Thoughts

In the recent news of hate crimes towards Asian Americans and women... the recent shooting at the Atlanta massage saloon and Sarah Everard murder...

As an Asian American woman, it makes me shudder. It makes me frustrated. An increase in the number of lives being lost mirrors the increase in misogynistic and racial attacks.

But it's not like this hatred is just being evoked, it has resided in the bottom of our American society, rooted itself in another broken shard of American hope.

It's horrifying to see Asian elders attacked. What have they done? They walk the streets of downtown San Francisco, New York City, unprovoked, yet tangled in the mess of racially charged America. In them, I see my own grandparents visiting the United States, walking down the streets of Michigan because they are unable to drive. Violence towards Asian Americans have been exacerbated by the blaming of Covid-19 on Asians. It seems like every step we take to accept all races and genders, the more steps we take backwards. As a Chinese American, it hurts that we are targets of spreading COVID-19. I see it in the Youtube and Instagram comments: “You eat bats.”

I’m afraid when I walk into a store; I’m worried that someone will hurl a racially charged sentence at me or my parents. And it's not like I haven’t heard it before. 

It’s horrifying to witness the misogyny present in our society. When we analyzed our poetry panel on Munich Mannequins this past week, someone asked us if women are still silenced. It’s sad to see that after so many years Munich Mannequins has been written, we still struggle with the same issues, the same things Plath foreshadowed. We still live in a society that perpetuates sexualization and fallacies against women, lessens the logic of what we say, the places we walk, the voices unheard.

So how do we fight back?