Week 9: Vy Nguyen A02

This week's readings discuss the importance of solidarity amongst minority groups. In Soya Jung's article, she talks about “Why Ferguson Matters to Asian Americans" as well as African-Americans. Particularly how the murder of Mike Brown is “another deadly outcome of white supremacy [to bodies of color] in a human rights crisis that spans cities, nations, centuries” (Jung, 2014, pg. 2).

One of the reasons Mike Brown's murder left an impact on Asian Americans is because of the rage that was expressed. As silence is not consent, Asian Americans have vocalized and is still vocalizing injustices that have imposed upon them. They believe that by vocalizing their thought and anger, not only are they freeing themselves from that anger, but they are also freeing others from the same feeling. Another reason is because America has the tendency to “normalize” deaths of color. In the case of Mike Brown, mainstream media portrays his murder as a narrative of black criminality. In the case of Sandeep Singh, a 29 year-old man who got ran over and dragged by a white war gets marginalized and forgotten. Claire Kim explains this phenomenon as “the racial triangulation theory” (Kim, 1999) -- how Asian Americans “often end up somewhere in the chasm between blackness and whiteness - whether [they are] largely invisible and struggling to dodge the crossfire” (pg. 3) or is standing on the wrongside of the color line.

Given the common grounds in which both African and Asian Americans share, I believe instead of neglecting one another, as minority groups, they should be aligning in solidarity and dimizing underlying forces that have continuously produced deadly outcomes of color. This is because if both groups continue to marginalize one another out of each other's movements for racial equality, they are essentially letting white supremacy pit themselves against each other. This might as well lead to another Sa-I-Gu, a tragic event that pit Korean and African Americans against each other and left both groups in physical, emotional and psychological pain.

Sa-I-Gu (1992 Los Angeles Riot)

Question: What are some practical steps to enforce solidarity amongst minority groups?

Reference:

1. Jung, S. (2014, August 24). Why Ferguson Matters to Asian Americans. Retrieved May 28, 2017, from https://www.racefiles.com/2014/08/20/why-ferguson-matters-to-asian-americans/
2. Kim, Claire Jean. "The racial triangulation of Asian Americans." Politics & Society 27.1 (1999): 105-138.
3. Longstreath, D. (2012, August 2). How Koreatown Rose From The Ashes Of L.A. Riots [Digital image]. Retrieved from http://www.npr.org/2012/04/27/151524921/how-koreatown-rose-from-the-ashes-of-l-a-riots