How to help your Asian friends this week

Credit: Ruth Chan (https://www.facebook.com/ruthkchan)

A friend asked this of me: “Please let me know if you have suggestions for how I could be a stronger ally. I’m always looking for ways to improve myself. I don’t want you to just be seen and heard: I want you to be safe and well”. And his words really moved me.

I want to share the response I gave him in case anyone else feels helpless this week and wants to do more:

• Elevating minority voices is a good first step as an ally (which is why it means a lot that people re-shared my last post). You have an audience and reach that I simply do not. You might even have friends who don’t have any Asian friends, and your ability to share an Asian’s perspective with them can go a long way. I used to do advocacy work for AAPIs at my company and partner with other marginalized groups. Our biggest struggle was getting white people to show up for those events and convos. We already know our issues, and it’s like preaching to the choir when a lot of our friends already know/experience our struggle. But you have a reach that we don’t. You have a network to tap into that we are not apart of (or not invited to). The other reason this is so important- I think about reports that Dylan Roof had second thoughts for a minute because the church parishioners were so nice. Sadly, it wasn’t enough to stop him from releasing a massacre upon them. I have NO sympathy for a white supremacist and murderer, but I can’t help wondering if exposure to black lives and voices sooner might’ve made him question his hateful, white supremacist views sooner.
• Profile photo updates are meaningful in showing solidarity, but they don’t do much beyond that and can run the risk of oversimplifying the issue. Like, most racist people aren’t going to be swayed by seeing a banner that says “STOP ASIAN HATE”, they need to actually understand what racist behavior means. Racist behavior isn’t just hate crimes and slurs. There’s a lot more there, which I’ll unpack below.
• Think about how jokes might be harmful and CALL IT OUT when that happens. Your silence or your laughter is complicity. Note that a minority in the same situation may not speak out because they are in a different position from you. Their silence or laughter does not mean they condone the joke. The Atlanta shooter has blamed his violence on a sex addiction, but there’s nothing that should make an Asian massage parlor any more sexual than, say, a Turkish bath. But society makes frequent jokes about “happy endings” and those jokes have contributed to the hyper-sexualization of Asian women. I’m not trying to kill all humor (the common gripe when we ask people to be more thoughtful about jokes), I just want people to recognize that jokes can come with unfunny consequences. Other examples: calling Covid “the China Flu” or “Kung Flu”, jokes that emasculate Asian men, jokes about “yellow fever”, etc.
• Similarly, help us dismantle the model minority myth. I saw a social media post this week where someone scoffed at the idea that Asians are suffering because “they’re all doctors and engineers driving around in their BMWs”. This is far from the truth. Asian is a huge bucket, akin to saying “Europeans”, and not all Asians are doing well in this country. 12% of Asian-Americans are living below the poverty line — 20 percent for Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders (source). To put that suffering into perspective in our current pandemic- a third of the nurses who’ve died of coronavirus in the US are Filipino, even though Filipino nurses only make up just 4% of the nursing population (source). Asians are suffering, and the model minority myth obscures this.
• Recognize that the media and our government have have an incentive to create fear and xenophobia in this country. They want to create an “us vs. them narrative” because it drives up nationalism or sells papers. Once you realize this, you’ll start seeing it everywhere. In fact, here’s an example of the exoticism by media and white allyship in response that happened on Twitter this week:

Source: https://twitter.com/ssteingraber1/status/1372224420387946504

Finally, I’ve left these for last because they’re the more typical ways people show allyship in these times. While it is meaningful to see people make a one-time donation or Facebook post or profile pic change in the name of solidarity, these are short-term solutions that will disappear quickly due to society’s short attention span. The recommendations I wrote above are ones that I believe can bring more long-term impact to our community. But to wrap up:

• Don’t stay silent and report hate crimes if you see them: https://stopaapihate.org/
• There are non-profits you can donate time or money to covering everything from legal fees for victims of hate crimes to sexual abuse survivors or trafficked women of Asian descent. Here’s a list. (Fully recognize not everyone is financially able to support, but that’s where re-sharing or re-posting can be valuable!)

Thank you for letting me once again hit you with a massive wall of text. Again, your allyship is SO important and deeply appreciated by me and others in my shoes.