#stopaaiphate

The history of Black and Asian relations in the U.S. is fraught. Anti-Black racism has existed in the Asian community, and anti-Asian racism has existed in the Black community. The recent actions of solidarity come at a pivotal moment as calls for improving the security and safety of elder Asian Americans have sparked concerns about the next course of action. Community leaders have warned against more policing, given law enforcement’s pattern of disproportionately targeting Black and brown individuals. “We’re not safe until all people of color are safe. Safety doesn’t come in the form of heavier policing calls or of carceral state oppression of poor communities,” Dao-Yi Chow tells TIME. Chow, who is Chinese American, was one of the organizers of Running to Protest’s “Black & Asian Solidarity” rally. “That’s only continuing to align ourselves with white supremacy. And if we continue to do that, those are anti-Black acts that’s only going to continue to drive divisions in between our communities,” Chow says.

Sorry to interrupt the usual feed but my heart is breaking at this news. This was a crime targeting Asian businesses. 6 of the 8 victims were Asian women... White supremacy affects us too. None of us will be safe until we are all safe. Let’s fight to make sure this doesn’t happen to any group, race, ethnicity, culture etc. Please hug your AsAm friends, family a little tighter today.

BTS via Twitter

The word bich means a kind of jade. Growing up, I knew that Vietnamese girls were supposed to wear jade bracelets and grow into them so that one day the bracelets would be permanent. The stone is meant to protect, to heal—and the greener the jade, the better. In a different country, in a different life, my given name would be just as beautiful. In truth, I could never wear a bracelet very long. In truth, most of the people who have claimed to like the name Bich, or who have been outraged and horrified at the idea of changing it, have been white women. They are the ones who told me the name was cool, was interesting, was unique, was being true to myself, was an important part of my heritage and cultural identity. They said that they liked the name, that it would break their hearts if I changed it. They did not say that they wished to have the name themselves. I wanted to believe them; for a long time, I made a choice to believe them. But I knew, too, that they liked the exotic so long as they didn’t have to deal with its complications. They liked the idea of the exotic, not thinking about how exotic might benefit the person deciding what exotic is. Sometimes I wondered whether they also liked feeling bad for me.

Nevertheless, the myth has persisted, particularly on the left. Many of those now denouncing attacks on Asians as products of “white supremacy” were just a few months ago insisting that they were “privileged”, even “embracing whiteness”. As with Jews, the myth of privilege has allowed many to ignore the racism that Asians face.

There’s a difference between fighting racists and fighting racism. Where my father stayed silent, I have learned I have to speak out, which has felt, even while writing this, a little like betraying him. And as a biracial gay Korean American man, I don’t experience the same identifications or misidentifications he did. I am mistaken for white, or at least “not Asian,” as often as I’m mistaken for Chinese, and have felt like a secret agent as people speak in front of me about Asians in ways they would not otherwise. I learned most of my adult coping strategies for street violence from queer activist organizations after college.