Topic Content
Why Should We Care? How does this affect us?
- Immigration Act of 1965
- We are directly benefiting from a system that was brought to us by the Civil Rights Movement. This movement was organized by many African-Americans to end racial injustice and discrimination by law. One of these racial injustices was the national-origins system, a quota system that severely discriminated against immigrants from countries like Asia.
- The Civil Rights Movement fought for the Immigration Act of 1965 that brought in skilled labor from all over the world, allowing many South Asian families to uproot themselves and start new lives here.
- Our existence in the United States did not come easily. We are here today because of the communities of color and anti-racist activists that fought. (Read Vijay Prashad’s The Karma of Brown Folk for a clear explanation of South Asian immigration and American race politics.)
- It's important to recognize the efforts and hardships the black community took to give us our rights, and fight for them during this time of injustice.
- Model Minority Myth
- A few South Asian women wrote about this concept in their resource for South Asians for BLM. It is evident that South Asians have had many opportunities to succeed in this country, which has driven a wedge between the black community and the South Asian community.
- White supremacists have unfairly judged the successes of the South Asian community and questioned why the black community has not been able to do the same. However, it is important to recognize that although South Asians face racism at a small scale even today, it is not institutionalized in the way it is for the black community.
- Colorism
- Discuss how colorism aligns with anti-Blackness
- We inherently prefer light-skin over dark-skin, which is a deep-rooted ideology in South Asian culture.
- Colorism in India has been fueled also due to events under British colonial rule, where British officials consistently demeaned dark-skinned Indians and favored light-skinned Indians for jobs over dark-skinned Indians.
- Examples:
- Fair and lovely: we’ve been told our whole lives that we need achieve lighter-skin so that we’re more beautiful and accepted in society
- But keep in mind! Colorism is not the same as racism and police brutality, and cannot be equated to or conflated with the magnitude and type of racism that Black people have faced. Rather, colorism is a form of anti-blackness.
- Discuss how colorism aligns with anti-Blackness
- Casteism in Hinduism
- Discrimination against Dalits
- Untouchability: practice of upper-caste people not touching anything that has come into physical contact with Dalits
- While the issue of Casteism in India should not be conflated with the systemic racism faced by Black Americans, this mindset of supremacy among the majority communities in both countries can be viewed in parallel. This mindset is very harmful and as South Asians, we should actively work against these systems that oppress and exploit individuals.
- Refer to the Dalit Panther Movement
- MLK Jr. traveled to India and wrote about his trip in an article titled “My Trip to the Land of Gandhi,” where he describes India’s progress against caste oppression.
- Discrimination against Dalits
- Anti-blackness in Muslim Culture (Darya K.)
The Muslim community often harbors anti-blackness. Despite the fact that so many Muslims are Black, colorism runs deep among us. Countless times, I, a light-skin Muslim have been praised for my fair skin, leaving me wondering: How does my lack of melanin—a literal pigment formed by a multistage chemical process involving the oxidation of an amino acid followed by polymerization—make me any different than my dark-skinned brothers and sisters? The effects of colorism are tangible. When those with darker skin are made to seem less beautiful or desirable, they are effectively dehumanized in comparison to their light-skin counterparts, making violent hate crimes seem negligible or even justifiable in the eyes of light-skin Muslims. Widely respected Muslim leaders like Hamza Yusuf have continually used their platform to devalidate important issues like police brutality. - This leaves Black Muslims subject to three burdens:
- 1. Islamophobia from Islamophobes
- 2. Racism from racists
- 3. Isolation from their own community
- We praise the same God, we worship the same prophet, we follow the same rituals, and celebrate the same holidays. It is imperative that Muslims stand with their Black members now more than ever. An excellent resource to look into is Muslim-American activist Linda Sarsour, who, despite being Palestinian, consistently advocates for Black individuals by speaking to those in the non-Black Muslim community and even takes initiatives like reforming the NYPD head on (very successfully, might I add). In her book, We Are Not Here to Be Bystanders, Linda takes the idea of intersectionality to a whole new level when responding to racist white supremacists during one of her marches against the decimation of Black individuals at the hands of cops: “I’m not Black, but I wear a hijab, so I knew damn well that all those people didn’t like me, either” (178). In an interview with UC Berkeley’s Islamophobia and Constructing otherness class, Linda explained, “ We have to unlearn [things like anti-Black racism] that have unfortunately been part of our culture's for a really long time. I don't patronize my community. I criticize them in a way that is loving and wants them to be better.”
- The idea of intersectionality is really important here. The most important thing to realize is that it is impossible to be anti-Black and pro-Muslim, because our oppression has been closely linked throughout history. Let’s take a moment to explore one of the biggest perpetrators of Islamophobia in this country: brutal surveillance measures. THIS is how it all started:
In 1975, the FBI targeted black individuals and organizations to prevent them from sparking a movement that could topple American power structures. Some individuals that have been surveilled include MLK, Malcolm X, and many black nationalists. Not only was their privacy violated, but they were framed as hate groups. Violatory documents were created like the Rabble Rouser Index, which collected information on Civil Rights Movement leaders and other activists which the FBI knew to be “troublemakers.” - Today, those same weapons of oppression are used against us. Arabs and Muslims are citizens who live under constant probation. They are residents who are considered unequal under the law, and are viewed as guilty before proven innocent. After 9/11, the FBI hired 15,000 new agents to incriminate Muslims, a practice which continues to this day.
The effects are cultivating fear to the point of silence while breaking up communities of color to preserve Western hierarchies. When they know they are constantly under scrutiny, communities of color are less likely to fight against their oppressor, instead coerced into the positions of “yes-men” out of fear. According to UC Berkeley’s Professor Hatem Bazian, “harassment disrupts national networks built on years of trust and relations.” For instance, in the 1970s, the FBI attempted to send forged letters to different black community organizers to ensure that these groups were pitted against one another. By dividing communities of color, the West preserves its pedestal of superiority and position as the Occident. Thus, people of color are constantly subject to government-backed forces aiming to shatter their communities into pieces. - The point here? The West has inflicted its oppressive tactics on marginalized communities for centuries, and it is ridiculous to harbor anti-Black sentiment when the perpetrator of anti-Black sentiment has been the same as the perpetrator of Islamophobia: societal dynamics derived from a world revolving around the white cis-gendered straight man. Be better, Muslims, and recognize that your back-handed remarks about your darker-skinned niece are more harmful than you think.
- Resources:
- Read Race in the Muslim Community
- Linda Sarsour's Book: We Are Not Here to Be Bystanders: A Memoir of Love and Resistance
- An Essay about Linda Sarsour’s pleas for intersectionality in Islam
- Muslim Anti-racist Collaborative
- Saplo Square: A resource about the Black Muslim experience
- All Lives Matter vs. Black Lives Matter
- Imagine you live in a neighborhood of 20 houses, and only your house is on fire. The fire department shows up and begins to douse your home in water. But then, your neighbors start demanding that the water be redirected towards their… unaffected houses.
chainsawsuit by kris straub
Click the article below for more history!
Questions asked by the Community
1. “In your opinion, is the President doing the right thing in Minneapolis?”
2. “I believe this racism is not faced by just black people in us but all of us have faced it at one point in their lives. I have faced it on multiple occasions. If it happens with black people and we let it happen, we are next.”
3. “What do we say to our own friends in the South Asian community who say racist things?”
4. “Are there any historical examples that show racial communities supporting one another?”
- Raising and answering questions like this can be tricky
- It is important to read your room and decide whether stepping into politics could be beneficial or detrimental
- Many people believe that race is automatically linked to politics, and this can lead them to be afraid to talk about racial issues because they want to avoid being political
- If you feel that this topic is controversial, let your audience know that you would like to discuss under different circumstances
2. “I believe this racism is not faced by just black people in us but all of us have faced it at one point in their lives. I have faced it on multiple occasions. If it happens with black people and we let it happen, we are next.”
- While the sentiment of allyship is clearly expressed here, we made sure to reiterate the explanations of the systematic racism within the black community that is not present in any other racial group.
- And we emphasized that we should not just be fighting out of our own self-interest.
- We supported and encouraged the part about how we shouldn’t just be bystanders, but be better allies to our Black brothers and sisters
3. “What do we say to our own friends in the South Asian community who say racist things?”
- This question was asked by an older kid.
- We used this question as a way to also talk to parents about how quite a few individuals in the South Asian community use the n-word and how this is something that must be stopped immediately
- Many parents were shocked at the prevalence of this, while other parents did not understand the history (https://theundefeated.com/features/if-you-truly-knew-what-the-n-word-meant-to-our-ancestors-youd-never-use-it/) and context of the usage of this term
- So we first discussed the issue with this word, drawing from these sources
- Then, we had some of the kids give each other tips on how they deal with bullies at school and how they could apply those tips in conflicts about race
- Communicate the information you learned in this discussion
- Correct your friends- they might unknowingly use racial slurs so it is important to educate them.
4. “Are there any historical examples that show racial communities supporting one another?”
- The parent that asked this question wanted to know if there were any historical examples we could look to for guidance
- We gave some examples of Asian Americans who allied with Black Americans during the Civil Rights Movement, especially through organizations such as the Rainbow Coalition (https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/secret-history-south-asian-african-american-solidarity-n300251)
- Another parent provided some insight into how the Indian community in South Africa could have done more to be strong allies to the Black community during the time of Apartheid; and how this is a parallel to how we should create those precedents ourselves at this time.