NPR: Baltimore Unrest Reveals Tensions Between African-Americans And Asians (April 30, 2015)

One dimension of the Baltimore protests in April that has received little media attention is the looting of some Asian American businesses during those protests. This piece from National Public Radio fills in some of that reporting gap. Asian American business owners also experienced looting in Ferguson. And of course, many Korean Americans remember quite vividly the kind of looting that took place in L.A.’s Koreatown in 1992, in response to the Rodney King incident. The looting against Asian American businesses in Baltimore, I think, should once again push Asian Americans to think more seriously and soberly about our often fraught relationship with the African American community.

Let me be clear. In what I am about to write below, I am in no way insinuating that Asian Americans are purposefully setting out to profit off of African Americans. Many Asian American business owners are decent, honest, and hard working persons trying to make it in the U.S.

But considering how some Asian American businesses fared in Baltimore, it would be irresponsible of Asian Americans to ignore the kind of question that we don’t seem to want to discuss more openly in a sustained manner (at least in my opinion). The question is this: are Asian Americans insensitive and perhaps willfully ignorant of the problem of race in America, specifically racism against African Americans? To the extent that some African Americans in Baltimore involved in the looting of Asian American businesses suggested that those shops deserved to be vandalized underscores the urgency of the question.

Now of course, no one deserves to be vandalized. What I am trying to call attention to, however, is whether the looting that took place against some Asian American businesses in Baltimore and beyond is symptomatic of a kind of racial tone-deafness among some Asian American small businesses and Asian Americans more generally. I realize that I may be embarking on some very sensitive territory here, but again, it’s a topic that Asian Americans need to discuss more openly as far as I’m concerned.

So let’s start with this proposition. So long as Asian Americans continue to open and operate small businesses in poor and working class African American neighborhoods–laundromats, liquor stores, convenience stores and so on–then Asian Americans need to be a greater part of the neighborhoods in which they do business. Many Asian American businesses owners do just that, but many do not as well. To those who don’t, it’s just not good enough to show up in the morning and then leave at the end of the day without being meaningful participants in the life of that neighborhood. That may be asking a lot from folks who are simply trying to make a living, but it’s not really and shouldn’t be seen as an added burden. Otherwise, we should hardly be surprised if Asian Americans doing business in these communities are perceived as contributing to the economic exploitation of African Americans. If this proposition doesn’t resonate among Asian Americans business owners, then I encourage them to ask why. And in doing so, I am encouraging all Asian Americans to think about racism, whether at the unconscious level or not.

Here’s a reality check: Asian Americans are not immune to racism. By racism I don’t just mean racism against Asian Americans. I don’t want to understate the the persistence of discrimination that many Asian Americans experience routinely. But as much as we need to make more visible the kind of subtle, often covert racism Asian Americans are subject to, we also need to face the reality that we can (and do) dish out the same to others.

One thing that concerns me greatly is the extent to which Asian Americans may be reinscribing, knowingly or unwittingly, patterns of bias against African Americans, especially against economically disadvantaged African Americans. The social forces that may facilitate and bolster such reinscription are complex and varied. In a book chapter that will be coming out later in the fall, I attempt to parse out one possible social force. Specifically, how the desire to assimilate or gain recognition as a peer (or, simply, to “make it”) in mainstream, middle class America, coupled with the actual rise of Asian American educational achievement and economic affluence, can too easily create a false sense that Asian Americans can be a part of American society while being apart from the larger American narrative of racism.

I may post more details about that chapter when it is published in a few months. For now, all I want to emphasize is the following. An attitude that Asian Americans need to guard against is that racism is not an Asian American problem but the problem of others, specifically, between White and Black Americans. But the reality is much different. There’s certainly nothing wrong with wanting a good education and living a comfortable life, but so long as you live in the U.S., you cannot insulate yourself from racism. The challenge is discerning how you and your community are plugged into it. That Asian Americans continue to experience discrimination is one way we are plugged into the narrative of American racism. (On that front, there is a good deal of research that strongly suggests the purported integration of Asian Americans into the mainstream has far from eliminated racism against Asian Americans.) But we also need to think more about whether Asian Americans are plugged into that narrative as racists or unwitting perpetrators of racism.

Coming back to the more specific instance of Asian American businesses in economically challenged neighborhoods of color, here’s a revised version of my earlier proposition. Inasmuch as Asian Americans are part of the American narrative of racism, how Asian Americans conduct business in a particular community of color without regard for that community’s history can reinforce and perpetuate patterns of bias against that community. That’s why doing business is never simply a “value-neutral” act. Business is never just business; this applies to Asian American businesses as much as non-Asian American businesses. Such is the reality–the historical reality–of American society.

A few statistics from from a 2012 Pew study should raise hard questions for Asian Americans. The study finds that 61% of Asian Americans say they get along “pretty well” with whites (26% say “very well”). In comparison, 48% of Asian Americans say their group gets along with African Americans “pretty well” (15% say very well). The Pew study then reports that “Korean Americans have an especially negative view of group relations with blacks.” Only 39% of Korean Americans surveyed say they get along “pretty well” with African Americans (and just 4% say “very well”). From these statistics, I wonder about the extent to which Asian Americans are becoming/have become more socially disconnected to African Americans. Whatever the causes of that disconnection, may it not be the case that greater the disconnection, the greater the insensitivity to the kind of racial legacy and realities African Americans face on a daily basis? Let’s resolve to have this conversation in a sustained, honest, and open manner.

Originally posted on Tumblr.com, June 2015