Race-Related Violence in the U.S. Stems From White Supremacy

Amid the on is a troubling category of these assaults: Black people are also attacking Asian Americans.

of anti-Asian racism. But in February 2021, a Black person pushes an ; the man later dies from his injuries. In another video, from New York City on March 29, 2021, a Black person pushes and beats an Asian American woman on the sidewalk in front of a doorway while on the woman without intervening or providing aid.

As the current president of the and as an ethnic studies and critical race studies professor who specializes in Asian American culture, I wanted to address the climate of anti-Asian racism I was seeing at the start of the pandemic. So in April 2020, I created a PowerPoint slide deck that my employer, the University of Colorado Boulder, turned into a website. That led to about 50 , , , and that I鈥檝e done on anti-Asian racism, specifically in the time of COVID-19.

The point I鈥檝e made through all of those experiences is that : White supremacy. So when a Black person attacks an Asian person, the encounter is fueled perhaps by racism, but specifically by White supremacy. White supremacy does not require a White person to perpetuate it.

It鈥檚 Not Just White people

, a pattern of values and beliefs that are ingrained in nearly every system and institution in the U.S. It is a belief that and invested with inalienable universal rights, and 鈥攁 disposable object for others to abuse and misuse.

The is driven by White supremacy and not by any Black person who may or may not hate Asians.

During the pandemic, that blamed China for COVID-19 led to a incidents reported to police in 2020. In particular, East Asian Americans or anyone who appeared to be of East Asian heritage or descent became targets for the misplaced anger of people blaming Chinese people or those they thought looked Chinese, even if they were of other ethnic backgrounds, such as Japanese, Taiwanese, Korean, Burmese, Thai, or Filipino.

A Fear of Disease

White supremacy as the root of racism can be seen in the in March 2020, claiming he did so because they were Chinese and bringing the coronavirus into the U.S. Though the suspect may have mental health problems, his belief that this family posed a threat is driven by the .

This same rhetoric of blaming anyone perceived to be Chinese for COVID-19 and attacking them has been found in countless reports of harassment, including one by a by a White man as she tried to enter a grocery store in March 2021. Four days later, who was punched in the face by a 39-year-old White man, on the same day that , in Atlanta.

Stories of individual harassment and violence perpetrated against Asian Americans by White assailants don鈥檛 always get the same attention as the viral videos of Black aggression toward Asians.

, just as White supremacy is responsible for Minneapolis police officer for more than eight minutes: White supremacy made Floyd into a Black male threat rather than a human being. Understanding the can be challenging, but doing so brings each person, and the nation as a whole, closer to addressing systemic inequity. It鈥檚 not Black people whom Asian Americans need to fear. It鈥檚 White supremacy.

This article was originally published by . It has been published here with permission.

Jennifer Ho is a professor of Asian American Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder. She is the daughter of a refugee father from China and an immigrant mother from Jamaica. She is the author of three books: Consumption and Identity in Asian American Coming-of-Age Novels, Racial Ambiguity in Asian American Culture, which won the 2016 South Atlantic Modern Languages Association award for best monograph, and Understanding Gish Jen. In addition to her academic work, Ho is active in community engagement around issues of race and intersectionality, leading workshops on anti-racism and how to talk about race in our current political climate.