\doc\web\97\06\missed.txt
http://www.leconsulting.com/arthurhu/97/06/missed.txt


Missed Opportunities


With President Clinton's recent speech at UC San Diego, the issue of
race relations is suddenly back on the front burner.  Recent
incidents, such as violence against a Vietnamese family in a
predominantly black San Francisco Housing Project, make the race
relations issue particularly relevant to Asian Pacific Americans. In
the context, I wish to renew my call, made in my December 1995 Asian
Week "Voices" titled "Missed Opportunities in Race Relations," for
APA community leaders to take a more proactive approach to easing
tensions between Asians and blacks.


A prime example of missed opportunities arose during San Francisco
Supervisor mabel Teng's recent guest appearance on a Chinese radio
talk show in San Francisco. A caller, complaing to Teng about some
rough black children at her son's school, repeatedly used the term
haak gwai ("black ghost"), a derogatory Cantonese word for African
Americans.


Yet Ten did not object to the caller's language. Eventually the
show's host, Joseph Leung, stepped in and asked the caller to stop
using the offensive term. But as a prominent Chinese community
leader, Teng should have been the one to speak up and set a good
example for the show's large audience.


You can't be called a leader if you don't lead


Norman Matloff Professor University of California Davis California.