Historical Context

There have been many instances of AfroAsian encounters, both positive and negative, in the past few centuries. African Americans and Asian Americans have oftentimes been in conflict with each other because of hegemonic structures designed to create conflict between the two racial groups. However, there have been instances of both direct and indirect AfroAsian coalition in history. These include the Bandung Conference of 1955, the shared struggles between Black and Asian people to be considered American, and more. Here we will provide some information about how Black and Asian people have interacted and why those interactions were either positive or negative.

Hegemony, Racial Triangulation, and the Model Minority Myth

Hegemony is dominance held by one group over one or multiple other groups. In America, white hegemony is used against minority groups, including African Americans and Asian Americans. The social system is structured in a way that keeps white people in power and at the top and minority groups divided and at the bottom. White ideologies are spread in minority communities so that these groups are pitted against each other and have conflictual interactions. This way, minorities are fighting against each other instead of uniting to fight against white supremacy. Black-Asian tensions, specifically are maintained mainly through racial triangulation and the model minority myth.

Imagine a literal triangle divided into 3 smaller triangles. In the triangle at the top are white people, the people who have dominance. The two triangles at the bottom are Black people, the inferior insider group, and Asian American people, the inferior outsiders. This is the hegemonic structure of race in America when it comes to Black and Asian people. In discussions about racism, the two groups that are mostly mentioned are Black people and white people. Many people believe that racism is just a Black-white issue because for so long, Black people in this country were enslaved and mistreated by white people. However, there are now many different racial groups in America and all these groups experience racism. Racial triangulation makes it difficult for Asian Americans to fight against the racism they face as a minority group. Some Asian Americans don’t even see themselves as minorities and are unable to acknowledge their struggles. This is a hegemonic strategy to prevent AfroAsian coalitions and to maintain white supremacy. The best way to fight against systems of oppression is through solidarity across multiple minority groups. If Asian Americans are kept in this inferior outsider position and are unable to fight against the oppression they face, it’ll be much more difficult for them to fight with Black people against white supremacy.

When Asian people began to move to the United States, the government started to look for people they thought were the smartest and gave those people visas and US citizenship. This way, Asian Americans would be more likely to achieve success in America and to gain higher economic status than other minority groups. Because they’re usually more successful than other minority groups, Asian Americans are viewed as the “model minority”. This myth creates the idea that Asian Americans have been the perfect, civilized, law-abiding minority groups and have worked harder than others to achieve success and to move up in society. It implies that Black people and other minorities have not worked hard enough to achieve success in this country and places blame on them for their economic struggles. This idea fails to acknowledge the many hindrances that prevent Black people from achieving success and ignores the fact that Asian Americans are also oppressed by white hegemony.

AfroAsian Conflicts

All these structures set up against Black and Asian people have caused there to be lots of conflict between these groups. Stereotypes and other racist ideas spread about Black people to Asian American communities (and vice versa) have brought up tensions between them that have sometimes caused deadly interactions.

Asian Americans are often made fun of because people joke that they eat household animals, which would be considered abominable in most parts of the world. Black people are often involved in spreading this stereotype when they joke among friends, share content on social media, etc. Black people also participate in harmful actions against Asians when they try to imitate “Asian eyes“. Children often joke around by pulling their eyes back to make them smaller and either saying “I’m Chinese” or imitating Asian languages. We may not see the racism behind these things as kids, but it is important to recognize that these stereotypes and gestures are used to paint negative images of Asian Americans and that empowering them is harmful.

There are many stereotypes about Black people that have been spread by white people all over the world. For example, many people believe that Black people are untrustworthy and that they are criminals. This is why some Asian Americans would not want to be associated with Black people. They have been taught that Black is bad and that Black people steal from people and do all things illegal.

This specific ideology has caused dangerous tensions between African Americans and Asian Americans in America. In 1992, a Korean American store owner shot and killed a Black girl, Latasha Harlan’s, because she thought she was stealing orange juice from her store. In the surveillance footage of the shooting, it appeared that Harlins was getting ready to pay for the orange juice because she had money in her hand. However, the Korean American woman had still feared that Harlins would steal the juice because she had been taught that Black kids steal from liquor stores. After the killing of Latasha Harlins, the Korean woman wasn’t convicted but was let out on parole. This sparked a lot of anger in the Black community and contributed to the LA Riots, in which Black people and Korean American people were constantly fighting and sometimes, dying.

Positive Encounters

Even with all the negative things they have been through, African Americans and Asian Americans have still found ways to help each other and to stand in solidarity.

One example is through the issue of birthright citizenship. In the early 19th century, there was a Black couple, Dred and Harriet Scott, who had the courage to fight to prove they were free. The Scotts went to court to prove that they were free since they had been living in free territory and had given birth to a child in free territory. They were extremely persistent, but ended up losing the case because they were Black and didn’t have the citizenship right to present a case to the Court. Their courage inspired many uprisings against slavery and eventually inspired the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which grants citizenship to anyone born in the United States. In the early 20th century, many Asian Americans were being locked up and accused of being undocumented immigrants. Wong Kim Ark was a young Chinese American who was born in San Francisco and decided to take a trip to visit China. When he returned from his trip, he was arrested for supposedly sneaking into the country. Although it took him a couple years to get out of jail, he was released because he had birthright citizenship, a direct result of activism by Black people.

Asian Americans and African Americans have also stood together to fight against racism. For instance, Grace Lee Boggs was a very significant figure in the Civil Right movement. She and her husband, James Boggs, would organize protests and rallies and led discussions about fighting for rights for Black people in their own homes. Today, many Asian Americans are also publicly standing with the Black Lives Matter movement and are working to help heal tensions between Black and Asian people. Many accounts on social media are finding ways to symbolize AfroAsian solidarity and are using their platforms to spread awareness on Black struggles and to encourage their fellow Asian Americans to unlearn white ideologies that they may have been taught about Black people.

All in all, the history of AfroAsian encounters have been mostly filled with negative interactions but when we look closely we are able to see that AfroAsian encounters are becoming more positive as the two groups are beginning to unite in solidarity.