Microaggression: “Where are you from, again?” #StopAsianHate
Friends TV series is one of the historically important series that most non-English speakers watch to learn English, but also this series teaches lots of stereotypes. When Rachel meets Julie for the first time, she freaks out and says loudly and clearly, “Welcome to OUR country”. After a passive-aggressive smile, Julie replies in a loud and clear voice: “Thank you, I am from NEW YORK”. Rachel’s approach is an example of a microaggression.
Wikipedia cited the definition of microaggression as “brief, everyday exchanges that send denigrating messages to certain individuals because of their group membership”. Microaggression has many faces; sometimes it is unintentional; you say it, you don’t mean it. It hurts anyway.
- “Welcome to OUR country” MEANS it is not YOUR country; you are a foreigner, a guest who should go back home. Instead, you can say welcome to your country or welcome home.
- “Wow, you speak English fluently … no accent at all”… “you have a nice accent; where are you from”… “Sorry, where are you from?”… “I mean originally?”… “Even your parents are from here?”… “How about your grandparents?”… “You must give me something because you definitely look like … you have the … genes”… “But, you don’t look like one of them”… “Do you miss home?”… “When will you go home?” MEANS: You are not/cannot be one of us; you are not welcome; you are one of them with default characteristics set by media in my lazy brain; you are a foreigner [just like every other human on earth]; go home! If you are not an immigration officer or a language examiner, asking about where people are from or commenting on their language skills is NOT your business, and it is against the law (GDPR) to ask and hold such information without their consent. Swallow your microaggression and nosiness, and don’t call it curiosity. If they declare such information themselves after trusting that you are not judgemental, it is OK.
- “I always wanted to marry one of you; quiet and obedient”… “enter dragon”… “yo … tiger”… “cherry blossom”… “is it true about the size of your …” MEANS I am sexually harassing you offending not only you but also your culture and its symbols because my lazy brain accepts whatever media says; thinking is too hard for me I prefer for the media to think on my behalf; I prefer to stay stupid.
- “You don’t participate in class as much as the others” MEANS you must behave like dictated by our noisy western culture and forget about a calm and meditational culture that values a silent mouth and a thinking brain over a talking mouth and a silent brain.
- “You must be a good cook; you must invite us and cook for us” MEANS just like Hollywood movies, we love Chinese food and China=Food, and because you are Asian, you MUST be a cook because this is the only thing that you people do in my country and you are good at. I mean whole media has brainwashed me for decades, so it is true. You are here to serve us.
Media is the problem and the solution.
Friends is one of many examples. Think of the man who was torturing Michael Scofield in Prison Break before the madam president stopped him. Who were the drug dealers who were implanting the drugs inside Scarlett Johansson in Lucy? The USA’s enmity with Russia and China runs deeps in Hollywood’s blood. Netflix tries harder to change this with The Queen’s Gambit for a start. Crash also was another good movie demonstrating some of the unfair prejudices against American ethnic groups. Demonising and repeating the microaggression and assigning cultural and occupational roles based on Nationality should stop. We can stop it by not watching, watching and leaving fair but critical reviews or not recommending such movies.
This is a familiar story for all those who have been under-represented in media and news. The media knows exactly what it does. Those who sponsor the movies benefit from such representation of minorities in movies. Making a few rapid movies and shoving a few minorities as superstar until people forget and neutralise will not solve the problem. It needs decades of practice to clean the dirt that the media has left behind. Fortunately, now everyone is a medium.
Our brains are lazy
Rabbits are smart; it is just easy to have one word to describe everything, then you don’t have to think because unbiased thinking is the hardest thing for every human being; that’s why we have so many who find it easier to pull the trigger and kill someone than think. The human’s brain loves laziness; look at all the inventions and technologies around us to make life easy and comfortable. It is the same in our communications with people; the brain likes binary things, good and bad, yes and no, good people and bad people. We hate memorising the ‘definitions’ from science class; we prefer one word to describe things and people: rabbit=smart, pig=horny, and so on. These stereotypes are so deep that eradicating them may take a longer time than you think; when you hear Brazil, your brain says Football; when you hear WWII, your brain says Nazism; France=Paris; Paris=Romance; Yemen=War; … What your brain says or shows you when you say Asian? Whatever it is, the assignment of one character to ALL people from a particular group is simply wrong because you have never had the chance to see or investigate or survey ALL of them, let alone knowing them.
Asia: from geography to geopolitics — binary thinking continues.
Your geography is not bad; you already know that India, Russian, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Turkey, Syria, Palestine, Israel, and Yemen are among over 50 countries in Asia. They are all Asians. However, when people speak of Asian and American, they are not talking about Syrians or Brazilians. It is not just you; if you are applying for jobs, the application forms ask about your ethnicity, they also use such confusing and unfair classification. I always have to put ‘Mixed-Others’.
Geopolitics has confused many and brainwashed people into wrong ways of simplifications. For example, the Middle East and EU are geopolitical descriptions that you hear a lot in the news. Many think that the Middle East or the EU are continents; In reality, most of the Middle East is in Asia, and Middle Eastern people are mostly Asians. Most of the Arabic-speaking countries are also in Asia. But you keep thinking of Chinese people as the only Asians and the USA residents as only Americans. It is binary thinking forced over decades by media. So you abbreviate over 100 countries into two words: Asian and American. So, when we talk about Asian-Americans, we are talking about people who are originally from these 100 countries.
What if I broadcast better news for your lazy brain? Stop being binary; if you really want to help your lazy brain simplify things, why not say all of us are Humans? Just one category! Of course, then the wars will end, all countries will develop at peace, and the west’s economy may not be able to compete; then it will be westerners’ turn to immigrate. We keep mentioning Nationality, race and religion to make sure there are groups of people to divide and rule. Without such groups, microaggression will not work.
Nationality is not a protected characteristic.
We barely need to mention Nationality, race, origin, or religion in our daily conversations, but we insist on referring to people with such characteristics. Recently, I read in Abused Academics that, unlike age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, the Nationality is not the protected characteristic, so people frequently abuse Nationality to offend people intentionally or unintentionally. For example, this book mentions how the top universities in English-speaking countries treat international students as cash cows or academic tourists and charge them double or triple the tuition fee of home students. Politicians invest billions to keep you proud of things that you never selected. You are assigned at birth with your Nationality; that’s how you become a soldier and die for your country — because the country kept you safe and told you it is heroic — or pay tax to the government of one country — because they pay for your education and health — or bring more children to keep the workers-pensioners balance — so that God forbid the country does not have to accept more immigrant workers to keep the economy going!
Since nationality is not a protected characteristic, revealing your nationality in a foreign land makes you vulnerable and unprotected. The next time someone asks where are you from, you don’t have to answer. If they look at you as human, they would never ask that because there are millions of questions you would ask a human; they ask it because they look at you as a foreigner and that is the first question you would ask a foreigner.
Bruce Lee
He probably tried to set an example. The next time you see people from over 50 Asian countries, remember they work hard, practice, take honour seriously, speak less, think more, have a philosophy to follow, and get what they want. They hate bullying, patronising, and intimidating behaviour, and they succeed. You can choose to succeed with them and help them, and yourself succeed. The more we integrate culturally, and the more we respect all as human, the fewer wars the world will see, and the fewer hate crimes will happen.
Human is grey
Communicating a human, be like a human. Looking at people, see humanity, enjoy the diversity of flowers around you before we all die. While unbiased continuous thinking and updating our beliefs is probably the most challenging responsibility of every human being, we do not put enough efforts to fight back our lazy brain.
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