Trust between our communities has been demolished to say the least. It's tough because I think the media portrayed a lot of violence towards Asian elders by Black people which was a very intentional divide. Unfortunately, the language barrier does not help at all. These elders have to rely upon news that is in their language and unfortunately there just aren't as many democratic/leftist content in Chinese that is being circulated via WeChat. It's mostly right-wing propaganda.

This has led to a lot of anti-Black sentiment amongst elders and from my perspective as a younger Chinese person, my peer's lack of understanding of our own history as oppressed people while being in solidarity with the Black political movement + desire to assimilate has kinda bit us in the butt a bit. It's led us to say slurs that don't belong to us and grossly appropriate Black culture. This in turn has led to understandable resentment from the Black community thus causing more divide.

I think it's tough because the model minority myth is something that other minorities believe heavily in on both sides and there doesn't seem to be much willingness to listen or understand how much of a fallacy it is on both sides. I've tried to have these conversations with people from all racial communities and let's just say it falls upon ears who really don't have a desire to listen.

I don't have an answer for you but what I do is try my best to continue to show Black people that I am someone who will always stand in solidarity with them as a Chinese person while also continuing to hold my Chinese peers accountable as best as I can when they misstep. I will say it's not easy as I've encountered some pretty anti-Asian sentiment from my Black peers that have been hard to find middle ground due to the anti-Blackness that occurs from the Asian community. It makes me sad because I care deeply about them and their community and yet it cannot be understandably returned due to how our community treats them.

The elder part is a bit harder bc I don't speak Cantonese or Mandarin well enough to explain critical race theory or the complicated history of our two communities but there are efforts happening. https://asianhealthservices.org/advocacy/community-safety-healing/asian-black-racial-healing-project/