Dear White Influencers, 

Being a person of color is not a trend. Please understand that yes, we’re beautiful, we take pride in our culture, and borrowing from other cultures is welcome! If done in the right way. I’d like to address the rise in Asian fishing and why it directly affects the safety of East-Asian women. 

Implying promiscuity on platforms isn’t inherently wrong, as everyone is entitled to freely express themselves in a respectful manner. The first amendment, right? However, when you invent personas that align with stereotypes about Asian women and alter your appearance so you can appear to be Asian while taking on these personas, it’s a problem. I’d like to emphasize that there is nothing inherently wrong with altering your appearance. However, you make the conscious decision to change your faces to appear more Asian, rather than simply taking inspiration from or borrowing from Asian fashion and/or culture. Why do you choose to put on a mask, pretending to be an Asian woman, when you could simply look your own race? Nobody said white isn’t beautiful. In fact, conventional beauty standards are Eurocentric. There are already harmful stereotypes of Asian women being “submissive”, “petite”, and “cute” which bolster their desperately out-of-control fetishization. 

Although I myself am not an East Asian woman, I am a person of color, and share parallel experiences regarding my own culture. There is nothing wrong with being white. It’s just painful that you can take from our cultures and turn a profit from feeding into dangerous stereotypes. It’s hurtful that you can “have the look” of a person of color, and face none of the struggles we do. Because as soon as you go home, you can wipe off your ten pounds of makeup, and still have the “privilege” of being white. So please, stop taking our skin color, our culture, making it a trend, and sexualizing it. As soon as this trend dies, you’ll go back to finding something new, and we’ll still face the consequences of your actions. 

From, 

A sick and tired person of color.