Minorities are Perpetuating Racism and it Needs to Stop

The group can be seen making racially-charged remarks and physically attacking the man with a stick as he was picking up cans for recycling in a San Francisco neighborhood. By the end of the video, the elderly man is in tears.

Let’s start off with an acknowledgment, shall we? This article is not meant in any way to be one-sided or to alienate or discriminate against any race or ethnicity. Quite the contrary, in fact. This is not a one-sided issue. There is a racism that exists within minorities communities that leads to senseless violence, and it needs to stop. 

The online response to the video was overwhelming. Many social media users responded in sadness, sharing the post with friends and family, looking for a means to help the man. However, some also responded with fear and anger towards the attackers in the video, and others used the video as an excuse to perpetuate racism against the Black community.

We must acknowledge that when minorities attack one another, whether on the basis of their skin color or otherwise, we are in doing so perpetuating a cycle of racism in a country already infamous for its inequality. The Black and Asian communities have historically been disadvantaged in America, albeit to varying degrees, from institutional inequalities to violent and deadly racism. Both of these communities have faced pains and challenges unique to their respective race and skin color that have shaped them into what they are today.

This video and the response to it is an extreme example of the racism that occurs within POC (people of color) communities happening in our own backyard, but we also have to remember that we can not judge an entire people by their worst examples.

It is exceptionally important for us, as minorities, to acknowledge that this cycle does exist, and to actively fight against it. At the end of the day, minority communities are only as powerful as their solidarity in standing up for one another. No minority is safe until all minorities are safe.