Black Lives supporters seek backing from other minorities
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Korean American Jaime Sunwoo shows, from her laptop, a social media collaboration letter written by a host of Asian Americans and translated for their communities to discuss and support the Black Lives Matter movement, in New York. Some Asian and Latino supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement are reaching out to others in their communities to convince them that the movement is their fight too.
NEW YORK >> The latest deaths of black people at the hands of police led Jaime Sunwoo to undertake something she had always struggled with — a conversation with her parents about race.
After two much-publicized deaths in July, the 23-year-old Korean-American from Brooklyn showed her parents a crowd-sourced letter initiated by Asian-Americans specifically to urge others in their community to support the Black Lives Matter movement. Translated into Korean, the letter led to an unusual moment when Sunwoo’s mother talked “about our intentions for the movement and what we want to achieve,” her daughter said.
Sunwoo, who said her family did not discuss racial issues when she was growing up, said she had never articulated the ideas “so coherently and all at once” as the letter did.
That letter and similar versions in other languages have been circulating in an effort to enlist Asians, Hispanics and other minorities in the movement and to cast light on connections between different minority groups.
“A system that doesn’t value black lives cannot value Asian-American or Asian lives either,” said Jenn Fang, who writes about issues including Asian-American activism at the Reappropriate blog.
From the beginning, Black Lives Matter supporters have included protesters and activists of all races. In this latest campaign, minority supporters are turning to the people closest to them, trying to convince them that the movement is their fight too.
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“In fighting for their own rights, black activists have led the movement for opportunities not just for themselves, but for us as well,” an English-language version of the letter says. “Black people have been beaten, jailed, even killed fighting for many of the rights that Asian-Americans enjoy today. We owe them so much in return. We are all fighting against the same unfair system that prefers we compete against each other.”
Karla Monterroso, an advocate for increasing black and Latino representation in the technology field, helped write a letter in Spanish and English aimed at Hispanic communities.
The Spanish letter references the deaths of Anthony Nunez, Melissa Ventura, Pedro Villanueva and Alex Nieto, who were all killed in interactions with police. Their deaths did not receive as much attention as those of some black men whose deadly encounters with officers were caught on video, such as Alton Sterling, who died July 5 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Philando Castile, who was killed the following day in a suburb of St. Paul, Minnesota.
For Latinos, “not being able to get their stories told around this leaves the black community alone in a struggle that is really shared,” she said.
Latinos and blacks “have very, very intricate and interwoven issues that can almost be spoken to in the same sentence with regards to the criminal justice system,” said Maximo Anguiano, an activist in San Antonio, Texas, who has written about the need for Latinos to speak out against police misconduct.
Translating the letter into many languages helps bridge a gap between generations, Fang said, because members of an immigrant generation and those who were born and raised in the United States often understand the political world differently.
“How do we talk about our issues of politics and culture and just being different from our parents when we don’t have the language to communicate in a way that both sides would really like to be able to do?” she said. “It’s really about finding a common language … so that we can actually talk about anti-blackness and racial justice.”
She pointed to the controversy around the case of Peter Liang, a Chinese-American officer convicted in February in the shooting of Akai Gurley, a black man killed by a ricocheting bullet in a dark public-housing stairwell in New York City.
Several thousand mostly Chinese-Americans rallied around the country to support Liang, saying he was being scapegoated for white officers who killed black men.
Other Asian-Americans demonstrated against that stance, saying Liang’s supporters were taking on the wrong fight by supporting an officer who killed an innocent man.
Some of the disconnect between the two sides happened because they were organizing in different ways and in different languages, Fang said.
“We weren’t really talking at all until we met in the streets,” she said.
Some multiracial people have found comfort in the widening of the movement.
“I think both Asian communities and Latin communities really need to recognize there are black people who exist in their communities already,” said Gian-Luca Matsuda. The 29-year-old was born in Brazil to a Japanese-Brazilian father and an Afro-Puerto Rican mother.
The activism behind the letter is a different approach than going to rallies or marches, said Ray Deng, also 29, whose parents are immigrants from China. It’s about immigrants and their children being willing to engage in tough conversations about race with the people closest to them.
“We have to speak in our own communities,” he said. “When it’s the responsibility of the already disenfranchised group to ‘be the change’ … there’s something wrong with that.”
33 responses to “Black Lives supporters seek backing from other minorities”
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Unfortunately, this has become devisive and not inclusive. Until, all of us, accept that all lives matter, racism will be a problem.
When you do the Susan Komen Race for the Cure, do you say, “BUT ALL CANCERS MATTER!”? When you see on Facebook a fundraiser that says, “Save the Dolphins” do you reply, “BUT ALL ANIMALS MATTER!”? Of course not. The Black Lives Matter movement is to address the wrongful deaths of black people at the hands of law enforcement.
As for the person below who claims that black people should address the fact that there’s black on black crime: Are white people addressing their white on white crime? According to the FBI, 84% of white people are killed by other white people.
Lastly, the lives we live in Hawaii, with many of us intermarrying, would not be possible if not for the push that Black people have made in terms of civil rights for all. Until the Supreme Court decision in Loving v. Virginia, where the Lovings were a white man/black woman married couple, there were laws against interracial marriage. Also, people have forgotten that there were segregation laws in the US where Chinese and Japanese could not go to the same schools as whites. There were laws preventing Asians from “taking away jobs” from whites. Asians were prevented from owning land. So the assertion that if not for the work that Black people have done throughout American history, Asians would not enjoy the rights that we have, is absolutely true. Those who have commented below with such hate and disdain in their hearts are ignorant and should be ashamed.
I am only talking about the human beings on Earth. Yes, there are stereotyping. I’ve been stereotyped, positively and negatively. Not to the extreme inner city minorities are but we all have a label, like it or not. We just got to stop the violence!
We have to stop the labeling of people!
The only difference is that Asians stopped complaining and moved on to improve their lives. You can give the BLM everything they want and they still would not be happy. This is their crutch for future entitlements. Easy to blame others. Blame the person you see in the mirror for your failures in life.
justmyview371 I agree! It is just not right.
These Black Lives People should concentrate on mitigating the violence among themselves esp. in the ghettos with gangs, drugs, rapes etc.contributing many blacks shooting each other. There is probably more violence among themselves than police assaulting or shooting these blacks and many of these blacks Dare the cops to shoot them which is why when the cops order them to stop etc…they disrespect these cops and continue to do what they were doing etc….Tired of these Blacks killing each other, in gangs, and what evers……Yes, the Asian Americans have similar problems but not to the degree like the Blacks…..education is more valued among the asians than the blacks….I don’t care if these blacks live in ghettos….you just have to persevere and stop these riots etc…just makes me more disgusted that they are insubordinate and disrespect the law……yes, there are bad apples within the law enforcement community but let justice take its course….which is the reason why we have laws and the reason why there is an exorbitant amount of blacks in the prison system compared to other minorities except maybe the Latinos…….nothing more and nothing less.
That’s exactly how I feel. Thank You Hossana.
Well said Hossana! BLM point their fingers at everyone but themselves hoping to deflect the reality of who commits more crime per capita.
agree and it is too bad that the horrible phrase “All lives Matter” implied that other lives did not. If they really meant, “Black lives also matter” that would be fine. Skip the dime store racism and division that OHA practices. Get real and include all.
Oh, the way all Hawaiian lives mattered to your ancestors, Al?
allie, “…Skip the dime store racism and division that OHA practices.” coming from you that’s hysterical.
Sorry Black Lives – “minority” oriental people behave properly and therefore don’t have your problem with law enforcement. All minorities are not the same!
Your posts seem to get more sad every day. How low can you go?
The Black Lives Matter group ….was based on a BIG FAT LIE! There was “No Hands Up,Don’t Shoot”! This is a myth and for you readers don’t fall for it! Especially you younger minds,who most were sucked into this myth because it was popular at the time…..it never happened!
Fergurson 101: Michael Brown was a Thug,who robbed a convenience store,(for Cigarettes/Cigars) resisted arrest and was shot in a struggle when he went for the arresting officers service revolver…..This is fact!
Be Smart and don’t buy into or support this group, because ……”All Lives Matter”!IMUA
Thank you. But you’ll never hear this truth on MSDNC.
American Indians are shot more often by police than blacks. But it’s not as much a race thing as it is a class problem. Poor white folk are also discriminated against.
Alcohol is the problem with A-Indians so they get shot more.
You only command respect by earning it. Until the black community recognizes and overcomes their shortcomings, no amount of marches will help. How to do this? Becoming more engrossed in education for themselves and their children is a good start. Getting a job is another. If people see hard working responsible folks instead of having a handout and insisting on entitlements, then the general attitude will change. All minorities go through this, some take longer to achieve parity. If you don’t correct your own mistakes, nothing will happen.
Absent black fathers is a real problem, breeding and avoiding fatherhood responsibility often produces crime ridden neighborhoods.
I overwhelmingly concur.
I read an article where Asian immigrants kids get bullied by black kids in urban public schools. Also, there was that random killing of an elderly Asian man by a couple of black suspects out in public in Oakland about 5 years ago.
Check out the genocidal attacks of blacks by Latino gang members in LA. Heavy stuff.
http://articles.latimes.com/2013/jan/25/local/la-me-0126-compton-20130126
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/08/us/latino-gang-members-charged-with-firebomb-attack-on-blacks.html?_r=0
No thank you. Please keep these racist movements on the mainland where they belong.
Can you imagine having ” Japanese lives matter” if Japanese Americans didn’t do well after the war? I am not going to understand blacks and their oppression because I can’t but I can Japanese. All I can say is my family put the foot to the plow and my dad dropped out of schoo to work for 25 cents a day and sent all four of us to college all without a mom.
What do the top ten cities (over 250,000 pop.) with the highest poverty rate
all have in common?
Detroit, MI – (1st on poverty rate list) hasn’t elected a Republican mayor
since 1961
Buffalo, NY – (2nd) hasn’t elected one since 1954
Cincinnati, OH – (3rd) not since 1984
Cleveland, OH – (4th) not since 1989
Miami, FL – (5th) has never had a Republican mayor
St. Louis, MO – (6th) not since 1949
El Paso, TX – (7th) has never had a Republican mayor
Milwaukee, WI – (8th) not since 1908
Philadelphia, PA – (9th) not since 1952
Newark, NJ – (10th) not since 1907
Black lives matter? Just ask the Mayor. A vote for Crooked Hillary is a vote for poverty.
Super Delegates.
delete your account
lespark, Something else do these cities have in common , something with the poorest nation in the western hemisphere and something with the poorest nations elsewhere. You know it and everybody else who is not blind.
It’s the republican governors of these srates that Lester Park talks about.
Among the many people I know are people considered in the non protected minority. Are the included too?
I no can support BLM because they so rude and violent in the way they demand attention and this goes against the way I was raised. In fact, if something happened to me my parents said that it was on me to fix it. BLM has some legit gripes, but they are behaving in a manner that is not deserving of support. Show some humility and respect for others and I will do the same.