a chinese person's thoughts on the Cyrus Carmack-Belton and Rick Chow case
just to preface:
- we are actually chinese.
- there is a huge problem of anti-blackness in the asian american community, especially the east asian community. i am not ashamed of admitting that. i am only ashamed that we even have this problem. it's disgusting how most asian americans believe that as long as we are on the white man's side we will get rewarded. we will not.
- because we were raised in this community, and although we unlearned many racist ideas that were taught to us, we might still subconsciously be biased. please please please tell us (in a civic manner, please) when we do this.
- we are NOT, I repeat NOT on the Chow family's side. I hope they rot.
- if a section, word, sentence, hell, even this entire post leads you to believe that we even feel the slightest bit empathy or sympathy or positive emotion towards that family PLEASE tell me. again, we are unlearning a lot of the racist ideology that we've learned.
- if this post isn't clear or is ambiguous, please tell us and we will reiterate or ask you to please educate us SO we can reiterate.
- and if you want us to add more or to correct something, please let me know.
hello. if you haven't read the title or the preface, please do. this is a chinese person's thoughts on the Cyrus Carmack-Belton and Rick Chow case.
first, i'd like to point out that the asian american community has a HUGE anti-blackness problem. GIANT. just note that for this post, i will be talking about my personal experiences as a chinese person. ever since we were young, we were taught to shut our mouths and be a doormat to higher power, whether that be teachers, bosses, family members, etc. in this case (and in most of history), it's been the white man. for some reason, chinese people think that as long as we suck up to white people, we will get rewarded. another reason is colorism. it is seen as good and desirable if we have pale/fair skin. the third reason is media, such as movies, news, etc. china is a VERY homogeneous country, meaning that it is basically all Han Chinese (i believe the 56 ethnic groups make up ~2% of the total population, with han chinese making up the other ~98%). because of this, chinese people first get exposed to media painting black people in a bad light. and because they've never seen a black person before, they believe black people are just like this in real life. chinese people have been here since 1849 and we still haven't unlearned it. it's disgusting. however, because we suck up to the white man, we have this aura of being "better than" other races. this led to racist ideology being passed down not only in asian american households, but in asian in asia households.
now, onto the actual case. I want to lay this down VERY clearly. Cyrus was murdered. He was murdered in cold blood. I've watched the footage. he did not steal shit. "b-but cyrus pulled a gun-" he was shot in the back. he ran a football field's length. he did not pull a gun. chow chasing a 14 year old 130 yards with a loaded gun shows his intent to kill. rick chow and that family of his should have been charged with manslaughter. it is sickeningly similar, almost identical, to the murder of harlins in 1991. we have made no progress in 35 years. it is disgusting and it shows how low we are willing to sink just to uphold the status quo.
as an asian, i would like to make a few things clear.
1. calling out chow as a murderer is not anti-asian
2. calling out the blatant racism in asian communities is not anti-asian
May Cyrus Carmack-Belton and Latasha Harlins rest in power.
