Category: Justice

Violence Against Our Elders: Unfinished Thoughts

Brian Hui1 Comment

About a week and half ago, while a 91 year old Chinese elder was walking in Oakland Chinatown, a young man came charging at him from behind, violently knocking him face down onto the concrete in broad daylight. That very day, the same was done to an 84 year old Thai elder in SF. He eventually died of his injuries. Both incidents just happened to be captured on video.

When I try to explain why these incidents hit people like me so hard, I say: It’s not just because our elders are so vulnerable, but because they are our most honorable. They are the best of us. They are the ones we bow to. Even after they die, we bow to them and offer them food before we even take our first bites.

And at least for me, when I think of Chinatown, I literally associate Chinatown with my grandparents. Back in the day before there was Ranch 99, we’d all drive up to Chinatown for dim sum and to buy Asian vegetables. I honestly didn’t like Chinatown as a kid. Great food, but it was loud and stinky. There were pigeons everywhere. But it was the only place my grandparents could be their happy and loud selves other than at home.

And so to see our venerable elders, people who are our grandparents, having their honorable faces knocked down onto the very streets where they’re supposed to feel most free to be themselves, that really hurt.

All that on top of the recent rise in anti-Asian hate, in the wake of COVID and Trump’s rhetoric.

But none of this is new. Violence and racism against our elders is not new. Dare I say it is endemic to their neighborhoods.

But at least for me, what made it hurt more this time around, to be bashfully honest, was the silence of the very BIPOC brothers and sisters whom we’d worked so hard to cultivate solidarity with over this past year. The only BIPOC person I saw speaking up was Oakland’s own, rapper Mistah F.A.B. (Gratefully, more are speaking up now.)

And even within my own Asian community, I’ve felt trapped. Caught on one hand, between the Asians who are responding with racist resentment and rage—feelings I’ve been trying to disciple people out of. But on the other hand, Asians who speak 10,000 words about Let’s not respond with white supremacy! Let’s look at root issues! We still have it so good—we’re Asian! All true. But almost no words about simply saying this was wrong. That our elders are legitimately scared. 

It just felt like a lot of pressure to center other people’s concerns in the midst of our own family’s fear and pain. It felt like pressure to just stay silent—like a good Asian should.

Now of course, when I finally mustered the courage to talk to my BIPOC family they immediately responded with solidarity! With sorrow and disgust. I never knew! Let me know what I can do! We’re with you! Everything you’d hope for, they said and did! Thank God! It’d simply never reached their radar.

And while I was relieved that it wasn’t that they didn’t care. I’m not sure what hurt more. Feeling that people don’t care. Or knowing that the lives of our elders don’t matter enough to make it on people’s news feeds in the first place.

I think Steven Yuen said it best: “Sometimes I wonder if the Asian-American experience is what it’s like when you’re thinking about everyone else, but nobody else is thinking about you.”

I’m gratefully in a much better place now. The solidarity of brothers and sisters. But above all, knowing that our worth isn’t defined by how the world treats our elders, but simply because we’re made in the image of God.

But I know there’s certainly a lot of work still to do. A lot.

Above is a picture of two store windows in Oakland Chinatown. And it’s a symbol of where I feel things are.

On one hand, these are pictures of beautiful solidarity; a community coming together. On the other hand, these windows weren’t boarded up for art, but for fear of violence and looting.

But we could also say it the other way too. On one hand, these windows are boarded up out of fear. But on the other hand, they are showing signs of a community trying to heal and come together.

Correction: I originally said both men died of the injuries. Fortunately, the 91 year old man, while seriously injured, survived.

This reflection was originally shared at PROCESS + RESPOND: ANTI-ASIAN HATE CRIMES, hosted by the Covenant Asian Pastors Association.

Thank God for Critical Race Theory (Part 1)

Brian Hui13 Comments

There’s been a lot of concern within the evangelical community about ‘Critical Race Theory’ (CRT) in the wake of Black Lives Matter. Some are sounding the alarms over ‘cultural Marxism’, calling it incompatible with Christianity; some suggest that it even undermines Western civilization itself. In some ways, it reminds me of our collective concern about postmodernism in the early 2000s. Others offer more specific critiques about things like “cancel culture”.

While I share some concerns, I’m actually grateful for the the insights that CRT has given us—especially Derrick Bell, its founder. And while I’ve read a number of evangelical critiques of CRT attempting to be ‘balanced’, I’m concerned that our attempts to be balanced are giving us cover to feel like we’ve done the hard work of thinking about racism in America while mostly maintaining the status quo. As people of the Word who believe that righteousness and justice flow out of the very character of God, particularly in America, we’d benefit by listening to the insightful criticisms that CRT makes.

So what is CRT? CRT seeks to answer the question: If legalized racism is over, then why are Blacks still worse off?

Derrick Bell tells the story of how his career began. An eminent Black federal judge asked Bell what he planned to do with his life. “Become a civil rights lawyer,” Bell told him. The judge laughed. This was right after the Supreme Court banned school segregation in Brown v. Board of Education. “Son, you were born 15 years too late.” The judge’s esteemed legal opinion—reflected in broader society—was that with the end of segregation came the end of racism.

Bell would go on to have a prolific career in civil rights, working for the Justice Department and the NAACP, supervising over 300 school desegregation cases. And yet after desegregation, he looked back on his early life’s work only to see that the plight of Blacks was actually worse off. Black schools were closed, teachers were fired. Blacks were usually integrated into the worst White schools. And where integration happened, it tended to lead to White flight. Bell came to realize how wrong he was, “We thought that segregation was the enemy, the evil. We came to recognize tardily that it was just the manifestation of the evil, just the symptom, and that the real evil was racism—the determination of White America to remain dominant over Black America.”

And so CRT is first and foremost a hermeneutic of suspicion. Like postmodernity, it’s a deconstructivist lens for looking at racial progress in America. (This is probably why most solutions—especially ones sloppily lumped under the umbrella of ‘CRT’—are rarely satisfying; prophets rarely make good architects.) CRT is a sleuth’s magnifying glass, helping us see why after a slew of civil rights victories, dramatic racial inequalities not only persist, but can reincarnate in worse forms. CRT asks critical questions like:

  1. Counter-Storytelling: What stories are racially marginalized communities telling about this? Black communities shared stories about greater disparities after desegregation. But now, they had no more legal recourse.
  2. Interest Convergence: How might this advance White interests more than the racial minorities it’s supposed help? Segregation was finally banned not in response to its injustice, but in response to Communist critics during the Cold War. Also, many were afraid of how Black veterans would respond if they came back to segregation after fighting for “Freedom” abroad.

    (‘White’ here doesn’t refer to one’s ethnic identity, but a social label given to those at the top of our country’s racial caste system.)

By digging deeper, CRT uncovers the less visible, but often more insidious forms of racism.

As Christians, we know God’s disdain for injustice. The prophet Micah spells out the ways Israel failed to shine the light of God’s justice to the nations:

“Hear this, you leaders of Jacob,
    you rulers of Israel,
who despise justice
    and distort all that is right;
who build Zion with bloodshed,
    and Jerusalem with wickedness.
11 Her leaders judge for a bribe,
    her priests teach for a price,
    and her prophets tell fortunes for money.
Yet they look for the Lord’s support and say,
    “Is not the Lord among us?
    No disaster will come upon us.”
12 Therefore because of you,
    Zion will be plowed like a field,
Jerusalem will become a heap of rubble,
    the temple hill a mound overgrown with thickets. (Micah 3:9-12)

And for those who think Jesus’ proclamation of the Kingdom shifted away from justice merely to “souls”:

“Woe to you Pharisees, because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God. You should have practiced the latter without leaving the former undone. (Luke 11:42)

But how can we address injustice if we can’t even see that it exists?

Like many, I also was raised in the belief that after Emancipation, Civil Rights, and even the election of the first Black president, that racism was mostly over; it still exists, but mostly in hurt feelings; its worst forms mostly in certain corners of the country. But CRT has helped me see what most of our Black (and Latino and Indigenous) neighbors have known all too well—that racism is alive and well, still oppressing communities of color all over America, even if it isn’t as obvious to mainstream society. By asking more critical questions, CRT has helped me step outside of my own limited and privileged perspective to see the experience of race from the perspective of the oppressed. And if there is one perspective that the Scriptures are written to and from, it’s the oppressed.

And so because of CRT, we’re able to see that while we no longer have segregation, we have an even worse education gap; while we no longer have slavery, we now have mass incarceration; while we now have affirmative action—the net result is (a) greater resentment towards Blacks but (b) even greater advantages for White women; and so on.

In short, CRT has given me “eyes to see” the less obvious, but no less insidious incarnations of racial injustice. And in seeing it more clearly, it’s helping me live out my vocation to love God and my neighbor more faithfully as I seek His Kingdom. CRT helps me see the truth more fully. And for that, I thank God.

Up Next: CRT and the Permanence ohttps://brianhui.blog/?p=1987f Racism

Risk and Faith in a Pandemic

Brian Hui2 Comments

We are notoriously bad at thinking about risk. For example, I avoid surfing for fear of sharks. However, I’m embarrassingly less afraid of checking my phone notifications while I’m driving. My chances of dying in a car accident? 1 in 100. My chances of a shark attack? 1 in 11 million.

Right thinking about risk, however, is essential as we come to accept that we’re still only in the beginning stages of a long pandemic. It’s too late to bring the virus down to Taiwan or New Zealand levels. A vaccine isn’t expected until next year, at the earliest. And with only 5-7% of the population infected, we are years away from herd immunity. As they say: Pandemic is the new normal.

So should we keep sheltering-in-place until we find a vaccine? No. Lockdowns are important but short-term measures to curb a pandemic. An indefinite lockdown is not only unrealistic, but as a Christian, I believe it’s unjust. It’s a luxury for only a percentage of privileged white collar workers. And, over time, it severely stifles human flourishing for all.

So should we shrug off the pandemic and “go back to normal” instead? Also, no. Even if we feel sturdy enough to stand up to COVID, we may spread COVID to others who may not stand the same chance: the sick, elderly, incarcerated, and the poor—basically everyone that Jesus calls us to show extra concern for. Going back would not only be foolish, it would be unethical.

During the HIV epidemic, people knew that while unrestrained promiscuity was a death sentence, abstinence-only until there was a cure or vaccine wasn’t realistic either. So instead, advocates and virologists developed a foundational guide for the gay community: “How to Have Sex in a Epidemic.” Now, I know it’s strange for a Christian pastor to draw on such an example, but if we are to live in between lockdown and back-to-normal that is precisely the sort of guidance we need today.

First, this will mean staying informed about the science of COVID. COVID-19 is a novel coronavirus—meaning it’s new! So scientists are constantly in the midst of learning, debating, and correcting themselves—not because they are unqualified or partisan, but because we are living in the science experiment.

Thanks to science, we now know some important things about COVID we didn’t know even a few months ago. For example:

  • it’s spread through airborne particles more than surfaces
  • you can be contagious before you’re symptomatic
  • masks do help
  • most catch it through super-spreaders
  • it’s a vascular infection (blood vessels) not just respiratory
  • it’s especially deadly for those with certain underlying conditions.

And in time, we will learn even more.

Since most of us aren’t scientists, though, best practice is to listen to experts and established consensus more than viral posts or breaking news.

Second, we must each learn to evaluate risk. In a recent debate about reopening schools, there was a meme going around saying that the only number of deaths that was acceptable was zero. While I sympathize with the sentiment and would absolutely not want any of my three boys to die, is that really reasonable? When I asked if classrooms could keep doors and windows remain open for cross-ventilation, I was told no, for fear of school shooters. Schools have never been risk-free places. And as resurrection-believing Christians who don’t believe God has guaranteed us a risk-free life, should we be perpetuate such thinking? The question shouldn’t be if there’s risk, but how risky is it.

On the flip side, faith doesn’t mean we rush foolishly into risky situations either. People who say we don’t need masks if we have Jesus don’t really understand what biblical faith is. Risk-aversion or risk-tolerance has to be more than just a feeling; it must be informed by facts. But how we use those fact—that requires wisdom.

We are fortunate that intelligent guides are finally being published. For example, Dr. Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University, suggests we evaluate risk along several spectrums:

  • Contact Intensity
    • Close —— Distanced
    • Prolonged contact —— Brief
  • Number of Contacts
    • Many households —— Few
    • Mixed circles —— Stable bubble
    • Presence of at-risk people
  • Mitigation
    • Indoor —— Outdoors
    • Enclosed space —— Ventilated
    • Wearing a mask
    • Hand washing
  • Community Spread
    • High infection rates —— Low

Of course, guides like these will change. And I hope we will learn more about what other things can help lower risks for socializing, reopening schools, churches and businesses.

But as we continue living in this pandemic, each of us will need to make individual and family decisions about what risks we are comfortable taking—or have little choice but to take. And we will not all make the same decisions depending on whether we live with elderly parents, have children with special needs, can work from home, live paycheck to paycheck, have stronger social needs, or live in a densely populated area. We all live different lives and must make different decisions. But I pray they will be well-informed.

Third: How will my risk-taking impact my neighbor? Some young adults have been flagrantly ignoring physical distancing orders, going to bars, throwing COVID parties, believing they can handle the virus (by the way, this is nothing new: college students have been doing dumb things for generations). While most young people will probably be fine, they are unknowingly increasing community spread to vulnerable populations.

Now, community factors can’t completely control our decisions, but it’d be wrong to ignore our neighbors’ well-being altogether. Outside of the West, what we call individualism is called selfishness: putting yourself before your community. This is particularly important for us to consider as Christians. The Apostle Paul teaches us that our freedom must be guided by love: “I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but not everything is constructive. No one should seek their own good, but the good of others. (1 Corinthians 10)

Fourth, this perspective should tone down COVID-shaming. Occasionally, people act in extremely fearful or foolish ways. But most of the time, people are acting just a few degrees more or less risky than we’re comfortable with. If risk isn’t binary but a spectrum, is there always one right or wrong way? And again, we all have different factors we are balancing. In general, I find most people think they are being reasonable—whether I think they are or not. Plus, shaming boosts our self-righteousness more than it changes people. Try an actual conversation, suggest some mitigation, or just hang out with others instead.

Also, COVID-shaming can lead people to stay silent if they contract COVID, making contact tracing difficult and isolating them from much needed support.

Fifth, we must take informed risks not only for ourselves, but for our neighbors too. As Christians, we of all people know that safety is not the ultimate goal in life. We have been saved for a purpose. And so while love in a pandemic usually means staying distanced, it will sometimes mean taking calculated risks for the sake of others. To put it another way, followers of Jesus shouldn’t just be finding the most responsible way to attend a family BBQ, but also the most responsible way to share meals with the poor. And sometimes, it may mean taking even greater risks, by faith.

This is especially important as the poor are disproportionately hit by this pandemic but have much less support; after all, most of us are simply too afraid to volunteer anymore. For those of us who can, following the example of our spiritual ancestors, including Jesus himself, we should consider what calculated risks we can take to serve the least of these.

More than Charity, We Need Justice

Brian Hui1 Comment

Most of us get the importance of charity. But charity alone is not enough. And that’s become even clearer in the wake of this pandemic.

This week, I had the privilege of serving as a chaplain to low-income families while they came in to receive free meals & groceries through the CompassionNetwork. Upon receiving their groceries, I sat down to ask how I could pray for them. Most were polite, giving answers like they were just trying to get through the conversation. But two themes emerged:

  1. Most had lost their low-wage jobs as cooks or cleaners as result of sheltering-in-place and are now being evicted for not making rent. I suspect most were undocumented, which means they were ineligible for the $1000s of federal stimulus and unemployment checks.
  2. Once I began praying with them, nearly all of them began weeping. I was caught off guard, considering our masks and distance, but sometimes that happens when we feel God really is near. Their helplessness, though, was palpable. Who was I to receive these tears?

That afternoon, the bags of groceries we were offering felt insultingly small. Groceries don’t pay rent. And even if we wanted to help with rent, when rent in the Bay Area starts at $2,000/month, how many families could we reasonably help—and for how long? Our charity was needed, but it was woefully insufficient.

I also serve on the board of Missio Dei Oakland, a group of house churches dedicated to sharing Jesus with the poor. Recently, the pastor shared about being poor during COVID:

One of the biggest ways the poor live through this pandemic differently from those who have wealth is around employment and safety. Most of my friends outside of Oakland still have their jobs. Most of them also get to telecommute/work from home. And that’s really great. Truly. But I don’t know one family in our whole church who hasn’t had a family member fired, laid off, furloughed, or might have to close down their family business permanently right now. Not one.

And if you’re lucky enough to still have a job you often have this choice to make: Do you want to work in unsafe conditions or do you want to get fired? Many of our members work in supermarkets, warehouses, shipping, restaurant/food delivery, security guards, fast food, Walmart/Target. You’re around dozens or hundreds of people everyday during this pandemic. You probably don’t own a car so you’re taking the bus, BART, or an Uber to work for even more exposure. On top of that you’re probably living in a crowded apartment with others who are out everyday.

Clear reasons why the virus is infecting so many people of color and the poor. There’s nothing hopeful here, it’s just hard. 

This is from a Bloomberg article, and the chart was titled “Only The Rich Work From Home.” Which is, of course, not true. But it’s a good headline grabber. Doctors, nurses, and so many others who are middle-class/wealthy are out there working and serving like crazy. But in general, the more you make, the more likely you’re working at home and social distancing is pretty easy. If you’re at the bottom of the income percentile, you have really hard choices to make. If you have a choice at all.

The mantra I keep hearing these days is: We’re all in this together. But take a few minutes to sit with someone who’s poor or undocumented. And it’s hard to not to walk away thinking: If we’re all in this together, we are in vastly different parts of the ship.

And how much can your or my charity really do to relieve the disproportionate burden that the poor and undocumented bear because we are sheltering-in-place (an order which I happen to support)?

I’m reading through the Book of Deuteronomy right now. And one thing that stands out to me is how God was trying to build a society that was not only charitable, but just.

Now we usually think of justice as ‘being fair’. We like to say justice should be ‘cold’ or ‘blind.’ And those notions of justice were certainly part of God’s vision for Israel as just city on a hill:

  • You must not distort justice; you must not show partiality; and you must not accept bribes, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and subverts the cause of those who are in the right. (Deut 16:19)
  • Show no pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot. (Deut 19:21)

But in his book, Old Testament Ethics for the People of God, Chris Wright shines the light on aspects of God’s conception of justice that are larger than our ideas of mere fairness or ‘blind justice’. For example:

  • If you lent to the poor, you were allowed to take various forms of collateral.
    • But not his millstones, because that would be taking a person’s livelihood as security‘ (Deut 24:6).
    • If you took their cloak, you were required to return it by sunset ‘so that your neighbor may sleep in it…and it will be regarded as a righteous act in the sight of the LORD your God’ (Deut 24:13).
    • And for foreigners, or fatherless, or widows—you weren’t allowed to take their cloaks as pledges in the first place (Deut 24:17)!
  • In the context of just treatment of the poor, God also says: ‘When you harvest the grapes in your vineyard, do not go over the vines again. Leave what remains for the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt. That is why I command you to do this’ (Deut 24:21-22).

In both cases, the stronger party had the ‘right’ to take their security or fully harvest their fields. Yet it would’ve been unrighteous and sinful to do so. A just—not just a charitable—society is one that protects the dignity and basic needs of the poor.

Moreover, Israel was commanded to provide a basic safety net for immigrants and the poor through the tithe (similar to our taxes): ‘When you have finished setting aside a tenth of all your produce in the third year, the year of the tithe, you shall give it to the Levite, the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow, so that they may eat in your towns and be satisfied’ (Deut 26:12). If God only cared about charity, he would’ve encouraged almsgiving—voluntary charity to the poor. But this was more than charity. It about building a society that promised to never let the floor fall out from under the poor.

Friends, what we have done to the poor in the midst of this pandemic is UNJUST. They must risk their health to work as ‘essential workers’ so the rest of us can shelter-in-place—while making barely livable wages (and their CEOs get praised for donating to charity). And those who are losing their jobs? People working in restaurants, hospitality, and construction—industries that require the undocumented—who we then let fall through the federal government’s pandemic safety net. I still have my job AND I get to work from home—and I got a stimulus check. Heck, the entire airline industry’s barely working and got a stimulus check. But the laid off cooks and cleaners I met this week? They got nothing. Not only are we not holding up the floor for the poor, we are pulling it out from under them.

And what can our charity do for these people? Only so much. The solution to injustice isn’t more charity. The solution is justice. It’s making things right so charity is no longer needed in the first place.

If you’re reading this, then I presume that you not only have some money, but you also have some power. I urge you to give money to either of the charities I’ve shared about above, knowing it provides short-term relief. But I urge you to also use your voice to advocate for a more just society. In particular, a society that works for the poor and the undocumented.

Now what should we advocate for? Extend federal safety net to the undocumented? Improve PPP? Stop privatizing gains and socializing losses?Adjust SIP orders to balance public health and economic impacts on the poor? Ensure a living wage and health insurance for ‘essential workers’? Recruit contact tracers first from communities of color? I don’t know. But whether you’re a conservative or progressive, if you care about justice, we’re all ears…

Photo Journal: My trip to Israel & Palestine

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I visited Israel & Palestine this past June during my sabbatical. What I saw, experienced, and learned opened my eyes and heart in a way few trips ever have.

This wasn’t a pilgrimage per se. But as a student of the Bible, I was interested in exploring the lands where the biblical stories unfolded. But also as a lover of history and politics, I also wanted to learn more about the reality Israel and Palestine. Even by calling it ‘Palestine’, I am making a political statement. My tour guide, Sami, was a Jerusalem-born Palestinian Christian—a double minority—and I’m grateful for his invitation to see his home through his rare eyes.

If you’ve been following me on Instagram, this is just a compilation of my posts…

You’ll notice I began my trip feeling more like a tourist. Please also forgive the occasional Warriors posts—this was during the NBA Finals! Notice also my strong Anabaptist bent as I visit these illustrious church buildings and shrines. And my poor Instagram skills. But as the pictures progress, you will see how my experience evolved.

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Review: At Home in Exile by Russell Jeung

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This is a truly unique book. And the best book I’ve read this year. Part memoir / sociology / theology / Asian corny hilariousness. It’s funny, it’s educational, it’s deeply moving.

Russell moves into and ultimately finds home in the Murder Dubs of Oakland. But it’s not a triumphant American superhero story. Nor is it a sappy romance about ‘the poor.’ It’s a complex, humble story about how he found community, identity, and ultimately Jesus in his mostly Cambodia refugee & Latino neighborhood.

It’s a story that asks: What if Jesus wasn’t as much an American superhero, but more like a Chinese Hakka exile (his ancestors)? What if Jesus was more like my Chinatown grandma than that powerful hipster pastor I’m always jealous of? He re-explores things like MISSION, JUSTICE, COMMUNITY, FAMILY & CALLING through this lens.

I finished this book richly proud of my Chinese ancestry, broken over the plight of disenfranchised non-model-minority Asians in the Bay Area, hopeful about what God is still doing through amazing yet mostly “invisible” people, but challenged to live my faith in a way that may run counter to the power and reward structures of our world.

“I Can’t Breathe”

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I can’t breathe
The unbearable weight of history
Of subjugation, segregation, stop-and-frisk-ation
Boring down into my back
Crushing my chest
Strangling our souls
Let me tap Uncle
I will let you win
I will surrender my cig
If you will just let me breathe
Now beneath the weight of dirt
I’m waiting for justice

I can’t breathe
The loss of another
Son of a mother, a father, a brother
This shitty record is broken
Injustice rolls like a motherfuckin waterfall
Away with the noise of your songs
I can’t listen to the music of you harping on
Why won’t you just stop and frickin listen?
Now beneath the weight of your laws
We’re waiting for justice

I can’t breathe
I’m choking on these fallen tears
I can’t breathe
I’m exhausted from the fight
I can’t breathe
I’m holding my breath
Because if there is no Advent
There can be no justice
If there is no rising again
There can be no peace
Just the status quo
Holding up the weight of the world as we know
And we will be waiting for nothing

But as for me
I will walk
A prisoner of hope
Waiting for that sigh of relief
Waiting for justice