The Special Feature on Asian Hate

Before I came to Canada, things like the colour of my skin hardly even crossed my realm of consciousness. However, moving to Canada put me on the receiving end of many racial attacks, like the train incident mentioned above. These experiences abruptly grabbed me out of my bubble as I quickly learned that my Filipino face marks me apart from others. I do not look like the conventional “Canadian.”

Do not even try to shame the victims.He had a sex addiction? Seriously? This makes me feel a different kind of sad. The online mediasphere is broadcasting Stop Asian Hate because it’s usually about your race when you’re a minority, but becoming the targets of violence is not the kind of representation any community wants.

谈 · 恋爱。I never knew it could be so profoundly complex, wholesome, and magnificent.

To hold one demographic of the population to a standard that you are not willing to meet is the epitome of hypocrisy, and, regardless of where you live or whether you have experienced it, I say again: silence is complicity. What is important is not that you understand 100% on a personal level—it is that you have the ability to empathise and support those who must live in such a disturbing reality.

Our women are diminished to objects that contribute nothing to the world besides pleasure. Their faces and bodies are seen as erotic and passive rather than what they truly are: strong and resilient. Our women are mothers, daughters, grandmothers, artists, healers, warriors, leaders — our women are people. All people are deserving of life.

I watched the news with my family—first the Canadian, then the Korean. Western media outlets are pushing this idea that the scum who committed this act of violence and hate had a sex addiction and he was having a “bad day.” Korean media says the man said “he wanted to kill all Asians”. I am not saying they are wrong. They are holding different parts of the same puzzle. Fetishization is violence.

There is a lot of distance to cover in my attempt to speak my way back towards my Chinese culture. I don’t think I’m ever going to learn enough Mandarin to build all the bridges I need to understand every aspect of my parents’ experience coming to this country. Many things will likely remain unspoken and I think I’m at peace with that. 

The violence in Atlanta is a harsh symbol of the dangerous realities that Asian women, in particular, are subjected to. It is during this time more than ever we face the uncomfortable truth of the forced victimization of Asian women-before we forget their names and another headline rocks us back into painful remembrance.

The horrific shooting in Georgia has created an intensely collective grief in the Asian American community. The fears and anxiety from the events leading up to this massacre suddenly turned into an explosion of sorrow and anger. And shame and guilt, too, because of who 6 of the victims were—Asian women in a low-wage, stigmatized industry.

Being “Asian American” has to mean something more than how white America has seen us—as an invasion, as corruption, as a wedge to deny the struggles of Black and Brown people. “Asian American” was born from decades of activism for racial justice, for inclusion, and for the dismantling of white supremacy, and our survival depends on continuing that legacy.