Sewing: Why Gene Wu's viral comments on Asian and Black solidarity resonate |
If you look at racial tropes, it’s no wonder there’s little solidarity between Asian and Black communities.
Many Asian Americans have been saddled with the stereotype of the “good” minority. They work hard, excel in academics, are financially successful and keep their heads down. Black Americans, on the other end of the stereotype, are the “bad” ones who don’t excel academically, can’t get out of poverty and dare to talk back.
Stereotypes have a way of infiltrating our psyche and eroding unity. Not to mention, they are a lie.
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State Rep. Gene Wu is fiercely fighting to bridge that divide and is calling for Asian communities to stand up for their rights and for what’s right, including supporting Black Americans.
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“The day the Latino, African American, Asian and other communities realize that they share the same oppressor is the day we start winning because we are the majority now,” Wu recently said on a podcast with host Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas. Vargas founded Define America, a nonprofit culture-change organization focused on humanizing immigrants' stories.
“Our country and the forces that be, the powers that be, have spent tremendous time, effort and money to make sure that those groups (Black, Asians and Latinos) are never united and that they always see each other as enemies and competitors without ever realizing that they share one thing in common, that their oppressors all are the........