Leaders of the civil rights organizations that initiated the protest against AsianWeek’s publication of a hate speech column against African Americans today noted the newspaper’s decision to remove Samson Wong as editor-in-chief.
The masthead of the newspaper’s March 30 issue shows that former editor-in-chief Samson Wong’s title is now “Senior Editorial Consultant.”
“We asked AsianWeek to hold the editor responsible for publishing the piece accountable,” said Gen Fujioka, program director at the Asian Law Caucus.
“Though the community still needs to hear directly from AsianWeek, we hope this indicates a step towards healing the hurt caused both to African Americans and also the vast majority of Asian Americans who abhor the racism expressed by the previous article.”
“From the start, this has not been just an issue of hate speech, but an issue of journalistic judgment and responsibility,” said Vincent Pan, executive director of Chinese for Affirmative Action. “All communities must be vigilant against bigots and racists, as well as those who hand them microphones.”
After initially denying any wrongdoing, AsianWeek issued an apology and fired Kenneth Eng, the writer of a column titled “Why I Hate Blacks” that advocated discriminating against African Americans.
Immediately after the column was published, a national coalition of APA and civil rights organizations called on AsianWeek to, among other things, review its editorial policy and process and hold those responsible for the decision to publish the Eng piece accountable.