That antiblack moment when an Asian person in your apartment building keeps glancing back to look at you in the hallway as you walk to YOUR OWN apartment. And this was literally right after we spoke in the elevator but still suspicion and “fear” as I walked behind them. Not to mention the countless times other Asian people in my building have deliberately not held the building door open for me and my black friends when we try to enter after them. Antiblackness as always.
I’ve lived in Taiwan and the US and the depths of antiblackness amongst Asian people still never ceases to amaze me. Did I mention how people in Taiwan who were alone with me in elevators would literally RUN out when they got to their floors (this happened to me twice). Or when a Chinese woman in Chengdu asked if she could prick my skin with a needle so she could see if black people bled BLUE blood unlike human beings which bled red? Or how about when people would rub my skin to see if the black would come off, or tell me not to drink coffee so I wouldn’t become “even more black”? How about my black friend of a friend in Korea who had a student LICK her in class to “see if she tasted like chocolate.” This is just a few of countless experiences of the severe antiblackness in Asian countries.
People love to make excuses for nonblack poc and say “it’s just ignorance” but it’s not. Look at history. Blackface has been commonplace in South Korean media since the 70s and many Kpop stars to this day continue to parade around in blackface with some serial offenders like G-Dragon in just the past few years. In the 80s in China there were several anti-African riots in Chinese universities where Chinese students en masse assaulted African students claiming that they had sexually assaulted Chinese women. Africans in China to this day are subjected to incredible amounts of police harassment and violence. In 2009 a Nigerian migrant in Guangzhou died jumping from a high rise to escape a Chinese police immigration raid. Africans protested in large numbers in Guangzhou after his death. In 2012 another Nigerian migrant died mysteriously in Chinese police custody (sound familiar?) with no answers from the Chinese authorities. This led to more protests by Africans in Guangzhou. In 2012. Not 1912. (x)
And the shit in America with Asian people is the same. Asians running around saying the n word. Putting on blackface (UCLA Asian frat). And I’ve literally been denied service at an Asian restaurant in DC before saying that they “were closed” even as I stared at tables upon tables full of WHITE people. When pushed, the waiter said - “well you can sit here if you want” and ushered me and my black friend into a back side room where nobody would see us. We refused to sit and left.
People wax poetic about “POC solidarity” but honestly I don’t buy it anymore. Haven’t for a while. Non black POC are always clambering over black bodies to try and gain proximity to whiteness. As Toni Morrison says, the second word an immigrant learns when they come to America is “nigger.” And it’s because they know how central and pivotal antiblackness is in white supremacy. They know that finding any way to distance themselves from blackness is their ticket toward whiteness and humanity - just as the Irish and Italians did to become white in America- and so they reproduce the same bullshit as white people if not worse because of it.
I’m so over it. Like I’m literally just living my life and minding my own business and so many Asian people just won’t leave me alone with their antiblackness- no matter where I go. I go to Asia- bullshit. I go to Palestinian rallies where people scream “nigger” at black people- bullshit. I go in online spaces with Asian people defending blackface in Kpop (see FB comments on this post)- bullshit. I go to my own home minding my own business- bullshit. I’m so fucking over it. Just leave me alone if you have not done any work to dismantle all of your community’s internalized antiblackness.
