Asian American MeFite Checkin March 17, 2021 2:47 PM   Subscribe

I never thought i'd be the one making a post like this, but here we are. Asian Americans of MeFi, I wanted to write and check in after the horrible shootings in Atlanta yesterday.

I just wanted to make sure that everyone here has a place to vent if they need to, or random Internet strangers to listen to them if that would help at all. I realize the experience of different groups of people will be very different within the broader experience of what it's like being an Asian in America these days, but this thread is open to everyone. I don't know how active I'll be, I need to work, but it's here and I hope it can help at least a little.

Non-Asian Americans, I'm not going to say don't participate, since I hate feeling like I'm excluding anyone, but please be kind and listen to us.
posted by Alensin to MetaFilter-Related at 2:47 PM (15 comments total) 39 users marked this as a favorite

Thanks for starting this, Alensin. White lady here dropping by to post a link to Mental Wellness Resources compiled last month by the Asian American Journalists Association. This is so fucked. Sending hugs to anyone who needs 'em.
posted by Bella Donna at 3:01 PM on March 17, 2021 [8 favorites]


Thank you, Bella Donna.

I'm tired. I'm not exactly angry, I'm just profoundly drained by all this, because I know something like it was bound to happen eventually, given the racism at the core of Trump's handling of the virus and so forth.

My mom was saying something about how me and some of the rest of the family are safe because we don't look visibly Asian. I'm kind of disgusted by that remark, but it's not worth starting a fight over.

I'm outraged by the idea that anyone is questioning whether this was a hate crime. If this doesn't fit, what does?

This suspect deserves to spend the rest of his life in prison for everything he did, along with all the assholes who enabled him to exist. I know I won't likely see that outcome, but there's got to be justice somewhere.
posted by Alensin at 3:45 PM on March 17, 2021 [20 favorites]


My mom was saying something about how me and some of the rest of the family are safe because we don't look visibly Asian. I'm kind of disgusted by that remark, but it's not worth starting a fight over.

That is heartbreaking on so many levels, Alensin. That you were able to predict this makes it so much worse. I am so sorry that you—that so many—are facing this.
posted by Bella Donna at 4:34 PM on March 17, 2021


Hang in there Alensin, and a big virtual warm cup of coffee from me. I've got friends and family in the US, though none in Atlanta (yet, the only American city my father had ever been to), and so far they're keeping their chin up.
posted by cendawanita at 4:53 PM on March 17, 2021 [1 favorite]


Thanks for this post, Alensin. I'll make a comment here at some point. Still processing right now.
posted by cybercoitus interruptus at 8:04 PM on March 17, 2021 [2 favorites]


Atlanta area resources to support the Asian American community:
https://www.napawf.org/
https://www.advancingjustice-atlanta.org/

Supporting Asian and migrant sex workers:
https://www.redcanarysong.net/
They're based out of NYC but are working with local Atlanta groups.

As far as sharing any feelings and sentiments, MeFi has proven repeatedly that it is not a space that is careful enough to hold space for them.

I will not be sharing them here, not for a gawking audience of non-Asians on a part of the site that sees little to no moderation.
posted by i used to be someone else at 10:40 PM on March 17, 2021 [14 favorites]


Also wanted to thank you for creating this post, Alensin.

It just drained me yesterday--another accumulation of cumulative sadness. Anger at the ignorant directions that The Discourse was taking on Twitter. People hyperfocusing on individual motives instead of looking at global trends. People spinning geopolitical stories for aspects of the problem that are explicitly national(istic). People dissecting and justifying white voices and ignoring or failing to contextualize statements made and taken in Korean. Trying to justify my own feelings and safety in the midst of so many tragedies. Trying and failing to do some work that might, in some indirect way, lead to helping.
posted by pykrete jungle at 6:56 AM on March 18, 2021 [5 favorites]


White lady listening, Alensin. (My sister is half Korean, and lives in a very white and kind of rednecky area. She had Covid, and lost her husband suddenly in December, and now this. I worry, and I am so angry with people in this country that this is another thing she and everyone in the Asian-American community have to deal with.)
posted by gudrun at 7:05 AM on March 18, 2021 [4 favorites]


Thanks Alensin for posting. I'm afraid I don't have anything coherent to say, other than i'm just so tired of having to demonstrate to others how serious this all is. It is tiring to explain to folks that hey, in the miasma of race relations in the US, most folks still aren't cool with Asian people, despite (well-intentioned friend's) anecdotal experience with the Asian person that THEY know.

It just hurts and I am on my last nerve with needing to constantly adjusting my body language, voice, to be yet again, articulate, inoffensive, and unobtrusive in all settings, even when I am feeling what I am feeling right now.

Fuck, I'm now even more worried about going outside without a mask on, and not just for COVID reasons anymore.
posted by thirteenthletter at 9:39 AM on March 18, 2021 [8 favorites]


Yes, thank you for posting, it’s much appreciated. I don’t even really have anything to add, it’s so overwhelming and exhausting. And then it’s especially exhausting when the White People in Our Lives ask for explanations and arguments and say how maybe it’s not a hate crime, we just don’t know.

This incident is such a firestorm that brings up so many issues to dissect, including the fetishization of Asians. Being told what you should and should not be, as the “model immigrant” who is seen as less, told to be thankful for the scraps, blamed for one thing and then another - anger and exhaustion over and over.
posted by umwhat at 1:53 PM on March 18, 2021 [11 favorites]


<3
posted by dismas at 4:26 PM on March 18, 2021


Being told what you should and should not be, as the “model immigrant” who is seen as less, told to be thankful for the scraps, blamed for one thing and then another - anger and exhaustion over and over.

One guy I dated briefly said, "C'mon, being the model minority isn't soooo bad."

I almost punched him in the mouth. Thanks white guy for telling an Asian person what kind of racism we should be okay with.
posted by extramundane at 12:33 PM on March 19, 2021 [28 favorites]


<3 y'all
posted by dismas at 3:35 PM on March 19, 2021


<3
posted by medusa at 3:35 PM on March 19, 2021


I just made a comment on the other post, but I'll say it here too: I'm tired. I don't know what to do with all this.
posted by toastyk at 9:54 PM on March 19, 2021 [1 favorite]


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