The most recent issue of The New York Times‘s “On Politics” newsletter dealt with the latest racist atrocity committed by a Republican: “Republican in Ohio Senate Primary Spoke Offensively About Asians.” The subhead: “Mike Gibbons, a leading contender to succeed Senator Rob Portman, made the comments in a 2013 podcast on doing business in China.”
They used Gibbons’ statement to declare that the GOP had a problem dealing with Asians.
Blake Hounshell, Leah Askarinam laughed:
The leading Republican candidate in the Ohio Senate primary employed offensive stereotypes about Asian people in a 2013 podcast, citing a widely discredited book, “The Bell Curve,” that has drawn allegations of racism and sloppy research.
Mike Gibbons (the Senate candidate), is a financial entrepreneur who has invested millions of dollars in his campaign. He made these comments as part of a discussion about how China can do business. The remarks, published here for the first time, come as Republican candidates grapple with how to address a topic that has inflamed their voters, many of whom blame Beijing for a coronavirus pandemic that Donald Trump has referred to as the “Chinese virus.”
Notice: This link was ridiculously defensive Times story that attempted to spin the factually accurate description of the coronavirus as a “Chinese virus” as racist.
They continued to add:
And though Gibbons hasn’t used that terminology, his decade-old comments on China and Asian people could draw fresh scrutiny to a candidate who has received little national media attention despite running in one of the marquee races in this year’s midterm elections.
If you allow the Times has anything to say about it, especially during an election year when the Democrats are going to need all the help they can get (click “expand”):
“I’ve often thought that when I’ve run into Asians they’re all — you know, if you’ve ever read ‘The Bell Curve,’ it’s a book, a very controversial book, I can’t even remember who wrote, I think his name is Murray wrote this book,” Gibbons said in the Nov. 3, 2013, podcast, according to a transcript of his comments reviewed by The New York Times. Charles Murray was also a coauthor of the book.
Gibbons continued: “And it said that the smartest people in the world as far as measurable I.Q. were Ashkenazi Jews. And then right below them was basically everybody in China, India and, you know, throughout the Asian countries.”
About a minute later, Gibbons, who earned a master’s degree from the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University, described being in a class with “mostly Asians” during graduate school.
Gibbons spoke awkwardly to a podcast 9 years ago. But it was not hateful nor a hate crime.
Yet the paper actually mentioned, for example, a racially motivated hate crime committed in New York City by a black man against an Asian woman as if the incidents were connected (click “expand”):
Russell Jeung, the co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate, a group that monitors incidents of discrimination against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, said Gibbons’s description of Asian intelligence was “part of the dehumanizing rhetoric around AAPIs that has contributed to the surge in racism that harms us today.”
(….)
Alarming increases in attacks on Asian Americans have also occurred across the United States.. A security camera in Yonkers captured the assault of a man on a woman aged 67 who was Asian-American. It happened inside an apartment block. He is seen hitting her more then 125 times.
Although we are being facetious, it almost seems as though Tammel Esco (a 42-year old black man) was driven to hit an Asian woman with 125 hits because Gibbons spoke about. The Bell Curve or because Trump used to say “Chinese virus.”
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