The month of May brings warmer 

weather and millions of posts under 
the Asian American Pacific Islander 
hashtag across all social media 
platforms. It is AAPI Heritage 
Month, a time for every Asian 
American and Pacific Islander to 
celebrate their respective cultures. 
AAPI commemoration was first 
officially recognized in 1978 as just 
one week in May, and the celebration 
didn’t expand into a month and 
didn’t become annual until 1990. 
At the same time, the U.S. Census 
Bureau was using the Asian Pacific 
Islander label they had used starting 
in the 1980s. However, while the 
Census Bureau separated the two 
groups in the year 2000, the label 
has continued to persist in colloquial 
use and in names such as AAPI 
Heritage Month. From celebrities to 
“woke” corporations and Instagram 
activist accounts, everyone has 
started using the AAPI label, yet the 
term never felt right to me. 

As the word AAPI has risen in 

popularity in recent months, I began 
to wonder if people really had Pacific 
Islanders’ interests in mind when 
they used the AAPI label. I grew up 
in Hawaii, and as I met more people 
from mainland America, I realized 
just how little people know about the 
Pacific Islands. Most of my mainland 
American friends didn’t even know 
the three regions composing the 
Pacific Islands, yet all of a sudden, 
it 
seemed 
like 
everyone 
was 

discussing violence against Asian 
Americans AND Pacific Islanders. 
As I read article after article with 
AAPI in the headline, I noticed that I 
found nearly no quotes from Pacific 
Islanders. I waded through a flood 
of Asian-focused writing until I 
found articles specifically centering 
Pacific Islanders’ opinions on the 
AAPI label.

The AAPI label continues to 

spread 
online 
without 
people 

understanding its flaws. Despite 
comprising half the acronym, Pacific 
Islanders, composed of Polynesian, 
Melanesian and Micronesian ethnic 
groups, are often left out of the 

discussion surrounding AAPI issues. 
In reality, AAPI in most contexts 
just means Asian, more specifically 
East Asian, yet tacks on Pacific 
Islanders like an afterthought. While 
AAPI and Asian American seem 
like innocuous and interchangeable 
terms to us non-Pacific Islanders, our 
carelessness with the label harms the 
Pacific Islander community we claim 
to want to uplift.

In an attempt to be inclusive, the 

use of the AAPI can end up causing 
more harm than good. Pacific 
Islanders are often drowned out 
by the comparatively large influx 
of Asian American voices. As a 
result, the issues and needs of Asian 
Americans are projected onto Pacific 
Islander Americans, misrepresenting 
the actual struggles Pacific Islanders 
face. For example, according to 
research compiled by APM Research 
Lab, Pacific Islander Americans are 
facing COVID-19 infection rates 
nearly two times higher than Asian 
Americans. 

6

Thursday, May 20, 2021
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

When I arrived in Ann Arbor 

in January, I embarked on a quest 
to survive my second semester of 
college. Along my epic journey, I 
faced powerful foes such as Calculus 
2 and second year-level Japanese. 
Night after night, I crossed swords 
with Taylor polynomials and kanji 
characters. Despite several defeats 
over the course of the semester, I 
vanquished my last final exams and 
claimed the ultimate treasure, an 
ancient relic I had long since forgotten: 
free time. Immediately after my Calc 
2 final, I swiftly exited Gradescope 
and navigated over to Steam; it was 
time I enjoyed myself with a good 
video game after months of non-
stop work. Combing through my 
backlog of games, I stumbled across 
“Omori,” a psychological horror 
game set in a deceptively bright and 
colorful, nostalgic, 8-bit fantasy world 
brimming with amusing characters 
and heartfelt moments.

I bought Omori just a few days after 

its release after seeing a video showing 
the game’s cute art style on Tiktok. 
I had anticipated the game’s horror 

elements from its description on 
Steam; nevertheless I was still a little 
shocked when my player character 
began in a sparse, eerie white room 
called Whitespace. After poking 
around the area and obtaining a knife 
as a weapon, a door became accessible 
and let me venture through the 
world with other friendly characters 
I met. The pastel world design and 
charming characters were so adorable 
that I pretty much forgot that this was 
a horror game. And because I was 
familiar with the fairly simple combat 
system found in other turn-based 
role-playing games like “Pokémon,” 
I was immediately comfortable with 
Omori. As a result, I never wondered 
why there was an inaccessible menu 
option labelled “???” on the top-left 
corner of my screen (Since I was still 
in the tutorial, I figured this would 
be a normal tool that would open up 
to me later). And when my character 
learned a combat skill bluntly labelled 
“stab,” I never viewed it as anything 
more than a basic element typical to 
the genre. 

This 
comforting 
familiarity 

combined with Omori’s exaggeratedly 
adorable world design lulled me into a 
false sense of security and quietly set 
me up for calamity.

After I spent about 30 minutes 

learning 
the 
in-game 
combat 

mechanics, becoming acquainted 
with the main cast and marveling at 
the charming world and character 
design, 
one 
of 
the 
supporting 

characters 
suddenly 
became 

enveloped by a mysterious darkness. 
Completely unexplained, the player 
character is teleported back to 
Whitespace, except now the door 
I once passed through is gone. The 
sudden ejection from my pastoral 
fantasyland back into the sinister 
Whitespace left me trembling as I 
yearned for the sense of comfort I 
felt just minutes prior. With no clear 
way out in an infinite and empty 
room, I wandered around aimlessly, 
desperately searching for the exit but 
to no avail. Out of options, I opened up 
the in-game menu in order to search 
for an item or something to use. 

“STAB,” written in a bold red 

font, replaced the “???” option I 
had previously ignored. Once I 
apprehensively selected the “STAB” 
option, the game prompted me to 
confirm that I wanted to stab my 
player character. 

Disclaimer: 
This 
collective 

statement 
is 
written 
under 
the 

crucial understanding that Israel is 
an occupation and apartheid. It is an 
occupation in that it controls who goes 
in and out of Palestine and continuously 
and illegally occupies Palestinian land 
through Israeli police aggression and 
Israeli “Defense” Forces, which we 
will more accurately refer to as the 
Israeli Occupation Forces throughout 
this statement since “defense” falsely 
implies an equivalent power to defend 
against. Israel is an apartheid in that the 
Palestinian citizens of Israel are treated 
as less than by the Israeli government 
on issues from a lack of civil rights 
compared to Jewish citizens of Israel, to 
medical discrimination, to a lack of clean 
water, and property expulsions. Israel 
exists at the expense of Palestinians, 
and for that, this piece is centered on the 
importance of a liberated Palestine. 

Introduction
Saturday, May 15 marked the 

annual 
commemoration 
of 
the 

Nakba (Nakba is the Arabic word 
for “catastrophe”). Since 1948, the 
ongoing Nakba has resulted in the 
displacement of over 7.2 million 
Palestinians, the brutal genocide of 
over 1,240,000 Palestinians and the 
destruction of over 927 Palestinian 
villages. This day signifies yet 
another year of oppression and forced 
immobility for the Palestinian people 
as they continuously suffer from the 
structurally violent state of Israel 
that works to oppress, dispossess and 
displace Palestinians. The oppression 
of Palestinian people is commonly 
mislabeled as a “conflict” between 
two sides. This false characterization 
serves as an erasure of Palestinian 
oppression and suggests Palestine’s 
defense is equally oppressive. Israel 

has one of the most extensive armies 
in the world, while Palestine does 
not have a unified military and has 
restricted access to weaponry; it’s 
clear that “bothsidesism” and the 
notion of an equal conflict are not 
only inapplicable, but dangerous. 
The magnitude of Israeli settler-
colonialism, the development of the 
apartheid-state and the ongoing 
ethnic cleansing committed against 
Palestinians 
indicates 
that 
this 

oppression should more accurately 
be termed a humanitarian crisis. The 
oppression of Palestinians is rooted in 
Zionism: a racist, ultra-nationalistic 
ideology that, while based on the 
desire for Jewish self-determination, 
strips Palestinians of their rights 
on their own ancestral land and 
justifies the continuous perpetration 
of inhumane war crimes towards 
Palestinians. The bigotry and violence 
birthed from Zionism is the direct 
reason that Israel violently targeted 
Palestinians in the Al-Aqsa Mosque on 
May 7, killed over 197 Palestinians in 
Gaza with airstrikes in the last week, 
murdered at least seven people in the 
occupied West Bank and violently 
attempted to dispossess Palestinian 
families in Sheikh Jarrah. 

May 15 of 2021, Nakba Day, 

commemorates 73 years of pain for 
Palestinians, characterized by years 
of air strikes, innumerable violations 
of humanitarian laws — including the 
denial of basic rights for Palestinians 
such as the right to own property or 
vote — and relentless weaponization 
of international aid in support of 
Israel. Much of academia, from 
students to scholars, dismisses the 
oppression endured by Palestinians 
as complex, but in reality it is quite 
simple to understand — Israel is the 
oppressor and Palestinians are the 
oppressed. 

Performative Diversity in Netflix’s 

Shadow and Bone
Michigan in Color Collective 

Statement on Palestine

The PI in AAPI is silenced

ANDREW NAKAMURA 

MiC Columnist

SAFURA SYED

MiC Columnist

MICHIGAN IN COLOR 

STAFF

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