Issues with the racialisation of COVID-19 have caused an increase in racial attacks and abuse against the East Asian and Southeast Asian community in general.
Artwork by @_genevagarcia on Instagram
For example, in the UK, anti-Asian hate crimes have increased by 21% during the crisis with at least 267 cases across the country recorded between January and March.
In the US within four weeks of the reporting centre STOP AAPI HATE’s official launch in March 2020, almost 1,500 incident reports of verbal harassment, shunning, and physical assaults linked to the virus.
The homogenisation of Asian people bother me. Amongst Western society, when people think of Asia, the cultural diversity across the continent is often ignored and overlooked.
It is important to address the normalisation of casual racism towards Asian people. Within the mainstream media, the representation of East Asian, South Asian and Southeast Asian characters have often been caricatured i.e. with exaggerated accents and broken English for comedic purposes, and through yellowface (in which a non-East Asian person plays an East Asian character). These parodical depictions have further perpetuated the prejudiced notions and normalisation of racist jokes towards Asian people.
Growing up as a Filipina in the UK, poor racist imitations of ‘Chinese’ (which isn’t even an actual language) as ‘banter’; ignorant comments about ‘eating dogs’ (factually, a racist stereotype partially rooted in historic colonial propaganda) and food-related remarks of disgust are just some of the many instances of casual racism that I and many others in the community have experienced.
For us growing up in the west, eurocentrism has conditioned us into believing that what isn’t occidental is ‘odd’ or ‘bizarre’, thus distorting our perception of non-Western ethnic attributes. However, within the Asian community, there is also an issue with Asians themselves accepting and making these jokes to be favoured by their non-Asian counterparts rather than addressing its inherently problematic nature which we need to change.
My sister and I in baro’t saya - traditional Filipina dress
Within the Filipino community, I would change the belief that the more westernised an individual is, the more superior they are. There is and has always been an issue with colourism and the glorification of light-skinned Filipinos or mestizas/mestizos (half white, half Filipino) in the community while morena/moreno (darker-skinned) Filipinos continue to be ridiculed. The booming skin lightening industry in the Philippines; the dominance of mestizas/mestizos in Philippine media and mainstream media, for example, Miss Universe, and the increasing anglicisation of language utilised in the Philippines are amongst some of the various destructive impacts of this internalisation of post-colonial Eurocentric ideals.
The constant abuse and displacement of indigenous tribes in the Philippines due to governmental and corporate exploitation is an issue that is greatly overlooked. From 2011-2020, an estimated 20 million people annually have been forcibly displaced, a disproportionate amount being indigenous people, as a result of development projects. Their vulnerability is only exacerbating further, especially amongst the Lumad who continue to be attacked by the military and paramilitary, forcing them out of ancestral land for multinational corporations and infrastructural development.
Sophia is a talented musician too! So please check out her SoundCloud here: tent across social media on pre-colonial Filipino history and embracing our culture more. Also, the support and allyship shown amongst the Filipino community towards the Black Lives Matter movement gives me hope for the future with this strong sense of solidarity, as well as this awareness in holding our own community accountable for its anti-blackness. With the historic solidarity amongst Filipinos and Black Americans, especially during the Philippine-American War (1899-1902) in which Buffalo Soldiers aided Filipinos in fighting for independence against US colonialism due to their disillusionment with America’s imperialist oppression of another group of people of colour, our unity should continue to strengthen to fight against injustices we face as POC and simply because this is an issue of humanity that we should all be fighting for.
NO JUSTICE. NO PEACE.
Today's feature writer is Sophia! Her piece has opened my eyes and educated me in great depth about my own Filipina heritage. I agree that these eurocentric standards have made me question my cultural identity but at the end of the day, it is important to embrace who we are and support other communities that are facing discrimination because in unity there is power.
Sophia is a talented musician too! So please check out her soundcloud here: https://soundcloud.com/sfcorts
Join her over @platform_blog on insta to interact with her!
A thread of donation drives in the Philippines to help the most vulnerable including displaced indigenous groups:
BLM:
Yemen:
Palestine:
Help immigrants in detention centres:
Save the Uigurs:
More resources for current issues:
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