I know it can be easy to pass by my Twitter or Facebook profile pic and think that I’m virtue signaling and that this wave of anti-Asian violence doesn’t affect me since I’m just a white guy.
But this is personal. My aunt and all four of my cousins are Filipino-American. My sister-in-law is Taiwanese. My only niece and nephew are Taiwanese. My father- and mother-in-law and their gigantic family are Taiwanese. And my wonderful wife and my two awe-inspiring children are Taiwanese-American.
And I’m scared for their safety.
America keeps doing this. Creating problems and then blaming non-whites for it. The mismanagement of the COVID-19 crisis in the US (and Europe) is a political failure and here we are blaming people because they look Asian instead of looking at the white supremacist patriarchy at the heart of our nation that actually let over 550,000 Americans die instead of doing simple measures to try to protect everyone.
For months, Asian-American friends have been saying to my wife and I: “Stay in Taiwan. Don’t come back to the US. It’s not safe.”
This week, the shooter in the Atlanta Asian massage parlor killings admitted to the shootings because he “had a bad day” but wouldn’t admit to having a racial motive even though he was clearly targeting Asian women. He was fine admitting to be a murderer but, oh, no! He wasn’t a racist!
And yesterday, I found out one of my Korean-American friends in NYC was beat up in the street in December. All while a police officer watched and didn’t intervene.
I woke up this morning and broke down.
White people, we cannot keep denying our racism. That denial is literally killing people. I know you want to say “America is better than this.” But you are confusing America’s promise of a better life with America’s reality. This. Is. America. And if we want to make America’s promise a reality, we will all have to work to make it a reality for all of us.
If you are a white person, talk about racism with other white people. If you're white, it’s impossible to see and experience all of America’s insidious racism unless you listen and believe the stories of people of color. If you don’t feel comfortable commenting here, I invite you to private message me if you want to talk.
Please, America, I’m begging you.
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