I’ve been struggling to find words to express my feelings lately. On a normal day, I prefer to keep my social media free from negativity and politics, and I also work pretty hard on the mind-my-own-business mentality. But when bad things happen to my own community, who can easily be my grandfather, my parents, or any members of my family, it’s hard to keep my mouth and mind shut.
There have been many articles, posts, interviews, and resources regarding anti-Asian hate and how to support the AAPI community. While 100% agreeing with what have been said by many to condemn racism against Asian, many of the conversations are mostly about how other races see us as Asian, but I don’t think there’s enough conversation about how Asian see each other and the rest of the world. I know this is a hot and sensitive topic, this will most likely open up a flood gate for many negative feelings toward me, but if I don’t stand up for what I believe in, I am the problem within itself.
This picture is a family portrait drawn by my 6 year old. Many have said that kids don’t see colors, I beg to differ. If you look closely, my daughter colored our skins in different colors and this is something we had never talked about before. Kids do see colors, the key is they see them EQUALLY. At school, teachers are trying very hard to teach them how to be inclusive, how to celebrate the similarities while appreciate the differences. Perhaps us adults can learn a thing or two about that.
I am very well aware of my skin tone, my background, and my belief. Being a minority for more than half of my life in this country, working in a male dominant industry, having a mixed race family of my own, being treated differently and hearing racial slurs is nothing new to me. I have learned to build a thick skin for myself when people judge me before getting to know me or my family. I often tell other people that it’s hard to offend me and it is true. I don’t consider myself a victim because I have enough love around me, I don’t have time for haters, and most people tend to come around and change their idea about our little family once they get to know us. Here is the question, why do people assume and judge others based on their skin colors? If kids naturally see colors equally, then what change between being a kid and being an adult?
Circling back to my “how Asian see the rest of the world” statement, let’s face the ugly truth, we often see others with a pair of double standard glasses. We treat people differently depending on where they are from, what language they speak, what religion they have, and it’s not just toward other races, it’s also toward our own people. I have experienced a fair share of animosity toward myself and that certainly have changed the way I see things. We are the problem when we call to stop anti-Asian hate but we fail to do the same thing for other people. If we ask everyone to show compassion toward our race, we should first show compassion toward our own people and others around us regardless their background. Don’t high-five and say praises when someone makes a statement about “Stop Asian Hate” and then turn around and discriminate against other people with different origin, different skin tone, or different religion. Otherwise we are just being hypocritical, and nobody respects a hypocrite.
I truly believe it all starts with us, what conversation we are having in front of our children, it is our responsibility to help our children embrace different colors in our society and love them all equally. It all starts with ourselves to change the way we perceive the world around us. We cannot pick and choose when to be anti-racist and when to fall into the stereotype of “I don’t like this person because of their XYZ”. It also starts within our community. I urge you to talk to your neighbors, engage with people you wouldn’t normally talk to, share your stories and listen to theirs, and try to find similarities to make a connection instead of pointing out the obvious differences.
If you want to advocate, advocate for love and compassion. Choose fairness and kindness over finding a reason to judge and hate. Choose not to be a part of the problem but be a part of the solution. Perhaps we will never be able to solve the racism problem in our life time, but we sure can set some examples for the younger generations so us, as parents, can worry less about our kids getting bullied or experiencing double standard and racism when they go out there into the world.
Just simply stop the hate.
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