Chinese version here: 致中国同胞书 by Feifei Wang on This is CHINA!!!

The Chinese word "同胞" means "of the same parent". It was extended to all people of the same country, and then extended to all people share the same Chinese heritage root. Chinese do think we're one big family and we're all brothers and sisters and cousins. So these for all people who share Chinese heritage, if you speak Chinese, if you use chopsticks, if you "look" Chinese, if your family originally from China, if you have 1 Chinese parent... This is for you. If you're from Asia, specifically from the developing countries like Vietnam, Laos, Malaysia...etc, this could be for you as well (But you might not share some of the common characteristics I talked about). And if you're from a minority ethnic group in the US, this could be for you. Because I'm going to (again) talking about racism.

I've been thinking about writing this for a long time, but just can't get the words right. I have a lot to say, but don't know where to start. But today, someone left me with comment.

I feel that this is a perfect starting point, so let's start with "I don't touch racism with 12 foot pole though".

This is a person of Asian descent, TW for 3 years, have nearly 50K followers, overall a very successful Silicon Valley working professional. And his attitude towards racism is "out of sight out of mind". This is very common attitude among Chinese Americans that I know of or heard of or read about. They're hard working, they're highly educated, they have great jobs, they have good family, and they think Blacks deserve to be treated poorly because they're lazy; Hispanic deserve to be treated poorly because they're illegal immigrants, and we Chinese, we work hard, we earned our position in America.

But this is not about racism of Chinese people against others, I've written about it before. This article is for something else.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had said:

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

I was deeply touched by this quote. But a lot of Chinese Americans don't want to fight racism. They'd rather be treated like second class citizens than fighting back, god forbid, what if they think of us as "troublemakers"? I often wonder, what if it were the Chinese who got shipped to the Colonies in hundreds of thousands? Would we raise up and fight against plantation owners? Would we set up underground railway to help our people? Would we have our Rosa Parks who refuse to sit in the back of the bus? Would we get together march from Selma to Montgomery? If it's us, would we be still serving our white maters?

That's a path I don't want to continue, because I don't know if I'd like the result I get.

I've been on Quora for a few years, and most questions I answered are "Why Chinese" questions. "Why do Chinese eat dogs?" "Why don't Chinese respect the queue?" "Why did Chinese people push me around in subway?" "why do Chinese people pee on streets?" "why are Chinese so loud in restaurants?" "How could Chinese accept a totalitarian regime?" "Why do Chinese take Tibet?" "Why do Chinese hate Japan?" "Why do Chinese want Taiwan?"

I think a lot of Chinese people feel ashamed seeing these questions. Some would feel that their countryman had embarrassed all of us; some might feel small against these white people (that's how condescending works, it makes you feel small); And some of us would give vague answers trying to explain these behaviors with "culture" or "too many people, too much competition"; or Chinese are still poor, we still have large amount of uncivilized poor people.

While my feeling towards these questions might be different. I was very angry. Everything I saw question like this, I was pissed. How could these people take isolated incidents and make an universal attack on entire Chinese people?! But afterwards, all I can master is a sigh and perhaps rolling my eyes. There're so many questions like these.

The problem (if you haven't already realized) is all these questions are racist.

First, China is not a single entity. There're 1.5 billion people living in mainland China. Unless every single one of us pee on street, unless 1.5 billion people all support Tibet and Taiwan are part of China (no, we don't, some of us genuinely believe Taiwan should be independent, and Tibet should go free if they want to and if the slave owning nobleman don't reinstate serfdom), unless 1.5 billion people all yelling in restaurant, you don't get to as "why Chinese" question. And none of us get to represent 1.5 billion people to answer that.

Secondly, majority of these questions are not really questions. They're rant and complaints disguised as a question. The questioner doesn't care about the reason why some Chinese don't respect the queue, or why the subway is so crowded, they just want to vent their despise against Chinese. And you, my Chinese friends, sitting here scratching you head trying to give him an answer only reinforce his bias about Chinese's bad manners, because they are overpopulated, they're poor, they're uncivilized, look, a Chinese person just explained it to me.

Racism goes beyond the blatant "Chinese pig" (支那猪). Racism are often subtle, hiding inbetween lines, you probably think something is wrong, but don't quite know where.

For example, Jimmy Kimmel Live! had run a segment in which he'd interview a bunch of school kids about current events. One time he asked the kids what they think of China, and one kids said "let's kill all the Chinese." Now a lot of people think, it's nothing, kids would be kids. But Jimmy Kimmel's show is not really live broadcast. It's pre-recorded. That means "let's kill all Chinese" get through layers of review and ABC feel that it's OK to let this kid talk about killing all Chinese.

Can you imagine if the kid said "let's kill all blacks" or "let's kill all Jewish people"? None of those lines will ever pass ABC review. But ABC let it "slipped" when it comes to Chinese.

Why?

Because Chinese let others walk all over us.

It's really that simple.

Because you don't speak up, because you won't touch racism with 12 feet pole, because you keep it "out of sight, out of mind", because you discriminate against other people with white racists, because you tell the white racists:" that's true, Chinese are uncivilized and poor, that's why we pee on street, make loud noises when eating noodle".

You might want to say "not everything is about race". But in this world, racism won't disappear simply because you choose not to see it. You want to avoid racism, people go after you asking "why are Chinese so fucked up?" Even if you want to ignore them, they'd say "well, I know you have nothing to say, because it's true."

I hope all my Chinese friends be more aware of racism. I wish every time you see a question about "Why Chinese", you would ask yourself "is this racism?" And the best way to see if it's racism is to replace "Chinese" with "Black" or "Jewish". If it sounds horrible when used on Black people or Jewish people, it's racism.

When it comes to fighting against racism and discrimination, we need to learn from black civil rights activists.

We can't continue to take discrimination because we get to be the "model minority". We can't be the good guy all the time, we can't keep bending over hoping that'd please everyone and they'd like you. They don't like you. They look down upon, they don't care about you, they don't treated you as equal.

We can't be afraid of being the "oversensitive minority". If someone tell me "you're being oversensitive", I'd reply:"fuck yeah, I'm over sensitive. You can't say that shit in front of me. If you want to talk to me, you have to think before you open your mouth, you have to think if what you're going to say is racist".

If someone told you "calm down! don't get all worked up. your anger won't help your argument." That's called tone policing. Privileged groups use it against underprivileged groups all the time. It's like someone stepping on your toe for the past 100 years, your toe is bruised and bloody, do you think you'd ask that person polity to remove his fucking feet for the 100th time? Would anyone?

No one can fight racism alone. Remember the civil rights movement, how many people joined, how many protests and marches, everyone worked together to stop racial segregation. When facing racism, everyone need to speak up!

I've been told many times on Quora to ignore racism, "Ignore, report and leave it to Quora admin".

But Quora, or the entire world, the authority doesn't care about individual. There's an Iranian American woman who was harassed on the bus by a white guy, he was yelling Islamphobic curses at her for 5 minutes, and he even spit on her. Eventually, the transit police arrived and get the man off the bus. But no one else stand up to help her. No one. Do you think it's fair? it is just? This is what people ask me to do. We can't walk away from racism, not when the authority either too busy or too blind to see racism. Quora's admin team works without any transparency, fairness or consistency. We can rely and shouldn't keep our hope to this kind of "authority" to fight for us.

We need to raise up and fight for ourselves!

Furthermore, I want to urge you to fight against all racism, regardless the target. We're allies, and we will fight with black people, Hispanic people, Indian people, Arabic/Islamic people. And just like Dr. King said: Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

Racism is ugly, disgusting, and despicable. There's no doubt about that. I wouldn't want to touch it with 100 feet pole. But if we don't fight against it, it will drown us all!

I will not stop fighting, I can't stop fighting. Even if I fought clumsily and drop my sward all the time (as I was told by another high profile Quora celebrity). I'll continue fighting. Americans love to declare war on stuff: war on terrorism, war on drugs... I declare war on racism. And I can't fight this alone, I wouldn't want to. I know I have friends fighting with me, Black activists before me, Hispanic people, Jewish people, Islamic people... and now Chinese, let's fight this together!