This is an introduction to a new Kossack group, Way of Dragon.
The recent Ping Fu affair has taught us one thing: that Chinese Americans need a voice of our own. Others will not and cannot speak for us. Below I give you the reasons why we need this group, and why we need to build our community here at dailykos. In short, only if we participate in the political discussion, can we have a voice in this society.
Update: I need to make it clear that this is a community building group. Everyone is welcome to join. Our focus is topic that concern most Chinese Americans, but we would welcome all Kossacks to make contributions.
The Ping Fu affair gave us firsthand experience on how unfair, irresponsible, and vicious the mainstream media can be. They will not try to understand us and report fairly, if we do not have a voice of our own. And we don't have one. Our forum was limited to the Amazon website, where only people who bought books from Amazon could post. The posts had to be reviews of the book, otherwise they would risk being deleted. With all these constraints, Amazon is certainly not the best place for our voice.
There are not other English websites where we could express our opinions freely. Large number of comments were posted on several Chinese language sites. But we cannot use these Chinese language sites to communicate with people who do not speak Chinese. It has been a very frustrating experience for all of us.
It appeared that dailykos was the only English website where someone like me could express an opinion without facing too much prejudice. Even though there had been some vicious attacks on me by several members of kossacks but these were quickly resolved, with the worst offender getting a complete ban. So by and large, this was a much more tolerant site.
Part of the problem was that most of the Chinese American members who wished to join the discussion registered here only within the last few weeks. This would usually raise suspicion on any forum. We all remember how on Chinese forums new id's are often ridiculed as "水军" (sockpuppets). It happens here too. We cannot simply disappear when everything seems to be going fine, and only show up when our own interests are at risk. We need to participate in the political discussion, build a community, and make friends. Only in this manner, when we face discrimination and prejudice, we will have a voice at this forum and not be taken as paid shills for some foreign government.
Why is dailykos a good place to build such a community? First of all, compared to many other English language websites, dailykos is quite tolerant. In particular, unlike most sites where the administrator has absolute authority, dailykos is mostly self-governed, whereby most of the time the enforcement of the rules are carried out by trusted users who can hide rate offending comments. Posts that receive many hide rates are hidden from the public. Users who receive many hide rates in a short time are banned automatically. Because hide rates are also balanced by recommends, a single user or a small group of users cannot successfully silence someone by hide rates. So if we build our community here and make friends here, we will have our voice and our voice will be heard.
Second, the political views of most kossacks align well with most Chinese Americans. I know that some friends who joined dailykos recently are Republicans. This is ok. As long as we do not openly campaign for Republican candidates (after all, this site is devoted to electing Democrats), we can freely exchange our opinions. Dailykos wants us to build our community here, and as long as the discussion is focused on building a community, it is within the scope of this website.
Chinese American Kossacks, and all Kossacks who are interested in Chinese American events and discussion, if you wish to join the group and start making contributions, please leave a comment below and I will send you an invite. This is a long term project and we will reap the fruit of our efforts when next big event comes.