for everyone feeling frightened & alone
I love you, I love you.
I love you.
Ever since the election I’ve received racist & threatening messages on FB from people I formerly considered friends. Some of them were passive-aggressive. Some of them were outright aggressive. Many of them were frightening.
All of them showed a depth of ignorance and willful hate that shook me to my core. To these people, I wasn’t a person. I wasn’t an individual. I was a gook, a chink, a symbol of the oncoming tide of Asian-Americans gaining prominence in the United States’ medical, economic, and social landscape. To put it bluntly, I was just another sign that white Americans were losing ground as the dominating force in this country.
And they hated me for it. My outspokenness on FB makes me an easy target. Because I am female, because I am not white, their attacks focused on my body and my race and the over-tired stereotypes about Asian women that I struggle with every day.
‘Chink slut/whore’, ‘gook slut/whore’, ‘slant-eyed bitch’– the list goes on. What all these insults had in common was that they were meant to shame me into silence. To frighten me into submission.
I won’t be silenced. I won’t be ignored. I’ve been dealing with racism since I was old enough to understand what the word meant. The only thing that’s changed after the election is that now the racists are braver.
This is not the America I want to live in. This is not the America I want my children to live in.
I want an America where my non-white, non-Christian friends and loved ones don’t have to fear for their safety. I want an America where the police uphold the law, not violate it for their own means. I want an America where my LGBT friends don’t have their lives, health, and happiness threatened with every change in the political wind.
But the America I want is not the America I have. I’ve known that since I was in kindergarten.
Regardless of whether we’re friends or not, regardless of whether we’ve had arguments or bitter separations– if you are scared, or hurt, if you are lonely and tired…
I am here for you. I will always be here for you. I will fight for you and alongside you. I will fight for your right to happiness, to freedom, to safety.
I will fight for your right to be a person, whole and happy, because I love you. I love that you are here, I love that you exist, I love that you continue to breathe and defy a world that would see us all beaten down and suffering.
I love you. And I will continue to love, and I will continue to fight, for the America that I want to live in. One day, someday, a girl who looks like me can live her life without fear of assault or discrimination.
Until then, I will fight.
