9
MICHIGAN IN COLOR
Ok, America. Prove me wrong.

At the turn of the 2010s, the 
ingenious use of social media by 
young activists during the Arab 
Spring set the world ablaze. In 
the blink of an eye, young people 
transformed social media from a 
prom picture party hub to an outlet 
of 
revolutionary 
information. 
Via 
fledgling 
platforms 
like 
Facebook 
and 
Twitter, 
users 
shared demonstration sites, tear 
gas remedies and even tips to avoid 
identification by authorities should 
one choose to participate in civil 
disobedience. 
With 
its 
unprecedented 
ability to deliver not only crucial 
information, but also the sights, 
sounds and unmistakable aura of 
social upheaval to the palm of any 
user’s hand, social media seemed to 
be the last missing link to achieving 
real global equality. 
In case you missed it, the 2010s 
were not quite the pax romana we 
hoped they would be. 

ALEXANDRA OWENS
MiC Guest Writer

COLLAGE BY HIBAH CHUGHTAI 

A brief Black and A/PIA history under
white supremacy

CHERYN HONG
MiC Managing Editor

On May 25, the Minneapolis 
police officers Derek Chauvin, J 
Alexander Kueng, Tou Thao and 
Thomas Lane arrested George 
Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man 
accused of buying cigarettes with a 
counterfeit $20 bill. Chauvin, who 
spent almost nine minutes kneeling 
on Floyd’s neck, was charged with 
third degree murder and second 
degree manslaughter. The three 
other officers who were complicit 
and silent during the arrest were 
fired but not arrested. As of today, 
Chauvin’s charge got upgraded to 
second-degree murder, and the 
other three were arrested and 
charges with aided and abetted 
murder
While many have been protesting 
Chauvin 
and 
the 
Minneapolis 
police department who have been 
known to tolerate racism, Tou 
Thao, the Hmong officer who also 
has a history of involvement in use-
of-force incidents, has become the 
symbol of Asian-American silence 
in anti-Blackness sentiment in 
America. Thao has resparked the 
ongoing discussion of minority 

Just shy of a decade after the 
events of the Arab Spring, social 
media’s stature as a beacon of 
hope, 
a 
catalyst 
of 
universal 
change has undergone quite the 
reversal. As Generation Z came of 
age over the course of the 2010s, 
we watched in real time as the 
sanctity of information found and 
distributed on social media was 
forever compromised. In addition 
to issues with misinformation, 
overwhelmingly, 
the 
outward 
facing nature of these platforms 
spawned a culture of normalized 
“slacktivism,” 
wherein 
the 
cultivation of the image of being 
“woke” by privileged groups has 
taken precedence over the actual 
substance of the societal issues 
which predicates such activism. 
The issues most often co-opted 
for social clout are related to the 
continued extrajudicial murder of 
countless Black Americans. But, 
this shouldn’t come as much of a 
surprise for a country which enjoys 
its temporary forays into Black 

culture more than Miley Cyrus. 
More so than any other instance 
of Black-led rebellion seen in the 
previous decade, the most recent 
uprisings beginning on May 26 
have been characterized by a 
suspiciously high amount of white 
endorsement 
and 
participation. 
But, these were not the usual 
white allies — these were white 
moderates. In the past week, 
my 
social 
media 
feeds 
have 
been flooded with the feverish 
reposting of artist’s renditions of 
the deceased, text posts demanding 
accountability on the part of all non-
Black Americans and of course, the 
black tiles. Although an increased 
awareness of the horrors of police 
brutality appears, superficially, to 
be indicative of promising social 
progress, I cannot help but shake 
my suspicions that these displays — 
like most things on social media — 
are just a part of a facade. 
While my skepticism could be 
misconstrued as a selfish attempt 
to “gatekeep” who can and cannot 

be politically active, in reality, 
this cynicism is a byproduct of 
coming of age in the span of years 
separating Trayvon Martin from 
George Floyd, Ferguson from Flint 
and Obama from Trump. Through 
these years, time and time again 
in school, and even in some social 
situations, I was looked to by my 
non-Black peers to rationalize why 
“all lives” and “blue lives” did not 
matter and why violence sometimes 
could be the only appropriate 
answer. And with each repetition of 
this cycle, with every new Black life 
taken prematurely, the same peers 
still refused to educate themselves 
any further than the information 
that was already laboriously spoon-
fed to them by young Black people 
like myself, just clamoring to make 
their people’s humanity known. 
As I observed the same people 
who were once “so concerned” 
with educating themselves retreat 
back to the comfortability of their 
privileged 
existences 
at 
their 
convenience, I began to see my 

efforts to inform had not just fallen 
on deaf ears, but actually replicated 
the existing system of
Black subjugation to whiteness 
— where still, Black labor is readily 
substituted in the place of white 
effort. 
Although 
many 
white 
Americans — particularly Gen Z’ers 
too self-righteous to recognize 
their own similarities to their 
Boomer grandparents—are quick to 
ridicule the glaring hypocrisies of 
attempts to appear “of the people” 
by a Kendall Jenner or Gal Gadot, 
significantly fewer conversations 
are 
being 
had 
regarding 
the 
abruptness 
with 
which 
they 
themselves hop on the bandwagon 
of social responsibility, only to 
retreat back into the complicit 
silence of their “normal” existences 
once their friends stop posting 
Instagram stories, hashtags stop 
trending and the media moves on... 

tensions and relations, especially 
between the Black and Asian 
community. 
When Asian Americans first 
began to immigrate to the United 
States, they were also a large 
target for white supremacy, as 
the 
government 
passed 
racist 
legislation such as the Chinese 

Exclusion Act, fueled the anti-
Japanese movement in the early 
1900s and repeatedly refused to 
grant citizenship to Asians who 
don’t fit the “white” requirement.
However, as time went on, the 
white supremacy transformed. As 
fear that anti-Asian racism could 
jeopardize the country’s world 

leader status and impeded imperial 
expansion, white liberals sought to 
efface Asian exclusion legislation 
during and after World War II. The 
government believed there would 
be a geopolitical payoff in return 
for recognizing Asian Americans 
as “model” citizens, thus a mixture 
of geopolitics, the Cold War and the 

civil rights movement gave birth to 
the “model minority myth.” 
Between 1940 and 1970, Asian 
Americans 
surpassed 
Black 
Americans in average household 
earnings, and also closed the wage 
gap with whites. This was because 
at the beginning of the 20th century, 
Asian Americans were depicted as 
threatening, exotic and degenerate. 
However due to the model minority 
myth, newspapers glorified Asian 
Americans as industrious, law-
abiding citizens who were docile 
and never complained. This wasn’t 
a special tactic, as many minorities 
in the U.S. attempted to combat 
racism by portraying themselves 
as upstanding citizens capable 
of assimilating themselves into 
American 
mainstream 
culture. 
Chinese Americans promoted their 
obedient children and traditional 
family values, Japanese Americans 
referred to their wartime service 
and, while Black Americans also 
made similar appeals, postwar 
America made it convenient for 
political leaders to solely listen to 
the Asian Americans and Pacific 
Islanders community. 

Read more at michigandaily.com

Read more at michigandaily.com

Thursday, June 4, 2020
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

