Beijing Authorities to Ban Blacks and Mongolians from Bars During Olympics

Are we not talking about the poor bar owners got forced to sign a pledge not to serve the black folks during Olympics? Why has the topic suddenly changed to the crackdown incident one year ago (September 2007). Why didn't they talk about it in September 2007 but now? Perhaps these fools like Sweet Lou 4 2 know by how r****ded it is to believe the bar owner story so they are grasping whatever handy to change the topic.

 

I think the point is that even if the bar story is not true, there is still evidence of racial discrimination by Beijing police. I agree with you, though, that Sweet Lou is engaging in a little goalpost realignment.

 

I know what you are balking at but it seems to me you are either too sensitive or you didn't really understand what jli tried to say.

I think what jli wanted to say is that while the US police often have to take the racial factor into consideration when performing their duties, Chinese police are less concerned about race issue (or not at all). One example that I can think of is that our highway police are often criticized of racial profiling and targeting on the African Americans when making highway stops. I think the concern of possible accusation of racial profiling does, to a certain extent, influence our officers' decision as to whether he should stop a certain driver. For example, an highway officer might think twice to stop another African American after he has stopped three of them consecutively on the same day. However, in comparison, the Chinese police wouldn't even bother and they just do their jobs in regardless of the race of the offenders. Maybe the reason is that they still have not gone through the race tension in their society that we had here before.

I think jli does have a point here. You may not agree what him but saying that he's ignorant is uncalled for.

 

I think I've said all along that I'd hope that the reaction would be to address some of the racial issues going on in China - not that I was 100% sure the story was true.

 

I gave the link to the article for everyone to see - nothing is being hidden.

You are right in that I was mistaken about the Chinese response - this was the first I've seen of it. But it's interesting that they quickly denied it.

When you have a large sprawaling beauracracy like that of large countries (in fact, the Chinese invented beauracracy), it's difficult for any one person to know all the actions of others throughout the various levels and depts.

So how can officials quickly deny anything? Should they say they will look into it? To quickly deny means they don't even have to investigate - spurious at best to me.

 

Except that we've seen other reputable news services such as the NY Times and CBS news report stories that have been flimsily sourced, Iraq WMD's, documents on Bush's national guard service and etc... I will defend the major news services but given the competition for breaking news its not surprising that even the most reputable sources have been tempted to lower their standards. I find it highly unlikely that the South China Morning Post is immune from such pressures.

I took a look at the article you link to and it also says.

[rquoter]
But at least one observer thinks the whole controversy might simply be a case of miscommunication. Beijing Boyce disclosed his own findings about the newspaper claim, and reported that his sources tell him that some bar owners were asked to "monitor black patrons." "I talked to three Sanlitun bar owners yesterday who said the police did not tell them to ban blacks," Boyce writes.

Another China observer, Jeremy Goldkorn of Danwei, believes "it seems highly unlikely that anyone with any real authority would 'secretly' plan 'to ban black people' from the city's bars." Goldkorn also faults the South China Morning Post for its anonymous sources and says "the paper does not seem to have any physical evidence to support the article."
[/rquoter]

So it seems like there is plenty of evidence that the claim that police are telling bar owners to ban blacks isn't true and this all could be a misunderstanding blown out into a rumor.

First off there isn't a long history of racism against blacks by Chinese in China since there haven't been many blacks in China. You might talk about racial tensions between blacks and Chinese in inner cities in the US but that has little to do with the PRC.

Koreans aren't Chinese and racism towards blacks again is mostly because of tensions in the US inner cities where Koreans have settled and in South Korea it has to do with the tensions between US troops stationed there and Korean locals. Neither of those conditions exist in the PRC.

On that I totally agree that the PRC should be much more open but the absence of evidence in this case doesn't automatically mean there is something there in the first place. The evidence still at best is flimsy and given the context of the Olympics does seem fairly fantastic. As I said skepticism is warranted and it seems a bias to just except it on face value as much as it is to reject it.

 

I think it would be a hard argument to make that the crackdown didn't happen since as you note it is multiply sourced. Regarding the crackdown though I don't think that can be totally attributed to racism. My read is here are the facts of the 2007 crackdown.

There was a big raid by Chinese Police in Sanlutin.
In the process many were people with dark skin were beaten and arrested.

From there though its unclear to me if this was a systematic targetting of people with dark skin as I don't know how many others were beaten and arrested in the raid. I'm not going to deny that there was racial profiling conducted by the police given that police all over the world have engaged in racial and ethnic profile but from the info there doesn't seem enough to make a definative judgement IMO.

For the current situation though given that original story only has one source that is unnamed and uncooberated there is even a bigger question regarding it and given the questions I stated about the 2007 crackdown I'm not sure if that is enough supporting evidence to back up the current story.

 

LOL. When you hadn't read that response, you were questioning why they were so slow to respond. "So, the story must be true as they are hiding, or maybe those damn commie bureaucrats are too slow", I guess.

Why don't you just publish your standard of perfect timing in responding to claims like this, so we don't need to waste time on this next time.

PS. as I have responded anyway, let's add more thoughts on this hoopla:

1. As for this case, sure I don't think it's totally baseless. My guess is, the official policy from upper level is to crackdown drug dealing and prostitution before the games start. (Personally, I hate this kind of temporary policy but understandable considering the circumstances. Just like TSA changes the security level from time to time) So, at local level, one, a couple, or more policemen carried a bit far and warned a few bar owners to keep an eye on the blacks, blah blah. It's also possible, although remotely, that one police told the bar owners not to serve the suspicious customers. Then the story kind took off from there. But in the end, this news story doesn't have a solid case and no confirming news from another source.

2. But for me the argument here is, some of you are making too big a deal out this "isolate case" as if the commie is going after the whole black community. In reality, if it's not the CCP government, but your long beloved democratic government (I mean democratic from the mass, not another puppy government backed by western interests) is in the power, most of the privileges the foreigners, either black or white, in China enjoy today will be long gone.

3. And is there "racism" in China, hell yah, just like everywhere around the world. Personally I don't treat people by their color (or try my best), but by who they are. But there are ignorant ppl everywhere that's too common to be over concerned about. I don't get offended when hearing jokes about Chinese on comedy central. It's not surprising some blacks/whites had unpleasant experiences in China, just like some friends or I had here. Sometimes I decide to stand up, sometimes I just laugh it off.

4. And personally, I don't object "racial" profiling to some extent by the police. As long as there are human intelligence that asian/hispanic/white people are suspects of the crime, or significant statistical proof that majority of pirate CD seller at ZhongGuanCun are women in their 40s with Henan Accent (I am from Henan so don't call me racist pls), why should I have a problem with policemen, given it has no unlimited resources, focus more on certain groups, be it racial, regional, sexual, educational. Think about it, the guards at the border can only check 100 cars fully a day, and after 3 months of total random check-up, 90% of the drugs are found on pick-ups driven by asian/hispanic/.. with certain types of tatoo. What's wrong to change the check-up procedure to go after that group more. Some people are offended too easily when it comes to racial issues, as I see it. But that's just me.

 

But even this Bejing Bounce guy says his sources told him that they had to monitor black patrons. So he's sample size of 3 bar owners is suppose to be enough to discredit that?

And as I mentioned, there were 2 other new sources quoting different types of discrimination against blacks. Also quotes by observers during the crackdown point out that blacks were the ones being targeted. And the son of an ambassador was arrested - do you think he was a drug dealer or black?

So I disagree about the evidence considering the level of controled media as well.

My point isn't about Korean or Chinese American racism, but just a generally racist attitude toward blacks across all of Asia. And I don't think just China is to blame here - I think its prevalent from Korea to Thailand. And I have heard many racist remarks toward blacks in my presence in my travels throughout asia.

So I think there is some truth to the report. Now who is behind this - whether it's just the bar owners acting on their own or it is backed by the police or authorities - no one really knows - but it is a disturbing report coming from a nation that is poised to become the world leader in our lifetimes.

 

How many athletes around the world will be of ethnically African origin at the game? How many of them will check out a bar after their competition (or even before, not everyone has meddle aspirations)? How many media will be there at the Olympics?

Get a brain.

Or should I ask how do you know you are not brainwashed? ...joking.

 

Meddle aspirations - I have many of those.

If you view this in the context that that narrow strip of sanlitun lu has apparently been frequented by african drug dealers in the past - it doesn't sound so implausible that the local police issued an arbitrary and obviously overbroad ban.

 

Oh, Sam, that's rich, here's a spelling medal for you.

 

I meant in the context that I am meddling in china's domestic affairs as we speak.

 

You wish you have that sort of power.

 

At most this whole hoopla is no more than a comic evil sheriff horror movie, but at least the sheriff has some legitimate gripe against some out-of-control social problems brought from abroad.

NewYorker, your argument that foreign students or ambassador's son can't possibly do anything illegal is idiotic. When it comes to race issues, China isn't above all, but certainly is above most. As this African American expatriate in China can attest:

 

Well if foreplay is part of sex, then the (Olympic) game already began.

 

newyorker,

so at the time when you mistakenly thought there was no response from their government officials, you would say,

but then after you found out actually they had issued a response, you would say

newyorker, you are really cute.

 

very well said. knote32 should have at least spent some time to try to understand what the other poster had said before making a comment and calling name.

 

I just heard some sportstalk guy going off about this.

It is funny how so many in the US are predisposed to blindly accept any negative news reports about China. I wonder sometimes if we have a separate set of journalistic principals regarding China. The Western press is the one that usually touts about freedom and objectivity so I do hold them to a higher standard.

Unless some corroborating evidence comes up I think we can largely agree that this is a non-story.

Plenty of legitimate issues to debate about with China. This should not be one.

 

so a mongolian and an african walk into a bar...