anger from a photograph + amy cooper.

Some thoughts about the amy cooper/Christian cooper incident: yes. everything about this makes me mad. many people talked about it - white fragility, white women and the need to own up to their own racism, bad/lack of actual apologies, lack of justice, lack of clarity on what happens moving forward, etc. I collected a lot of articles/opinions about it. i love that there are so many nuanced voices coming forth. this is what also makes me mad: nothing is going to happen to amy cooper's mentality. white people who have been burned like her don't necessarily change their mind. actually, it's pretty unlikely.

post incident - Did amy donate to BLM? Did amy go enroll in a community college to take a sociology class? did amy go and actively examine that she's only friends with a particular set of race(s) and gender(s)?

anyways, a month ago i saw a photo of preschoolers from a school somewhere in west LA county. it was just a photo of smiling preschoolers. that's it. the preschoolers obviously didn't do anything to me. but seeing them triggered me, infuriated me, and i was deeply moody for days. I thought about these kids (that i don't know, mind you!), and i was just simply fuming and obsessing.over and over again. 

my friend (thanks, zack!) helped me realize this - i know why looking at photos of white people make me so upset: based on my research, life experiences, and statistics known, I think i know exactly how they are going to turn out. Sure, sure. not all white people are like this. but that's not the point of this post. Try this story out. I will produce the following assumptions in a story below:

1. I know these preschoolers are in a white only area. the demographics of the town prove this.
2. i know these preschoolers' friends are probably white. they are in the same school, same town.
3. i know these preschoolers' parents are probably white. THE DEMOGRAPHICS OF THE TOWN PROVE THIS.
4. i know these preschoolers' parents' friends are probably white. THE DEMOGRAPHICS OF THE TOWN PROVE THIS.
5. White peoples' social networks on average are 91% white. this solidifies assumption #4. This has been studied (Credit: MTV Film - WHite people, jose antonio vargas)
6. White people are the most segregated racial group (yes, they beat natives, who they physically put in reservations. yes, they beat bPOCs, who were redlined) in america. in fact, 77% of white people live in white only communities.
   1. don't tell me you live in a diverse area, largely because very few people actually do. even i live quite literally on the white side of the street in my own neighborhood, which is one of the most racially and socioeconomically diverse neighborhoods in the entire county. if i can talk about my life in segregation, you can too. calm down. it will be fine.
7. This town is largely college educated. look up the local high school stats and you know where kids end up going. I know many will go to top 30 colleges/universities, which are majority white. i know many will benefit from legacy, which has proven to benefit white people. they will move from growing up in a white town and then moving to a white college and think that's what it means to "make it".
8. these elite colleges generate types of people: mainly white collar industries, mainly industries with majority white people.
   1. do not even begin to tell me that tech is diverse. much of tech is in a majority asian american county, but most leadership is white and it has been researched. Tech is also REALLY good at not recruiting 1st gen. college goers, which excludes black and latinx folks. 
   2. There is segregation within that white college. I remember realizing this my junior year in college and feeling really gross.
   3. they may even join a frat, or sorority. that's the thing to do, right?
9. They will then move into their white jobs: consulting, politics, law, maybe acting, or some other elite thing that we seem to value that upholds whiteness. now these preschoolers have moved from white preschool, white neighborhood, to white college, to white jobs. they have not known that they have been swimming in a sea of white. you notice you are in a sea of white the moment you are not in a sea of white, and this moment has yet to happen.
10. they don't even realize they are choosing white neighborhoods. they are just choosing "safety", "what's good for their kids", "what is close to work", etc. there are so many reasons coded in race. i argue we haven't even scraped the tip of the iceberg on coded racism, but i'll save that for another post. 
11. they're going to choose that white neighborhood. and they will make fun of people like me.
    1. i still feel pain from my 1st grade friend who didn't like that i spoke mandarin in front of her, only to find out 2 weeks later that speaking mandarin was banned at school.
    2. i still feel pain from 2nd grade, when my lunch wasn't as cool as other lunches (i lived in an asian am. city and still felt the lunchbox moment, mind you).
    3. i still remember telling my mom in 3rd grade that "we only speak english in this house now" and  telling her to "fix her accent" and criticizing her for not "trying hard enough". i'm not white, but i placed whiteness on her.
    4. i remember my high school teachers telling the whole class how bad our parents were. in fact, some of my white HS teachers now live in PREDOMINANTLY white towns once they had kids.
    5. i still remember my high school best friend telling me that sweet beans were weird and very much did not enjoy the chinese grocery store i once took her to. btw, she has since apologized and we are close friends. 
    6. i feel pain not because i'm wallowing in self pity. i feel pain because these white people have never known that they needed to apologize. and i may not ever get that apology. sorry means a lot to me.
    7. I am AANHPI. I have conditional whiteness. think of how it is for soooooo many non-white people for a hot second here.
    8. their kids will make fun of BIPOC kids. and they will not be shunned for doing so. they will continue to live their lives.
12. They will feel racial tension - someone may call them out on social media, someone will tell them not to say that microaggression, maybe something inappropriate happened at work, etc. but nothing will happen. they won't change the way they raised their kids. they won't move out of their white only neighborhood. they won't fight for equal and transparent pay. they won't donate to a cause immediately post-microaggression. white fragility ensues. their kids see that white fragility and imitate it. they continue to live their lives.
13. ​THE IRONY OF ALL OF THIS? THESE WHITE KIDS MAKING FUN OF MY FOOD back IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL ARE THE SAME DEMOGRAPHIC OF WHITE PEOPLE THAT NOW PAY $17 FOR MY PEOPLE'S GARLIC BEAN SPROUTS. I GO INTO TAIWANESE RESTAURANTS now AND BLACK OUT FOR A MOMENT FROM UNRESOLVED RAGE.

i see white people. i see amy cooper. i see tiny white children. and i see their entire world unfolding. I think i know how they will turn out. i see their 60-80 years of their lives ahead of them just as i outlined above. and it makes me so, so, so, despondent.

i pour my heart and soul into my work because i chose to, into hoping that the legacy of ethnic studies is not lost. but seeing these white people makes me feel like my work is unraveling - and someone is pulling the string. and the person pulling the string is a white preschooler.