*The following is my personal response to the growing racism targeted towards Asians and Asian Americans, in the form of a letter addressed to perpetrators of racism.
To those who are hurting,
Hi, my name is Jolene. I am a 3rd year communication studies major at the University of Texas at Austin. And I am an Asian American.
You don’t know me, and I don’t know you, not personally at least.
I think we can both agree that these are very interesting and uncertain times, for ALL of us. No matter what race, what gender, what age, what religion, what profession, what social class, everyone has been affected, everyone has lost something, everyone has been hurt.
That being said, I see you, I hear you, I feel you. I know you are hurting. You are lost, confused, disappointed, anguished, maybe even angry. I know I certainly feel all these things, and more. So I get it. I get that you feel as if you have a thousand unanswered questions, unresolved feelings, unfinished business. I get that you just want to find something, somewhere, someone to launch all your unanswered questions at.
WHY is all this happening? WHY have my plans been rudely interrupted? WHY am I no longer able to leave my house? WHY did I have to lose that job or internship? WHY did this come at such an important time in my life, when I was just about to celebrate a grand milestone of life? WHY am I no longer able to taste the sweetness of normalcy? WHY do I feel like everything has been stolen from me?
Your questions are absolutely, totally, completely, valid.
But today, I’m here to ask: What are you going to decide to do with those questions, with those feelings?
In this situation, where quite literally, not much is in our control, there is still one important thing that exists that is within your control. And that is, your response.
Adversity can draw one of 2 responses out from humans- love, along with all the best parts of ourselves, or hate, along with all the worst parts of ourselves.
In these past few weeks, I’ve seen a tremendous amount of both.
Personally, it is so incredibly easy for me to resort to hate. Honestly, for me it is so much easier to hate than to love, because it’s my human nature that tells me to be selfish and to only focus on MY issues and MY feelings. So as a fellow human being, I can understand your actions and the reasoning behind them.
BUT, just because it’s easy, doesn’t mean it’s effective. I can tell you from firsthand experience, that my actions driven by hate have never resolved the core issue. Not once, have I ever felt good after an act of hate and selfishness. Even if I did feel good, it was only temporary, a fleeting feeling that lasted a couple weeks at most.
You see, the core issue here is not a virus that has seemingly originated from another country. The core issue here is within us, ALL of us. Our human need to feel safe and secure has now seemingly been compromised. All the work we’ve put in over the years to secure our future, our comfort, now seems like it’s been for naught. And when that happens, we tend to blame something or someone, because it’s easy, and it’s immediate. In this fast-paced and task-driven world, we want answers, we want solutions, and we want them right here right now. And merely pointing a finger is so much easier and so much faster than working to find another solution or another path.
Perhaps it’s also because we refuse to acknowledge that the issue at hand requires a more introspective look. Maybe the answer is that an attitude change, a perspective shift, must happen in us before anything else can be resolved. We’re scared that the results will make us uncomfortable, that it’ll expose the parts of us we’ve been trying so hard to bury and hide from others as well as ourselves.
I am, by no means, an expert in deciphering all these answers for myself. I am still in an intense struggle with my own insecurities, with my own selfishness, with my own tendency to hate. So you see, friend, we’re more similar than different really. And that’s something I’m personally trying to focus on more- our similarities, the experiences, the feelings, the behaviors that tie us all together, no matter how different we are on the surface.
And I encourage you to do the same.
Will blaming another person give you the answers you are so desperately seeking? Well, maybe, yes. Only you can truly answer that for yourself. But I want you to ask yourself: How would I feel if I were on the receiving end of my own hatred? What would it look like if I made the harder, but possibly more rewarding decision to be compassionate? How can I respond in a way that benefits tens of thousands of other people rather than just benefitting my single person?
I know change is often slow, and it requires effort, but how can we truly taste the sweetness of love and compassion if we never begin that process? So I encourage you to begin that process today.
There’s so much change that needs to happen in myself as well, so I’m right in that process with ya! But I promise you, it is so worth it!!
I’m always praying for ya!!
xoxo from your fellow human being,
JO <3