日志
亚裔组织发声：KEON 事件
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If Purdue accepts Keon’s vague assurances that he’s learned his lesson and will do better, it will communicate the wrong lesson: that there are little to no consequences at Purdue for institutional racism, neglect of professional responsibilities, and cultural incompetence. Associate Vice Chancellor for Marketing and Communications, Kris Falzone’s gaslighting statement that Keon’s comments were “taken out of context” underscores PNW senior administration’s failure to sincerely apologize and offer redress.
TAAF stands with @PurdueNorthwest's faculty, students, @NAPAWFIndiana,
Asian American Academy of Science and Engineering, and other
orgs who demand the resignation of Chancellor Thomas Keon.
Students should not have to attend a school where they are
worried that those in the highest ranks of the University will perpetuate
harmful stereotypes at their expense. The Board of Trustees’ delayed
"reprimand,” which only came as a result of community pushback,...
allows for the normalization of this type of othering. More
importantly, this signals a systemic problem- a genuine lack of understanding
about the impact this behavior has on their AAPI students, alumni, faculty, and
community at large. While the resignation is the first step towards addressing
these issues, we also urge the University to work with local AAPI organizations
to identify long term strategies that root out prejudice and drive systemic
change.
Focusing on the situation in detail only reveals more troubling structural problems. The commencement speaker prior to Keon discussed making up a fictional language he used with his grandchildren, but the speaker never invoked Asians. Keon chose to interject his “Asian version” of a made-up language, specifically acting to stigmatize people and culture by race and ethnicity. Of course, any scholar with Keon’s education should be well aware that no language exists called “Asian.”
The concept of an “Asian” language—or gibberish version of one—is rooted in xenophobia, and tied to the white majority’s historical stereotype that “all Asians look alike.” It is ethnocentric ignorance that leads some to act as if the hundreds of languages spoken by Asians are one inscrutable glob. Since the inception of the motion picture industry, Hollywood has denied the humanity of Asians on screen, frequently deploying white actors in “yellowface” spewing made-up “Asian” dialogue, usually slant-eyed villains provoking hatred or buck-toothed caricatures inviting derision. Regardless of how many years or generations we have lived in the U.S, these pervasive misrepresentations brand us as “forever foreign.”
That is why it was awful but not surprising to see dignitaries on stage laughing along with Keon. White members of the PNW community seemed comfortable being in on the joke rather than the target of it. For Asian Americans—first in the auditorium and now as part of a global media audience—the cost of these cheap laughs was a painful reminder of the racist, xenophobic taunts we experienced at the hands of bullies and bigots in childhood. We have seen uninterrupted bullying and bigotry lead to overt violence and other acts of bias. Nearly 11,500 hate incidents were reported to Stop AAPI Hate between March 19, 2020 and March 31, 2022.
Subtle and tangible forms of harassment continue in spaces and institutions where Asian Americans are treated as if we don’t belong or will only be tolerated to the degree we bend over backwards to make those in power feel comfortable. Keon’s contention that his mocking “Asian” comments were made “off-the-cuff” does nothing to diminish the egregiousness of his conduct. Rather, it implies he has never felt the need to resist or overcome the impulse to caricature Asians for the enjoyment of his peers.
Such a toxic dynamic is one obvious outcome of Keon appointing a Senior Leadership Team that is all white and his hiring a chancellor’s office staff that is predominantly white with zero Asian Americans. Dr. Mung Chiang will be helming the Purdue system as its new systemwide president effective January 1, 2023, and while it is heartening to see more Asian/Asian American leaders, his presidency must now confront decades of systemic issues that have created a racial climate that allows for the chancellor of one of Purdue’s campuses to display such casual racism.
Ultimately, the call for Keon to resign should not rest solely on the comments he made on stage. What deserves greater scrutiny is Keon’s statement, “I assure you I did not intend to be hurtful and my comments do not reflect my personal or our institutional values.” Under Keon’s 11-year tenure as chancellor, PNW has failed to demonstrate institutional values reflecting inclusion of Asian Americans in the university’s core academic mission. Students have been deprived of learning the full picture of US society.
A search of the current course catalog fails to turn up a single class with “Asian American” in the title, and only one that mentions “Asian American” in the description. A search of PNW’s website turns up only one faculty member with research interests clearly focused on Asian Americans. These glaring absences suggest systemic deficiencies in the hiring, promotion, and review process for faculty and staff at PNW, as well as the routine exclusion of Asian American history, culture, and politics from PNW’s scholarly activity.
Furthermore, Asian Americans are far from alone in demanding transformative change. The PNW chapter of the American Association of University Professors has issued a statement pointing to the Keon administration’s “top-down, non-inclusive approach to university governance” and longstanding “insensitivity to diverse cultures within the PNW community.”
These deeply ingrained structural problems cannot be solved by token hiring or diversity training. PNW needs dedicated leadership to eradicate institutional racism. The search must begin immediately for effective leaders with the training and experience required to meet the challenges of higher education in the twenty-first century. We support the demands for Chancellor Keon’s resignation emanating from PNW stakeholders, including students, the Faculty Senate, and the AAUP Chapter.
Statement of the Friends of the Chinese American Museum
DECEMBER 17, 2022, LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA — The Friends of the Chinese American Museum is disappointed in the subtle and underlying racism exhibited by the Purdue University Northwest’s chancellor Thomas L. Keon on Saturday during one of the university’s commencement ceremonies. We hold our academic leadership, especially higher education leaders, to do better, and especially at a ceremony where young, educated leaders learn how to be citizens and people. The apology he gave, that it was ‘offensive and insensitive’ does little to diminish over a century of anti-Asian bashing and violence that Asian Americans have faced in the United States and throughout the world. Instead of educating and modeling what global and educated citizenship can look like, he demonstrated that, at a moment when levity was merited, he resorted to racist caricatures.
As a learned man, Chancellor Keon demonstrated that even in the white halls of higher education, the persistence of Anti-Asian sentiment is more than physical violence and outright overtures of racism, they are wrapped around ‘excusable’ moments of jocularity. Much like blackface and yellowface, the ability to use humor as a bludgeoning tool, veiled by jokes and excused by ‘being funny’ illustrates why racism is still so persistent in America. His comments illustrate why Asian Americans are continually perceived as outsiders in their own country.
Dr. Maya Angelou once said, ‘when people show you who they are, believe them.’ Dr. Thomas L. Keon has shown us the face of America, even in higher education. We must believe him. We must believe that America still has a long way to go in teaching our young people what equity should look like and sound like. Chancellor L. Keon’s mockery merits more than just condemnation, it is a call to action for Perdue to establish on-going education programs and training for their staff, faculty and management. The most educated must still learn and be accountable in facing their own racism, white supremacy, and the institutions that continue to perpetuate them.
Chancellor Keon would do well to face those who were affected by his racists remarks by visiting and knowing the very communities he mocked. The Chinese American Museum of Los Angeles is at the nexus of these conversations. The Museum is situated in the birthplace of Los Angeles and where the Chinese Massacre of 1871 took place. The museum is dedicated to exposing historic racism and combating discrimination, xenophobia, and intolerance facing us today. We are committed to unifying and uplifting the Black, Brown, Indigenous, LGBTQIA+, and Asian American communities of Los Angeles through our educational programs and artistic exhibitions.
Educational institutions must educate. To this end, it is incumbent upon Chancellor Keon to establish Asian American Studies and Ethnic Studies at Purdue University Northwest. Only then can it fulfill its own mission of educational transformation.
