#anti-asian violence

[joshualunacreations]

U.S. audiences enjoy survival horror stories with Asians in Asia, like Squid Game and Battle Royale. But they don’t want to acknowledge that Asian Americans’ lived reality is a survival horror too.

I have mixed feelings about Squid Game's success. I enjoy the survival horror genre as both a writer and consumer, but seeing how non-Asian U.S. audiences reacted to it in the midst of violent anti-Asian hate crimes left me wondering about the reason for the show's U.S. appeal.

Violence against Asians—particularly when done en masse—is so normalized that I wonder if this type of media provides catharsis to racists. News of hate crimes might briefly force them to feel guilty, but when they see fictional violence against Asians, they can cheer for it. It's as if it evokes the imagery Americans are most familiar with: slaughtering Asians by the dozens or even thousands, a legacy of numerous U.S. wars in Asia. The victims are nameless and unimportant. They're just a statistic, a plot point. One more to add to the body count.

Also, the U.S. loves using Asians in Asia as media replacements for AsAms. It simultaneously reinforces Asians as perpetual foreigners, and prevents giving a microphone to the type of Asian American who would unflinchingly discuss anti-Asian racism and challenge the status quo.

Asian men especially are seen as disposable targets with no humanity and no purpose other than to be mocked and slaughtered on screen. Deadpool, Daredevil, Avengers, Bullet Train, Kill Bill, etc. feature scenes where a protagonist cuts down hordes of Asian men in seconds.

This has real-life consequences. Hate crimes against AAPI men have been purposely belittled, hidden, and ignored—even in media narratives that purport to draw attention to anti-Asian racism. It becomes a feedback loop that double-victimizes AAPI men. (see my data thread)

The hatred of Asian men is so normalized that in AsAm spaces the only acceptable Asian male victim to publicly mention is Vincent Chin, who was murdered 40 years ago. There have been many Vincent Chins since then. But victims get reduced to headlines like "killed over duck sauce.”

Instead, when anti-Asian hate crimes are discussed, it's limited to a narrow range of experience, privileging East Asian women over pretty much all other Asians. This erasure is harmful on many levels and has still not been corrected or even acknowledged. (see my data thread)

I think many AsAms feel like Asian Twitter recently died. But for me, it died several years ago, when Asians with media power decided that all of this harm and imbalance was not only normal, but good. Our community has been broken for a long time. They don't want to fix it.

So does this mean Squid Game, Battle Royale, etc. are bad stories? No. It means we need better real-life conversations and efforts to understand what anti-Asian racism is and how to fix it. Survival horror is a fun thought experiment—until you realize you're living in one.

(Please don’t repost or edit my art. Reblogs are always appreciated.)

If you enjoy my comics, please pledge to my Patreon or donate to my Paypal. https://twitter.com/Joshua_Luna/status/1134522555744866304 https://patreon.com/joshualuna https://www.paypal.com/paypalme2/JoshuaLunaComics

[magnetothemagnificent]

This is what happens when anti-Asian racism and discrimination is allowed to go unchecked.

[newsfromstolenland]

In one private chat group conversation, a Mountie was accused of saying a new female employee "was overweight and insinuating that the shape of her vagina was visible through her clothing."

In another, a second RCMP officer allegedly bragged about "Tasering unarmed Black people" and called a sexual assault investigation "stupid" — drawing comments from other members of the online group who "made fun of the victim" and said, "she's a dumb Mexican c--t."

An investigator with the RCMP's professional standards unit detailed those allegations and many more in a search warrant sworn to obtain evidence now being used to call for the firing of three Coquitlam Mounties for violating the force's code of conduct.

The CBC has obtained a copy of the search warrant — which recounts behaviour which led the officer who sparked the investigation to complain to RCMP brass about what he saw as "atrocious" and "racist and horrible" activity in a private group operating on the Signal messaging app.

Full article

Tagging: @allthecanadianpolitics

More from this article below the cut, because I think it's important to understand just how much fucked up shit they were saying:

(tw misogyny, domestic violence, racial profiling, anti-Indigenous racism, racism)

The documents reveal that investigators also reviewed 600,000 messages posted to the RCMP's internal mobile data chat logs — finding evidence of "frequently offensive" usage by the three officers facing termination of "homophobic and racist slurs."

"The reviewers had identified a variety of comments that were 'chauvinist in nature, with a strong air of superiority, and include flippant or insulting remarks about clients (including objectifying women), supervisors, colleagues, policy and the RCMP as a whole,'" the warrant says.

Code of conduct hearings against Const. Philip Dick, Const. Ian Solven and Const. Mersad Mesbah had been slated to begin in Surrey this week but have been adjourned until March of next year. All three officers have been suspended since June 2021.

Although Dick, Solven and Mesbah appear to be the only Mounties currently facing code-of-conduct hearings, the court documents say seven other officers were also part of the private chat group — including two supervisors.

Among the details contained in the search warrant are allegations one of the officers facing discipline joked about a domestic violence victim, calling the victim "a dumb f--king bitch, should've worn a mouth guard."

The whistleblower — Const. Sam Sodhi — claimed that outside of the private chat group, members of the group also "belittled Indigenous people, talking about how they were 'stupid' or 'drunk' and saying they have 'unfortunate bodies' and all have fetal alcohol syndrome."

"They would say, 'We're not going to the reserve,'" the search warrant claims Sodhi told investigators.

"We're not going there because we're not going to help those people."

According to the court documents, Sodhi was posted to Coquitlam in 2019.

"As part of that process, he wrote a letter about wanting to work in an urban centre and help at-risk youth that didn't have role models," the warrant claims.

But Sodhi claimed that on his second day at work, Dick — his trainer — asked him: "Are you a cool brown guy, or are you a Surrey brown guy? Because in that letter, you're whiny, like, 'Ooh, I want to help brown people.'"

Sodhi claimed there were two chat groups for members of the Coquitlam detachment assigned to Port Coquitlam — one for all members of the watch and a second private group that began on WhatsApp but then moved to Signal. He said he was told once he was "worthy" of the private chat group, "we'll add you to it."

The officer claimed he was admitted to the private chat group in March 2021 but left after a few days because of the "constant negativity." He said he was then accused of "not being a team member" and encouraged to return.

According to the search warrant, Sodhi complained to his superiors in May 2021, and a chief superintendent mandated an investigation into five Mounties — including a corporal who was accused of failing to take measures to prevent misconduct.

The probe initially focused on text communications between the RCMP's own laptops — known as Mobile Data Terminals. Investigators reviewed messages between the five men from January 2019 until May 2021.

"When members of the [Signal] chat group realized there was an investigation, they opined that the investigation was probably about 'MDT chats' ... since the private chat group was kept 'amongst the trusted' and 'there's no way this got out,'" the warrant says.

Examples cited from the RCMP computers include statements like, "Why do brown guys have unusually high pitched voices." "As an idiot woman would say ... 'toxic,'" and, "I just racially profile pulled over a car."

A review of the chat logs also allegedly found the three officers facing termination "appeared to use 'goldfish' as a slur for Asian people."

"For example, they talked about how 'goldfish' have 'bulging eyes' that 'can't see anything,' how a Korean church in the detachment was a 'goldfish church' and how 'goldfish' were bad drivers (a common Asian stereotype)," the warrant says.

[dragonfoxandfound]

Let me preface this with I am a brown WOC who's people were colonized, come from a culture that deals with colorism and also am in a relationship with a lightskinned POC so you'll see why this mess rubs me the wrong way.

Unhinged Kataang Shipper: using Jetara as a stepping stone to Zutara is inherently racist because Jet is a brown boy and Zuko is a pasty ass easian dude.It's colorist and orientalist

Also Unhinged Kataang Shipper: Jet's not a misunderstood bad boy,he's a radicalist brown boy it's giving the same vibe as 'interracial ships only count if one of them is white,not different kinds of poc'(Z/Ks always turn Zuko white-adjacent)

I think I lost a few IQ points just trying to read this drivel.

So let me let this straight, Kataang shippers say Zuko is a colonizer despite never colonizing anything but Jet who planned to kill a village of innocent men, women and children is just a radicalized brown boy?

And then call Zuko white (erasing and an already underepresented minority in american media) because he's lightskinned POC? And that somehow means Katara and Zuko don't count as an interracial ship? And shipping them before Jetara is racist?

You guys do know who else is lightskinned, right? I guess Kataangers who like Kataang over Jetara are racist, colorist and orientalist.

That's probably as much news to them as it is to me.

Let's go a step furthere, by that logic Bryke and atla were also racist, colorist and orientalist by having Sokka use indigenous Yue as a stepping stone to end up with lightskinned Suki, right? I mean that is what happened in canon.

Do you guys even think before you post this shit?

[thundergrace]

January 22, 2023

They have no information. The shooter is still at large, so please tell everyone you know in the LA area to...... well, nothing. I guess there's nothing you can do to be safe and nowhere you can go to be safe, so just good luck 😔

Only country with dozens of mass shootings a year, but apparently, it's unstoppable. There is no way forward to even reduce gun violence at all. That's what gun enthusiasts say. That's the logic we're supposed to accept: nothing can stop it or reduce it, so there's no point in trying. Again, only happens here. But yeah....

[creepykuroneko]

Whenever I see asian, brown, and/or black Americans reinforcing, supporting, and upholding racism, colonization, imperialism, colorism, and any other belief system that not only harms them directly but other non-white communities as well and they still want to claim that they themselves are POC and face discrimination I feel bitter disgust towards them.

[lastofthe20thcenturygirls]

can i kill tian huan myself please 🥺

[this-world-of-beautiful-monsters]

Say it with me now:

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK

I’m going to try and figure out who died, maybe track down some resources, but it’s pretty much a live-update situation.

[sistersatan]

(via GIPHY)

[joshualunacreations]

We often talk about how white supremacy uses the Model Minority Myth as a wedge, but rarely talk about how Black Americans adopt racism and jingoism against Asians domestically and abroad. (Please don’t repost or edit my art. Reblogs are always appreciated.)

If you enjoy my comics, please pledge to my Patreon or donate to my Paypal.

[ossidae-passeridae]

I've talked about the Jedi and the canon examples of how deeply and openly they loved each other elsewhere so I'm not gonna harp on about that again, but this sort of take is one I see floating around a bunch and like:

I always wonder if the people saying it understand how profoundly racist it is.

Dae, you may say, what do you mean? Well, my friend, let me explain. The thing is that the Jedi are heavily and explicitly based on Asian culture. Not just in their aesthetic, but from the ground up. So when you're saying the Jedi are loveless you're actually (and I presume unknowingly) repeating a common anti-Asian stereotype.

You see, Asian Americans are often told they "don't feel love" or "don't love right" because the cultural ways of expressing them are different to (white) western ones. They're told they shouldn't focus on relationships because who'd date them? Better to just think about their work.

Being told that how you love is wrong, and that it means you don't actually feel love at all... Can you even imagine how much that hurts? To feel that emotion only to be told it's not real because it doesn't conform to another culture's ideal?

It feeds into the idea that Asian men are sexless, and Asian women are nothing more than objects to be desired -- if they don't feel love then it's not like it'll hurt them right?

(The logical conclusion of this particular idea is, "mail order brides are okay if they're Asian, it's not like they feel love anyway!" 😬)

Whenever you, gentle reader, are about to say something about the Jedi order as a whole, I continue to recommend first thinking; if I swapped out "Jedi" for "Asian", am I just repeating a racist stereotype?

And if you are, maybe look back at the original texts. Lucas wanted to show the Jedi in a positive light, to him they were unambiguously heroes. Where does your hatred find its roots?

today on "absolutely unhinged things for stover to put on paper and lucas to approve," the depiction of obi-wan's self-aware attachment to anakin here, how ready he'd be to kill yoda for the greater good, and how he'd let yoda kill him too, but anakin is the exception to their entire order and to obi-wan's moral judgment.

all three of them here, arguably the three most important jedi in the galaxy, they all know with wariness that anakin, the chosen one, has failed to grasp the central tenet of their code, and they don't know what to do about it. obi-wan thinks he failed him, failed to teach him; he knows anakin failed to learn, failed to accept it, how he'd would never let a friend go.

obi-wan here offers keen, intimate analysis of anakin's inner workings, shining a light on who darth vader really is in his heart, his loyalty beyond any moral or ethical bounds. obi-wan is painfully aware of how he is complicit in fostering this inappropriate attachment, only encouraging anakin's behavior. we see why he apologized in the kenobi show, how he was already sorry.

tbh this page changed me—my understanding of the characters, and my appreciation of the entire tragedy, like.. look how anakin has compromised obi-wan, and look at how much obi-wan loves him anyway. look at how the heart of this incipient monster is described with tender, ruthless clarity by the one who knows it best... on the next page obi-wan's literally crying about what they've done... i'm astrally projecting into the sun

[myinterestsvary-writes]

awesome video

[scarlet--wiccan]

Agatha All Along, the highly anticipated follow-up to WandaVision, begins airing this week on Disney+. Now is the perfect to revisit some important information about both shows and the context in which some of Agatha's new characters are being introduced.

WandaVision primarily followed the character Wanda Maximoff and expanded on her family history by introducing her late parents as well her twin sons, who are born from magic and age rapidly over the course of the series.

In the Marvel comics source material, Wanda is part of a large, multigenerational family of Jewish and Romani characters whose stories frequently reflect the systemic violence and oppression that both communities face-- including Romani Holocaust victims, who are critically underrepresented in both education and media. In the MCU, these identities and histories are completely erased, and the characters are all played by white actors. Alternate versions of these characters also appear in the Fox X-Men films, and are similarly whitewashed.

The Romani people are a racialized minority that originated as a South Asian diaspora, and who face severe systemic oppression in Europe and North America. The modern Romani population is quite diverse, but they are not of white ethnic origin, and despite the fact that Wanda and her family have historically been drawn with white features, they are minority characters and ought to be considered as such.

Depictions of witches and witchcraft are often entwined with antisemitism and anti-Romani racism. In pop culture, witches and fortunetellers are typically portrayed as visual stereotypes of Romani women. In the real world, fortunetelling is a profession born from survival work, one which Romani families are often heavily policed and racially profiled for practicing. While Wanda usually subverts these tropes, they are often played straight elsewhere in the superhero genre, and any story about witches, especially one featuring Romani characters, needs to be critiqued in this context.

Agatha All Along introduces viewers to a new cast of characters, including Lilia Calderu, played by Patti LuPone, and the enigmatic "Teen", played by Joe Locke, who is heavily speculated to be an incarnation of Wanda's son, Billy.

In the comics, Lilia is a member of a prominent Romani family in Wanda's community. Often lauded as the "witch queen of the gypsies," Lilia embodies many racial stereotypes about Romani women. In Agatha All Along, Lilia is depicted as an older Sicilian woman, however, being portrayed as a batty fortuneteller with a tawdry psychic shop, she still embodies an offensive trope. Although Lilia is far from "good" representation, this is not an improvement-- if anything, it's even more exploitative.

Billy was raised in a Jewish American household and places a very strong emphasis on his Jewish identity, in addition to having Romani heritage. His identity as a young gay man is always presented in conjunction with this heritage, not in spite of it. Though there is a significance to Locke being a gay actor playing a gay character, his casting-- if he is indeed playing Billy-- is not authentic. White gay representation should not supersede racial inclusivity, and it is not an excuse for whitewashing or Jewish erasure.

Marvel Studios recently announced that the character Doctor Doom will be played by Robert Downey Jr., who is returning to the franchise after many years in the role of Iron Man. In the source material, Doom is also a Romani character with a very similar background to Wanda's. This identity is central to Doom's character-- although he is written to be both morally and politically challenging, the liberation of his people has always been a primary motive.

Clearly, this type of whitewashing is an ongoing pattern in the MCU franchise. Although "Teen's" identity is still unconfirmed and Lilia may, ultimately, be of little consequence, they are part of a larger problem, and Agatha All Along needs to critiqued in that context.

[eowynstwin]

This truly is the last thing I want to say on this blog and then I'm done psych I lived bitch, but given how the fucking catastrophe started it's only appropriate this is how I end it—

You have racist bias whether you like it or not. Particularly if you are US American, racism was baked into your worldview no matter what kind of household, liberal or conservative, you grew up in. Racism is quite often far more covert than it is overt. It is not just a voluntary behavior; it is more often the subconscious ways you organize and hierarchize other cultures and people.

In the case of Gaz—sure, you might actively believe that he deserves to be more included. You think he's a good character and people really should think about him more! But you personally headcanon him a certain way, and really it's not a headcanon you're actually all that into, so that's why you don't talk about him as much. It's not because he's black, it's because he doesn't fit the thing you like talking about the most. The fact that he's black is really just a coincidence, you're not excluding him because of that. In fact, you're sure other people like him for exactly the reason you're not all that into him, and you'll just leave it to them to pick up the slack. Or you'll get to him later! In fact, you have some ideas for him. You just haven't gotten around to them yet.

Take that and multiply it by thousands of white women in fandom—not just this fandom, not just Gaz's character, but every fandom and every character of color. It doesn't matter that there's no active malice behind not personally liking black characters and other characters of color. Non-white characters still take a backseat to their white counterparts, because white women in fandom cannot wrap their heads around black, brown, indigenous, and Asian characters as complex, complicated characters worthy of their interest or frankly, their desire.

They cannot wrap their heads around this because they were conditioned not to by decades of racist culture.

Case in point; plenty of white women in this fandom have fallen head over heels for Makarov and Graves. The sins of these out-and-out villains are totally forgiven by virtue of their sex appeal, and because they are portrayed by attractive, charismatic men who put a lot of passion behind their performances.

But can we say the same for Hadir? Can we say the same for Hassan?

The sins of these two Middle Eastern characters do not outweigh those of their villainous white counterparts, yet how many angsty fix-it fics have been written exploring Hadir's complicated relationship with violence and imperialism? How many enemies-to-lovers or even lovers-to-enemies fics have been written about Hassan, the face of whose homeland has been irrevocably marred by US interference?

No one who points out the racism of this trend is accusing these white women of active, militant white supremacy. I'm not saying any of you even have to like Gaz, Hadir, or Hassan. But your preferences have been tuned for you by a culture shaped by slavery, imperialism, and white supremacy. That is not something you can escape merely because you support the BLM movement or reblog vetted Palestinian gofundmes.

The only way you can truly fight your own racism is to be actively anti-racist. It is about far more than who you give money to or what graphics you pin on your instagram. It is an everyday practice of learning how racism has shaped your worldview for you.

This is not work that is done in a week, a month, or a year. Becoming anti-racist takes as much time as it took to make you racist in the first place. For some of you, the work may turn out to be easy. For others, it may be hard. You must do it either way.

Some good places to start:

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

Ain't I a Woman? by bell hooks

We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity by bell hooks

A Burst of Light by Audre Lorde

The Body Is Not An Apology by Sonya Renee Taylor

Fearing the Black Body by Sabrina Strings

Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi

Being Palestinian edited by Yasir Suleiman

[art]

Meet the Artist: @joshualunacreations

Hi, I’m Joshua and I’m a professional comic book writer and artist. I co-created three series at Image comics: Ultra, Girls, and The Sword. After I went solo with my Image series Whispers, I started making online comic strips exploring my Filipino/Asian American identity and experiences. What began as a side project and organic outlet to process my thoughts and feelings turned into a seven-year journey that continues to this day. The more I write and draw, the more I realize I have to say—especially with the sharp increase in anti-Asian violence against AAPI and the institutional censorship that prevents us from addressing it adequately. I was told by my publisher that I wasn’t talking about AAPI issues in the “right way” because I tackle difficult, complex, and painful truths about Asian America. Despite these barriers, I’m determined to collect these strips into a book and publish them as Americanizasian. In the meantime, you can follow and share my work online and support me by pledging to my Patreon or donating to my PayPal. Happy APAHM!

Pleased to meet you, Joshua! He has shared some of his comics below for you all.

Check out more of Joshua’s artworks over at his Tumblr, @joshualunacreations!

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We are highlighting some of Tumblr’s talented artists of Asian descent all month as part of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month!

[skypalacearchitect]

#asian people--especially asian women-- being perceived as more sexually deviant for no reason... is ... yknow....

this is like an 1800s orientalist guy to say. The Easterners They Have Just Too Strange Customs Because Of Their Foreign Culture... We Cannot Hope To Understand Their Minds Or Communicate With Them