In July one of the Capital Region’s biggest Asian American coalitions donated 10,000 protective masks to the Albany chapter of the NAACP and Centro Civico to be distributed to low income essential workers and community groups.
But that July 24 event was emblematic of a more profound alliance.
The Albany chapters of the nonprofit, nonpartisan Asian Pacific Islander American Public Affairs and the NAACP decided to also join forces to fight systemic racism against their communities and launch joint projects such as voter registration drives. APAPA president HP Wang and NAACP Albany chapter president Debora Brown-Johnson believe it’s the first time their organizations have united in the Capital Region.
Centro Civico - a not-for-profit that advocates for the economically and socially disadvantaged, particularly Hispanics and other minorities - is also part of the new coalition. It has worked before with the NAACP on census response and joint job fairs. Adding APAPA to the alliance is new.
“Asians traditionally believed if they focused on their educations, they would be accepted by Americans but that wasn’t enough,” Wang said. However, he grew increasingly alarmed by the deaths of Black Americans in police custody, as well as violent acts also committed against those of Asian descent. President Donald Trump has also been stoking anti-Asian sentiment by routinely calling coronavirus the "China Virus."
“It’s become clear we need a political presence and we need to unite with other people of color,” Wang said.
Both groups are thrilled that Democratic candidate Kamala Harris has roots in the Black and Asian American communities as she has a Jamaican father and Indian mother. But Wang and Brown-Johnson acknowledge that the two communities have often felt distant here. They hope to build more bridges this autumn by hosting a roundtable of thought influencers and activists from communities of color.
“People of color sometimes believe in stereotypes about each other that were created by the oppressor to keep them divided,” Brown-Johnson said. “We need to have conversations about race, even if they’re uncomfortable at first.”
Wang agrees. He believes the “model minority” label whites pasted onto Asians seems deliberately divisive.
“It’s divisive to tell anyone there’s a race others should imitate,” he said, noting that the stereotype ignores the wide income spectrum among Asians, even his group’s 130-plus members. “Some are affluent. Others are struggling and hard hit by the pandemic.”
The Black Lives Matter movement is centered around the message of Black people being stereotyped as more dangerous - which in turns leads to beatings and death at the hands of police and others. Asian Americans have also been imperiled by stereotyping. A decade ago, there were instances in the Capital Region of teens calling Chinese restaurants for delivery then beating and robbing deliverymen.
Wang believes Blacks have suffered more in America than other groups of color due to the evil of slavery.
“There’s an entire racist system that evolved from slavery that suppresses Black Americans,” Wang said. “But Black and Asian Americans will find some experiences of racism that are similar.”
Brown-Johnson observes that some of those experiences may not make it into U.S. history textbooks.
She and Wang recall 1980s political rants that savaged Black low income mothers as “welfare queens,” while at the same time blamed Japan for destroying U.S. auto industry jobs. In 1983, two white Detroit autoworkers mistook Chinese American Vincent Chin for Japanese and beat him to death with baseball bats.
“We have to move forward together; I think we’re at a historic moment of vision and clarity,” she said. “I’m a deacon at my church, Macedonia Baptist. I truly believe as a person of faith this unity is part of God’s plan.”
SUNY alum and University of Texas Black power scholar Peniel Joseph is at the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy. His new book, 'The Sword and the Shield,' examines how the visions of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X grew closer near the tragic ends of their young lives. He believes Brown-Johnson and Wang are following the trail blazed by those civil rights giants.
Joseph is familiar with a photo of Malcolm X’s final moments, his bloody shirt open, exposing his gunshot wounds as he’s sprawled across the Audubon Ballroom stage. A slender Japanese American woman gently cradles his head in her hands so he can breathe. It’s the final moment in a long friendship between activist Yuri Kochiyama and the charismatic Black civil rights leader.
“Many Americans aren’t aware there were ad hoc civil rights alliances between Black and Asian American activists over the decades,” Joseph told the Times Union. Joseph said that after Malcolm X returned from his pilgrimage to Mecca, he was, like King, convinced that “the way to end racism was by uniting across racial lines.”
Joseph is impressed by the idealism and racial diversity of Gen Z protesters across America. Wang asked APAPA’s Gen Z interns to recommend groups representing people of color for APAPA to reach out to as anti-racist allies.
“Many of our interns march in Black Lives Matter protests with friends from different races,” Wang said.
Ruchitha Arvapally, 18, is an APAPA intern.
“One of my two best friends is Black and the other is Latina,” Arvapally said. “Most of my Asian friends have friends of different races.”When asked if she and her friends experienced racism, she explained that sometimes a classmate of a different race would make a racist remark or joke, often without realizing the comment inflicted pain.
“The tendency of students is to say nothing and try to shake off the remark - which doesn’t work if the pain remains,” Arvapally said. “Even if it feels strange at first, we need to talk to each other about race to understand each other more and to become stronger allies.”
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Capital Region Black and Asian groups forge new anti-racist alliance - Times Union
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