Thread: As an AsAm creator, I want to talk about how framing the Bad Art Friend story as a white woman vs. AsAm woman fails to account for the ways power & privilege intersect here, & that the people using this framing are harming the AsAm community & don't care that they are. 1/
Sonya Larson got caught plagiarizing. That's a fact. It doesn't matter what she or anyone else thinks about Dawn Dorland—Larson crossed a professional ethical line, & admitted it herself. But the violation of professional ethics likely goes deeper than what's caught on paper. 2/ 
Sonya Larson's group chat wasn't with "friends," but with fellow writing professionals who have a lot of power in their field. It's hard to believe their distaste for Dorland stopped at socially ignoring her. It's possible they were also blacklisting her before this conflict. 3/
But let's get back to the AsAm community specifically. Dawn Dorland bragging about a kidney donation had nothing to do with race—she expected Sonya Larson to be her friend, not knowing that Larson didn't reciprocate. Larson then fictionalized Dorland as an anti-Asian villain. 4/
In other words, it wasn't about race until Sonya Larson wanted it to be about race. That's a disservice to AsAms who are genuinely harmed by anti-Asian white people, esp. because Larson & her powerful allies are using her marginalizations to hide her privileges & plagiarism. 5/
Sonya Larson may be AsAm, but she's also half-white & nearly white-passing. She—along with fellow AsAm Celeste Ng—have significant class & education privilege. The tight-knit bonds between them only amplifies the power of each individual in the group. Those privileges matter. 6/
The AsAm diaspora is large, ethnically & economically diverse, & complex, as seen in this 2019 comic I made. Sonya Larson & Celeste Ng are on the left side of the comic, but trying to leverage the right side—because their goal is to absolve plagiarism. 7/
https://twitter.com/joshua_luna/status/1107709119992119297
That should concern AsAms & other POC everywhere. Because if a writer of color feels comfortable plagiarizing a white person (& their other POC friends publicly condone it), what makes you think they won't do it to their own community? The scary reality is they can, & they do. 8/
The broader problem is that powerful AsAms with white resources & backing use their privilege to crush less powerful AsAms, profit off their victims' content, & turn to identity as a shield for their actions. I've experienced it myself multiple times. 9/
https://twitter.com/Joshua_Luna/status/1443664666702536719
White supremacy is about theft of land, resources, & labor, & feeling entitled to the theft. So when a white-backed AsAm is caught plagiarizing or condones it, they're not dismantling the system—they're a part of it.
The question is, why are AsAms making excuses for them? 10/10
The question is, why are AsAms making excuses for them? 10/10
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