March 30, 2007
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Justice is served!!!! Asian Americans win this time…
(in reference to February 25th, 2007 entry on this blog)
Though what I really wanted was Kenneth Eng’s head on a platter, and the editor-in-chief burned at the stake (sarcasm, don’t take me seriously), I guess the very public firing of both of them was good enough.
It really amazed me how fast and unified the Asian American community was on this issue. Imagine if we are unified on every issue, how much impact we would have in this country
[emailed from the petition starters]
“Dear Petition Signer,Leaders of the civil rights organizations that initiated the protest against AsianWeek’s publication of a hate speech column against African Americans today noted the newspaper’s decision to remove Samson Wong as editor-in-chief.The masthead of the newspaper’s March 30 issue shows that Wong’s title is now “Senior Editorial Consultant.”"We asked AsianWeek to hold the editor responsible for publishing the piece accountable,” said Gen Fujioka, program director at the Asian Law Caucus. “Though the community still needs to hear directly from AsianWeek, we hope this indicates a step towards healing the hurt caused both to African Americans and also the vast majority of Asian Americans who abhor the racism expressed by the previous article.”"From the start, this has not been just an issue of hate speech, but an issue of journalistic judgment and responsibility,” said Vincent Pan, executive director of Chinese for Affirmative Action. “All communities must be vigilant against bigots and racists, as well as those who hand them microphones.”After initially denying any wrongdoing, AsianWeek issued an apology and fired Kenneth Eng, the writer of a column titled “Why I Hate Blacks” that advocated discriminating against African Americans.Immediately after the column was published, a national coalition of APA and civil rights organizations called on AsianWeek to, among other things, review its editorial policy and process and hold those responsible for the decision to publish the Eng piece accountable.Thank you very much for signing our petition and lending your support on this issue!”
