WTF?*: Poll says most believe Asian Americans don't face discrimination

By Louis Chan

ASAM NEWS
A new poll out finds while a significant number of people acknowledge discrimination against Asian Americans, more people feel Whites face more discrimination than Asian Americans.

The Hill-HarrisX Poll released late last week found 13 percent of registered voters poll feel Whites face lots of discrimination, but only nine percent feel the same way about Asian Americans.

The result does not surprise Janelle Wong, a researcher in both Asian American Studies and American Studies at the University of Maryland.

“The dominant stereotype of Asian Americans is that they are high-achieving and face few economic barriers.,” she said to AsAmNews. This idea of Asian Americans as a uniformly successful “Model Minority” is so tenacious, that even some Asian Americans themselves have internalized the idea.”

The Hill-Harris survey of 1,000 registered voters does recognize that Asian American do face discrimination.

About 40 percent believe Asian American face some or a lot of discrimination. 31 percent believe the same thing about Whites.

Wong says the discrimination faced by some Asian American groups has been masked.

“People tend to lump all Asian Americans together,” said Wong, demonstrating the importance of disaggregate data to distinguish between the various ethnic and nationality groups.

Wong’s research with her colleagues at AAPI Data released in 2017 found Asian Americans report a higher level of discrimination than some might assume. Nearly two out of ten Filipino Americans say they’ve been denied a promotion because of their race. 17 percent of Indian Americans say they have been unfairly denied a promotion.

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Filipino/American oil worker wins bias suit

By Louis Chan
Reprinted from AsAm News

A Filipino/American oil worker whose manager urinated on his leg and called him names has won $250,000 in a discrimination suit.

Matthew Clark worked for the American Casing & Equipment, Inc., a North Dakota oilfield service company operating in Williston, N.D. He accused the company manager of hurling racial epithets at him and on one occasion while he was under a vehicle, urinating on his leg. The incident was witnessed by another supervisor, but no action was taken.

The harassment included the manager calling Clark a “non-white m—-f—-r,” “non-white guy,” “spic,” “n—-r,” “monkey” and “ape.”

The lawsuit filed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said Clark was fired in retaliation for complaining.

“They cannot simply ignore harassment and fire employees who complain about being abused rather than doing something about it,” said Tina Burnside who litigated the case for the EEOC.

The company was accused of harassment and violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

In the settlement, American Casing & Equipment also agreed to educate all its managers, supervisors and employees about laws prohibiting discrimination, harassment and retaliation.

“This settlement sends a strong message to employers that race and national origin harassment and retaliation will not be tolerated in the workplace,” said John Hendrickson of the EEOC. “EEOC hopes that the changes implemented under the consent decree will serve as a model for creating a workplace free of discrimination in the oilfield service industry.”

EDITOR'S NOTE: Thousands of Filipinos were brought to the U.S. to work in the Gulf states' oil industry after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. No one would have noticed this influx of Filipino workers if not for an explosion on an offshore oil rig that killed 11 Filipinos and injured dozens of others. Involuntary manslaughter charges were filed against the contractor who hired the Filipinos by the Department of Justice in December 2015 for unsafe working conditions. The case is due to be heard in the courts in January, 2017.

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