Friday, January 6, 2012

Racism and Jon Huntsman: Chinese Sleeper Agent?

Racism against Chinese Americans and families who adopt from China appears to be alive and well within political debates.

Racism is alive and well all around us. Anyone who thinks differently is living in a bubble.

Our family recently addressed a racist incident faced by a member of our household. It has been requested that we don't go into details-- no phyical altercations-- just folks requesting privacy.

The Jon Huntsman video link is below.  Basically, he is portrayed as not really being an American because he lived in China for a few years, speaks fluent Mandarin, and has a daughter adopted from China and another daughter adopted from India.

Jon Huntsman: Chinese Sleeper Agent? - Politics - The Atlantic Wire


I am not sure which is worse—the first link about Huntsman or his response.  It plays to much on the pitiful orphan being saved by the great Western family mentality—not to mention publicly delivering a lot of very personal information about each of his daughters.  Yuck!

I am soooo not looking forward to the upcoming election year. I think it is going to be super messy filled with more immaturity than we usually are subject.

Huntsman Response to Video
Speaking before the College Convention, Huntsman was asked about the spot, which features him in Chairman Mao garb, and questions whether the former U.S. Ambassador to China values "American values, or Chinese" and implies that he would be weak on China.

"I saw just parts of it yesterday," he said. "First of all, it is just stupid. Second of all, yeah, I lived overseas four times ... I speak Chinese, of course I do. If someone wants to poke fun of me for speaking Chinese, that's okay. The thing I object to is bringing forward pictures and videos of my adopted daughters and suggesting that there is some sinister motive there. I have a daughter from China who was abandoned at two months of age and left in a vegetable market, picked up by the police and sent to an orphanage."
"I have a second daughter who was born in India in a very rural village ... and left for dead the day she was born," he added. "And luckily she was picked up before the animals got her, and she was sent to an orphanage for her safety, was raised and now she is in my family. So I have two little girls who are a daily reminder that there are a lot of kids in this world who don't have the breaks that you do and face a very uncertain future ... and now these two girls are on the presidential campaign trail. I say, how cool is that?"

2 comments:

Von said...

Not? Why aren't they at home doing kid stuff?

Anonymous said...

Huntsman responds by tooting his own horn about how charitable and sensitive he is for his adoption of two girls from China. Yuk.