7-Opinion
Opinion
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ANDREW GERACE | OPINION SENIOR EDITOR
V
accines. The epitome of
short-term
pain,
long-
term gain. A scientific
achievement and feat of human
accomplishment that can be received
in a grocery store pharmacy. A quick
pinch in the arm gives people more
hope than they’ve felt in a year. The
vaccine is nothing short of a miracle
and likely what will usher us out
of the current pandemic. While it
seems like campus is abuzz about
the vaccine, especially with Gov.
Gretchen
Whitmer’s,
D-Mich.,
statement about vaccine availability
for all adults aged 16 and older on
April 5, I am deeply concerned by a
pattern of behavior that has emerged:
lying about one’s situation expressly
for the purpose of getting a vaccine.
I’ve heard a number of strategies
or ways to “game the system” being
passed around among students
looking to jump in line. Things like
claiming a non-visible disability or
illness, claiming employment in the
childcare or healthcare industries
while not working in either field
or crossing state lines and faking
residency. Driving to Ohio, while
claiming to be working in childcare
in the state, may seem like a harmless
strategy
for
getting
vaccinated
quicker when in reality it is wrong,
dangerous and immoral.
From a purely ethical standpoint,
lying for personal gain is wrong.
From a health perspective, taking a
vaccine out of the hands of someone
within a category that needs it more
is detrimental to the long-term public
health initiative of vaccination. From
a community standpoint, taking a
vaccine appointment from someone
who is at greater risk and therefore in
greater need is shameful.
The tiered system for receiving
vaccines was designed in many ways
to prioritize the needs of front-line
workers, people with disabilities
and chronic illnesses, areas with
less robust hospital systems and
healthcare and childcare workers.
The plans were designed to limit
the spread of COVID-19, especially
amongst
our
most
vulnerable
populations and those working with
them, at the forefront. With demand
significantly higher than supply at
this point in the pandemic, this tiered
system is a necessary facet of vaccine
distribution to ensure the best possible
public health outcome.
While the tiered system certainly
has its flaws in verification, that
does not give people permission
to take advantage of those that
need the system to get vaccinated
due to their employment or health
situation. Although locations may
not check identities, employment
records, disability statuses, places
of residence or other features that
would demonstrate valid reasons for
vaccination at this point, that does not
grant permission to abuse the system.
This behavior is not to be confused
with perfectly legitimate means of
obtaining a vaccine early. No-waste
lists are a great way to get a vaccine
early without stealing an appointment
from someone who needs it more.
No-waste lists allow hospitals or
vaccination clinics to reach out when
there are leftover vaccines that would
go to waste or expire if they aren’t used.
Volunteering at vaccine clinics is
also a noble and encouraged way to get
a vaccine earlier. Helping organize or
staff a vaccine clinic allows the gears
of public health to turn and usually
includes the perk of receiving a vaccine
in exchange for one’s service. The
additional risk of working at a clinic —
potentially exposing oneself to many
people — is grounds for receiving a
vaccination if one is available.
I want to make it clear that I
recognize the fear of COVID-19 is
incredibly real, almost paralyzing
for many of us. Many of us, myself
included, have directly lost family
members, friends, teachers, classmates
or colleagues to the virus or its
accompanying medical complications.
However, this fear cannot be an
excuse for leaving integrity behind.
Wait your turn
Andrew Gerace is a Senior
Opinion Editor and can be reached at
agerace@umich.edu.
MRINALINI IYER | COLUMNIST
“
All this damn activism is just
performative!”
This of course, is not true.
However, in my irritation over this
week’s shameless recycling of the
activism seen on social media during
previous movements, I yelled this
statement at my boyfriend followed
by several profanities.
This week, my social media feed,
like many others, has been filled
with colorful slideshows advocating
for awareness of anti-Asian racism.
With the recent rise of this issue
and the subsequent mass shooting
in Atlanta, Ga., came the inevitable
rise of Instagram infographics. Posts
about local Asian-owned businesses
and links to GoFundMe pages began
circulating, and it soon became clear
that this was largely a repurposing of
this summer’s calls to action.
Infographic culture arose over the
summer as a form of activism that
didn’t require leaving the house
during a pandemic. Twitter
threads with GoFundMe links
to the families of victims and
Black Lives Matter carrds
popped up on every app
and honestly, it was a good
thing. Maybe it was slightly
performative, but it was nice to
see a focus on self-education.
Black history and systemic
oppression
were
common
themes of my social media feed.
However, social media over the
past few weeks has contained
suspiciously similar rhetoric.
The problem with recycling
these themes is, of course, that
not all racism is the same. Anti-
Asian racism, while horrible
and particularly acute at this moment,
is born in xenophobia. Anti-Black
racism, on the other hand, is more
institutionalized and comes from an
insidious 400-year history of slavery
and oppression in the United States.
Without addressing the difference, it
is impossible to fix either issue or to
have a meaningful discourse about
them. And these Instagram posts,
well-intentioned as they may be, are
proving to be less than useful in truly
breaking down these distinctions.
I appreciate Instagram activism
— education is a valuable tool for
self-growth, and these slideshows
distill difficult information in an
easily digestible format, making it
easy to be passed along. However,
infographic
culture
attempts
reached beyond its limits.
Most social issues are difficult to
understand for a reason: They are
complex, nuanced and cannot be
understood in 10 slides or fewer. Anti-
Asian racism is one such issue.
For years, Asian people have
been held up next to Black and
Hispanic people as the “model
minority”
in
America.
This
stereotype provides more than
just a wedge to drive minorities
seeking racial justice apart — it’s
also an opportunity for people
to claim that Asian people are
privileged, and therefore, that
anti-Asian racism doesn’t exist
in the United States. After all, if
so many Asian-American people
attend top universities and have
successful careers where they are
paid as much or even more than
their white counterparts, how bad
can racism really be?
This simple-minded rhetoric fails
to acknowledge the struggles of many
Asian people in America, particularly
immigrant workers such as those
that were murdered in Atlanta
last week. Anti-Asian sentiments
that were exacerbated during the
COVID-19 pandemic and the ones
held by the Atlanta shooter stem from
xenophobia and a fear of outsiders.
Fears that Asian immigrants are
going to steal American jobs are as
old as Asian-American history itself.
In addition, media tropes that hyper-
sexualize Asian women, paint Asian
men as feminine or weak and force
Asian-American actors to put on
heavy, fake accents further influence
American perception of Asian people,
particularly Asian immigrants.
This is not to imply that anti-Asian
racism is somehow easier to solve or
less ingrained in American culture
than anti-Black racism, but they are
different. While both require a severe
examination of our own implicit
biases and of society’s rhetoric,
it is important to remember that
an Instagram infographic cannot
do that for us. They can be useful
tools for provoking the internal
dialogue necessary to conduct such
an evaluation, but these graphics
alone do not lead to enough of the
conversations required around the
proverbial dinner tables. In fact,
many lead people the opposite way,
allowing us to memorize statistics
and harden pre-existing beliefs
without critically thinking about the
issues or our role in them.
It is easy to show a performative
amount of allyship when it takes
three clicks to repost an infographic
onto your Instagram story.
This kind of “infographic
activism” places the problem
and its blame squarely onto
one’s followers, as opposed to
being a tool for critical analysis
of one’s own prejudices.
I can’t pretend I have
never engaged in this easy,
mindless form of activism.
It’s simple, comfortable and
socially acceptable. It is much
more difficult to actively seek
out
alternative
resources,
examine your own biases and
understand the complexities of
the situation. Regardless, just
like anti-Black racism, anti-
Asian sentiment cannot be
easily fixed through protests,
donations or shopping at Asian-owned
businesses — though these are all good
ways to show solidarity with the Asian
community. Anti-Asian racism is
often subtle and can slip through the
cracks in society’s perception of what
is considered “racist.”
Social media’s simple breakdown
of complex social issues in ten slides
or less glosses over the ways in
which people can help in the real
world. Allyship is difficult work. It
takes constant revision, apologies
and compassion. Nuance is a key
component in being a good ally, and
honestly, Instagram infographics just
aren’t cutting it anymore.
Make activism nuanced again
Mrinalini Iyer can be reached at
iyermili@umich.edu.
HEERYUNG CHOI, JANE IM, CINDY LIN AND YIXIN ZOU | OP-ED CONTRIBUTORS
W
e acknowledge that the University
of Michigan sits on the ancestral,
traditional
and
contemporary
lands of the Anishinaabeg — the Three Fires
Confederacy of Ojibwe, Odawa and Potawatomi
peoples. By offering this acknowledgment, we
want to affirm Indigenous sovereignty and
advocate for the sovereignty of Michigan’s 12
federally-recognized Indian nations, for historic
Indigenous communities in Michigan, for
Indigenous individuals and communities who
continue to live among us and for those who
were forcibly removed from their Homelands.
Honoring Indigenous communities, both past
and present, as well as future generations, we
would like to speak about the issue of anti-Asian
racism and violence in the United States.
Dear University of Michigan leadership,
We, as Asians, Asian Americans and allies
in the School of Information doctoral student
community, are deeply saddened and enraged by
the brutal shootings in Atlanta on March 16. Six
victims were women of Asian descent (according
to an announcement from Stop AAPI Hate, some
families of the victims have asked for their names
not to be shared). An interview with a surviving
witness in a widely read Korean media outlet
revealed that the suspect vowed to “kill all Asians
_____” right before the shooting. Yet, in the wake
of the Atlanta shootings, the Office of Diversity,
Equity and Inclusion released a statement that
did not directly regard the shooting as racially
motivated, instead saying “the suspect has stated
that race was not a motivating factor in their
acts.”
The Office of the President’s statement
emphasizes the University’s long-held ties with
many students and colleagues of Asian descent,
saying, “As a university community that
welcomed our first Chinese students almost
130 years ago, we cherish the intellectual and
social contributions of our students, faculty and
staff of Asian descent.” However, highlighting
how the University benefits from or contributes
to Asian and Asian American communities
does not directly address the root cause of anti-
Asian racism: white supremacy. We expect
the leadership to publicly denounce white
supremacy — the key ideology that perpetuates
racial injustice.
The same statement from the leadership
also encouraged faculty, staff and students
to seek out resources they have provided.
However, a list of resources will not suffice for
understanding the deep anti-Asian sentiments
that have plagued the United States for
centuries and surged over the past few years.
While reminding Asians and Asian Americans
of resources to address anti-Asian racism is a
step forward, it can also be read as delegating
the responsibility to communities of Asian
descent to deal with systematic inequalities and
anti-Asian racism.
More than 12% of students (which doesn’t
include non-resident students) at the University
of Michigan are from Asian countries or are
Asian descendants. Despite this fact, we note
that leadership and faculty members in several
schools and departments have been late to
acknowledge that the surge in anti-Asian hate
crimes, including but not limited to the Atlanta
shooting, is not only due to the COVID-19
pandemic. These acts are also deeply related
to how Asians and Asian Americans have
been historically subjected to exclusionary
immigration, labor policies and episodic
violence for more than a century.
This includes a litany of U.S. foreign policy
episodes against Asian countries and against
communities of Asian descent within the
United States. In the People v. Hall case in 1854,
the Supreme Court of California reversed the
murder conviction of George W. Hall against
Chinese immigrant Ling Sing because three
prosecution witnesses were Chinese. This case
allowed white Americans to avoid punishment
for anti-Asian violence. The Page Act of 1875,
thereafter, was the first restrictive immigration
law in the U.S., which banned Chinese women
from entering the U.S. by classifying them all as
sex workers and “immoral.”
This was followed by the creation of the
Asiatic Barred Zone through the Immigration
Act of 1917, which aimed to limit immigrants from
Asian countries. Not long after, the government
of the United States built internment camps to
enclose communities of Japanese Americans
who they believed were potentially spying
against the nation-state during World War II,
while the U.S. fought against Japan in Southeast
Asia. Southeast Asian migrants continued to
experience border violence after U.S. occupation
in the Philippines, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam
since the late 19th century.
The calls to wage “war on terror” in Asia, the
Middle East and Africa have led to the ongoing
policing and surveillance of Brown populations
from Central and South Asia, especially after
9/11. Islamophobia has dire consequences on
other religious communities in the United
States: A neo-Nazi killed six Sikh people during a
Sunday service at the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin
in Oak Creek, Wis., in 2012, driven by what the
Sikh community believed was anti-Muslim hate.
The University of Michigan itself is
complicit in racism and colonialism against
Asia and Asians. James Burrill Angell, the
University’s longest-serving president, served
as U.S. Minister to China from 1880 to 1881 and
was the primary American negotiator of the
Angell Treaty of 1880. The treaty permitted
restrictions on Chinese immigration and laid
the foundation for the Chinese Exclusion Act
in 1882. The University of Michigan also hosts
a large collection of cultural artifacts from U.S.
colonies and marginalized groups.
For instance, the U.S. has a long colonial
history in the Philippines, including the
occupation of the Philippines (1898-1946),
the Philippine-American War (1899-1902)
and the operation of U.S. bases in the islands
(1899-1992). The opportunity to study and
explore a newly acquired territory, combined
with the paternalistic mission to civilize
and democratize the islands and its peoples,
prompted U-M faculty, students and alumni
to go to the Philippines to teach, conduct field
research, establish business ventures and
occupy prominent colonial administrative
posts. This makes the University one of the
largest collectors of Philippine items in North
America.
Anti-Asian racism, then, builds and extends
from the key forms of racism in the United
States: chattel slavery and anti-Black violence,
settler colonialism and U.S. imperialism.
Because of the specific historical experiences
of Asians and Asian Americans and the recent
surge in anti-Asian racism such as calling
COVID-19 “China virus,” we find it crucial to
develop our own voice in matters of anti-Asian
racism. In academia, we are typically perceived
as receiving an honorary white status, and
American media and political discourse
have portrayed Asians and Asian Americans
as “model minorities.” Nonetheless, we are
subjected to white supremacy and our voices
are often silenced, neglected or misconstrued.
The University portrays itself as a safe haven
for students of color. But being a student does
not protect us from the
risk and anxiety of
being insulted, accused, harassed or assaulted
in daily life as we pursue our educational goals.
Even within universities, we have witnessed
repeated incidents of sexual harassment, abuse,
racial aggression and discrimination not being
fully addressed, such as allegations of sexual
misconduct by professors Jason Mars and Peter
Chen, and racist fliers on campus targeting
multiple communities of color. Simply saying
that the University of Michigan has supported
students through education is not enough to
address anti-Asian racism.
Importantly, many of the people who have
been harmed in anti-Asian hate crimes are
sexual and gender minorities (e.g. women,
genderqueer, femme-presenting people, non-
binary, transgender, bisexual, lesbian). The
research from the Stop AAPI Hate Reporting
Center revealed that 68% of anti-Asian hate
crimes targeted Asian women. We ask that
the U-M leadership, faculty members and staff
recognize that this is a crime at the intersection
of anti-Asian racism, heteropatriarchy and
misogynistic violence. Asian sexual and gender
minorities experience various forms of violence,
ranging from microaggressions such as name-
calling to forced physical and sexual abuse —
knowing and recognizing this is fundamental in
showing solidarity to students of Asian descent.
We are inspired by the ongoing efforts
developed by Black, Indigenous and persons
of color activist groups in and outside of the
University because we believe that solidarity
relies on building ties and organizing for the
voices of other communities of color. The core
issue here is white supremacy. We continue to
learn from these groups and speak out against
these deadly issues alongside them.
We would like to end with some tangible
action items for U-M leadership, faculty and
staff.
* Offer to listen when checking in with Asian
and Asian American students instead of waiting
for them to reach out if you haven’t done so yet.
We have heard from students around us about
the lack of faculty members’ attention about
anti-Asian hate crimes, which indicates the
lack of understanding about racism that Asians
and Asian Americans experience or perhaps,
more importantly, their lack of effort to educate
themselves about it. When you check in with
Asian and Asian American students, don’t use
vague language like “mass shooting” or “bad
things happened.” Use precise words such as
“anti-Asian” or “racism” to name the issue. The
Atlanta shooting is an issue committed against
some of the most vulnerable populations in the
U.S. that intersect across class, race, gender,
sexuality and ability. The complexity of the
issue is not a sufficient excuse to resist naming
the incident as such.
* There are a lot of white-Asian, supervisor-
supervisee relationships due to the high
percentage of white academics. If you are a
white supervisor, recognize that Asian and
Asian American students have been frequently
subjected
to
microaggressions
in
such
relationships. Create a culture against it.
* Educate yourself about anti-Asian racism
and encourage other non-Asian people to do
so. Do not ask Asians and Asian Americans
you know to teach you about anti-Asian racism
— especially not during these moments when
we’re busy healing ourselves. Some pointers we
suggest are: Violence Against Asian-Americans
Isn’t New, but It Is Growing | The Amber
Ruffin Show; Coping with & Contextualizing
Anti-Asian Racism & Pandemics; Anti-Asian
Violence Resources; Asian American Feminism
Resources; Excluding Asians as a minority
group ignores decades of hardship.
* Learn to pronounce our names correctly
and distinguish our faces. Research has shown
that the mispronouncing of names in schools can
negatively impact students’ self-perceptions and
worldviews and can even lead students to shy
away from their own cultures or families.
* Please consider donating to organizations
that are committed to fighting against anti-
Asian racism or directly donating to the people
harmed by the hate crimes: Asian Americans
Advancing Justice-Atlanta is a nonprofit legal
advocacy organization dedicated to protecting
the civil rights of Asian Americans, Native
Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders (AANHPI) in
Georgia and the Southeast.; Asian American
Advocacy Fund is a grassroots organization
dedicated to building a progressive Asian
American base in Georgia.; Red Canary Song
is a grassroots collective of Asian and migrant
sex workers.; Jean Yang, a former professor
at Carnegie Mellon University, created a
document with various GoFundMe campaigns
aiming to cover medical expenses and recovery
after racist attacks on Asian-Americans and
Asian-owned businesses.
* Do not impose your views on what
immigrants need to know or how to behave
— for example, stop telling Asian students to
“practice English” outside of work by giving
up their primary language; stop telling Asian
students to “fit in” or “find an English name.”
Immigrants bring their own perspective that
contributes and actively adds to U.S. culture,
which should be acknowledged and celebrated.
An open letter to the U-M community
The op-ed is adapted from an open letter initiated
and co-written by Cindy Lin, Heeryung Choi, Jane Im
and Yixin Zou, co-edited and signed by 69 other doctoral
students, all from the University of Michigan’s School
of Information. We thank Associate Professor Ricky
Punzalan and Faculty-Staff Members of the Asian Pacific
Islander Desi/American (APID/A) Staff Association for
their valuable input and feedback on the early draft.
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
12 — Wednesday, April 7, 2021
The problem with recycling
these themes is, of course,
that not all racism is
the same. ... Without
addressing the difference,
it is impossible to fix
either issue or to have a
meaningful discourse about
them.
Read more at
MichiganDaily.com