In the contemporary frenzy to ally with this marginalized group or to support little known content creators of color, I think it’s important to look at how we conduct ourselves and the actual reasons as to why there is such an emphasized importance on “being an ally.” The only problem with being an ally in today’s day and age, however, is that more of us are focused on looking like we do and say the “right” things rather than actually doing them.
I’ll use myself as an example here. As an Asian man, I “count” as a minority. I fall under the broad categorization of a person of color, a POC, someone who is not white and does not enjoy the inherent privileges and drawbacks of being white. I strongly identify with issues and movements that disproportionately affect POC and other minorities in unfair or biased ways. I consider myself an ally to these movements and ideologies, I support things such as BLM or the continual push to institute meaningful criminal justice reform. I think the way that this country treats its Black and Hispanic populations is shit and I think the current efforts to rectify it leave much to be desired.
But I’m not Black. Nor am I Hispanic. Or Native American or any number of “more oppressed” ethnicities. Personally speaking, from my own interactions with other people and from what I’ve seen in the places I’ve gone and the places I’ve been, I’ve never felt discriminated against or have been made to feel unsafe simply for being Asian. I don’t “feel” oppressed, so what does that have to do with me identifying with movements which, historically, have tried to represent some of the most downtrodden and exploited members of our community?
A lot of it has to do with the idea of projection, I think. The Black experience in America is vastly different than the Asian experience and I am not making an argument for who has “suffered” more or less. That’s not the point of this piece. The question I’m trying to ask is, Why do I feel like I’ve got it too good to be of any help? Why do I still feel a sense of camaraderie with Black and Hispanic movements despite not being apart of either of those communities or being subject to the same “level” or types of discrimination. In typical liberal fashion, the answer has a lot to do with white people.
As a minority in America, in the sense of the word that means I’m not white or look white, I think there is a sort of collective experience that all POC can relate to, a sort of community that has been built around the consequences of colonialism and imperialism in our mother countries and the glass ceilings we’ve had to break through to be seen as valid members of our social, academic, and professional circles. I can already sense the “Oh god not another lecture on white privilege,” coming, but hold on, just give me a minute. What is important to take from the white privilege: its existence, how it can affect the power dynamics in certain relationships, how pervasive it can be in every day interactions, is that a community and sense of community has been built thanks to its existence.
POC can laugh and joke about the fact that white women stereotypically ask for the manager before they ask the employee in front of them for help or how tone deaf white people as a whole can be to conversations about race and systemic inequities. Minorities as a whole can take solace in the fact that they’re not white, and because they’re not white, they have been treated or thought of a certain way that other POC and minorities can relate to. We can laugh about or relate to experiences in which white people, white privilege, and the cultural expectations and stark realities of such interactions and experiences, have affected us. And thanks to this established community, these same POC and minorities can take their own prejudices, about themselves or each other, or sometimes both, and project them onto to a cutout of a white Republican, or a racist soccer mom, or a tone deaf grandmother. The consequence of this is white bogeymen are created (that probably exist, right?) who can serve as a vehicle for personal prejudice and racism.
These bogeymen absolve the person in question from confronting their own privilege and their own imperfections, allowing them to straddle an increasingly ambiguous line when it comes to fantasy and reality. It uses the aftermath of colonialism and the historical exploitation of minority and indigenous populations to justify the person’s own actions and beliefs. (“I hate white liberals, they don’t do anything helpful. They insert themselves into narratives and make the story about themselves and how they feel, they advocate for something universally good that barely connects to the actual issue, like healthcare or mental health, and they call it a day.”) More or less I think it boils down to a double standard of “Well, when a white person does it it’s bad because of they have white privilege and benefited from colonialism, but when I do it it’s different ‘cos I’m a part of those affected communities and I don’t have those advantages.”
But how does this relate to my questions from earlier? How does white privilege circle back to me not feeling “oppressed” enough to be a voice for change or me feeling like I’m not “allowed” to sympathize and advocate for marginalized issues and movements, specifically Black and Hispanic ones? I’ll say this in the crudest and incendiary way possible: Asians are the white people of minorities.
Heavy, heavy disclaimer: this is solely based off of my experiences so far and what I’ve gathered from 20 years worth of expertise in living as an Asian man. I am not attempting to deny the fact that race related violence has impacted members of the Asian community or that Asians have not faced widespread discrimination or abuse in America (here’s to looking at you, EO 9066). I am saying, that in relative terms, when compared to other dominant minority groups in this country, the treatment of Asians isn’t nearly as bad.
People don’t assume I’m a gang member or get scared of me when I walk by. I don’t get pulled over while driving for inane traffic violations. Police officers don’t murder my compatriots in droves and I don’t get sneers when I speak in Vietnamese. Of course, there are plenty of shitty, racist things and stereotypes that Asian people are subjected to, I am not denying that. But on this so-called “spectrum of racism and oppression,” Asians, and most other fair-skinned (read: white looking) minorities do pretty well.
Does my own privilege as an Asian man take away from my attempted contributions to other movements within the minority community? How much of this is based around colorism rather than racism, and how much of this happens to be the result of where I was raised and grew up? These are questions whose answers I’m still looking for, so I’ll get back to you on that.
So what does any of this have to do with being an ally? To take a quote from Kyle Korver’s essay on his own white privilege, the same sort of idea applies to myself and other POC who have managed to avoid the brunt of racism and hate:
“I’m still in this conversation from the privileged perspective of opting in to it. Which of course means that on the flip side, I could just as easily opt out of it. Every day, I’m given that choice — I’m granted that privilege — based on the color of my skin.”
I’m not being directly effected by police brutality. My citizenship or “right to be here” doesn’t get questioned because of my skin color. But I’m also not white and I can’t use my race or the systemic and cultural privileges that they entail to get me out of those sorts of situations. My activism isn’t a result of guilt or of obligation. It’s the product of being deeply agitated by seeing young Black men and women having their lives ripped away from them because of some cop with an itchy trigger finger. It’s the result of seeing deeply racist and flawed ideologies slowly normalized in the news cycle and reading through false equivalency after false equivalency in order to justify these very same shit policies and political positions. It’s because, and I like to think, I’m a good person.
Being a “good” ally is predicated on much more than retweeting Chrissy Teigen dunking on mass incarceration or your favorite artist denouncing global warming. Being a good ally revolves around giving a platform to the marginalized voices you seek to empower, to step aside and actively listen about subjects you’ve read about but don’t know about. Most of all, I think, it revolves around holding yourself accountable for the prejudices that you have and making an active effort to educate yourself on the issues you want to fight for, rather continually advocating for caricatures and stereotypes of what you think POC or members of the Black and Hispanic and LGBTQ+ community are dealing with.
To be blunt, be the activist you pretend to be online.
