This comment section is a goldmine
There’s a video from the Empressive Channel about Nicki Minaj being accused of cultural appropriation when she performed Chun Li on SNL. The general consensus is:
I don’t know any Asians who care!/I’m Asian (from Asia) and I don’t care!
It’s a video game character she’s dressing up as! Not a race!
It’s not appropriation! It’s appreciation!
Nicki can’t appropriate her own culture! She’s Japanese!
But one thing I kept finding was:
But Asians are always appropriating/disrespecting black culture!
There’s a lot to unload there, but let’s focus on this gem which is a lot more specific:
I don’t want to pit POC against each other because that’s counter-productive to any sort of progress. I will however, acknowledge that blackface is still being used in overseas Asian media but I want to give some more context to that because I feel that there’s certain things that are often overlooked and need to be addressed before people jump to conclusions that we’re all anti-black. But first, I wanna point out is that the user who made this comment in this screenshot specifically points at East Asia however, as a SEA, I know it also sadly exists in other regions of Asia too. And hell, blackface isn’t exclusively an Asian phenomenon (have you seen Black Pete during Christmastime in the Netherlands?) but I can’t speak for the rest of the globe. Some of what I’m about to say might apply to other non-Asian societies that practice blackface as a form of entertainment though.
There’s no denying that America has a very terrible history of unjust treatment towards the black community from slavery and segregation all the way to racist characterizations in the media and it doesn’t even stop there. Asia does not share the same past as America simply from the fact that our contact with black people has historically been very minimal, if not, non-existent. Even today, we have very homogeneous Asian societies and consequently, we don’t have exposure to different perspectives, experiences and identities, namely that of an African-American. Additionally, it’s unreasonable to expect each foreign country to have an extensive understanding of American history which blackface is rooted in because the world doesn’t revolve around the US. Hell, it’s not like the US public school system really gives you an in-depth look of other cultures or their histories either. As such, the prominence of blackface all across Asia stems from a lack of awareness and education about the plight of African-Americans. I’m not excusing this practice because it’s undoubtedly insensitive and toxic, but again, I’m just giving you context that is more often than not, glossed over. And that is not to say ALL Asians are ignorant of the connotations of blackface. As an Asian-American who grew up *ding ding ding* America and as a result, have been taught in academia about its historical context, I find blackface extremely offensive. This isn’t just the “exception to the rule” type of thing, there’s many other Asians (some from overseas but many are Asian-American) who think blackface is extremely racist too but I find that people choose to not recognize this about is and instead, are quick to call us the enemy like the user who made this very awful comment about invalidating the Asian-American experience. Why can’t we just work together and be allies though? We need to educate one another and listen to what needs to be said instead of automatically turning against each other within the snap of a finger. This attempt to paint an entire race as anti-black is a very harmful generalization. I’m not here for anti-black sentiments and I’m not here for anti-Asian bs either, but this need to invalidate the Asian-American experience because you’ve seen Asians do something disrespectful to your own culture and therefore we’re all bad is well, extremely detrimental. We shouldn’t be fighting against each other, but we should fight against the injustices of POC together instead.
Now back to "Chun Li:” this came out long ago, but it’s still one of the most recent and biggest forms of casual Asian racism in American pop culture that I can think of. What’s more is that in this age of social media, I’ve seen non-Asians trying to speak on my behalf saying that it’s not appropriation. If not that, it’s other Asians being accepting of it as if they are the sole representative of my race. None of you speak for me. For us who find fault in “Chun Li” as well as other parts of Nicki’s career, we’ve pretty much been silenced because people made the decision to not hear what we have to say. It’s just your everyday, typical reaction to anything that deals with Asian-American issues, that is, it doesn’t matter. Nicki, as talented and as iconic as she is, does not care about us beyond the chopsticks in our hair (what the fuck) and using bastardized forms of different East Asian cultures to look the part of a “Harajuku Barbie” (what the fuck pt 2). That’s not appreciation; it’s a shallow perpetuation of our “otherness.” We’ll touch on that some other time though because that’s going to be a long read.
