I am an Angry Chinese Guy. Yes. I said it. Well I guess it doesn’t have the same impact as Angry Black Man…or even Angry Black Woman. But that’s just me. And I do not mean angry because Pablo Sandoval is dissing the team that made him famous (and my beloved SF Giants). Or that Wondercon may never come back to San Francisco. I have been angry for over 50 years because for men of color anger is the first emotion we truly perfect. It is our defense, our offense, and many times a warm hoodie we use to ward off all the pain and suffering we just can’t face.
That is why anger is central to being a person of color in America. From Ferguson to Staten Island we should all be angry shouldn’t we? And for Asian and Pacific Islanders the truth is too close to home to ignore. Take the case of Sureshbhai Patel. The visiting father of an engineer in Alabama who was beaten by the police on February 6th for being foreign and ended up in the hospital paralyzed. Or don’t get me started on Mark Wahlberg who thinks he should be pardoned for beating two Asian men because he is such a nice guy now. Only in America.
So anger is one of the key emotions that makes me tick. But what I have done with it is what matters most. My anger drives me. It makes me want to do my best. It motivates me to have impact and to make things better, even if it drives my wife bonkers. In the next 20 months it will drive me to do my part to make this nation better. PowerPAC.org will be working with other national partners to increase voter turnout and voter registration in places like Alabama. We will be working feverishly to enhance community organizing infrastructure and to find inspiring issues and candidates that can turn our anger into justice. In these pages you will be hearing about our efforts as we build towards 2016 and 2020. We will be picking states and talking about our great partners on the ground working to make each state progressive and just.
So I say let us embrace the anger. Take that anger and make it work for us. Angry Chinese Guys unite and tell Mark Wahlberg to just %$#@-off.
-Andy Wong