We’ve been taught to go with the flow. Don’t make waves. Don’t make a ruckus. Be non-confrontational.
It can be hard to recondition ourselves and do and go and make waves.
Instead of doing, maybe your way of disrupting is not doing.
Opting out can be an intentional way to eschew the current culture.
What are you doing that feeds the system and what can you do to opt out?
Rules are meant to be broken.
Or so they say.
But who were the rules made by? Who enforces them? Who gets to break them?
In the western world, historically, the rules have been made for and permission to break them given to white, cisgender, heterosexual men, or at least the perpetuation of that false ideal.
Being told that rules are meant to be broken but not by us further puts us in our place, a place carved out for us but not by us.
It’s time to create our own rules. And then break them.
Some arguments in life cannot be won without severe consequences.
Matters of principle are hard to let go of but our humanity is important. Our emotional health is important. And so is community health.
The idea of “let’s agree to disagree” serves those two.
Emotionally, letting go of the need to change another’s mind that is not willing to be changed frees up our resources.
This agreement is also how to maintain humanity in community. A community will always have differing thoughts. How much we turn a blind eye to is a balance of our principles and seeing the humanity in the other person. That’s to say – turning a blind eye to the person’s contrasting principles is not the same as turning a blind eye on our own.
We can continue to forge ahead, releasing the need to change those who don’t want to be changed.
Today, I am diverging from my normally short daily posts to share my reaction to yesterday’s article about mahjong on Anti-Racism Daily which I originally shared on my Instagram. If you don’t already subscribe to Anti-Racism Daily, go do it!
I am in tears after reading today’s email about the appropriation of mahjong from Anti-Racism Daily.
I often say that as a Chinese person, born in the US, college educated and married to a white man, I skate between two worlds as a POC who benefits from white privilege and supremacy (which ultimately holds Chinese people back but passes as a benefit) and as a POC who doesn’t.
I have been in ignorance and denial. I thought I had uncovered that denial last year when I finally owned the label of POC but just as there are many layers to racism, there are many layers to my denial.
Today, I feel it. I read the words of Kayla Hui’s article and it broke me open. Any armor I have had up to block micro aggressions and deny them and the times I have been erased have come tumbling out. My insides on the outside which have been undeniable all along.
My Chinese friends, if you are feeling raw, angry, confused, desperate, sad, or broken, I see you. I’m with you. I am shedding tears for us. The trauma of living as different in white culture cannot be ignored. It is in us no matter if we deny it or own it. This is precisely why the fight against racism and for equity and equality is not something we can ignore. It impacts us whether it is racism or appropriation of Black, Brown, Indigenous, Chinese or the great bucket of “Asian” culture.
All of my white ally friends, read this piece on Anti-Racism Daily and understand the depths of culture that run deep in my veins. That show up in my skin, in the way I slurp my soup and in the way I mother my children. By appropriating my culture, you erase what exists in me.
I was going to share a simple screenshot of the email as my image for the post but instead I chose to show my face. Understanding the actual impact of racism on a person is important to see because it often happens behind closed doors and shared after the processing is done. No, no today. This is me tears streaming as I type, fingers shaking and throat aching.
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Don’t for a second feel sorry for me. I don’t want an ounce of it.
Take that sympathy or guilt and turn it into action. Donate to a BIPOC cause, support a BIPOC business, shed visibility to a BIPOC story, read a book with a BIPOC protagonist, talk to your children about racism, plan something for MLK day, write about how you see white supremacy in your life, or take your pick from the million of lists on how to be anti-racism.
I can’t speak for all BIPOC but most I know what NONE of your tears or sympathy – we want action.
I am continually flabbergasted at the alternate realities white and BIPOC live in.
As a Chinese person, I can only imagine what it’s like to witness what’s unfolding in the U.S. as a Black, Brown or Indigenous person.
Imagining is a privilege in itself. And that privilege does diddly squat for marginalized folks.
Imagining is safe and buffers us against reality.
Instead, we need to call out and name white supremacy and racism when we see them. We need to get educated, donate, march, and mobilize. We need to start shaking others awake.
Because everyone deserves the privilege to imagine.