America has a complicated history of racial violence. Questions of race, white supremacy, and the divisive nature of politics have recently come to the fore again with the rise of racially motivated acts of violence. In May of last year, the Black Lives Matter movement spread worldwide, and millions of people took to the street to protest the murder of George Floyd by a white police officer. The protests exposed not only police brutality and systemic racism but also the fact that race still matters in America.
The reasons why racial disparity and hate crimes continue to exist are often hard to explain. It is difficult to extricate individual motivations from systemic biases. However, between what is and what could be, the only resounding truth is that racial profiling, hate crimes, and systemic racism not only exist but are increasingly affecting citizen’s life.
Recently, in an allegedly racially motivated shooting, six Asian women were murdered in Atlanta, Georgia. In response, multiple country-wide protests were held. Many Asians came forward with first-hand accounts of experiencing racial profiling, racism, and hate crimes. Influencer and You Tuber, Kaiti Yoo, spoke of her experience as an Asian American in a recently posted video. She said, “… I’m so used to feeling invisible in this country” and that she is “… working through the grief” she feels at the senseless shooting of fellow Asian Americans.
Anti-Asian Hate Crime and The Model Minority Myth
The rise of anti-Asian sentiments during Covid-19 has been alarming but not surprising. In fact, BBC reports, “FBI warned at the start of the Covid outbreak in the US that it expected a surge in hate crimes against those of Asian descent”. Concurrently, racist jokes such as Coronavirus spreading from eating bats in China and insensitive remarks regarding ethnic and racial minorities have also increased.
The complicated history of Asian American violence takes root in an ‘othering’ of a racial minority and the hatred perpetuated by systemic biases and in the insidious nature of the ‘Model Minority Myth’. The myth of a model minority is a problematic, myopic, and stereotypical view of the Asian American community. It stresses on the mathematical and musical competence of Asian Americans and does more harm than good. This emphasis on the intelligence and relative success of Asian Americans leads immigrant parents to pressure their children to do well academically. Unhealthy stereotyping of an entire community has shaped the national narrative of the Asian American experience. This has led to a widespread belief that Asian Americans have it ‘easier’ than other minorities. Therefore, racially motivated hate crimes and acts of violence against Asian Americans are under-reported.
The complex mechanisms underpinning racial hate and violence in America are unravelling one protest at a time. The rising voices of racial minorities and the growing outrage are slowly bringing a revolution and a new imagination of America: where race matters but for the right reasons.
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Mahrukh Murad is a Pakistani writer. She aspires to harness the creative streak in human nature and embody it in her work. Her poetry has previously been published in TeenInk, The Waggle magazine, The Pangolin Review, Rigorous Magazine, Pleiades Magazine. Her articles have been featured on The Nation and The Aman Project.