A Turkey-born spicy-white trans man in Philadelphia recently told me that his city’s anti-fascist movement is mostly comprised of people of color. He said this with an air of confidence, as if the group’s non-whiteness was to be taken as some kind of asset to my Black queer self. He wanted me relieved. Instead, I just bristled.
He has memories of burying his light Turkish accent in the advent of 9/11. He has memories of his father being pulled over 13 times in a four month period. After the last time, his father packed up their bags and moved his entire family back to Turkey.
As a Black person, I’ve often fantasized about being able to pack up all my loved ones to escape the violence of the state. I’ve fantasized about having somewhere—anywhere—to go where white violence can’t hurt me. For that reason, I couldn’t resist making a joke at the expense of his non-Black trauma: “Oh, so he couldn’t handle being treated like a nigga, huh? Must be nice to be able to just pick up your entire family to go back to your home country.”
It wasn’t that I felt jealous of him. It was that he felt the need to boast about his experiences in the face of my Blackness. Missing the point, he replied, “No, it sucks being trans in Turkey.”
I used to be pro-everyone not white until I realized that everyone (white and non-white) lives off of Black life—and death. Everyone gets a piece of the pie. You see Awkwafina raking it in by performing minstrel shows on camera. You saw Macklemore winning grammies for best rapper when most of us know it should have gone to Kendrick. Teen Vogue covered Lilly Singh performing anti-Blackness and how people keep erroneously (intentionally) crediting her as the first late night host of color—erasing Wanda Sykes and Mo’nique. Everyone profits from the fruits of our culture—except for us.
I can’t help but think about all of the ethical plot holes in the narrative the Turkish man had spun me. Was police violence not a big issue until non-Black people of color started getting bludgeoned over the head by pigs and neighbors alike? Did their small Turkish family simply not notice? How could their family not notice? Didn’t they see what happened to Thomas Jones? Was state violence not enough of an issue to protest and flee when it was just Black bodies being bagged and tagged in the streets and in the prisons?
In the past month, I have seen thinkpiece after thinkpiece on how not to be racist to Asian-Americans. But where were all of these thinkpieces decrying xenophobia when Ebola was killing tens of thousands of niggas? Where was all this concern about referencing a group of people or a place when talking about a disease, when Ebola was named after a river in the Congo? Serophobia just doesn’t slap the same if the punchline doesn’t look like me and you, huh?
It means nothing to me that the local antifa chapter in Philadelphia is majority people of color. Not when I am still followed in non-Black people of color-owned stores in West Philly. Not when I am profiled at every pappy shop. Not when I’m exploited in Asian-owned Black hair stores. It means nothing.
I have too vivid memories of stylishly dressed Koreans shooting a little Black girl in the back of the head three times during the LA riots. I have memories of a white judge letting one of those same Korean women walk with probation and 400 hours of community service. I have memories of Asian women beating a Black woman and her mother over the back with a broom in an East Flatbush nail salon. I can’t forget how they banded together to spray acetone in that same Black woman’s face.
On Broad Street, I witnessed a white man with dreadlocks issuing racist epithets toward a group of East Asians while they got into their Uber. I have intervened in this sort of situation before. But this time, I considered that both of these parties probably share a deep hatred for Black people.
I wanted to intervene, but I refuse to make my body a bridge. I have no desire to bond with Asians about how racist white supremacists are. I have no desire to protect them when I will be left unprotected.
I don’t feel relieved that the majority of Philadelphia’s ANTIFA is non-white because I have never seen evidence to suggest that I should trust these people. On the contrary, I have only seen the ways in which non-Black people of color abuse our communities. Sure, sociologists have highlighted the differences between racism from white people and anti-Blackness from non-Black people of color, but this is a nuance that I am committed to ignoring for the rest of 2020. There may be key ideological differences, but the bullets all bite the same.
It doesn’t matter if our enemy is shared or not: Solidarity built over my Black queer corpse is not a solidarity that I will ever take part in.
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Kejhonti Neloms is a queer student/teacher. He has dreams of starting a community center for black queer kids.
