I go through the same process every few months.
I find this amazing YouTube channel of a young Asian college student. I watch countless videos centered around a day in their life at [insert Ivy League school here]. Then I start watching their videos on entrepreneurship and budgeting.
Then I realize…I’m going too deep.
Whenever I start supporting an Asian Youtuber with my full chest, I end up unsubscribing from their channel because they use way too much African American Vernacular English in their videos.
This isn’t to say that only Asians do this, but I’ve noticed it the most with them.
Here’s why this is a problem.
Asians, in general, act like they’re down for Black people but really aren’t.
I’m the first one to say that I have a huge fascination with Asian culture.
I took a Japanese class for three semesters and I’ve loved every second of it. I’m addicted to K-Pop (even though it’s just stolen Black music sang by Koreans). I’d ask my Chinese friends questions for hours about the politics, holidays, and best vacation spots in China.
I guess it was this fascination I had with Asian culture that made me naive.
I always thought they, as a collective, had Black folks’ backs. I’m not going to discount the fact that some of them do. But I struggle to say that because I’ve seen a lot of instances where an Asian person has shot and killed a Black person for no reason:
One of the cops involved with the murder of George Floyd was an Asian
Latasha Harlins was killed by Soon Ja Du, a Korean convenience store owner in 1991 because she was accused of stealing a bottle of orange juice
Akai Gurley was fatally shot in 2014 by officer Pere Liang for walking up a pitch-dark stairwell
These three acts of violence alone further show how anti-blackness in Asian communities is never addressed.
After one of my favorite Korean YouTubers (who has almost a million subscribers), never said a word on social media about the George Floyd situation, my heart sank. I can’t say I wasn’t surprised and that’s the sad part. Black people expect everyone, including other people of color, to not have their backs.
Until I see any real conversations happening in Asian communities about this issue, I have to stand true to these beliefs.
The Asians that are down for Black people use A.A.V.E. like a coat in their videos.
I used to watch an Asian vlogger who went to Princeton University, owned a successful film production company, etc.
I thought it was cool seeing a successful Asian person have all of those accomplishments. To be honest, he’s helped me with a ton of hurdles in my life; he encouraged me to travel out of the country and I did that for free, he encouraged me to study hard and get into my dream college and I did, he encouraged me to start my own business and I’m currently doing that now. I was elated to find out that he supported the Black Lives Matter movement.
I still have a ton of respect for this guy, but I couldn’t handle his channel anymore.
From the Blackcent he uses to rap to Drake songs in his videos. To the corny African American Hip-Hop dances he won’t stop doing. To the overuse of words like “lit, fam, wavy, fire, bruh, etc.” that make me cringe to no end.
I got too uncomfortable with it. He had done this so much that I almost questioned where he stood with Black people. You’d think someone who supports the movement would know about cultural appropriation.
I guess not.
Stop using A.A.V.E. because it’s cringy and a soft version of cultural appropriation.
Black culture is so commodified nowadays to the point where every meme you see on social media has some type of A.A.V.E. word.
A.A.V.E. is portrayed as meme language or Twitter language — it’s not.
It’s almost like a Black girl doing a dance on TikTok, it goes viral, and white kids copy it and take all the credit. Black slang gets popularized in the same way and amplified to non-Black audiences. That popularization and commodification invites other cultures to the cook-out to steal our slang like it’s an all-you-can-eat buffet.
To me, other cultures using Black slang is almost the equivalent of saying the n-word without saying it.
Black culture has been stolen and commodified so much by white people that I don’t need other people of color doing the same. More Asians should study this because I’ve been noticing this trend a lot with them specifically. I can’t really support the Asians that are allies because they’re showing zero regards for Black culture in their videos.
Asians really need to educate themselves on Black culture.
Cultural appropriation is a big problem in the Asian community (I mean, just look at K-Pop) and other cultures as well.
But if other fellow people of color want to get involved in the movement, it’s crucial to do your own due diligence and understand the struggles that Black people go through.
I know you have the resources.
All you have to do is implement.
Get my free writing guide that can teach you how to build a writing habit in 90 days or less here.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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