Jamel Floyd, Sean Monterrosa, Justin Howell: These are just three of many names that have illuminated social media over the past week. They are the names of three people of color killed or critically injured in incidents involving United States law enforcement since protests broke out around the globe following the killing of George Floyd by four Minneapolis police officers.

On May 25, handcuffed and motionless on the ground, with officer Derek Chauvin’s knee on his neck, Floyd uttered the chilling last words, “I can’t breathe.” These same words were spoken by Eric Garner in 2014 and Freddie Gray in 2015 as they were also killed in police custody.

Right now, we are in the midst of a zeitgeist, where Black people and allies are pouring out onto streets to put an end to a long-waged battle for racial equality in the U.S. and across the world. The hashtags #BlackLivesMatter and #SayTheirNames are blowing up on social media, with users implementing a “blackout” to spotlight anti-Blackness and disseminate tools for education and mobilization against white supremacy.

It is all too likely some will ask: “What does this have to do with Taiwan?” Organizers plan to hold a Black Lives Matter solidarity rally on Saturday in Taipei—a chance for the country to loudly confront its own issues with racism and ethnic discrimination.

Throughout the world, including in Taiwan, the roots of white supremacy run deep, and vestiges of European colonialism are simultaneously glaringly obvious and hidden in plain sight. There is a reason an estimated two-thirds of Taiwan’s indigenous population happen to be Catholic Christians. The uncomfortable truth is that European colonialism created, and continues to perpetuate, explicit and implicit biases against Black and dark-skinned people, and these are ingrained in the mindset of Taiwanese, as they are in people all across the world.

Taiwan has demonstrated time and again that it has a problem with blackface, through depictions in widely-shared photographs to viral hit music videos—with even celebrities joining in. This dangerous ignorance helps sustain the structures that uphold anti-Blackness.

Moreover, Taiwan has a less than stellar record in how it treats migrant workers from Southeast Asia and other regions home to dark-skinned people. The country, despite its stated commitment to upholding global standards of human rights, has been reluctant to address this at the highest levels of government.

Last month, news broke that exchange students from Taiwan’s only African ally, eSwatini, had in 2018 been forced by Changhua County’s Ming Dao University to work 40-hour weeks in a chicken-skinning factory under the guise of an “ultra-affordable” “Taiwan Work/Study Scholarship.” It was noted by writer Brian Hioe in online magazine New Bloom that this was the fourth such incident in three years involving the exploitation of students from countries of a lower socioeconomic status for labor purposes.

One finds it difficult to imagine Taiwan would enact such demeaning abuse against white Europeans and Americans. Even people of color from countries of a higher socioeconomic status living and working in Taiwan have come out and publicly conveyed instances of workplace discrimination. A Facebook post in one of many teaching groups, for example, on Saturday garnered much attention after the author noted they were told their skin was too dark for an English-speaking job.

On Saturday, June 6, activists held a forum under the name Taipei Is Listening, where Black people in Taiwan spoke of the hardships they had faced and discussed ways to empower each other and gradually dismantle the grip white supremacy has in Taiwan and across the world. The forum has now become a springboard for further community safe space events and the formation of action plans to tackle issues Black people face in Taiwan. The organizers discovered that attendees wanted more in-depth resources and accounts of experiences from Black people both in Taiwan and around the world, and plan to arrange further events to accommodate these desires.

The forum had such an unprecedented turnout that it had to be moved to a space that could accommodate more people, said Taz Kadare, who organized the event along with Allie George and Christopher Whitfield.

“Seeing people come together as a community and be vulnerable with one another was incredible,” Kadare said. “We really loved being able to witness the forging of new connections and hearing people express their concerns with the current state of the world, and what changes they felt were needed.”

Taipei Is Listening drew a large crowd as the world confronts systemic racial inequality. (Supplied)

The event was not just targeted at Black people in Taiwan, Kadare stressed, but at everyone, as each individual has a role in facilitating the dismantling of white supremacy. Anti-Blackness exists in Taiwan as it does everywhere, she said, and eradicating it requires acknowledging it and working towards finding the root of it.

“The systems that benefit from and exploit Blackness are present all around us,” she said. “We see Blackness being consumed and appropriated widely but seldom is it given the true recognition and cultural compensation it deserves.”

The Taipei Is Listening forum was facilitated in conjunction with the Black Lives Matter Taiwan chapter, founded by Casey Abbott Payne, who has lived on and off in Taiwan since 2002. Payne said he made the Facebook page in 2016 following an event at community hub Red Room and as frustrations over the killings of Black people in the U.S. were boiling over. The global outrage over George Floyd’s death inspired him to reignite the page and further develop a community to address the needs of Black people in Taiwan.

Having worked as an English teacher, Payne is all too familiar with the discrimination faced by dark-skinned people in the industry.

“One of my most poignant memories is when I was working in a school in Luzhou in 2006 and I wanted to get out of it so I offered to find a new teacher,” he said. “One of the guys I had come out for an interview was a black guy. Everything initially looked great, but when it was over, [the manager] said, ‘No, sorry, we can’t do that,’ and I was like, ‘Why?’ and they said ‘Because he’s black.’ I replied ‘But I’m Black,’ and she went, ‘Not that black though.’ She was so matter of fact about it, I was taken back by it.”

SueAnn Shiah, a Taiwanese-American who has spoken at conferences about racial injustice and became a core organizer for Black Lives Matter Taiwan, said it sounded very much reminiscent of the brown paper bag test, used in U.S. social institutions to confer or withhold privileges depending on an individual’s skin color. Shiah believes that while colorism is ingrained in Sinophone societies, dating back to the notion that lower-class, outdoor workers would be darker due to sun tanning. Many ideas surrounding white supremacy, she said, are imported through U.S. and European channels.

“One concrete example would be the begpackers we just saw down the street,” Payne said, a reference to an increasingly visible phenomenon in Taiwan and across Asia where (usually) white tourists from countries of a higher socioeconomic status busk, sell jewelry or simply offer “free hugs” on the street in exchange for cash to help them shack up in a hostel for the night, or even pay for the flight ticket to their next destination.

Payne continued: “You just know if it was a Black person or someone else of color, people would have a different idea in their mind of what was going on. People assume white people doing it are traveling and experiencing the world and it’s okay to help them finance that. For someone of a different color, their first impression would be, ‘You need money, because you are poor.’”

Shiah believes that colorism in Taiwan is intertwined with what many local people view as U.S. superiority. “The assumption is that American society—Western liberal democracy—is the ultimate goal, the ultimate level of competency,” she said. “White supremacy is a big part of American superiority because when a Taiwanese person thinks of America, they think of white people, when that is not the reality.”

“We need to dispel the rumor that America is the best, America is exceptional,” she said. “I think the current situation has shown how broken America actually is. Younger people in Taiwan are starting to realize they have a society that can provide what they need—more so than if they moved to America—so they’re not as obsessed with the idea.”

Shiah said Black Lives Matter Taiwan has three primary goals: Education, action, and community-building.

“I want BLM to be a space of community for Black people to process experiences, a place where we can educate each other,” she said. “We can only create actions that are helpful, that impact the systemic issue of racism, through education and community-building. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.”

Karare agreed, stressing that long-term assistance is needed for the problem of anti-Blackness to be addressed properly and effectively.

“One of the most important ways that anybody within any community can help is to be consistent with this momentum and adhere to their responsibility of standing up to anti-Blackness,” she said. “When Black Lives Matter is no longer at the forefront of the media, we still want people to hold themselves accountable to the action plans they have created.”

Black Lives Matter Taiwan will help facilitate the upcoming solidarity rally on Saturday, June 13 at the 228 Peace Memorial Park in Taipei. Black Lives Solidarity Global Initiative is currently accepting donations; details on how to contribute can be found on the event page.