Any anti-Asian hate crime is a hate crime, no matter who committed it. And all racism towards Asians is racism.  A recent study based on hate crime data between 1992 and 2014 found Asian Americans have a higher chance of being victimized by non-White offenders when compared to Black and Hispanic people . We need to call out, and bring justice to all anti-Asian hate crimes, not only those that fit certain political agendas. We should bring justice to all victims of hate crimes, not selected some. To make the narrow association between a subgroup of our society and  anti-Asian hate crimes, Rep. Thai completely missed the mark. We strongly oppose Rep. Thai’s use of Asian pains and sufferings for her political agenda.

Also in Rep. Thai’s speech, she asked to focus on the Southeast Asian community, the Pacific Islander community, and the Native Hawaiian community. What about all the other Asian Americans? If you follow the news, many of those hate crimes were carried out against Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans. Rep. Thai’s speech sent a chilly message to the rest of the Asian American community that your life does not matter because you are not one of the chosen few. No, the Asian American community will rally against her divisive view. We stand united to fight for all of the members of our community, and for everyone who is a victim of hate crime. 

The post Denounce Rep. My-Linh Thai’s 3/22 speech in Renton appeared first on WA Asians For Equality.

My-Linh Thai abused her BSD Board president power, and blocked parents’ rights to speak at board meetings (see below tweet from a frustrated parent). She now wants to abuse her political campaign power to scare people away from speaking up for the truth? It remains to be seen if  My-Linh Thai, with thousands of money in the bank, and backing of Democratic party, will be able to obstruct freedom of speech.

My-Linh Thai is running for 41st District State Representative, and she is trying so hard to hide her true political agenda, and prevent people from finding out who she really is. Voters of 41st District deserve to know the true My-Linh Thai, and should NOT vote for Thai.

Update, PDC ruled on September 27th, “Based on these findings, PDC staff has determined that in this instance, no evidence supports a finding of a material violation warranting further investigation.”

The post 41st LD Candidate My-Linh Thai Going After a Small Blog Site appeared first on WA Asians For Equality.

Several LWSD superintendent candidates from across the country clearly thinks that education equity is about helping students based on their individual needs, about helping students from lower social-economical status. A 2011 Stanford University study confirmed the correlation between income and academic achievement. The study states “the income achievement gap (defined here as the average achievement difference between a child from a family at the 90th percentile of the family income distribution and a child from a family at the 10th percentile) is now nearly twice as large as the black-white achievement gap. Fifty years ago, in contrast, the black-white gap was one and a half to two times as large as the income gap. ”

Thai obviously is aware that it is wrong to push for racial equity. She hid her racial equity agenda when running for BSD school board. She is hiding her racial equity agenda from 41st LD voters again. In another careful crafted article, she said she “wants to ensure that everybody in the district, regardless of race and socioeconomic class, is guaranteed access to a quality education. ” However, as we pointed out in our article, while My-Linh Thai singlehandedly pushed racial equity at BSD, and wasted millions on racial equity programs and trainings,  BSD Equity team did nothing to help low income students, the group of students that really need help. Low income students’ graduation rate dropped from 83.3% in 2014 to 76.5% in 2016!

There is a recent failed ballot initiative, I-1644, to repeal Washington State Civil Rights Act, the law that prohibits racial preferential treatment in government, including education. The powerful labor union behind I-1644 endorsed Thai. Putting the two together, one can clearly see Thai’s political motivation. However, even the the organizations behind I-1644 are afraid to tell voters their racial equity agenda. On the initiative’s web site, they are misleading voters and saying I-1644 is for equality. Racial Equity/Racial Preferential Treatment is NOT Equality. I-1644 failed to get enough support to be put on this year’s ballot. For the same reason, My-Linh Thai has to hide her racial equity agenda from 41st LD voters. She first tried to run without even publishing her campaign issues . Now, she want to hide racial equity, her true political agenda, behind carefully crafted lies. We will keep our eyes on My-Linh Thai’s never ending lies and help voters of 41st District make informed decision.

The post 41st LD State Representative Candidate My-Linh Thai is Hiding Her Political Agenda from Voters Again appeared first on WA Asians For Equality.

My-linh Thai said on her campaign web site: “Helping Kids Succeed – As a Bellevue School Board Director and PTSA parent, I believe that Education is the key to opportunity. In Olympia, I will continue to advocate for investments in local schools, promote parent and community engagement, set high- expectations for excellence with culturally responsive curricula and instruction, and ensure an equitable and sustainable funding for our public school system.” However, Thai’s track records suggest differently.

Thai says that she will continue to “promote parent and community engagement”. Many BSD parents beg to differ.

My-Linh Thai’s push for racial equity met strong resistance from BSD parents. Instead of engaging in conversations with parents, BSD engaged many dirty tactics to suppress parents the voice, including inviting activists from outside of school district to dominate discussions at community cafes. Frustrated parents had to take their voices to Bellevue Reporter. Almost every week, there is a letter to editor complaining about BSD’s dirty tactics and failure to engage in parents and community.

Thai says that she will continue to “set high-expectations for excellence”.  However, quality of BSD has deteriorated since Thai became BSD board member in 2013.

OSPI data show that BSD 4 year graduation rate steadily declined from 91.6% in 2014 to 89.5% in 2016. BSD failed to lift up low income student graduation rate miserably. Low income students’ graduation rate dropped from 83.3% in 2014 to 76.5% in 2016! In the meantime, non-low income students’ graduation rate also declined from 94.2% in 2014 to 93.5% in 2016. To understand how Thai drove a top performing school district’s performance into this downward spiral, we need to exam what My-Linh Thai’s true agenda is to serve on BSD board.

My-Linh Thai’s true agenda as BSD board member is to advance her political career at the price of BSD students.

We published an article back in March about My-Linh Thai’s secret racial equity agenda .  Under Thai’s push, BSD established an Equity Department. In 2016 fiscal year, the Equity Department had a budget of $404,759, and only $49,500 was spent on Student Success. In other words, only 12% of the entire Equity Department’s budget was spent on improving student success. If you think that was bad, things have been getting even worse. $0 was spent on Student Success in 2017 and 2018 fiscal years.

Web site District41Election pointed out  “She (My-Linh Thai) pushed to establish an Equity Team of 14 employees, and after spending over one million dollars, Bellevue School District failed their promises to students: graduation rate is down, and absenteeism rate is up. From 2014 to 2016, 62% more black students, 41% more white students, and 30% more Hispanic/Latino students could not graduate.”

Why have an Equity Department that costs around $250K per year + staff salaries without budgeting a penny for improving student success? The Equity Department has built out programs that narrowly benefiting selected racial groups. A look at Thai’s political career explains everything.  My-Linh Thai has won many endorsements from organizations that promote racial preferential treatment throughout her political career. Most recently, labor union WALC AFL-CIO endorsed Thai. And on WALC’s web site, it clearly stated it “SUPPORT Initiative 1644 (to the people) and Initiative 981 (to the Legislature) — Repeals I-200, which prohibited affirmative action policies with regards to race and gender by state and local government. ”  Apparently, all those racial quota, racial preferential treatment policies that Thai has been implementing was not for the benefits of BSD students. Thai has successfully paved a political career path for herself. Praised as champion for racial preferential treatment, My-Linh Thai has bagged enough endorsements to run for 41st Legislative District State Representative. Racial preferential treatment is against WA state law. Thai can’t say it out loud on her campaign web site. However the organizations who endorsed Thai surely know that they can count on her to continue promoting racial preferential treatment under all kinds of covers.

Voters of 41st LD, on the other hand, should ask themselves “Can I trust My-Linh Thai?” “Can she truly be trusted to represent 41st District?” If you exam her entire political career, the answer is “NO”. My-Linh Thai has an honest and trustworthy problem.

The post 41st District My-Linh Thai’s Honest and Trustworthy Problem appeared first on WA Asians For Equality.

Let’s look at Thai’s track records at BSD. My-Linh Thai has secret racial equity agenda. Seattle Times praised Thai for her work on racial equity locally and statewide. Progressivevotersguide.com also states “In her first term on the school board, she singlehandedly raised the issue of racial equity in education; because of her advocacy, racial equity is now a core guiding principle of the school board.”

• BSD now has a Department of Equity, and has developed programs focusing on students that racially identify as African, Black, Hispanic, LatinX, Native American, Southeast Asian, Pacific Islander. Those programs left out a large minority group in the district – East Asian students.
• Thai recently wanted to establish racial equity policies at BSD, and met with strong resistance from community members.  There is also a petition to recall My-Linh Thai from BSD School Board due to her racist comments toward Asian Americans.

Voters in 41st LD deserve to know issues Thai cares about.  It is time that My-Linh Thai lets voters know her campaign issues, if she has any.

The post 41st LD State Representative Candidate My-Linh Thai’s Campaign Issues appeared first on WA Asians For Equality.

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However, there is not one single mention of “racial equity” on My-Linh Thai’s own campaign website.  On her campaign home page, the word is “education equity”.  On her campaign issues page, she listed many issues, but no mention of “equity” at all.

So which My-Linh Thai is the true one?  The one she wanted her voters to believe or the one media praised about her.  Or to whom she told the truth about her agenda while campaigning as BSD board member.

Now, Thai has won the reelection, and she is pushing forward her racial equity agenda in full speed. Superintendent Ivan Duran gave a big presentation on racial equity on March 16th.  The school district has a 17 member equity team, and is creating racial equity policies.  And the March 6th board meeting recording clearly showed that Thai was the one behind the entire racial equity policy push with help from Jones and Duran. She even wanted to push for the school board passing of the policy at first reading.

Why?  Because equity is NOT equality. Racial equity == racial quota.  Racial equity is WRONG.  Our own Washington State Civil Rights Act says “The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting.”

Thai knew that she could not run a successful campaign promoting racial equity.  Our state law prohibits it,  so she hid the truth from the voters.

We successfully stopped SB 6406, and we will not allow racial equity == quota policy at Bellevue School District.

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