Do we forget that because we are very into these extreme memes created by the internet culture to stigmatize others for the sake of some cruel laughter?
One thing that's helped me to situate a lot of anti-Asian racism is simply situating it in a historical and geopolitical context. For example, in Thailand and SEA (and Korea as well), the US military has a long history of essentially engineering the sex trade to service military personnel.
These days, I think the primary driver is really just Sinophobia - fear that the US will be usurped as the global hegemon, which activates a kind of reptilian racial anxiety that gets mediated through anti-Asian hate and so on.
This read is a helpful reminder to slow down and listen to understand the contexts that inform people’s worldviews and behaviors even if we don’t agree with said views and even if they are based on outright lies.
I have noticed how living in northeast US for 10 years until 2018 has in some ways been valuable especially in teaching me to honor my boundaries when dealing with people who hold racist views and have no interest in understanding nuance whereas before I would put in emotional labor indiscriminately to my own expense. But in other ways it also made me quick to anger. When it comes to topics related to sexism and Islamophobia and xenophobia that have directly impacted me, I have been trying to find ways to balance taking care of myself when I need to and times when I can invest the emotional labor to listen and dialogue. At the same time, I do wish more people who are not as impacted by said things put in the effort to dialogue instead of “cancelling” those who hold such views as I find that just pushes them to deeper echo chambers or has them come to people who may not have the emotional labor to discuss because the issue directly impacts them.
I have found that some people turn to “let’s find nuance” as a way to silence people who are outright being harmed within clearly large power dynamics (as Desmond Tutu once mentioned, one can’t be neutral when an elephant is stomping on a mouse. Sure there are situations where it’s not always clear if we are dealing with two elephants fighting each other but I’m not talking about those situations). At the same time, unless we work to understand the workings of this metaphorical “elephant,” and how it got to the thought that it was a good idea to stomp the mouse even if we are siding with the mouse, we won’t find solutions that benefit everyone. I believe hateful ideas can be enemies, but not humans and the moment we mix humans with ideas we can get to dangerous territory and stop slowing down to listen. So thank you for this helpful reminder.
Thank you for your comment and I am so sorry that the atmosphere we are living in surrounded with Islamophobia and xenophobia.
With your comment on "let's find nuance", I believe that "neutral" that Desmond Tutu mentioned is different from the nuances of living I am mentioning in this essay. I dare not to compare the thought of nuances with a statement of a great man in the clarity of political situations.
However, when someone demanded me to choose either pro-Israel or pro-Hamas, I reserve my rights not to choose because the demand itself already stripped the nuances of life away and forced me into labeled politics, which I refuse to serve any of them. Let's take the case of Israel and Hamas as an example, I can't say that the pain of Israeli's families are nothing compared to thousands of Palestinian bombed by the Israel and the US, UK forces. Human's pain are pain. Reducing someone's pain to elevate other's pain doesn't make conditions better on any side. I have watched interviews of many Israeli's families who lost families in many wars of this countries and they still advocate to stop this bombing, it shows me that my exploiting the pain of Israeli's families, Israel as a country of Netanyahu doesn't earn the credibility to kill thousands of innocent Palestinian's families. We don't exchange the pain of one group to be equal with other group's pain. I guess this is the part that I often see lacking in the US, not in other places. In the climate of Islamophobia, the media in the US brought in this agenda to force audience to choose side.
Whenever politics demands me to choose side, I decide not to choose. People can call me "pretend to be neutral" or "neutral", but no, choosing side is the first step to pro-conflict because as human, we minimize others to a label of SIDE, which is not true in reality. Every person, every individual, every family and every community have their own narrative and situation. Looking up close to the muddle of situation doesn't give us any clear picture, it gives us the capacity to understand the things that do not belong to any side.
For example, even in the Vietnam War that I was born into, I have interviewed so many people. Every one has their own version of war, their version of enemy, their version of loss. I realized that there was so such a thing as two side (Vietnam - US) in that war. So many forces, ideologies, interests, motivations lay behind the blood bath. One person told me he enlisted because if he didn't do that the local government would put his parents in jail, so he did join the war, but the enemy was actually the government he served, not the other side. One old lady told me she became a guerilla fighter because she was orphaned by the bombs and a communist woman took her in and cared for her several years before she joined what the woman did. How can I wrap my head around this story? What side should I choose? Even the soldier himself didn't choose a side. Even a guerilla fighter didn't choose a side.
Life happened with so much nuances I decide to understand rather than forcing a "clear narrative" that politicians, world leaders and the media demand me to choose.
The reasons and examples you mentioned are exactly why I believe it’s important to separate humans from the ideas they get enlisted into. There are whole circumstances and narratives that get people to do and believe what they do and I find staying connected with that and curious about that helps me stay grounded within the humanity of all sides even in times when I do see grave power dynamics and harms from one side it does not mean I should take away the humanity of that side either or reduce their suffering. Because I find that when people do so, we will not find solutions that benefit all sides.
This piece made me reflect on how quickly we can jump to conclusions when confronted with an opinion or situation we don't agree with. Indeed, the Internet has made us lose our ability to appreciate nuance in life. The story about your friend who was angry at people who wear masks hits home - we have to ask, why did he believe that?
Also, your essay, most of all made me remember the challenges of seeing my culture/country scorned by the ignorant trolls on the Internet. A woman sharing a recipe from her culture on the Internet, only for some random dude from another country calling it "disgusting" oof. I face this all the time as I'm pretty active in Chinese drama fandoms. While a lot of international folks are enjoying Chinese dramas, they don't hesitate to be scornful of the people and the country that produced them! I'm actually pretty flummoxed by this behaviour. Couldn't they be, I don't know, grateful for the art instead?
Well said Khai-It’s worth knowing what’s important to you and what isn’t, especially in the world of internet. I wonder when we got to start behaving this way on the internet?
Good piece.
One thing that's helped me to situate a lot of anti-Asian racism is simply situating it in a historical and geopolitical context. For example, in Thailand and SEA (and Korea as well), the US military has a long history of essentially engineering the sex trade to service military personnel.
These days, I think the primary driver is really just Sinophobia - fear that the US will be usurped as the global hegemon, which activates a kind of reptilian racial anxiety that gets mediated through anti-Asian hate and so on.
This is beautifully composed and full of wisdom.
This read is a helpful reminder to slow down and listen to understand the contexts that inform people’s worldviews and behaviors even if we don’t agree with said views and even if they are based on outright lies.
I have noticed how living in northeast US for 10 years until 2018 has in some ways been valuable especially in teaching me to honor my boundaries when dealing with people who hold racist views and have no interest in understanding nuance whereas before I would put in emotional labor indiscriminately to my own expense. But in other ways it also made me quick to anger. When it comes to topics related to sexism and Islamophobia and xenophobia that have directly impacted me, I have been trying to find ways to balance taking care of myself when I need to and times when I can invest the emotional labor to listen and dialogue. At the same time, I do wish more people who are not as impacted by said things put in the effort to dialogue instead of “cancelling” those who hold such views as I find that just pushes them to deeper echo chambers or has them come to people who may not have the emotional labor to discuss because the issue directly impacts them.
I have found that some people turn to “let’s find nuance” as a way to silence people who are outright being harmed within clearly large power dynamics (as Desmond Tutu once mentioned, one can’t be neutral when an elephant is stomping on a mouse. Sure there are situations where it’s not always clear if we are dealing with two elephants fighting each other but I’m not talking about those situations). At the same time, unless we work to understand the workings of this metaphorical “elephant,” and how it got to the thought that it was a good idea to stomp the mouse even if we are siding with the mouse, we won’t find solutions that benefit everyone. I believe hateful ideas can be enemies, but not humans and the moment we mix humans with ideas we can get to dangerous territory and stop slowing down to listen. So thank you for this helpful reminder.
Hi Reema,
Thank you for your comment and I am so sorry that the atmosphere we are living in surrounded with Islamophobia and xenophobia.
With your comment on "let's find nuance", I believe that "neutral" that Desmond Tutu mentioned is different from the nuances of living I am mentioning in this essay. I dare not to compare the thought of nuances with a statement of a great man in the clarity of political situations.
However, when someone demanded me to choose either pro-Israel or pro-Hamas, I reserve my rights not to choose because the demand itself already stripped the nuances of life away and forced me into labeled politics, which I refuse to serve any of them. Let's take the case of Israel and Hamas as an example, I can't say that the pain of Israeli's families are nothing compared to thousands of Palestinian bombed by the Israel and the US, UK forces. Human's pain are pain. Reducing someone's pain to elevate other's pain doesn't make conditions better on any side. I have watched interviews of many Israeli's families who lost families in many wars of this countries and they still advocate to stop this bombing, it shows me that my exploiting the pain of Israeli's families, Israel as a country of Netanyahu doesn't earn the credibility to kill thousands of innocent Palestinian's families. We don't exchange the pain of one group to be equal with other group's pain. I guess this is the part that I often see lacking in the US, not in other places. In the climate of Islamophobia, the media in the US brought in this agenda to force audience to choose side.
Whenever politics demands me to choose side, I decide not to choose. People can call me "pretend to be neutral" or "neutral", but no, choosing side is the first step to pro-conflict because as human, we minimize others to a label of SIDE, which is not true in reality. Every person, every individual, every family and every community have their own narrative and situation. Looking up close to the muddle of situation doesn't give us any clear picture, it gives us the capacity to understand the things that do not belong to any side.
For example, even in the Vietnam War that I was born into, I have interviewed so many people. Every one has their own version of war, their version of enemy, their version of loss. I realized that there was so such a thing as two side (Vietnam - US) in that war. So many forces, ideologies, interests, motivations lay behind the blood bath. One person told me he enlisted because if he didn't do that the local government would put his parents in jail, so he did join the war, but the enemy was actually the government he served, not the other side. One old lady told me she became a guerilla fighter because she was orphaned by the bombs and a communist woman took her in and cared for her several years before she joined what the woman did. How can I wrap my head around this story? What side should I choose? Even the soldier himself didn't choose a side. Even a guerilla fighter didn't choose a side.
Life happened with so much nuances I decide to understand rather than forcing a "clear narrative" that politicians, world leaders and the media demand me to choose.
The reasons and examples you mentioned are exactly why I believe it’s important to separate humans from the ideas they get enlisted into. There are whole circumstances and narratives that get people to do and believe what they do and I find staying connected with that and curious about that helps me stay grounded within the humanity of all sides even in times when I do see grave power dynamics and harms from one side it does not mean I should take away the humanity of that side either or reduce their suffering. Because I find that when people do so, we will not find solutions that benefit all sides.
This piece made me reflect on how quickly we can jump to conclusions when confronted with an opinion or situation we don't agree with. Indeed, the Internet has made us lose our ability to appreciate nuance in life. The story about your friend who was angry at people who wear masks hits home - we have to ask, why did he believe that?
Also, your essay, most of all made me remember the challenges of seeing my culture/country scorned by the ignorant trolls on the Internet. A woman sharing a recipe from her culture on the Internet, only for some random dude from another country calling it "disgusting" oof. I face this all the time as I'm pretty active in Chinese drama fandoms. While a lot of international folks are enjoying Chinese dramas, they don't hesitate to be scornful of the people and the country that produced them! I'm actually pretty flummoxed by this behaviour. Couldn't they be, I don't know, grateful for the art instead?
Well said Khai-It’s worth knowing what’s important to you and what isn’t, especially in the world of internet. I wonder when we got to start behaving this way on the internet?