April 2007

C.A.C.A. Decries Cruel Broadcast by CBS Shock Jocks Support of Chicago's amendment to Equal Access In Response of Kenneth Eng's "Why I Hate Blacks"

The following is text of a letter emailed by Munson Kwok, Ph.D., Grand President of the Chinese American Citizens Alliance, to Karen Mateo, the CBS Vice President for Communications. Hard copies have also been mailed to John Mainelli, WFNY station manager, the program manager, Leslie Moonves, the CEO of CBS, and to Ms. Mateo.. Grand President Kwok decries racist, sexist, and dehumanizing telephone harassment of employees of a Chinese restaurant that was broadcast by shock-jocks, JV and Elvis, on WFNY 92.3 FM in New York: April 29, 2007, by EMAIL Karen Mateo Vice President of Communications, CBS 1515 Broadway New York, NY. 10036 Dear Ms. Mateo: We must join the huge wave of protest that has arisen over the tasteless dialogue conducted by jockies JV and Elvis some days ago on WFNY 92.3 FM (CBS Radio Affiliate) mocking alleged speaking tendencies of Chinese Americans and harassing these people. Your station has given these two men a two-week suspension. Yet this new incident occurred in the light of recent events such as the Imus incident, which heightened the debate on racist sensitivities and the ruinous divisiveness it causes to a community, whether it be regional or national in scope. These Imus radio remarks were followed by numerous media discussions, such as the Time Magazine article of April 23, 2007. Thus we must view the action of these two radio personalities to extract comedy and "shock", however feeble the attempt, as a conscious, deliberate act to fly in the face of national concern and criticism on any acts that demean and stereotype a group. This makes their dialogue far more reprehensible than that of Imus. Imus was discharged, and we must now join with others in calling for the same necessary fate for these two radio jockeys. They no longer deserve their jobs because they have crossed well beyond the bounds of decency defined in our civilization. They have a public responsibility as definers and purveyors of culture in that American civilization. We believe in this day and age, such methods of mock tend to advance stereotyping and lead to a culture of disrespect that is deleterious to healthy and vital growth of community. CBS has always carried the well-earned reputation for journalistic integrity and quality programming and entertainment. In terminating these two employees, we believe the company will be following well-established corporate practice. We urge CBS to do so. Chinese American Citizens Alliance is a national 112 year organization dedicated to citizens' rights, civil rights, immigrant rights, fairness, and justice for all Americans. We are headquartered in San Francisco. We note that the wave of outrage has even reached this Pacific shore, all across the nation. Thank you for your attention. Our letter will follow. Sincerely yours, Munson A. Kwok, Ph.D. Grand President

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The Chinese American Citizens Alliance speaks strongly in favor of equality and against unjust and discriminatory laws. The following e-mail was sent on March 13, 2007, by Grand Executive Ed Gor, on behalf of Grand President Munson Kwok and the members of the Alliance, in support of an amendment to provide equal access to Asian Americans in the City of Chicago's contracting programs for minorities. Following an apology to Asian American businesses that had been excluded, the full City Council voted unanimously on April 11, 2007, to pass the amendment proposed by Alderman Bernard Stone, Vice Mayor of the City of Chicago. Alderman Bernard Stone, Vice Mayor, City of Chicago, Room 203 City Hall, Chicago, IL 60602, Fax: (312) 744-2328, Phone: (773) 764-5050 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dear Vice Mayor Stone, On behalf of our National President Munson Kwok and the members of the Chinese American Citizens Alliance, I am writing to express our unequivocal support of your amendment to the city's ordinance which would afford Asian Americans the same equal access to the City of Chicago's contracting programs, including those involved with construction, engineering and architecture.Ê It is incomprehensible that Asian Americans should be excluded from the opportunities that are afforded to other recognized minorities. If the consideration is of race and ethnicity, who is more of a minority than Asian Americans? Even in most major U.S. cities, including Chicago, the numbers of Asians and Asian Americans generally do not constitute more than 5% of the total population. We are truly THE "minority" of minorities. In that respect, we support your efforts to INCLUDE, and NOT exclude, the opportunity for Asian Americans in greater Chicago to dialogue at the table with every other group. Established in 1895 in San Francisco, the Chinese American Citizens Alliance has long been an advocate and defender of the equal rights, equal opportunities and equal access for Chinese and Asian Americans. With many of our founding members having been the very victims of the Chinese Exclusion Act, we support your efforts to also fight this exclusion of a group and class of people, Asian Americans, who have demonstrated their determination, made significant contributions to our country, your city and state and will prove our abilities to provide the high quality of goods and services via a level playing field. Vice Mayor Stone, your actions in sponsoring this amendment are to be commended as this action is not just significant for the city of Chicago but also carries national importance and implications. We trust there will be good news from your City Council meeting! If either President Munson Kwok or I can be of additional assistance, please don't hesitate to contact us. Respectfully submitted, Ed Gor Grand Executive (National Board Member)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The following statement was issued today in response to the publication of "Why I Hate Blacks," a racially inflammatory article by columnist Kenneth Eng which was published in the February 23, 2007, issue of AsianWeek. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- March 6, 2007, Los Angeles, California Regarding Columnist Kenneth Eng in "AsianWeek". The following statement is issued by Munson Kwok, the national president of the Chinese American Citizens Alliance, the long-time civil and immigrant rights organization: "We join with the community consensus that writer Eng created a totally objectionable, blatantly racist article against African Americans in the February 23rd issue of "AsianWeek," and we express grave concern and disappointment in "AsianWeek" for allowing such publication. Both writer and editors may have had other well-meaning intentions to create some sort of open forum, but the net effect of their effort has been to severely damage race relations among all Americans across the country." "The lifeblood of America is the wonderful diversity of its peoples, who provide a spectrum of talents and creativity. Our true success has been founded historically on this fundamental characteristic from the earliest beginnings of this country." "To the credit of "AsianWeek", a front page recognition of error and an apology were published in bold print in the immediately following issue (March 2)." "However, aside from the obvious action of the termination of Mr. Eng, we see no further indication of positive tangible actions, to which this newspaper is committing. We must expect much more indication of actions taken and announcements of specific future actions in editorial practice to be taken before we can be certain that the paper's response is credible, not simply rhetorical. In other words, we must look for "AsianWeek" now to "walk the talk." "Any unfortunate occurrence such as this also leads to opportunity. Hitherto, "AsianWeek" has been a respected national newspaper, representative of the Asian Pacific Islander American community. Now that consciousness is highly raised, we call on the paper to take the lead in providing a productive new forum to foster further understanding in race relations. We invite this paper to open up its pages to diversity and to consider taking the lead in a national discussion, certainly at least to begin in San Francisco, location of its offices. Until further positive actions are seen, we as a community cannot accept that this matter is closed for "AsianWeek" "For our part as the Chinese American Citizens Alliance, we are proud to have served as a co-sponsor and venue host for the New America Media Panel, which took place on Friday, March 3, in San Francisco in our Headquarters auditorium, with the management of our San Francisco Lodge. That expression on our part is an extension of our extreme concern and our willingness to understand that we must create and promote a more powerful dialog that addresses building better bridges from our Asian American community to other communities. We urge our colleagues and fellow organizations to join with us together, nationwide, in achieving this important objective in the days to come. We too have been given an opportunity to focus on one of the key challenges to making a better America."