We were talking about cancel culture. It went to Kimya Dawson and Aesop Rock. How clearly there was something there that couldn't be called out in specifics due to fear of repercussions.
I've been fearful, too. Seeing the looming public success of someone who has caused me extreme physical, emotional, psychological anguish becoming prolific even within my less than 1° of separation.
It's hard. I can't cancel you as long as I live in this city. And it's impossible to speak my truth when I cannot even confront you face to face.
I signed up to volunteer as a Big Sister and have been going through all my old social media accounts to delete/privatize them so nothing embarrassing is revealed. Instead, I found old LJ entries, myspace posts, and lots of weird things from years ago that I got sucked into.
I had this weird realization that I was sad a lot when I was in my early twenties. Like constantly depressed. Constantly frustrated at whatever I felt was an injustice against me. Selfish. Yet lazy. I won’t peg that on anyone but me -- I was in my head a lot for that period of time.
I’m not super sure how to process those feelings. Like, I still in some way identify with them in taking myself back to that time/place/feeling, but I didn’t have the heart to outright delete them. Like as if erasing that part of my history didn’t really do any good or make any sense at all.
I think the only thing I regret is writing about that shit and not confronting the people that were making me feel shitty in the first place. If I could go back in time, I would have been more honest with myself and those around me.
Just listened to the first episode of Beautiful Anonymous and was sobbing alone in my apartment at the end. This is just too much right now. This is exactly what I needed to hear.
I haven’t actually posted in almost six months. I have been lurking a bit. It’s nice to see how much people are growing, how much things are changing. I’ve been living vicariously through everyone’s posts. Secretly, of course.
As for me? Things are strange, the same, and not. Prior to getting to this new job, my entire life revolved around trying to survive (financially) and then trying to find ways to sneak fun in between. Now I’m financially stable and have been feeling extremely reclusive. I’ve been hoarding all my money, spending more on food, gaining weight, feeling the usual S.A.D.S. that come around this year. Taking the time once a week to write to friends, maybe even go out with them, but mostly just to remind them that I am alive. Spending time inside with the cats, playing Fallout, listening to the Talking Heads. Smoking a lot of blue dream and making amazing stews/bread.
I have a lot of trips planned this year. Vancouver to start in February, Detroit in May. Hopefully New York sometime later this year, but at the very least a free trip back home for a week or two.
It’s all so busy and then it’s not. I’ve been writing more. Studying more. Maybe I’ll have the courage to actually post any of it.
Hope you are all well.
I'm in Japan! It has been such a strange and weird trip thus far. I am not sure what else to say other than that I am almost certain that my family is insane and that I am immensely grateful that Zak is here to support me mentally and physically. Are all families this insane? I feel like living away from them for so long has given me so much more perspective. If I'm going to be honest, I may never speak to either ny brother or mother again after this trip. His sociopathy tendencies are no longer tendencies, and his mental control over my mother is disturbing. I need to get away! Seven more days until I'm home and away from them forever!
Why #MyAsianAmericanStory will be important in the 2016 elections
I have great cab rides. My last one was no different. The Indian American driver, who’s been in Washington, D.C. for 25 years, recognized me as Indian American and struck up a friendly conversation. When I started telling him about the organization I work for, Asian Americans Advancing Justice | AAJC, he asked, “East Asians? or South Asians? Because we’re very different.”
His question didn’t surprise me. I’ve heard it a lot. “Do you even have anything in common?” “Aren’t those completely different cultures?” A lot of people, both Asian and non-Asian, seem to feel that way.
But last week something amazing happened.
Thanks to one student’s response to Jeb Bush explaining that his use of “anchor babies” was “more related to Asian people,” people across the country took over Twitter with the hashtag #MyAsianAmericanStory.
People identified as Asian American.
The fact is, our community is hugely diverse. Many of us, like my cab driver, identify with our particular ethnic group—you may share a language, the spices in your kitchen, a religious tradition and much more.
Asian Americans come from all different walks and histories, as a quick scan of the tag will show. We’re recent immigrants and we’re families who have been here for generations. Some of us are doctors, lawyers, engineers and entertainers and some of us are among the most disadvantaged communities in America. We are as diverse as our country.
Many people look at us and don’t see those distinctions. Instead, we’re perceived to be a monolithic group who all share the same stereotyped qualities: intelligent, submissive, quiet, successful. We’re the “model minority” and we’re doing just fine.
What we do have in common is the way that we are treated in politics, and the way we are repeatedly rendered invisible in our own country.
Which is why the rise of #MyAsianAmericanStory and its continued use is so important. We’re the fastest growing racial group in the country. We’re naturalizing in parts of the country where our vote will be critical in upcoming elections. And we’ve had to fight for our right to become citizens and cast our vote, so we know how important it is.
National Voter Registration Day is coming up this month on September 22, and it’s clearer than ever that our community is not content to be ignored.
So make sure our voice gets heard.
If you’re not registered to vote, or members of your family have been putting it off, now is the time to make your Asian American story matter. Register to vote today.
You can also support democracy by backing apps like VoterVOX, which provide open translational support for Limited English Proficient folks!
Today I was confronted with race in a weird way. One of Zak’s coworkers grew up on a Native American reservation because his mom was a teacher and talked a bit over beers about his experience. It was endearing to hear a white man explain how closely he felt about Native American struggle on a first hand basis, but isn’t that the problem? When you’re not confronted with the struggle and the reality of racism on a community, it’s difficult for you to translate that into how privileged you are in your white life.
Zak brought up about how Ayn Rand’s Anthem is sort of a catch all about feeling lost in a dystopian universe. But really? That bitch was racist. I am not holding back in my hatred of Ayn Rand’s perspective. She was homophobic. She did not believe in women’s rights. I mean, Anthem was written in the perspective of a white man realizing his power and being; his fucking name was Prometheus, the man that allegedly discovered fire. The most intelligent, the beginning of our conscious aware being. I went off on him saying that she was absolutely not an example of a person narrating a perspective, at least not through my lens and being, as a minority and as a woman. His response was that he was glad that I brought a very different and real perspective.
But really? My hatred of Rand expands farther than this. My senior year in high school while fishing for scholarships I stumbled upon the Ayn Rand institute. If I wrote an essay about one of her books based on one of the suggested themes, after 2000 words, I had the possibility of winning two-thousand dollars. That, to me at the time, was a years worth of tuition and books. I worked hard on this often painful, difficult essay to try to impress some white bourgeoisie. Blah blahing on how her narrative gave me inspiration to be a better minority. That it reminded me of the true struggle of the human condition and that we were all subjected to it. But ultimately? This was an essay that I gave me no feeling of connection or worth. in fact, it made me question who I really was and what I was representing. The narrative is written from a white, cis-gendered male perspective. How can I even begin to relate to her work when I don’t fit her mold for a perfect, self-sufficient human being?
I feel so frustrated with race on a day to day basis and I am realizing that the only way to shuffle along is to make myself completely ignorant and numb to it’s existence. As you do.
I got the job that I really, really wanted. My last day at my current job is the 27th, then PAX, then I have a week before my first day, so I’m kiiiind of excited for the next couple of weeks.
