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Angry Asian Man recently posted this blog piece titled “The Most Racist Tour Guide In San Francisco” [x]. The link to the post also went up on his Facebook [x] and Twitter [x] accounts. The responses to these postings were… disheartening, but not unexpected. I found that these responses unfolded along predictable lines that demonstrate a lot of issues related to Asian American identity historically. I also found these responses to speak a lot to the so-called “Black - Asian Relations” issue. There’s a lot of things happening, but I’m going to try to break it down here. 

I recommend reading the initial blog post and watch the video first before proceeding

0) Disclaimer: I agree that the tour guide’s words were highly offensive, inaccurate, uncalled for, whatever, etc. Yes, those words were really offensive and I even got a little steamed hearing them. Asian Americans and others have every right and reason to be offended; but many have crossed into dangerous territory by mixing that rightful anger with some to heaping doses of serious anti-Black sentiment.

Just in case as well: I don’t hate AAM. I’m critical of him as a well known figure and I think he could be doing more/better and sometimes makes mistakes (like on this one) but I’m not out to judge his character or whatever. 

1) Anti-Black Racist Remarks: I’ll start with the obvious. You can see for yourself the kinds of reactions elicited. 

2) Violent Threats: This one is also obvious. I hope you can parse what it means for men to write remarks about disclosing people’s personal information and using physical violence against a women of color, specifically a Black woman.  

3) Power and Impact: One of the things that struck me about this post is its popularity and how it might be viewed in the minds of Asian Americans. It is currently sitting at 169 Shares and 92 Likes, 29 hours after it was posted. It is by far the most shared post from Angry Asian Man compared to anything in the past two months, the next highest being some 50 Shares for the Ghost in the Shell post. 

Now, I know that AAM posts a lot of things, so I’m not /blaming/ him for anything, but the response it elicited can’t be ignored. Something about this video struck a deep chord with a lot of people, presumably mostly Asian Americans. What is so significant about a person bad-mouthing a thing? Yes, Chinatown has immense historical, cultural, identity-based significance, I know that. But people talk shit about shit all the time. Why this?

How can this not be racialized in an inherently deeply racialized society? The very concept of Asian American identity is the acknowledgement that we are racialized in a certain way - how can readers NOT racialize the tour guide in the video as a Black woman? I labeled this section “Power and Impact” because this leads us to a very obvious question: What is so threatening about a Black woman talking shit about Chinatown that it would get shared /180/ times.

Is this honestly the biggest issue facing Asian America? A Black person not respecting Chinese culture? Not, you know, the entire oppressive structure that on the daily excludes, kills, deports, people from our community and others?

Yes, those words were really offensive and I even got a little steamed hearing them. But you know what, she’s literally not in any position of power to affect negative impact on Asian Americans in any notable fashion (the people clapping are noted to be mostly tourists and probably aren’t coming back anytime soon). She’s not posting violent threats or anything. 

4) “People of Color”/“They should know better”: A common theme that came up was people asking, “As a ‘woman of color’, she should know better than to make racist remarks about Chinese people”. This theme brings up a lot of issues I think. The best comparison is Obama, and how many Non-Black People of Color (NBPOC) have accused him for not being “radical enough” as a Black man. The criticisms of Obama as a genocidal war President not unlike his predecessors are pretty much accurate, but many have asked, why bring up his race? Why take that extra step? How can we, as non-Black people, judge Obama on his identity as a Black man in relation to his actions?

Here we see people bringing this theme up, even saying that the reasons she should “know better” is because she must have it the worst. In the same sentence, these people express an basic acknowledgement of the struggles of Black Americans while simultaneously using it to hold Black Americans to their own standards of what it means to be a “person of color”. I think that’s all kinds of problematic.

This also begins to touch the rampant issue of “People of Color-Blindess”, coined by Jared Sexton [Youtube:x, Article:x], wherein the phrase “people of color” is used to falsely disappear the very real differing ways different people of color are racialized and oppressed. I don’t have access to his article at this time, so this letter by students at Michigan who reference his idea will have to suffice,

“As non-Black people of color, we are granted the ability toassimilate and reproduce whiteness. By umbrellaing under “people of color” we absolveourselves of political accountability. A white/non-white racial paradigm dismisses how the reality of anti-Black racism structures racial inequalities. While the term“people-of-color” may be useful in building movements across communities, it should not lead to “people-of-color- blindness.” [x]

5) "Solidarity”: Speaking of “People of Color”, the idea of some “broken solidarity” is brought up as well, embedded in some of those “people of color” comments. Some people are claiming that what this tour guide did is preventing “solidarity”. The rhetoric is that, Asian Americans want to be in solidarity with Black people, but there’s all these “anti-Asian” Black people who are destroying that potential for “solidarity”. 

I defer to Nicholas Brady and John Murillo III again for this “question of solidarity”:

“And what a wonderful thing the blacks of the conversation were foreclosing – this solidarity thing. What a wonderful thing others were offering to us and we simply would not take. And yet, the unthought question remains: have you truly earned the right to act in solidarity, to form solidarity, to even believe in solidarity?” [x]

Some might be wondering, well why are you making such a big deal about this Pats? I’m making such a big deal because I think this is a microcosm of what occurs and we need to understand what’s happening if we’re going to work on this social justice thing. 

What does it mean for organizing and advocacy if Asian Americans perception of Black folks and the fantasized fear of “anti-Asian Black people”? What does it mean when Asian Americans accuse Black people of destroying solidarity without any self reflection of themselves and how their very trains of thought (putting the burden and blame on Black people) is destructive to their own “solidarity” project?

What does it mean when literally hundreds of people, mostly Asian Americans, are sharing this piece? Are they thinking beyond their own oppressions? Do they know whats happening in Ferguson? In Chicago? In Atlanta? In everywhere the state kills Black people every 28 hours? These are serious questions we need to be asking our own communities and holding them accountable to.

Andrea Smith wrote, 

“Black people are required to show solidarity with other people of color, without other people of color owing solidarity to Black communities. […] It is presumed we already know everything about Black oppression, so we can just use it as an empty signifier to explain other oppressions.” [x]

6) White Supremacy/Immigrant Experience: Bonus round, I couldn’t help but notice how this whole “anti-Asian Black people” thing plays into a legendary historical tactic of white supremacy and anti-Black racism. In her work “On the Backs of Blacks”, acclaimed writer Toni Morrison notes:

“In race talk the move into mainstream America always means buying into the notion of American blacks as the real aliens. Whatever the ethnicity or nationality of the immigrant, his nemesis is understood to be African Americans.” [x]

More broadly, what this has meant is that white supremacy has pitted every immigrant group, from the Irish to the Chinese, against Black Americans. The mechanism of this generated conflict? A conjured stereotype of the “nativist and criminal Black American” that is in opposition to the newly arrived “honest immigrant in search of the American Dream”. Just ignore that it is the white supremacist capitalist structure that puts Black Americans in supposed class opposition to these immigrant groups.

We see clearly the effects of this strategy in how mostly white, often immigrant, labor unions chose to have weakened memberships rather than accept Black membership. We see this in the interactions, and the violence, Asian American shopowners have had with predominantly Black customers. In one case it became the murder of an innocent Black child. 

I think for many people who shared that post/video, it had touched this part of their socializations, this fear we’ve been taught as immigrants. As one tweeter I screenshotted admits, this validated, fulfilled, became a functional stereotype that they had held of the “angry Black woman”.

I should also note that in this “Ferguson time”, white america more than ever is itching to find “proof” that “Black people are the real racists”. The way and speed this is being distributed and co-opted is nothing new.

Post) I’m not here saying everyone who shared the video is wrong and a terrible person, though there are definitely many terrible people who shared/commented on it. I just want us to take a step back and think about the why’s and how’s of the proliferation of this video, the ideas and reactions its sparked, and what they mean. I would suggest personally that what unfolded is one indicator of many we (Asian Americans) have a lot of internalized shit to sort through if we’re seriously going to take on this project of liberation.  In the future, I think we should pause and think about what narratives and agendas we are playing into, and counteract it. That means being careful about posting about racism directed at Asian Americans. That doesn’t mean censoring it or suppressing it, but putting in statements to deter racist responses to racist things. To say, “this really shitty thing happened, but if you blame it on their race/gender/sexuality/etc, that is unacceptable too”. Because to allow or create space for that anti-Black vitriol to spew forth in the past 24 hours is not a good thing at all.