DOS_patos
Unverified Legion of Trill member
Recently, I saw a post about anti-Asian hate crimes in which a commenter questioned if there was "a single oppressive American system that targeted East Asian Americans." This Black commenter claimed that they would "rather be stereotyped for being good at math, than for liking watermelon and stealing," and to remember that "when we address Black issues, they trickle up to the rest." I think I have respectable self-restraint, but the crooked lilt of Vicha Ratanapakdee's smile (who recently died after being the victim of a hate crime) reminded me too much of the subtle curve of my immigrant father's smile and I couldn't stop thinking about the two-year-old and six-year-old Burmese-Americans in Texas who were stabbed a Sam's Club for looking Chinese, so I'm feeling a little raw.
In the comments of the post, I asked the commenter how trickle-up reform tackles how Asian-Americans are rebuffed for speaking about our experience. However, two more users proceeded to rebuff my comment; attacked me for the anti-Blackness rampant that occurs in the older Asian generations; informed me that Asians are "idle in the black struggle;" and decreed that I am of a lowly, ignorant, and performative character. All in all, it was an excellent example of racial gaslighting.
Technically speaking, gaslighting is a tactic that manipulates someone into second-guessing their reality and sanity.
In the case of racial gaslighting, victims are made to doubt the veracity and validity of their racist experiences. As an Asian-American woman, I've experienced quite a bit of this: I'm told not to complain when I experience microaggressions and outright racial harassment because "I could have it worse." After all, Asian-Americans are seen as a minority group that doesn't experience racism. But it's not that we don't experience racism; the racism we face takes a different form—and there's nothing Asian-Americans have been better at doing than swallowing down our frustrations and downplaying our experience, for the sake of harmony and pleasantness. After all, we've had to do it from both sides of America's race debate: white America and BIPOC America.
In the comments of the post, I asked the commenter how trickle-up reform tackles how Asian-Americans are rebuffed for speaking about our experience. However, two more users proceeded to rebuff my comment; attacked me for the anti-Blackness rampant that occurs in the older Asian generations; informed me that Asians are "idle in the black struggle;" and decreed that I am of a lowly, ignorant, and performative character. All in all, it was an excellent example of racial gaslighting.
Technically speaking, gaslighting is a tactic that manipulates someone into second-guessing their reality and sanity.
In the case of racial gaslighting, victims are made to doubt the veracity and validity of their racist experiences. As an Asian-American woman, I've experienced quite a bit of this: I'm told not to complain when I experience microaggressions and outright racial harassment because "I could have it worse." After all, Asian-Americans are seen as a minority group that doesn't experience racism. But it's not that we don't experience racism; the racism we face takes a different form—and there's nothing Asian-Americans have been better at doing than swallowing down our frustrations and downplaying our experience, for the sake of harmony and pleasantness. After all, we've had to do it from both sides of America's race debate: white America and BIPOC America.