Kayla Kim Votapek
If you aren’t including the AAPI experience within your anti-racism efforts, are you truly practicing anti-racism?
Posted by Apr 14, 2021 0 comments
Kayla Kim Votapek
As a Korean adoptee facilitating anti-racism workshops within the arts field, I have experienced many artists who view race and racism as a black and white binary. I have noticed terms such as BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) being weaponized against People of the Global Majority by organizations when they are only referring to the Black community. Now, don’t get me wrong. We do need to center the most harmed and impacted communities which are the Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities. However, that does not mean communities such as the AAPI (Asian American Pacific Islander), Middle Eastern North African, Latinx, and Mixed should be forgotten. If your anti-racism work is not intersectional, you are still upholding white supremacy. This has shown up in the arts community even when artists are practicing and actively becoming anti-racist. I have had conversations with individuals who question if we should call the hate crimes the AAPI community is experiencing because of COVID-19 “racist events.” I have also had to explain that AAPI individuals who are light skinned do hold power but not enough to define, protect, and pass laws to protect our own community. When conversations and topics like these come up, my proximity to whiteness is questioned. This is white supremacy showing up. Not all Asians look like me. Not all Asians have a similar experience.
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