South Carolina man’s acquittal sparks anti-Asian boycott calls, but many push back

The acquittal of Rick Chow in the shooting death of 14-year-old Cyrus Carmack-Belton has prompted calls on social media to boycott Asian-owned businesses, though a broader chorus of Asian and Black voices alike rejects the idea of holding an entire community responsible for one man’s actions.

At a statehouse rally Saturday, Carmack-Belton’s mother, Nicole Carmack, urged supporters to withhold dollars from businesses where they felt profiled. “If we go into a store and they’re following us around, do not spend your dollar,” she said, referencing surveillance footage of Chow’s wife, Alice, trailing the teen through the gas station before the fatal chase. “If they cannot support you, you do not support them,” Carmack added, invoking Black Wall Street as a model for community reinvestment.

Earlier last week, Dr. Benita Robinson of the Racial Justice Network said a boycott campaign was being organized. The calls spread quickly online, reaching nail salons, beauty supply stores and Chinese restaurants, with some users placing fake orders to disrupt businesses.

Swift pushback followed. “I don’t know who the fuck Rick Chow is. Why are we all punished because of this one guy?” said Asian TikTok creator @whathappenedatmywork, who acknowledged racism in some Asian communities while urging solidarity over collective blame.

Black commentators rejected the boycott, too. “We shouldn’t be boycotting Asian businesses,” said @thatblackveteran. “Other Asian businesses should not be affected negatively because of your opinion over a failed justice system.” Another creator, @thetanzaniablack, questioned whether the effort had the numbers to matter: “There’s no point in boycotting if there’s not gonna be a large group of us doing it.”

The case significantly impacts Asian Americans, who have long been positioned uneasily in America’s racial landscape. When anti-Asian hate surged during the COVID-19 pandemic, many in the community resisted framing the violence as a Black-versus-Asian conflict, a narrative both researchers and advocates say dismissed the history of interracial solidarity and served to divide communities of color.

The Chow verdict risks reopening those fault lines. The 1991 shooting of 15-year-old Latasha Harlins by Korean American store owner Soon Ja Du — and the lenient sentence that followed — helped fuel the 1992 Los Angeles riots and remains a defining wound in Black-Asian relations. As we previously suggested, the more durable path forward is honest self-examination within Asian America about complicity in anti-Black racism, not collective defensiveness and an indictment of millions.

Carmack-Belton’s family is pursuing a civil wrongful death lawsuit against Chow, with attorney Todd Rutherford representing them.