Why Anti-Blackness in the Asian Community Needs To End Now
By Marissa Wong | She/Her/Hers | Seattle, Washington
Published: June 5, 2020
Trigger Warning: Police brutality
The recent murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin has sparked a debate about the continued anti-Blackness found within the Asian-American community. One of the four police officers involved in the murder has been identified as Tou Thao, a Hmong American police officer who stood guard in front of Chauvin as he pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck. People in the Asian American community have begun to address Thao’s involvement in Floyd’s death; however, there have been very mixed responses, some of which defend his actions. Many others condemn his involvement and have called for the need for the Asian American community to finally address its complicity with White supremacy and anti-Blackness. This is a tumultuous time in which many people are becoming allies for the first time, and wondering how they can show up for Black people.
Why has the Asian American community historically been so complicit in White supremacy? As Kim Tran writes in her article 6 Ways Asian Americans Can Tackle Anti-Black Racism in Their Families,
“The model minority myth and the criminalization of Black and brown folks in our communities have given many Asian Americans a false sense of honorary whiteness and severed us from building coalition with other communities of color.”
In other words, the model minority myth and other racial hierarchical stereotypes pit Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color (BIPOC) against each other. The Asian-American community makes many efforts to appeal to White people and gain their superficial approval of Asian Americans as honorary White people, or at least win their tolerance of Asian Americans, at the expense of their intolerance of Black and Indigenous communities. This prevents solidarity between Black, Indigenous, and all other communities of color, as we try to become white-adjacent at the expense of adopting the language and beliefs of White supremacy and anti-Blackness.
Our parents and family members who come from different cultures where anti-Blackness is prevalent can perpetuate their ingrained racist beliefs, if the prejudices are allowed to go unaddressed. Jezzika Chung phrases this well in her article How Asian Immigrants Learn Anti-Blackness From White Culture, And How To Stop It; “As Asian immigrants work toward building successes in a foreign environment, they begin taking cues from the people they see as most successful. Because of the United States’ historical oppression of people of color, these people are usually white. To many Asian Americans, whiteness often becomes equated to success, and all the elements that have been conditioned to come with the paradigms of whiteness. One of those, historically speaking, has been anti-blackness.” Although anti-blackness is deeply ingrained within our families and communities, it is our responsibility to help change the narrative, even if it means having difficult conversations with our family and friends, calling them in and educating them on racism and discrimination.
So how can Asian Americans be allies to the Black community? I encourage you to read Kim Tran’s article 6 Ways Asian Americans Can Tackle Anti-Black Racism in Their Families, Ishmael Daro’s article How Some Asian-Americans Are Telling Their Relatives That Black Lives Matter, and Michelle Kim’s article 20+ Allyship Actions for Asians to Show Up for the Black Community Right Now. I will link their articles at the end. I have also listed a few ways in which we can practice allyship with the Black community and stand alongside them and uplift their voices, not speak for them.
Don’t share “trauma porn”- violent videos of Black people being actively murdered. This can be traumatic and triggering for Black people, especially when there is a constant inundation of graphic content. The videos are necessary to hold the perpetrators accountable, but constant circulation on social media can cause trauma and contribute to poor mental health for Black people. It can also desensitize White people who are already taught by the White supremacist system to trivialize Black lives. Find other ways to share the story. This can include sharing places to donate to, such as mutual aid networks and bailout funds. Sharing your feelings about the issue is important, but does not have to include sharing footage depicting violence against Black people.
“Sharing donation links is one of the best ways to show support, as it encourages people to go beyond online allyship and materially support the movement.”
Links to petitions and sources for further education are also important ways to show support and keep your followers informed.
Don’t call the cops on Black people, especially over petty matters. Educate yourself on why you shouldn’t be calling the cops. The United States has a long history of racial profiling Black people, stretching back to slavery, when Black men were commonly accused of raping White women. Even in the present day, Black people continually face discrimination and microaggressions from non-Black folks. Black people continue to have the police called on them for nothing more than living their lives. It is reminiscent of Jim Crow-era politics, when police were used to enforce racial segregation, and the police calls often escalate into violence, and even murder. A recent example includes Amy Cooper, who called the police on Christian Cooper, a Black man who was birdwatching in Central Park and asked Amy to put her dog on a leash, in accordance with the park rules. The shopkeeper at the store called the police on George Floyd because he suspected that his twenty dollar bill was fake, ultimately ending with Chauvin’s knee on Floyd’s neck. This highlights the implications of what calls such as Amy Cooper’s can have; Christian Cooper may have faced a similar fate to George Floyd, if he had not been filming the encounter and the police reacted the way that Chauvin and the other officers did.
Confront racism expressed by your community and family members, both overtly and covertly. Although these conversations can be difficult, allowing your loved ones to continue to express anti-Black sentiment in any form is siding with the oppressor. This includes saying the N word, the use of African American Vernacular English (AAVE), Blaccents, and digital Blackface- the usage of GIFs of Black people as reactions. AAVE is a recognized dialect of the English language, but Black people who use AAVE are viewed as uneducated or unprofessional and usually have to code-switch. Non-Black POC and White people who use terms popularized by AAVE, such as bae, lit, and fam, are able to use the language without the consequences that come for Black folks who use AAVE. This also includes the use of Black music and culture without engaging in social justice conversations. Call people in rather than calling them out; calling in aims to educate people on their problematic behavior so that they make a change, but with more compassion and patience than calling out. Calling in is usually more effective than calling out.
Support Black owned businesses. And call out business owners who follow Black people in their shops. Supporting Black owned businesses is one way of closing the racial wealth gap, which originates from Jim Crow-era practices like job discrimination and redlining. These practices put Black families at a disadvantage by preventing generational wealth building. The practice of shopkeepers following Black customers is so common that it has a couple names: ‘shopping while Black’ and ‘retail racism.’ In the article 'Shopping while black': yes, bias against black customers is real, Cassi Pittman Claytor states that “A 2018 Gallup poll of black Americans found that nearly two-thirds perceived that blacks are treated less fairly than whites while shopping – a figure that has steadily increased over the past decade. When asked about being treated unfairly due to their race in the last 30 days, more blacks reported unfair treatment while shopping (29%) than in any other circumstance – even interactions with the police (21%).” Retail racism leads to instances like what happened to George Floyd- the unconscious racial profiling of Black customers, which leads to higher instances of suspicion, detainment, and questioning while shopping.
These are just a few ways that we can show our allyship with the Black community. I encourage you to dive deeper and research more ways you can support, both online and in more concrete ways. The list of readings I have included is by no means exhaustive and serves as a starting point for us as allies to educate ourselves on how to better show up for the Black community.
List of further readings:
Kim Tran (2016). 6 Ways Asian Americans Can Tackle Anti-Black Racism in Their Families. https://everydayfeminism.com/2016/01/asian-americans-tackle-anti-black-racism/
Ishmael Daro (2016). How Some Asian-Americans Are Telling Their Relatives That Black Lives Matter. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ishmaeldaro/the-touching-way-some-asian-americans-ar e-telling-their-rela#.gsqQjbYAm
Michelle Kim (2020). 20+ Allyship Actions for Asians to Show Up for the Black Community Right Now. https://medium.com/awaken-blog/20-allyship-actions-for-asians-to-show-up-for-the-black-comm unity-right-now-464e5689cf3e
Kim Tran (2020). 30+ Ways Asians Perpetuate Anti-Black Racism Everyday. https://medium.com/awaken-blog/30-ways-asians-perpetuate-anti-black-racism-everyday-32886 c9b3075
Xoai Pham (2020). Asian Communities Must Desert the American Empire and Protect Black Lives. https://www.autostraddle.com/asian-communities-must-desert-the-american-empire-and-protect- black-lives/
Dazed digital (2020). How to be an Ally in Light of George Floyd’s Murder. https://www.dazeddigital.com/politics/article/49393/1/how-to-be-an-ally-in-light-of-george-floyd-murder
Olivia Mayeda. ASIAN AMERICANS AND THE LEGACY OF ANTIBLACKNESS. https://blogs.brown.edu/ethn-1650b-s01-2018-fall/asian-americans-and-the-legacy-of-antiblackness
