In the never-ending year of Covid, the sheer number of bad things about America that have surfaced is unbelievable. From toilet paper hoarding, to executions of Black people by police, White Supremacists, anti-maskers, anti-vaxxers, all the way to outright seditionists, we have shown the world exactly what our darkside looks like. And throughout it all, the specter of anti-Asian hate has permeated the entire period and hit a low point when a gunman killed six Asian women in Georgia. A crime for which the original police spokesperson seemed to excuse by saying the (white) man had been having a bad day because to this policeman, a bad day obviously results in going to three different Asian-themed businesses to kill people. Not only did we have a racists hate-crime, but got a twofer with a racist cop who defended the actions.

I’ve never been comfortable with using the word race to define a person and I’m sure that has to do with not neatly fitting into a box. There was never a checkbox for mixed when I was growing up and even if there were, what mix were they be referring to? Are all mixed people the same? Moreover, why do they even care? Is there some kind of prize? Over the years, it has become something of a joke to me and I will check White sometimes and Asian another just to screw with them. It’s an arbitrary term so I treat it accordingly. When I was getting my Covid vaccinations, they asked for my ethnicity and I understand that they want to know so that they can track the effects because drugs can work differently on people with different base genetics. Answering these questions neither confused nor offended me because there is a good reason and the information is being used to help others.

The problem with the word race is that it is used generically to delineate and differentiate people who are non-White so that they can be excluded. Then, once you determine who isn’t White, you need to know exactly what kind of unwhite they are which I guess allows them to console each other as they are grouped in their unwhiteness. As you can imagine, this causes massive confusion for me since I never seem to know which group I should be included in. Is it desirable today to be White or is this one of those situations where there’s a minority bonus?  You might not understand this, but in Hawaii, there are many times when it is an advantage to be Asian. The problem is that you can never know when.

Over the years, I’ve grown comfortable in my unstable position and given the demographics of Hawaii, it isn’t hard to codeswitch even if only for the sake of comfort and not professional advancement. It’s the product of a survival instinct that grows over time in an environment where the ground is constantly shifting. You realize that you get a better reception when you use particular words and behave a certain way depending on whether you are with friends, co-workers, strangers, or even family; that it’s more productive to use a simpler vocabulary and not correct grammar with people you don’t know well. I suppose some might consider this equivocation or even condescension, but it’s a survival skill I’ve cultivated. For example, I never use pidgin, but I’m unlikely to inadvertently insult someone by misunderstanding them.

Asian people have been slurred, threatened, attacked, and now killed based on how they look and in this epidemic of hate, I am faced with the dilemma of how to react. It’s awful, and the idea that people are being killed just because of their race makes me angry beyond words but no more angry than when I see any POC attacked or killed by racist perpetrators. I don’t have a switch that flips immediately, when someone who might look like me or a relative is hurt, that triggers some hyperdrive emotional response. The only problem here is that people shouldn’t be doing these things to other people who don’t look like them, period.

So I ask myself, is it OK not to be Asian today? Can I please ignore the pleading of Asian celebrities, intellectuals, and politicians who want me to step up and support the race they want me to belong to? Is it all right to lump together all the horrors of the last year and say out loud that no matter what the color of your skin is, if you’re suffering because of prejudice and oppression by the majority, you are my brother or sister? Can we stop pretending that there is some magical bond that binds people together because of the accident of their birth and not the empathy in their hearts for justice in the world? If there isn’t, how can we, in any sincere way, ask a person of a different race to join us in banding together to speak up, speak out, and fight injustice? Now is the time to put the petty squabbling of ethnic grievances aside and realize that an attack on one minority is an attack on all. And, that if we truly want a better world, we have to build our alliance one person at a time, include everyone who wants to participate, and form a majority that stands for something other than the continuation of privilege.