What also isn’t new in times of anti-Asian sentiment is the focus on relationships between Black and Asian communities. Many of the attacks that have gained widespread attention have featured Black assailants, and have threatened to inflame tensions between Asian Americans and Black Americans. While Vox found no evidence that Black Americans are predominantly responsible for this rise in attacks, or that they are particularly hostile to Asian Americans relative to the rest of the population, the narrative of Black-Asian hostility is rooted in immigration and economic policies that have historically pitted these communities against one another.
In America, “what we need to realize is that there’s this timeless structure, in which there’s always one group on top and another at the bottom,” Scott Kurashige, professor and chair of comparative race and ethnic studies at Texas Christian University, told Vox. “Though there certainly is an unchanged structure in the sense that this country has had a white supremacist ruling class structure since the beginning, it’s not the same techniques of governance or the same ideology, and certainly not the same people.”
Ultimately, there is a failure to remember what got America to this place of racial hierarchies and lingering Black-Asian tensions: white supremacy. White supremacy is what created segregation, policing, and scarcity of resources in low-income neighborhoods, as well as the creation of the “model minority” myth — all of which has driven a wedge between Black and Asian communities. In fact, it is white Christian nationalism, more than any other ideology, that has shaped xenophobic and racist views around Covid-19, according to a recent study. And for Black and Asian American communities to move forward, it is important to remember the root cause and fight together against it.
There is already a long history of Black-Asian solidarity against oppression and structural racism, which has been obscured by these recent fissures. In the late 1960s, for instance, Black and Asian activists led the Third World Liberation Front movement to establish race and ethnic studies in college and university curriculums in California. And today, members of both communities are showing up for each other in demonstrations for Black lives and against anti-Asian violence.
“This is a moment for us to really tell that history to share that not only have Asians and other immigrants and people of color been blamed and scapegoated, but that there’s also a history of our community, mobilizing, and demanding change and action — that we’ve stood in solidarity together with other communities,” said Cynthia Choi, co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate.