We aren't Black, we're Asian
After I attended the last Black Lives Matter protest in my home town, I was pleased to send my videos and photos into the family group chat. I was proud to see the hundreds of Asians protesting alongside me a couple of weeks ago. The chanting of George Floyd’s name echoed through town and the energy they emanated warmed my heart. A nod of the head here and a wave there, I stood in solidarity with people who looked like me for a cause that was far greater than any one race. A part of me hoped it would inspire greater action by my family towards a cause I am passionate about but the response was almost alarming. Silence.
It was this response that then inspired me to write this blog post about my experience with BLM and familial responses to Black issues throughout my life. My point here isn’t to out my family as being enemies to the cause or of having any hatred to the movement I hold so dearly to my heart because I sincerely believe they don’t carry issues with it. But an important conversation has to be had about the response that we, as Asians, provide to issues to do with Black Lives. The response we provide at protests, in conversations we have with our family members (especially the younger generation), and our inner dialogue that require some alteration.
The solidarity we show to the issues of Black people first need us to acknowledge the differences between us and them. The Asian narrative of working to get to where we are and overcoming the same struggles as every other minority is fallible. We need to make the distinction between us as immigrants and other races, the advantages we faced over them and the appreciation we ought to have for the privileges that we enjoy because of the colour of the skin. There is a dire need to forgo the narrative of white privilege being the only kind that exists because it is this very act of scapegoating that destroys our ability to truly relate to the issues faced by black people across the globe.
Of course, there needs to be clarity here in ratifying and appreciating the struggles faced by older generations when they came to the west. But, as Angelo Ancheta writes in his book Race, Rights and the Asian American Experience, we are ‘Neither Black nor White’. The purpose of saying this is to highlight the fact that we can't be categorised as holding the same status in society as either group, as sad and heartbreaking it is to say that in 2020. However, the fact remains true that, unlike black people, we weren’t carried in boats by the millions and selected with the idea of being a commodity. We weren’t legally called property so that slave owners could claim insurance in the event of our death in transport. We weren’t farmed with the express intention of inequality. No matter how badly the odds may be stacked against us as Asians and regardless of the atrocities we faced during the colonisation of our lands and the mistreatment of our people, the system wasn’t built around our enslavement. My purpose isn’t here to say we are white either as the blatant disadvantages Asians face show to this day.
“But why is this important?”, one may ask. It is important to know our position with others because the sad fact is that it differs greatly from person to person. Factors such as the darkness of our skin, the heritage we hold, the money we inherit and the value systems we are brought up in give us all unique and differing perspectives on the world and onto one another. It is therefore important to step out of the shadows and forgo any self-victimisation to precisely understand the standing we hold as communities and individuals within society so that we can make change. Without doing this, I feel as though we are trying to lay a foundation whilst blindfolded.
Black Lives Matter is therefore not mutable through chants of all lives matter or some other counter-protest that ever tries to equate human suffering onto one level playing field. This is true of white people but also us as Asians. The rhetoric issued by many in my community of ‘let them help themselves like we were forced to’ is a fallacy based on the ignorance of our people and their warped understanding of their privilege. We must stand with this movement in the chants as well as internally by realising that we, as a medium between the privilege of the white person and the downtrodden black person, have a unique ability to help and that will only come when we understand the power of our voice.
However, it is also important for us to realise the privilege we have and the application of it through several generations. The word ‘Kala’ to refer to a black person is used in many households but the connotations behind this word go far deeper. ‘Tu kali ho gayi hein’ (You have gone black) is a phrase many of us know all too well. It is a phrase we use in the Asian community, though translated into the various languages, as a means of degradation. We associate darker skin with bad, with some stain that ought to be removed, and the effect of this extends throughout our mindset. The idea of the ‘Kala’ in itself goes to show that, as archaic as it seems, the blackness of someone’s skin is what defines them. We use such terms to refer to people but frown when we’re called p*kis, even though the geographical location is perhaps a better indicator of who we are than the colour of someone’s skin. This double standard then is something that needs to be eradicated before we can ever look to a white person of privilege and ask them to change.
But the issue is that the use of vocabulary only breaks the ice when it comes to the issues of race and prejudice in Asian societies. The issue comes with the impressions we cultivate of black people through our culture and ideologies. We love to see Jay Z in concert and turn up his songs and freely say the n-word in the car but if we see a black person on the street an urge to cross the road comes to our mind. The sounds of blues, jazz and hip hop echo from our bedroom doors but the struggle is something we overlook. An elder in the community once told me that the ‘kala next door got burgled, probably by another’, and proceeded to laugh. His thought in this was to seek some agreement from me and reaffirm his stereotype of black people being thieves or some sort of criminals as though that was an intrinsic quality they hold. His surprise came when I didn’t laugh and his horror from the fact that he was told not to regurgitate his bigotry to other people. The fact that his initial response, however, was to think such ideologies were okay and good enough to share shows that there are bigger issues at play here. Issues that need to be sequestered as soon as possible.
An answer would maybe come in the form of saying ‘that’s the elder generation and we can't rectify what they think’. But even if that’s the case, which it isn’t, there needs to be awareness on our part that the issue isn’t exclusively characterizable in that way. We need to recognise that even some of the people present at protests would outright reject their own children if they came home one day with a black person but find space in their heart if that person was white. We as Asians have privilege, we have a bias, we have an issue but we choose to act like victims. We equate our struggles with those of people who have struggled for almost half a millennia as we walk from the protest to our cars without worrying about our safety. We will stand tall and eradicate practices of racism as they affect us but some of us still harbour hatred for a people who have done us no harm. The narrative of the black person was given to us by western society and we’ve held onto it for far too long. Protesting is great but the first change must be internal. The self-actualisation of individual privilege and the genesis of these resentments to a people and a notion of darkness must be overcome, although I will speak on the issue of colourism in a later post.
Black Lives Matter.
It was this response that then inspired me to write this blog post about my experience with BLM and familial responses to Black issues throughout my life. My point here isn’t to out my family as being enemies to the cause or of having any hatred to the movement I hold so dearly to my heart because I sincerely believe they don’t carry issues with it. But an important conversation has to be had about the response that we, as Asians, provide to issues to do with Black Lives. The response we provide at protests, in conversations we have with our family members (especially the younger generation), and our inner dialogue that require some alteration.
The solidarity we show to the issues of Black people first need us to acknowledge the differences between us and them. The Asian narrative of working to get to where we are and overcoming the same struggles as every other minority is fallible. We need to make the distinction between us as immigrants and other races, the advantages we faced over them and the appreciation we ought to have for the privileges that we enjoy because of the colour of the skin. There is a dire need to forgo the narrative of white privilege being the only kind that exists because it is this very act of scapegoating that destroys our ability to truly relate to the issues faced by black people across the globe.
Of course, there needs to be clarity here in ratifying and appreciating the struggles faced by older generations when they came to the west. But, as Angelo Ancheta writes in his book Race, Rights and the Asian American Experience, we are ‘Neither Black nor White’. The purpose of saying this is to highlight the fact that we can't be categorised as holding the same status in society as either group, as sad and heartbreaking it is to say that in 2020. However, the fact remains true that, unlike black people, we weren’t carried in boats by the millions and selected with the idea of being a commodity. We weren’t legally called property so that slave owners could claim insurance in the event of our death in transport. We weren’t farmed with the express intention of inequality. No matter how badly the odds may be stacked against us as Asians and regardless of the atrocities we faced during the colonisation of our lands and the mistreatment of our people, the system wasn’t built around our enslavement. My purpose isn’t here to say we are white either as the blatant disadvantages Asians face show to this day.
“But why is this important?”, one may ask. It is important to know our position with others because the sad fact is that it differs greatly from person to person. Factors such as the darkness of our skin, the heritage we hold, the money we inherit and the value systems we are brought up in give us all unique and differing perspectives on the world and onto one another. It is therefore important to step out of the shadows and forgo any self-victimisation to precisely understand the standing we hold as communities and individuals within society so that we can make change. Without doing this, I feel as though we are trying to lay a foundation whilst blindfolded.
Black Lives Matter is therefore not mutable through chants of all lives matter or some other counter-protest that ever tries to equate human suffering onto one level playing field. This is true of white people but also us as Asians. The rhetoric issued by many in my community of ‘let them help themselves like we were forced to’ is a fallacy based on the ignorance of our people and their warped understanding of their privilege. We must stand with this movement in the chants as well as internally by realising that we, as a medium between the privilege of the white person and the downtrodden black person, have a unique ability to help and that will only come when we understand the power of our voice.
However, it is also important for us to realise the privilege we have and the application of it through several generations. The word ‘Kala’ to refer to a black person is used in many households but the connotations behind this word go far deeper. ‘Tu kali ho gayi hein’ (You have gone black) is a phrase many of us know all too well. It is a phrase we use in the Asian community, though translated into the various languages, as a means of degradation. We associate darker skin with bad, with some stain that ought to be removed, and the effect of this extends throughout our mindset. The idea of the ‘Kala’ in itself goes to show that, as archaic as it seems, the blackness of someone’s skin is what defines them. We use such terms to refer to people but frown when we’re called p*kis, even though the geographical location is perhaps a better indicator of who we are than the colour of someone’s skin. This double standard then is something that needs to be eradicated before we can ever look to a white person of privilege and ask them to change.
But the issue is that the use of vocabulary only breaks the ice when it comes to the issues of race and prejudice in Asian societies. The issue comes with the impressions we cultivate of black people through our culture and ideologies. We love to see Jay Z in concert and turn up his songs and freely say the n-word in the car but if we see a black person on the street an urge to cross the road comes to our mind. The sounds of blues, jazz and hip hop echo from our bedroom doors but the struggle is something we overlook. An elder in the community once told me that the ‘kala next door got burgled, probably by another’, and proceeded to laugh. His thought in this was to seek some agreement from me and reaffirm his stereotype of black people being thieves or some sort of criminals as though that was an intrinsic quality they hold. His surprise came when I didn’t laugh and his horror from the fact that he was told not to regurgitate his bigotry to other people. The fact that his initial response, however, was to think such ideologies were okay and good enough to share shows that there are bigger issues at play here. Issues that need to be sequestered as soon as possible.
An answer would maybe come in the form of saying ‘that’s the elder generation and we can't rectify what they think’. But even if that’s the case, which it isn’t, there needs to be awareness on our part that the issue isn’t exclusively characterizable in that way. We need to recognise that even some of the people present at protests would outright reject their own children if they came home one day with a black person but find space in their heart if that person was white. We as Asians have privilege, we have a bias, we have an issue but we choose to act like victims. We equate our struggles with those of people who have struggled for almost half a millennia as we walk from the protest to our cars without worrying about our safety. We will stand tall and eradicate practices of racism as they affect us but some of us still harbour hatred for a people who have done us no harm. The narrative of the black person was given to us by western society and we’ve held onto it for far too long. Protesting is great but the first change must be internal. The self-actualisation of individual privilege and the genesis of these resentments to a people and a notion of darkness must be overcome, although I will speak on the issue of colourism in a later post.
Black Lives Matter.
Very interesting and informative, great to hear your perspective on the matter. Keep it up! BLM!
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