Black Lives Matter
“They have treated the wound of my people carelessly, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace.” (Jeremiah 6:14)
We stand in solidarity with Black Communities.
We lament the killings of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breona Taylor, and others unnamed who have been victims of police brutality. We grieve with friends and family members of black communities as they face relenting systemic violence upon their communities. We see and stand with them.
As Korean Americans, we have not always seen nor stood with them because we were pitted against each other. We saw this in 1992 when Los Angeles was in flames. The acquittal of the police officers who brutally beat Rodney King unveiled the racial and economic injustices against the black community. When it turned violent, rather than centering on the issue of police brutality and the legal system that protects them, the media diverted its attention on the African American-Korean tension. Los Angeles Uprising was a pitted minority game, and ultimately, served to reinforce the authority of the white hegemony. This costly history of divide and conquer strategy must not be used as we organize and strategize towards peace. We need each other.
Today, similar tensions and anxiety are rising as Asian shop-owners board up their stores in Los Angeles. But today is different. Many Asian immigrants, or children of immigrants, are calling out the pervasive anti-blackness that has permeated within Asian cultures, to challenge their Asian peers to walk with black communities. Walking, talking, developing rapport and relationships amongst one another are foundations for understanding towards reconciliation. Asian communities must work together because our diaspora and immigrant rights and privileges are also rooted in the hard work of the civil rights movement led by our black brothers and sisters.
To distance ourselves from the black community leaders and organizers is to walk away from Asian American history of discrimination, from Chinese Americans working as indentured servants, the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 to Asiatic Exclusion Leagues, Japanese Interment Camps during WWII, to the current anti-Asian sentiment during COVID-19 times.