Boba Liberals and their place in the ESEA community
Should we give these over priviliged and inexperienced individuals a platform?
Christ the Nice Prophet, not another Boba Liberal. It’s enough to make me contact Turing and the gang in the spirit world to take back the bloody computer
For those of you who don’t know what Boba Liberals are, they are the left winged ESEA equivalent of Priti Patel and similar. Highly privileged East and South East Asians who consider that just because they haven’t encountered with severe racism and prejudice, that these problems virtually don’t exist against ESEA communities. If you’ve heard of that term called the Model Minority, that’s the world of the Boba Liberals. And because they’ve been benefitting strongly from their highly stereotypical social moniker they are in a position to usually put the needs of their ethnic communities last, no matter how severe the problem is by attempting to guilt trip the entire ESEA community for, well everything really. Think of someone bringing up a debate about sexism while in the middle of a vigil for murdered victims of an Islamaphobic attack. That’s how inappropriate Boba Liberals are.
I usually refer to them as Boba Leens based on one particular Boba Liberal (let’s just say they have a ‘Leen’ in their name) who thought it acceptable to normalise violence against East and South East Asians. She was a young and academically bright Yale university student who visibly had issues with her ethnicity. Her blatantly anti ESEA posts and videos have proved pretty popular with anyone who possesses anti ESEA sentiment and naturally piss off the ESEA community. Another Boba Leen I personally knew used to dismiss Anti Asian issues with a simple ‘oh my parents used to go through that’.
Boba Liberals are the least likely to be affected by the real issues faced by the ESEA community because of the privileged bubble they live in. They are less likely to be the Chinese takeaway owner in a rough suburb who deals with violent assaults daily. They are not going to be the ones to worry about a friend or relative getting deported after escaping a poverty stricken country. They haven’t a clue about their working class counterparts and despite their staunch stance on anti racism, know very little about dealing with marginalised communities themselves. A number of them totally ignore Islamaphobia and racism towards darker skinned Asians and often use the Black community as an arguing point to hide their lack of knowledge on anti ESEA issues. They refuse to acknowledge their Brown South East Asian kin when talking about Brown people. They expect an entire race of people to be held accountable for the racist/homophobic/sexist/ablelist actions happening in a country that has nothing to do with ESEA communities in the West. Ask a Boba Leen to comment about rampant child abuse in South East Asian countries or the dehumanising fetishisation of women of ESEA heritage and they’ll shrug it off and point to the most current trending charity which doesn’t involve ESEA victims. Boba Liberal activism is at best, performative and very naive.
This is not something that is far from unique-every ethnicity has their apologist. But it is very visible in the ESEA community and sets the parameters. South Asian and Black communities don’t let their privileged apologists dilute their important messages of racism. They have more experience in dealing with them and getting on with it, which has worked even though things could be much better. Unless writing entire essays dedicated to the ESEA community, our fellow POCs do not need to mention us when fighting for the rights of their own. It is not their job to do so when they have a lot to deal with already. Ask a boba Liberal to write an essay about ESEAS and it’s very likely more than half of what they’ll have to say includes non ESEA issues before going on a tirade about the flaws of our culture. Although intersectionality is important it is also vital that the needs of the intended group we are talking about should be clear. With a Boba Liberal, there isn’t one and what we get is exactly what a white washed portrayal of an ESEA person is – an irrelevant backdrop.
With ESEAs we still have work to do and it’s from the deep rooted white supremacy that has affected the mindset of Boba Liberals. Bear in mind we also have our conservative Members who also refuse to acknowledge there is a problem with racism because they are too short sighted from the ‘keep your head down and work off your troubles’ rhetoric. Both show no interest in things improving for the ESEA community. If anything, Boba Leens are worse than the racist Asians they use day in and day out in their arguments.
I used to be a bit of a Boba Liberal myself eons ago. I’m not going to go into how, because I made mistakes and said things that would even make Piers Morgan cringe. It’s nothing to be proud of but the path to fighting for what’s right isn’t a smooth one. What changed? Taking a good look at myself and those of similar identities. Accepting that violent attacks on my family were not just their problems but mine too. Female relatives being targeted for physical assault purely because of their gender and race. Male relatives having to plan holidays carefully so they didn’t get stopped during transit just because of their Muslim names. Darker skinned friends and relatives getting abuse and colourism. Acknowledging the mental health issues of my bisexual community because we’ve been told time and time again, that we’re too privileged to count as marginalised only to be labelled with to health warning for diseases. Sound familiar?
Boba Liberals are not bad people though-let’s make that clear. They are indeed frustrating to encounter because they are the last people ESEAs will ever feel safe with. A number of Boba Liberals are however, sociopathic and more right winged than they themselves may realise — a majority of them often twist the words of those who call them to account while playing victim.
Boba Leens in all their self proclaimed good intentions (and bless ‘em they really do believe they’re doing good) need to direct that glossy activism they have for and not against their ethnic communities. It goes beyond lambasting members of the ESEA community for racist cultures a lot of us don’t practice. It is a lot more than slamming Asian motherlands for their at times, unsavoury ways, which many ESEAs fled from in the first place and don’t need reminding of. It’s a lot more than sharing racist expereinces where it’s full extent is having names mispronounced or constantly being greeted with Ni Hao. It’s a lot more than talking about older relatives harbouring prejudiced beliefs which ESEA communities know fully well, not to adopt. It is taking a step down from the privileged ivory towers Boba Leens insist on merely observing from and getting to know the real ESEA community beyond their limited sphere. Then maybe we’ll get somewhere.