Giving Up

The other day I drove home from a tennis match, reflecting on the racist comment one of my Asian American acquaintances made. I texted him how I felt about it and he apologized, though I still felt annoyed and hurt. This incident made me reflect on all the Asian American men I have met with internalized racism and how much it deflated their self-esteem. I’m not generalizing Asian American men – I know some who are self-aware, healthy, and confident – though in that moment in the car my acquaintance’s statement pulled my focus away from those folks and more toward those who struggle with their racial identity. The psychic pain escalated to the point where I thought: wow, it would feel easier if I were just not alive right now.

I didn’t have any active intent or plan to kill myself.

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My House in the Hamptons, My Trips Around the World

When I moved to Boston last year, I joined the Facebook group “Subtle Asian Boston” and saw this post:

I felt annoyed when I saw this. Tall white boys??

It Just Is

A couple of weeks ago a white supremacist, amatonormative Incident™ happened and it stressed me the heck out. I don’t want to go into the specifics of the Incident™, though I will share that it made me feel dejected, weary of my relational boundaries, and somewhat hopeless. Ugh, I can’t believe I worked so hard to get a tenure-track job, got the tenure-track job, got a part-time job on top of the tenure-track job, and then life still smacked in the face with this bs, I thought to myself. Who knew you can’t girlboss/nonbinaryboss your way out of systems of oppression??

To eschew self-destructive and unhealthful coping, I practiced these three strategies:

Weak

The article about Mindy Kaling’s obsession with white men triggered my depressive feelings. Not at first – the day before I read it, thought to myself, yeah, great points, and retweeted it and went about my night. The next day, though, I noticed more emotions of dread and frustration creeping up. Against my will I started thinking about messages I’ve received about my desirability as an Asian American nonbinary/male-adjacent person and other experiences of racism in my life.

It’s easy for me to acknowledge the anti-Asian racism I’ve faced in my life.

You and Your Pale East Asian Ex-Boyfriends

The femmephobic guy I mentioned in my most recent post also told me that he found me unattractive because of internalized colorism. “all my past relationships were with pale skinned east Asian guys rip” he texted me. He shared that he did not have a specific plan to work through his internalized colorist sexual preferences.

I first felt a surge of anger.

I Didn’t Choose This

A few days ago, I started to cry on my daily jog while listening to “Feel Special” by Twice. I had been thinking about someone I know facing a ton of racism in their life, obstacles that no one should have to go through. The lack of control this person experienced in relation to racism made me think about unfair situations in my own life, in particular growing up with my abusive mom as well as my attraction to men. I didn’t choose either of these things, I thought to myself while jogging in circles around the big lake near my apartment, tears falling as dance pop flowed from my earpods. Running around in nature while processing my feelings felt healthy and cathartic.

Sometimes I think other people feel more uncomfortable talking about my abusive mom than I do.

Research

Several months ago, I asked my best friend Bri if wanting to do research made me a bad person. Sometimes I minimize the trauma I have experienced in academia, and Bri reminded me of our conversation from several months ago as an example of how academia has affected me. The fact that I even asked that question aloud highlights the breadth of heinous events I have witnessed in my academic career so far.

To provide a non-exhaustive list of some of the shit I have been through in academia:

Are White Men More Confident and Dateable than Asian Men? AKA, I Hate White Supremacy

A few months ago, I talked with one of my good friends L about a disturbing phenomenon we observe in the Asian American community: Asian Americans who prefer to date white people. While texting her about this issue, I encountered this video about Asian American women who talk about their preference for dating white men. I felt so disturbed watching this video because it reminded me of queer Asian men I know who prefer dating white guys over Black, Indigenous, and other men of color (BIMOC). While this whole video reeked of internalized racism and anti-Black racism, one comment that annoyed me in particular: the notion that white men are “more confident” than Asian men.

I despise the notion of white men being “more confident” than Asian men because that idea so often fails to take into account the effects of white privilege and racism.

Black Lives Matter

Hi everyone! This isn’t one of my usual posts. I’m gonna keep it short and not say much about me. I always joke that no one reads this blog, but just in case someone is, I’m here to say that Black lives matter, and we should all take action to show it.

This letter an acquaintance of mine posted on Facebook speaks to the importance of Asians and Asian Americans showing up for Black Lives Matter. There’s a solid list of tangible actions at the bottom of the article if you want to skip to that. As written in the article, we Asian Americans often side with whiteness and white people over Black people and we need to cut that shit out.

Here’s a quick Twitter thread with 10 steps to non-optical allyship, and here’s a list of books you can read to learn about being anti-racist. Please feel free to comment with additional actions and resources, or reactions. Until next post.

Dominate Me

I turn 25 in a couple of weeks so I have spent time reflecting on my growth as a person, including my sexual identity and romantic attraction to men. While I have unsurprisingly not yet met a man I want to date, I have learned something about the guys I’m generally into: I’m turned on by guys who can dominate me. In other words, I’m a bottom.

It feels weird to out myself as a bottom on the internet, though it feels weirder to claim that identity given the stigma I’ve internalized about it, especially as a gay Asian man.