Photo by Gage Skidmore via Wikimedia Creative Commons
Chinese Americans in both Washington and Tennessee protested what they considered demeaning comments by Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) concerning China.
A group called the Tennessee Chinese American Alliance held a demonstration at Nashville Public Square on Saturday, reports WSMV.
As AsAmNews previously reported, Blackburn earlier this month tweeted “China has a 5,000 year history of cheating and stealing. Some things will never change.”
“We think she as a senator has really, her remark has crossed the boundaries and scopes of even political rhetoric,” protester Jinliang Cai said to WSMV.
Blackburn says her comments were meant to direct attention to human rights abuses of the Muslim Uighur ethnic minority in the Xinjiang region.
Demonstrators also condemned the remarks last week in Washington.
Cai says Chinese in this country have become “collateral damage” as tensions between the two nations escalate.
“We felt safe, always the model minority. They used us to say “look at Chinese, how well they’ve done,” he said. “Now we’ve become a target because of these difficult bilateral relations. All of a sudden we become collateral damage.”
One reporter from China responded angrily on social media to Blackburn’s comments, calling her a b*tch.
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