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Asians for Mumia/Jericho Statement on October 22nd National Day of Protest

In these extreme times, the October 22nd Coalition is holding its seventh annual National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression, and the Criminalization of a Generation. One year
after the tragedies of September 11, we are seeing how much the “war on drugs,” “the war on crime,” and the “war on terrorism” is congealing into one massive attack on people’s lives. Police brutality did not die on September 11. In fact, it is thriving. Heralded as heroes, police in the New York metropolitan area alone have killed 30 people since September 11. Around the country, 146 people have been killed by law enforcement in the past year. This epidemic of brutality has been mostly ignored by the muted media since 9/11.

In this so-called “war against terrorism,” the media would have us believe that racial profiling and outright racist violence has become acceptable to people in the United States, even to those communities that have most suffered under these practices. As Asians, we must join in the multiracial effort to change that perception. Racial profiling is not acceptable, under any circumstance. The escalation of police violence, particularly targeting the Black and Latino communities, along with the incarceration of thousands of Arab, Muslim, and South Asian immigrants, only tells us that the list of communities earmarked for repression and criminalization is expanding, not shrinking. Filipino, Cambodian and Korean immigrants have recently been targeted for mass deportation. Who will be next?

As our best source, history has given Asians many examples of what happens when racist violence and racial profiling are allowed to be perpetrated without resistance. 60 years ago, during World War II, the Japanese American community was rounded up into concentration camps just as many in the Arab, Muslim, and South Asian communities are being detained today. Racial profiling was the order of the day then.

20 years ago, because of the faltering U.S. automobile industry against its Japanese counterpart, a Chinese-American, Vincent Chin, was brutally murdered by two white racists in Detroit, Michigan. At the height of American animosity towards Japan, Vincent Chin was racially profiled as a 'Jap' as these two autoworkers, a father and son team, beat him to death with a baseball bat. Now, with initiatives like “Operation TIPS,” anyone can call the INS, the FBI, or the local police and report vague suspicions of immigrants, and even the most unsubstantiated reports can be followed up with an arrest. In fact, ordinary citizens have always been recruited to help in the scapegoating of Asians in times of crisis, as they are recruited to buy into the need for a “war on crime” and a “war on drugs” that has led to over 2 million people incarcerated within prison walls inside the United States. The October 22nd National Day of Protest Against Police Brutality, Repression, and the Criminalization of a Generation seeks to bring together those who are most heavily under attack with those who refuse to be complicit in these attacks.

As Asian Americans, we need to connect these historical and current examples of injustices in our communities to the current repressive political climate. The U.S. government's rhetoric of a campaign against terrorism became, in reality, a campaign of terror against its own residents. We cannot allow this campaign to go unimpeded. Seen as 'forever foreigners', we have much at stake, no matter who is targeted today, be it Arabs, Muslims, South Asians, Blacks, and Latinos. In the final analysis, we are all targeted.

We are only seeing the beginning of an unprecedented police state. Since September 11th, the powers-that-be have waged a relentless campaign that has expanded racial profiling, snatched up and detained huge numbers of immigrants, and engineered frontal assaults on civil liberties. We need to regain the initiative and raise the level of resistance. We need to bring disparate communities that are under siege together in struggle.

For more information, 888-NoBrutality, or office@october22.org

–This statement was initiated by Asians for Mumia/Jericho Network, a network of East and South Asian activists who are active with the David Wong Support Committee, the New Haven Free Mumia Committee, the Not In Our Name Initiative, the October 22nd Coalition to Stop Police Brutality, and South Asians Against Police Brutality and Racism. To contact us: P.O. Box 520021, Flushing, NY 11352, 917-421-3907 x2431, asiansformumia@yahoo.com,

First issued: October 6, 2002
Revised: October 15, 2002