Being Black American on XiaoHongShu/RedNote has been…interesting.

I joined shortly before the TikTok ban (even though that ended up being short-lived). Don’t get me wrong, most of the RedNote users from China that I’ve met are pretty chill folks…but some of them? whew Jesus. 

Like, I’ll see a post of a black woman recording her outfit of the day, or doing a makeup tutorial, and there will be comments underneath like “wow, I didn’t realize black people could be so good-looking! 😍” Like…be so damn for real right now 💀😭 It shouldn’t be some sudden discovery that there are attractive people of every ethnicity. Do these people not realize how rude/backhanded that ish sounds??? Or do they just not care? 

The stuff that really turns my stomach are the people who feel comfortable speaking crazy under posts of fully black or black/Chinese biracial kids. The posts with biracial black/Chinese kids seem to especially garner a lot of negative attention. A lot of comments will be like “this is disgusting, you and your family are ruining the purity of the Chinese race” or “black Chinese kids will never be as cute as pure Chinese kids” or just some other craziness altogether. And they’ll insult the Chinese parent for falling in love with and starting a family with a black person. 

    And when I call these commenters out on their disgusting behavior, I’m being a “sensitive Westerner.” I’ve even been told once that there’s scientific evidence to prove that black people are inferior to other races, and therefore, we’re not owed respect… 

   When I say that their comments are indeed racist, I’m told that their mindset is reasonable because they’re a mostly homogenous society. And because China is a homogenous society, these commenters say that they shouldn’t be expected to be “overly welcoming” to the idea of China becoming racially diverse, or for interracial relationships/families in China to become more common. And when I challenge their racist nationalism and ask them what truly good reasons do they have to be opposed to such changes in their country, I’m being told that I’m trying to push a “Western mindset” onto them. 

I swear, I see so much anti-blackness on a global scale. It’s not surprising at this point, and yet it’s still disappointing each time.