Not Exotic, Just Exhausted

I’ve had plenty of bad days, but I don’t ever project my pain or think about hurting anyone on those days. Guess it’s just another day in AmeriKKKa. Even though this is our home, I sometimes look at my mother (a 75-year-old Vietnamese woman who fled the war for a better life), and wonder what it would be like for us to “go back to where we came from.”

The media refuses to call what happened in Atlanta what it actually is — a mass shooting hate crime committed by a white terrorist who killed 8 people, 6 of whom were Asian women. Women who look like they could be my mother, aunties, sisters, or even me.

Words matter.

Framing matters.

Asian lives matter.

Sex workers matter.

We’ve been forced to hear that cop casually sum things up to the shooter having a “bad day.” He has a “sex addiction,” so his solution to “eliminating his temptations” was to terminate human lives. Only a racist, misogynistic white man with an Asian fetish who goes on a violent shooting spree targeting Asian massage parlors murdering 8 people could get humanized in such a tragedy.

Let’s talk about white supremacy and misogyny. This world is built for white people, especially cisgender heterosexual white men. That’s probably why I harbor a healthy amount of unexpressed anger and resentment toward them. It also stems from my own self-loathing guilt and shame for allowing the naïveté in me to be objectified, fetishized, and gaslit by white men in the past. My younger self was manipulated into thinking their lust made me feel seen, desired and believed to be special as if the white male gaze is the highest form of flattery that validates my beauty and existence in this world. In reality, I might have just been a temporary side dish to fulfill their craving, a taste for their “exotic” fantasies. My true self has always fantasized about dismantling the imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy, yet I allowed them to colonize my desires.

The countless number of times I have called out the caucasity in something only to get responses of shock, disbelief, or denial… this disconnection is so bypassing and reeks of privilege. The only way to fight against something is to recognize that it is happening and acknowledge that it’s a problem. You’re not a feminist or an ally to marginalized communities if you use the “not all blah blah blah” rhetoric either. You “can’t believe” that racism exists? That people of color are getting abused or slaughtered? Save it.

I am grieving for the fallen angels whose time on earth has been cut short by the darkest side of humanity, my elders beat into the ground, and my ancestors for what they have fought for and sacrificed for me to be here. Sometimes, I feel like I’m doing the work to heal my entire lineage that did not know how while carrying the burden of all my intergenerational trauma along with decades of their repression.

I’m also fucking triggered by recounting my own past experiences. Not going to write an essay on all the racist remarks, micro-aggressions, ways I’ve been fetishized, dehumanized, and reduced to a sexual or domestic object, times I’ve been harassed and followed by men (especially backpacking through Europe alone), felt unsafe in my surroundings, gaslit by people I loved and trusted. No, I’ll spare the details because it’s too much emotional and intellectual labor.

It’s heartbreaking and frustrating to see everyone around us still carrying on, business as usual. Sorry, a massacre is such a vibe killer, but are we not even worth the performative allyship? I guess that’s how privilege works. Almost all the people I see sharing this are my people. It feels like we’re screaming into a void. My AAPI community is literally dying to be heard.

Follow more Asian-American activists, artists, and creators, and repost their work. Stop Asian Hate is a great place to start. Teach Asian-American history because it’s a part of our history. Educate yourself on the model minority myth and more. Share our stories. Support our businesses. Compensate us for the valuable work we do. Amplify our voices. Donate to our causes if you have the means, but you don’t even have to drop a penny to show up for us. There are so many ways to show support and solidarity that don’t cost a thing.

Fuck the model minority myth.

Fuck your fetish.

I am not exotic.

I am exhausted.