With the recent 1900 percent boom in hate-crimes against Asian Americans, many Asian Americans have taken to social media to express their disgust and aversion for these horrific assaults. But, while they are rightfully trying to garner support for their movement, several of their messages are actually doing more harm than good. 

While many are using social media to address the violence in a respectable manner, some Asian Americans are choosing to breed more negativity by comparing the Black Lives Matter movement to the Anti-Asian Hate Crime movement .  

As Gen.Medium.com describes, an extensive amount of “But BLM” tweets have gained a wide amount of attention. These “But BLM” tweets consist of Anti-Asian Hate Crime supporters comparing the Asian-American situation to the oppression of Black people. By doing this, their purpose is to provoke outrage that this movement isn’t being addressed the same way as the Black Lives Matter movement was, spreading their belief that Americans only favor fighting for a particular ethnic group’s rights and freedoms. 

“It’s always about us being told to educate ourselves about Black people’s history but never them to acknowledge the history and diversity of Asians,” reads a tweet from an anonymous user that has since been taken down.  

What needs to be established is that the Black Live Matter movement and the Anti-Asian Hate Crimes movement are completely separate battles for justice. Supporters of Anti-Asian Hate should not bring in Black people and their experiences as a standard for comparison. 

Each side has had their independent battles and to compare the two side by side is as unfair as it is ignorant. However, this irritation that Asians are portraying for America’s lack of enthusiasm for their movement isn’t entirely unwarranted.   

Asians have a history of being put on the backburner since they are seen as the “model minority”. The “Model Minority Myth” perpetuates the idea that since Asians are seen as generally prosperous and successful figures in society, that they shouldn’t be considered a minority. It’s meant that the Asian American community has never felt properly advocated for and, perhaps for the first time, Asians are finally getting to voice their enragement on this matter. 

However, that still does not justify bringing Black people into this matter. What these comparisons foster is not support and agreement, but, rather, controversy and resentment. The more that people keep playing an “oppression olympics,” where each side attempts to prove they have faced more hardship, the more the original purpose of this battle is lost. 

Instead of competing for attention with the Black community and complaining about the lack of concern,  activists supporting the Asian community should turn to the Black Lives Matter Movement as an ally, not a competitor. When people decide to bring out the message that Black people are supposedly the more favored minority, we need to wonder if we’re perpetuating the same oppression that we should be fighting.