{"id":14795,"date":"2022-10-15T12:18:03","date_gmt":"2022-10-15T22:18:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/?p=14795"},"modified":"2022-10-15T12:18:04","modified_gmt":"2022-10-15T22:18:04","slug":"finding-filipino-american-history-in-the-dred-scott-decision-and-ishmael-reeds-new-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/2022\/10\/15\/finding-filipino-american-history-in-the-dred-scott-decision-and-ishmael-reeds-new-play\/","title":{"rendered":"Finding Filipino American History In The Dred Scott Decision; And, Ishmael Reed\u2019s New Play"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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by Emil Guillermo<\/em>

This October marks the coincidence of the new Supreme Court session, the Filipino American History Month, and the opening of a new satirical history of race in America by the esteemed African American writer Ishmael Reed.

Let\u2019s start with the Supreme Court. No matter how much we hail and praise Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson\u2019s arrival, the first African American woman to serve on the court will not be able to mitigate the foulness we are about to experience.

Affirmative action, gay rights, abortion rights, voting rights, we are almost certainly assured that the hits will keep on coming.

But if you think it\u2019s bad now, you should have seen SCOTUS in 1857.

That\u2019s when the high court rendered by a 7-2 vote what some have called the worst SCOTUS decision ever, the Dred Scott opinion, written by Chief Justice Roger Taney.

Most people know of the case from history, if history hasn\u2019t been banned from your school yet (if you\u2019re young). Or if the history has been totally forgotten (if you\u2019re older). I dread if you stop any American today at random and ask about Dred Scott, you might hear something vague like, \u201cIt\u2019s about slavery, right?\u201d

To refresh, the case involved Scott, a slave who had been allowed to move from Missouri to a free state (Illinois), but then sued his owner for his freedom in Missouri.

Taney\u2019s majority opinion ruled for Scott\u2019s owner primarily because African Americans couldn\u2019t be citizens, and that Congress couldn\u2019t prohibit slavery in new U.S. territories like Missouri in the first place.

More startling was the finding that people of African ancestry had, to quote Taney, \u201cno rights which the white man was bound to respect.\u201d

Whites were simply seen as superior. So, what does this have to do with Filipino American History Month?

Chief Justice Taney based his terrible Dred Scott opinion on an 1840 case in which Taney himself wrote the opinion regarding one Lorenzo Dow.

Dow was a Filipino-born sailor on an American ship, who had been accused of murder and tried in Maryland.

In the U.S. v. Dow decision, Taney used for the first time the notion that whites were a master race (\u201cthe race of which the masters were composed\u201d). That was the proof of superiority since only those of European backgrounds could be part of political society in the colonies. Therefore, the only question Taney saw as significant was whether Dow was a person who had any rights at all, meaning \u201ca white Christian person.\u201d

He was not, and Dow\u2019s conviction of murder was upheld.

Seventeen years later, Taney used the Filipino Dow to reason that non-white, or essentially all people of color, could be reduced to slavery for the white man\u2019s benefit.

It wasn\u2019t an African American, or a Native American. It was a Filipino in America who was at the heart of what is arguably the worst Supreme Court decision ever.

More than a footnote, the unheralded Dow should be seen as a foundational building block of America\u2019s racist history.

All those \u201cinalienable rights\u201d under the Constitution were indeed whites only and did not include any people of color. Including Filipinos.

Ponder that as you wish people a happy Filipino American History Month.

As Dow proves, it\u2019s not just for Filipino Americans.

It is a history for all people of color in America.

Ishmael Reed\u2019s \u201cThe Conductor\u201d<\/strong>
This month, I will again be telling stories of the first Filipinos to arrive in the U.S. in 1587. As well as the tales of Filipinos like my dad who skipped Hawaii and went straight from Ilocos to San Francisco. Or of Fil-Am unionist Larry Itliong who merged civil rights and labor rights when he started the Delano Grape Strike of 1965.

And that\u2019s just a small part of Filipino American history.

But Filipino American history is also personal history. This month, I honor the noted African American novelist, essayist, poet and playwright Ishmael Reed.

When I was in graduate school at Wash U. in St. Louis, I wanted to be a funny novelist like Philip Roth. But my professors said I had too many Filipino characters and should take them out.

Reed, a visiting writer from Oakland, told me to put the Filipinos back in.

No one told me that. But Reed did.

This week, New York\u2019s Theater for the New City presents a reading of Reed new play, \u201cThe Conductor.\u201d

Reed\u2019s satirical view of America\u2019s race situation targets the recent recalls of progressive politicians in San Francisco led by conservative Asian Americans.

Reed provides a twist, a fictive Indian prime minister who creates an international scene that forces Indians to flee the U.S.

That includes Shashi Parmar, one of the Indians who led the recall effort.

Parmar, on the run, seeks help from a new \u201cunderground railroad\u201d to get to Canada. And the conductor? It\u2019s a character named Warren Chipp, a columnist who was fired for speaking out against the recall.

As Chipp and Parmar engage and debate, you\u2019ll learn a lot about everything from Asian American history to African American history to the current status of Dalit women in India.

Provocative? Of course. The \u201cN\u201d word is used\u2014about Asians.

The virtual reading means you can check in from anywhere, Oct. 13 to 16.

I have a very small part as a Fox News-type commentator. Think Tucker Carlson in brownface.

But \u201cThe Conductor\u201d is all Reed, and his vision of how people of color have been mistreated historically in America. In a theatrical reading, that vision comes through loud and clear.

EMIL GUILLERMO<\/strong>\u00a0is a journalist and commentator. He talks about this column and other matters on\u00a0\u201cEmil Amok\u2019s Takeout,\u201d his AAPI micro-talk show. Live @2p Pacific. Livestream on\u00a0<\/em>Facebook<\/em><\/a>; my\u00a0<\/em>YouTube<\/em><\/a>\u00a0channel; and\u00a0<\/em>Twitter.<\/em><\/a>\u00a0Catch the recordings on\u00a0<\/em>www.amok.com<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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