- Aaron Lam
- Jun 3, 2020
- 2 min read
Here are an article and a study about Asian Americans' relationship to Black Lives Matter and racial relationship between Asian Americans and Black Americans.
A Letter From Young Asian-Americans To Their Families About Black Lives Matter
For Xu, and other younger Asian-Americans who have shown support for the Black Lives Matter movement and anti-police brutality causes, this was disturbing. "To me, clearly justice is about getting justice for these black families," Xu says. "Not about making sure that Asian people have the same privilege as white people."
Complicity and Resistance: Asian American Body Politics in Black Lives Matter
Warning: It's long.
In the midst of the controversy, nonetheless, the most pressing issue is not to debate the accurate or authentic representation of Asian Americanness, but to return to the demand that the BLM movement calls for in the first place, that is, to reclaim what a livable life is. When one speaks of the value of a life, it is impossible to generalize all bodies across the divergent material and political conditions. Instead, one must realize the politics in body not in abstract terms but in their material manifestations. To denounce the political possibility of Asian Americanness is thus not to turn back to the dualist paradigm of Black-white racial antagonism, or to speak for the Other as the ideal, deserving racial subject. Rather, it is critical to challenge the moral and political legitimacy granted through Asian Americanness and to expand the narrow tunnel of survival that has become increasingly restricted by intensified racial profiling and surveillance. As an Asian for Black Lives activist said at Gurley’s vigil, “We must remain vigilant and not let systems divide our communities in what is right—valuing life. At the end of the day, it is about valuing life—Black lives—and finding humanity.” In recognizing our shared vulnerability to white supremacy and the unstable structures of privileges based on race, we can move forward from a racial politics and a national futurity that make life livable only for some and unlivable for the rest.