Irwin Tang on John McCain

As the nation mourns senator John McCain, there has been nothing more than lavish praise for his life and career. Democrats and Republicans have spoken highly of this long serving politician, yet he was not the American hero that many in the mainstream media have been praising. John McCain has a long history of racism and specifically an anti-Asian bias. Irwin Tang published a book in 2008 called Gook John McCain's Racism and Why It Matters. The anti-Asian ethnic slur was a term used to dehumanize people of  Filipino, Korean, Japanese, and Vietnamese descent. The slur was first called goo goo in reference to Filipinos  and then was turned into gook in reference to Haitians when the US invaded that country in 1915. The epithet is not only used to dehumanize, but as a rallying cry for war. John McCain regularly used the term to refer to Asian people. The only reason he stopped was that in the year 2000 he was running for president. This matter was not even mentioned when he ran for president eight years later. His image as war hero and public servant  was not tarnished. America never has confronted its legacy of racism and imperialism in Southeast Asia. Irwin Tang explains that John McCain's racist ideas could influence policy that could lead to a war with Iran and possible human rights abuse. The Republican Party has used hate and fear to gain votes among white voters. This method included   was used during the election of 2008, when John McCain refused to address the growing birther movement or the islamophobic sentiment within his campaign.  Irwin Tang warns of the growing revival of racist sentiment the John McCain unleashed in 2008, which would later be a force in the election of  2016.