Happy #BlackHistoryMonth !
I still haven't made it to Black history. Still on white US history.
Q: Why does it seem like so much of the anti-Asian hate that I see on TV and in newspapers is done by Black people? It seems like Asian folk should be legitimately afraid of Black people! Why does it seem that way?
A: Racism. Most Asian hate attacks are done by white folk. Asian folk are significantly safer from Asian hate, when they are around Black folk.๐๐
Newspapers lied on us.
90% of the US Anti-Asian hate attacks, are done by white folk
https://npr.org/transcripts/980437156
And yet the press focuses on Black-on-Asian violence (~5% of total). Because racism. So our "solution" is a carceral one that Asian groups oppose๐คฆ๐ฟโโ๏ธ
Because it'll harm the Black and brown folk that racism has told us to expect are causing whatever problem US society has.
If Black folk were at least as prejudiced against Asian folk as white folk are, we would expect at least 13% of the Asian hate attacks to be done by Black folk. But we don't see that in the data. We see the opposite. And we see white US folk significantly over-represented in Asian hate crimes.
A racist news media cannot fairly report on crime involving Black people. Instead, it shapes opinions and pushes false narratives about crime and Black people.
It plays into the "Southern Strategy."
This is beyond simply saying "newspapers do this to make more money!" and "If it bleeds, it leads!" Given changing demographics of who buys newspapers, it *costs* newspapers money to push this tired, debunked, racist narrative.๐คก
Newspapers are starting initiatives to "win young Black and brown people over."
vanityfair.com/news/2021/09/inside-ag-sulzbergers-top-times-project
This initiative is so incredibly misguided that it's bound to fail.
Young Black and brown folk don't trust the NYT, because it's not trustworthy.๐คท๐ฟโโ๏ธ
It's not about marketing the good stuff better. It's about not printing the misleading, anti-Black, anti-brown, anti-trans stuff.
NYT would increase circulation more by canceling this initiative, and going 12 months without printing any anti-Black content, and by being early or on time, instead of embarrassingly late, to any of the most important civil rights stories of our time: police reform, Trump, transphobia.
It's easy to see how Twitter's anti-woke obsession drove away key user segments in a matter of months, and made the business not viable. It's harder to see how newspapers have done the same exact thing to themselves, slowly, over 50 years, as the demographics of who buys news, has changed beneath their feet.
If your business depends on everyone paying a monthly fee, to hear rich white men lie about and harm them... I don't know how to tell you this, but that business is not long for this world.
Newspapers' anti-Black framing doesn't just hurt Black people. It hurts white people and Asian people too. It scares people that don't know white US history into making poor decisions.
The US passes laws not based on crime, but based on how white people feel about crime. How white people feel about crime, is largely based on fabrications by news coverage.
US media can invent a crime wave whenever it is convenient. Usually around elections, or after any progressive politician or DA is elected.๐คก
This playing fast and loose with the truth, hurts Asian people too. For example, it is true that San Francisco is one of the worst cities in the US for incidents of Anti-asian hate. But that's because San Francisco is one of the *least Black* major cities in the US. ๐๐
Detroit is 77% Black. It's the Blackest US city and it's a rough place. No one wonders why Detroit isn't the Asian hate capital of North America.๐ค
(RIP Vincent Chin. Killed in Detroit 40 years ago... by racist white autoworkers)
People that see the few hyper-amplified anti-Asian hate crimes committed by Black people in San Francisco, move to Portland, Oregon, or Seattle, Washington, or Vancouver, Canada to feel safer.
But... there are fewer Black people in those places... and more incidences of Anti-asian hate crime.๐ข
The *least* Black of those places, Vancouver, is the Asian hate crime capital of North America. ๐คท๐ฟโโ๏ธ
https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2021-vancouver-canada-asian-hate-crimes/
> Nothing the US has ever done can compare to the residential school programs.
Except โฆ their own residential school programs?
Those weren't just in Canada.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Indian_boarding_schools
@ZDL Indeed. Ours (US) were just as awful, sometimes. (I'd say 'maybe worse', but it's hard to imagine how either could top what we already know.) That was the later phase of our systematic genocide against Natives, of course. But we share that -- for lack of a better term -- British cultural habit, also seen elsewhere in the world.
For what it's worth, though, Canada has done much better at facing up to its past. Here in the US, about a third of people are earnestly against that.
mekka okereke 
CautionWIP ๐+๐จ๐ฆ+๐ณ๏ธโ๐= 
WesDym
๐จ๐ฆ๐ฉ๐ช๐จ๐ณๅผ ๆฎฟๆ๐จ๐ณ๐ฉ๐ช๐จ๐ฆ