Asian People Stop Holding White People’s Hands in Racial Justice Work
By: Nguyen K Huynh
Tags: Model Minority Myth, Asian American, Racial Justice, Aanhpi, Solidarity

Let’s set the stage: my internship group is having our 4th “family meeting” And the white lady leading the seminar, Genny, has just mixed up the two Asian women, but gone on as if nothing happened. I ask a question in the chat (“Oh, does Carmen also teach 2nd grade like Christina does?”), hoping Genny will realize her mistake. She doesn’t. There’s only 7 of us.

This is not the first time. Go back to my Teach for America meetings, where someone confused me for another Asian man — the wrong name tripping off her tongue so confidently. Or when I interviewed for Teach for America and was the only person of color in the room of 12 white people.

It’s also getting my name misspelled all the time in professional emails even though my name is right there. It’s getting asked if I understood that the person said “First name, not last name.” No I heard you and I understand English just fine.

It’s having people at HR mess up your files with the person whose LAST name is Nguyen, when it is my FIRST name.

Over time, you start really becoming sensitive to these kinds of things.

1. [Microaggressions and Racist Abuse]

Some of you might already know this as microaggressions. In my head, I see it as the “1000 cut death” (Lingchi).

This slowness is maybe the reason Asian People do not always automatically come to the aid of our fellow BIPOC. “It’s just a little cut, and it’s not THAT big of a deal.” But then the cut gets deeper, and we start to build up a tolerance, and we expect other BIPOC to do the same.

Microaggressions set the stage for larger aggressions. Solidarity in experiencing microaggressions can influence solidarity in taking on larger racial aggressions. We should have been the first to know that this would happen to our fellow BIPOC. The Chinese were America’s first policy test subjects for aggressive and egregious immigration bans.We see that legacy now with 45’s recent attempt at a Muslim Ban.

Here are some excerpts from some text convos I’ve had with some Asian-American friends. If you’re in mobile versionr read: Top Left -> Top Right -> Bottom Left -> Bottom Right.

My friend said, “The thing about liberation is that it will always, always require a complete dismantling of the system at the hands of the oppressed…scholars have said it time and time again (Fanon, Malcolm X, Freire, Bell Hooks, the list goes on)…”

2. [What keeps us from this solidarity?]

Solidarity is not always being easy to find. Lately, I have found myself getting into arguments with friends — even my friends of color. They have called me “combative,” “aggressive,” “cold,” or “attacking” as I have pushed for recognition and change for myself and my BIPOC fellows.

At first, I started feeling very self conscious. Was I some monster who didn’t consider everyone’s feelings? Was my rage not justified? But I came to see that, actually, White people can carry each other’s white tears and guilt themselves.

Now, when Asian friends ask me, “Why aren’t you trying to convince white people (Like I feel I have to do)?” I have an answer, it’s because we are conditioned to hold White People’s feelings, but that is not our job. We should not be performing emotional labor and upholding White people’s learning and flings with racial justice. AND, yet, WE GIVE IT FOR FREE!

Looking back, I wonder if my friends’ frustration came not from me, but from the subtle realization that maybe, just maybe, they’ve been wasting their energy on convincing white people when they don’t have to. Perhaps, as another friend said, my angry friends were wondering, “Why are you revealing to me how much I’ve let white peoples’ feelings dictate how I behave?”

Navigating white feelings keeps us all from standing in solidarity of our own experiences.

I don’t need to pull teeth anymore convincing white people ,and neither do you. I will continue to interrupt racism when I see it. If White people want to be on our side, it’s not because we made them feel good about it. They have to be here because they WANT to be here — because it’s right

Navigating white feelings is not our job. Don’t let the same white people who will point to you as their “model minority”use you as a tool to further marginalize other communities of color.

3. [re: How white supremacy keeps us from not only cross-racial solidarity but also solidarity within AANHPI groups]

“Whatever power struggle your nation had with other Asian nations — most of it the fallout of Western imperialism and the Cold War — is steamrolled flat by Americans who don’t know the difference.”

— Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning by Cathy Park Hong

We have to stick together. Our liberation is tied to our fellow BIPOC. Tie to next section with pointing our how colonialism and white supremacy have invaded Asian cultural identities and something about unlearning. Pandering to white feelings is not the only way whiteness has invaded and destabilized AANHPI communities — colorism and white hierarchies have followed

Colorism is still another issue we deal with. We see it manifest itself in associations between lighter skin and wealth, and in the boom of bleaching lotions in the Philippines and South Korea. We see it in the lack of dark-skinned characters in Japanese shows. We see it in the model minority myth and the huge discrepancy in graduation rates and average household income among South Asians and East Asians to Southeast Asians and Pacific Islanders.

White supremacy and its legacy of colonial, imperial power relations keeps us from unifying even within our own communities, both at home and abroad. Members of the hill tribes in Laos, Myanmar, and Thailand are being colonized and have no sovereignty. The Vietnamese have colonized the Cham people. Japan has left a still not wholly acknowledged legacy of imperialist violence in Korea. We, as AANHPI folks, cannot keep on pushing the Settler Colonial mentality and culture of White Supremacy. By perpetuating White Supremacy culture, this keeps AANHPI from their own liberation.

From outside the US to the same dynamics within the US breaking apart AANHPI community through vastly different experiences. On the surface, this graph shows AANHPI communities having “relative success” compared to other racial groups. White people have pointed to this as evidence for the Model Minority Myth.

However, once you break down and disaggregate the red bar for AANHPI from the graph above, not all of the experiences for ethnic groups under the umbrella of AANHPI are the same. The charts below show lots of progress and healing that is much needed in our communities. We need to bring each other up and make seats at the table. The intergenerational trauma that resulted from being colonized has put many Southeast Asian groups at a disadvantage.

PI activist, Tavae Samuelu, fights for disaggregation of AANHPI data. What Tavae sees happening most often is, “[Asian American] groups that say ‘A(ANH)PI’ but don’t have any representation of, relationship with, or even modicum of understanding of the NHPI community.” Tavae added on that “Asian Americans are some of the closest allies in data disaggregation efforts.” I am reflecting on my own actions and learning how I can promote inclusivity and solidarity under this umbrella term of AANHPI.

When I call Asian Americans together, I ask us to really think about how our parents and grandparents have been affected. I ask us to reflect on how fighting for issues of racial justice and equity is fighting against the violent U.S. Imperialism that brought us here. I ask us to acknowledge how we are also using the “master’s tools,” and to question if that means we can truly bring down the “master’s house.”

4. [Action Steps]

We have to do right by those that continue to be persecuted even in our own homelands. Politics right now gives us an unprecedented opportunity to achieve the intra and inter group solidarity.

When I hear “Asians for Black Lives,” I wonder how that centers our priorities. We should be saying Black Lives Matter because it’s the right thing, not because we have to think together and beyond our community to see that injustice is everywhere and affects everyone. Solidarity among the AANHPI community is crucial to sustaining our people and our cultures.

When I hear people call me “combative,” I can’t help but wonder if I’m interpreted as combative in the same way that Ali Wong is interpreted as “vulgar” — because we don’t fall into the stereotypical model of what an Asian person is “supposed” to be.

But I also heard about Claira Janover, a recent AANHPI Harvard graduate, who was fired from Deloitte for promoting Black Lives Matter. And I see that there are members of our wide AANHPI community who are calling out injustice when they see it. I am so proud to be working alongside them, and I hope you join us.

White fragility exists to keep the status quo. It exists to mask the fact that they are the ones with power, and it’s been working!

The idea of Asian cultural hegemony, the stereotype of the model minority, and the fragility of white guilt are all PRODUCTS OF WHITE SUPREMACY MEANT TO KEEP US down. We, as AANHPI folks, should not and cannot keep perpetuating the practices of our colonizers.

Instead, we have to lean into the fact of knowing that even we, the “model minority,” COULD lose our position, economically, just as easily as our fellow BIPOC. Stand up for racial justice wherever you see it and know that you NEED to take those risks or else we end up maintaining the status quo. When you see something, say something. There’s power in numbers!

We have, unfortunately, been used to taking up space and pushing out our fellow BIPOC — and even our fellow AANHPI — out of multiple industries. As we grow in awareness of both our privilege and our oppression, we have to be able to acknowledge that there are voices not being represented in the room and not being heard. Sometimes those voices are our own, sometimes those voices are those of our fellow BIPOC.

Our silence has to break, or we will continue to fragment. We must change, reach out, and acknowledge the harm of white supremacy that affects us all. I call on my fellow Asian Americans to look to what our most marginalized communities need.

I would like to thank all of my editors and contributors and the 2nd set of eyes: Alan Yeh, Sierra Barton, Aleenah Ansari, Chris Tina Chen, Maricres Valdez Castro, Jayne Piboonvaranggoon, Meili Powell, Cathy Pham, Dion Leung, Jonathan Nguyen, Wilson Lai, Andre Phan, Maryalice Peng, Tavae Samuelu