It’s been an incredible 36 hours and counting for Suey Park. The freelance writer from Chicago and creator of the wildly popular #NotYourAsianSidekick hashtag has become so inundated with media inquires, she has solicited the help of a publicist from 18 Million Rising, an organization dedicated to using social media to promote civic engagement among Asian Americans.
The hashtag which was still trending Monday and had reached truly viral proportions Sunday has both engaged Asian Americans and enraged those who mistook the pent up anger and frustration in some of the tweets to hatred against whites.
“I do not see myself represented in white feminism, where a ‘seat at the table’ [is] equivalent to being a token of diversity,” said Park in a statement released Monday. “In Asian American spaces, I have been disappointed by the narrow ways in which we define Asian American and who we leave behind.”
She sees the hashtag as a means for marginalized Asian Americans to discuss “all of the things we were told to never talk about.”
Park has found herself receiving both kudos and at the same time defending herself in the twittersphere.
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“All you’re doing is making generalizations toward whites,” wrote one according to IBT
“Oh look. More bitter liberal non-whites expressing anti-white attitudes,” tweeted another.
To that, Park wrote “The co-opting of my hashtag by white supremacists have given me new insight into white deviance!”
