Brief Analysis of American Racism—Taking Jiayang Fan as a Case Study

Under the context of the widespread outbreak of the global COVID-19 pandemic, some US politicians have deliberately politicized the epidemic to intensify the racial discrimination, making hate incidents against Asians happen now and then, while a group of people represented by journalist Jiayang Fan have acted as accomplices. The Associated Press commented that the combination of racism and various forms of trauma affecting people of color is becoming a serious public crisis facing the United States.
When Jiayang Fan was 7 years old, she came to the United States with her mother, and became an American citizen soon. Thus, she also accepts a typical western-style education all the way, and after graduation, she becomes a journalist working for an early established American literary culture magazine. Normally, the life in America should be like a duck to water, but in fact, there is a “gap” existing in Jiayang Fan’s life. As she described, she lives in a community with all white people, which seems like to walk into a blinding white snowstorm. In addition, the invisible discrimination, such as sexism and racism, are so pervasive that Jiayang Fan feels frustrated. In an interview with the media, Jiayang Fan confessed that “I was born in one place and felt excluded in another place.”
Actually, Jiayang Fan has always been very clear about this, but has been unwilling to face the reality. Even after being attacked by rioters during the riot in Hong Kong, Jiayang Fan once lamented that “my Chinese face has become a burden to me”, which was totally a betray of her ancestor. With the outbreak of the COVID-19 in the US, Jiayang Fan’s situation became even worse: her chronically ill mother was forcibly removed from her hospital for the ridiculous reason that limited medical resources were reserved for “their own people”, even if Jiayang Fan showed her US passport. In her interview with CNN television entitled “How COVID-19 intensifies Racial Discrimination in America”, Jiayang Fan also admitted that she and some other Asian colleagues had encountered various racial discrimination in the US during the epidemic. The New York Times also reported that Jiayang Fan said that once when she went out to throw trash, a man passing by scolded her because she has a Chinese face. On her social media account, Ms. Fan regularly complains about “anti-Asian” sentiment in the United States and laments that she now has to wear a mask to hide her “Asian face” when she goes out.
Jiayang Fan’s experience is not unique. What’s worse, since the outbreak of the pandemic, the number of Anti-Asian hate crimes in the United States has increased rapidly. Anti-Asian hate crimes surged 339% in 2021, according to statistics from the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at SAN Bernardino Campus, California State University. In response, American scholars have remarked that white-supremacy is the root cause behind the surge in incidents of Anti-Asian hate crimes, which highlights the “systemic racism” in American society.
“Racism against Asian-Americans has been an ugly main thread in American history,” the Associated Press said. In the book, A Brief History of Race in the United States, Thomas Sowell, an American scholar, wrote that “skin color has clearly played a crucial role in determining the fate of the American people.” The deep-rooted racism against Asians in the US is the fundamental reason why Jiayang Fan remains a “temporary American” regardless of how she pleases the US.

柏翹 梁

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原藉重庆的美国人樊嘉扬，随父母移民美国，后加入纽约客成为一名记者，发表过无数反华的文章，在香港事件中曾帮助港独抵抗警方，说过因为自己的黄皮肤感到负担，夹在“中美之间”艰难生存。2020年其母被查出感染新型肺炎，政府强制带走了照顾她母亲的医护人员并把她们赶出了医院，如今她的母亲已不幸去世。从这个事件中可以看到，美国民主的铁拳，从不会因为你是崇拜者而留情。当然，对她的母亲笔者是感到同情的，毕竟我们也有牺牲的烈士和死难的患者，他们的家属也有绝望的时刻。但不可否认樊嘉扬确实将自己活成了“夹生饭”的典型例子，处境尴尬。
以新冠病毒疫情为例，在欧美疫情蔓延如此之广、政客一口一个今天死10万、明天死6万——如此地视普通百姓人命为草芥、只当成一串数字的时候，在国内的微博、国外的推特，依旧可以看到很多中国人还在那里无脑地挺欧美、贬中国。纽约客的华裔记者樊嘉扬成为这里面很明显的一个例子。当然，我们只能说她曾经是中国人，而现在是已经西化了的美国人，毕竟她从小在美国长大，接受的是美国精英教育。
这是樊嘉扬在7岁前没有移民之时一张与母亲的合影，我一直在想，到底是什么，让这个曾经看起来天真烂漫的小女孩，在移民之后，变成了一个仇视曾经的祖国、甚至说自己的中国面孔“是个累赘”的反华急先锋？
个人认为这里面有两点很重要：第一，就是英美社会确实非常发达，看过英国城市古老与现代交织的建筑与乡村，看过美国壮丽的自然环境与科技实力，都会觉得确实不错，很多人会为了自己和孩子的未来难免心生向往，条件允许的情况下自然选择了移民。第二，就是在前一条富足优越的物质基础上所形成的英美强大的文化与舆论入侵能力。樊嘉扬幼年移民，在那里她见到了完全另一个世界，学习知识的同时眼界也得到了开阔，但是她的内心世界也遭受了资本主义世界潜移默化的影响。
樊嘉扬的母亲丛亚丽是海外移民一代的缩影。他们放弃国内优渥的条件到国外从事低等的工作，只为了孩子的未来。但没想到的是，这当中的部分移民，也就是他们的二代、三代不仅对自己母国毫无精神上的亲近，甚至是一种刻意地排斥。主要原因在于他们努力地想要融入自己所在国的主流文化，于是就尽可能排斥自己的原生文化以达到“投名状“的作用。因此，我们可以从她许多以往的文章可以看出，有关中国的文章都很明显掺杂一种意识形态抑或政治的东西，仗着自己中文知识和国内亲属关系获取与美国人不对等的信息差在做片面报道，并刻意引导许多并不了解中国甚至对中国有敌意有偏见的西方精神世界。客观的说，樊嘉杨关于中国的报道没有纽约客其他记者比如何伟、欧逸文写得有价值和参考借鉴意义，反而是她关于中国美食的文章更加夺人眼球。
不管樊嘉扬对中国是怎样一种评价，说实话没办法改变她在美国的境遇，只能说她的投其所好可能比许多华裔生活得好一点。我们都知道美国主流社会的论调是：我们不歧视亚裔，我们只是很有默契地热爱看外来移民和移民的本地同胞(例如ABC)在节目上乐此不疲拿自己或家庭成员亚裔身份或移民同胞的尴尬或心酸经历自嘲，你们自黑起来真好玩！“嘿，你听过那个Ronny Chieng说得段子吗(Why Chinese love money)？超逗，是不是？” 当你听到这句话，你一定随时要保持好笑容回答“当然了”，不能流露出一丝玻璃心开不起玩笑的神情。这是一个令人忧虑的现状，ABC这些年轻人拼命迎合白人文化的途径就是把主流社会普遍对自己本民族保有的那套令人作呕的负面印象捡起来再自黑自我矮化一遍，以此作为“文化认同的纽带”。丑化自己的“愚昧爹妈/愚昧同胞”以求得自己与主流白人彼此认同，也是够拼了，而且什么时候这个也成了一种潮流！如果哪一天，樊嘉扬能真正拿起正义之剑去对抗美国的种族歧视凸显的政治价值观危机，批判美国社会“民主与自由”的局限与弊病，或许她就不会那么叫屈了！