In mid-June, I attended a rally held in solidarity for Black Lives Matter. It took place at Taipei’s Peace Memorial Park where a sizable audience had gathered. I could not help but notice the majority of those present appeared to be foreigners. While many Taiwanese are sympathetic to the issues that led to the rally, many do not understand the entirety of the Black Lives Matter movement nor see why they should be in solidarity with the issues Black Lives Matter is addressing. Many assume that it is not a global issue; rather it is an American issue and thus, is not relevant to Taiwan.

The questions I wish to address do not begin with Why people should “care”, but rather How can individuals, such as myself, begin a discussion that will lead to a deeper understanding of the issues that Black Lives Matter is addressing. How can Taiwanese make a change regarding institutional and systemic racism? And, How do we make an adjustment in Taiwan through our everyday lives? 

These particular questions have sat with me for some time but have never led to action until I met Anthony Kelley during the Taipei Black Lives Matter rally. Anthony is a leader in social change and educational leadership who has created workshops and outreach programs to address the internal and external conflicts that arise from institutional and systemic racism. A little less than a month after meeting Kelley at the rally, he approached me about a workshop he was going to co-lead, which would focus on building common ground between the Taiwanese, the Black community, and the global protests in the name of Black Lives Matter.

The workshop,  The History Between Us: Taiwan and the U.S.,  held on  July 18th, was led by Anthony Kelley and Weston Wang Cooper,  a current teacher and alumni of Taipei American School. It was hosted by Taipei Is Listening as part of a Buxiban series in collaboration with Oomph arts, their goal is to initiate conversation on Black history and culture.
The workshop was divided into four major sections. The first part of the workshop primarily focused on the historical overlaps within Taiwanese and Black American history. This part of the presentation provides a first-hand example of what it means to build common ground between two communities. I believe this section is crucial to understanding the How of the questions I proposed above. 

Through my research, I found that the treatment of ethnic minorities in Taiwan and the treatment of Blacks during and after slavery in America have some notable parallels. The similarities include the classification of one ethnicity as superior and another as inferior. Preconceptions of local Taiwanese as inferior were primarily reinforced during the Japanese rule, from 1895 to 1945 The Japanese observed the local Taiwanese lived “beyond the realm of civilization”, labeling them as vicious, violent, barbaric, and unenlightened (Kleeman, 20). 

During the earlier years of the Japanese colonization of Taiwan, tensions rose between the local groups and Japanese authorities. As an example, a local group of Hakka, descendants of the Han Chinese who migrated to Taiwan around 1644, attacked Japanese officials and their families. In retaliation to the attack, the Japanese military and police forces killed more than 100 Hakka. The revolt was known as the 1907 Beipu revolt. It was considered the first real form of resistance from the Taiwanese against their oppressors. The Beipu revolt was not the first form of resistance against the Japanese, however, it has been considered as one of the most significant as it was a turning point in Taiwanese history as a series of local uprisings swiftly followed the incident. Due to the surge of resistance the Japanese were forced to alter their approach to the Taiwanese. 

Similarly, in America, an uprising that altered White American’s approach to those they enslaved and oppressed was the Nat Turner Revolt of 1831. The majority of those in power, the white population, believed those they had enslaved were too simple-minded to be civilized or coordinate a violent uprising, as they were very docile creatures. However, in 1831 a revolt led by an enslaved, Nat Turner, shattered the myth that the enslaved were content with their lives and too dull to fight back. The rebellion took place in Southampton Country, Virginia, where a group of enslaved fought back against their oppressors, plantation owners often referred to as their masters. During the rebellion the enslaved killed between 55 to 65 people, the majority being white. Before the revolt, no formal laws were restricting enslaved and free African Americans. Once the white population witnessed the horrors of the revolt, the government passed laws prohibiting enslaved individuals the right to vote, bear arms, assemble in groups, learn to read or write, testify in court, and practice freedom of speech. 

For both Aboriginals and Black Americans stereotypes formed during the colonial period have persisted until now, dominating the 21st-century perception of both populations. Many of the struggles both communities face are due to institutional racism, where racial discrimination has become established as normal behavior within a society or organization, and systematic oppression, where laws create the unequal treatment of a specific social identity group or groups.

Some examples of how the Taiwanese Aboriginal communities are discriminated against in the 21st century are seen through the challenges they face when seeking access to basic needs such as housing, jobs, medical treatment, and education. In particular “land-related conflicts have rapidly developed since the early 1980s as a result of on-going land seizure, the raising of fees and taxes, or specific regulations being imposed on specific professions” (International Federation for Human Rights). 

In 1987 when Martial Law ended, the government and major industries began to build stronger relations, thus acquiring land became easier for corporations through the lowering of land prices. Although land has been returned and granted to many tribes, the land is primarily in high mountainous areas where construction and agricultural growth are extremely difficult or impossible. In addition, since much of the acquired land and inhabited areas of aboriginal tribes are in remote areas, the population in these areas is quite sparse, limiting local job opportunities and access to resources. 

Since the population is small, public education is inadequately funded, leaving teaching equipment or resources to be filled by volunteers or donations. Without proper education, many are unable to attain jobs with adequate pay, resulting in many seeking jobs in manual labor at a young age to help food for their families. As for those who seek more employment opportunities, cities such as Taipei are an attraction. However, moving to a city is not only a challenge due to distance, but housing with affordable rent is difficult to attain. This is partially due to stereotypes of the aboriginal communities as uncivilized, thus, limiting the number of landlords willing to rent out their apartments. Additionally, seeking a job with an adequate salary is also a challenge because the education received is minimal and most jobs are offered to those who are seen as being better educated. 

For Black Americans obtaining proper housing, employment, medical care, and education is also a challenge due to institutional and systemic racism. For example, public schools are funded locally. While ideally, each public school should receive equal funding, it is quite the opposite in reality as wealthier communities provided a larger tax to fund their public schools, affording additional educational resources for the students in these districts. These are resources that poor communities cannot afford. 

Due to the gap in educational resources, the students in poor communities have a higher rate of dropouts. According to the National Center for Education Statistics in 2017, there were 2.1 million status dropouts between the ages of 16 to 24. The demographics: American Indian/Alaska Native youth had the highest status dropout rate (10.1 percent) of all racial/ethnic groups, including youth who were Hispanic (8.2 percent), Black (6.5 percent), of Two or more races (4.5 percent), White (4.3 percent), Pacific Islander (3.9 percent), and Asian (2.1 percent).  Due to fewer opportunities and limited access to academic resources many poor, ethnically diverse communities lag behind more affluent communities where public schools have greater resources providing more opportunities for students’ futures. While these are only a few examples of parallels between Taiwanese Aboriginals and Black Americans’ historical struggle against oppression there are many others which Kelley and Cooper further explore during their workshop. 

The second and third section of the workshop involves reflective activities made possible through the understanding and building of commonalities between our two nations’ histories. In the first activity, each participant of the workshop is asked to reflect upon and share a discriminatory experience. This leads to an open discussion on discrimination. Once everyone shares, the participants can connect with each other’s experiences and undergo a process of empathy and experience solidarity. The second activity focuses on group discussions where each group addresses three questions:

1. What is your ideal social environment that promotes inclusivity and diversity? 
2. What are the barriers preventing you from achieving this ideal?
3. How do you negotiate through these identified barriers to achieve your ideal social environment? 

Each group must answer each question and then share their ideas with the room, where they can build on each other’s initial ideas. 

Each part of the workshop displays and or promotes a space for a safe and open discussion focusing on empathy, solidarity, and action through building common ground. With such an approach I am optimistic that workshops such as this can instigate a change within ourselves and thus, our greater communities. 

Taiwan is a unique and beautiful place that has had a history of being oppressed by larger and stronger countries. However, we have always shown that while our island is small in size our passion and yearning for independence, recognition and equality are greater than any oppressor. 

As we continue forward as a democracy our next steps must be focused on the inclusivity of those who have similarly been oppressed. 

Citation:

International Federation for Human Rights, The hidden face of Taiwan: lessons learnt from the ICCPR/ICESCR review process, April 2013, ISSN 2225-1804, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/51e799594.html 

Kleeman, Faye Yuan. Under an Imperial Sun : Japanese Colonial Literature of Taiwan and the South. University of Hawaii Press, 2003.

U.S. Department of Education. Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics.