Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker shows Trump how to seamlessly weave anti-Asian rhetoric into public discourse
Speaking at a town hall about Philly's Chinatown, Mayor Parker claimed that Asian Americans are parasitic foreigners who drain wealth from Black Communities
One night after Donald Trump used his time on the presidential debate stage to repeat lies about Haitian immigrants eating cats and dogs, Mayor Cherelle Parker took to the stage at a town hall in Philadelphia to laud the immigrants that built Chinatown and in her next breath, blame Chinese immigrants for draining wealth from poor Black neighborhoods.
A little background first.
Philadelphia’s professional basketball team, the 76ers, currently play their home games at the Wells Fargo Center, which is located in South Philadelphia’s South Philadelphia Sports Complex. In addition to the Wells Fargo Center, the Sports Complex is home to Citizen’s Bank Park, where the Philadelphia Phillies play their home baseball games; and Lincoln Financial Field, where the Philadelphia Eagles play their home football games. The Sports Complex is accessible by public transit and has plenty of car parking and room for tailgating.
The 76ers rent the Wells Fargo Center from Comcast, and share it with Philly’s hockey team, the Flyers. This is a sore point for them because the owners of the 76ers, Harris Blitzer Sports and Entertainment, don’t like paying rent to Comcast. Why rent a perfectly good arena, in South Philadelphia, when you can jam one into the middle of Philadelphia, and never pay pesky property taxes that would fund city services and schools?
I’ll let No Arena PHL take it from here:
In July 2022, 76DevCorp proposed to build an arena called 76 Place on 10th to 11th street, from Market to Cuthbert (the street behind the former Greyhound Station, just inches from Chinatown). The arena is estimated to cost $1.3 billion and seat 18,500 people. Many communities in the surrounding area – including Chinatown, the Gayborhood and Washington Square West – are organizing around their opposition to the arena.
A city-wide poll revealed that 69% of Philadelphia’s residents oppose the arena.
Opponents of the 76ers arena cite the Washington Wizards arena in Washington D.C. as a cautionary tale. Despite opposition from Washington D.C.’s Chinatown residents, in 19907 the Wizards built an arena that encroached on Washington D.C.’s Chinatown. The proponents of the arena promised economic growth and opportunity for Chinatown and D.C. Instead the area became gentrified. Many long-time Chinatown residents and businesses were pushed out. Chinatown shrank. In 2023, the owners of the Wizards demanded $600 million in taxpayer money to upgrade the arena before threatening to move the Wizards to Virginia.
Residents of Chinatown, Gayborhood, and Washington Square West have built a diverse, colorful, rowdy movement to oppose the arena.
On September 11th, Mayor Cherelle Parker, who was elected last November, held the first and only town hall about the arena. (Spoiler alert: a week later the Mayor struck a deal to back the new arena.) The Mayor’s office announced the town hall 3-4 days before it took place, which seemed to be a tactic to catch community members off guard. Despite the short notice, Philly showed up and showed out. Proponents and opponents of the arena were each given time to speak. The town hall was live streamed, which is how I watched it, and the recording was later uploaded to YouTube.
Speaking in support of the arena on behalf of the Philadelphia’s African American Chamber of Commerce, Reverend J. Henry Buck Jr. cited a study conducted in 2021 by the University of Georgia’s Selig Center for Economic Growth about the growth in buying power of African Americans, Hispanics, and Asian Americans since 1990. Then he announced that he was going to be prophetic before launching into a brief sermon.
In many of our communities there are Asian bodegas, Chinese stores- selling food on our corners, of which we have welcomed, but there has been no discourse for reinvestment into the African American community. When we come to things like this, we are always having to put our things aside, and to address the needs and concerns of others. Well we think that this is a time in which that barrier needs to be broken down. And even as the words of Victor Hugo says- he says, “There is a time when in which a idea is too important to pass.” And we think that this particular arena is too important to pass, in a city that is considered large and has high numbers of poverty.
I don’t take issue with Rev. Buck recounting his personal experiences of Chinese stores and Asian bodegas in Black communities. Friction between Asian Americans in Black communities has existed and continues to. Anti-Black racism exists in Asian American communities, and Anti-Asian sentiments exist in Black communities. What bothers me is that Rev. Buck makes a sweeping generalization of many of the “Asian bodegas”, “Chinese stores”, and Asian American residents of Philadelphia. The other thing that bothers me is the context in which Rev. Buck is speaking. He’s not trying to build bridges and foster dialogue between communities. He is wielding the stereotype of Asian Americans as dangerous, deceitful, parasitic outsiders, draining “real” American communities of critical resources as a tool to dismiss the Chinatown community organizers and allies. His logic seems to be, Asian Americans take from many Black communities, so we should take from Chinatown.
I suggest to you, my brothers and sisters- be you Asian, Hispanic, African American, Negro- whatever you call yourself - now is the time for Philadelphia to take a stand and become a world class city, because when we look at the future of this city, there are great things that are ahead, and we’re grateful to have the first African American female mayor in one hundred years. I say to you, even in the words of the great Martin Luther King, “How long will prejudice, how long will prejudice blind the vision of men and darken their understanding, a dry bright-eyed wisdom from her sacred throne? When well wounded justice, lying prostrate on the streets of our cities, be lifted up from this dust of shame to reign supreme among the children of men? When will the radiant star of hope be plunged against the nocturnal bosom of this lonely night and plucked from weary souls the manacles of death? How long will justice be crucified?”
Rev. Buck is more or less quoting the end of Dr. Martin Luther King’s Our God is Marching On speech delivered on March 25, 1965 at the completion of the third 54-mile Selma to Montgomery march. Dr. King was not speaking in favor of investing in a sports arena, but demanding racial justice. Rev. Buck equates the basketball arena to racial justice. Rev. Buck framed Asian Americans as parasites draining African American communities of wealth. The arena represents an opportunity to exact justice on Chinatown for the sins of the Chinese takeout joints and Asian bodegas.
Again, I don’t deny that friction exists between individual Asian Americans and African Americans. However, I think the overarching reasons that Philadelphia’s African American communities continue to struggle is because of systemic racism. Philadelphia’s own Comptroller admitted in 2020 that the roots of the poverty and violence that exist today can be traced to redlining practices in the 1930s designed to contain African Americans in under-resourced communities. Asian American immigrants didn’t do that. The federal government, Philly’s local government, and biggots who wielded legal and economic power did. Chinatown residents didn’t drop a bomb on 6221 Osage Avenue in 1985- Philadelphia’s mayor and police did.
Approximately 45 minutes after Rev. Buck spoke, Mayor Cherelle Parker began her closing remarks. She took time to praise Chinatown’s “story”, and Chinatown’s residents for overcoming lack of access to resources to build a thriving community.
Then she pivoted.
But listen. Let me just say this, and I want this to be clear Philadelphia because I don’t care where you live, you gotta hear this from me. I also come from a community…where I watched people drain wealth out of a community where the people who lived there…Now I’m talking about my proud blue collar, working class neighborhood. Where the people who lived there lived over top of the store or either they rented it out to people who wanted to stay in our neighborhood but at that time could afford to own a house- all of a sudden, that wealth was zapped out of those neighborhoods, and those people instantly became the ultimate consumers- and they still haven’t rebounded on today.
It was disheartening to hear the Mayor of Philadelphia regurgitate the fable of Asian Americans draining wealth from working class communities. While I do not doubt that Mayor Parker has witnessed friction between African American community members and Asian American community members, I think it’s nonsensical and dangerous to blame generational poverty on Asian immigrants. The Mayor of Philadelphia framed Asian Americans as outsiders who will never be American enough. The Mayor of Philadelphia, who previously served on Philadelphia’s City Council knows that the reason why poverty continues to plague Philadelphia’s communities isn’t Chinese takeout joints, but segregation, lack of investment in public schools, and lack of affordable housing.
I’m not accusing Mayor Parker of Rev. Buck of being anti-Asian. Mayor Parker has spoken out for Asian Americans in the past when there was no political risk. I don’t think Rev. Buck or Mayor Parker actually believe that Asian Americans are the primary culprits for segregation and poverty in Philadelphia. They’re too intelligent for that. It’s more likely that they’re willing to sound the “Asians can’t be trusted” alarm to discredit Chinatown’s community leaders. Why not? Thus far, nobody has called out Rev. Buck or Mayor Parker for what they said, which is a sign that these anti-Asian stereotypes are firmly embedded and accepted in Philadelphia. For Rev. Buck and Mayor Parker, it’s not personal, it’s business. They will iterate their support of Asian Americans when it makes cents.
It is personal to me, because I’m one of many Asian Americans cast as the perpetual foreigners. As much as I’ve tried my best to build bridges, fight for racial justice, and personally evolve, my two-year-old daughter, who is Black and Asian, will inherit the ugliness that was foisted on me, because she’s growing up in a city where religious, business, and political leaders cast her as a foreign antagonist, and blame her for the suffering of disenfranchised Philadelphians.
And what did they do it for? A fucking basketball arena.
