Reflecting on Hate in a Time of Fear

MIXED ASIAN MEDIA - MAY 19, 2021

By Holly M. Kaplan

*TRIGGER/CONTENT WARNING: MENTION OF VIOLENCE, ASSAULT, SEXUAL ASSAULT, SLURS.

In the wake of the escalating anti-Asian violence, the Atlanta massacre, and assaults in my own neighborhood in New York, it has been devastating to be Asian American, an Asian woman, and a survivor.

Soon Chung Park 박순정, Hyun Jung Grant [김]현정, Sun Cha Kim 김순자, Yong Ae Yue 유용애, Xiaojie Tan 谭小洁, Daoyou Feng 冯道友, Delaina Ashley Yaun, and Paul Andre Michels: 8 victims from the mass shooting in Atlanta, Georgia, that took place on March 16th in several Asian owned spas. Six of the victims: Asian women.

They were mothers, daughters, sisters, cousins, aunties, family.

So quickly the American media showed the face of the white male murderer who committed the atrocities.

"He was just having a bad day."

A sentiment made too often by law enforcement in this country when referring to "misguided" or "mentally ill" Caucasian males who partake in violence against people of color. White supremacy sympathizes with its own face. It makes up excuses for its own actions to defend the system that it created. The audacity to cite, not race as his motivator, but "sexual addiction" is a kick in the face, and a shove in the dark, placing Asian Americans into even smaller margins in the shadows of being an invisible and silent minority.

Asian women have experienced time and time again, the very real threat and experience of being fetishized for their own ethnic background. Fetishization is not a preference, it is racism.  That man saw Asian women as sexual deviants. A trope long portrayed in Hollywood, and American culture. He saw them as threats to himself and took out his own racist beliefs on these innocent and vulnerable women making a living in massage parlors.

To hear the American media, government, and law enforcement tout the tragedy as separate from a hate crime was maddening. After news of this attack, my mind was inundated with every racist encounter I've had my whole life. I was triggered, reminding me of every time I felt violated and harassed, with all my experiences boiling down to my race.

When COVID-19 began making headway into the U.S. early last year, I was still living and working in Los Angeles. I recall being one of the only people wearing a mask at places like the airport in March of 2020 and feeling afraid people might spew hatred or project violence onto me. Luckily, that didn't happen. Instead, I was met with micro-aggressive remarks from friends and co-workers who quipped, "I might give them the virus," every time I sneezed.  When confronting them with how offensive their small comment was, they would simply say, "It's a joke." Echoing similarly the words of a former president, who made the name of the virus a very joke. 

It has since become a real threat to Asian Americans living in this nation. Following the Atlanta incident, actress Jenny Yang tweeted, "Asian women are your punchlines, sex workers are your punchlines, kung flu is your punchline, you fucking did this."

Insurmountably, microaggressions and "jokes" can add up to real violence against people.  What's the solution to this then? Isn't America supposed to be the melting pot of all different cultures?  

I am a direct by-product of the melting pot that America is. My mother is an immigrant from Hong Kong, my father is a third generation Jewish-American. Being mixed race makes living in America complicated to navigate. Proximity to whiteness is an instrument to white supremacy, and I understand my own privilege in this system. However, white supremacy also upholds a standard of whiteness that can never be achieved by anyone who is not truly seen as "white."

Like others, my personal experience differs. I look like my mother, meaning that I am not white passing. I'm constantly reminded of this fact every time I've ever been called a "chink," yelled at to "go back to where you're from," or targeted by men because I am an Asian woman — and they have a "preference," which is really a dehumanizing fetish.

I thought about how I could be next too. To white people, I'm just another Asian body. My mother and grandmother are scared for me to leave my apartment now. Whereas, I'm scared for my mother, my family members, my friends — they could all be next too. Although, some people in my family might beg to differ. When I was in middle school, one of my relatives asked why I was reading manga because “I was white.” Another member of my family once asked why my hair isn't blonde, because my father's hair is blond. It “didn’t make sense” to her, as if she were searching for answers on why their daughter turned out an Asian woman, not a white woman. She went on to talk about how she wants to "marry a white man” and “have a white baby." Meanwhile, I stood before her, a direct byproduct. I was her disappointment — somebody who looked too much like her.  

Maybe because we desire to escape from that very hatred and violence that is aimed at us, much like the same hatred and violence that led to the deaths of those 6 women in Georgia, but we cannot let whiteness or assimilation be the end-goal. We are valuable. We want our children to be safe and our descendants to never experience the real threat of racism. Our ancestors before us hoped for their children to exist in a better world. But, as long as white supremacy exists, this nation is a threat to all people of color.  

Shouldn't I be made to feel scared or ashamed now of who I am? For carrying this burden?  

White supremacy reigns over our society under large tides, and I won't ever ebb to those waves. Until we (including all people of color) are seen as full human beings, we will never be granted the same respect and privilege as those who are truly white in our society. The answer is not whiteness, the answer is for society to view us as whole — to see us as human. To be a member, a byproduct, of this melting pot, is to remember and be proud of my heritage, and my identity, even if it evokes fear. I'm still scared, but I’m holding on tightly, because I won’t ever be swayed to let go of who I am.