Call this a “free write.“
Regarding the White Man Who Shot Up a Bunch of Asian Women
I don’t have a “good” reason why, but I was totally unmoved by yesterday’s news. It must be a mix of late-thirties jadedness and, weirdly, the safe feeling of quarantine where I am fortunate that I don’t have to leave my house for necessary supplies. I’m numb, tired, and Asian.
Instead, my first thoughts about the Atlanta shootings went straight to unhelpful responses, memories from the past year of a disturbingly quiet half of my social circle.
In August, an Asian woman was verbally attacked by a Black man when she turned down his offer to pay for her meal at a Mexican restaurant. He quickly escalated into aggressive mode, ridiculing her for thinking he might be making a pass at her when she “looked like shit.” He cornered, intimidated, and yelled. The restaurant staff hovered nearby, not knowing what to do. This was a proverbial crash at a cross-cultural California intersection. It was one of the hundreds of cases being reported to Stop AAPI Hate each month in 2020 (they’re still ongoing). I could feel the level of threat through the video the woman recorded. It made me bristle. I posted about it on my Facebook wall (back when I had the FB app on my phone — those were dark days!).
A former classmate of mine from high school, an Asian male, commented on the post, linking to an article about a White NBA player making a joke about the size of Jeremy Lin’s penis. It struck me as off-topic and inappropriate. And while I was bristling, fearing for my safety in public, it was completely insensitive.
I took the comment down, and privately messaged that classmate explaining why. I even acknowledged the emasculation of Asian men in American stereotypes, but that it was not the same issue as what I had posted. At first he conceded with “you do you.” Then he came back with how I clearly didn’t understand his motivation in his comment, and then proceeded to explain how Asian men have been emasculated. Again, this is after I brought up the specific term “emasculation” in my message to him. He and I have had FB message debates before, so the fact that he couldn’t see he was so blatantly Asian mansplaining to me was just embarrassing for him. The more he replied, I could see the more he was trying frantically to dig himself out of his own hole. He deleted something at some point — which could have been another misdirected grievance about being an Asian man fighting emasculation, or it could have been an incorrectly pasted coupon code. I don’t know. I never saw the text in the message, just that it was removed.
The conversation wrapped up sloppily. I don’t think he ever saw the point I was trying to guide him toward, which should really be the first tenet in practicing empathy: Don’t make someone else’s story about you.
Listen first. Don’t redirect the topic. Believe the victim, and hear the people who feel connected to the victim. If the moment is still raw and recent, and you still feel inclined to talk about something else — go talk about it somewhere else. You cannot discredit a victim’s experience or a sympathizer’s feelings just because you have never had that set of experiences or feelings.
When individuals see themselves reflected in the victims of an assault, they are *in fear.* They are made to fear. It is a visceral fear. That is often one of the many impacts of the perpetrator.
AAPI hate crimes make me fear for my safety. My energy goes toward making safer-than-usual decisions. That’s where it should go. I shouldn’t have to strategize on how to improve a shitty ally.
The Maykazine 