tw: violence, sexual violence, gun violence, racism, misogyny, white supremacy
This week has been really difficult. To the families of the victims of Tuesday’s mass shooting that targeted Asian women & sex workers, I am so sorry. To the victims and survivors of sinophobia and elder violence over the last two years and beyond, I am so sorry. This violence is not new, and while it shakes me to my core even to speak of this, I feel compelled to.
The onslaught of violence against people who look like me, who could be my mother, my aunties, my grandparents…it is difficult to reconcile the recognition in the media (finally) with tremendous pain I feel seeing constant reminders of these violent acts. Beyond the surface, these events have also unearthed trauma from years of violence perpetrated by men (white and otherwise) on my community and on me personally. It terrifies me to write publicly after being doxxed by a white man in the past, so please read with a kind and forgiving heart.
To my sisters & nonbinary siblings - who have found themselves grieving privately this week and beyond, I see you. Every time we are fetishized, belittled, spoken over, or worse, threatened, grabbed, spit on, harassed, accosted…raped - we are shown how much less human others see us to be. And if we speak up, we are often met with another round of dehumanization - we are doubted, questioned, interrogated, tone-policed, accused of taking up too much space from “more pressing concerns.” We have been taught that other peoples’ pain is more important than ours.
We are resilient and we learn from each of these moments - it is our survival. So we begin to anticipate our dehumanization - we protect and insulate, we keep doing our work, we keep on surviving. We do not expect others to treat us as humans, and so we shrink, and so we harden.
And when we encounter the rare friend who sees us for who we are, behind the armor, beneath the rubble, we hold on so tight. Like our lives depend on it - because they do. For too long we have only been able to rely on ourselves - sometimes not asking for help, sometimes not receiving it. Here we are. We are strong, we are resilient, and yet, we are soft, needy - human. Both can be true.
To the rare friends who see me for who I am - thank you. I am relying on you to keep believing women & non-binary folx. To keep speaking up when it’s easy for you and hard for others - but do your work to learn from the activists, advocates, scholars, artists who have done a lifetime of learning already. Please continue to do what you can to dismantle white supremacy & misogyny - daily.