Post it, tweet it, broadcast it: how to counter racism in an age of social media
Juli Min says the public information tools at our disposal mean we no longer have to suffer discrimination in silence. It’s important to speak up, without being overly sensitive
Fox News suffers ferocious backlash over ‘racist’ segment shot in New York’s Chinatown
To those abroad looking in at the debate, the situation may seem dire. For the past seven years, I’ve worked with students from Asia who move to the US for high school and college. One concerned mother asked me the other day, “Is it safe to send my child to such a racist country?”
I wanted to answer her question correctly. Is it safe? Yes, I believe so. My own experience as an Asian-American has not been riddled with racism. I do not think her child is physically, or even very much emotionally, in grave danger.
One frequent complaint was of being asked too often ‘Where are you really from?’
To get more context, however, I put out a call on social media to my friends of Asian descent. I was flooded with messages and texts. On aggregate, they seemed like a lot, like the aggregate of comments on the New York Times’ website. And yet, when I asked individuals how often they experienced racism, it seemed that, like me, most had only one or two stories in mind over the course of 30 years.
One thing I noticed was that many often conflated racism and a general feeling of alienation. One frequent complaint was being asked too often “Where are you really from?” or being told “Your English is so good!”