It is a weird, uncomfortable space to occupy. You’ve probably seen the headlines or felt the tension during a family dinner when someone brings up affirmative action or policing. For decades, the narrative surrounding Asian Americans in an anti-Black world has been flattened into a simple, binary choice: are you with us or against us? But history is never that clean. It's messy. It’s full of moments where Asian communities were used as a literal wedge to prove that the "American Dream" works, provided you just "work hard enough" and stay quiet.
That’s the trap.
When we talk about the Asian American experience today, we can’t ignore that the very term "Asian American" was born out of radical, pro-Black solidarity in the late 1960s. Yuji Ichioka and Emma Gee didn't just stumble upon the phrase at UC Berkeley; they built it to mirror the Black Power movement. They saw that white supremacy didn't just target one group in a vacuum. It’s a system. Yet, somehow, over the last fifty years, that radical origin has been buried under layers of "model minority" myths and "tiger parent" tropes.
The Invention of the Wedge
The "model minority" isn't a compliment. Honestly, it’s a tool. In 1966, sociologist William Petersen wrote an article for The New York Times Magazine titled "Lead Story: Japanese-American Style." He praised Japanese Americans for overcoming wartime incarceration through hard work and family values. On the surface? It sounds nice. But the subtext was a loud, clear dog whistle aimed at the Civil Rights Movement. The message to Black activists was: "Look at the Japanese. They were put in camps and didn't burn cities down. Why can't you be like them?"
This created a specific type of pressure for Asian Americans in an anti-Black world. To be "good" was to be the opposite of "Black." It forced a proximity to whiteness that was always conditional.
Think about the 1992 LA Riots, or the Sa-I-Gu. Media coverage at the time loved the visual of Korean shop owners on roofs with rifles. It was framed as a direct conflict between two minority groups. But that framing ignores the decades of redlining that forced those businesses into specific neighborhoods and the systemic disinvestment that made the explosion inevitable. We have to look at the death of Latasha Harlins—a 15-year-old Black girl shot by Soon Ja Du over a bottle of orange juice—alongside the brutal beating of Rodney King. These aren't isolated incidents. They are the friction points of a system that benefits when we are looking at each other instead of looking up at the structures of power.
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Why Proximity to Whiteness is a Mirage
There is a concept called "racial triangulation," coined by political scientist Claire Jean Kim. It’s a bit academic, but basically, it means Asian Americans are valued over Black people for being "civilized" or "hardworking," but are simultaneously excluded from the "true American" identity because they are seen as "forever foreign."
It’s a see-saw.
One day you're the "model minority" helping a tech company's diversity stats. The next, during a global pandemic like COVID-19, you're the "yellow peril" threat. This volatility is exactly why the struggle of Asian Americans in an anti-Black world is so complex. When the state uses Asian success to invalidate Black suffering, it’s not because the state loves Asians. It’s because it needs a buffer.
The Census Problem
We also have to stop pretending "Asian American" is a monolith. The experience of a third-generation Japanese American surgeon in San Francisco is worlds apart from a Hmong refugee family in Minnesota or a Filipino nurse in Queens.
- Wealth Disparity: Asian Americans have the largest income gap of any racial group in the U.S.
- Deportation: Southeast Asian communities are targeted for deportation at rates that shock people who only see the "Crazy Rich Asians" side of the diaspora.
- Policing: While the headlines focus on ivy league admissions, many working-class Asian neighborhoods face heavy surveillance and policing that mirrors the experiences of Black and Brown communities.
If we don't acknowledge these differences, we end up falling for the "model minority" myth ourselves. We start believing that we’ve "made it" and that Black liberation has nothing to do with us. But as Frank Wu, author of Yellow: Race in America Beyond Black and White, often points out, you can’t have "yellow" without the context of "Black and white."
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Breaking the Cycle of Anti-Blackness
So, how do you deal with the "Aunties" and "Uncles" who hold deep-seated prejudices? It’s not just about winning an argument at Thanksgiving. It’s about understanding that anti-Blackness in the Asian community is often a trauma response or a misguided attempt at survival. In many Asian cultures, there’s a history of colorism that predates arrival in America—a preference for fair skin tied to class. When that meets American systemic racism, it turns toxic.
But history also gives us a roadmap for the opposite.
Look at Yuri Kochiyama. She was a Japanese American woman who spent her life fighting for Black liberation. She was there, cradling Malcolm X’s head when he was assassinated. She understood that the incarceration of her own people during WWII was linked to the same state power that oppressed Black Americans. Or look at Grace Lee Boggs, who spent seven decades as an activist in Detroit, becoming a pillar of the Black Power movement. These aren't "outliers." They represent a long, though often silenced, tradition of solidarity.
The Reality of Shared Stakes
When we talk about Asian Americans in an anti-Black world, we have to realize that the policies that hurt Black people eventually come for everyone else.
Anti-protest laws? They'll be used against the next Stop AAPI Hate rally.
Voting restrictions? They target non-English speakers just as much as they target urban precincts.
The expansion of the carceral state? It builds the infrastructure for the next mass detention of immigrants.
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It is easy to get comfortable in the "middle." It’s easy to think that if we just keep our heads down, we’ll be safe. But history shows that the "honorary white" status is revoked the second it’s no longer politically convenient for those in power.
We aren't just "allies" to Black liberation. We are stakeholders in it.
Actionable Steps for the Long Haul
If you're looking for a way to navigate this, start by moving beyond hashtags.
- Audit Your Information: Look at who you follow and what you read. If your social media feed or news intake only features Asian voices talking to other Asian voices, you're in an echo chamber. Read Black scholars like Kimberlé Crenshaw or James Baldwin. See where the lines of struggle overlap.
- Language Access: One of the biggest barriers to progress in our communities is the language gap. Support organizations that translate social justice concepts into Mandarin, Vietnamese, Tagalog, and Hindi. Groups like Letters for Black Lives started this work years ago, and it’s still vital.
- Localize Your Solidarity: Don't just look at national politics. Look at your local school board or city council. Are there policies being proposed that would hurt Black residents while supposedly "helping" Asians? Dig into the data. Often, these policies are designed to create a zero-sum game that benefits neither group in the long run.
- Acknowledge Complicity: It’s okay to admit that we have benefited from certain aspects of the model minority myth while being harmed by others. Internalized racism is a real thing. Deconstructing it isn't a one-time event; it’s a practice.
The goal isn't to erase the specific struggles of Asian Americans. It’s to recognize that we live in a world built on a racial hierarchy that puts Blackness at the bottom to keep everyone else striving for a top spot that doesn't actually exist for us. Once you see the architecture of the building, you stop trying to decorate your room and start wondering how to take down the walls.
Move toward the discomfort. That’s where the actual change lives.