The 8 Bayshore Muni meandered through the predominantly Asian neighborhoods of San Francisco’s southside — the Excelsior, Bayshore and Visitacion Valley. Decades ago, the area was majority Black.

Yearslong tensions between Black and Asian communities is why I was on the bus last Saturday. It cut through the rain pelting Interstate 280 as we headed for Chinatown and the Chinese Progressive Association on Kearny Street where teenangers and adults were taking their final restorative justice workshop.

Restorative justice seeks to repair harms between parties as an alternative to criminalization. It’s one in a sequence of programs that are part of the Chinese Progressive Association’s cross-cultural efforts to introduce monolingual Chinese people to Black San Franciscans. The hope is that there will be more understanding and less racism by learning each other’s histories.

The program is in its third year. There are roughly 40 students in the adult and youth classes combined. Building cultural bridges feels far slower than how fast hate can spread — often with a single click.

Debating history: The teens started their morning eating char siu bao, or pork buns. Next was music.

“Harriet Tubman was a freedom fighter, and she taught us how to fight,” the teens sang. “We gonna fight all day and night until we get it right. Which side are you on, my people? Which side are you on?”

They were singing a modernized version of “Which Side Are You On?,” the 1931 labor anthem written by Florence Reece and popularized by Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie 10 years later.

The teenagers discussed the 2020 attack of an Asian man in San Francisco’s Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood. The then 68-year-old man was collecting cans and bottles when he was allegedly beaten and robbed by a Black man.

In the video that went viral, a person said, “I hate Asians N— .”

The teens pondered the history that made it happen.

Maybe the growing Asian population in the historically Black neighborhood caused resentment that was never addressed, one teen suggested. Or maybe the media pushed narratives about anti-Black and anti-Asian tension that led to the encounter, another wondered.

Some of the discussion was informed by their time meeting Black and brown students through the nonprofit Coleman Advocates for Children and Youth.

Kathy Zhao, a 16-year-old San Franciscan, told the group she believes more community integration would prevent animus. During lunchtime at her high school, she notices Black and Asian students sitting apart, she said:

How we got here: Perceptions of rising crime not reflected in data are driving California politics. Statewide, that’s led lawmakers to relitigate the impact of Proposition 47 , a 2014 ballot measure that reclassified some drug possessions and property crimes from felonies to misdemeanors. Dissatisfaction with crime is also fueling apathy toward reelecting Mayor London Breed among Chinese voters.

Some prominent Asian voices have promoted anti-Black stereotypes. Social media accounts like wtfsf415 on Instagram, which claim to defend the Asian community, repeatedly push narratives of Black people targeting Asian people with crime.

James L. Taylor, a University of San Francisco politics professor who is a former president of the National Conference of Black Political Scientists, told me the lack of historical knowledge keeps Black and Asian communities from supporting one another.

Taylor said:

The Chinese Progressive Association’s program can only serve so many community members. And after Breed asked city departments for 10% in funding cuts, the small effort is on the chopping block, Supervisor Connie Chan told me.

Chan said programs that promote tolerances help keep everyone safe:

A small start: Later in the day, the adult cohort spoke to the teens. I listened to them discuss how restorative justice helped ease their family conflicts as well as conflicts with strangers in public.

Yong Yuelei recounted meeting a Black grandmother on the steps of City Hall. The woman’s daughter married into an Asian family, and her grandchild is biracial. Yuelei, who is in her 40s, told me that was a dawning moment for her. How could she see more integration with other communities in her own life, she wondered.

Speaking in Cantonese through an interpreter on the Chinese Progressive Association staff, Yuelei told me how her newfound empathy helped her resolve an issue.

Three weeks ago, she boarded a 14 Mission bus to find a group of rowdy Black and Latino young people of different genders in the back seats, she said. It was crowded, so she sat near them.

At one point, a girl dropped her phone into a pool of saliva that had gathered in the center of the bus. Yuelei reached into her bag, pulled out some napkins and handed them to the girl to help her retrieve the phone.

The youths were grateful. They profusely thanked Yuelei and waved goodbyes when she hopped off the bus.

The restorative justice class taught her to think of their perspectives, Yuelei said: