What a lie! You think and share racist thoughts to your family everyday. Do you have one black friend? Have you talked to your black neighbor to REALLY get to know them? Or you’re in your own bubble? How would you feel if your son or daughter wanted to marry a black person?

It’s hard to understand why people are adding the opinions of their 10-year-olds to the comments. As if that child’s opinion should somehow shame the students’ at Yale? Ridiculous! Has your child studied at Yale, Harvard, MIT, or ANY IVY LEAGUE, KUN? Clearly not. That was sarcasm, but the real truth is...people posting on here saying things like “we respect hard work, sacrifice...we are not lazy” are essentially MAKING A STEREOTYPE THAT BLACK AMERICANS ARE THOSE TRAITS AND DESERVE THE SOCIAL INJUSTICE THAT THEY RECEIVE. Which is exactly missing the point. BLACK LIVES MATTER is marching and protesting for ALL THE BLACKS WHO WORK HARD, SACRIFICE, EDUCATE THEMSELVES, TAKE CARE OF THEIR FAMILIES despite ALL THE ODDS AGAINST THEM...AND STILL GET TREATED UNJUSTLY. Take a look at this essay by a GOLDMAN SACHS Managing Director (successful!), MIT (educated!), NIGERIAN (immigrant!) on how HE HAS TO COPE WITH BEING BLACK IN AMERICA: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-06-05/goldman-sachs-executive-has-advice-for-white-colleagues Then take all your comments about hard work, sacrifice, and “if only blacks would pull themselves up like we did”...and ASK IF YOU WOULD TRADE PLACES WITH HIM??

PLEASE EMAIL YITAO at [email protected] to tell him what you think of his letter on https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/8VT8aUHDHcb-pmOIztwfFQ. BECAUSE WE _DO_ UNDERSTAND THE MEANINGS OF THE WORDS “RACIST” AND WE GREW UP WITH THE PEOPLE, YITAO. After all, isn’t that why we went to Yale, Harvard, MIT and all the best schools? Stop trying to bully Eileen and the other students by painting them as ungrateful and ashamed of their culture on CHINESE SOCIAL MEDIA. WE SEE WHAT YOU AND OTHERS ARE DOING. DO YOU NOT SEE THAT IT IS THE FOUNDATION OF SOCIAL JUSTICE AND DEMOCRATIC FREEDOMS IN THE UNITED STATES THAT HAVE MADE IT POSSIBLE FOR CHINESE AMERICANS’ HARDWORK & SACRIFICE TO SUCCEED? YET, what if that foundation excludes Black Americans? If you won’t speak up against the systemic racism the country is facing now like so many have already, WE WILL.

To the Yale Student(s): Eileen (may I call you by your first name?), I must first commend your honesty in writing this piece, especially in sharing your own personal experiences. I truly believe you meant well and your intentions were to rally our community. I think you did bring up some great points, but unfortunately the message your letter hoped to send became buried under sweeping generalizations and a rather distorted view of society. Instead of uniting us, your letter (perhaps unknowingly) inflamed communities and strewed divisiveness. Looking at your letter critically, I (and as others already have...) must question many of the ideas you highlight. Right off the bat, your letter likely incited fury at deeming “racist White and Asian police officers” and extending your message from Chinese American communities to “rampant anti-Blackness in the Asian American community”. These are bold statements to make. I agree to a certain extent that anti-Blackness does exist within Asian American communities - though not manifesting in the way your letter implies (“violence”). Rather, I see anti-Blackness emerging through implicit biases and mainstream media that is determined to contrast Asians with other minority groups in the U.S. Your letter actually speaks of implicit biases, of “subtle, even explicitly racist comments about the Black community.” (By the way, I can’t help but wonder if you ever sought to engage with their remarks? I will address this later when talking about your pledge link.) Your letter speaks of deeply ingrained ideas that were uttered by the people around you, but it does not speak of where these ideas came from. Your letter goes on to interpret their ideas to claim “We are the model minority...We have little to do with other people of color; we will even side with White Americans to degrade them.” Your letter seems to suggest that these ideas originated from Asian Americans, as if we were the ones to create and believe in the model minority myth. As you may be aware, this myth was not naturally constructed by Asian Americans. It is a powerful racial rhetorical strategy by American mainstream media for using us as a racial buffer. A buffer to blame racial inequality on people of color, instead of structural issues. A buffer that prevents Asian Americans from achieving equality. The model minority myth extends from deflecting the blame onto people to color to framing diverse, disparate Asian Americans as a monolith. Unfortunately, your letter reinforces the prevalence of this myth with your statement: “We Asian Americans like to think of ourselves as exempt from racism. After all, many of us live in affluent neighborhoods, send our children to selective universities, and work comfortable, professional jobs.” This line of thinking is exactly what the strategy aims to do: focus on the wealth, the health of the few while erasing the wide range of inequalities that exist within Asian communities. There is a lot to unpack in these two sentences of your letter, and I must start by acknowledging how I myself use “Asian American” cautiously. I would not presume to speak for others. I bring this up because I noticed your letter frequently refers to “Asian Americans” interchangeably with “Chinese Americans”. But, there's no need to hide behind the moniker "Asian American". It’s okay to go ahead and specify "Chinese American” if that’s what your letter meant. Interestingly, the implied association of “Chinese” with “Asian” was brought up eloquently by poet (and editor and professor) Cathy Park Hong in her new book "Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning": “They think Chinese is synecdoche for Asians the way Kleenex is for tissues. They don’t understand that we’re this tenuous alliance of many nationalities.” (Pg. 19) I included the title of her book so that others may read it if they are interested and so that others may look up the quote themself. On that topic, I noticed your letter quoted her writing out of context: “As the poet Cathy Park Hong writes, we believe that we are “next in line … to disappear,” to gain the privileges that White people have, to be freed from all the burdens that come with existing in a body of color.” She did indeed write we “next in line … to disappear” but your letter neglects her clarification: “We will not be the power but become absorbed by power, not share the power of whites but be stooges to a white ideology that exploited our ancestors.” (Pg. 35) Contrary to your letter’s interpretation, it does not mean we will be free. Our racial identity will continue to be used against us, just like the model minority myth. Just like your statement: “After all, many of us live in affluent neighborhoods, send our children to selective universities, and work comfortable, professional jobs.” I’m not quite sure how to respond if that is an honest belief you all harbor. This sentence embodies the very perception of the “successful” Asian American, of the model minority myth that the media pushes to pit us against other minorities. Because, after all, Asian Americans are doing great...right? Because there surely exist no Asians living in lower-income neighborhoods, no Asian high-school drop-outs, no Asians struggling to find work? Because somehow most Asian Americans can be categorized under this umbrella of societal “success”? What about the wide income gap in Asian American communities, the mental health crisis, the lack of resources for Asian refugees? Eileen, to be upfront, you do not have to look far to realize that this statement is an extremely sweeping generalization. It is a generalization that has tormented our community for years, a problematic framing of us that I find unfortunate to see you repeat in your letter. Let’s assume what your letter says is applicable to many members of Asian American communities. These traits can, will and were, be used against us. Yellow peril - a media discourse, a racist project to subjugate Asians - goes hand-in-hand with the model minority myth. Frank Wu reflected on this: “To be hard-working is to be unfairly competitive. To be family-oriented is to be clannish, ‘too ethnic,’ and unwilling to assimilate.” (Wu, 1995) All these positive attributes you believe lead us to think we are “exempt from racism” are but a facade that is easily flipped to negative attributes, as we saw with the rise of anti-Asian racism in the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. I can tell you are aware of this too, of “We are made to feel like we have excelled in this country until we are reminded that we cannot get too comfortable—that we will never truly belong.” You wrote a fantastic paragraph on how “However, our survival in this country has always been conditional.” You had a lot of significant sentences (“We were accused of being “virus carriers”; I was recently called a “bat-eater”), but I do find your example of Bhagat Singh Thind an interesting choice because, as you may already know, he was trying to argue that he was Caucasian based on the ethnology of the time. (And in 1920, the lower courts indeed ruled that Asian Indians are “white”, but that’s another story.) He was not exactly arguing for Asian Americans to become citizens; he was arguing to be seen as white. I see parallels between his case with your letter. Both appear to be progress for Asian Americans, but this is progress within the boundaries set by colonialist thinking. That is, thinking we must fit into the established narratives, that there is no place for Asian Americans in the conversations of this country. Earlier in your letter, you wrote “The Asian Americans around me, myself included, were reluctant—and sometimes even refused—to participate in conversations on the violent racism faced by Black Americans” and you went on to list atrocious crimes against African American communities. What about conversations on the racism faced by Asian Americans? You acknowledge “Even when anti-Blackness is so closely aligned to our own oppression under structural racism” and share Vincent Chin’s story, but yet only briefly mention the anti-Asian hate crimes during COVID-19. You claim (and this claim has been questioned by others): “Though we cannot compare the challenges faced by Asian Americans to the far more violent atrocities suffered by Black Americans, we owe everything to them.” In response, I must emphasize: racism is not a competition. This is not the Oppression Olympics, there are no winners here. This claim likely distorted the message your letter was trying to send, because it minimized the pain faced by Asian Americans. You were right in that we cannot compare. Your letter brings up history quite often, and so I ask how can we compare the massacre of Chinese immigrants during the Rock Springs Riot? What about the murder of Vincent Chin? How can we compare Anna Ng recently being bashed on the head with an umbrella? Are these incidents not considered violent? We cannot compare. (This is not, in any way, intended to say that African American communities do not suffer. I name these occurrences to illustrate briefly the history of violence against Chinese American communities - and this is not even considering the magnitude of violence across other Asian American communities.) As for the claim that “we owe everything to them”, this suggests that civil rights are a zero-sum game. Your letter implies our gains must come at the sacrifice of African Americans - but this is putting the onus of civil rights at the expense of their sacrifice. Unfortunately, this implies that it is only through their work that we achieved progress. You wrote “It is because of the work of Black Americans—who spearheaded the civil rights movement—that Asian Americans are no longer called “Orientals” or “Chinamen.”” (and may I add, “Mongolians” though we are still called “chinks”, “gooks” among other slurs.) You are right to say that African Americans lead the movement, but your letter neglects to mention our Asian American activism. Asian Americans were inspired by the Black Power Movement and Indigenous activists, holding our own movements alongside other people of color. Asian American activists protested with the Black Panthers in the 60’s. I could go on; we can consider how the Naturalization Act was first extended to "aliens of African nativity and to persons of African descent” and how Asian Americans, Native Americans continued to fight for citizenship. But I won’t, because as you write later in your letter, “[Our history] is also a history of disrupters, activists, fighters, and, above all, survivors.” As you acknowledge, some of us fought, and are fighting, for our rights. We are the ones who remember Vincent Chin, we are the ones who remember our stories. We fight together with other minority groups, we form relations to stand up for all of us. Your claim glosses over this and instead attempts guilt-tripping the community in a rather misguided attempt to encourage solidarity. In this attempt, you write “I see this same kind of silence from Asian Americans around me. I am especially disappointed in the Chinese American community, whose silence on the murder of Black Americans has been deafening.” I questioned earlier if you had actively engaged in “uncomfortable/difficult conversations” (from your pledge) with the people around you and I must again question your use of “I do not see us.” I am not aware of your situation, and you may have indeed spoken with the people around you. But, given how you described your background, I must ask if maybe the circles you associate with are a fragmented representation of the community. You may not see Asian Americans standing in solidarity, but I (and other commentators) do. Most Asian Americans I see are voicing their support, and interestingly those most vocal now did not speak on anti-Asian racism from COVID-19 - contradicting what you see. Some did not extend outrage to the Asian communities they identified with, but many of them are expressing solidarity with African Americans. I wondered why, but reading your letter, I remembered how we may doubt our own lived experiences of racism. (“We Asian Americans like to think of ourselves as exempt from racism.”) We may believe the lie that we have it easy, that racism is indeed a competition and we must have come out the victors in the U.S. This internalized doubt would affect how we react to discrimination against our own communities. We may stay silent - out of fear, out of hesitance that what we experienced is bad enough to say anything about. But, perhaps we are both generalizing. You “urge all Chinese Americans to watch media such as Asian Americans, to seriously reflect not only on our own history, but also on our shared history with other minorities.” I support your recommendation, but I am curious if there’s more than just watching. I haven’t mentioned myself much in this reply to you, I now defer to my experiences. The two of us: we watched the same media, read the same books, and are aware of the same histories, but yet the reflections we took with us are vastly different. Maybe it’s our upbringing, maybe it’s the differences between us. I’m not in an “elite” college, I’m not expecting a “comfortable career”, I’m not the model minority. I’m the Chinese American you glaze over, hidden under the gauze of deemed privilege. There are many others like me, who are still struggling and who you do not seem to see just as you do not see Asian American activism (both in the past and now). I personally felt your call to action was strongest here: “We are not exempt from history. What has happened to George Floyd has happened to Chinese miners in the 1800s and Vincent Chin, and will continue to happen to us and all minorities unless we let go of our silence, which has never protected us, and never will” - this is very meaningful and powerful. It’s a pity the rest of your letter didn’t support a lot of the great messages you had. You “refuse to call for the racial justice of our own community at the expense of others. Justice that degrades or subordinates other minorities is not justice at all.” I find this quite ironic when your letter appears to be asking for solidarity at the expense of degrading Asian American activism, of guilt-tripping the community. According to your own words, this is not justice. Your letter has an oxymoron: “At a time when many privileged minorities”. I will allow for the concept of intersectionality here - assuming that some people within minorities have more advantages on the basis of gender, religion, etc. - but one does not usually associate “minority” with “privilege”. Your letter divides us into either being with you or “siding with White supremacy” and you “want to ask: Whose side are you on?” I hope to ask that question to you. As I mentioned, your letter has thrown communities into disarray instead of bringing us together. If people in this community are indeed just like your parents, relatives, and family friends, is this letter meant to convince them to join other people of color in solidarity? You say “I see us, such as members of my own family, merely laughing off President Trump’s tweet about sending the National Guard to Minnesota, as if it were a joke and not a deadly threat.” If we are all indeed the silent majority or “laughing” off threats against protestors, is guilting the community the way to solve deep-embedded biases? Eileen, I leave these questions for you to ponder. Lastly, I couldn’t help but observe that you linked a pledge where one can commit to “engaging in uncomfortable/difficult conversations with Asian Americans/non-Black people on anti-Blackness in our own communities.” Others have already asked you, and I will question too: have you all sat down at your own dinner tables and talked about this issue with your families? That’s the most difficult step, and again, I am not sure of your family situations but our own homes seem like a good place to begin to spread awareness. I appreciate your sharing of the activist organizations, though I must ask why your letter only urges for donations? Your letter and pledge assume I, and others, have the monetary capacity to donate. I believe support can also be in the form of signing petitions, contacting our governmental representatives, or even watching YouTube videos. Here’s a link to a YouTube video by Zoe Amira, with all proceeds to Black Lives Matter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCgLa25fDHM. I will not “urge” others to watch it, just to consider watching it if you do support the cause. Eileen, thank you for sharing your viewpoint. I critically review your letter not to attack you personally, but to bring a different perspective and to give context to some of what you said. I hope you and your family stay safe, wishing you all the best.

As an Asian American growing up in lower class America where my parents own a Chinese restaurant, we experienced a lot of racism. I’ll let you guess which minority group were the most racist and had the most anti-Asian things to say...

Time to be 'not sitting on the fence'

Why is everyone so defensive about that? If it doesn't apply to you, then you should know in your heart that you are on the side of justice for BLM. Crying out "Not all Asians" is pointless. If you have a "legal right to view too," whatever that means, Li, then why don't you publish an article and share it with the world? Let's see how you do.

I agree a lot with you. I also agree many points with Eileen. But I don't like her accusation to the entire Chinese American community. And I don't like her 大义灭亲 attitude. You don't have to raise up yourself by putting other people down!

Firstly, many of my Asian friends stand firmly against racism, but let’s put that aside for now and look at some of the problems in this article and why so many are furious about it. In order to prove her point, the author conveniently stated that “[there are] rampant anti-Blackness in the Asian American community” - Seriously? how could someone come up with this strong accusation against the millions that she never ever knew or spoke with? Do you have any data to support this? If I know one or even twenty-two Yale students who are, let’s say not so rigorous, am I going to conclude all Yale students are stupid? NO, I still have high respect for Yale because there are thousands that I don’t even know. Most importantly, is this standard stereotyping and discrimination (against Asian though)? How is this different from saying “there are rampant crime/greed in XXX race”? Is it ironic to see this in an article supposed to be against racism and stereotyping? I understand that the author grew up in a racist family and community, I would like to apologize to her on behalf of those people if I could, also for some of us who are not sensitive enough to this issue, we should do better and we could. On the same time, I think the author should stop spreading this article and apologize to the millions who has nothing to do with racism, because as the author pointed out, the image that “Asians hate Blacks” "could bring violence to us all", your parents included. p.s. I’m sorry if this comment looks harsh although I admire the author's courage to speak out - I have higher expectation for an elite student, and I believe “racism” is a very serious accusation that should not be simply labeled to all Asians.

To everyone who is writing, "NOT ALL ASIAN PEOPLE": if it doesn't apply to you, great. Send this to your friend. You don't need to debate this because we all know what this letter is real and true pithing the Asian American community. You're all projecting on things you've done, said, or perpetuate in the past.