Thread by @Joshua_Luna

#APAHM Thread: #StopAsianHate is meaningless until we acknowledge white men as the architects of anti-Asian racism, & the blueprints they use to divide the Asian community & sabotage progress. 1/

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Understanding anti-Asian racism means connecting its history in the US with its history in Asia, instead of treating them separately. US imperialism, war, & colonization abroad directly informs the racism AsAms experience because the goal is the same: divide, conquer, & kill. 2/

White men used war to split Korea & Vietnam in two, & divide AsAms the same way. One blueprint of the U.S.'s domestic anti-Asian strategy is the Mixed Marriage Policy of 1942-1943. Implemented during Japanese Internment, it gave certain Asians special exemptions to leave camp. 3/

Internment was meant to harm Japanese Americans, not white men with Japanese families (whiteness is why few German & Italian Americans were interned). So, the Mixed Marriage Policy let Japanese leave camps if they:
1) married a non-Japanese
2) proved a "Caucasian environment." 4/

The Mixed Marriage Policy had two versions. In 1942, few Asians were eligible—esp. monoracial Japanese men. The 1943 version greatly expanded eligibility for monoracial Japanese women and mixed-Japanese adults, but eliminated nearly all eligibility for monoracial Japanese men. 5/

Each eligible case required proving a "Caucasian environment." So while on paper the MMP offered exemptions to non-white mixed-Japanese couples & their kids, they were rarely granted. MMP's real goal was to benefit white men with Japanese wives & mixed-white Japanese children. 6/

Overall, the Mixed Marriage Policy reveals white men's hierarchy of Asians:

1) mixed-white Asian adults

2) monoracial Asian women married to white men & with white-mixed children

3) monoracial Asian men—preferably deported, divorced, detained in an internment camp, or dead. 7/

By explicitly laying out white men's hierarchy of Asians, the Mixed Marriage Policy is an incredibly revealing anti-Asian document. Which is perhaps why it's so difficult to find—the original documents are at the National Archives and aren't digitized (must pay to see them). 8/

There's good reason for white men wanting to hide MMP. It's a Rosetta Stone for understanding the motivations of many modern anti-Asian hate crimes like the NYC Hammer killings, Atlanta spa shootings & Isla Vista massacre. Each can be directly tied to the roadmap MMP provides. 9/

The 2019 NYC hammer killings occurred when a white man saw films vilifying Asian men & wanted to "defend" Asian women. He entered a buffet to hammer random Asian men in the head. They died slowly: Fufai Pun later that day, Kheong Ng-Thang 3 days later, Tsz Pun a week later. 10/

The 2021 Atlanta spa shootings occurred because a white man blamed Asian women for his "sex addiction." He shot at multiple Asian massage workers & planned on targeting more. Victims include Xiaojie Tan, Daoyou Feng, Hyun Jung Grant, Soon Chung Park, Suncha Kim & Yong Ae Yue. 11/

The 2014 Isla Vista massacre occurred because a functionally-white, white-mixed Asian hated white women who rejected him & men of color. He assaulted monoracial Asian men several times & murdered 3—Cheng Yuan Hong, Weihan Wang & George Chen—by stabbing them 15, 25 & 94 times. 12/

Many people believe anti-Asian racism started with COVID, but as these examples show, Asians have always suffered violence. The problem is our stories are purposely erased & twisted to double-victimize us & reinforce the lies of the Model Minority Myth. This happens two ways. 13/

The first erasure comes from white people in government, news, education, & more. White men know coverage can humanize—or destroy. That's why the racial component of Isla Vista was removed, the hammer killings were downplayed, & "sex addiction" was used to justify Atlanta. 14/

The second erasure sadly comes from complicit Asians. The MMP's core concept is clear: to be spared fatal anti-Asian racism, you must actively show loyalty to whiteness by proving a "Caucasian environment"—i.e., dodge the bullet by redirecting it to another Asian's head. 15/

Complicit Asians say criticizing their complicity condemns interracial relationships. It doesn't. There were Japanese whose white spouses stood by them—like Arthur Ishigo, whose wife Estelle voluntarily joined his camp. He later died of cancer & she lost her legs to gangrene. 16/

These days complicit Asians aren't restricted by gender or marriage. Anyone can be one (although partnering with white men remains the easiest way to do this). To prove their "Caucasian environment," they must punch down on Asians with equal or greater hate than white men do. 17/

For ex, complicit Asians write articles telling AsAms to not label anti-Asian violence as hate crimes until white officials say so, disrespect Asian male Isla Vista victims by blaming their deaths on Asianness, & so on. They're not bringing awareness—they're sabotaging it. 18/

That's by design. White men know in-fighting wastes AsAm energy. So, they recruit complicit Asians, give them a monopoly on AsAm resources, microphones, & platforms—despite being a minority in AsAm spaces—& watch as they perpetuate the status quo rather than dismantle it. 19/

This all comes back to the same violent, imperialist strategies white men have used against Asian countries for centuries: rape & pillage, divide & conquer, install puppet leaders. Drive Asians out of Asia through violence, dangle the "American dream,” then murder us more. 20/

This means the MMP’s relevance is twofold: 1) white men’s hierarchy of Asians endures to this day, and 2) rising hate crimes show how easy it is to bring internment back. Between 2020 & 2021, overall hate crimes dropped by 7%, but anti-Asian hate crimes spiked 149%. 21/

So to #StopAsianHate, it's not enough to talk about the "easy" topics. We must also address the "taboos." This includes the violent ways whiteness recruits Asians so it can Trojan Horse its way into our communities, shut down progress, & endanger us all—exactly as intended. 22/

Thank you to Ashlynn Deu Pree, Paul Spickard, and Adrienne Edgar for their help with points of contact and data. 23/

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