Virginia Teachers Union Smears Asians as Communists
#EndHateAgainstAsians
What’s wrong with teaching kids about communism? “We are concerned that this bill would subject Asian-American students to anti-Asian sentiments,” a spokeswoman for the Virginia Education Association was quoted as saying. Lenin was born west of the Urals—that is, in Europe—and Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were German. But of the five remaining communist states—China, Cuba, North Korea, Laos and Vietnam—four are in Asia.
If teaching the history of communism really does arouse anti-Asian sentiment, teachers should welcome a proverbial “teachable moment.” Teach students to distinguish Chinese-Americans, and ordinary Chinese citizens, from the Chinese regime of the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, the Wuhan lab and the spy balloon. Teach them about the 20th-century victims of communism not only in Asia but in Europe, Latin America and Africa—and point out that most Asian countries are noncommunist and many are democracies.
Teach students that collective characterizations of people by race, ethnicity or national origin is bigotry. That is the most important lesson they could learn about diversity, empathy and cultural sensitivity.
Instead, the teachers union spokeswoman told Reason’s Eugene Volokh that given location of most of few remaining communist regimes, “there is a strong association between communism and Asians.” That is a vicious anti-Asian slur.