In a time of rapid change, you must admit that your present good standing is not permanent. Things are shifting, changing, morphing, and revising. What your status is today is almost guaranteed to have moderated by tomorrow.

In the movie Django, Stephen played by Samuel Jackson, whose best description would be a House Slave. Stephen dedicated himself to his tentative and exploited character of implied power. At least in his own mind. Some might call him the quintessential “Uncle Tom:“

1. “Disparaging: a Black person who is overeager to win the approval of whites (as by obsequious behavior or uncritical acceptance of white values and goals) Merriam Webster”

He was devoted to the powerful enslavers. He operated in a form of power allotted to him and controlled by the powerful. He was the model enslaved person, so as long as he subverted the other enslaved people.

Stephen and those like him were tools used by the majority culture. This was achieved by carrying communications from the enslaved people to the enslavers. They appeared as friends to the field slaves by brokering compromise deals and passing them off as best-case scenarios of a bad situation. At the same time, they would distance themselves from field enslaved people, reciting the very same tropes and racial stereotypes that the slavers would use. 

This scenario is familiar, from Judas Iscariot’s selling out Jesus for 30 pieces of silver to Dona Marina,

“Marina, (born c. 1501, Painalla, Mexico—died c. 1529, Spain), Mexican Native American princess, one of a group of enslaved women given as a peace offering to the Spanish conquistadors by the Tabascan people (1519). She became mistress, guide, and interpreter to Hernán Cortés during his conquest of Mexico. The success of his ventures was often directly attributable to her services.

Renouncing her indigenous name, Malintzin, on her conversion to Christianity, Doña Marina served her adopted countrymen with dedication. Her intelligence and tact and her knowledge of the Mayan language of the coast and the Nahuatl language of the interior extricated the Spaniards from many perilous situations. She bore Cortés a son, Martín, and later married one of his soldiers, Juan de Jaramillo, with whom she journeyed to Spain, where she was warmly received at the Spanish court.”

Written and fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica Last Updated: Oct 5, 2023 • Article History

The model minority myth is shrouded in white supremacy. It depicts implied positive majority culture attributes such as hard work, intelligence, and economic prosperity, ascribing them to a so-called more socially palatable ethnic minority. 

The USC Dornsife Institute article entitled:

“The long history of U.S. racism against Asian Americans, from ‘yellow peril’ to ‘model minority‘ to the ‘Chinese virus, author, Adrian De Leon'” says the quiet part out loud in the Robert G. Lee quote of writer Frank Chin.” In reality, as cultural historian Robert G. Lee has argued, inclusion can and has been used to undermine the activism of African Americans, indigenous peoples and other marginalized groups in the United States. In the words of writer Frank Chin in 1974, “Whites love us because we’re not black.”:

Now, before we get off track and begin to draw lines dividing Asian Americans against the African American, Indigenous, or Latinx communities, it must be understood that individuals and people groups are and have always been under tremendous societal pressure for acceptance, economic viability, mental stability, peace, and in some cases survival itself. 

In a predetermined caste-influenced society, whether we’re speaking of that high yellow slave that passed into the dominant world and never they nor their descendants were ever to be seen again as a people of color, Sammy Sosa bleaching his skin to become white, or Lupita Nyong’os’ battles through colorism, while as a youth wishing she was lighter, or a story in The Medium entitled “I Gave up my Mexican Last Name for a White Name.” All were trying to find that mythical safe place under the proverbial shadow of “Becky with the Good Hair.”

Enter 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic fueled a racist, xenophobic propaganda that galvanized anti-eastern Asian racism. It was the perfect storm where longstanding yet dormant hatred became married to a resurrected form of the late 19th century’s yellow peril. Probing in the darkest places of the human imagination, parasitical ideologies of fear and hatred look for host mentalities and use clandestine historical parallels to rationalize excuses. The powerful seek to use the unassuming masses to reembrace these systems of supremacy, bias, and scapegoating as a default response in uncertain times.  

The rhetoric evolved from the “China Virus” to derogatory epitaphs such as “Kung flu” to hate speech and violent acts. Did Yellow Peril have a Deja vu? Maybe it was there all along. The parallels are stunning.

According to Bowling Green State University’s Asian section of Race in America, “Media portrayals of Asians and Asian Americans invoked “Yellow Peril” imagery as a sign of villainy, malevolence, or undesirability. Popular illustrations emphasized “exotic” features, such as eye shape (often rendered as narrow slits) and skin color (often exaggeratedly yellow).

“In 1882, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, which, per the terms of the Angell Treaty, suspended the immigration of Chinese laborers (skilled or unskilled) for a period of 10 years. The Act also required every Chinese person traveling in or out of the country to carry a certificate identifying his or her status as a laborer, scholar, diplomat, or merchant. The 1882 Act was the first in American history to place broad restrictions on immigration.”

Office of the Historian, Foreign Service Institute United States Department of State.

The words of scripture remind us: “Love will never invoke fear. Perfect love expels fear, particularly the fear of punishment. The one who fears punishment has not been completed through love.” 1 John 4:18 The Voice

The cultural sanctions and pressure to yield to ideologies of white supremacy and its associated hegemonies have destroyed families and generations through fear, intimidation, and divisive myths such as the “model minority. 

All BIPOC populations, allies, and accomplices must shake off the fear of backlash (punishment) by a shrinking majority culture, no matter how desperate they are. Succumbing to a survival mentality over trusting in our creator and each other will continue repeating cycles of “friendly fire” casualties. The potential for perfection (completeness) of the love we all possess can and will overcome any fear and put us all on a path toward healing if we allow it to.