“How are you”, colleagues, journalists I speak with for my advocacy work around garment worker rights, caring neighbors, have all asked me this week.
“Covid-good, I guess”, I respond, trying to stay upbeat. “I mean you know the kids are in and out of school, running a nonprofit during a pandemic is a challenge in itself especially as garment workers face the biggest humanitarian crisis of their lives”.
It takes me a moment to realize that my answer is not satisfactory.
“No”, they whisper conspiratorially. “How are YOU? You know with all the AAPI violence?”
I realize what they want to know is how I am personally coping with the terrible news of 6 women being gunned down in Atlanta. I am obviously heart broken and horrified. As I am about the Boulder, Colorado shootings.
But how am I coping as an “AAPI” member is a weird question. Look, I am Pakistani-American. I spent half my life in Karachi, the other half in San Francisco. People often think I am Persian.
After 9/11 and Bush invading Iraq, my life as an American immigrant changed. Suddenly I had the dreaded SSSS on my boarding passes. I was taken into special rooms for questioning every time I flew. My brother was unable to join me for University because Muslim men were banned from entering the US. I had the FBI literally call my cell phone and insist I meet them, only because I am a Muslim. I had strangers on planes ask me if I hated America. This was before the “woke” outrage era. I felt scared and alone. A lot of those emotions of being othered during G.W Bush’s Presidency came rushing back during Trump’s Muslim ban. But when people wore “safety pins” to signal they were safe people to talk to during the Muslim ban, that was kinda weird?
But in the context of what is happening to so many of my beloved friends in the Bay Area — who are of Chinese, Taiwanese, Korean, Filipino and even of Japanese descent — being told to go home, or that they brought the “Chinese virus” or being afraid to be out on the streets. How does that impact me? Well, I feel terrible that Trump and Fox’s parroted racism has caused this uptick of violence against fellow Americans. But let me be clear. I don’t personally feel unsafe because I don’t “look the part” even though I have to check “AAPI” on my census form.
This reminds me of when my best friend, a Black woman from Tennessee, suddenly started to hear from people she barely knew during the height of the George Floyd protests, about how she was.
Do well intentioned liberal friends feel like their job is done, because you checked in with anyone Black last summer, ordered a bunch of anti-racism books and are now reaching out to the “AAPI” community this week? Do you feel better because you posted on Instagram and Facebook about stopping AAPI hate and are now ready to move on to the next outrage?
As someone who has fought for the rights of garment workers, the mostly Asian women who make our fashion around the world, for some 15 years, I am deeply entrenched and rooted in the community I serve. For fashion brands coming out against AAPI hate, when they make clothes in Myanmar, Cambodia and China, on the backs of Asian women who are currently fighting wage theft, gender based and State sponsored violence, I see you, and we won’t let you get away with your performative antics. That is a conversation I can have with you.
But please understand that these labels in the United States are just that. Made up labels. Recently I enjoyed an Atlantic podcast discussing how Latinos Are a Huge, Diverse Group. Why Are They Lumped Together?. The terms Hispanic and Latino were basically made up. No wonder the Cubans in Florida voted so differently to the Mexican-Americans in Los Angeles, this past election.
For the Black community, racism, police violence, the unfair criminal justice system is not new news. We can’t just show a bit of outrage every decade — with the Rodney King beatings, then during the George Floyd murder and move on. Dekrek Chauvin’s murder trial just started. We need to stay focused, to be true allies in solidarity with #BlackLivesMatter.
In the same way, please don’t reach out to anyone “AAPI”. I may fall under that US census box term, but it would be really disingenuous for me to take up air around what happened in Atlanta and the wave of violence people are facing.
If we are to truly do the work to dismantle the systems of colonization, racism, the evils of unchecked capitalism, of all the ways that we are othered and increasingly more unequal, we must first do the work to understand what true solidarity looks like. Honestly I feel tired by all the faux outrage online. So please don’t ask me how I am. It is not helpful.
