A Letter to Asians

17 min readJun 1, 2020

To the East Asians* in my life,

*I can only speak to my experience and call in my people, but I wrote this with others in mind too. I couldn’t help but think of all the Southeast Asians, South Asians and White people I grew up with in Thailand, the Philippines, and Singapore. This is also for you.

What are you talking about today? What did you talk about in the last week? Who are you showing concern for? Are you talking about what’s happening to Black people in this country and the world? Or is it too uncomfortable to face? Do you feel like it’s not your problem?

I get it. We were raised by whiteness. We were taught that being white is the standard. “That the white frame of reference and worldview is a universal human experience”. We did not challenge the norm. We tried our best to fit in and perform whiteness as much as possible. We worked hard to sound white. We have white friends. We have white teachers, professors, mentors, coaches. We have white bosses and colleagues. We date white people. We love white books, tv shows, and films. We’re comfortable around whiteness. We even love whiteness.

But we also love blackness and love stealing from it. We think this makes us allies. We think that’s enough. We love hip hop, rap, basketball, Black artists and athletes, black twitter, black memes. We love saying the N word. We love to sound cool and say “Yas. Naw. Word. Squad. AF. Dope. Extra. Aite. Fuck it up. It be like that.” We use African American Vernacular English (AAVE) to be liked, to be seen. We love using mainstream slang that comes from Black culture. We love Black things but we don’t care about Black lives.

And when our families say anti-black racist things, we don’t challenge them. We accept the anti-blackness in our families. We say this is just the way it is. Just the way they are. Just the way we are.

Black people continue to be violently killed by the state. In the hands of police. “Black and Indigenous people are 3–4 times more likely to be killed by police than white people and half of the people killed by police are disabled”. In jails, prisons, and detention centers. The police force was created in 1838 to control and enslave Black people and it continues to effectively carry out its mission. Did you know the U.S. spends $100 billion annually on policing? That money should go into eliminating homelessness in the U.S., which would cost $20 billion and $34 billion to ensure free college for every American. And to other crucial public services. Slavery is still legal under the 13th Amendment. This country uses prison labor for mass production and natural disasters. Black people are disproportionately dying from covid19. Black trans people are perpetually murdered. Black mothers are dying on hospital beds. Black parents are getting their kids taken away and their families separated permanently by the child protective state. Black people are seen as “crazy people” in hospitals and violently confined. Black kids are violently mishandled in schools and pushed out of the school system. Black people are pushed out, harassed, and fired from jobs, because they are “too much”, “not the right fit”, or “a problem maker”. Black disabled people are institutionalized and dehumanized. Black people are being pushed out of their generational homes and displaced onto the streets by way of gentrification. Black people are segregated and barred from affluent, white neighborhoods by way of redlining, without access to quality education, healthcare, or housing. “Redlining continues to be a practice, pushing out Black, Indigenous Communities of Color into specific areas so white people can have other areas that have better resources like schools and hospitals.” “Black communities are exposed to 56% more pollution than is caused by their consumption”, and forced to live by polluted, toxic waste areas. Much of this harm and violence is preventable. We can do something about it.

Anti-black racism is our issue.

When I say that Asians are anti-black, I don’t just mean examples of Asians outwardly being mean and disrespectful to Black people. This definition of racism actually protects the system of racism. Racism is so much more complicated than that. It’s more than a particular attitude towards a racial group. It’s a set of policies driven by white power that creates racist ideas that permeate our subconscious, our relationships, homes, workplaces, institutions, neighborhoods, communities and countries. So much that we end up doing harm unintentionally, often without ever noticing. As said here, white supremacy is the water. Not the shark.

Anti-blackness is “the practice and underlying belief that blackness — its history and rich culture- is something to be denied, belittled, oppressed, and hated.” Or even something to be used for our own entertainment or benefit.

So, we benefit from it and we’ve also been harmed by it. Let me tell you how.

Ways we are Anti-Black and benefit from Anti-Blackness

We love to appropriate black culture for personal gain. If you look at the Asian celebrities that have risen to fame, many of them are celebrated and known for using AAVE and appropriating blackness, like Awkwafina. It’s not coincidental that acting black brought them fame.

“When Black people use AAVE, they are regularly denied jobs, access to institutions of higher education, and/or otherwise judged as speaking in an “uneducated” way by white people and other gatekeepers of wealth. When non-black people use AAVE, not only does this not happen, but they are actually praised by their peers for seeming “cool.” The end result is that Black people regularly have to self-police their use of AAVE (i.e. code-switching) in order to survive, while non-black people can toggle back and forth freely between use of different vocabulary without having to worry about the social or economic consequences of that behavior. It seems important to keep this in mind when we think about how our words (as non-black folks) may come across to black folks who are forced to engage in this kind of code-switching as a means of survival.”

There are countless examples of Asians calling the cops on Black people, killing Black people, and violating Black people’s bodies. Asian police officers kill and watch them die. We wear whiteness like its our own. More examples of Asians being complicit in ant-Blackness here.

We perpetuate ideas of Black people being thugs, criminals, dangerous, unruly. We see Black people as culturally and behaviorally inferior. We see them as one dimensional. We reduce them to a set of descriptions.

Other ways include: “antiblack dating preferences; showing resentment towards the Black Lives Matter movement and pro-Black progress; and falling victim to colorism against darker skinned people”.

Globally, we see other examples of institutional and structural anti-Black racism:

The theft of Black culture by K-Pop stars and culture. Without stealing from Black culture, K-pop would not be a multi-billion dollar global industry.

Chinese folks have entered parts of Africa as settler colonizers and are exploiting Africans for their labor and resources.

The Uyghur Muslim community in China have been detained to “re-education camps”. It’s genocide.

Malay-Muslims and Indians are oppressed and excluded from housing, education, and employment in Singapore.

Ways we have been harmed by Anti-Blackness

Did you know the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act was passed because white politicians were worried that if they allow “the Chinese” to enter and grant US citizenship, this would mean they might also have to give the same humane treatment to Black people? Will Whites have to give back Black people’s humanity? They couldn’t risk such a thing because American capitalism could not and cannot exist without exploiting Black people and labor. “This country was built with [Black people’s] blood and forced labor. This country still relies on [Black people’s] blood and forced labor through the prison industrial complex and workplace exploitation that has [them] making 30–44% less”. To reiterate, “racism is not a question of attitude; it’s a question of power. Racism gets its power from capitalism. Thus, if you’re anti-racist, whether you know it or not, you must be anti-capitalist. The power for racism, the power for sexism, comes from capitalism, not attitude”.

Black people have always been the scapegoats. There is a deliberate reason for that. Black people need to stay scapegoats in order for America to keep running the way it does. “162 billionaires have the same wealth as half of humanity. 82% of the wealth generated in 2019 went to the richest 1% of the global population while the 3.7 billion people who make up the poorest half of the world saw no increase in their wealth”. Why don’t we ever blame the rich? Why are Black people always at fault? This country can’t continuously exploit, kill, and violate an entire continent of people and get away with it if it didn’t see Black folks as inferior. Less than human. We’ve been brainwashed to see the same.

The exclusion act expanded to all Asians in 1917. It led to a large anti-Asian campaign and the lynchings of Chinese boys and men, the largest lynching in US history. You know anti-Asian hate crimes are growing, right? This is why Asian Black Solidarity needs to be a thing. So many of our ancestors fought for Black lives! We can’t eradicate anti-Asian racism without eradicating anti-Black racism. We need each other to fight for one another. That’s how we stand up against white supremacy.

In 1965, Asians were let in again. Not because the country had good, progressive intentions. But to strengthen the influence of Western imperialism and reduce the influence of Communism in the Global South. So, the US rebranded their image to be a fair, just democracy that’s superior to Communism.

It also had another intention to be “less racist” to Asians. Have you heard of the Model Minority? It was coined in 1966 by a white person. It was created to articulate that Asians are not like Black people. Unlike these “problem minorities”, Asians are the “model minorities”. We are hardworking, undemanding, financially and academically successful, and we don’t rely on the government for handouts. It was propaganda to undermine Blacks folks and their demands for civil rights. By this time, Asians immigrants that were permitted into the US, already came with higher education degrees and established careers, and so it makes sense it seemed like Asians achieved “the American Dream”.

We’ve been put into this box of stereotypes. Some of us benefit because we can access status and certain job positions. But it also traps us to perform being hardworking, obedient, and demure. This makes us feel less human, less worthy, and invisible. The public has this idea that Asians are doing great. That we’ve reached financial and academic success. We are not oppressed. That idea is a myth. A lot of Asian communities are struggling. High rates of poverty, suicide, domestic violence, mental illness, lack of access to education and low graduation rates, involvement with unjust legal systems, and hate crimes. We are so invisible that from 2002 to 2014, the Asian community got 1.4% of all NYC social service funding. Are you outraged yet?

Anti-Asian racism cannot exist without anti-Black racism. The model minority myth is racist and divisive, functioning to put a wedge between us and Black and other immigrant groups.

This country was built on ideas of hierarchy and binaries. Blacks are less than Asians. Whites are superior. Black people are bad. White people are good. Hierarchies and binaries are violent. We need to stop siding with whiteness and speak up. When Black folks are liberated, we will all be liberated. No one is free until Black people are free. As Jelani Wilson said, “when forced into a binary, you always choose wrong”.

In fact, we would not be enjoying the many rights we have now if it weren’t for Black folks who fought for all of us. We wouldn’t have the language and the frameworks to understand what it means to have privilege, to be oppressed, to fight for our lives.

We wouldn’t even have language to call ourselves “people of color” if it weren’t for Black women who coined the term “women of color” to include other marginalized women. “So using the term signifies and requires a commitment to fighting anti-Blackness. Otherwise, it’s both the theft of Black leadership and an erasure of Black people, themselves”.

And if you are a queer/trans person, there would not be any LGBTQ+ rights if it werent for Black trans and queer folks who rioted and looted to fight for their freedom. This is the Stonewall Uprising. This is what Pride Month is based on. To speak more to riots, “after MLK was assassinated, 110 American Cities started rioting, causing $47M in damage. On the 6th day of the riots, the Civil Rights Act of 1968 was passed.”

I would be remiss if I did not also say that as straight and cisgender people, it’s our duty to fight for Black queer trans lives. Black queer trans people were always at the forefront of our social movements, resisting white cisheternormative dominance. Ericka Hart said in her Gender 101 workshop that “colonialism wasn’t just a mass genocide of entire communities of people, but it was also the erasure of culture and identity. Indigenous people were forced to cut their hair, remove traditional clothing, and be taught cultural norms of white settler colonists. This was done in an attempt to forcibly assimilate and control indigenous people. This is where we see the gender binary taking on a big role. Two spirited identities is an indigenous gender identity that has existed since the beginning of time. Indigenous people have never conformed to a gender binary. It was imposed by colonization”. In fact there was no such thing as a binary before colonialism. We see this in India too. “The penal code that punishes queer people in most of the world comes from England and Christianity. The gender binary and the hatred of queer people is a colonial construct that so many post-colonial states cannot get rid of because colonialism had forcibly stripped us of our histories.” Colonialism is a form of white supremacy and continues to poison all of us. Because colonialism brought transphobia and homophobia, fighting for Black queer trans lives means we are fighting against colonialism and white supremacy.

If we want to fight for the freedom of Black folks and all of our lives, it’s misguided to just support cisgender Black folks. We need to center Black queer and trans lives in our fight for liberation. Supporting “[queerness] means to have a complete resistance to what’s considered the norm (white cisgender dominance)”.

Our experience as Asian Americans is complex. We know what it feels like to be subjugated. We’ve struggled to feel like we belong. We also hold so much privilege and power. It’s a privilege to ignore what’s happening to Black folks and communities. They don’t get that luxury.

Violence doesn’t work the way we think it does. Violence is not just acute forms of physical and sexual violence. Violence includes racist language we use. It includes racist ideas and policies. Because those things create conditions in a society that prevent people from developing to their full human potential. It denies their humanity. That’s violence. It impedes Black people from living the lives they want and being who they want in the world. As Ibram x Kendi says, “we are trained to see deficiencies in people, not policy”.

“If we’re going to uproot [racism], we can’t just see it as a problem of individual monsters. We need to see it in a more complex way. When you continue to see things outside of yourself, you will not be able to be a part of the solution”. Racism lives within us. Everything around us, like the media and our language, breathes life into the racism inside of us.

I am not absolved from anti-blackness either. My anti-blackness and complicity in white supremacy shows up time to time, because it will always be in us. So I often need to check myself. I get complacent sometimes. I lose hope. A few years ago, I lost hope that the Asians around me will ever care. But from this post, I learned that I’m not entitled to hopelessness; “Black folks require hope in order to survive. I choose solidarity with their survival”.

I’m reminded of Mariame Kaba’s words: “Hope is a discipline. Hope doesn’t mean emotion. Hope doesn’t mean you don’t feel sadness or pain. Hope isn’t optimism. Hope is believing in spite of the evidence and watching the evidence change.” Find hope here, here, here, and here. Oh and here.

I need to constantly reassess, listen to Black people and their demands, then follow through on their demands, call in other Asians, and be in continued critical reflection and thoughtful action. The goal is to dismantle systems that criminalize Black and poor folks and focus on actions that lead to material changes, that bring them more decision making power, money, wealth, and resources.

So please, take some actions with me. There are many things you can do.

A list of what you can do right now. Please talk to people AND take real action. We need both.

SHOW UP FOR BLACK PEOPLE IN YOUR LIFE

Support your Black friends and coworkers. Check in on them with no pressure to respond to you. Don’t send unwarranted long messages or ask them what you can do or how they are feeling. Just let them know you will commit to doing better with a list of ways you can support. Don’t center your own guilt or feelings, this is not about you. Last thing they might want is to hear from or deal with a non-black person in their life who is *just* getting it. Black people are triggered by performative allyship. Please engage in authentic allyship, and read this. Watch this.

Offer to do things for them and share your resources with them, whether it’s money, taking on their load at work, paying their rent, offering to pay for therapy, giving emotional labor, skills, sending care packages, gift cards from black-owned businesses. If Black people work for you, give them time off from work. Support their rest and mental health. Ask yourself, what do I have access to? What can I contribute? Get creative. This is the time to use your privilege and access to resources.

Don’t just fight for Black lives when they die. Celebrate them. Uplift them. Use your power. Talk about the lack of diversity and Black leadership at your job. Advocate to hire more Black folks into positions of power. Make sure their voices are heard at work and other spaces. But don’t do things without their consent. You are not here to be a hero. Advocate for your organization to hire racial equity consultants and send you to racial justice trainings. Here are some recommendations.

Stop appropriating Black culture and stop using the N word and AAVE.

2. FIGURE OUT WHAT YOUR ROLES ARE

Read this article, and do some reflecting and answer these questions. Think critically about where you fit in. We all have an important role to play.

Change your fixed mindset to a growth mindset towards antiracism!

KEEP UP THE MOMENTUM: Form habits to donate and take actions regularly

3. TAKE ACTIONS AT HOME

DEFUND THE POLICE ACTIONS. IT MATTERS!

A comprehensive list of petitions to sign & places to donate

Sign petition & do their daily actions: Movement For Black Lives

Sign & stop ICE from poisoning immigrants!

Petition to reopen case: Justice for Tamir Rice

Sign up for Resistbot — the fastest/easiest way to contact your rep. Text RESIST to 50409 on SMS, iMessage, Messenger, Twitter, or Telegram.

Sign up for ACLU action texts — whenever your support is needed to fight for our civil liberties, they will text you with instructions.

Text “HELLO” to 718–550–2312 to get updates on NYC Jail Support (use Signal)

4. DONATE

Comprehensive list here!

When sending money, never put a note explaining what your payment is for, instead put random emojis or hearts! They have been freezing people’s accounts so money doesn’t go through

5. ATTEND PROTESTS & HELP PROTESTORS

List of NY protests

Encourage white folks to show up at protests. White people’s stories show that white bodies between black bodies and the police keeps black people safe. Check this and this.

Please don’t post photos of people at protests. Protestors will get identified and charged, or killed by white supremacists. Stay safe and know what to bring. Paint your face if possible Protect yourself from state surveillance. A comprehensive guide and also here.

If you get arrested, Siri can help you.

NYPD & FBI are questioning protestors about political beliefs. You have no obligation to submit to such questioning and it’s dangerous to do so.

Past curfew: Call 914–732–1656 for safe rides in Manhattan, BK or the BX

How does a curfew impact protesting and criminalization?

Protest first aid for non-medics

PRE, DURING, POST PROTEST SELF CARE TIPS

Herbal first aid aftercare for all who experienced police violence

Street Somatics: Tips for regulating nervous systems in uprisings

Principles to follow when attending an action (words by @peacebewithjune)

Commit yourself to staying level headed and listen to the leaders of the action. Stay focused on their words and guidance

Fight the urge to let excitement push you to do anything unnecessarily reckless

The last thing we need is to drain time, energy, and funding having to bail white people out of jail because they wanted to be punk, dramatic, cool

Remember why you’re there and what you’re fighting for. Listen to those around you who have years of experience doing the work

Drop off care packages to protestors — supply masks/sanitizer, print materials/signs for protestors

Ways to support protestors from home. And open your homes to protestors who are stuck and trapped by the police due to curfew.

Legal Services

6. WRITE LETTERS

Write a letter to Chrystal Kizer, a 17year old sex trafficking victim. She’s facing life in prison

Write a letter to Joshua Williams, who is currently incarcerated for protesting during the Ferguson uprising. He is up for parole in June 2020. Please send asap.

Write letters to survivors of sexual and domestic violence in prison.

7. TALK TO PEOPLE & SHARE RESOURCES

Check in with other Asians. Ask, how are you showing up right now as an Asian for Black people? Let’s normalize these conversations. You can share my letter.

Talk to family and friends about it. Here’s a Letter for Black Lives translated in many languages that you can share with family and community members.

Interrupt the harmful things your friends say. How to respond to common racist statements. More tips: here, here, and here.

Post on social media about what’s happening, but don’t share videos/photos of Black people being violated. It’s triggering and traumatizing to Black folks and takes choice away from them in what their grief process looks like. There is no secure way to post photos or videos of protestors on social media. Police, ICE, FBI, other white supremacist groups use photos to identify protestors and arrest and murder them.

8. FOR THOSE WHO THINK, YEAH BUT IS VIOLENCE REALLY THE ANSWER?

A thread of great educational content on looting & this

In defense of looting

Black Riot

Nonviolence is racist

White witness and the contemporary lynching

Black is crime: notes on Blaqillegalism

Looting Africa

What do I say when…?

9. KEEP LEARNING