Yellowing Crosshairs — The Targeting of Asians* Over Time

This is written in partnership by June Thornton-Marsh, of African, Japanese and Pequot heritage and Jan Froehlich, of Irish, German and Scottish heritage. They co-own Transforming Racial Lines: an organization whose mission is to transform the many lines that divide and separate humans by learning the skills of listening, loving, and lifting spirits when you can.

While heartened by the unity and power unleashed in the Black Lives Matter and Me Too Movements, we continually are reminded of the hate directed at people of Asian heritage.

To address and ultimately stop anti-Asian racism, we need to understand the nature of that hate on a deeper and more systemic level. Only then can we rip out the root that choke holds anti-Asian racism firmly in place.

There is a hidden yet predictable chain of events that fuels anti-Asian racism and undergirds all the acts of brutality directed at Asians. The powerful dynamic of this cycle of racist events sets up and enables the destruction of a group of people in waves over time. The verbal terrorizing, physical assaults, frequent murderous attacks on Asian bodies, and the wanton destruction of property are not unique in their frequency or type. They are blatant examples of the countless ways that Asian bodies and lives are devalued, dehumanized, and have been for generations.

Patterns of anti-Asian racism are systematic, unsurprising, and were evident as early as 1850 in the United States. White people forced Chinese people out of many railroad towns. The Page Act of 1875 banned Chinese women from immigrating to the United States.

Here is the wide-angle view of the predictable cycle of events and how anti-Asian targeting has happened through United States history:

1. Dehumanization of Asian Women and Men

White people are taught misinformation and lies about Asian men and women. In the late 19th-century, “Yellow Peril” was the racist alarm that ramped up white fear by signaling that a massive influx of Asians was a menace and threat to take over and destroy white civilization.

This strategic transmission of deceptive lies and distortions lays the foundation for dehumanization. Dehumanization posits that since Asians are less than human, subhuman, or not human, they can then be mistreated, disposed of, abused, and killed at will. The promotion of these falsehoods deprives Asians of their fundamental, inalienable rights to life, liberty, justice, and the pursuit of happiness as humans. Dehumanization attempts to completely strip Asians of their humanity and the dignity in which all humans were born. They are things, objects, or worse than nothing. It is racism on steroids.

This denial of full humanness in Asians and the cruelty and suffering that accompanies it sets the stage for justifying the mass killing of people, genocide, war, and other atrocities. Two nuclear bombs annihilated between 129,00 and 226,00 mostly civilian Japanese people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. On March 16, 1968, between 347- 504 unarmed Vietnamese civilians were gunned down and massacred by members of the U.S. Army, which was later called the My Lai Massacre. The people of Japan and Vietnam were not human, nor collateral damage — they were the intended targets caught in the cross hairs of a United States imperialism and policy of war.

In present times, the dehumanization of Asian people continues. The western male gaze fetishizes Asian women. This particular type of dehumanization of Asian women has roots in colonization and warfare. Men in the U.S military regarded Asian women as their rightful reward and trophy for their sacrifices in combat. Anti-Asian racism is ingrained with hatred and contempt for Asian women — misogyny that objectifies Asian women as hyper-sexual, exotic, submissive, invisible, and inviting of domination. Anti-Asian racism emasculates Asian men with images of them as passive, weak, and effeminate.

2. Scapegoating of Asian Women and Men

Scapegoating sets another stage in the chain of anti-Asian targeting in motion. Fearful and angry people in emotional, financial, or psychological pain are easily primed by lies and misinformation about particular groups, especially if told there is a group of people, i.e.Asian people, responsible for the suffering and pain they are experiencing. Their emotions are raw, volatile and easily stoked. Asians become the target.

Trump used the Covid virus’s presence to plant and stoke emotional tinder with his racist rhetoric by directly associating a deadly virus with a group of people -the Chinese. Weaponized with the power establishment’s support, Trump turned the crosshairs on Chinese people and any person mistaken for Chinese, Asian, and un-American. Asians reported over 3,800 hate-related incidents; many non-Asians viewed them as the embodiment of the virus.

3. Threats and Acts of Violence Towards Asian Women and Men

With dehumanization and the scapegoating of Asians in place, these two chains set the stage for a malevolent typhoon, creating an eventual deadly racial twister in the making. A white male suspect viewed the Asian massage parlors in Atlanta and the Asian women who worked as the cause of his sex addiction problem and threatening to his health and well-being. Therefore, he needed to eliminate the “temptation” these women posed, killing six Asian women in the crosshairs of his hate and self-hate in split moments. Hate crimes toward Asians rose nearly 150% in 2020, and the majority of these crimes were perpetrated against AAPI (Asian, Asian Immigrant, and Pacific Islanders) women.

4. Persecution, Destruction and Removal of Asian Men and Women From Society

Finally, the most critical step in targeting Asians occurs at the intersection of dehumanization, scapegoating, and violence; the crosshairs are directly aimed at an Asian target — creating the perfect storm. Asians are subhuman, dangerous, and cause the suffering of white people. Give them their due, persecute them, destroy them and remove them from white society. Ready. Aim. Fire. Target practice has begun.

The mistreatment and expulsion of Asians have happened throughout U.S. history. The China Exclusion Act of 1882 prohibited all immigration of Chinese laborers. The Chinese massacre of 1871 describes the massacre of 19 Chinese immigrants by a mob of around 500 non-Chinese men. In 1942–5, there was the forced relocation and incarceration in concentration camps of about 117,000 people of Japanese ancestry, of whom sixty-two percent were U. S. citizens.

5. Assimilation of Asian Men and Women

There is another subtle, dangerous yet insidious process to be aware of that reinforces the crosshairs. Assimilation is a strategy whereby what is uniquely Asian can no longer exist and is removed or absorbed into the dominant white culture. This disappearing and silencing process, a white-out, removes Asian people’s unique identity, history, language, culture, autonomy, and power. Another mechanism to wipe out or remove Asian people by having them be like, act like, sound like, and have names like white people. Training the crosshairs elsewhere.

With little regard for morality or the consequences of harming and killing Asians, stopping the wave of violence, threats, and terrorism directed at Asians can only occur with large-scale organized social action to uproot and topple the social structure built by white supremacy that dehumanizes Asians and glorifies whiteness.

Create a personal inner uprising and resolve to be steadfast in resisting the forces within self and outside self that strategically recruit us to dehumanize Asians, others, or ourselves. Be conscious of and acknowledge the past betrayals against humanity enacted on the Asian community. Recognize what is currently happening to our precious and beloved Asian family, vital and essential humankind members.

Listen to the life stories recounted by people of Asian heritage, not the disinfected, whitened version. Learn the accurate and factual history of the people of the global majority told from their perspective.

Unless and until we understand the deliberate and calculated attempts to confuse, numb, and disorient each one of us, distracting us from being able to proactively intervene, we will repeat the cycle that targets and kills Asians and remain inadequate to create a merciful, benevolent, and humane present and future for all.

Be vigilant. Be fierce. A human revolution is required. Shift the inevitable by the indomitable force of our collective will.

*Though we are using the term Asian, we are clear that each of the over 4.5 billion people, whose ancestors call Asia and the Pacific Islands their homeland, with its 48 countries, are unique and contribute to the richness of our global community.