so i’m bringing this back bc apparently there have been a couple of misunderstandings abt my addition:
police brutality is not limited to blm.
the justice system doesn’t work for anyone except privileged whites.
i realize that it’s hard to combat racism when the history and examples are muddled, so this is my best attempt at clearing things up.
asians have never been privileged, and those who enforce the “model minority” stereotype are erasing history and trying to retain power by belittling others.
in case you didn’t know—because school doesn’t teach this stuff—america was very racist towards anyone who wasn’t white! spoiler alert, this wasn’t limited to blacks!!
so here are some historical examples of context. this will be followed up by another reblog containing more modern examples of discrimination because it’s simply too much information to add in one reblog.
DISCRIMINATORY LEGISLATION
the naturalization act of 1790 — (full text)
barred all immigrants other than those of white descent from ever becoming a legal citizen of the united states.
the naturalization act of 1870 — (full text)
included “african allies” in the population eligible for naturalization, but still excluded everyone else.
following the gold rush of the 1850s in california, a number of discriminatory legislative acts were passed:
the anti-coolie act of 1862 —(full text)
at the time, chinese populations in the US were referred to (derogatorily) as “coolies”—hence the name of this act. this act enforced a foreign miner’s tax of $3 monthly ($94.55 in today’s dollars) on chinese laborers; a hefty sum for a single miner. (a more detailed history of the treatment of chinese immigrants during the gold rush)
the page act of 1875 — (full text)
effectively barred entry to all east asian women because they supposedly “carried distinct germs to which they were immune, but from which whites would die if exposed” (cue colonial flashbacks). many of these women worked in the sex industry, because the california state legislature had fundamentally misunderstood the nature of asian immigration. the asian men who immigrated to california to work on railroads and mine gold had to pay back brokers who paid for their trip: plus interest. this lead to them not being able to send money home to their families, which led to an influx of immigration from female workers as well, who were then unable to find profitable work in california when they got here; hence, the start of the proliferation of asian women in the california prostitution industry. eventually, this led to the fear that some white people believed that germs and disease could most easily be transmitted to white men through labor of chinese prostitutes. fun, yeah?
also, “the appearance of the body and clothing supposedly offered a range of possible clues about inner character, on which some officials drew when trying to differentiate prostitutes from real wives.” bodily clues used to examine chinese women included bound feet, “prettiness, youth, demeanor,” and how they walked. however, the task of differentiating “real” wives from prostitutes was virtually impossible. men, on the other hand, faced more lenient restriction practices and were not required to “carry photographs, nor to match photographs that had been sent in advance to san francisco port authorities.”
so let’s add a heavy dose of sexism to that, but that’s not what we’re here for.
this act separated families almost permanently: wives could not immigrate to america to reunite with their husbands, and women seeking job opportunities in america would almost certainly be denied.
the chinese exclusion act of 1882 — (full text)
oh boy. this one’s a banger.
as gold became harder to find and competition increased, animosity toward the chinese and other foreigners increased. they were basically kicked out the mining industry entirely (see the foreign miner’s tax) and took up other low-wage jobs, forming enclaves now known as “chinatowns” in places like san francisco. public opinion and law in california began to demonize chinese workers and immigrants in any role, and eventually laws were placed not only restricting labor, but also dictating behavior and living conditions (where they could settle: redlining, but not subtle at all).
“Although widespread dislike for the Chinese persisted well after the law itself was passed, of note is that some capitalists and entrepreneurs resisted their exclusion because they accepted lower wages.” ➡ cue white men blaming chinese men for depressing wages, when they’re really blaming the wrong people.
capitalism :’) but we’re not here to talk about that either.
“The laws were driven largely by racial concerns; immigration of persons of other races was unlimited during this period.”
everyone knew it was blatantly racist. did they care? nope.
it also started the cycle of heavy policing along the us-mexico border, as bans on chinese immigration to the us led to an influx of immigration to mexico.
the gentlemen’s agreement of 1907
an informal agreement between the united states and japan for the united states to not enact any formal immigration policies and for japan to stop sending emigrants to the us.
immigration act of 1917 (also known as the literacy act) — (full text)
aimed to restrict immigration by imposing literacy tests on immigrants, creating new categories of inadmissible persons, and barring immigration from the asia-pacific zone. one section of the law designated an “asiatic barred zone” from which people could not immigrate, including much of asia and the pacific islands. the zone, defined through longitudinal and latitudinal coordinates, excluded immigrants from china, british india, afghanistan, arabia, burma (myanmar), siam (thailand), the malay states, the dutch east indies, the soviet union east of the ural mountains, and most polynesian islands. neither the philippines nor japan was included in the banned zone. the idea of the “yellow peril” was introduced at this time, which framed east asians as an existential threat to western civilization. there’s more to this act, including the effects on illiterate europeans and people who were “mentally defective” or “persons with constitutional psychopathic inferiority” (read: people who admitted they were gay).
immigration act of 1924 (also known as the asian exclusion act) — (full text pt. 1; full text pt. 2)
prevented immigration from asia, set quotas on the number of immigrants from the eastern hemisphere, and provided funding and an enforcement mechanism to carry out the longstanding ban on other immigrants. apparently established “to preserve the ideal of U.S. homogeneity” (read: white protestants are considered superior), the bill was passed with minimal congressional resistance. literally everyone in congress was racist :’) fun times.
immigration act of 1952 (do you see a pattern here?) — (full text)
abolished racial restrictions found in United States immigration and naturalization statutes, but retained a quota system for nationalities and regions. established a preference system that determined which ethnic groups were “desirable” (racism, but subtler :’) and placed great importance on labor qualifications. defined three types of immigrants: immigrants with special skills or who had relatives who were US citizens, who were exempt from quotas and who were to be admitted without restrictions; average immigrants whose numbers were not supposed to exceed 270,000 per year; and refugees.
“Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.“
(aka this law was the one invoked by trump when he banned people from majority-muslim countries from immigrating to the united states. sound familiar yet?)
ANOTHER KEY PROVISION (added in the amendment in 1965):
“No person shall receive any preference or priority or be discriminated against in the issuance of an immigrant visa because of the person’s race, sex, nationality, place of birth, or place of residence.”
sounds nice, until you realize that religion, sexual identity, sexual preferences, and political leanings aren’t included. neither is a person’s physical constitution, which was actively used in discriminating against disabled persons, among others.
“Before the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, the U.S. Bureau of Immigration vetted newcomers to the United States and often denied entry to new immigrants on subjective conclusion of “perverse” acts such as homosexuality, prostitution, sexual deviance, crime of moral turpitude, economic dependency, or “perverse” bodies like hermaphrodites [intersex] or individuals with abnormal or small body parts during the period from 1900 to 1924. During this time, immigration authorities denied immigrants entry on this subjective basis by issuing “likely to be a public charge.” However, by the 1950s, the immigration authorities solidified this screening measure into law when they enacted a provision against prostitution or any so-called “immoral sexual act”. In addition, aliens deemed feeble-minded, mentally disabled, physically defective, or professional beggars were also ineligible for admission.”
yeah. discrimination goes way back, and we never learn about this stuff in schools.
today, most of these acts have been repealed, but their scars still linger. chapter 7 of title 8 of the united states code is still titled “Exclusion of Chinese”, though the statutes within are labeled as “repealed” or “omitted.”
anyways, blatantly racist legislature allowed for even more blatantly racist actions, which led to a number of massacres. yes, you read that right. massacres. we don’t learn about this stuff in history class, yeah? well, that’s why i’m writing this now. sensitive topics below the cut.
TW: HEAVY TOPICS, DESCRIPTIONS (SOMETIMES RATHER GRAPHIC) OF DEATH AND L*NCHING, MOB JUSTICE, VIOLENCE, AND MORE. please read at your own discretion. descriptions of massacres and disease are included.
