#buildnotburn

I am proud American in Vietnamese body, born from international affairs, just like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. As much as I respect these white skinned, well built, hopefully kind slave owners, I do not want to be them. We do not have to be the same to be American. On the growing timeline of history, they are the dead beginning and I am on the living end. I will rise up from the dust of unfair war, the failures of our forefathers, leave them six feet under and rotting, and claim this body as American. I will fix the living problems fully grown from dead ideas, the tiny weeds that are doing damage by just being small enough to go unnoticed, like when I am watching or reading stories about victory, the people who look like me in them are only on the losing side or second to someone else.

Step aside, white leading man, I'm taking over.

My American name is My Anh, but you can call me meon. I am big woman in little body, proud American in  American body, and I represent the triumphs of this country, too. I am going to step up to the buffet line and get what I deserve. When my people, the Americans, my people, all of the Americans, see me, they'll come, too. 

being marginalized doesn't give you a free pass to be a terrible, hateful person and not get called out for it. and then call everyone who has an issue with your tactics and illogical statements a racist. yes, there is necessary language to describe how marginalized people are often unnecessarily and systematically silenced, tone-policed, gaslighted, etc, but that language does not exist to excuse your every action, not when you are actually being ridiculous.

don't co-opt the real struggle for your own personal, paranoid obsession with never being wrong and always being the most oppressed. i feel like there's this whole doctrine that some people of color have begun to blindly follow, which in their minds seems to justify being extremely selfish, hateful, and unaccountable to humanity. the whole of marginalized people become their shield for any and every shitty thing they do.