The UK hidden racism in We need to understand

Fashion writer and Style Bubble creator Susie Lau explains why she felt compelled to help launch the #Stopasianhate movement

LAST APRIL, I heard something that made me feel like I was nine years old again, in a swimming pool in north London, with a group of girls saying that I should, ‘Go back home to China.’ On the bus with my half-chinese daughter Nico, I was told by a woman that I should stay home with her. At first, I assumed it was because Nico was reluctant to wear her mask. But there were other maskless kids. Then I realised what she meant was that I, with my Chinese face, shouldn’t be out and about and neither should my halfchinese daughter. I was stunned and hailed to get off at the next stop. ‘Stay home,’ ‘Go home.’ The clear subtext? You’re not welcome. You don’t belong.

Fast forward almost a year and hate crimes towards ESEA (East and South East Asians) have taken a heinous turn. In the US – where Trump referred to Covid-19 as ‘kung-flu’ – there has been a spate of violent crimes. Vicha Ratanapakdee, an 84-year-old Thailand native, died after being pushed to the ground in San Francisco. In the Bay area, CCTV footage emerged of a man shoving three elderly Asians to the ground for no reason.

Similarly in the UK, police records have revealed a 300% increase in reported incidents towards ESEA people at the beginning of 2020 compared with 2019. In February 2020, Singaporean student Jonathan Mok was beaten up on London’s Oxford Street in a seemingly unprovoked attack. Just last month, university lecturer Peng Wang was subjected to a violent, apparently racist attack in Southampton.

And there will be so many more that go unreported. Speaking to Grazia, the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, emphasised the importance of reporting hate crimes in order to bring the issue to wider prominence. ‘As Mayor of London, we take a zero tolerance towards any hate crime. If you are victims of hate crime, please report it. Don’t suffer in silence. We’re funding support groups to help communities and funding the police in relation to the resources. Unless you report it, we can’t record it to get objective metrics on what is happening. It allows national politicians to brush it under the carpet.’

Instead, our national politicians are inadvertently exposing the underlying tensions, thanks to the pandemic. When Boris Johnson made a video wishing British Chinese people a happy Chinese New Year, the comments revealed a swathe of antichinese sentiment that conflates the origins of the virus with an entire ethnic group. ‘Sod the Chinese after our lives have been ruined this year,’ one person wrote. You begin to question: who else is reducing you to a ‘virus’ as you walk down the street?

As a result, together with a group of Asian-american friends in fashion, I started the hashtag #Stopasianhate last month and I’ve been overwhelmed with messages from ESEA in the UK opening up about racism. But beyond these acts of violence, we need to also understand the oftenhidden racist rhetoric towards ESEA in the UK, ranging from casual to the overt.

I grew up in what is ostensibly a multicultural haven, with my parents from Hong Kong running a takeaway in Camden. But at school, kids used to make eye gestures to poke fun; or I’d bring Chinese food in and friends would make yucky-faces. In my teens, guys would accost me with, ‘Ni-hao! Konichiwa! Where are you from-from?’ placing me in the box of ‘otherness’.

You learn to brush the comments off. Our collective silence is connected to the ‘model minority’ myth, the notion that because many Asians (and I refer to both South Asians and ESEA) do well at school and have a strong work ethic, white people can use this to say, ‘Racism doesn’t exist if a minority can enjoy success.’ When I learned about it, it was like a lightbulb had smashed inside my head. Why have we been taught to be silent? What happens if we don’t meet those model minority expectations? What have I sacrificed to fit into a mould?

Starting the #Stopasianhate movement has been an emotional roller-coaster, but just as Black Lives Matter opened up a floodgate of self-examination and action towards diversity and representation, we need to also understand the nuances that affect ESEA in this country, especially in light of the pandemic. We’ve just begun to speak out. It’s a vital step in that collective journey in the fight against racism – in all forms, towards all minorities.