A BLACK STUDENT studying in China has gone viral on social media for his condemnation of a racist video on TikTok.
The New York City-born student, Hasani Arnold, uploaded a video responding to the TikTok video of a woman mocking Asian manicurists at nail salons
“When the Chinese people talking to their friends in their language while doing your nails,” the woman captioned her TikTok video, which contains audio that appears to mock Chinese nail technicians having a conversation.
She then says, “B*tch, shut the f*ck up. You sound like a —” before Arnold’s video interferes.
“As someone who has studied Chinese for 12 years, I can tell you that this absolutely isn’t Chinese,” Arnold says in Mandarin. “And I don’t understand why you chose to upload this type of video.”
Before you uploaded this video, did you maybe stop to think that posting this video will make the divide between Asian Americans and Black Americans worse? You definitely didn’t do any serious thought before posting this. You may think that making fun of Chinese this way is funny, but I can tell you that it’s not funny at all. So I really don’t know why you would post something like this. Do you really think it’s funny? I don’t.
Arnold, who is a Hunter College graduate and a Schwarzman Scholar, is currently studying at the Tsinghua University in Beijing. He uses his TikTok account to document his life experiences in China as an international student who can speak Chinese, which he self-studied for five years prior to entering college.
The response video, which was uploaded by Arnold over the weekend, has garnered over 1 million views and more than 300,000 likes, with TikTok users praising him for speaking up for the Chinese community.
“Thank you for this because I’m so tired,” one user commented.
“95% of the time they’re literally just talking about who’s getting the next client and what to do or about their life and kids,” another user explained.
Many viewers also praised Hasani’s tonality and pronunciation while speaking in Chinese.
“As a native speaker, your Mandarin is so good!” one user said.
“Your accent is so Northern. I’m impressed,” another user wrote.
“I’m inviting you over for my next family potluck,” one user joked.
