Hasan Minhaj calls out anti-blackness in South Asian communities
Protests are taking place in many countries against police brutality and white supremacy.
Starting from George Floyd's murder by a cop, the Black Lives Matter movement started taking to streets in USA and now many countries including New Zealand, Japan, Sweden and England are carrying out protests while more have taken to social media to raise awareness on the racism faced by people of colour, especially black folks. South Asian folks also joined the conversation online.
Patriot Act's Hasan Minhaj, however, decided to call out the hypocrisy of the Asian communities that were speaking up about the matter, reminding them of their own racism, colourism and over all anti-blackness. And his video is going viral.
"This time, we cannot stay silent, especially the Asian community. Because the murder of George Floyd was so heinous, even [very problematic] people are speaking out."
Addressing the conversation shift from the protests to riots and looting he says, "Depending on when you immigrated, you came to this country (U.S) for order and stability. That's why we're all in our living room wondering, 'What is this madness? Why can't they follow the laws?' But imagine if you lived in a country where the colour of your skin got you killed for driving, jogging sleeping [and so on]... you would say that is a lawless country."
"So why are we shocked that people are asking for revolutionary change? We support revolutions overseas... And we can't empathise with the protesters?"
He then moves to calling out Asians for their hypocrisy. According to the comedian, "I can't speak to what it's like to be black, but I know how we talk about black people,"
"Asians, we love seeing black excellence, Barack (Obama), Michelle (Obama), Jay Z, Beyonce... how could we be afraid, we love black America. Yeah, on screen, in our living rooms. But when a black man walks into your living room and god forbid wants to date or marry your daughter, you call the cops."
Hasan adds, "You know what we call black people? We call them kaala, which means black but not in a good way. If someone is dark-skinned in your family, we clown them. We call them kallu... Our Bollywood film stars do skin whitening commercials so we don't look black."
"It is bad to be black in desi culture, even though we all wish we were black... That is the great hypocrisy."
Minhaj ends his segment making a call for Asian Americans to join the movements and also shares how to help, saying, "Millions of people around the world have taken to the street to afford us this moment."