SF School Board Member Said Asian Americans ‘Use White Supremacist Thinking’ to ‘Get Ahead’ in Old Tweets

March 22, 2021

Derogatory tweets by the vice president of San Francisco’s Board of Education have recently resurfaced, prompting several San Franciscans to push for her resignation.

Resurfaced Tweets: In a series of tweets from 2016, Vice President Alison Collins shared anti-Asian American sentiments, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Collins, who was elected to the San Francisco Unified School District Board in 2018, took to Twitter on Dec. 4, 2016, to complain about Asian Americans who do not call out anti-Black racism.
She wrote that many Asian Americans use “white supremacist thinking to assimilate” to “get ahead,” while many Asian Americans “believe they benefit from the ‘model minority’ BS.'”
Collins allegedly wrote these tweets as a concerned parent hoping to “combat anti-black racism in the Asian community” and at her daughter’s “mostly Asian Am school.”
Members of the Recall SF School Board group shared Collins’ tweets on social media on Thursday as part of an attempt to have her and other board members resign.
The group wrote “Commissioner Collins appears biased against Asian Americans” as one of several reasons to recall the San Francisco School Board.

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An apology: Collins addressed the backlash in a tweet and in a Medium post on Saturday, the New York Post reports.

Collins argues that her tweets were taken out of context. She did not mention resigning nor acknowledge that her words were racist.

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“A number of tweets and social media posts I made in 2016 have recently been highlighted,” Collins wrote in her Medium post. “They have been taken out of context, both of that specific moment and the nuance of the conversation that took place… I acknowledge that right now, in this moment my words taken out of context can be causing more pain for those who are already suffering. For the pain my words may have caused I am sorry, and I apologize unreservedly.”

Response to racism: A statement addressing Collins’ tweets was issued on Sunday, the San Francisco Examiner reports.

The open letter, which was written by various elected officials, declares that the viewpoint “represented in Alison Collins’ tweets has no place in City leadership and especially not in leading our public schools, where 33% are Asian American.”
The officials wrote that Collins’ tweets are “hate statements and speeches” that “perpetuate gross and harmful stereotypes and leave no room for nuance or potential misunderstanding.”
The majority of the Board of Supervisors — in addition to San Francisco’s mayor, London Breed — have called for Collins’ resignation.

Feature Image via Alison Collins (left), KPIX (right)

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