From internalising racism to fighting against it
(Courtesy of Pat Sevikul)
16-year-old Thai student Pat Sevikul writes about the way racism has affected her and her work founding the youth-led organisation Stick to Change.
When I was younger, I never acknowledged the ways racism affected me.
Growing up in Thailand, I was obsessed with American animated movies, TV shows and books, from Disney to Nickelodeon and every single Meg Cabot book I could find. Despite the fact that the only representations of Asian culture I could find were stereotypical — such as dumplings and Pad Thai takeaway (but never any other dishes) or nerdy Asian students as background characters — I never considered it a problem. I accepted that foreigners considered my Asian culture “weird” and that to many people in other parts of the world, my country was an insignificant speck on the map. I internalized this racism and didn’t consider how it made me feel to see my culture represented this way.
“I internalized this racism and didn’t consider how it made me feel to see my culture represented this way.”
When I was 13, I moved to the U.K. to study abroad. Upon landing, an immigration officer greeted me by shouting, “Ni hao!” I was confused and extremely mad. I wanted to correct him that I was Thai and explain that Asia is the largest continent in the world and that China is not the only country there. But he shoved me along the line of other Thai students who shrugged off his comment, because they were used to putting up with White ignorance. It was only the first of what would turn out to be many racist incidents I’d experience in the U.K.
In my new high school, friendship groups were often divided by race. It almost felt claustrophobic knowing that some people just didn’t want to be friends with me because my personality was what I assumed they thought to be “Asian bland.” No matter what, some British students would prejudge me as “just another smart and quiet Chinese girl.” International students like me had to normalize laughing off daily microaggressions we received, whether it was students mocking our last names or students asking insincere and racist questions. But there was nothing we could do, because mentioning the bias and prejudice only ostracized BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and people of color) students even further because these incidents were downplayed or not taken seriously.
I remember one day a British friend asked me who I sat next to in one of my classes. I told her the name of a Chinese classmate, and in response my friend said, “Oh, she’s irrelevant,” just because my Chinese classmate was Asian and quiet, which made sense because she wasn’t completely fluent in English. I gave my British friend a disapproving look but she didn’t get it. She continued to look at me confusedly and replied “What? She is.” I was furious to say the least. My international friends and classmates deserved more than this racist treatment. We moved to study abroad in the U.K. hoping to improve our English and education, but instead were met with racism at every turn.
Looking back on these experiences, I realized that it took me so long to realize racism was a problem because I was always forced to look at the world through the lens of a White person. I grew up consuming Western content that made Asians seem peripheral and made me doubt my own culture. My White classmates didn’t acknowledge me for me, disregarding the existence of international students like me because we spoke different languages, looked different and had different cultures. Whether it was the noodles I ate which had sauce that looked “disgusting,” or the Korean idols that my friends and I liked who looked like “Oreos” because they had white skin or even telling me that I “could have been more popular” if I hadn’t hung out with my Asian friends, it seemed that some of the girls just had no respect for my culture whatsoever. They went out of their way to make sure that it wouldn’t be welcomed if I were ever to try to become friends with them. It took that conversation with my British friend about my Chinese classmate for me to fully realize that if I had continued to look at the world the way the Western world looked at me then I would have continued to normalize White supremacy like I had my entire life.
“Looking back on these experiences, I realized that it took me so long to realize racism was a problem because I was always forced to look at the world through the lens of a White person. I grew up consuming Western content that made Asians seem peripheral and made me doubt my own culture.”
Flash forward to two years later when I was back to fully living in Thailand due to the pandemic. May 2020 saw the increased momentum for the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement after Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd. Social media posts flooded my feed, but within a month’s time these performative activists had stopped posting. There was little to no mention of the movement on my social media by the end of July, and no one was compelled to have a conversation about it by the time the Thai government lifted quarantine in August. When I returned to my Thai school, it was like nothing had happened. Where were the people who posted black squares and #BLM?
I realized that my Asian friends posted black squares because it was a trend that pressured them to show their support in a media landscape that revolves around the U.S. Once the trend ended, people stopped posting like nothing had happened. Because of internalized racism, they felt like their voices wouldn’t be able to make a difference. They also felt comfortable remaining silent because they believe it isn’t our place to take responsibility for the oppression of Black people (and other minorities) while simultaneously dealing with our own oppression. Yet by doing that, we are benefiting off that system by conforming to the “model minority” myth. Staying passive is favoring the Whitewashed system. The Asian community needs to look beyond the bigotry of its traditional views and start supporting other minorities. When we stand in solidarity, we are fighting for justice for multiple communities against the same system.
That’s why I decided to create Stick to Change, a global organization that promotes cultural acceptance and celebration. Through our Instagram and website, Stick to Change provides young people with a platform to speak up in support of one another, empower each other, celebrate our identities and break free of stereotypes. We amplify voices advocating against systemic racism and raise awareness of the social injustices and colorism young BIPOC people face. Through creating projects of products such as stickers and tote bags, we raise money for organizations and victims of racism and social injustice including Black Lives Matter, the African Career, Education, and Resource Inc., Save the Children’s Lebanon Crisis Relief Fund, Stop AAPI Hate, the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund and Asian Americans Advancing Justice. On our Instagram account, we educate and inform our followers on topics like Black Lives Matter, anti-Asian violence, BIPOC representation, racism in pop culture and more. We interview young people around the world to hear about the racism and other social injustices they face to raise awareness of issues overlooked by Western media.
In a recent series, we talked to students in New Zealand, the U.K. and the U.S. about what it is like to be Black in a predominantly White country. This includes their experiences growing up or immigrating to their countries and their daily lives, as well as their personal takes and hopes for the BLM movement.
Alongside combatting topics surrounding racism, we update our followers on the many social injustices happening around the world today. So far, we have been able to cover what has been happening to Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang, including the forced labor and torture, the fight for women’s rights in Mexico in the midst of femicide, the surge of anti-Asian hate crimes in America and more. Specifically on the World Day of Social Justice in February 2021, we interviewed three girls from Mexico, South Africa and the U.S. to discuss the social injustices they face. Their conversations focused on intersectional identities, racism, gender-based violence and police brutality.
This past February, we celebrated Black History Month. On our account we featured the work of Black figures such as Carter G. Woodson (the father of Black history) and events in Black history that textbooks gloss over or exclude, including the Black Panther Party and the Tulsa Race Massacre. However, we continue to raise awareness on Black culture and history even if it isn’t Black History Month, such as our post on the history and use of AAVE (African American Vernacular English).
Because the media plays a large role in influencing stereotypes, many of our articles and posts cover the issues in current BIPOC representation and pop culture. Our writers have written about the problem of discrediting Black influences of certain Pinterest aesthetics like Y2K, the romanticism of settler colonialism in the cottagecore aesthetic, misrepresentation, stereotypes and underrepresentation in films and TV, cases of Whitewashing in history and the film industry, the effects of Asian fetishization from history and in the media and many more topics.
With much more planned to come for Stick to Change, I’m excited to see how our community will grow. I’m looking forward to being able to share more BIPOC youths’ stories, educate our followers on inequality around the world and combat racism and social injustice together. By first changing mindsets, we can then change systems.
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