Our nation has witnessed a resurgence in anti-Asian hate over the last 15 months as a result of racist misinformation about COVID. A few weeks ago, we witnessed another manifestation of this hate in the mass shooting in Atlanta. Anna Lindo (Framingham, MA, Friends Meeting) has been writing about white supremacy and anti-Asian hate on social media, sharing both her lived experiences as an Asian American and her analysis of racism in the U.S. She recently survived a hate crime in western Massachusetts. The Yearly Meeting asked her to write about her experience.
You are invited to take a moment to pause, to take a deep breath, and to read Anna’s writing as the ministry and truth-telling it is. Some of this truth-telling may be hard to read. At the end of Anna’s piece there are some suggestions for how to hold her message.
A few weeks ago, I experienced a hate crime. I was biking to work just south of Woolman Hill in scenic western Massachusetts when I had a near-collision with a white man in a black pickup truck. I do not know if this specifically was racially motivated. He almost hit me in an intersection and blared his horn. I panicked and flipped him off, a scenario most cyclists have encountered. Unfortunately, instead of going on his way, he took some back roads so that he could intercept me and scream nasty, racist, sexist slurs at me. He left me alone when the morning traffic caught up to him about a minute later, and I went to work. He hadn’t said anything I haven’t heard before and he didn’t run me off the road like I thought he might, and I didn’t want to let this hateful man get under my skin.
Four days later, a different white man in a different part of the country “had a bad day” and went on a serial shooting spree. If you want to hear some high-quality social commentary on the issue, I recommend Trevor Noah’s five-minute segment on The Daily Show the night after that shooting. I’m here to tell you about how it hurts.
It hurts to know that random strangers feel entitled to dehumanize me and take their anger out on my identity. It hurts to reflect on my initial reaction to my hate crime—not letting my own personal hater “get under my skin” because I’m supposed to be docile. It hurts to see that it took the slaughtering of six Asian women for so many of you to realize the depth of Asian American hate. On the flip side, it hurts to see that despite the serial shooting, so many people say “well, covid DID start with Asians" and not be adequately challenged. And it hurts to be alone amidst all of this: among the few people that are aware of xenophobia and racism against Asian Americans, even fewer are willing to take action or speak out against the violence we are experiencing, pre-COVID and beyond.
I am not telling you about this because I want your sympathy. My life and wellbeing do not depend on your sympathy; my life and wellbeing depend on you changing your terrifying culture. I need to know that you are listening and acknowledging Asian voices as we start to shatter the expectation that we must not take up space. We have been erased from your consciousness for too long, considering how much of our culture you consume. Also, I need to know that you are not listening to us instead of listening to our Black community, but that you are learning to hold us all as we seek healing and solidarity. (I speak specifically of the complex history of Black and Asian American communities being pitted against each other, but Latinx/e and Indigenous people are included.)
At the end of the day of my hate crime, my white male partner, Stefan, rode his bike out to the farm where I work so that he could ride home with me. He's offered to plan his workday around biking to work with me in the future. And while I am always grateful for Stefan, I want pro-active anti-racism, not having to carry a white man around for protection.
Anna can be reached at [email protected].
Processing Anna’s words:
- Take a breath and pause to notice how this piece is landing in you. What are your emotions? How is your body feeling? What reactions did you have as you read?
- Write down or say out loud what you are feeling or use these sentence starters:
- I feel . . .
- I hear . . .
- I see . . .
- I wonder . . .
- I know . . . - What is something Anna wrote that resonates with you?
- What is something Anna wrote that was hard to read or take in?
- What is the invitation you hear in this message?
- Who is someone you can talk about this with?
If you would like to discuss anything that comes up for you as you read and sit with this, you can email [email protected] and a member of the Noticing Patterns of Oppression and Faithfulness Working Group will respond.