Asians coming to America to benefit from slavery?

Pastor Jim responds to another Asian-American pastor who made the highly tendentious claim:

What many Asian Americans fail to realize is that our success is largely built on the backs of African Americans themselves. After all, if African American slavery did not exist, the United States may not have been such a desirable country to immigrate to. It was through the enslavement of African Americans that American prosperity was built in the first place.

As an aside, it's interesting there has been an Asian presence in the US since at least the antebellum period. Mainly in California, but some arrived and settled in Hawaii in the early 1800s, though of course this was well before Hawaii became a US state. Many early Asian immigrants were contract workers on plantations and manual labor for railroads.

Yellow Lives Matter

I recently saw a popular Christian apologist post the following image on Facebook. He's also been making posts sympathetic to if not in support of BLM.

Let's take a comparison:

Asian-Americans hear similar things. You're a banana or Twinkie. You're fresh off the boat. No but where are you really from? Well of course you're good at math and science. You all look the same. And so on.

Asian-Americans face systemic racism in college admissions. For example, see the Harvard law suit which may go all the way to the Supreme Court.

Yet, are Asian-Americans going around demanding the cancellation of every movie or series with yellow face racism? Supporting a Marxist-influenced organization like BLM? Justifying the destruction of property? Tearing down railroad tracks from the First Transcontinental Railroad because Chinese immigrants were literally treated like pack animals? Using Japanese internment camps like Manzanar as a modern rallying cry against the evil US government?

Should Asian-Americans be doing these things?

I think other racial/ethnic groups could say similar things too (e.g. Latinos, Indigenous Americans, Jews, underprivileged whites). Where's the massive public outrage and support for them? Why aren't CNN and MSNBC covering their plight as much as BLM?

Discipling Asian-American millennials

1. Here is a transcript of the conversation.

2. I think I most appreciated what Alex Choi said in his first response. To put it another way, I don't think the rest of the comments (apart from Choi's first response) are necessarily unique to Asian-Americans. At least my impression is things like a "lack of community" and trying to "reclaim" one's conversion experience are common in other races/ethnicities cultures too.

3. The term "millennials" sure does seem to cover a lot of years generation-wise. Aren't many if not most millennials now at least age 30? If so, perhaps we should consider doing the discipling rather than being discipled! (Granted, everyone is always a "disciple" but I'm speaking in terms of leadership roles in the church.)

In fairness, if what Choi says about Asian-American culture, marriage, and adulthood is true, then the fact that Asian-American millennials and later generations are getting married at an older age might have a significant impact on discipleship as well.

4. I believe at least two of the guys are Korean-American. Perhaps all three.

In any case, there are some significant differences among different Asian-American peoples and cultures. Take Chinese-Americans. There are Chinese-Americans whose families have originally come from mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, as well as various Southeast Asian nations (e.g. Chinese-Americans with roots in Vietnam). For example, one wouldn't necessarily deal with a Chinese-American with parents from communist China in the same way as one deals with a Chinese-American with parents from democratic Taiwan.

More generally, there are differences between East Asians and Southeast Asians. Simply consider how many East Asians have had to interact with socialist and communist ideologies in their modern history (e.g. the Korean war, communist Chinese today). Consider how many Southeast Asians have had to face persecution by Muslims in their own nations (e.g. Malaysia, Indonesia). Persecutions from communists and persecutions from Muslims.

Consider each nation's broader ideological perspective. The Philippines has a Catholic background. Malaysia and Indonesia are officially Muslim. Mainland China is atheist and communist. S. Korea has a strong Protestant Christian influence. Vietnam has a Catholic heritage but became communist, which many Vietnamese-Americans share. Japan is secular. And so on.

Of course there are also Asian-Americans who have only ever known the US. For example, many Asian-Americans can trace their family histories back to the Gold Rush era (c. 1849) and transcontinental railroad. They may have been in the US as long as many Irish-Americans and Italian-Americans, among others.

Asian-Americans have families which come from one or more of these backgrounds.