Philadelphia regional school superintendent, Michael Silverman, suggested that
school assaults are supposedly down 50 percent. "We've been working
with the Asian community since last year to make sure that South Philly
High is an inviting place," Silverman commented in response to the
December assault.

Apparently, it hasn't been enough.

Indeed, school officials at South Philly High School have demonstrated a disregard for
the safety of students. School "security" officers have turned a blind
eye to racial taunts and, in one instance, forced Asian American
students into a lunchroom where they were subsequently beaten.

At
a meeting to address these attacks, the school's head of security fell
asleep, while South Philly principal LaGreta Brown has been
unresponsive. School staff
have even racially baited Asian students with comments like 'Where are
you from?' 'Hey, Chinese.' 'Yo Dragon Ball.' 'Are you Bruce Lee?'
'Speak English!'  That‚Äôs right: staff.

In general, a Philadelphia Inquirer article
asserts that "the Philadelphia School District habitually and
significantly underreported school violence until 2005" and that in
"this latest crisis, the Philadelphia School District is resorting to
its usual obfuscation and spin. First, district representatives denied
there was a problem. Amazingly, they told the public that violent
incidents at the high school had dropped a staggering 55 percent this
year, when in fact they had increased 5 percent."

Now, the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund is filing a federal civil rights suit against the Philadelphia School District for its (mis)handling of these attacks.

Especially
interesting about this situation are the racial dynamics involved.
South Philly High School is composed predominantly of African American
students, and a majority of the attackers are African American.

As a result, one Asian American blog expressed concern that African American youth are being criminalized by the response to these attacks, while another asserted that this concern shifts attention away from the actual violence inflicted on the Asian American students.

More
generally, what this situation suggests to me is the political
bankruptcy of the black-white racial paradigm in the USA, where the
issues of other minority groups are often marginalized.  

Anti-Asian
racism is frequently anti-immigrant and nativist in nature, as
evidenced by the experience of the students in Philadelphia.

And
this racism cannot be addressed within a black-white paradigm, where
the interests of Asian Americans are usually ignored and where blacks,
whites, and others can therefore engage in anti-Asian violence and deny
its racist nature.

One blogger, for instance, has noted the conspicuous lack of action by the NAACP on this issue.

And some even
insist that the South Philly attacks are not about racism but “a lack
of cultural understanding" or, more ludicrously, about Asian students
being too "cliquish."

In the zero-sum world of American (racial) politics, the black-white paradigm that has nothing to say about Asian Americans also leaves us nothing to say.

It may be a truism, but it bears
repeating: if Asian Americans don't speak up and politically agitate
for themselves, no one else will.

______________________________________________

For
people interested in protesting the Philadelphia attacks, contact
information for the Philadelphia School District and media can be found
at Angry Asian Man.