New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
We can fight against the same monster together
I saw “Helen,” a work friend, on a Zoom call on Tuesday. I hadn’t talked to her in a while. We were both working from home with toddlers, and living through a pandemic. I sent her a private message during the meeting to say “hello” and to see how she had been doing over the last year. I felt bad for not checking in with her sooner.
“It’s been a rough week,” Helen replied.
I thought the challenge of keeping two toddlers safe, happy, clean, well-napped and entertained, yet quiet enough so they couldn’t embarrass her on a one-hour work call had gotten to be too much for Helen. I thought that’s what she meant by having a rough week — fatigue. I know there have been plenty of times over the last year when I have felt overwhelmed. I knew how Helen was feeling ... but not for the reasons I thought.
Our Zoom meeting consisted mostly of people who weren’t white. I am Black. Helen is Asian. The group reflected on a white man shooting and killing eight people, including six Asians, in Atlanta earlier this month. It was at that moment I realized that Helen was not talking about motherhood. She was having a rough week because she was traumatized by the shooting.
I felt silly. I should have known what she meant because I was Black, and because I had also witnessed white men killing other Black people during the pandemic. I had experienced what it felt like to lose George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, and to watch the aftermath of the Charleston church shooting in 2015. My parents had remembered losing Malcolm X and Martin Luther
King Jr. Their parents grieved Emmett Till. It’s a sadness and rage that’s been passed down through my American lineage. It’s always supposed to be on my mind as a Black woman.
But it wasn’t.
I had not been paying close attention to the Atlanta shooting. I didn’t take it as seriously as I would have if the victims were Black. When I saw the numerous “Stop Asian Hate” posts on Facebook and Instagram, I scrolled right on by them. I didn’t go to Google for more information like I did in other tragedies when the shooting victims were Black.
I had not considered that Asian-Americans were feeling impacted by racism and hate crimes in the same way that Black people had been for centuries in this country. It was my perception that Asian-Americans were treated with more dignity and respect than Black people in this country. They owned the beauty supply stores and the nail salons in Black communities. They had amazing careers, they owned property, they even had “Chinatowns” in major cities across the country. Black business communities were bombed, destroyed and never revitalized. Also, my best friend in first grade was Chinese, and she always got A’s on our weekly math tests. How could the Asian-American community be troubled? (I am being sarcastic.)
I didn’t initially feel the same anger and sadness about the Atlanta shooting that I often felt for when Black people were killed. On social media, I was confused when I saw Black people going out of their way to stand in solidarity with the Asian-American community.
It’s a sadness and rage that’s been passed down through my American lineage.
Stop Asian hate? What about stopping Black hate first? I wasn’t sure how I could fight for the Asian-American community while I’m still trying to figure how to fight for equity and equality for my own Black sons. Then I realized I was reacting the way that white Americans had often responded to Black Lives Matter when they said “All Lives Matter.” I was trivializing the trauma in the Asian-American community because I didn’t feel that it matched the same level of trauma that the Black community had experienced. I found myself comparing which community had been more traumatized by white violence, instead of recognizing that the real issue was white violence against non-white people.
Taking a moment to understand Helen’s rough week helped me realize that she and other Asian-Americans were personally feeling the effects of racism, the same way that I had and other Black people had.
That moment with Helen made me realize that we are not in competition with each other, rather fighting the same ugly monsters — white supremacy and racism.
If we’re all fighting the same monster, imagine how much more we could do if we fought the monster together.