Watching today's keynote for the Asian Educators Alliance conference: Frank Wu, on "Asian Americans at a Crossroads."

Wu wrote 'Yellow' to challenge the Black-White paradigm 21 years ago and broaden the conversation to include AAPI folx #ASEA2021 http://asianeducatorsalliance.weebly.com/2021-virtual-conference.html

If we only use a Black-White paradigm, we cannot really understand how race and racism functions in the United States.

Wu notes that in 1903, Du Bois knew that the struggle for racial equality is enhanced when we include the struggles of more people... 2/

Wu points out that the famous DuBois "color line" quote is often taken out of context and in complete. The rest of the quote describes the color line as “the relation of the darker to the lighter races of men in Asia and Africa, in America and the islands of the sea” 3/

Next, Wu points out the presence of AAPI activism throughout all of US history, which is often excluded in schools... 4/

AAPI have the greatest income disparity as a racial group, least likely to be promoted to management... yet the way that anti-Asian racism functions is to whitewash this. Every "positive" trait of AAPI is actually used to stoke resentment. The Model Minority is False Flattery. 5/

Wu connects these racial stereotypes to racist policies such as Japanese Incarceration, and then also points to Dr. Seuss' stereotyped images of Asians in his books around that same time period. 6/

Wu briefly discusses the murder of Vincent Chin in 1982 Detroit as a rallying point in AAPI history.

(And if you haven't already ordered a copy, be sure to order Paula Yoo's new book on Vincent Chin!) 7/ https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/671186/from-a-whisper-to-a-rallying-cry-by-paula-yoo/9781324002871

Mentions the way which AAPI folx have literally lost "life and limb" fighting for the United States (despite racist stereotypes of being perpetual foreigners), including Daniel Inouye and Tammy Duckworth 8/

After taking us through history (and so much I couldn't tweet fast enough to include!), we come to the present moment and current manifestation of anti-Asian racism, and especially the way that Atlanta shooting last month was both racial and gendered 9/

On wanting to (half seriously) write an essay on all the things Asian parents said was wrong... Wu wonders abt how the advice of 1st gen parents might have worked if you were a member of the majority, but Asian Americans as racial minorities might need something different. 10/

Wu argues for a path forward that includes Asian Americans working in racial solidarity with other groups— that this is hard but we need many different ways to try to engage no matter how hard, esp. as Asian Americans can often be the "only one" in many racialized spaces 11/

Wu addresses anti-Blackness in the Asian American community and urges us to resist this and build bridges, not burn them, with other communities of color. White nationalists will not accept you... points out the futility of assimilationism. 12/