Maria
Hey everyone, and welcome to Resetting the Table, expanding imagination around race, place and faith for our collective liberation.
Celine
I'm Céline chuang.
Trixie
I'm Trixie Ling.
Celine
And I'm Maria Mulder. We host this podcast from traditional ancestral unceded Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh territory, otherwise known as Vancouver, Canada. Acknowledging the land is one way we want to commit to decolonization. And to begin each episode in a good way, expressing solidarity with the Indigenous struggle for rights, reparations and sovereignty.
Celine
So we had our next episode lined up and ready. And then events in Atlanta happened. And we thought we would change our plans. And instead host a conversation between the three of us where we can show up for each other process together work through the grief and the anger, not only the shooting, but the narratives, the media narratives around what happened as well as the police response and all the misogynistic and white supremacist bullshit (this episode, will have swears) bullshit behind what happened. And I think this podcast is, it's a space for us to show up as we are and show up for each other and bring together our own experience and tell truth together. And that's what we hope to do with this conversation. We haven't really planned it out. So we will see what emerges in the space of our conversation and hope that if anything, you will find this space one that is one of truth, of welcome, of a place to be with us in how you feel and with us, in our anger in our fury at the violence and the injustice behind events in Atlanta. So, here we are, let's get into it together. So I feel like we should mention from the top of this episode that a lot of what we talk about is kind of influenced by a sermon that all three of us have listened to that we kind of turned to after events in Atlanta, and it's a sermon by Sunia and Eka at the Groves church in Portland. Thank you. Sunia has a good friend of Trixie's and friend of the podcast as well. She does the music, or she did the music for our intro and outro with her husband, Paul, and Eka I hadn't heard before, but it's also Asian kinfolk and an amazing pastor, scholar, theologian. Yeah, what we talked about some of it might have overlaps with that sermon, and we'll link it for you. So you can also experience the brilliance and the fury and prophetic ministry of that sermon. But yeah, that's kind of a shared starting point for the three of us.
Maria
So for those of you who have been
Celine
living under a rock.
Maria
Yeah. Been living away from the internet, at least. So there was a shooting late Tuesday night in Atlanta in three different locations, where a 21-year-old South Baptist-raised white man massacred eight people in three different Asian spa, massage parlours. And six of those people who died were East Asian women. When the man was apprehended, he told the police that he was struggling with a sex addiction and had lashed out at those particular locations because he viewed them as
Celine
Temptations or something?
Maria
Yeah, like the root, the root of his temptation. And the media response, I think was pretty awful. Like most of the most of the news outlets that just reported the happenings, they failed to name it as a hate crime. And a lot of the police who talked about it publicly, their response was also to kind of focus on the sex addiction aspect of what the perpetrator thought was going on, as opposed to really looking at, kind of like, the systemic roots of what had just happened, and intersectionalities between purity culture and sexism and racism and the fetishization of Asian women and a whole bunch of things. And the media just failed miserably at acknowledging any of that. I don't I don't know. That's kind of the basics. You guys have anything to add?
Trixie
Yeah, I would say I mean, there's just so many ways I can think about in terms of, where my anger really emerged by I think just kind of coming off of what you said, the media. The way was reported, it was so centred on the shooter, on this white man. I would say the majority of the story was centred on this white man. We heard, at least in the beginning, almost nothing about the victims, the woman themselves. Let alone their names, like and even then when their names were released, their names were not even correctly all pronounce or even written because they were Asian names and Korean, just Korean names, Chinese names, specifically. And it was just so infuriating and so indignified. And the fact that the media really portrayed almost the humanity more of the shooter and where he's from, and interviewing his family and even people in his church. And again, not at all really, in terms of like, I think, the way it shaped the narrative was really like empathy toward the shooter itself, like the victims. And the fact that when you mentioned this, Maria, in the beginning they they did not say it was a hate crime. They were considering this. And the fact that the shooter is apprehended without harm by the police. And that he admit to doing this crime, but he also said that he's not racist. So he'd rather admit, so the fact that he admitted to murder and he will not admit to being racist was just extra, I think, added extra fuel. Yeah, it's like pouring oil or fuel on the fire. In terms of how, yeah, how white supremacy really show up through the media, through this through the shooter, and the dominant narrative that just made me even more angry. Yeah, and sad.
Maria
And, you know, what really gets me is I think that the man really believes it. Like, I think when when things like this happen, it's almost as if because we swim in the waters of white supremacy, white folk who perpetrate crimes against people of colour actually are unable to see the fact that what they're doing, has, has a layer of racism built into it. Like, because of the white supremacy that we function in. It's just they like, literally can't see it. And they literally believe that it's not a problem.
Celine
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's brutal. Like thinking about to how, like you said Maria, it's become normalised so much, like this guy, apparently, like love when..., I think his words, ugh I don't want to quote him. This is something I heard from one of the articles or something, one of the responses that came out, but something about loving God loving guns, you know, like so this really this intersection of like gun culture, which is like very much, much more of a thing in the States than it is here. And white male entitlement over women's bodies, and specifically over Asian women's bodies, in this case, has become so normalised that like you said, to him, he's not racist, because this is just part of how his reality is structured. Yeah, and Trixie, what you said is so important. It's like, there's there's the outright violence of the shooting itself, and the actual taking of life of these women. And there's also the white supremacy in the media narratives. There's the white supremacy in the police system, and the way that the police talked about what happened, and like how somebody, you know, actually Sunia and Eka spoke to this too. It's like what happened is terrible and horrific. And it's also not really surprising, like, just like the insurrection at the Capitol, like under, the Trump presidency and under and with COVID conditions and kind of the ramping up of particular kinds of anti-Asian racism. It's really perpetuating creating this this culture of normalising,. I mean, I know white terrorism is not actually, there's been some some criticism of that as actually like a useful term. Because terrorism is such a racial term, it's a racialized term, it has been made to apply to Black and Brown people. And so they're kind of like some some things I've read about questioning, is that actually useful to apply to when we think about like white supremacist violence like this, but I think it can be helpful for some people to think about it as an act of terrorism, right? Because it's, I guess, trying to tell the truth about what happened. And the truth about what happened is that this act was, the tip of the iceberg the most overt and violent way that white supremacy perhaps can operate with when it's like coinciding with gun culture. Yes, and Christian, white Christian nationalism in the States, oh, that's my train of thought. What was I saying before that?
Trixie
Yeah, I think just kind of one of the things you brought up in terms of additional fuel for anger for me is that I mean, it's so horrific, but yet, it's like, we're not surprised because anti-Asian racism has existed historically, you know, and really revealed itself this past year during COVID. And I think in particularly, I had so much emotions, mixed emotion, which I'm still processing. And I think a lot of that actually, as I'm thinking through is I also have my own experience last year of a racist attack by a white man, being spat on. And I think kind of, that, understanding that, this has been happening, not just to me to many, many Asian people in our own community, even the recent report released from the Vancouver police department with the 700% increase, which you know, you cannot comprehend. And then real numbers more than that, because those are just only the people who reported an anti-Asian hate crime. And so, knowing all this facts that like it has been ongoing, has been felt, it has been, you know, we have been also saying it out loud, right. I was on the media, I actually right before Atlanta, I was actually just doing an interview with CBC, because of this report that was released by the Vancouver police department to comment on a year after COVID what has happened, and it's still continuing aggressions against and hate against Asian people in our community and businesses and collectively. And so to see it took something so horrible to bring that attention to literally shake people up, even though we've been saying it for like, this whole past year, we've been like, almost like, yeah, we've been out loud. We've been, you know, reporting, we've been kind of almost screaming into a void this is happening. And it made me sad that it took something so horrible for people to pay attention, and to actually awaken to what's happening, even though it has always been happening. And so I think that also kind of this is pain for me, I think, anger that now people are paying attention. People are like realising this is really happening, even though we're like, "This is happening, it's been happening!" And so while at the same time, it really is creating a space for us to speak out more than ever and people are listening and paying attention. It just makes me so angry that it has to take something so drastic, so vile, so horrific to pay attention.
Maria
And I would actually, I would like to take a moment to just acknowledge that these six women are not the first Asian people to die this year from anti Asian violence, right? Before Atlanta happened, there were I don't even know how many reports many, many reports of specifically Asian elders who have been attacked and have died because of those attacks. Yeah. So I think for me, I was talking with a friend this week about the shootings. And she asked me what the root of all of my feelings was. And I came to the conclusion that one of the things that was making me feel the most angry was the fact that as people who are part of the East Asian diaspora, none of us are surprised, and it is so exhausting to have white people be completely shocked that this is happening. So the level of surprise and disbelief in the event, that I find exhausting, because we've literally been talking about this for a year. There have been reports, there have been articles. It's not new information. And yet somehow, it's, it's surprising to white people, which I just, I can't handle.
Trixie
And I wonder, in terms of, particularly white folks who are surprised by this, and I think a little bit both in the context of US, and I would say Canada, that's what I've been thinking about, too. You know, in Canada, we do have like a huge Asian diaspora and and so I think one of the challenges that I think people see and I'm sure we'll get into like the model minority myth, in terms of.... And I've literally gotten this last year said to me, by a few different white folks, when I told them my own incident/experience of racism, they're like, but how can it be? There're just so many Asian people and you're doing so well, right? Doing so well, contributing to this society and how can that be? And so I think this, you know, I think we really do need to talk about, like, part of that is that invisibility. Talking about another source of anger...that invisibility of like, we fit in, we assimilate so well into whiteness. And that proximity to whiteness. Again, it took something so horrific for people to wake up to be like, oh, wow, like, you know, you're not white. You experience racism too. And so that, yeah, that invisibility, and then kind of like, I would say, contrast with the hyper-visibility right now, right? I'm super cautious of like being Asian more than ever at this point, because we're taking up space, which is really important. But at the same time, it's really hard to have to explain to people now to be like, yes, we are visible and we have been suffering and we cannot minimise our own pain and voice. And I think it scares people, it probably makes white folks feel guilty. Maybe they have not seen it and guilt and remorse feeds into...maybe they feel a little bit paralysed. I'm not quite sure. I feel like it's quite a mix of feelings, but I'm trying not to centre their feelings these days. Yeah.
Celine
I don't want to interrupt you but let's move away from white people's feelings.
Trixie
Oh, yes, I have to remind that to myself. Anyway, centering on us. Yeah, it's been hard. It's been hard to process. How do we move from this invisibility to hyper visibility and and in some way I do you feel like, I feel encouraged by more particularly Asian women leaders speaking out more than ever. Even though they have always been speaking up but now it's like, we actually have the space and take up the space. And there's a collective sense, I think, which I feel really encouraged to see.
Celine
There's two things I want to say. I think in this moment, one of the generative things that's come out of the grief and the anger is giving ourselves permission to take up space, like you said, Trixie and like to be angry and to speak to our experience, which which is so invisibilized, like you said, and also, we don't have those strong. Not yet. Maybe now, voices speaking about anti-Asian racism within the context of white supremacy. In the context of Canada, especially, there are more in the States, I would say. But politicised voices that speak truth about white supremacy and racism, and speak out of the experience of who we are, right? And naming that for us racism is different and looks different and operates differently than anti-blackness or colonial anti-Indigenous racism, which are the foundation of Canada as a country, right? The racism against us, I mean, Asians like is also part of that white supremacist foundation of Canada and of society as we know it. But it operates differently. And we haven't really had those politicised truth telling voices that can speak to that. And maybe part of that is that we haven't been able to take up space in a way that we don't know how to take up space in that way. And maybe the anger is helping propel us into that place. I guess, not on the flip side, it's not like a binary. But I guess the danger I see is, I think because like you mentioned, a lot of Asians have, especially East Asians who have privilege in terms of class or wealth, are waking up maybe to the sense of there being anti-Asian racism as part of, you know, Canadian society, in this particular moment of, especially with the pandemic, but are only seeing the agent experience and not making the connections between, you know, hate crimes and shootings. And also the way that white supremacy is part of our structure and our system of our government the way that our country exists, and continues to exist, especially in terms of dispossession, of Indigenous people of their land, and their children. You know, the ongoing pieces. So I feel like it's so it's such an important moment because if we want to be able to speak to our experiences and also in doing that, do the solidarity work, do the work of intersectionality you know, with our Black and Indigenous siblings, then, there is huge potential and all of that for coalition, right for like, realising that all of us are actually being oppressed by the same fucking system! And it's so hard to do that because white supremacy tries to divide us, like you said, with the model minority myth, so that it can better continue its domination over, like Sonia and Eka talked about in the model minority myth being a form of silencing. So yeah, I guess I just I want to stress for this conversation that like we do, we need to take up space and to speak our truth and to speak our experience. It's always been important for us to do but this has really propelled us to do so. And I think it invoked a collective voice, like you said, and also in doing that, I think, especially for those maybe who were Asian and waking up to the realities of racism and white supremacy for the first time, like that it needs to be done in deep solidarity and intersectional frameworks to understand too that like our oppression is connected.
Trixie
That reminds me of a quote I just recently read are reminded, again by Fannie Lou Hamer, "nobody's free until everybody's free." So our tied oppression is also on the road to our tied liberation. And so I think what you just said, that collective anger, in some way, it's really liberating, in the midst of all this to see the outrage to see the surge of that collective solidarity because of this anger. I've been reading, I think all of us have maybe Audrey Lorde. I just read it right before this podcast, again, just remind myself, she has this essay on the use uses of anger. And, and I think she really points that she said, women responding to racism means women responding to anger. It's this simple sentence, but it's so true. And I think that's what I feel right now, our response to racism is our response with our anger, our anger at the injustice and the white supremacy and colonisation. Of the silence, I think, for us, particularly as Asian, of the the decades and the silence of our voice and our own experience and the minimising of that too. And so I feel like how we're using our collective anger almost as like this energy force, this catalyst to actually to move to what change to transform, right, transform the conversation to actually move to action. It's so powerful. And in some way, it's so liberating to kind of feel the anger and to let it move me. I feel this like literal weight, like energy force. Even though it feels exhausting, it also feels very, energetic for me to feed into that. And not the destructive kind of anger. But the transformative anger to do something.
Celine
Yeah, totally. And that essay also has some really great, poetic like powerful phrasing. I think that really captures the moment right now. Like she talks about, Audrey Lorde talks about how anger is, for her is always libation for fallen sisters. And so for me, I think of the missing and murdered women. You know, I think of all the two-spirit and queer Indigenous people that have been victims and survivors of genocide of colonial dispossession, like of ongoing attempted erasure, and how that is part of my anger too. I'm angry about those fallen sisters and also the sisters in Atlanta. I'm angry about every time a white man demonstrated entitlement over my body, whether it was in the service industry, in hospitality working, as a barista, like working as a waitress, being a woman in public. I'm angry about that and how that is also part, that entitlement and fetishization is part of what led to the shooting in Atlanta, and how, in this small way, I have a connection to these women. Yeah, I'm angry about the role of the church. In the radicalization of this white man and his entitlement over these Asian women's bodies and his entitlement to the point of killing them. Because they were a problem for him. And how I'm also mad about the fact, I'm mad at myself partly because I read this, but I'm mad about the fact that they, you know, wrote a statement about how they had no idea how this could have happened. You know how he was this nice guy who was like you, they they thought they knew well,
Celine
Super active in the church.
Celine
How it was the opposite of you know, what they taught in church. Like, you raised this guy. It doesn't work like that, you can't disavow someone that you raised to be this way. I'm not saying the church was the only thing that did that. But it was one of the big places that would have shaped him, and shaped his ideology and his shame around sexuality, which again, Sonia and Eka talk about you too and how purity culture is part of that. Yeah, I am angry about that! I'm angry about the other churches, even progressive churches that have not made any move to acknowledge or to change how they operate, even though it is "the light version" of whatever the Southern Baptist Church was doing, in terms of shame in terms of acceptable racism. I mean we talk a lot about, in the white Jesus episode, all the ways that white supremacy is normalised in our churches and our faith spaces. You know, I'm angry that these women were in a position of such financial vulnerability that the work, you know, sex work or sex work adjacent, were so stigmatised that some of them didn't even tell their kids what they were doing. There's so many things, so many things to be angry about. And that mourning these fallen woman, the fallen sisters, like Audrey Lorde said, is part of the anger, right? Like so much of what I think I've been processing with others, with you two, it's like, making space for grief and anger I think are so connected. And both I think are embodied, both are political. And both are forces for movement. They move us towards doing more than we're capable of without them.
Trixie
As I think more about anger, and how to express it, I realise, I feel like I'm learning as we go because as you know, as an immigrant myself, raised in an Asian family, Taiwanese family, I wasn't really taught to use anger. Or anger was always a bad thing. And again, that message is also translated also in church. Right? So how was I was socialised even. Part of that is anger that I haven't really been able to be modelled. You know, and having developed the tools and emotions that I can use to face the anger, and the righteous anger, really, that we're talking about here. And I think part of that is my own and connected to grief, I think about the intergenerational trauma. I think about the displacement, my own family and grandparents. And you know, as immigrants in Canada, myself, the move to assimilation of my own parents experience and then kind of coming down on us too, to assimilate rather than to question things and question how the norms and dominant narratives are. Just to fit in and to not disturb or not confront. You know, now as I'm older, and way more liberated, in my mind, being able to embody my experience and being able to yeah confront it in myself, I do think this is something that we need to be able to talk about, and be able to learn from each other. To actually learn how to talk about it. Again, because I think about church. It's not something we, you know, people of faith or Christians are taught to be like nice and kind and forgiving. And I think that kind of message, it doesn't help in this case, in terms of this righteous anger that we're supposed to be feeling, and we should be feeling toward injustice, and sexism and racism and white supremacy, all the systemic roots of oppression that we're dealing with. And that the only right way really is to respond with anger, like you said, so it can move us and transform us and change us. But if we're not really socialised or taught that it's really hard. Actually, there's a lot of internal work we have to do ourselves, collectively as a community, which I do see right now. And I think that gives me hope, to see how we are channelling our anger into our voice into speaking out and taking up space. And so that's something I continue to do. And if anything, I've learned a lot from Black and Indigenous communities and leaders and particularly women who are speaking out and putting, their body on the front line to speak up with rage, righteous rage about what's happening. And that's something I'm learning, actually. And I really appreciate, particularly a lot of these strong women of colour leading the way in using their anger to fight white supremacy. That is the proper response. I'm curious how like, how have you two, in terms of how you were raised or how you're socialised. In terms of thinking about anger, is it something that comes naturally to you? I know it doesn't come naturally to me even though now these days is like, very much at the forefront for me as an emotion but it took me a while to get there.
Maria
So, I grew up in a conservative Christian biracial home. And my dad being Dutch, he was raised in a home where emotions were not acknowledged at all. And so knowing that, it's actually pretty amazing how emotional he was as a father and like how emotionally present he was able to be for my sister and I. But anger was definitely not an emotion that was ever okay. And it wasn't until I started going to therapy last year, my therapist pointed out to me that I have a lot of resentment. And I don't know, I don't have the skills to express, express those feelings at all. So now I feel like actually, in the past year and a bit, I have felt more openly angry than I have ever in my life. And it's been very freeing, and also very disorienting at times, because it's just so far outside of the way I was raised. And so even in response to Atlanta, I actually feel quite proud of myself that the first thing that I felt when I actually started to engage, because it took me a couple of days to actually engage with the story. But once I started to the first thing that I felt was like this deep rage, and the fact that I could feel it right away and name it, that was a really big thing for me. And even now being able to continue to sit with it. And for it not be this explosive anger that doesn't go anywhere. But for it to push me towards generative action. It's been it's been a good thing. And a healthy response, I think.
Trixie
How about you, Celine?
Celine
I mean, I have a lot of anger. But I think it's only recently that I've started to like, acknowledge the anger. Yeah. I'm also an enneagram 1 wing 2 for the enneagram folks out there. So I mean part of that is a very deep driving force, the anger, but I also have spent almost my entire life, and still continue to in some ways. I think suppressing and like trying to manage it. But like, I would think of myself as a not an angry person just in general like, and yet I think I'm only recently coming to get to know my anger. And to kind of liberate it from the moralising aspects of.... You know, anger being something that's often talked about as being like a bad emotion or a bad thing. And when really, it's not inherently bad. It's just, it can, it's like any feeling really. It can lead you in the direction of generative, transformative change, or it can be destructive. I really love Audrey Lorde's line in "The uses of anger" about orchestrating the fury, really trying to find and navigate the balance of various kinds of anger...I mean, she's talking as a black woman to but as women of colour, or femmes of colour, that you are wading through in your inner and outer life. So I think I'm just starting to, I think do that. And although I'm now more comfortable feeling angry, and that is liberating, I think I still struggle with letting the anger come through me and express itself in relation to other people particularly. So I'm I think learning to give myself permission to be to be angry to feel angry. And yet I still often don't give myself permission to act, even like to protect myself in ways that might be seen as angry. So part of that I think is just like being socialised not to do that. And part of it, I think, is actually survival instinct for me, which might be like a trauma response, but because I've been so, not just socialised, but I've had these experiences where my space was encroached upon, you know, by white men, or I was expected to be at the service of white men and whatever role I was in, I've just, like learned that in my body and so I find it hard to...if a microaggression happens or I mean, this doesn't happen as often because we're not in public as much but like street harassment or something like that. To actually act like in a way that is true to the anger that I feel is it's really hard for me. So I'll just give an example, I was in I think the week after the shooting in Atlanta, I was at the grocery store and picking up groceries and it's a small little market and if there's not a lot of room in there, so I kind of wanted to get in and out because you couldn't really socially distance inside. And I had a lot on my mind obviously and on my heart and I was in line starting to put my groceries away after I paid. And the next customer, who was a white man, came up quite close to me, coming up next in line, but not giving me the space to put my groceries away first. And definitely like not within the social distancing requirement. And so I immediately because you know, COVID has kind of trained us to be hyper-vigilant about space, I was immediately aware of this. And also because I was thinking about Atlanta, I was thinking and holding a lot of things. And I did like a side glance and saw that it was a white man and middle-aged, who was not wearing a mask, even though it was required. And I was very uncomfortable. And like immediately I felt that immediate response, of discomfort and threat. And at the same time, I didn't say anything, I made the decision, a snap decision, as I was putting stuff away not to say anything. I could have asked him to give me space, to back up a little bit, to put a mask on. I could have done all those things I didn't. I was really hard on myself for this moment, but I think it was because I think my body was trying to make this very fast calculus, whether if I said something, being in this Asian, feminine body, in a small space where I didn't feel like the staff were going to, you know, say anything about what was going on. I wasn't sure how he was going to respond. And so as much as I was hyper vigilant to him encrouching in my space, not just like within the social distancing space, but like, was too close to me, I was even more aware of how he could respond aggressively if I did say something. So I think there's this really complicated learned response in my body that I'm still trying to figure out how to be true to in terms of respecting that. Part of that is from my experience, living through life in this body. And that my body's learned how to navigate particular situations, but also, I want to be able to free myself from some of those learned behaviours. But I also, you know, don't want to threaten my safety while I do that. So I think it's just all of those layers going on.
Maria
Yeah, and these, these are the kind of mental gymnastics that people don't realise we do on a daily basis, right? I think especially living in a female body. But then now being Asian. Like, even in this past week, I have this really, really beautiful Asian overcoat, which both of you have seen, I don't know, if you remember. And I've wanted to wear it. And I have very consciously chosen not to because I have this fear that it'll attract too much attention. And that makes me mad! I'm angry that that is my response to this article of clothing that I love, and that I feel very at home in. And I feel like personally, I've had...it's been a really weird time, because I'm biracial and maybe a little bit more ethnically ambiguous than you two, there has also been this layer of, maybe it's guilt for feeling the feelings that I'm feeling because there's a part of me that doesn't believe that I deserve to have the same feelings as people who are fully Asian. Which I know, the logical brain in me knows that is absolutely ridiculous, but it still is there.
Celine
Yeah, that's important to name. I mean, like, I've heard that from other biracial people, who have one Asian parent or something like that. There's uncertainty about how to how they're allowed to feel or how they're allowed to respond. When I'm like, please, feel the things that you need to feel. But I know that it's not me that tells them that they can't feel those things. It's like other places, other voices.
Trixie
And other maybe not like fitting or belonging really, it really comes down to where do you belong and how you show up. Right? And I think, yeah, too it's important to name the complex emotions that we we feel, especially when it comes to our identity and who we are. And so and how we present ourselves to other people. You know, it has been a long journey also for me, because a lot of my formative years were in white spaces. So I think it took me a long while to kind of come around to be like, I am Asian, in terms of growing into who I am. And then I think that moment when I really, really realised I'm Asian, it's almost like, again, this moment of liberation, but also a little bit of *gasp* that fear of like oh wow like how do people see me and obviously during this time right now again where we are just very hyper vigilant and just conscious of how we present ourselves. I'm both proud but, also I feel this complex feeling of how do I blend in the same time. Where do I belong, really, right?
Celine
Yeah this thought is just coming to me now so it maybe is not fully formed but I wonder if that uncertainty that I feel is a bi-racial person is actually a manifestation of white supremacy in that part of how white supremacy functions is that it is obsessed with maintaining purity. And so the fact that i am not pure because I am half of something...
Celine
I think you're right. I think white supremacy would want to convince you that you're not allowed to feel or belong to a particular community because of this idea of purity which has been so ingrained. And how white supremacy, colonial and christian white supremacy operate, right? Which Sonia and Eka i think do a really good job of talking about how purity culture is connected to racial purity yes yes they do. And I think what you're saying is it is part of white supremacy to be obsessed with purity of like all kinds right and be obsessed with categorization and hierarchy and that invades sometimes our justice spaces or organising spaces. Where it's like, you're more oppressed than I am. You are higher on this ladder of like whatever. No, that's not how things work, right?We don't want the ladder, we don't want contests.
Trixie
Like the competition you talked about earlier, right? Putting us into the competition. I'm really excited, we're gonna be talking with Sonia later about purity cultures which is like its own huge thing, but this is kind of a glimpse into how it intersects. And I think part of that purity culture is like they don't like intersections, they don't want that like complex identity and really looking at....Atlanta really brought to light the intersections between racism, sexism, classism, purity culture. They don't like that, they just want this nicely fit one box. Not the complexness that we're talking about.
Celine
Yeah so we'll go into more detail in that episode with Sonia about the connections that we've mentioned just now that she'd already talked about with Eka about purity culture and racial purity and how those are connected. But I think it is kind of, you're right Maria and to identify that as a symptom of how supremacy would want you to think and not be allowed to be in a liminal, overlapping place and feel the feelings. Because your feelings are powerful! And white supremacy wants to take away our power.
Maria
True story.
Celine
As you were talking Trixie about your own experience, I'm realising now I think this is a moment too where it can feel like very scary in ways that maybe for Asians like who're experiencing kind of a wake up moment or hyper vigilant moment or renewed awareness of their "otherness" moment. But I realised too this is kind of a moment that reveals to us how the myth of meritocracy is something that is part of the model minority narrative i would say. And it's really something that Asian immigrants cling to i think because it's fed to us or to our families so it's not something that just came out of nowhere, it's very much part of like Canadian rhetoric i think and the way that we talk about race and immigration in Canada. Where the myth is that you work hard enough, it doesn't matter where you start you will succeed. And when Asian people cling on to this myth, it becomes the model minority myth or it becomes tangled in the model minority myth. Where it's, we've worked hard, we've succeeded. So why are these people complaining? And by "these people" I mean usually Black or Indigenous people right? So it's like, it becomes a manifestation of the model minority myth in upholding white supremacy. But what we're realising now is like meritocracy doesn't work, it's not true. Think of all the ways that Asian people in Canada have tried to or been forced to assimilate close to whiteness or to a particular degree of adjacency with whiteness to almost disappearing into the Canadian multicultural landscape, peoplescape. And the ways that we've been taught that. And our parents or our families have been taught that. And yet, like, no matter how hard Asian people try to fulfil this kind of rising, impossible standard of succeeding, of being good enough, of being white enough, of fitting in enough, we will never fit in the way that is promised to us. We will never be white, we will never disappear completely into, we will never assimilate completely. We will always still be other, we will always still be foreign, we will always be different. And that, I think has been like revealed more recently where it's like, oh, actually, even if you have even if our families even if people we know even if fellow Asians have really bought into this and built their experiences and lives around this myth, we're realising now it's not true. You can't perform or succeed enough on the ladder of white supremacy as an Asian. You can't do it.
Maria
And yet, when when times are good, it gives us just enough privilege that it often silences us and stops us from the solidarity work that is so important, right? I was reading this op ed piece written by John Cho for the Los Angeles Times. And the title, it's really great, because it's just very clear. It says, "Coronavirus reminds Asian Americans like me that our belonging is conditional." And he basically just lays it out. The model minority myth seduces us with privilege into silence. And then it just kind of keeps us there. And then when something bad happens, that privilege and that protection and safety that sort of exists, but doesn't really exist, that's taken away from us. Yeah. It's wild. And then we just stay silent. Because that's how privilege works, right? Like, once you have it, you often, you don't want to give it up. Because it affords you so many things in the way that our society works.
Trixie
I read the article before so thank you, Maria, for reminding me again. Also feeling that rage now thinking back reading that but also like the rage inside, like yes! It's so true, right, and you can resonate. And that truth is like this way, the rage come out. And I think that, in a way is liberating. Which also reminds me of a another article I read. And I think part of the truth is that it's so honest, and that honesty sometimes is so painful to acknowledge. But that is what is the process right of working through our anger is really a knowledge what's happening. I haven't seen the movie and I really want to, and I think we all see it together, is the recent movie Minari. Yeah! Yeah so I really want to see that. And so there's an article that profiles the star of the movie, Steven Yeun. And I think this one quote, which I just found, it's a great article, but the one quote that I read it and it's just hit me like, I felt this range of emotions like sadness, anger, pain. Is this quote, he says, sometimes I wonder if the Asian American experience, and I can say this, also to Asian Canadian experience, is what it's like when you're thinking about everyone else, but no one else is thinking about you. It's much of a bigger article, which I would recommend reading, but I think reading that quote, just really, oh! Yeah, it hit me in terms of like, really expressing how we're seeing how we're also silenced. We're both seen and silenced at the same time.
Maria
Yeah and I think that quote, it kind of it harkens back to the inequality and consequences. I think a lot of the time the reason why we are silenced about our anger is because in many cases, the consequences for us expressing our anger are higher than, than for white folk around us. And that is just a reality that really, really sucks. And it takes a lot of bravery and a lot of courage to push through that and to be outwardly angry anyways. And I think we're in a moment right now. There is such public outrage, that there's kind of safety in numbers a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. Like there's so many of us that are openly angry that it's okay. Because, you know, there's just so many of us. But in regular times, often, that's not a viable option or a safe option.
Trixie
Yeah, and we What you just said, I think Selena said it much earlier as part of the survival, right? Survival and boundaries and our own embodied, lived experiences, how we're socialised. How we're taught to protect ourselves, right? When to be angry, when not to be angry. And how can we express the anger that won't create more harm for us? But I do think what you just said Maria, the power in numbers really, I feel like the anger and the collective anger have given us this collective power really. To take up space to be seen and to be heard. Louder than ever.
Celine
Can I can I read you guys an Audrey Lorde? quote?
Trixie
Yes, please. Always.
Celine
So this is from the same essay, that we will will reference it in the in the show notes. But she says, "We cannot allow our fear of anger to deflect us nor seduce us into settling for anything less than the hard work of excavating honesty. We must be quite serious about the choice of this topic. And the anger is entwined within it. Because rest assured our opponents are quite serious about their hatred of us, and of what we are trying to do here." And I just feel like we need to internalise that truth, and just have courage in the truth of what she says.
Celine
Yeah, yeah. And this is like, we I'm trying to use language that isn't like about debt. Like, we can follow, I think a leadership of Black and Indigenous women, of queer folks who have had to use their anger as a tool for survival for us, you know, and see that it is possible to translate that anger into righteous action, into principled action, principled change. And that we learned so much from, you know, these saints and ancestors and elders who have had really no choice in ways but to be angry to survive, and to use that anger generatively. Yeah, instead of listening to all the ways that we've been taught, to placate whiteness or to behave well, to avoid particular forms of being seen as different or for the illusion of belonging, like we said earlier, or conditional belonging. It is worth it. It is worth it. Yes. And okay, so this is a bit of a, again, like not a fully formed thought. (laughs) I'm gonna, I'm gonna explore it and see where it goes. So I've been, I've been thinking about what I've read so far, like, what I understand so far about structurally, in a Canadian context, like, how anti-Asian racism has, is part of white supremacy, and how that's operated. And one of the books, I haven't read the whole book, but one of the books I have read that talks specifically about anti-Asian racism in the context of settler colonialism in Canada, is by Iyko Day, and it's called "Alien capital." It is super dense, like very difficult, I would say, to understand the points, especially if you're not an academic, or a Marxist academic, which I am not. So I will put that out there in case people are like, I really want to read it. But I have appreciated a lot of the framing in terms of just extending my understanding of how anti-Asian racism as part of white supremacy has historically operated in Canada, and how we can think about that, and how we experience anti-Asian racism and how to kind of organise around it and against against an anti-Asian racism or white supremacy. And one of the main, I would say, point of the book, so it's called "Alien capital." So it talks a lot about how Asians were brought in as kind of a replacement, after slavery was officially ended, as labour, so as foreign, like non-white, foreign "other" labour to perform that labour in order to, you know, build the infrastructure of the country like the railroad, but they were not seen as fully human, right, like being human or being a citizen was to be a white male, settler or like a settler family from Europe. So agents from the beginning were kind of considered this foreign labour force that was kind of faceless, invisiblized, not fully human. But I think about the ways that you know, we are as Asians, we are expected to perform particular kinds of labour and still remain invisible. And I think one of those forms of labour is to fulfil things like the model minority myth, and to make the cogs of white supremacy run smoothly, in a way, by fulfilling a particular role. And the role is to be like well behaved to to internalise, and then kind of pass on meritocracy and working hard and succeeding, and of multiculturalism and racism, not existing in Canada, until suddenly, right now, I just think it's, it's kind of like historical and structural as well, the ways that we've been conditioned to, like Steven Yeun like to think of everyone but ourselves is to is to perform a kind of labour, right, it's to perform a kind of emotional labour, to be so aware of other people and what they think of you, or of racial dynamics other than the ones that other than yourself, that is a form of labour. And it's a form of like, kind of invisible labour. And when we break out of that, when we break out of being silent, or when we, when we are seen, and when we speak our truth, we're resisting that structural racism, right? So it's dangerous. And that's why I think we're so conditioned to, to perform this kind of labour and be silent and be subdued in ways. Mm hmm. But I just want to tie that into like, the larger structural kind of pieces that I've been learning about conceiving of Asians as foreign and "other." And performing particular kinds of labour has been part of building Canada as we know it and building the country that we live in, what we call Canada. And so it's not new at all, this is kind of how it's been created. Was that too much of a diversion?
Trixie
No, that's totally on point.
Celine
I'm like, did it make sense? I'm kind of theorising as I go.
Trixie
That's the kind of deep depths like we really need to go into, right, to understand that it's not just the... I mean, talking about just another anger, I get angry now, when, as I as I'm processing and talking with some friends, it often come to the interpersonal racism. It's like what we're really talking about is the structural, the systemic and to to be able to really dismantel white supremacy and colonisation is actually to go deeper to understand what is happening and not, and the narratives that continue perpetuate the violence that we see today. And so it's not just like, well, you're a good person, you know? It doesn't. It doesn't work like that. And I think particularly, like an Asian community, I know we we are, there's work for us to also do to unlearn and to be able to like, learn how can we do this work in solidarity, right, as we have kind of talked throughout this episode, in terms of our Indigenous and Black brothers and sisters. To do this work is the structural work that we have to do to really set and work toward a shared liberation. But we have to first name what is happening. Really name what's happening,
Celine
Mmm hmm and name it not as new, or like, oh, why is this happening right now? Or like, this is a time of extreme polarisation? Like, actually, no, this is this is part of the structural history and like operations of Canada and other states, and of generally settler colonial countries? Nation states? I don't know what the right word is. But, like from the beginning, that's what colonialism was about. Right? It was like entitlement overland entitlement over native people and their bodies than their resources and so Indigenous folks have always, they live in resistance to that. Their very existence is resistant to colonial white supremacy. And so I think us as Asians thinking like, connecting those dots means that then we can have a bigger picture. Our liberation is connected and we can grow resistance together.
Trixie
Mm hmm. And more importantly, too, I've been also like, moving towards healing and what this collective healing and healing justice look like. And there's the obviously the individual healing that we all have to do on our own in some way. But there's the collective healing and part of that healing work is the systemic change, that I do believe that's really tied together. We can't talk about healing of the trauma without really dismantling what's, you know, all the things that we just named, and that to work toward that justice and liberation is that solidarity work we just talked about but that's also collective healing. So it's not just the self care, it's that collective care and healing of our own community, and in solidarity with Indigenous community and Black community, where we live and where we find ourselves.
Celine
Mmm hmm, it's not just a cosmetic fix where individual people are less racist as an actual change, deep-seated change in the systems that we function through. So on the note of systemic change, I think what what has to happen or what hasn't been happening is the reaction of white folk to situations like this is that they see a terrible situation, they're shocked by it and then they say i don't know what to do please tell me what to do or they go to their Asian friends and they basically ask for education.
Celine
And more free labour.
Celine
While I believe the intention is good at the root of what they're asking for, it's not fair. And so if you are a white listener and you don't know what to do and you're feeling a little bit lost in this conversation I would really just encourage you to go to the internet and look things up because at this point there has been so much written and there are so many resources out there and even just starting by reading op-eds about the shooting that are written by people who are part of the East Asian diaspora, that's a good place to start.
Trixie
And all the resources we recommend that throughout the whole episode.
Celine
Also since we started the podcast. There are many things many places to point you towards. I mean at this point since last summer too where there is more awareness from white people about racism and anti-racism, i feel like you can probably just google how does a white person be anti-racist or something like that and you will get lots of things to read in and work through and practice. Although maybe i'll mention really quickly that I was talking to my hairdresser and she she mentioned something that I was like okay this is something really specific that I think would be great to pass on as something concrete, doable for like anyone in any situation other than googling shit which is important too. She was taking a bystander intervention training especially for racism and i think in this case particularly for anti-Asian racism there's one thing you could do to equip yourself to deal with racist incidents when they happen. This is something everyone can do, right? We can all do these trainings and then feel and be more equipped to deal with situations when they happen and support folks.
Trixie
It's the Hollaback bystander training. I did it actually myself too. To equip myself and learn more. Because either you will experience it or you will witness someone experiencing it, so it's important to yeah learn and prepare ourselves for that and equip ourselves. And also I think part of that is acknowledging that at this really difficult time as we collectively process the grief and anger we've been talking about, the educational/emotional labour should not just be falling to the Asian community, PO C communities and that this is part of the solidarity work that we that we are learning and that when we learn we also take action and that's really important i find these days to and particularly churches. You can pray but I also want to see action and you have to go beyond just what's in your comfort zone. That's what I would challenge. And that shared labour, the emotional and educational labour is shared and not just fall on BIPOC communities
Maria
So, this episode has been a lot. We acknowledge that we went to a lot of places and there were a lot of feelings expressed by us and we are kind of anticipating that listening to this has probably brought up a host of feelings and emotions in you as well. And so to close this episode, Celine has written and adapted a grounding exercise to help us not push our feelings down but to welcome them as educational guides to move forward.
Celine
We thought we'd end on this grounding exercise as a way to continue to cultivate the space that we are growing with this podcast. For us to show up as our true selves and with all our feelings and our emotions and also as I think a gift and an offer to our listeners and especially our Asian listeners. To really pay attention to the feelings and the emotions that are coming up in us through this conversation but also the past few weeks because they are important guides and they can tell us a lot about who we are and they can be powerful. It is called a welcome prayer but I'd say it's an inclusive grounding practice, so anyone is welcome to try this out with us. So this is a mindfulness practice that I've adapted from one that came to me from my Lutheran friends and facilitator Carolina Gloster and it comes from the Christian contemplative and monastic tradition. It's also similar i would say in mystic lineage to rumi's poem "the guesthouse." That poem is about welcoming each feeling arriving to the house, the guesthouse of our bodies and our hearts as a guide from beyond and it's also a way to bring in all that we are and acknowledge how we are and how we show up. So i'll guide us through this and if you can take a minute wherever you are to sit or stand comfortably with your feet planted on the ground and you can close your eyes if that helps you centre yourself and if you're safe to do so. And as we plant ourselves, I'll say a welcome to the ground beneath us. Welcome earth which sustains us, all our human and non-human relations. The plants budding and germinating the seeds in the dirt awaiting the appointed time the birds, the animals, the trees. Welcome community of creation. So as you sit or stand with your feet planted, start to become aware of your breath and breathe deeply and slowly in and out let yourself slow down, let your body expand and take up space the way it needs to. Maybe you want to stretch a little or shake or move a little bit as you settle into your breath. Keep breathing in and out. Welcome breath, welcome spirit, pneuma, welcome holy mover and animator. Moving in us and through us, welcome breath. And as we keep breathing, we bring to mind and body the elders and ancestors who came before us. The people in all our lineages, whether by birth, diaspora, displacement, movement, resistance. We bring to mind and body the elders and ancestors of the territory and the land. When I was visiting Burnaby Mountain, outside Vancouver, an elder told me to introduce my ancestors to those of the territory as part of the protocols of honouring. Showing up, being present. So here in this space you can silently name and welcome the host of witnesses who are part of where and who we are. So for me I welcome my ancestors. The migratory and matriarchal Hakka people, the river-dwelling Hokkien people. I welcome the East Asian diaspora. I welcome the ancestors of the Musqeum, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh. I welcome the ancestors of Treaty-7 territory where i was born. So silently or out loud, if you want, you can name and welcome your own ancestors however you define them. And as we keep breathing, start to become aware of the feelings your body's holding today. Maybe it's anger, apprehension, tiredness, grief, joy, anxiety, uncertainty. Maybe it's all of those things. As you become aware of each feeling, silently welcome it as a guest and a guide. And we're welcoming these feelings without judgement. Simply acknowledging them as part of how we show up. So if you're feeling tiredness, welcome tiredness. If you're feeling anger, welcome anger. If you're feeling sadness, welcome sadness. We'll keep noticing and welcoming feelings for a couple more minutes in silence.
Celine
Welcome feelings named and unnamed. Welcome guests and guides of our deep and multitudinous selves. Welcome. As we start to move out of this practice, you can start moving your fingers and toes, bringing movement and attention back to your body. You can open your eyes, start to look around again. Look at your surroundings. Stretch a little. Xiexie, mercy, thank you for doing this with me. Thank you for being here with us. Resetting the table is produced by Emma Reynolds. And the intro music is by Sonia and Paul Gibbs. If you like what this podcast is about, consider supporting us on patreon patreon.com/resettingthetable. We think it's really important to amplify voices of colour and we hope you do too. Even a little bit will help us sustain and grow the podcast
Maria
For now, Doxia,
Trixie
Xiexie.
Celine
Thanks and see you soon.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Comments
Post a Comment