A Moronic "Asian" Racial Smokescreen

When I lived in Miami, I developed a halfway cynical attitude about racial solidarity. Miami is so diverse yet segregated, and it's easy to find cases where no one likes each other: Cubans vs. Mexicans and Guatemalans vs. "Anglos" vs. Haitians vs. long-time African-American residents and so on. On the other hand, just because there are quarrels and insults between groups doesn't mean people can't put them aside and work together for common goals.

On of those common goals is shunning and isolating white supremacists. These grotesque creatures swarm around the edges of the anti-immigration movement and are also found, only lightly disguised, at its very center. To try and disguise themselves further they recruit greedy minorities as racial smokescreens. The Southern Poverty Law Center had a great article on one particular group:

Smokescreen: Activists say a black anti-immigration movement is gathering steam. But it seems to be largely the creation of white people.
by Brentin Mock

The article is very reasonable and measured. It includes the consideration that some of the black people involved in the groups truly believe that Hispanic immigration is a dangerous force that threatens their economic status. But most black people are still very uncomfortable about anti-Hispanic racism; it could be turned back against them quite easily. There's a great sarcastic phrase I've heard a lot recently, "brown is the new black". The SPLC article clearly shows that the real power and money behind the black anti-immigration group CBA (Choose Black America) comes from white people with links to white supremacist organizations.

(As an aside, I strongly believe in these two statements: 1) our immigration system needs to be reformed 2) illegal immigration needs to be reduced. I also believe both goals can be accomplished without using insane, racist measures that won't work anyway, like building a stupid wall between America and Mexico and treating all Hispanics darker than a certain shade as if they were illegal by default.)

The black smokescreen described in the SPLC article was fairly well orchestrated and well concealed, although the reporter, being an expert in these organizations, could see behind the cover. This morning I read about a different Asian smokescreen just as nasty but also incredibly inept.

I initially read this at a blog called Migra Matters but here's the first part of the original local newspaper article:

Immigration group may not be what they seem
By Michele R. Marcucci, STAFF WRITER
Article Launched:12/04/2006 04:01:40 PM PST

Hovering above a busy Berkeley intersection is a billboard that reads No Racist Amnesty. It was placed by a group called Vietnamese for Fair Immigration, whose leaders say they feel illegal immigrants -- and particularly Latino immigrants -- are to blame for the long waits their family members face to come here from Vietnam.

But the group may not be entirely what it seems.

The Lompoc-based group, which has endorsed political candidates, written letters to the editors of newspapers and has aired its views on Web sites, was co-founded by a white, Southern California cyclemaker who is also a member of one of the state's most prominent immigration control organizations.

In fact, the group's self-proclaimed Vietnamese-American spokesman, who wrote at least one of the letters and has espoused the group's views on several Web sites, is the group's Caucasian co-founder using a Vietnamese surname, his wife said.

The spokesman, who called himself Tim Binh, initially denied that he was the cyclemaker from Lompoc, Tim Brummer. But after a reporter told him his wife identified him as Brummer, he said it was her idea.

And he feels he used the name legitimately, adding that he may make Tim Binh his legal name.

"I speak Vietnamese. I eat Vietnamese food. I live with Vietnamese. In my mind, I'm half Vietnamese. Just like my wife thinks she's half-American," Brummer said.
...

Tim Binh... ha ha ha aha hah what a freaking loser. That's my first reaction. That, and "liar, liar, pants on fire". There are unscrupulous Asians out there who would be perfectly willing to provide a smokescreen, they're just too expensive, so the cut-rate white guy had to step in.

Here's his wife's brilliant observation on immigration:

"They can just cross the border. We cannot swim across the ocean," Hoang said when asked if she thinks the immigration system favors Latinos.

She should be attacking the Pacific Ocean instead of Mexicans.