embarrassingandalittleawkward:
Alert Jeremy Lin, just because you play basketball and “have lots of black friends” doesn’t make you black. Eric Garner was killed for being a black person in this white supremacist country structured around antiblackness and a genocidal assault on black life. That will never be your experience. You and other non black POC need to stop this bullshit of erasing us black folks from our own movements in the midst of our pain in a vapid attempt to “show solidarity.” All you are doing when you erase us and make it seem like your non-black body is also subject to antiblack violence is (surprise) perpetuating antiblackness. You are perpetuating the very violence that killed Eric Garner and gets one of us killed every day. Erasure is always violence and never solidarity.
In short: you aren’t black, you CAN in fact breathe, GTFO.
who ever wrote this post is a racist.
you’re actually your url
I beg to differ with the primary opinion. I applaud Jeremy Lin, and any non black POC, for wearing the shirt, tweeting the hashtag, etc. showing he’s aware of the struggles other people are going through. He’s displaying his support of the movement and I don’t understand what’s wrong with that. It shows that he is sympathetic to the cause.
By wearing the shirt, Lin is wrongfully including himself into the #ICantBreathe movement (as owning-my-truth pointed out) which is /specifically/ for black people since police disproportionately target them. Lin should show support but not in this manner. He could instead wear a shirt saying “Justice for Eric Garner”.
We non-black POC must understand that we are ALLIES.
Also, there should be no applause for the non-black POC who are support the movement. It is basic human decency to understand that the police is a racist force that upholds the State’s crimes and policies. There is no need to reward people for understanding that.
Well shit, does that mean we should just be neutral and watch this happen? Support is support, so sit your ungrateful ass back down. The truth, if you’re willing to own up to it, is that the garner incident is reflective of a bigger issue, the general view of discrimination. And lin is taking a stand against that, which is worthy of applause. Asians are simply subject to different stereotypes. By making this shirt exclusive to black people, you are being racist in your own right, by appropriating this shirt as part of your identity, and not allowing anyone else in on the masquerade you’re making out of this. But really, if youre gonna choose something to take pride in, do pick something a bit more pride worthy rather than saddening. For all of our sakes
It’s been really great watching dozens of Asian Americans run into this posts comments and my inbox slamming me but this one takes the cake.
“Support is support so sit your ass down”
Firstly, who the fuck asked you? You are 17, you are not black. The audacity of this statement is just appalling. Because what the fuck do you know? Have you even gotten your braces off yet? Finished puberty? How are you trying to even have a serious conversation right now? You look like a fool.
Secondly, and most importantly to you and all of the Asian Americans calling me “racist,” do you have any introspection at all? Any ability to self-reflect? All of this as your idols like the Fung Brothers, Ryan Higa and Wong Fu Productions are virulently antiblack and consume blackness every chance they get. Since we black people clearly have nothing else to be proud of right, even though so many Asian Americans are desperately copying us?
Also where in this post did I say that Asian people don’t experience racism? Do you see it? Oh wait… Nope. Your antiblackness is showing. Why is it always literally only with black struggles that people want to erase any and all nuance of the different ways in which we are racialized? When Vincent Chin was murdered, were there a ton of black people running up into his marches saying, “What about us?!?! WE ARE VINCENT CHIN TOO!” Nope. Never happened. But with every single black tragedy this happens. EVERY. ONE. It is the antiblackness coursing through non-black POC communities that drives them to appropriate our struggles as black people. Suddenly it’s “about something bigger” which includes them.
Well I have news for you all: this doesn’t include you and it isn’t about you. Eric Garner was killed for being black. His last words are a signifier of antiblackness, when a non-black POC appropriates those words for themselves it is not solidarity it is erasure of the fact that he was killed due to antiblackness.
All of this is exhausting. You all have no shame. No respect. No decency. All you have is a craven desire to consume black death as a spectacle and use it as a crutch for your own humanity. Because that’s what it’s really about otherwise this wouldn’t suddenly “be about something bigger.” Bigger my ass, you’re so consumed by Jeremy Lin’s celebrity and your own antiblackness that you can’t understand that he easily could have worn another shirt that said “Justice 4 Eric Garner” not “I Can’t Breathe” which is only a black experience. This is a fact. The former is solidarity, the latter is erasure which is always a form of violence and never solidarity. The latter makes it seem like non-black bodies can be stand ins for Eric Garner, but you can’t. You will never be stand-ins because you are not black. So, no, you can’t wear the shirt. It is not only insulting and triggering, but it perpetuates the violence which gets actual black people killed by erasing the actual victims (black people) from the picture.
Ultimately all of this is a case study in how non-black POC so readily will throw black people under the bus to try and get ahead themselves. This includes Angry Asian Man who uncritically posted this image as well and celebrated it. I’m exhausted by all of these so-called allies demanding that I be “grateful” when their actions are directly harmful black people. No, fuck you. I don’t need your so-called “solidarity” and don’t want it. You are perpetuating violence which hurts me, my family and other black people. I’m not having it. Get the fuck out of here.
There are constructive and destructive ways to be an ally, and until you learn how to be the former rather than the latter, I have no time.
you dont have to be black to wear this shirt. dumb bitch.
so ungrateful, never heard of anyone bitching about support from another race even if it’s a highly controversial topic like Eric garners case.. you some fake ass fuck if you think the support from Jeremy Lin wearing a shirt is something for you to call him out on. you’re just mad he plays nba and you probably work at mcds. grow the fuck up
You really should fall back. Tell me, as an Asian person what do you know about anti-blackness? You must know more than actual Black people who face it if you have the audacity going to state an opinion as such.
You and others supporting Jeremy Lin without listening to actual Black people who are killed every 28 hours by police; let me tell you something, your anti-blackness is showing.
How do you reblog a post and add commentary to it if you didn’t even read it. How do you disregard Black people and then tell us, this is how you do solidarity?
You utilized misogyny and AAVE in your response, which really shows the type of person you are; shit. Don’t ever in your life, tell Black people what to do again, thanks.
you must be living in your own world cause I’m against ever one of those murders as well. and actually I’ve been following every single thing about every single publicized killing of an African Americans. I don’t like the way police are treating you differently and just because I don’t personally feel persecuted (and you’re right I’m not black so I won’t fully feel your pain) but that doesn’t mean I can’t support something I believe in. and it doesn’t mean other races can’t join the support either. there are plenty of viral videos of Caucasians supporting your cause as well are you going to bitch them out cause they’re white? if so, what’s that say about you when you don’t want them to be racist? think about before you open your bitch ass mouth
What an embarrassment for Asian Americans this thread’s turning out to be. “bitch ass mouth” “you dumb bitch” Wow, how could anybody be ungrateful with such awesome support??
“you must be living in your own world”? No, I’m pretty sure they’re living in the world where they specifically told you why using “I Can’t Breathe” is co-opting the movement and pointing attention in the wrong direction and you’re getting ridiculously angry about it and making it pretty clear that you don’t care about supporting Black people at all, only getting the credit for it.
It’s really simple, see: you don’t get to decide what is and isn’t support. I don’t know about you, but if I want to support someone, I usually…listen to them?