AntiAsian tweets stir anger in S.F.
A civil rights group founder, political leaders, parents and alumni called Friday for a San Francisco school board member to resign after critics highlighted a series of racist tweets she posted in 2016 about Asian Americans, who have been targeted in a recent surge of violent acts in the Bay Area and across the country.
Board Vice President Alison Collins, elected in 2018, said in a thread of tweets on Dec. 4, 2016, that Asian Americans had used “white supremacist thinking to assimilate and ‘get ahead.’ ” Collins explained in the thread that she was seeking to “combat antiblack racism in the Asian community” and “at my daughters’ mostly Asian Am school.”
Later in the thread, Collins singled out Asian Americans in recounting an incident she said had occurred in the past. She wrote that her “mixedrace/ Black daughter heard boys teasing a Latino about ‘Trump, Mexicans and the KKK.’ The boys were AsianAmerican . ... She spoke up when none of the other staff did. The after school
counselor was Asian.”
School board member Jenny Lam called for Collins to resign from the board.
“I’m shocked, dismayed, personally hurt by the remarks about Asian American students, parents and teachers,” Lam said, adding the board makes decisions that affect tens of thousands of people and it’s critical to have leaders representing all students.
Lam said she spoke to Collins on Friday.
“I asked, and I think it’s in the best interest of the school district and leadership for her to step down from the Board of Education,” Lam said.
A group of parents mounting a recall effort against Collins, who is Black, as well as two other board members, uncovered the tweets and posted them late Thursday.
Diane Yap, a San Francisco native and 2002 Lowell graduate, said her discovery of the tweets was distressing, given Collins’ use of a racial epithet and reinforcement of a stereotype that Asian Americans aren’t politically active enough.
“I don’t think this sort of rhetoric is acceptable from any elected officials, especially given today’s climate and the violent attacks that are happening against Asians now,” she said.
Yap called on Collins to step down.
Based on the tweets, the Lowell Black Student Union removed Collins as a panelist at a Women in Leadership event Thursday evening.
“The Lowell Black Student Union stands with the Asian community and condemns all acts of antiAsian hate,” organizers said in an Instagram post.
Mayor London Breed also strongly condemned the posts, but did not directly call for her resignation.
“All of our young people in our schools need to feel respected and supported, and you simply can’t use words like that,” she said in a statement. “Asian people in this country have long faced very real racism, including here in San Francisco, and you can’t just broad brush their experience in a way that is so harmful and offensive.
“Any elected official serving in our schools needs to recognize that, or they shouldn’t be representing our kids.”
One of the recall organizers, Siva Raj, said he shared the posts because he believes the sentiments are not acceptable, especially by someone running a school system where a third of the 52,000 students are Asian American.
It was a “naked display of prejudice and bias to the Asian community,” said Raj, whose two children attend district schools. “To cast an entire group of people as racist or having animosity, or being judgmental about them for wanting their children to have a good education or life, I find that disturbing, coming from an educator.”
The recall effort against Collins, as well as board President Gabriela López and Faauuga Moliga, is being driven by parents who are upset about the ongoing closure of district schools amid the pandemic, the board’s move to change the names of 44 schools, and the vote to end meritbased admissions to Lowell High School, where the enrollment is predominantly Asian American.
Collins declined to address the social media posts when contacted by The Chronicle.
“I’m not going to comment on social media posts from five years ago. I’ve been heartbroken seeing the escalating violence against my AsianAmerican brothers, sisters and siblings,” she said in a text message sent Friday to The Chronicle. “What has been even more upsetting is seeing the ways that the media often erase the true nature of the problem.”
In a reference to this week’s mass shooting in Georgia, Collins said Friday, “Seeing hate crimes labeled ‘sex addiction,’ and seeing videos of police and EMTs responding to the needs of perpetrators of violence while overlooking the needs of the people they target is telling. This isn’t just about one or two incidents circulating in the news cycle— it’s a pervasive culture. One we must all collectively name and dismantle.”
In a longer statement posted Friday on Facebook, Collins said: “One of the most harmful stereotypes of the AsianAmerican community is that it is monolithic. And that as members of the “modelminority” AsianAmericans are silent. While I continue to push for safe schools for all students and families, and curriculum that elevates and celebrated AsianAmerican culture and contributions, I will also dedicate my social media feeds to lifting up voices within the AsianAmerican community.”
As of Friday afternoon, Collins had not removed the posts from her Twitter timeline and declined to say if she would.
“You have my comment,” she said.
The other four school board members, Superintendent Vince Matthews and four supervisors contacted by The Chronicle did not respond to requests for comment.
The Edwin M. Lee Asian Pacific Democratic Club said Collins “must resign.”
“We are angered and disturbed to see that Alison Collins, VP of the SF Board of Education, has referred to Asian Americans as “house n **** r[s]” in a 2016 tweet thread,” according to a statement Thursday. “Labeling our diverse API communities with such hateful language is racist and wrong . .... Her words dehumanize Asians. As an elected official, she must be held accountable for her actions.”
The Chinese American Democratic Club also demanded Collins’ resignation, saying her “past tweets exacerbate the fear and pain that the Asian American community continues to endure after decades of discrimination and exclusion.”
Lee Cheng, founder of civil rights group Asian American Legal Foundation, also called on Collins to resign, saying he was shocked by her comments.
“This is a culmination of decades of just watching the situation for Asian Americans in San Francisco deteriorate to the point we now see elderly senior citizens murdered in the streets in broad daylight with impunity,” Cheng said.
Raj said in a statement that Collins’ “tweets suggest that the recent decision to permanently change Lowell High School’s merit based admission system to a lottery system ... was prejudiced by the same animosity.”
In a tweet this month, Collins advocated for more Asian American representation in curriculum.
“It is especially important at this time that we celebrate Asian American culture and contributions,” she wrote. “All kids deserve to be valued and visible in their schools. With antiAsian
bias on the rise in our communities, it is even more critical at this time.”
The tweets resurfaced as San Francisco and the nation face a surge of violence against Asian Americans. Stop AAPI Hate, a reporting project from Chinese for Affirmative Action and the Asian Pacific Policy & Planning Council, recorded more than 2,800 reports of coronavirusrelated discrimination in the U.S. from March through December 2020; about 700 took place in the Bay Area.
While antiAsian racism is not new, many point to former President Donald Trump’s use of “Chinese flu” as spurring an uptick in violence and bigotry.
Six women of Asian descent were among eight people killed in a shooting rampage at massage and spa businesses in and around Atlanta on Wednesday, prompting San Francisco officials to step up police patrols in predominantly Asian neighborhoods. AntiAsian hate crimes across the Bay Area have included spitting and verbal assaults, as well as violent attacks.
A Vallejo man was assaulted in San Francisco on Monday, possibly causing him to lose his sight. The incident was one of two attacks on Asian Americans on Market Street this week. A 67yearold man suffered lifethreatening injuries during an attack by three men in Chinatown in February.
Collins’ 2016 Twitter thread said, “Many Asian Ss (students) and Ts (teachers) I know won’t engage in critical race convos unless they see how they are impacted by white supremacy.”
Another tweet said, “My best friend from school says she feels alone in the Chinese community. She feels ostracized when she speaks up against antiblack hate.”
“Where are the vocal Asians speaking up against Trump? Don’t Asian Americans know they’re on his list as well?” Collins wrote.
Using asterisks in references to the racial epithet, Collins continued, “Do they think they won’t be deported? profiled? beaten? Being a house n **** r is still being a n **** r. You’re still considered ‘the help.’ ”
The school district did not respond to a request for comment.