African Americans in Taiwan yesterday held a rally in Taipei to show solidarity with the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, and were joined by Aboriginal rights advocates who spoke out about all racist violence.
The movement has gained renewed momentum after George Floyd, an unarmed black man, died on May 25 when white Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin pressed his knee on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes, sparking worldwide protests against police brutality and racism.
The rally, which started at 2pm in front of the National Taiwan Museum, attracted nearly 300 people, according to police estimates.
Photo: Chien Jung-fong, Taipei Times
Stefanie Davis, of the Black Lives Solidarity Global Initiative, said that it was important to show solidarity with people in the US, where there have been numerous protests and rallies.
Asked how the group expects Taiwanese to respond to the event, Davis said they hope to change stereotypes about black people and promote mutual understanding.
“There are more [black] people than just besides the NBA players that you watch on TV. They are real people,” she said.
Photo: Chien Jung-fong, Taipei Times
She said she hopes that when Taiwanese meet a black person, they would say “hello” instead of making comments, such as: “Oh, curly hair. What is going on?”
At the rally, KG Aniah said he got involved with the event for three reasons: “One, because I’m black. Two, because I’m black. Three, because I’m black.”
He said that it is time to give their parents and grandparents a rest, an apparent reference to previous rights movements, and stop being silent and start taking action to make a change.
Savungaz Valincinan, representing members of the Indigenous Youth Front, spoke at the rally in her native Bunun, saying: “Keep breathing.”
She said this is the first rally they joined that was organized by black people, with whom they empathized, as Aborigines have also experienced racism and exploitation.
Apart from speeches and performances, there were solemn recollections, including when people knelt on one knee in remembrance of Floyd and observed nine minutes of silence for black people killed by police.
John Liu (劉仲恩), a National Taiwan University associate professor of sociology, attended the rally with his family.
He said they have lived in several places across the US where they had become friends with many black people and empathize with the movement.
Racial prejudice is deep-rooted and manifests through different forms in the US, but has become more apparent during US President Donald Trump’s administration, he said.
University of Puget Sound associate professor of philosophy Sam Liao (廖顯禕) also attended the rally with his children.
The rally is a good opportunity for Taiwanese to observe different forms of oppression, while reflecting on their own prejudice against black people, Aborigines, Southeast Asian migrants and other minorities, he said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching