A Reconciliatory Reckoning
Coming Together in Our Fight for Racial Justice
When news broke of Daunte Wright’s murder, I told myself that I wasn’t going to watch the video this time. The weeks following April 11th, 2021, I spent either avoiding social media entirely, or scrolling past instagram posts quickly enough so that I didn’t have to see any police-caused gunshots or bullet wounds.
Talking to my father about this a few days later, he reassured that I had made the right decision. “The general public has grown more and more obsessed with our trauma,” he told me. “They don’t think about how seeing this over and over again messes with Black people. You shouldn’t expose yourself to that type of damage and re-damage.” He was right—it is a cycle, and social media has had a Stockholm syndrome-esque relationship with Black death ever since the murder of George Floyd in 2020.
Ironically enough, 2020 didn’t end on December 31st, 11:59:59PM. The COVID-19 pandemic remains, and so does the race-based violence in our nation. As was reported in a previous post by our Editor-in-Chief, not only has there been anti-Black violence, but also anti-Asian violence that has run rampant well past the start of the new year—so much so, that the hashtag #StopAsianHate was created and popularized as the slogan for the movement dedicated towards accomplishing just that. Although the extra awareness that came from the hashtag was appreciated, this slogan also placed in my mind a code-red alert that was all too reminiscent of my stress when seeing constant reposts of Black death. Was this my signal to go and grab my Filipino mom and grandparents, lock them inside our house, and never let them fall victim to the same type of videos that I fear will star my dad or paternal relatives? The canary, to my modern American coal mine? Knowing I did all I could to keep both sides of my family safe, I decided to learn more about the Asian American half of my identity—perhaps I was scavenging for tools, preparing for a battle both immanent and imminent.
Reading Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning by Cathy Park Hong (also the author of the brilliantly titled collection of poems, Dance Dance Revolution), I couldn’t help myself when I saw that my university was hosting a Q&A with the writer later that month. I’m not usually one to fanboy over a celebrity, but Hong’s novel served as a strong comfort during this period of my life. What I didn’t expect, however, was to find a renewed hope by the end of Hong’s Q&A.
Another attendant asked Hong if she had intentionally written and released her novel to be so irrefutably “timely” (referencing its initial release coinciding with the onset of COVID-19, and the paperback release aligning with the popularization of #StopAsianHate), wondering if she had some premonitory vision that informed her decision to write about America’s problem with racism. Hong responded by saying that no—her book was a reaction, not a proaction: “When I think about the context in which I was writing the book, it wasn’t that radically different than 2020.” Her book came to her in 2014, when thinking about the initial waves being made by the Black Lives Matter Movement. Then Trump was elected. Suddenly there was this urgency to discuss race in America, and she knew she wanted to include the Asian American perspective in this discussion.
In writing her Asian American Reckoning, what was most urgent for Hong to think about was the precarity of Black life, Islamophobia, and how such violence towards these groups often precedes Asian victimization. Although she now recognizes the irony in claiming the invisibility of Asian Americans, with the onset of #StopAsianHate, she maintains her belief that “no matter what kind of assimilation, we cannot take cover under… any aspirational striving in the capitalist system that we have. Whatever safety that we have found can be yanked from us—as was the case for South Asians after 9/11, and as is the case right now.”
Though these words do not sound particularly inspiring, Hong had recognized the privilege that Asian Americans have over other minorities, noted this privilege as conditional, and simultaneously emphasized that even with the existence of this privilege, it should not warrant an Asian American complacency with the status quo. This is the type of nuanced thinking that is essential for Asian Americans to reckon with; without it, we run the risk of inadvertently reinforcing the same oppressive structures that kill minorities in America.
Take for instance this @zenerations post that, in its strive to protect Asian lives, places blame on the Black community with anti-Black presumptions; the post and its caption targets Black readers, calling them out to unlearn the “xenophobia in the Black community.” The post does many things right in that it calls many readers to act against anti-Asian racism, but it falls terribly flat when it is unable to advocate for Asian Americans without putting down Black Americans (especially considering the inaccuracy of its statement—the xenophobia referenced has American origins, of which are not because of the Black community). It may seem that such little missteps are minor, irrelevant occurrences, but in actuality posts like these contribute towards a long standing history of tension between the Black and Asian American community.
As writers Jerusalem Demsas and Rachel Ramirez emphasize in their article explaining these tensions, the long standing narrative of Black-Asian hostility “is rooted in immigration and economic policies that have historically pitted these communities against one another.” What’s lost on so many Americans—whether Black, Asian, white, or any other identity—is the reason why such contention is being upheld so vehemently to this very day: white supremacy. It is the ideology that has produced wealth disparities, policing, the model minority myth, segregation, and ultimately, the racial hierarchy.
Separate hashtags for different racial groups like #BlackLivesMatter and #StopAsianHate make it quite easy to view these movements as completely isolated from one another, as if they’re fighting for the liberation of only the group that’s being called together by name. Not to say that the differentiation between anti-Black racism and anti-Asian racism is futile—they are entirely different beasts, and deserve to be recognized as such—but instead, I urge that we consciously reconcile with the reason why these hashtags had to be created in the first place. Need I say it again?
“Ultimately, there is a failure to remember what got America to this place of racial hierarchies and lingering Black-Asian tensions: white supremacy.”
—Jerusalem Demsas and Rachel Ramirez
“The history of tensions — and solidarity — between Black and Asian American communities, explained”
If our goal is true liberation, what we need to do first and foremost is put an end to the in-fighting. This battle against white supremacy—a battle both immanent and imminent—is one that can’t be won without us all joining together.
Let’s do our homework:
Robert G. Lee | The Cold War Origins of the Model Minority Myth
Luna Castelli | Introduction to Critical Race Theory and Counter-storytelling
Kat Chow | ‘Model Minority' Myth Again Used As A Racial Wedge Between Asians And Blacks
GoFundMe | The Daunte Wright Sr. Memorial Fund, organized by Kelly Bryant
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Jalen, your vulnerability is so powerful! I loved all of the points you brought up—especially how online activism can actually create more racial tension. The fact that these IG “social justice” accounts have such a massive followers list, and reifying a divisive sentiment...
Loved this piece, Jalen! And, I loved what your father said in the beginning of your article. It's incredibly traumatic to see members of your community—or anyone, for that matter—have videos of their violent assault/murder plastered all over the Internet.
Thank you for speaking about this and for encouraging BIPOC solidarity!