Our silence is violence

People who act in the service of white supremacy murdered George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Dreasjon “Sean” Reed, and Ahmaud Arbery.  These awful and violent deaths have sparked mass demonstrations and collaborative efforts across many parts of the United States, but South Asian communities remain silent.

As early as the 18th century, the U.S. demonstrated hostility towards South Asian migrants and these people were often subjected to violence and discrimination. In United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind, a Supreme Court case decided in 1923, the Court held that South Asians did not satisfy the “free white persons” criteria needed to gain United States citizenship. The Court’s justification for its decision was “It may be true that the blond Scandinavian and the brown Hindu have a common ancestor in the dim reaches of antiquity, but the average man knows perfectly well that there are unmistakable and profound differences between them to-day.” In other words, to protect the state from brownness, the Court used whiteness as its shield.  

The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 ended immigration quotas based on national origin and South Asians in the “professional” sphere of the labor force were able to use their degrees in the U.S. However, as with many laws and rules enacted during this era, the Civil Rights Movement and the critical role Black leaders such as Malcom X, Fannie Lou Hamer, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and Rosa Parks played in disrupting and exposing structural violence are often ignored and overlooked in our community.

We did not have to endure the labor nor the struggle to secure these rights, but we reap the benefits.

When discussing these issues with other South Asians, I am often met with dismissive responses. More specifically, I come face-to-face with prevailing views that the state uses to muffle the harm that marginalised and vulnerable communities experience. I have heard South Asians say that reparations are a waste of money because slavery was so long ago, prisoners should be paid less than minimum wage because they are in prison, and if people just try hard enough then they will not have to depend on government assistance. Or, if someone really does not want to engage in any sort of intellectual labor, they will compare an atrocity in the United States to one in South Asia. Once, when I was discussing how cruel it is that the United States has confined 2.3 million people to cages, someone “reminded” me that these people have it so much better than those who are caged in Pakistan. Do they really?

Recently, Jurist drew attention to the dangers of overcrowding in Pakistan’s prisons during the Covid-19 Pandemic. The article mentioned that a prisoner’s limited access to sanitary products, healthcare resources, and hygiene products make them highly susceptible to becoming infected. Prisons in the U.S. demonstrate a similar response to the pandemic as prisons in Pakistan, and both nations are essentially forcing people to die in cages.

Quite frequently, I ask myself “why can’t we stand with those who have stood with us?” I now realise the problem lies in proximity to power.

When we are far from an issue, we are not obligated to think of the trauma, hurt, and pain it brings to people. We can ignore the suffering and create more distance by saying “this is not my problem” rather than trying to hear and understand a person. This may protect us from feeling terrible, but we pay a terrible price.

While silence may seem like neutrality, an active choice to remove oneself from an issue, in this case, silence means satisfaction. South Asians who remain without words are consciously deciding to approve of and support people who, in the name of white supremacy, mercilessly murder people of colour. Instead of standing in solidarity with those whose effort and struggle built the table in which we occupy, we have allowed our silence and our distance to perpetuate violence. It’s time for us to start considering what would happen if we get close. What if we move in?

Getting close means intentionally choosing methods to address issues that cease to re(produce) violent behaviours that have been deemed as acceptable. This shift goes beyond extending our physical presence at demonstrations. Perfectchai, one of my favorite accounts on Instagram, said it best: 

south asian/brown americans: we CANNOT sit idly by as this continues to happen. every freedom we have is built on the labor, sacrifice, and pain of Black folks. and when i say we need to do something, i don’t just mean protesting. i mean talk to your racist parents, aunties, and uncles.

Transformation has to happen in all spheres of society and we each play a critical role in engaging in these conversations.

We can no longer brush off racist and toxic rhetoric that is used to justify mass human caging, the state imposing hurt on black and brown bodies, and disassociating ourselves with the trauma and harm that cops place on people just because we are—for now—the “correct” type of brown.

As long as there are human cages and police, state structures and the people enforcing the will of the state will continue to murder black and brown people. It is time we take these truths seriously and stand, learn, and organise with minority communities that extend beyond the South Asian diaspora. We must realise that our silence is violence.