Why is no one asking me “are you ok”?
(Unsuccessful op-ed submission attempt #1 -- Washington Post Mar 20, 2021)
Yesterday, I had a bad day.
The first thing I saw in my inbox was an email from my boss, asking me to do a task that I had already done 8 times before. When I told him that I could not do the pointless task yet again, he wrote me back and told me that: “you are stressed out”. I stared at his response and started to feel my chest fill with anger.
A couple days ago someone else had a “bad day”. That person had a gun. And proceeded to systematically murder 8 people, 7 of whom were women, 6 of them Asian. It was the most violent act of domestic terrorism since the pandemic started.
Asian-American women are reeling in the aftermath of the Atlanta shootings. While everyone is busy questioning whether this massacre was race based, no one seems to be asking Asian women “are you ok”. Whether this heinous act is racially motivated distracts from the fact that the result is 8 people dead. Hate is hate is hate and focusing on the killer takes away from the fact that the rest of us Asian women are still here. In pain.
We all feel a wide range of emotions. We all feel scared and upset or sad or mad. We all feel vulnerable and alone. For some reason, we have an inability to deal with those emotions in healthy ways. We are even worse at helping others deal with their emotions. This is the case regardless of race, colour or creed. We just happen to live in a system where if a white-man gets angry, some of us might wind up dead. A system that commits violence on women makes sense because it was born that way. Yes, the system is unfair but when has life ever been fair? You can’t expect the people who built it for their benefit to tear it down for yours. So I’m not holding my breath.
This can all be very overwhelming to think about.
How do we change any of this when we individually feel so powerless? How do we fight “the man” when some of us struggle to even comprehend the full meaning of “racism”, “patriarchy” or even the word “privilege”? The reality is that most of us are not capable of doing a lot for others. Most of us do not have the capacity or resources to be able to donate money or volunteer. All these things are so seemingly outside of our control so what can one person really do anyway?
The truth is it’s actually very simple.
None of this is about the depth of your woke-ness or whether you will say something accidentally offensive. We are all not woke-enough and we will all make mistakes.
The only thing that matters, in this moment, is to tell us you see us.
Ask us “are you ok?”
If a child falls down and scrapes her knee on the ground, you don’t focus on talking about how hard the cement is. You ask if the child is ok. Why is this not the same for Asian women? In a moment when we have been brutalized, why do you insist on talking about his “bad day” when you should be asking me “do you feel safe?”
After news of the shootings, I found myself in the weird position of reminding others at my workplace to be kind and check in on their female Asian friends. Even after saying this, no one asked me or my other female Asian colleague - if we are ok.
Did I expect people, especially my non-Asian friends and colleagues to check-in on me? I have to admit I did. Was I shocked that they didn't? Sadly, I was not. My boss’ email earlier that day had already shown me that I am invisible anyway. I know that no one was being deliberately evil, but the silence deafening. The irony in the fact that I work at a global education start-up in Brooklyn where we’re all supposed to be kumbaya lefties - is not lost on me.
So next time your house is cleaned, or your nails done or your taxes filed or your child cared for - by an Asian woman - don’t be paralyzed by your own inability to make a grand gesture. Show us that you see us by simply acknowledging our existence.
I am myself imperfect at this, but dammit, if I can keep trying you certainly can too.
Because unlike those who lost their lives in Atlanta, you can’t erase all of us. We are still here. So do us a favour, and spare us the performative allyship.
Just ask one of us if we are ok.