My friend said that I should write an article about how to talk to Asian parents about racism.
Across the country, my friends have been talking about heated and very confrontational dinner conversations with parents about racism — in particular my friends of Asian descent. I am not living with my parents right now, but I can imagine how some of these conversations can go, and I would not like being in a situation where my parents said blatantly racist things, either.
The question got me thinking about a lot of the racist things my parents said. The most recent one came about a year ago, when I told them I was moving to Baltimore. They told me to be careful and stay safe because I would be around too many black people. And that’s not even the worse that’s been said — my parents are not unlike any other Asian parents, who say racist things, believe in genetic differences between races, and were frightened when my best friends in middle school were Haitian.
I’ve said it before and will say it again: racism among minorities (call it colorism if you want) can be very, very bad. Ask an older Chinese person about what they think of Japan and the responses will shock you, or about any other race. It’s very common for there to be anti-blackness in the Latinx community, and the preference for light skin within communities of color is indicative of internalized racism. A common scene whenever I went to China was women that used umbrellas in the sun to prevent their skin from being dark.
In a lot of my interactions with my parents that involved conversations about race, I got uncomfortable at things they would say about my black friends or just generally racist things.
My parents believe in the fact that Asians get by on purely hard work, discipline, and a devotion to education. They, like a lot of Asian parents, are confused for why other minorities struggle so much if our family achieved the American dream as a model minority for others to follow. They completely neglect the role of luck and connections in any of their success from moving to America with no money to where they are now.
I knew the racism comes from a place of ignorance rather than hatred, but that didn’t make it okay when they kept making comments — in one instance, we were watching an NBA game, and a family friend’s dad came into the room and then just randomly blurted the n-word out of nowhere.
I was bewildered. The response was instinctual just because he was watching an NBA game, showing a racism among our older generation of Asian parents so internalized it’s the first instinct for someone to say when watching a basketball game.
But in that moment, I said nothing. In a lot of other moments when I heard my parents say racist things, I said nothing, or if it got to be too much, I left the room.
And with the nationwide protests about the death of George Floyd, it’s clear that silence and complicity is no longer an option. To be clear, I don’t want a moral high ground where I don’t acknowledge I’m racist either. I have — because racism isn’t a world where people are either racist or not racist, it’s a continuum where we constantly try to get better, where everyday decisions like where we decide to go to school, where we live, help perpetuate de facto segregation and racism.
However, again, silence in this flashpoint moment of our nation’s history is not an option. When I told my girlfriend, a black woman, I was writing this article, she said it was a good thing. She asked me what I did about my parents’ racism before, and I said that I either walked away or didn’t do anything. I was working on myself and it wasn’t my job to fix other people, and I didn’t really believe in my parents’ ability to change their minds on racism.
However, my girlfriend said that she wouldn’t want to be with someone who didn’t stand up for her, and she couldn’t stomach a world where, as a black woman, my parents didn’t accept her because of her race.
And she’s right.
Talking with Asian parents about race can be really difficult, especially given how rigid they are compared to parents of other races. Trying telling an Asian parent you didn’t want to be a doctor or engineer was hard enough — but calling out your parents’ racism is even harder.
Yesterday, my mom called me. She checked on my health during the pandemic, we had a standard conversation, and then she wanted asked me whether I was joining in on any protests. I told her I wasn’t, and she said it was a good thing that I wasn’t and that she didn’t want me getting into trouble, jeopardizing my career. She referenced NYPD officer, Peter Liang, and his shooting of Akai Gurley in 2015 and how he was mistreated in the case.
I shook my head, but once again, I was silent.
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Well, that phone call, as well as the last few days, are the straws that broke the camel’s back. To effectively talk to Asian parents about racism requires, well, talking about it, and not being silent or ignoring it when you hear racist comments.
It’s hard to change someone’s deeply ingrained beliefs, but what works to some success is letting someone know how it feels when they make racist comments — to me, it would be a sign that my parents wouldn’t accept my girlfriend for who she is and not approve of me loving who I love, or doing what I do as a teacher in an all-black inner-city school, working with mostly black colleagues.
My parents’ association of dark skin with danger is extremely problematic, and I will take no qualms to defend the belief. It was how they were raised, how they wanted to raise me, and they are my parents so I love them, but talking to Asian parents about racism isn’t a means of changing someone’s mind. It’s about starting a conversation and challenging ignorant assumptions.
Sure, it might cause familial strife and a lot of tension between me and my parents, but it’s about making a stance, and at some level, it would be more about me than my parents — and it’s a long road to reconciliation and understanding rather than a lightbulb moment where they suddenly don’t say openly racist things anymore.
At the core of my parents’ and many traditional, conservative Asian parents’ racism is just seeing black people and, well, every other minority as an other. That extends to virtually any other minority besides Chinese people. For a lot of Asian families, it’s the same way. All that matters is the advancement of our family and other Chinese families, but living in America, it’s about much more than that.
I’m reminded of the Chinese store owners in Baltimore that have bulletproof glass windows, of the various times my parents have associated black people with danger, of the times my parents have told me to stop hanging out with my black friends. I love my parents and expect, like my friends have experienced, being called insubordinate or ungrateful for their raising and supporting me.
I don’t really know how to best proceed, but what I do know is that I can’t remain silent much longer. I love my parents — and that’s precisely why I am speaking out.
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Previously published on “Hello, Love”, a Medium publication.
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Photo credit: National Cancer Institute on Unsplash