My heart breaks at 1:44.
This week I've been thinking about how to appropriately be a voice in support of erasing racism. I care for many causes but most strongly about human rights (a topic for another time). IMO racism is part of the wider human rights domain. While all lives matter, now is the time to focus on Black Lives Matter. Why? Because racism has long been in our lives, to all POC, major or minor racist behaviors. Now more than ever the lives and human dignity of the African Americans are in danger. I believe through advocating for them now, other causes (e.g. gender equality, LGBT, human rights) will as well benefit from its awareness and progress. All men and women should be treated equal. With way less racism weight on my shoulder than on the African-ethnic people, I hope sharing my own experiences as a normal Asian person can provide some perspective on this subject and support the movement we're seeing today. Racism is not just in the US. It's in all countries. Here in Switzerland, too.
As an Asian POC in the middle of the skin color spectrum, sometimes I receive racism treatment from both ends. Most of my non-Asian friends and people I encounter treat me fine - as in, I feel equal and respected. Most of the time I mind my own business and avoid causing problems/scense in any situation, subconsciously with the idea of trying to be safe at all times - also partially because afraid of leaving records that would jeopardize my visa, given I've lived as an expat in the US, Ireland, and Switzerland for 9 years.
I consider myself normal as any other person, I'm content with where I am in the society, and I'm grateful to where life has led me and the people I surround myself with. Putting aside the experiences with people who I know, I'd say experiences with strangers/people who I don't know can best encapsulate the racism treatments, because one's literally deciding how to interact with this person purely based on appearances, i.e. race, gender, language, outfit, etc. And in these situation, I don't want to victimize myself as in a stereo-type racism situ right away, so I always wonder: what if I was a man or a Caucasian, what if I was with a male companion, what if I spoke better English, what if I spoke French - would I have experienced what just happened to me?
So what happened? Below are some disturbing ones.
- the middle-age Caucasian woman in Lavaux
- the African-ethnic teenager who stoned my forehead, in Lausanne
- my previous apartment concierge, a middle-age Caucasian woman, in Lausanne
- the middle-age Caucasian man on Aer Lingus flight from Geneva to Dublin
- the young Irish security check woman at Dublin Airport who took my slow response, at 5am, as a hesitated yes, to her question "any weapons in your luggage?"
- the young/middle age Caucasian/Hispanic cleaning woman in the building next to my previous apartment who prevented me depositing a properly bagged trash, in Lausanne
- the Irish taxi driver, my 1st encounter in Ireland, who scammed me, in cash, double the price of normal fare from Dublin Airport. I was with 2 large suitcases, he didn't help me load them in to the car.
- the African-American man who hit a Caucasian man whose head then smashed the back of my head on a NYC subway
1.
In mid-March in Lavaux, Vaud, Switzerland, a time when China and Italy were heavily hit by coronavirus, and just before the Swiss government announced nationwide quarantine.
My Caucasian friends and I walked up some stairs by the vineyard. Two walked in front of me with a dog and two behind me. There was huge gap between each of us as we were tired so the total distance from the 1st person to the last person was about 10-15 meters. The stairs were about 1 meter in width, enough for 2 people to pass by with space inbetween.
A middle/elder-age Caucasian couple (man at front) walked down the stairs toward us from the opposite direction. The woman raised her jacket as a cover against me as she passed by me, only me, not before me, and not after me.
I should have called her out and saying "I'm not coronavirus" or something at her, but anything I said would sound stupid and make a scene, which I tried to avoid in any situation, plus she might not understand English. I just discussed with my friends what happened.
2.
It was after I landed from Geneva Airport back to Lausanne Gare seeing a Caucasian man helping a Caucasian mother getting off the train with a stroller that I thought how nice and friendly Lausanne is to live and to raise a family.
And then, as I walked home via an ally along the railway, someone stoned my way. Given it was evening, I didn't have sunglasses on and originally thought the stones were some insects, until a 4-cm big stone hit my forehead, which immediately swelled in a 5-cm-ish circle. It would have hit my eye in 1 degree away.
There were some African-ethnic teenagers giggling behind two windows in an apartment building. One of them threw the stones at me, for no reason, just for fun. I dragged my luggage and confronted one of the teenagers at the window. He kept saying in French it wasn't him. I waited at the gate, a Caucasian guy came out, I explained, he said "I can let you in if you'd like to find them, but don't get me involved." So I called the police.
The police went checking the house while taking my information. They proposed 2 possible solutions: 1) they will take the teenagers to court and they may get community service as penalty, but I'd need to be followed up and hence leave a record, or 2) they just went checking on the teenagers as a warning. Ofc I didn't want any issue for myself or any court records for the teenagers. It was about to pour so they asked me to go home. I didn’t hear from them since. Again, what if I was male/Caucasian?
3.
One or two weeks after I moved in to a previous apartment in Lausanne, I didn't fully cleaned up the air bubbles in one of the cardboard boxes before throwing them away in my apartment's trash collection carts. On the next day, 3 things appeared in front of my apartment door: 1) the cardboard box with my recipient label, 2) a car tire (not mine), 3) a toilet seat (not mine), and a note from my middle-age Caucasian concierge woman.
The note said I shouldn't dispose the air bubbles in the paper cart, and that there are trash regulations in Switzerland blah blah. Ofc I did all I could, I went to her, I called/emailed the management company, I called my lease agent, etc.
They remained there for more than one month.
These tire and toilet seat may belong to my neighbors who passed by my door or to anyone who threw them in my building's trash carts which were accessible to all.
One night I kept thinking about the what ifs: what if I was male/Caucasian and/or I spoke fluent French, would this woman treat me like this? Then I went to confront her that night. In 5 minutes, she came up and removed these things.
4.
When I boarded my Aer Lingus flight, the overhead luggage cabins near my seat around row 12 were full, except a space occupied by a plastic bag of the size of a laptop. A middle-age Caucasian couple sat in a 3-seat row: man at window seat, woman in the middle, behind this cabin I was cheking at. There was a full queue behind me.
The couple were looking at me as I looked for space to store my carry-on, so I asked them "is this plastic bag yours?" The man mumbled, so I thought it wasn't theirs. I moved the plastic bag to the side and, as I pulled my luggage up to the overhead level, he stood up and grabbed my arm and scolded me "don't touch my things" to prevent me from lodging my luggage.
I just replied to him "you don't need to touch me", and walked to the end of the plane with my luggage, and sat on a random empty seat after checking with some flight attendants.
Everyone watched, but didn't speak/act.
I fell asleep immediately, as I woke up 1 hour after, a flight attendant approached me to confirm what happened and said she already reported this passenger to the airline for the record. Afterwards, a middle-age Caucasian man, who was a witness, came to the back to check on me and said he reported the incident to the flight attendants.
I was grateful to him, and thought I should have acted differently, I should have stood up for myself to confront this man from the couple, but again I didn't want to cause a scene. There’s also news about people who caused delays/troubles in a plane being kicked out, and I couldn’t afford that because I had to catch that flight. I as many Asians would probably do the same again - just said minimal and walked away.
Again I kept thinking, what if I was man/Caucasian, or what if I was traveling with a male companion, would this man treat me this way?
I asked the flight attendant only one question: is he Irish? She said no. Another day for topic Ireland.
Too much to say about 5. 6. 7. let's skip them for another time.
8.
I'm forever grateful to people offered to help after I posted a photo in 2015.
An African-American man hit a Caucasian man, whose head then smashed the back of my head, on a northbound NYC subway, just before entering Grand Central. The African American man did so because he considered the Caucasian man, who stood in front of him, was too close to him, in a crowded evening-commute-time express subway cabin which was shaking in high speed. This was purely an accident to me, I was shocked, hurt, scared then.
The immediate aftermath was that I recovered feeling normal a few days after. My head didn't have any issue.
And then, in the end 2017, I discovered a new 4cm-ish bump on my head, couldn't recall any accident/injury, thought it was a tumor, went to a doctor and was told: your head can grow anything it'd like. As tumors should be inside the head, rather than outside, I didn't investigate further.
It wasn't untill the end of 2019 I found the medical cert of injury, that I realized how the bump developed.
When I look at these individual encounters separately, it seems random and minor, in addition to many other encounters on the street when someone just taunted me by saying “ching chong chang” or something alike. One may argue whether it's racism or gender discrimination or something else. When I put them together, however, and they are my real life experiences, not fictional stories, they speak volume of collective racist/discrimination experiences to me. Yet I'm already a fortunate person who can make it where I'm today, given my background. I'm ok now and have become resilient through these experiences. While I don't forget these, I don't remember / recall them often. I feel safe most of the time and have hopes on humanity as most people are normal for most of the time.
What's next then, what can we individuals do? The usual: raise awareness, talk about it, donate, sign up petitions. I believe what happens/progress made in the US have ripple effect in other countries in the development of diversity and inclusion.
Peace.
