Ignore Them
If you've seen the videos, a new one every week, of Black people attacking Asian people, you might come to the conclusion that Black people are attacking Asian people. That they've been doing so for quite some time. This is apparently the wrong conclusion to come to. An inflammatory and inherently violent conclusion to come to. Unfortunately, we can't trust our own eyes, and even if we could, we lack the expertise to put it all into context. Fortunately, we can be sure our media class will be right there with us to hold our hands and help us correctly interpret what we're seeing. We will be asked to analyze all the reasons why these attacks are occurring. We will be asked to meditate on the nuanced interplay between a clever constellation of weighty, academic concepts including, but not limited to: white supremacy, ’the carceral state’, misogyny, capitalism, not-leftist liberals, how your dad didn’t support BLM, the model minority myth, imperialism, media representation. If it appears that generating this requisite worldview to fully understand what we’re seeing seems like a surefire way to develop schizophrenia, there's no need to worry, our media class has already figured it out for you.
Get Out.
Away from the screeching. You can disengage from these 'debates' entirely. In the case of a black man stabbing a Korean woman 40 times in her own bathroom, why the guy did it, or the 'structural forces' that supposedly made this murder inevitable are irrelevant. Would Christina Lee’s death have been more or less palatable if we were certain that the man did it because he had some demons about Northeast Asian geopolitics? If he hated women? When the focus shifts towards understanding this chain of 'root causes' leading up to the murder, Christina Lee's death becomes merely incidental. Unfortunate, no doubt, but you are then drawn to ask, “Isn't Assamad Nash also a victim?” Or, for the more politically deft, “Isn't he really just a symptom of a much larger problem? Given the complexity of the world we live in today, shouldn't we consider a more nuanced approach towards dealing with people like him?” No, on both counts. A black man killed a Korean woman. Fry him.
The premise of the Model Minority Myth is that our parents kept their heads down, kept to themselves in insular ethnic enclaves, and worked hard without major, visible involvement in contemporary movements for social change. This made them vulnerable to be used by right wing forces as an ideological cudgel to delegitimize the demands of black and brown activist movements. They could not correct this cooption, could not exercise political power on behalf of their own interests nor of their minority brethren because they didn’t know any better. They were uninformed. Not about trivial matters, like say, civil engineering or how to provide for a family in a way so selfless our writers cry about it in supermarkets. Our parents didn’t know the language of liberation we take as gospel today. Magnanimously, we don’t always hate them for it, sometimes we pity them.
At the heart of the Harvard admissions scandal were 1st generation Chinese parents who felt that their children were being punished for their academic success. The ensuing backlash from our media class accused our parents of not taking into account the disparate effect the loss of affirmative action would have on black students. They were putting too much emphasis on Harvard; academics weren’t everything, other colleges were just as good. Our parents were once again playing into the Model Minority Myth. What made them so uniquely worthy of our contempt this time around was that they were acting, consciously, as if all of these considerations were irrelevant to them. They were acting without consulting with and learning from the right type of people. Instead, our parents went with what was best for their bottom line, which was what they perceived as the absolute well being of their families. When asked, “Do you want what's best for your children regardless of the political implications?” for better or for worse, they answered, “Yes.”
When you read our writers today, you will note an increasingly concerned tone, hinting that the Asian American 'community' is on the precipice of splintering off into two antagonistic groups. Actually, this split happened decades ago. Asian American is a misnomer not because he is Japanese and you are Cambodian. The competition is not between rich yellows and poor browns. It is between people who believe a community is self-complete and those who believe a community is ever expanding, on its way towards encompassing the whole of humanity.
It is why when the wrong type of Asian American civic group raises objections to New York County DA Alvin Bragg’s explicit commitment to impose a “presumption of pre-trial non-incarceration for every case” and actively avoid mandatory minimums, they are then directed to first ponder all the reasons why a habitual, violent offender who spent very little time in any sort of correctional institution might attack someone for no apparent reason. You see, if you really think about it, really listen to our academics and experts, the offender's aggression is just an extension of American imperial wars in Asia, a case of whiteness, somehow, some way, pitting minority against minority yet again. Endless reflections on how publicly identifying the murderer as a black man perpetuates the image of black criminality. How this might affect the hard won gains won by our fabled multiracial working class coalition fighting for racial solidarity and every other thing that is good in this world. Before you do anything, remember to consider everything first.
If you find this reasoning to be spineless and obscene, and you believe that Asian Americans being physically attacked is reason enough to say no to these masturbatory worldbuilding exercises, you’ll find yourself on the wrong side of the Asian American split. You are implying that our media class isn’t just wrong, but that they are unimportant to you. Your sympathy has human limits, their pride does not. You will be called a racist, a fascist, a misogynist, a house slave, an MRAsian, a pick-me. Then you will be told that you are overreacting if you object to being called these things. It is only natural that your higher ups, in all their moral clarity, tell the world what you really are. And while you unwisely prepare to explain yourself and prove why you are not these things, consider that nothing you say will change these people’s minds. They were going to call you that anyway. It’s their job.