientists say.
Perhaps more pernicious, they add, is the idea, prevalent among some Americans of European descent, that rational scientists must be immune to ordinary racial bias. That visceral difference in viewpoint may pose the most elusive but enduring barrier to improvements, some Asian scientists say.
"I think it's hard for a white person to appreciate the bias," said Dr. Huan Lee, a Chinese-American scientist at Los Alamos. *****
If theorized at the most abstract level of the mode of production, racism isn't "essential" to capitalism, but the history of actually existing capitalism has created & integrated racism in its reproduction.
Yoshie