TW for racism, antiblackness, death, police violence, police brutality, and discussion of the murder of #GeorgeFloyd in this thread.

I have a message directed specifically at my fellow Asian Americans during all this. I want to remind you that one of the four officers who murdered Mr. George Floyd was an Asian American man named Tou Thao.

And I am asking you, insisting you, to Denounce Him. Do not defend him, do not sympathize with him because he is Asian too, do NOT get angry when Black people are upset with him and with our community at large. Thao does not deserve your support.

Thao is only one of us in that he is a reminder of our place in the oppression of Black people. Otherwise, exile him. We owe him nothing. In Thao’s murdering of Mr. George Floyd, he has betrayed the Black community, and so he has also
betrayed us.

Thao is a symptom of a greater disease within AsAm (Asian American) communities - antiblackness - and we have a RESPONSIBILITY to the Black community to root it out within ourselves.

This is the model minority myth in action - it divides us from our fellow minorities, BLACK PEOPLE SPECIFICALLY, so that we may be used as a tool of oppression against them. Do not let yourself be complicit in that.

The Black community has a long history of being our siblings in arms. Black folks protested the Vietnam war and the killing of our people, helped us (AsAms at large, not just Vietnamese) get the rights we do have in this country - it is our DUTY to pay them back by doing the same

WE OWE IT TO THE BLACK COMMUNITY, AND TO GEORGE FLOYD.

We CANNOT stand by and watch as the people who we should (but dont) consider our siblings in arms are oppressed and killed because we want to climb the social ladder and achieve conditional whiteness.

And if that isn’t enough to motivate you (though it SHOULD be) - maybe this will: the minute we (AsAms) are not useful to those in power, they will turn on us.

They do not love us - and we have INFINITELY more in common with our Black neighbors (and our Latinx and Native neighbors) than we do with the rich white people in power.

And those rich white people in power? They’re afraid of us minorities being a united front. They’re afraid that we’ll be able too good at advocating for ourselves that way, and that as such we shall destroy their white privilege.

DO NOT cling to the model minority myth and let yourself be the wedge between us and the people we need to most fight for. Stand with the Black community as if they were your brothers and sisters and siblings. Learn your history. Do not be complacent.

#YellowPerilSupportsBlackPower - or at least it should.

#BlackLivesMatter #JusticeForGeorge

[End Thread]