I am outraged by the attacks on our Asian elders and this spike in hate crimes—fueled by ongoing xenophobia that has always impacted our communities & the deeply sinophobic rhetoric around COVID-19.

But the answer isn't attacking other communities or erasing our own communities.

This is not a new phenomenon. South Asian, Muslim, and Sikh communities have been facing relentless attacks over the last two decades.

Where was our outrage when gurdwaras were attacked? Where was our outrage when mosques were bombed?

. @TazzyStar has done relentless work on this. Islamophobia has been a threat to so many Asian Americans for decades now. As she puts it, "Our social justice is tied up with one another." https://twitter.com/TazzyStar/status/1360061495812366342

After the 2016 election cycle, @SAALTweets found a 45% increase in hate violence and xenophobic political rhetoric targeting South Asian, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu communities—at the highest levels since 9/11.

https://saalt.org/report-communities-on-fire-confronting-hate-violence-and-xenophobic-political-rhetoric/

Anti-Black responses to these attacks is NOT how we get out of this crisis. 1/ It is facetious to call on Black communities to be aligned with Asian communities if we refuse to support Black liberation, 2/ white supremacy is at the root of these attacks, no matter the perpetrator

This shows how tenuous our racial status is. As conservative Asians continue to fight for a "colorblind" approach to the law and attempt to narrow the distance between East Asians and whiteness, we are made worse by taking whiteness as the normative baseline for our "liberation."

While the US was working to exclude us, Asians were fighting for our rights by... *claiming* whiteness or our proximity to it. Ozawa, Gong Lum, Bhagat Singh Thind. At every turn the Court made it clear we weren't white and used these cases to entrench whiteness and define race.

Asian Americans quickly became a useful tool for white supremacy to be a racial wedge—we know the model minority myth, but it's not just to erase issues AsAms face. It's to deepen the control of white supremacy over all communities of color and break alliances.

As our communities face increasing attack right now, conservative East Asians are embracing being the racial wedge by arguing against affirmative action in the courts, advocating for increased policing, and threatening Black communities.

This is white supremacy succeeding.

If we want to see an end to attacks/hate crimes against any and all Asian American communities, we have to end the persistent anti-Blackness in our advocacy. We need to join Black people in their fight for liberation. That's our pathway forward for safety and freedom.

. @terisasiagatonu has some incredible lessons on her feed about this moment. But this tweet is so important. There's no one table that we should be focused on fighting to get a "seat" at. We have the ability to build a bigger damn table. https://twitter.com/terisasiagatonu/status/1358820276306276352

. @reappropriate is sounding the alarm on the disgusting, terrifying harassment directed at Asian American women for their advocacy.

And this shit isn't new. It happens all the time. Every time there is a moment of awareness. And we still let it happen. https://twitter.com/reappropriate/status/1359636452376682497