Editor’s Note: The original version of this essay was first published on Reformed Margins on September 24, 2020. It has been updated and republished here with permission from the author.
I am a Taiwanese American man who grew up in White and Asian church spaces, and racism was rarely mentioned in those places. I was not taught nor did I seek out theological lenses or perspectives to think about racial inequity and injustice.
So I thought, nay expected, that policing had improved and justice had become more equal in the aftermath of public outcry over the murders of Mike Brown, Tamir Rice, and Eric Garner. But I was wrong. We all know about the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor, and the recent shooting of Jacob Blake.
Looking At The Data
As a social scientist working in analytics and data science, I turned to the epistemological tools I trusted. I resolved to find out if these tragedies were high-profile outliers or, in fact, the most recent examples of larger systematic trends.
First, I examined the data on arrests and homicides in Black communities. A Black person is arrested every 15 seconds and murdered every 71 minutes. In addition, the economic cost of murder on Black communities is more than eleven times greater than that on White communities, and the number of Black Americans killed each year is more than twice as many as the victims of 9/11.
I examined incarceration rates and found over 294,000 fewer Black Americans would be in prisons if they were incarcerated at the same rate as White Americans. Conversely, nearly an additional 740,000 more White people would be in prison if they were incarcerated at the same rate as Black peoples.
Accounting for an equal likelihood of police-initiated contact with Black and White Americans, I found Black Americans are twice as likely to be arrested, over twice as likely to be treated violently, nearly six times more likely to be incarcerated, and nearly three times more likely to be killed by police than Whites.
Addressing The Problem
The data findings shocked me and shamed me. It did not only expose me to the realities of racial disparities but also revealed my own ignorance, apathy, and complicity in having known so little and done so little about system racism. While your story of “discovering” the persistent realities of racism may be different than mine, the question remains: What should we do given our specific Asian American cultural, faith, and historical legacies?
1. We Need To Recognize That Racism Is A Sin
Tim Keller describes racism as a sin through four lenses. Each of these perspectives reveals how racism is but one implication of flawed theological explorations of who God is and who we are as individuals and a diverse body who have received undeserved grace.
Our first response as Christians must be to repent and re-read Scripture and re-learn Gospel truths so that we can confront racism by, as Jarvis Williams writes, “stand[ing] up and assert[ing] without hesitation and with their Bibles open that black lives certainly matter, have dignity, worth, and value.”
2. We Need To Examine Our Biases And Repent Of The Racist Ideas We Hold, However Unconscious
While few of us may be actively racist towards Black people, many of us have notions of Blackness that implicitly or unconsciously shape our perceptions.
In the Pew Research Center’s Race in American 2019 report, Asians report the lowest affinity towards Blacks of any racial or ethnic group. On a scale of 0-100, Asians rated Blacks an average of 62; the national average was 70. And while Asians are more likely than the overall population to see racial discrimination as a barrier for Black people to get ahead (54% versus 44% overall), we are also more likely to agree that a Black person’s lack of motivation to work hard is a barrier (32% versus 30% overall). For some of us, we have internalized the model minority myth and juxtapose our own achievement with relative lack of Black achievement to “justify” racist perceptions and lack of empathy towards Blacks who we feel haven’t worked as hard as us.
3. We Need To Recognize Our Privilege
While Asian Americans do suffer from racism, most of us will never experience the extent of inequality and injustice faced by Black Americans. Focusing on just one sphere, criminal justice, the disparities between Blacks and Asians are greater than the already wide disparities between Blacks and Whites.
Compared to Asians, Blacks are nearly 9 times (8.6x) more likely to be arrested as a proportion of the population and 18 times (17.9x) more likely to be arrested after a police interaction. If Asians were arrested at the same rate as Blacks after a police interaction, an additional 1.9 million Asians would be arrested each year, or roughly equivalent to the combined Asian populations of New York City, Los Angeles, and San Jose. And Blacks are more than 10 times (10.3x) more likely to be killed than Asians after a police interaction.
Given how much more unlikely we or those in our community are to experience the types of racism faced by Black Americans, we must intentionally be educated about, be proximate with, and learn from those with lived experience with anti-racism.
4. We Need To Act!
A common refrain from Black Christians is that they are tired because of their fight against racism. So instead of just watching from the sidelines, we need to get off the bench and commit to fighting racism so that our Black brothers and sisters are not always bearing the full burden of fighting discrimination inside and outside the Church. We need to come up beside them and sometimes stand-in for them.
All Christians need to pray and ask God to intercede. Racism is a sin and evil that has so plagued our societies that our actions alone cannot be broken by human efforts alone. We can remain hopeful against the seeming unassailability of the task to dismantle racism because our God is sovereign and omnipotent.
In addition, we need to speak up against racist behavior and speech among our family and friends. The Pew Report on Race in America reveals that Asians are the only group where a majority (55%) report never confronting a friend or family member of the same race who made a racist or racially insensitive joke. While some of this may be due to cultural factors such as deference to elders or preservation of the status quo, it is also wrong and a subjugation of cultural norms to Gospel imperative. We need to lovingly and kindly call out those around us who joke or unconsciously perpetuate racist ideas, beliefs, or tropes.
We need to initiate, join, and facilitate difficult conversations about racism within our church contexts. I lament that it seems these conversations are more acceptable if not welcomed in secular spaces, but seem so controversial in Church spaces. Our God is against racism, and we must be as well. We need to bring up difficult conversations about racism in our small groups, in private conversations with leaders, make it an agenda item for church discussions, and intentionally incorporate these discussions in our sermons, Sunday schools, discussions, and events.
Finally, we need to take tangible actions to deconstruct racist ideology and systems. Let us not be like the priest and Levite who walk by after seeing the man waylaid on the road to Jericho (Luke 10: 31-32). Let us not be the passive bystander who sees someone in need but only speaks greetings without doing anything to address their needs (James 2:15-16).
But let us be those who will “Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; [and] plead the case of the widow” (Isaiah 1:17). In our schools, in our workplaces, in the public square, in how we support non-profit or advocacy groups, and how we vote and engage our elected officials at all levels of government, we can advocate for and ally with those already engaged in the hard work of anti-racism.
Getting Off The Bench
But there is reason to hope. In the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd and summer of protests regarding racial injustice, more than 6 in 10 (64%) of Asian Americans report having had conversations with family or friends about race or racial equality, more than 4 in 10 (41%) report that they posted or shared content on social media about, and more than 1 in 5 (21%) report they contributed money.
Moreover, nearly 9 in 10 Asian Americans support the protests (89%), while nearly 3 in 4 (73%) Asian Americans feel very or somewhat connected to the protests. Asian Americans are also most likely to report that recent protests, marches, and demonstrations have changed their views on racial justice and equality (74% a little or a lot).
As Asian American Christians who serve a just God and have eschatological confidence that the Gospel affirms and confirms the reconciliation of all peoples to each other through Jesus, our pursuit of justice should not lag behind that of the wider Asian American community. Instead of replying with, “Not yet,” to yet another hashtag, we need to commit to saying, “Now,” throwing off our apathy to embrace allyship and advocacy.
It’s time to get off the bench and live out our unity in Christ (Galatians 3:28) while clinging to the already and not yet vision of the Church to come where people of all colors, “from all tribes and peoples and languages, [stand together] before the throne and before the Lamb” (Revelation 7:9). And let us use the opportunities and talents God has given us, and each in our way, in this time and as fully embodied Asian American Christians, be those who “act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God” (Micah 6:8).