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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