Honestly, I’d rather not write about the political environment. I’d much rather write about baseball, League of Legends, or semis full of food collapsing on the highway. But the political environment is something that is fresh on everyone’s mind, it’s all that’s being talked about anywhere and everywhere, and as much as I want to claim ambivalence, to me it’s simply unavoidable. Especially when the hot button being pressed over and over again is the topic of racism.
When the election was declared over and you-know-who was anointed the victor, there was a tremendous wet blanket of dread that was draped upon liberal America. It was no secret that life was going to be different for those in very particular minority groups; namely Latinos, African-Americans and Muslims, along with a pessimism that the lives of females and those in the LGBTQ criteria would have to start considering playing some defense, from the world, despite the fact that they really shouldn’t have to.
I definitely felt empathy and concern over those in the Latino and African-American camps, because the crosshairs would definitely be focused on those groups, but I couldn’t help but wonder just what was fate was going to befall for those in other minority groups, namely Asian-slash-Pacific Islanders, for obvious reasons.
A part of me thought Asians might be able to slip through the cracks, because historically that’s what they’ve always done. Sure, the shitty drivers enrage even the most passive of pacifists, but typically immigrant Asians are the people that do your dry cleaning, run convenience stores, sell you liquor, operate your takeout restaurants, groom your nails and fix your HVAC problems. They’re often in the background, running tasks of convenience, that old money white people simply aren’t associated with doing.
However, there’s the other part of me that figured because Asian people are also not white, like Latinos, African-Americans, those from the Middle East and anyone else with skin that isn’t white, they’re just as subject to the discrimination of emboldened white supremacy that has coincidentally risen with the election of Donald Trump. Asians are as easy targets for harassment as any other minority, especially those who are immigrants, with less grasp of the English language, who are often times more meek and timid than white Americans, much less emboldened white Americans.
To no surprise, the latter is the correct part, and it didn’t take long before I saw my first link to a collection of social media stories written by Asian people documenting their harassment by emboldened white people. We’ve already seen more swastikas like it were Nazi Germany all over again, and read numerous stories of Latinos being harassed and threatened. Defiant messages of love and perseverance have been countered with vandalism and sadistic taunting of a Trump presidency. Muslim girls have had people grabbing at their hijabs, and the amount of terrible shit minorities are being told makes it sound like 4chan has leaked out of the internet and has manifested in the real world, with anonymous people saying whatever they want, regardless of if their faces are associated with their mouths.
I’m not saying it doesn’t test my faith in humanity when I read about discrimination towards other minority groups, but it certainly hits home a little bit harder when I read that it’s happening towards Asians. Trump didn’t target specifically Asians at all during his campaign, although the writing between the lines was definitely reading, “whites above all.” And when I was reading the terrible things that these unfortunate Asian folks were going through, I was initially assuming that they were incidents happening in like red states, or Asians being unfortunate enough to be in the Midwest or something.
But for the few incidents that can be identified spatially, they’re happening in like California and New York among other places. The perpetrators are all the same, entitled, emboldened white males, acting the trolls they think they’re allowed to act because of who won the presidential election, and from what it appears, they’re targeting females.
However, this just confirms that in spite of my hopes that Asians would sneak through the cracks, that we’re no more safe than any other minority group. It’s a hard concept to grasp that this is really the world we’re living in, and three days later, and I still find myself scoffing randomly, whenever the realization that America voted for a flamboyantly known bigot for president hits me.
I do not know how I’d react if and when the crosshairs of discrimination fall on me. This isn’t something that I am hoping doesn’t happen to me, this is something that I am expecting will happen to me, one day. And when it does, I do not know how I am going to react.
I guess it depends on the circumstances. Will harassment be coming from a single person? Two guys? Four guys? I assume men doing this shit, since 47% of rational women didn’t vote Trump and wouldn’t seem as likely to me to be participating in this shitty behavior although I can’t say I’d be surprised by anything. But I wonder what will be said to me, and how I will react.
Initially, my thought is that I’d no-sell it and simply try to walk away. Or mockingly applause and laugh ironically at their words. Nothing good can possibly come from violence. But if it escalates, then what? Am I really going to have to fight for not being white?
Or am I being overly skeptical, and nothing will ever happen to me, at least here in Atlanta? A city with an overwhelming black population, whom will already be on their own guard, since they too are not white. Surrounded by notable pockets of Latino and Asian communities. Or are we all going to be targeted by the, what the local NBC affiliate loved to say, “red ring” surrounding the Metro Atlanta area, of Republican-majority counties and enveloped the vastly blue-voting Metro area.
A part of me wonders if I will avoid the worst types of harassment, because based on the link above, it looks like Asian females are most targeted by white males, presumably because the white guys in question are pussies and don’t want to test another male, and risk getting their ass beat by an inferior minority.
Honestly, I’m not as much concerned about myself as much as I am for my parents. My mom is retired and doesn’t really go out much anyway, unless it’s with my aunt, but who’s to say that some racists won’t verbally harass them? Neither is competent enough with English to get into any verbal sparring, and their ignoring might be perceived as justification for escalation to the wrong trolls. My dad works around children; will he be safe from some white kids with racist white parents and inherit their racism and try it on my dad? His employees, whom most are also minorities?
This is the world we live in. These are actual concerns that I have. It is 2000 and fucking 16.
Ultimately, it’s going to be pick-and-choose from idiots who they choose to discriminate against. Would anyone discriminate against The Rock, in spite of his half-black/half-Samoan heritage, because the color of his skin isn’t lily white? Of course not, because everyone loves The Rock. Same goes for their favorite black basketball player, or their favorite Latino baseball pitcher, or Bar Rafeli because she looks kind of white despite being Israeli and she’s always shown practically naked.
Mostly, racists and/or bullies will target those whom they feel they can get away with bullying, be it females, elderly or just plain unassuming people, but as circumstances escalate to boiling points, it’s only a matter of time before an emboldened white supremacist is going to get their comeuppance, and civil unrest will overflow.
If this is what a Trump presidency is going to symbolize, it’s going to be a very long (hopefully) four years. The world is already filled with a lot of terrible, terrible people, and when they vote to put one of them into a position of power, to lead our entire country, then we are definitely headed in the wrong direction. It’s cliché to say shit like the world is going to hell in a hand basket, but it’s never felt so literal than it has now.
