Looking to understand the surge of anti-Asian prejudice and hate crimes AND want to find actionable ways to help? A thread elevating scientists doing tremendous work and sharing activism resources.
This powerful article by @scheryan1 demonstrates how White Americans see Asian Americans as “less American”, and how this identity denial harms Asian Americans. pdfs.semanticscholar.org/63d3/d9377a198…
But anti-Asian stereotypes are not context-neutral. How our leaders talk about current events, like the pandemic, matters!
Recent work from Lindsay Dhanani and Berkeley Franz show that emphasizing the origins of the pandemic (e.g., “china virus”) and the pandemic’s economic harm increases anti-Asian xenophobia. Sticking to public health framing doesn’t. sciencedirect.com/science/articl…
As shown by Suyeon Lee and Sara Waters, Asian Americans are not only aware increasing negative sentiment due to the pandemic, but many are also experiencing increasing anxiety, depression, and other negative health consequences.psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2020-…
These legitimate fears and health consequences don’t even broach those experienced by people who have been victims of identity-based hate crimes.
Recent research by @profcikara and colleagues shows that hate crimes increase with minoritized group rank. This suggests that being a model minority group exposed Asian Americans to even greater risk. osf.io/2z3kw/
This is just a small snapshot of a tremendous amount of stellar and critically important research shining a light on the social science. I know I missed a lot, so please feel free to add to this with other resources folks might benefit from!!
OK, so we know there’s a problem. What do we do about it? There are amazing groups mobilizing to @stopaapihate. Please look at their resources! Also consider donating if you are able! stopaapihate.org
Things you can do include demanding ordinances or resolutions in your community to condemn hate (local and state level). Find your state representatives here! openstates.org/find_your_legi…
Find a bystander training so you can learn how to intervene. For example, here’s a free one (I have not vetted this one): secure.everyaction.com/qdwd41UYQUeyya…
If you are a teacher, consider sharing with your students resources to help them learn, such as this from the @adl. adl.org/education/educ…
If you are a White American, like I am, consider your privilege and think about ways you can actively combat white supremacy. First, it means acknowledging the systems that we benefit from, and the fears we don’t have every day. Then it means dismantling those systems.
I noticeably missed important discussion about intersectionality here. Sharing this important threat that highlights how ani-Asian sentiment is not gender neutral.
I’m deeply troubled by the way many senior (predominantly white male) academics fail to recognize that DEI neutrality is not neutral at all, but a political statement that reinforces white supremacy as the foundational source of scientific knowledge.
There are many influential scholars who are claiming that asking scientists to declare whether, and if so, how, their work advances DEI goals (broadly speaking) is some form of politicizing an otherwise scientifically-solid race-neutral body of work. This mindset is troublesome.
The goal of science is to uncover truth. The goal of psychological science is to elucidate human thought and behavior. Not white European humanity alone. If our goal is to study humanity as a whole, can anyone with a straight face say we are doing so well?
🚨FORTHCOMING IN JESP🚨w/ @Marah_Alkire, Jo-Ann Tsang, & @wade_rowatt. Religious demographic change increases Christian Americans' perceptions that their religious identity and beliefs as under attack, which predicts greater #ChristianNationalism. psyarxiv.com/mfyj5/ (1/13)
Social psychologists (e.g., @mocraig4, @jaricheson) have documented how changing racial demographics evoke threat and trigger conservatism among White Americans. We wanted to know whether simultaneous shifts in America’s religious demographics have a similar impact. (2/13)
Our work piggybacks on recent awesome work from @ClaraLWilkins et al. showing that secularization and LGBT acceptance can trigger threat among American Christians. (3/13) psyarxiv.com/hc46b/