Pre-Vacation Update and Moderate Rant

I had an extremely busy weekend. My cousin was in town, an old friend is also here, plus we created a new bed in the backyard garden. I'll have some interesting garden pictures later.

I've also been kind of down about racial issues lately.

The first thing my cousin said when she saw my mother and me was how glad she was now that she wasn't around racists anymore. She's a salesperson in a very male-dominated industry and has been traveling around the Southeast dealing with clients. For the last several days, she was in intense negotiations with an important customer who also happened to be a particularly nasty racist. He's from the North, but as soon as he heard her Southern accent, he just unloaded. He used the n-word. At dinner, he harassed their waiter for being Cuban. She kept looking away and/or deflecting. Then on the last day, as they were walking down the street, he saw a black man walking hand-in-hand with a white woman. He said "I don't understand that. I have a 15-year-old daughter, and I told her if she ever brought a ***** home I'd take my shotgun and shoot both of them. I'm sure you were raised the same way." My cousin said "As a matter of fact I was NOT and I really disagree with that."

I was listening to the story with a lot of unease. I didn't even want to hear it, actually. But my cousin obviously wanted to get it off her chest. It made me feel horrible. First of all, I felt mad at her for not saying more, for not challenging it more strongly for those three entire days. But it also made me think about my own work experiences as a waitress. I put up with a lot of racist crap. Some of it was directed against me and some against other races. Sometimes I could challenge it and sometimes I just had to eat it up so I could get that cash at the end of the night.

I'm so glad I don't have to deal with it anymore. I've built a life where I'm very sheltered against it. But that story, and other episodes I've also blogged about here, reminds me that I probably come into contact with a lot of people that hold racist beliefs. They don't say anything to me both because a) I'm not white and b) I'm not in an economically subservient position. But they use that racist stuff to socialize with other white people and do that good ol' boy networking. So I guess I'm luckier than both non-racist white people and black people. Somehow I don't feel lucky.

Plus, I remember back in the 1980s when East Asians were hated like crazy; right now the general public is too busy hating Arab- and Mexican-Americans to think about East Asians, but it could flip right back again quite easily.

Hearing media accounts of racism has been getting me down more than usual lately. Black kids beating up an Asian girl. Latino gangs killing black people. A Native American army recruiter viciously insulting a black person who fights back with yet another stereotype. I'll stop while I'm ahead, but you get the point. I'm irritated not just with white people but pretty much every other group in America, including other Asian-Americans who think if they're nice and quiet and don't rock the boat everything will get better, except it never does.

Damn, I sure need this vacation! I'll force myself to have zero computer access.

If I get any more misanthropic, I'll turn into my dad. By the way, he's still doing very well, and is now back to taking the subway all over Tokyo.