So now that Blacks and Latinos no longer hate one another, news outlets and pundits can move on to creating tension between Latinos and Chinese Americans. (Do you think we should let them know that there are Lachinos? Nah, right? Let’s just tell Inés Gómez Mont there’s free cake wherever the protesters gather and let them at her.)

In what is being described as “a move bound to create political tension between Latinos and Asian-Americans” (Do you think we should also let them know we can decipher between “China” and “Asia?”), Chinese-American activists in California’s Silicon Valley have launched a nation-wide movement protesting Barack Obama’s decision to appoint Bill Richardson as the country’s new Commerce Secretary.

Why? Back when Richardson was Bill Clinton’s energy secretary, he fucked up in his handling of a case regarding suspicions that Wen Ho Lee, a Taiwanese-American nuclear scientist who worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory, was leaking nuclear secrets to China.

“This was the major Chinese-American civil rights case in the last 30 years,” said Albert Wang, a Fremont physician. “And there was a feeling among many Chinese-Americans, particularly in Silicon Valley, that Bill Richardson did a lot to promote the notion that all Chinese-Americans are potential spies.”

Richardson, for his part, admits to making some mistake on the case but rejects claims that he instituted racial profiling or scapegoating of Chinese-Americans. Hm. We’d be more inclined to believe you, Bill, if you brought back the beard.

Chinese-American activists oppose any Bill Richardson cabinet nomination [Mercury News]