The state’s Asian American Commission stood firm Friday in calling out anti-Black racism within the community it represents, after a week of pushback against a statement the panel issued in support of Black Lives Matter.
On June 4 the commission declared its solidarity with protesters denouncing the deaths of George Floyd and other Black Americans killed by police and condemned “the 400 year-long legacy of white dominance that underlies this nation’s history.”
Those sentiments met with widespread support, but many were offended by the commission’s claims in the statement of “deep roots of anti-Blackness” in the Asian-American community and that “Asian Americans continue to benefit from the ‘model minority’ myth and our historic proximity to white privilege.”
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For many Asian-Americans, especially those with little education who immigrated from poorer countries, life in this country has been beset by challenges, state Senator Dean A. Tran said Friday.
“I have experienced racism, discrimination, and prejudice my entire life. My accomplishments are not the result of white privilege,” said the Fitchburg Republican, who released a separate statement this week denouncing the commission’s claims.
Tran, born in Vietnam, is the state’s first Asian-born senator. Elected in a 2017 special election, Tran was stripped of a leadership post within the Republican caucus in March after an ethics investigation found he assigned campaign tasks to his taxpayer-funded office staff.
“This statement has caused great pain and discomfort in the Asian-American community,” Tran said. “The people who are responsible for the statement should consider resigning from the commission”
Vira Douangmany Cage, chairwoman of the commission, stood by the statement and said this is an appropriate time for people of all backgrounds to have uncomfortable conversations about race.
“We have made a strong statement of solidarity, and we understand that it evokes deep thought and reflection,” she said. “For the [Asian-American and Pacific Islander] community to have it be a conversation point, I think, is part of the journey for true healing in this country. If we’re not honest with ourselves, we’re not going to have much progress . . . around racial healing and justice.”
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Douangmany Cage suggested community members seek out resources developed to help Asian-American people understand their role in Black oppression.
“We’re very fortunate, I believe, to have fresh voices on the commission that are very progressive in their practices, and values, and beliefs,” she said, adding later, “Hopefully members of the community can express their own statements of solidarity. This is just how the Asian American Commission thought to do ours.”
Richard Chang, headmaster of the Josiah Quincy Upper School in Chinatown, suggested that the fresh voices Douangmany Cage cited had made a “rookie mistake” by issuing a statement that divided the community rather than uniting it.
“We have some new leadership at the helm of the Asian American Commission, and I think it kind of shows. You have to be very careful with every word when you’re making public pronouncements,” Chang said, stressing that he spoke only for himself.
Chang supports self-examination and discussions within the Asian-American community about racial attitudes, but he said such conversations should happen internally.
“These kinds of conversations should be happening within our tent, and we work it out,” he said. “It doesn’t need to happen out in the open, because then what happens is people take the worst elements and then think that’s what the whole Asian-American community is like.”
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For Linda Champion, the daughter of a Korean immigrant mother and a Black American father, the commission’s statement was a painful negation of her existence, and that of her teenage daughter.
“I can tell by the statement they don’t see me as Asian. And there are a lot of me’s out there,” Champion said, referring to the growing number of people who have both African and Asian ancestry.
The statement is painful for her mother, who loved a Black man and raised biracial children, warning them throughout their lives about the racism they would face.
“To just take a paintbrush and try to say with one broad stroke that Asians or Asian-Americans are anti-Black isn’t true,” said Champion, a Boston attorney who ran unsuccessfully for Suffolk district attorney in 2018. “I would never support anything that would cause communities of color to be divided.”
Champion and others, including Sanjay Kaul, national vice president of the Natick-based World Hindu Council of America, said the commission should apologize for its statement, but they stopped short of calling for resignations.
“As human beings, we all relate to what has gone on with the Black community and the way they have been targeted,” Kaul said. “To say we have some deep-rooted anti-Blackness within us is very, very wrong.”
Amilcar Shabazz, a University of Massachusetts Amherst professor of Africana studies and president of the of National Council for Black Studies, called the negative reaction to the statement “fake controversy.”
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“I’m not really surprised by the pushback,” Shabazz said. “We’re in a very polarized America right now, and instead of people trying to look beneath the surface and stretch a bit, some people are going to fall back on trite debates.”
Shabazz said he supports Douangmany Cage and the commission, and he appreciates the statement — for as far as it goes. With countless corporations, organizations, and individuals pledging their support for Black Americans, what really matters is action, he said.
“To call out or to recognize a degree of anti-Black attitudes and anti-Black complicity in the Asian community, to me that’s a no-brainer,” Shabazz said. “Everybody’s subject to anti-Blackness, just like everybody’s subject to anti-Asian stereotypes.”
Jeremy C. Fox can be reached at jeremy.fox@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @jeremycfox.
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June 13, 2020 at 08:52AM
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