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Melissa Chen Profile picture
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31 Mar, 4 tweets, 2 min read
Stunningly ignorant.

It takes a corrupted mind to attribute every single assault on Asians to white supremacy. This is the conspiracy theory that faces zero pushback from the mainstream media. In fact, peddling it gets you TV shows and Pulitzer Prizes.
Late Night with Seth Meyers featured an Asian writer pushing the same theory in lieu of his monologue:

Countless articles pushing the same narrative about white supremacy and anti-Asian hate by @TIME and @CNN
And now, the corporate liaisons...

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More from @MsMelChen

Melissa Chen Profile picture
3 Mar
Ben is right about this one.

There were a lot of "ACKSHUALLY no one banned or canceled Dr. Seuss books" in my replies.

Here's the thing: if the last few months have shown you anything, it is that the slippery slope is indeed slippery AND that "cultural changes" can be just as
if not more powerful than government censorship itself.

One thing I know a fair bit about is book publishing in the Middle East. There are countries with long lists of officially banned books (e.g. Kuwait), but for many others, books are de facto banned via social opprobrium.
This has an effect on the entire book publishing industry there. Publishers don't sell because the market isn't there; readers can't purchase because it's not economically sound for publishers to sell.

This does not make for a vibrant reading culture if books people want to
Read 10 tweets
Melissa Chen Profile picture
12 Feb
Yes, they are unacceptable.

But riddle me this. Why, if Trump’s rhetoric or hawkish China foreign policy is the reason for the hate crimes, is this happening in progressive cities? And under Biden’s admin?
And here’s a thread about this widespread media claim, and about where the data is coming from.
Also, “STOP AAPI Hate” is a group started by Chinese for Affirmative Action.

Biden’s DOJ recently dropped the lawsuit against Yale for discriminating against Asian applicants.

I find this connection btw promoting affirmative action and the increase in hate crimes interesting.
Read 4 tweets
Melissa Chen Profile picture
10 Feb
Okay, I need to get this off my chest because it's been bothering me for a few months now.

American media has never backed up this claim that the words and actions by the previous admin directly cause the "rising tide of hate crimes" against Asian Americans.
In his first week in office, Biden signed a memorandum that reinforces the same claim - rebuking the previous admin for "advancing xenophobic sentiments" by using words like "China virus" and de facto banning its use by the federal government - and implying that the spate of
verbal and physical harassment of Asian Americans can be attributed to these hateful words.

These are serious claims, and it requires serious evidence. But what do we instead?

Bear in mind that the FBI hasn't released its 2020 hate crime statistics broken down
Read 15 tweets
Melissa Chen Profile picture
9 Feb
This piece by @DavidSacks for @JoinPersuasion completely nails it.

The schism in the post-Trump era is not along the axis of Left & Right, but of insider & outsider. Anyone clamoring for censorship must realize that it only protects & entrenches insiders.
persuasion.community/p/the-insiders…
The Warren quote he highlights in the piece is something that jumped out at me YEARS ago.

"What all of our elites have in common is a reason to fear social media." Image
Read 4 tweets
Melissa Chen Profile picture
18 Jan
The Broken Windows theory has not been fashionable for a while but I think mob-driven unrest and increase in crime rates today have lent some credence to it.

In the 1982 Atlantic piece, George Kelling & James Wilson argued that a "broken window is a signal that no one cares,"
and so breaking more windows costs nothing”. The idea that untended disorder and minor offenses gives rise to serious crime and urban decay seems borne out by events and statistics today.

There's been a steady assault on the theory since it was published, claiming that Broken
Windows was racist and that it amounted to overzealous "zero tolerance" approaches to crime. After all, the implication was that infractions, no matter how small, have to be aggressively contained before they escalate into major problems.

But even as crime rates plummeted
Read 8 tweets
Melissa Chen Profile picture
4 Jan
This notion of "China's version of freedom" is old news for this Singaporean.

I've been told this my whole life as a kid aspiring to live/work in the US. That "real freedom" isn't the 1st or 2nd amendment; it's the freedom to walk safely at midnight.
nytimes.com/2021/01/04/bus…
It's the age-old tradeoff between security and liberty that Ben Franklin mused about.

Yes I am a China hawk. Yes I think civil liberties and human rights must be safeguarded. But we ignore "basic freedoms" at our peril.

China's model looks very appealing to those without it.
And if all the West can provide is chaos, disorder, a life without dignity, crime, no social safety net, institutional decay, corruption, a divided social fabric, then the 21st century will ultimately belong to China.

There's a saying in Chinese that goes 泥菩萨过江, 自身难保 .
Read 4 tweets

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