NY Times | Death in Black and White
“At birth, you are given a pair of binoculars that see black life from a distance, never with the texture of intimacy. Those binoculars are privilege; they are status, regardless of your class. In fact the greatest privilege that exists is for white folk to get stopped by a cop and not end up dead when the encounter is over.
Those binoculars are also stories, bad stories, biased stories, harmful stories, about how black people are lazy, or dumb, or slick, or immoral, people who can’t be helped by the best schools or even God himself. These beliefs don’t make it into contemporary books, or into most classrooms. But they are passed down, informally, from one white mind to the next.”
I love my Korean American community, but we’re so guilty of biases against our black neighbors. Most or all of us are aware that Korean store employees keep a closer watch on anyone with dark skin who steps inside their store. We’ve seen and laughed at YouTube videos that parody that. They’re funny because they’re true, but it points to the deeper context of troubled minority relations that demands our attention.
We may be the “model minority” but it’s a double-edged sword that gives us a trickled down form of white privilege. It presents Asians as the pristine, overeducated, hardworking, and law-abiding role model of a group BUT it lumps the colorful myriad of Asian communities altogether AND pits fellow minorities against each other. This model minority myth may benefit us to an extent but it’s detrimental from a bird’s eye view of race relations. We might “have it better” than our black peers, but don’t forget about Vincent Chin or the lot of us who are harassed subtly or bluntly just for the way we look.
Things don’t change unless we’re vocal about it! Many of us are silent about our anger and too many more are unaware of race history. We need to educate ourselves as “people of color” and spread awareness of all micro and macro forms of racism in this country. #AsianAmericans4BlackLives #stay woke
Low Fat Nagurt 