South Asians — It’s Time to Ride for the Rest of the Asian Community
San Francisco — March 17, 2021
One of the tragic constants in the human experience is the need to find a scapegoat for every crisis or tragedy.
In a society with the — shall we say — ‘colorful’ history of America, that scapegoating often turns into ugly, racially motivated hostility.
If you’re not aware of the history of such episodes, here’s a couple historical moments to review:
- Japanese internment camps in WWII
- Murder of Vincent Chin, driven by resentment of Japanese auto manufacturers
We see that again with a disturbing, yet predictable, rise in hate crimes across the country targeted at Asian-Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic. Scapegoated for the crime of looking like people from a country in which a pandemic started.
Scapegoated because there are people who feel so desperate and powerless that they only thing that gives them a sense of worth or validation is to inflict suffering on someone that they perceive to be lower than them on the societal totem pole.
This came to a painful head with the shooting spree in Atlanta yesterday, in which Asian Americans suffered disproportionately.
To my South Asian community out there — I say this:
Hey y’all. I know you see what’s happening, and I know that the overwhelming majority of you think it’s wrong. There may even be a few of you that are trying to figure out how to help.
But I also know it can feel easier to just shake your head, say how sad it makes you feel, and then just move on with your day.
I also know that some of you may have had conversations with your families that go a little something like this:
Yeah, maybe don’t associate too closely with any Chinese people right now. You don’t want to get caught up in any bad things that might happen.
And maybe, with everything that’s going on, you feel like that that’s sage advice.
For that reader in particular, I have two thoughts:
- Fuck you.
- Now that I have your attention. Shame on you. You’ve been in their shoes.
Do you remember what life was like for people like us in the aftermath of 9/11? Here’s a quick recap from something I wrote last year:
Hasan Minhaj summarily captures the experience of many South Asian Americans after 9/11 in this clip. Similarly, since 2001, scores of Sikh Americans have been the accidental victims of anti-Muslim hate crimes — because the same society that can accurately distinguish between dozens of breeds of dogs apparently can’t prioritize the effort of understanding that al-Qaeda and American Sikhs are not the same group of people.
After 9/11, your mother fretted about the men in your family not growing their beards too long, lest they ‘look like a terrorist’.
After 9/11, you felt that gnawing anxiety going through airport security, even though you know your record isn’t even marred by detention in school.
After 9/11, you felt the uncomfortable gaze of a suspicious white person, who’s presumably wondering if they need to call in the bomb squad.
After 9/11, you shrugged off, or laughed uncomfortably at some asshole at your school calling his brown classmate ‘al-Qaeda’.
My point being — as a community that knows what it feels like to be viewed with intense scrutiny and suspicion in America, we have the capacity and responsibility to support the Asian American community now.
(You may believe the opposite — you may believe that because we had to fight that battle seemingly alone, there’s no reason for us to come to anyone else’s defense now. I welcome you to reach out to me individually, I’d love to change your mind.)
Great, so we’re on the same page about this. Million dollar question — what do we do?
I’m still admittedly growing my own knowledge here, but I can share what I’ve thought of so far.
First and foremost, people much more well-read than me have compiled resources for the rest of us to leverage.
In addition, I plan on doing the following, and I encourage everyone to do the same:
Take care of the Asian people in your life
- Have some earnest conversations with Asian friends, significant others, etc about what they’re worried about right now, and how you can potentially help. It could be simple things, like escorting them when they need to go somewhere in the evening. And even if there is nothing you can do, but letting people and their fears be seen can go a long way in itself.
Challenge anti-Asian sentiment at home
- South Asians have always had a…mistrustful view of folks whose families originated in China, Japan, or other parts of east Asia. Much of that is based on historical stereotypes dating back a century of Asians being a cunning, clever, and manipulative people. One approach that I’ve always found effective when confronting this kind of toxicity is to flip the script, and make people squirm:
“You can’t trust these Asians, who knows which one of them brought COVID here.”
“Interesting take — I wonder what they think of us? They might be sitting around the table saying ‘can’t trust these Indians, who knows which one of them wants to blow up your plane.’”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Indians don’t blow up planes. We’re not the Middle East.”
“Oh…so we shouldn’t scapegoat an entire group of people who look similar based on the actions of a few people?”
(I know full well that one conversation won’t change deeply-held beliefs. But one dissenting voice is still more than most of these conversations have today. And that’s a start)
Don’t lose sight of root causes
- Poverty and desperation. I truly believe that there is a relationship between someone’s sense of dignity, and how likely they are to act on a racist, scapegoating thought. Be an advocate for policies and systems that help people escape from a trap of feeling so powerless that they try to retake some power by beating down on the vulnerable.
- White supremacy. I don’t mean this in the hoods and robes KKK sense. I mean this in the sense of prevailing attitudes that in America, white is ‘normal’, and everything else is an ‘other’ that is accepted only if convenient or comfortable. It will take the work of a generation to shift this culture, so we better keep up the progress.
- Gun violence. The shooting in Atlanta yesterday may have been the first notable gun violence incident with tinges of anti-Asian motivations, but it’s just another blip in a long, prolonged struggle for this country against gun violence. If this is your cause, keep up the pressure on your politicians, keep supporting the causes that are doing great work in this area.
Have other ideas / suggestions? Please feel free to drop them in the comments below.
