One of the things that I notice keeps coming up in this thread, is the discourse on what disagreement on whether something is racist within the group in question means- and it is really sort of bracing to see how quickly dissenting views on the subject from people who are members of that group are dismissed or even vilified (presumably because they're more threatening to the status quo of the movement) and this isn't the only space I've seen that happen in, and I feel like it sort of needs a call out. So let me be clear: some people of the culture in question suggesting that something is racist does not make it racist, some people of the culture in question suggesting that something is not racist does not make it non-racist. No ethnic group is an ideological monolith.
The question of authority as relating to cultural heritage is problematic because it depends upon a perceived relationship between one's experiences and the truth of one's statement, but people with equal amounts of both disagree as their perspective still differs because there isn't any such thing as a definitive asian experience. This leads to different values and weights, what one person might consider harmful another wouldn't, some of that is even conditioned by in a self-fulfilling prophecy where individuals are effectively conditioned to reject or invoke racism as a factor. My family certainly experienced racism (to this day my father is your blue collar italian landscaper), but also swear against it as a convention of ideology, as an easy and generally agreeable example.
There are some nasty, pervasive, deeply held beliefs embedded within even this movement inherited from the culture most of its participants come from, I find that they tend to manifest themselves in discussions like this one, where the tone can quickly become paternalistic, and deconstruction of the present injustice is rejected on the grounds that it's a distraction or has already been well trod by others, as a sort of deflection protecting the entrenched beliefs that have been rebranded to reconcile them with the goals of the movement itself which are opposed to the essential values of nativism, segregation, and nationalism (the foundations of white supremacy) from which they are derived.
Generally these beliefs relate to the nationalistic views of culture and people, that attempt to construct an ownership of culture married to the colonialist boxes-- maintenancing cultural borders accordingly to blood quanta, or degree of cultural immersion as a social proxy for it. The idea that Italians write Italian stories or some such, that they have a particular perspective peculiar to them, that they all share. But this should be understood itself as an outdated and racist idea, because it sublimates the intrinsic intersectionality of identity-- each piece of culture wasn't just authored by a culture but people, with a fractal of identities, not just Chinese but "Straight or Gay" "Man or Woman (or otherwise)" "Urban or Rural" "Conservative or Revolutionary" and so forth.
It attempts to package the marginalized people of a society within the same ideological context as their oppressors (the ones internal to their society, rather than ones subjugating their society as a whole) by repainting them in the colors of a primarily national outlook, as a prize piece in a culture war entirely divorced from their original context, and by people who can only loosely be described as "the same people" as their own outlook is mostly different, and much closer to that of their enemies in the same culture war.
In the context of OA, we see this come to the fore in the fact that the discourse on Anti-Asian racism largely ignores the Asian authorship of many of its influences-- namely Chinese and Japanese Action Cinema and the way in which it is a product of their ability to project their culture and value system into the larger world during the 1970s and 80s. Unlike discourses that relate to blacks in the U.S. and indigenous people under the descendants of imperialists the world over, this one relates to both people who make up the dominant classes of their cultural origin point AND migrants (who are a naturally vulnerable class). When discussing Samurai, we are discussing the culture that subjugated the Ainu of Hokkaido and later the Ryukyu islands before a major military defeat at the hands of another force of imperialism... all within the last two hundred years. Chinese Imperialism is both more recent and older, although it was at the time of this publication, undergoing an unprecedented period of intellectual freedom and openness (prior to Tiannmen Square in 1989, which saw the end of this period) and was even then perpetrating both a physical and cultural genocide of the Uygher (which began in the 50s) whilst stressing reunification with Taiwan.
I bring up these thoughts because racism is understood in the modern movement to require power and privilege, not just prejudice, but awarding those in an Asian context somewhat requires narrowing the scope to Asian experiences within the United States, even while the United States was being strongly and consistently impacted by cultural exports from their homelands. Some of the most 'sacred' bits of Americanah from this era and the previous (Westerns) are based on templates exported from Japan (with Seven Samurai dropping in 1954 to be reimmortalized as the Magnificent Seven in 1960, and did you know Kurosawa apparently had a hand in writing the Japanese scenes for Tora! Tora! Tora! ? I just found out) In this context OA can be understood as an outgrowth of global Asian cultural power (specifically that of certain players, who are themselves particularly privileged relative to other less powerful or recognized nations within the Eastern 'sphere') tempered by relative lack of information, and the pulpy indignity of American Fantasy during this era (or at least the eras that most influenced the creators of the game.) Of course, this is then mitigated by the fact that the United States still had greater privilege overall than either power after the outcomes of the second world war only a few decades earlier, and was simultaneously acting on them (especially Japan, and Korea as well, who is usually left out of the discourse.)
Very Hot Take: Anyone who tells you its simple is being largely reductionist by appealing to a kind of ideological trope, because the current discourse is kind of scary, and a kind of unquestioning deference is a comforting means of avoiding accusation. But largely, it betrays a privileged attitude that understanding racism for themselves is beyond them, and must be taken as a matter of faith-- which conveniently absolves of the need to understand it, and deflects responsibility for the ethics of the power they're wielding elsewhere-- often against other members of the group who might be harmed. You should absolutely be empathetic, and you should absolutely read analysis from members of the group in question, in fact it should be your main (but not only) source! You should do so knowing that it won't serve your own interests by being open and shut, even if someone tries to sell you on their position with the promise that it is, be prepared for a diversity of experience, and take action with an eye for validating those perspectives simultaneously, looking for the lessons they have to teach you and respecting the intrinsic complexity of both other cultures and your own.
Ok sorry that was so long, its a bunch of stuff that boiled up in the last seven pages of reading, and how it intersects with my critical, identity and social justice centric background.
