Let's Talk About Monday's Opening Thought: March 22, 2021
So...my opening thought of the week that I posted yesterday around Black folx not spouting anti-Asian sentiments and perpetuating white supremacy got me a few messages from Black folx on multiple social media platforms. And, well, some of y'all wasn't all that pleased with me. Some of y'all felt that your experience with AAPI communities aiming racist rhetoric and actions toward Black U.S. Americans negated standing with them. Some of y'all felt that white supremacy will only be addressed when some AAPI communities stop perpetuating white supremacist class dynamics in their hate toward other races. I wanted to address all of that because real talk?
Now is not the time for that debate.
I’ve had that debate in times when hate crimes weren’t on the rise, and I will go back to discussing the intersections of class and race and social pecking orders...but now just ain't the time.
Racism and white supremacy between the Black community and AAPI communities is legit and something that needs to be addressed. It's a topic I have addressed in the past. I've been on the receiving end of anti-Blackness from AAPI communities. I have spent time learning about and understanding how AAPI communities have been weaponized by whiteness against not only Black and Brown communities but against one another. But I’m not going to go on the offensive toward any communities that have lost their friends and family mere days after a hate-based mass shooting. I'm not going to kick people while they are struggling to feel heard in the face of a wave of white nationalist hate. Now just ain’t the time. This ain't about me. And it damn sure ain't about y'all, Black folx who slid into my DMs. Not right now, at least.
I feel like we can and should stand with people while they’re hurting and healing. We can resume the debates we need to resume later and resume them from a realm of building mutual support and understanding. We definitely have work to do. But I’m not willing to center myself in someone else’s pain, even if I have faced racist words and actions from them in the past. Now is the time for solidarity. I'll get back to the unpacking later.
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Soon Chung Park, age 74
Hyun Jung Grant, age 51
Suncha Kim, age 69
Yong Yue, age 63
Delaina Ashley Yaun, age 33
Paul Andre Michels, age 54
Xiaojie Tan, age 49
Daoyou Feng, age 44
These are the names of the people whose lives were taken by white supremacy in Atlanta, Georgia, in a terrorist-level anti-Asian hate crime. Say their names. Do not let their deaths, and the hate that led to their deaths, be another footnote in the history of U.S. white supremacy. Make your self-work, your own dismantling of your connections to and perpetuation of white supremacy, be not about you but about the many melanated lives taken at the hands of white violence.
