Student Spectrums

Emaan Patel is a high school student and seeks to explore thought-provoking topics that concern immigrants and expats.

In today’s timely social world, amongst the plethora of issues in Western media and society in general, racism is a frequently reoccurring topic. Racism is the antagonization of a community solely based on their ethnicity and the stereotypical beliefs made behind the group, and it’s become rather normalized and even comedic.

Over time, racism has essentially developed as it was once a concept of proclaiming superiority and projecting insignificance to another race through a physical system, such as, for example, Jim Crow Laws, but is now more expressed socially. While hate crimes surely yet sadly still occur, verbally antagonizing someone with a plethora of stereotypes and slurs has become a more normal day occurrence on the internet and even in person between friends.

To say I haven’t been asked in public school why I don’t have a bindi, or people have called it a “sniper dot,” would be an absolute lie. To say I haven’t been asked why I don’t smell like the average Indian would definitely be a lie, especially when it would be after PE and we ran laps. It never really bothered me, though. I essentially got accustomed to it. I even fed into the comments. And that makes the entire situation even more satirical about the normalcy behind antagonizing another person’s culture—it matters whose culture it is and how it’s handled.

Essentially, if someone were essentially a victim of racism, whether it is verbal or physical, typically if it was reported and spread around a community, an individual would essentially believe that all hate crimes are acted upon equally. Someone would rightfully assume that it is handled with the utmost sense of justice and would be fought in favor of. However, the thing that is more initially focused on is the race of the individual that was affected.

Of course all diverse spectrums of culture are heavily affected by racism, but why are more groups highlighted and placed in the spotlight than others? More specifically, as a South Asian girl, why is Asian racism only partially being discussed? My comparison of Asian racism to other types of racism is essentially an allusion to and analogy of racism directed at the Black community. This is a response to Black hypervisibility, which is the excessive focus on the Black community whenever racial issues are raised. The truth is, all racism is in a sense “normalized,” but it is merely displayed in different ways for every minority community. However, why is the antagonization of Asians somehow displayed as more socially acceptable?

In my public school experience, I can write out all the insults and versions in which my name was purposely mispronounced, and I could practically call it a short essay the way it would fill out a page and a half. Racist jokes not only perpetuate racism, but they also make discrimination and prejudice seem acceptable forms of humor. I used to enable the jokes made on my ethnicity, as I essentially downplayed it. I believed that it wasn’t much of a big deal as it was meant in a comedic manner. Well, it honestly wasn’t. I was sensitized into believing it was all in comedy. In reality, I was giving into the stereotypes people genuinely believed to be real that were being projected upon me. 

The A.A.F, Asian American Foundation, has yearly survey filled out for ethnic communities to document and physically reply to the racism that has been applied to them. According to the demographics of the result of the recently held 2024 survey, about six out of 10 (60%) Asian Americans pointed to previous experiences of discrimination and/or violence.

Additionally, the A.A.F. made another discovery about four years ago: more than half of all Americans still can’t name a famous Asian American. A majority of Americans are unable to name a single event or policy related to Asian Americans. Not only is there a sense of normalcy behind the antagonization of Asians, but ignorance is directly rooted in why it’s so normalized, as it practically declares that Asians are that insignificant.

The internet is both an enemy and an ally. Despite the fact that these ongoing dilemmas against Asians and Asian Americans can easily be brought to attention and spread around, they still remain disregarded and tossed to the side; the topic of Asian racism remains an ongoing inside joke.