Summer Walker Fueling the Anti-Asian Fire

By Elena Huang

(Williams).

Summer Walker is one of my favorite singers. She is one of the top new artists of the year, coming into the R&B scene with her first album, Over It. She has over 2.5 million followers on Instagram and 861,000 followers on Twitter. Summer Walker's music is relatable for teenagers and young adults everywhere, and she is a female singer whom many teenagers look up to. However, she recently came under fire for exacerbating racist and xenophobic narratives through social media.

At the start of March, she shared a video that said Chinese people were "spreading the coronavirus to the public" on her Instagram with her own caption: "that's some trifling nasty a--sh-t". However, in the video, the footage was actually two years old and not at all related to the coronavirus (Ransom).

("Summer Walker's Instagram Repost").

Fans responded in the comment section of her post calling her xenophobic, or showing prejudice against people from other countries.

Twitter user @smoothjaszz said on March 3, 2020, "i've been the biggest fan of summer walker for the longest time, but i'm really disappointed. spreading this kind of propaganda about the coronavirus/generalizing an entire ass group of people without any context perpetuates a cycle of unnecessary hate and ignorance." (Ransom).

Another tweet from @aaaaira said, "I have no choice but to unstan Summer Walker. How can you use Asian aesthetics in your work but be a xenophobic little b---- to Asians and spread fake news on your large a-- platform?" (Ransom). 

Summer Walker responded to her fans by saying "all I saw was some nasty sh-- period, idgaf if my mama did that sh--, it's fuc----- nasty." (Ransom).

("Summer Walker's Instagram Story").

Instead of apologizing to her fans and the people whom she offended, she defended herself. As a big supporter of Summer Walker's music and as an Asian American teen, I am extremely disappointed in her actions. She loves the Asian aesthetic when it comes to her work, but turns around and spreads racism towards Asians, especially on her large platform. She generalizes an entire group of people and perpetuates a cycle of unnecessary hate and ignorance.

Eventually, she received so much backlash that she deleted her entire account (Ransom)