Kathy Groob got into a Twitter war arguing that Elaine Chao, the former labor secretary and wife of Republican US Senator Mitch McConnell, can’t possibly be from Kentucky, “because she’s Asian.”
That drew a firestorm on Twitter from folks who didn’t see the relationship between being from Kentucky and being Asian. One of Ms Groob’s many Anti-Kentucky and Anti-Asian American racist tweets (all of which she later deleted from her account), appears below.
In order to present an accurate portayal, I am including links to articles posted on a Kentucky television station (WHAS), an extremely conservative blog (fireandreamitchell.com) and an Asian American blog (AsAm News) to let you determine the appropriateness of Ms. Groob’s comments regarding Asian Americans and Kentucky (1) Kentucky has no Asians, and (2) Ms. Goob continues to openly express the widely held belief, despite her very liberal views, that Asian Americans, regardless of how many generations their ancestors have been American citizens “are really never fully American.”
I realize, of course, that politics often descend into the absurd and that Ms. Goob made her racist attacks because she disapproves of U.S. Senator Mitch McConnel (R, KY) (who is married to Asian American Elaine Chao–a citizen of both Kentucky and the United States) and I realize she did make an “apology” (though her “apology” was perhaps the weakest and least effective apology in modern political history). Ms. Goob’s comments, however, fall outside any sense of human decency, and continue to depict Asian Americans, depite their legal citizenship, as forever foreign and unwanted in their country of citizenship. Make no mistake, there is no doubt, whatsover, that Ms. Goob was well aware of Ms. Chao’s citizenship (in both Kentucky and the U.S.). If she is as involved in politics and feminism on the national scene as she claims, she would certainly know that Elaine Chao was the first Asian American women to be appointed to a U.S. President’s cabinet in American history, serving as the United States Secretary of Labor from 2001 to 2009. If Ms. Chao did not possess Asian features, I can only assume she would have been thumping her chest that a female served as Secretary of Labor (a Cabinet level position) for two full terms under a Republican President–but how could she celebrate a woman in such a high level position because thw woman “did not look like an American citizen, but looked instead like a massage parlor worker whom the poor, ignorant hillbillies populating Kentucky (including me, though I have an LL.M. degree from George Washington University and even have an “Asian” daughter) would surely not allow to live in their state. I guess I should receive my notice any day to report to an interment camp with my daughter).
Since Ms. Goob has announced to the world through social media that Ms. Chao can’t possibly live in Kentucky because of her Asian features, I guess, based on her logic, my 15 year-old Asian American daughter isn’t from Kentucky either since she was adopted from the Central Asian Republic of Kazakhstan and has lived with and been a part of our Kentucky family since she was 18 months old. The good liberal, Ms. Groob, has helped perpetuate the myth that Americans with Asian features are somehow strange and different and will never be accepted as true Americans in the United States. Perhaps her point of view (which many claim is wholely within the domain of Conservative politics, though Ms. Groob has proven otherwise) is the reason that Asian teens are the most bullied racial group in the U.S. and also have the highest suicide rate.
I care very deeply about this subject of Asians being viewed and treated differently because the issue directly affects my ethnic Kaazakh daughter (both an Asian and Kentucky citizen, though in Ms. Groob’s world the two categories cannot co-exist). I also care because my Asian Kentucky citizen daughter was bullied (racially harassed and retaliated against) at her previous school based on her ethnicity, national origin, race and religion) while the school system at every level displayed an incredible deliberate indifference with regard to my many comlaints of her mistreatment. When people like Ms. Kroob spew their hatred on a national stage, there is a trickle down effect reminding all of white America that American citizens with Asian features are “not really” Americans and there is no need to allow them the same courtesy and conditions to which white people feel priviliged.
http://www.asamnews.com/2014/08/04/whas-democratic-operatives-tweet-about-elaine-chao-draws-rebuke/
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