Complacency: The Asian American Pandemic
As an Asian American growing up in NYC I’ve never found it difficult to connect with others who come from a similar background as me. I’ve attended a Korean American church for as long as I can remember, and it was within this community that I found solace and comfort. After spending so many stagnant years I thought that I had familiarized myself with the relatively neutral attitude many Asian Americans use to approach social situations until COVID suddenly struck.
The COVID pandemic arguably redefined our lives, changing the way we connect with one another on both personal and global scales. It also coincided with lots of different social movements as increased media usage shared information rapidly across millions of devices. When the Black Lives Matter movement amassed headlines this summer following the death of George Floyd, there was a collective, unprecedented outcry for justice that completely swept the Internet and all my social media feeds. Everyone around me seemed to be constantly active and posting, trying their best to highlight black voices despite the limitations of a national pandemic.
During a time in which loneliness posed itself as another epidemic I was connected to the millions of others on their phones and laptops who had come together for a unified cause. Instagram informationals became an easy, efficient way to spread resources where all the necessary information was arranged in an aesthetically pleasing manner, and spreading videos of police brutality became a popularized method of online activism. However, as people kept posting I began to realize that our heavily curated feeds and followers were acting as repetitive echo chambers. There was definitely a lot of social movement but I was still seeing silence from the people that I had previously interacted with most, my Asian American friends and family.
Many of my friends suddenly grew inactive, preferring not to take a stand on what they believed to be a politicized and more importantly, polarized, issue. I grew particularly frustrated after I saw a post of a yellow square captioned #yellowlivesmattertoo during the height of the movement, and the normalized racism during Sunday zoom calls with my Korean American church forced me to stop attending them altogether. When my youth group pastor condemned the actions of BLM protestors I was surprised to find my friends excusing her behavior as good intentions that had been misconstrued. The complacency that I saw around me was one that I recognized within myself, and it bothered me to no end.
Fortunately, this inaction was also counterbalanced by calls to action spread by my more liberal classmates and community leaders. People began to spread posts discussing why anti-blackness was and still is an Asian American problem, translating important BLM terms into different languages so we could have conversations with our families that went beyond social media. These posts discussed how Asian Americans have been historically perceived as a model minority at the expense of other marginalized communities, turning us into accomplices of white supremacy simply through our participation in a corrupt, circular system.
I realized that our protests weren’t only to obtain justice but to remember the things that had been forgotten by mainstream media. Remembering the names of the people that our government failed to protect, and remembering our joint histories as people who have been oppressed by a racist system. Remembering how even during the LA Riots when Korean Americans and African Americans violently clashed, the police chose to protect the privileged, white communities who lived in wealthy neighborhoods. Remembering how the Civil Rights Movement spearheaded by African American leaders had given Asian Americans the visibility that we enjoy today.
As time progressed social media became an interesting platform for discourse. People would post their thoughts on an Instagram swipe through and others would add on and respond to the points raised by commenting or producing their own content. The same Asian American community that had been silent began to ask questions and conversations steadily lead to understanding. Lots of people who had been discouraged and felt like the BLM protests were overshadowing the COVID racism that the Asian American communities were facing realized the similarities between the two situations. During conversations with my parents they had initially been critical of the violence that was associated with BLM despite the distinction between protestors and rioters, saying that the black community had repeatedly looked down on Asian Americans issues. Through constructive discussions we eventually reached a point of agreement about recognition being more than just a singular act. Just because we highlight a particular community’s wounds doesn’t mean that we’re undermining others.
The pandemic and the BLM movement are still ongoing struggles that remain relevant in our daily lives, and we must take responsibility for our shared futures. As activist Yuri Kochiyama said during her work with the Civil Rights Movement, we must “fight against racism and polarization, [learning] from each others’ [struggles].” Our individual experiences remain valuable but it’s important to remember that there are issues we can all work together on, issues that require a collective to inspire national change.
