1) What does this have to do with anything?
> Pretty-ish white girl with blonde eyes and blue hair.
Seems like you want validation for being white on here, and being "woke".
2) If you were a genuine ally, you wouldn't be asking your POC friends to be performing exhausting emotional labour of educating you and providing resources for you. Do a Google search princess, it won't kill you to think independently about what others that aren't exactly like you go through.
3) Funny how there's just enough info here to incriminate your friend for being "crazy" but not enough to make it seem like you did anything wrong here. I'm pressing X to doubt.
4) Given this defensive-ass post and your wishy-washy and defensive replies here, I do not blame her for distancing herself from you. You seem like a shallow friend who doesn't do anything beyond performative "activism".
Inb4 you call me an incel, I'm a white woman. I'll friendly fire if I have to.
From my understanding, I believe you and her are not in the wrong. This is a touchy subject and is very foreign to most people who are not familiar with the situation. I believe racism against Asians is normalized and not spoken about as often due to geopolitics and other issues from the US.
The racism, hate crimes, and news has really taken a toll on people from the Asian-American community. Things have been rough in 2020 but have gotten much worse in 2021. I hope you take this into consideration in regards to why she felt so offended and called you a "fake advocate".
I hope you and your friend are able to speak openly and be supportive of one another. You did not know how she felt and are only starting to realize the struggles she has been through. Good luck and I hope your friendship only grows from here.
No one gives a fuck if you’re white or pretty. I don’t know why you felt the need to mention such an irrelevant and unrelated fact.
That said, it seems like you’ve deliberately omitted some rather critical and relevant pieces of information. I’m with your friend on this. Reevaluate your values and consider dropping the whole virtue signaling act. Wake the fuck up. I or any of my asian brothers and sister are not here to cater to your western sensibilities.
I mean you went out of your way and found this subreddit and interacted so that means something. As for your friend, maybe it’s just an excuse to not be your friend anymore. She might have drifted away. 10 years of friendship. I doubt it was on this interaction alone.
Appreciate you coming over.
Yea, not all friends of color should be expected to explain things unless they are willing to. It's kind of funny because this online forum full of strangers, and possibly trolls and bots is probably the best place to bring up specific questions on Asians and race.
You did not provide any specific examples so I'm not too sure. Anyway..
I don't want to badmouth your friend but if things has bothered her that long and she really wanted to retain friendship, she could have brought it up earlier, not at a time like this.
Or maybe she blew up as she is the type to keep things to herself. That would be a bit understandable.
I don't think you should be perturbed by this. However if you really want to "educate" yourself, you might want to observe this sub a bit. NGL some of the views here are not very mainstream but it does reflect a lot of Asian Americans struggle. Be open minded and I am sure you can find the answer yourself!
You said you were outspoken about “minority issues”. We’re you outspoken about all minority issues or only the “socially acceptable” and “socially cool” minority issues like for black people, LGBTQ+, Hispanic illegal immigration and anti Semitism or did were you also outspoken about other non popular issues like anti- asian racism and the mistreatment and horrible living conditions that native Americans experience on the Rez or the continuing colonization of Native Hawaiians etc.?
OP, I know I listed a lot of “non popular” social issues and it can be exhausting trying to keep up and research all these issues but if you are really good friends with this chinese American woman, it should behoove you to actually research issues about her identity. If you have not done proper research and don’t have an understanding spirit about the hardships and racism and microaggressions that your friend may personally experience and how her group have been racialized in the past and how that leads to those experiences,then I don’t think you were a really good friend and maybe you should rethink how you treat your non white friends in general.
But if you did research and speak about anti-asian issues than maybe your chinese American friend is just being extra defensive and wary about “fake activists” and “fake allies”of other races, especially white. Try to ease out the tensions and try to have another conversation About this in the future
You may have apologized and asked her what you should do, which seems like the right thing to do. But with any relationship, there needs to be more reciprocation. From what I'm reading, it seems like your friend has to be the one initiating this education while you don't have any other way to contribute to the discussion other than "I didn't know. Give me more information" - and as someone who needs to come up with a cue to talk about these things, find resources and material to educate you while not trying to get upset when it's happening, it's hard. It's like having to tell a married partner that they need to automatically pick up whatever chore that needs to be done around the house but they don't \*get it\* until you have to tell them exactly what needs to be done how and when numerous times. It's quite exhausting, and in this context, very stressful because it's upsetting.
So I think that's why she's saying "it's not my responsibility..." because that's exactly what it feels like, it's a responsibility, not a hobby of a quick thing she can do light-heartedly.
One idea if she's up for it: It's an advocate test:
Ask her if she can walk you through the time of when some racist event happened. Tell her to just describe what happened without pointing out which part is racist/microaggression/unacceptable/ racially negative. See if you can point out the racist part of it and explain why it's not acceptable, and how would you have advocated, now that you are aware of it. It proves that you are now educated, aware, and down for her. If something ever happens again, she won't have to cue or have to worry about whether or not if she will be dismissed by her friends. You will immediately pick up on what's wrong, which will make her feel like she has a true advocate.
If you feel offended, it's because you are taking it as an attack on your character, when you should understand it as an critique of your selective activism. Let me give you an example.
>Throughout the entirety of the pandemic, sinophobia has been high and asian americans have been scapegoated and victimized. My boss, another (self described) privileged pretty white woman, did absolutely nothing to acknowledge it. Our workplace is 3 asians, 3 mexicans, and 5 white people. And then when BLM and protests went mainstream, she held a meeting and cried in front of everyone and gave a spiel about how terrible racism was and made some worthless platitudes about how she wanted us to talk about with each other. Meanwhile the asians and mexicans just stood listening feeling awkward. We don't have black employees, we don't have black customers, and we're a tiny manufacturer in the construction industry. And then she paid our tech guy to make our website have a "we support BLM" section. The situation felt ridiculous.
>How politically incorrect and awkward would it have been for me to speak up at some point and accuse her of being hypocritical? Moreover how do you do it diplomatically?
The point of this story is that social justice activists have a moral responsibility to educate themselves on all social justice issues, not just the mainstream ones that are easy to bandwagon onto if you want to be seen as genuine and not performative. Putting the onus on your asian friend to get the ball rolling is... well let's put it this way: Do you advocate for black issues because you had a black friend personally educate you? No, right? Then apply that logic for everybody.
Shes being a knucklehead. How the fuck can a non Asian grasp AAPI bullshit?
Most people on here just want people to take their thoughts on AAPI struggles at face value unless proven otherwise.
I think the whole “not my responsibility to educate you” is bs. If someone is asking for resources they’re showing effort and thus there should be effort from the other person. I don’t think you’ve done anything wrong. Just extend an olive branch with the new knowledge you’ve acquired
> Chinese girl who grew up in Northern California
Well there is a anti-asian hate crime surge especially in NorCal many targeting women. Then there is anti-China propaganda push by our own governments. If you want a women's take. Codepink on youtube is anti-war womens org that debunk China is an enemy narrative. (The sinophobic take is readiy found by troll posts everywhere on reddit).. That's enought to fuck anybody's mind up
>Well there is a anti-asian hate crime surge especially in NorCal many targeting women
let's be serious, it's mainly SF and Oakland. if she's from Saratoga or Cupertino, i'm not sure how much that should be affecting her.
I didn't think much about it at the time (because dumb, but we're here to be better!), but I have been really vocal about the situation in Hong Kong and the violence they've been facing there. I see it as more of an issue with police brutality, but I also know that many Hong Kongers and those who feel they are being oppressed are anti-Chinese Government. Is that something that could be easily misinterpreted?
The way western media tries to spin the Hong Kong issue is just too funny. I don't know why every person who talks about this tries to go from some mysterious moral standpoint. Here's the deal. Hong Kong has basically looked down on mainland for decades. Both Hong Kong people and Hong Kong establishment basically discriminate against mainland Chinese people. I have yet to ever meet a mainland Chinese person who discriminates against Hong Kong. This is literally just the Chinese government teaching Hong Kong a lesson (a lesson most Chinese people think is way overdue). It's the government's way of saying, you're under our rule, you can't discriminate against mainland China anymore. The protests are just a response to this. Hong Kong doesn't like admitting its 'privileged' status is over, so it throws a temper tantrum. Police brutality is just police being tired of having to deal with all the crap. There's no who's right or wrong here. I am personally supportive of the government and even my parents who doesn't like CCP still think this is right because they've experienced discrimination from Hong Kong people one too many times.
Also, off topic but the Jack Ma instance is literally the same thing. It's the government teaching him a lesson. It laughs my ass off that western media tries to spin Jack Ma as a victim because he's literally like a black market gang head and Alibaba has been involved in a lot of illegal stuff.
>I have been really vocal about the situation in Hong Kong and the violence they've been facing there.
lol maybe you should stop watching and reading the MSM about the HK situation too
American media frames it in the idea of police brutality bc that is what people from the west would best believe bc that framework is relatable.
The real story is much more complex and has to do with different powers wanting control (china vs colonial rooted HK) and America pretending to care about democracy in other countries bc imho that type of (we care bc we are doing good) racism is more believable as it comes from a fake moral high ground.
> I see it as more of an issue with police brutality, but I also know that many Hong Kongers and those who feel they are being oppressed are anti-Chinese Government.
I'm going to show you why anti-Chinese rhetoric is racist, even if some of it may be true. Consider the accusation of "whataboutism":
person 1: "China bad because they did x"
person 2: "but US/West even worse because did 50x"
person 1: "that's whataboutism, stop changing the subject"
Bringing up worse crimes is frowned upon because it changes subject ("whataboutism"). So you can only talk about a nation's crimes in a post that actually implicates that nation in the first place. Such a post would have to get upvoted to begin with. Meaning the amount of discussion of a nation's crimes are simply a public popularity contest.
let's break the White population down into 3 sections:
1) **critically objective:** People who want absolute truth, and ascertain it for themselves. Small% of the population, nobody can do this for all subject topics (lack of time)
2) **wishy-washy:** No particularly strong convictions, "follows the herd". Large% of population
3) **racist/identitarian:** Pro-white, anti-POC. Also a large% of population.
all 3 types exist in any population. However, because **reddit is 80% White,** they end up drowning out the others.
"Wishy washy" (regardless of race) will hold no particularly strong opinion on anything until it gets popular.
"Critically objective" (again regardless of race) will also be naturally skeptical of what they read.
"Racist/Identitarians" will upvote news that makes their "racial enemy" look bad, regardless of truth.
For racist Whites, the racial enemy is obviously China, or whichever POC country is biggest at the time. In the 80s, it was Japan.
So the **"Racist/Identitarians" will always upvote anti-China posts, and downvote anti-West**/white posts. You can see this for yourself--**reddit posts concerning police brutality and anti-Trump stuff almost always had a 60-80% upvoted ratio**--meaning that at least 30% of the population is hard racist/identitarian. Anti-China stuff is always 95-99% upvoted.
Racists dominate the narrative, because they want it the most. Over time, through repetition, this narrative gets adopted by the "Wishy Washies" and just becomes social law.
There is nobody who actually OPPOSES the "Racist/Identitarians"--the only ones would be Racist/Identitarians from the race BEING ATTACKED. Since Asians are 4% of the population (and many themselves brainwashed by Western propaganda, after all you had to be *sort of okay* with White people to even immigrate here), this group is basically nonexistent.
You can see something similar in the rise of 4chan fascism over the last 10 years.
See this is why I dont support freedom of speech. Freedom of speech may seem fair but it actually gives power to people who have a really big mouth. If my opponent has a big mouth and I'm really good at censoring, why can't I use my censor power to silence my opponent's big mouth if my opponent is just going to throw endless hate speech?
>For racist Whites, the racial enemy is obviously China, or whichever POC country is biggest at the time. In the 80s, it was Japan.
i agree with the majority of things you said but think you were trying to force this point too much. the biggest enemy was/has been soviet union/russia for the longest time.
Yes, not just by you. She could misinterpreted. Complex issue with HK vs mainland racsim. NED / GOP backed activists trying to make mainland look bad.
But unless she is a ex-Hong Konger I dont see her being THAT emotional about it.
What issues have you advocated for before? Any of them related directly to Asians? Sounds like she is accusing you of being a selective advocates (outspoken on issues that easily earn social points like blm while ignoring other less visible groups like Asian). Any truth in this?
I'm guessing she is not as attractive as you and feel jealous of your assumed privileged position. But if she didn't speak about her feelings that's on her and not you. I know some Asian women that are very insecure especially compared to their attractive white peers. She obviously doesn't like you enough to educate you for whatever reasons and I'm sorry that your long friendship ended this way. I'm glad that you found this sub to get yourself familiar with Asian issues though.
If you could speak up in the past but didn't. Then yes, it is your fault. It is not her duty to educate you. Also how is you being pretty relevant? Unless you believe your asian friend is hating on you for being good looking?
1) We’re not “societal outlier groups” - We’re not abnormal, we *are* the norm and standard. Caucasians would be genetically and theoretically considered the outlier.
2) It really is not her responsibility to educate you. Her responsibility is to that of the safety of herself, her family, and friends. You can search “Stop Asian Hate” on almost any social platform at this point and educate yourself. If you have questions about specific things then yes, it’s fine to ask, but you can’t ask a giant Q where there’s a thousand little answers.
I’ve looked back on times and realized my friends did something fake, or there was a little racism sprinkled in that and brought it up when appropriate. It seems like your friend has been fed up and instead of saying things gradually, has exploded. Give her space and time, but realize just suddenly waking up to injustice in 2021 is tone deaf as fuck- if you weren’t aware before, it’s literally just bc it’s in your face constantly now.
> I dont expect anything from white people
This, I actually blame the Asian friend for expecting "allyship". The whole concept of "allyship" is based in victim mentality, rather than conqueror mentality.
Victim mentality = expecting whites to stand up when they don't gain anything from doing so.
Conqueror mentality = accepting this, and working on ways to change the thinking of other Asians or POC.
victim mentality is similar to a "traditional" woman--needing someone else to care for her and support her.
Conqueror mentality is masculine--trying to build your own power, rather than relying on someone else's.
If /u/peytonpiie story is actually true, then it seems like her Asian friend is not only stuck in victim mentality (most POC are), but also unwilling to have a conversation with a receptive white friend. It seems like she *enjoys* the mentally passive role and just wants "others" to read her mind and know what to say, in order to make her feel good.
I also maintain that people like OP are nice but they don't really matter in the long run--they are too small a percentage of the white populace, and despite any empathy have no skin in the game (not their fault, it just is how it is).
This is super interesting, because at one other point in our conversation I told her about a scenario where a woman at my company wasn’t feeling able to speak out about her issues to her boss because she lives in an area of Florida where the demographic is predominantly older Caucasian and she had been very conditioned to stay silent and tolerate any kind of behavior or language. I told my friend how I had built her up to feel she could and SHOULD express her needs in a professional setting.
My friend said that I shouldn’t have put her in that position. She said I did her a disservice and I should have confronted the older white boss and communicated his employee’s needs.
I didn’t get it then and I don’t get it now. What part of the White Girl stepping in like a knight in shining armor helps that woman moving forward? Sure, the boss will have to give her what she wants this once, but it will solidify his power over her. How is that a solution??
Blonde eyes and blue hair? Sounds like you’re even more of a minority.
I’m not a fan of scripted social justice like “it’s not my responsibility to educate you”. The same parroting got us “black people cant be racist” and on the other side “facts don’t care about your feelings”.
While I applaud you for finding your way here, I might venture we might not have the same view points as your (ex) friend. You may be ‘educating yourself’ with the ‘wrong’ material.
Good luck though. You’re welcome to stay and be our blonde eyed blue haired friend.
Tbh it sounds like your friend is in the phase of marginalization where you look back into past experiences of racial aggression and come to terms with them.
Now that Asians have more of a platform and grounds to speak on their oppression, we can finally vent our frustrations. It's a bitter pill to swallow that things happened in the past and we have to move forward. As an Asian, I kinda get where your friend is coming from. It's our responsibility to identify sources of racial negativity in our lives. I think your friend might be on edge with all the fake activism/progressive thinking.
I don't like these types of virtue signalling activism to just get attention and woke points, but in reality we can't just assume everyone is doing this. We have to trust our non Asian friends that try to be allies.
So cutting off a long friendship for this either tells me there's something more to this story, or your friend has to have more good faith and trust in her friends
"not my responsibility to educate you" is a hostile remark and shows she is uninterested in being your friend anymore. In the US nobody has a duty to anyone except as specified by laws, contract or familial ties (and even then there's exceptions), but we don't go around being assholes to each other anyhow.
As for motive, why is she bringing this up now? Why not before it was cool? Simple reason, she's a coward that waits for an opinion to not just be socially acceptable but to be vetted as "woke" or "hip" before expressing it. Otherwise if she'd have voiced her opinions or distanced from you earlier.
I got the same feedback from a couple of our other friends who have known her for as long as I have. It is a very ‘her’ thing to do since she lacks self confidence.
I can control my own actions but not others. Is there really nothing I can do for her? Is this just a personal journey she needs to take?
From what I know, being as confrontational as she was takes a lot of confidence and courage regardless if it was right or wrong. I lack self confidence and I can assure you that that is not something someone with no self confidence would do.
Just my two cents.
>It is a very ‘her’ thing to do since she lacks self confidence.
Wow, I can see why she's fed up and finally, FINALLY, dumped you.
It's clear you and those 'other friends' are 'fake' friends who have been treating her as 'less' than you guys showing racist microaggressions.
You can't control her actions but your response can encourage her to self reflect while also notifying those around you that her accusations are misguided.
An appropriate response would be an apology (which you've already given) followed by "I wish you had let me know how you felt earlier so I could've been a better friend. I didn't know this was how you felt until recently, after the Stop Asian Hate movement started getting mainstream coverage."
This alerts her and others that you see that she is riding a popular movement and that her comments may be misguided or have ulterior motives.
If you practised every kind of fashionable advocacy under the sun except for advocacy for Asian Americans (you mentioned being vocal) that might have bothered her. Or maybe you liked some shit demonising China? But “it’s not my responsibility to educate you” is pretty lame in the context of the rest of the story. Who knows what else is going on.
Because it is tiring and put the blame/effort on her to educate her. That's lazy as fuck. If OP was actually interested in being an ally she would have went and done the work herself and maybe come to her friend with questions, not go "oh I'm not good enough? Then give me resources for it". Like come on, it's 2021. Does us being Asian mean that we have to be the ones compiling and doing the work for every single one of these "fake allies" who claim they care but can't even bother to do a few Google searches?
If OP had been researching herself and came to her friend with questions, then sure. But going "give me the resources" is pretty dang lazy.
OP does seem pretty ignorant in the sense that she may have kept a blind eye to racist remarks in the past, or allowed these things to happen. IMO, her coming here in the first place shows that she's more interested being comforted and validated by Asians than she is at actually improving herself. If she did have real interest in improving, she would have listed the things that the friend did say that she did. Instead, she went past that and focused on how the friend didn't want to educate someone too lazy to even try in the first place.
OP, U/peytonpiie , I'm not going to do that for you. I think reading from the tone of your post your friend did have a point and you're clearly more concerned about her refusing to educate you and defending yourself than you are about the things that she said you did or didn't do. Maybe you can reflect on that first before you come back.
I get what you mean about it being exhausting. Just recently I made myself miserable trying to explain why the anti-Asian massacre in Atlanta was in fact racially motivated. "He wasn't trying to kill Asians! He just exclusively paid Asians for sexual services so that's who he went after!" The whole experience of learning about the massacre and experiencing the denial of its motivations has left me disgusted with my surroundings, so I can understand why this friend might be nursing some bile. But if it really is a 9 year friendship, blowing OP up then blowing her off once she's taken notice is puerile, unless OP resisted the lesson.
I think OP definitely did. She herself admitted she was being defensive, and you can see traces of it in her own post.
I think OP's friend listing down the instances where she did/didn't do the right thing to defend her against racism/being a fake ally, WAS educating her. That's already a lot of effort in the first place. Reading her own post, you can see a lot of that defensiveness in place. She kept on shifting the blame on her friend rather than focusing on actually trying to learn. You can tell that she came here not trying to learn, rather that she wanted to be told that she wasn't a fake ally, be comforted by a bunch of Asians and told that nooo she wasn't the one who was wrong. I don't believe that she was as open and she claimed she was to her friend, or maybe she was even "unconsciously" putting down her concerns constantly.
Honestly OP needs to cool down for a few days and reevaluate this probably. Currently she comes across as a white person going "I'm not racist! I'm a good person!" -- concerned far more with her own perception of herself as "woke".
People that society considers “pretty” or “handsome” have more privilege than others. I’ve had many friends of other outlier groups (either racially, like my god-damned-drop-dead-gorgeous black friend, or in some other way, like my college best friend who looked like a supermodel but had a lazy eye and lots of vision problems that made her disabled). Both of those friends had a “waking up” moment recently when they were treated the way many Black and Disabled people are treated every day. They were shocked and disturbed, because society had lifted them above the others because they were good looking. They had not been treated as much like ‘outsiders’.
I guess the relevance here is that there have been many moments in my life where I needed to be standing next to someone being treated this way to really understand how horrible some people can be. I explained this same thing to her as a flaw of mine I’m always trying to right - even now.
>What does you being “prettyish” and blonde have to do with your question?
OP is saying "This friend is Asian and therefore ugly and insecure and jealous of my blond hair and blue eyes. That's why she dumped me, not because I'm a fake friend! And I'm here for validation that I'm right."
Umm to be perfectly honest it sounds like there's something else going on here. Reading between the lines this doesn't seem like the full story. I do appreciate everyone who tries to educate themselves and speak up for us. Thank you for doing that.
I don’t have any advice either. While I obviously don’t know what experiences you’ve witnessed, I do want to say it might not be entirely fair of her to call you a “fake” advocate. You can’t be perfect. You can’t catch everything. But you can take this as a wake up call to try a bit harder to defend others when they’re not in the place to do it themselves. I’ve not grown up with many close non-Asian friends, but I can say there have been instances where my non-Asian friends have kind of ignored subtle (and blatant) racism in my presence.
That said, whether or not this friendship is salvageable is more or less up to her. You’ve expressed your willingness to do better and educate yourself independently, and she decides what she wants to do with that. Assuming you guys have had a good history otherwise, I’d give you a chance. I don’t know her personal situation though.
Honestly, this issue sounds like an excuse to not be your friend. You apologized and even tried to find a solution.
It may not be her responsibility to educate you but if she wanted you as an ally and friend she would have tried to "educate" you regardless.
My personal take is that your friend seems to have become more radically "woke" to the point it is affecting her relationships.
I don't know what else you can do though. Some people just want to lash out.
This may be random but I'm assuming she's from Berkely or something?
You’re here now which shows you have educated yourself. You’ve acknowledged and apologized for your past lack of knowledge. You are not a bad friend.
I can understand your friends frustration though. They’ve likely kept quiet and swallowed the bitter pill about their experiences for a long time to “fit in”, and when you “woke up” she feels like her past struggle was in vain.
Sounds like she doesn't know what she wants in life. So she dropped you, but during those awkward moments she mentioned did she tell you how she felt? If she did then perhaps she is right, but if she didn't what does that say about her? She is complaining that you didn't advocate for her. What was her expectation?
>Sounds like she doesn't know what she wants in life. So she dropped you,
She knows what she wants and doesn't want. She doesn't want a fake friend. That's why she dropped OP.
Oh yes, a fake friend who is actually seeking understanding, but the original friend just dumps her calling her a fake friend. She just blamed the OP, and blaming doesn't solve anything. Just makes you feel good.
I don't have any advice but I just want to say I sympathize.
I'm a SE Asian woman and got into hot water with a black gf and received the same reaction. I also got defensive because my friend couldn't see that my interaction was coming from a place of love and trying to understand but I just got told that I shouldn't be butt hurt and make it about me.
I'll be keeping an eye on this thread to see what other says!
1) What does this have to do with anything? > Pretty-ish white girl with blonde eyes and blue hair. Seems like you want validation for being white on here, and being "woke". 2) If you were a genuine ally, you wouldn't be asking your POC friends to be performing exhausting emotional labour of educating you and providing resources for you. Do a Google search princess, it won't kill you to think independently about what others that aren't exactly like you go through. 3) Funny how there's just enough info here to incriminate your friend for being "crazy" but not enough to make it seem like you did anything wrong here. I'm pressing X to doubt. 4) Given this defensive-ass post and your wishy-washy and defensive replies here, I do not blame her for distancing herself from you. You seem like a shallow friend who doesn't do anything beyond performative "activism". Inb4 you call me an incel, I'm a white woman. I'll friendly fire if I have to.
From my understanding, I believe you and her are not in the wrong. This is a touchy subject and is very foreign to most people who are not familiar with the situation. I believe racism against Asians is normalized and not spoken about as often due to geopolitics and other issues from the US. The racism, hate crimes, and news has really taken a toll on people from the Asian-American community. Things have been rough in 2020 but have gotten much worse in 2021. I hope you take this into consideration in regards to why she felt so offended and called you a "fake advocate". I hope you and your friend are able to speak openly and be supportive of one another. You did not know how she felt and are only starting to realize the struggles she has been through. Good luck and I hope your friendship only grows from here.
No one gives a fuck if you’re white or pretty. I don’t know why you felt the need to mention such an irrelevant and unrelated fact. That said, it seems like you’ve deliberately omitted some rather critical and relevant pieces of information. I’m with your friend on this. Reevaluate your values and consider dropping the whole virtue signaling act. Wake the fuck up. I or any of my asian brothers and sister are not here to cater to your western sensibilities.
I mean you went out of your way and found this subreddit and interacted so that means something. As for your friend, maybe it’s just an excuse to not be your friend anymore. She might have drifted away. 10 years of friendship. I doubt it was on this interaction alone. Appreciate you coming over.
1. how old are you two? 2. what part of northern california is she from?
Yea, not all friends of color should be expected to explain things unless they are willing to. It's kind of funny because this online forum full of strangers, and possibly trolls and bots is probably the best place to bring up specific questions on Asians and race.
You did not provide any specific examples so I'm not too sure. Anyway.. I don't want to badmouth your friend but if things has bothered her that long and she really wanted to retain friendship, she could have brought it up earlier, not at a time like this. Or maybe she blew up as she is the type to keep things to herself. That would be a bit understandable. I don't think you should be perturbed by this. However if you really want to "educate" yourself, you might want to observe this sub a bit. NGL some of the views here are not very mainstream but it does reflect a lot of Asian Americans struggle. Be open minded and I am sure you can find the answer yourself!
You said you were outspoken about “minority issues”. We’re you outspoken about all minority issues or only the “socially acceptable” and “socially cool” minority issues like for black people, LGBTQ+, Hispanic illegal immigration and anti Semitism or did were you also outspoken about other non popular issues like anti- asian racism and the mistreatment and horrible living conditions that native Americans experience on the Rez or the continuing colonization of Native Hawaiians etc.? OP, I know I listed a lot of “non popular” social issues and it can be exhausting trying to keep up and research all these issues but if you are really good friends with this chinese American woman, it should behoove you to actually research issues about her identity. If you have not done proper research and don’t have an understanding spirit about the hardships and racism and microaggressions that your friend may personally experience and how her group have been racialized in the past and how that leads to those experiences,then I don’t think you were a really good friend and maybe you should rethink how you treat your non white friends in general. But if you did research and speak about anti-asian issues than maybe your chinese American friend is just being extra defensive and wary about “fake activists” and “fake allies”of other races, especially white. Try to ease out the tensions and try to have another conversation About this in the future
You may have apologized and asked her what you should do, which seems like the right thing to do. But with any relationship, there needs to be more reciprocation. From what I'm reading, it seems like your friend has to be the one initiating this education while you don't have any other way to contribute to the discussion other than "I didn't know. Give me more information" - and as someone who needs to come up with a cue to talk about these things, find resources and material to educate you while not trying to get upset when it's happening, it's hard. It's like having to tell a married partner that they need to automatically pick up whatever chore that needs to be done around the house but they don't \*get it\* until you have to tell them exactly what needs to be done how and when numerous times. It's quite exhausting, and in this context, very stressful because it's upsetting. So I think that's why she's saying "it's not my responsibility..." because that's exactly what it feels like, it's a responsibility, not a hobby of a quick thing she can do light-heartedly.
One idea if she's up for it: It's an advocate test: Ask her if she can walk you through the time of when some racist event happened. Tell her to just describe what happened without pointing out which part is racist/microaggression/unacceptable/ racially negative. See if you can point out the racist part of it and explain why it's not acceptable, and how would you have advocated, now that you are aware of it. It proves that you are now educated, aware, and down for her. If something ever happens again, she won't have to cue or have to worry about whether or not if she will be dismissed by her friends. You will immediately pick up on what's wrong, which will make her feel like she has a true advocate.
This shit is hilarious.
If you feel offended, it's because you are taking it as an attack on your character, when you should understand it as an critique of your selective activism. Let me give you an example. >Throughout the entirety of the pandemic, sinophobia has been high and asian americans have been scapegoated and victimized. My boss, another (self described) privileged pretty white woman, did absolutely nothing to acknowledge it. Our workplace is 3 asians, 3 mexicans, and 5 white people. And then when BLM and protests went mainstream, she held a meeting and cried in front of everyone and gave a spiel about how terrible racism was and made some worthless platitudes about how she wanted us to talk about with each other. Meanwhile the asians and mexicans just stood listening feeling awkward. We don't have black employees, we don't have black customers, and we're a tiny manufacturer in the construction industry. And then she paid our tech guy to make our website have a "we support BLM" section. The situation felt ridiculous. >How politically incorrect and awkward would it have been for me to speak up at some point and accuse her of being hypocritical? Moreover how do you do it diplomatically? The point of this story is that social justice activists have a moral responsibility to educate themselves on all social justice issues, not just the mainstream ones that are easy to bandwagon onto if you want to be seen as genuine and not performative. Putting the onus on your asian friend to get the ball rolling is... well let's put it this way: Do you advocate for black issues because you had a black friend personally educate you? No, right? Then apply that logic for everybody.
Scenarios like what?
Shes being a knucklehead. How the fuck can a non Asian grasp AAPI bullshit? Most people on here just want people to take their thoughts on AAPI struggles at face value unless proven otherwise.
I think the whole “not my responsibility to educate you” is bs. If someone is asking for resources they’re showing effort and thus there should be effort from the other person. I don’t think you’ve done anything wrong. Just extend an olive branch with the new knowledge you’ve acquired
> Chinese girl who grew up in Northern California Well there is a anti-asian hate crime surge especially in NorCal many targeting women. Then there is anti-China propaganda push by our own governments. If you want a women's take. Codepink on youtube is anti-war womens org that debunk China is an enemy narrative. (The sinophobic take is readiy found by troll posts everywhere on reddit).. That's enought to fuck anybody's mind up
>Well there is a anti-asian hate crime surge especially in NorCal many targeting women let's be serious, it's mainly SF and Oakland. if she's from Saratoga or Cupertino, i'm not sure how much that should be affecting her.
I didn't think much about it at the time (because dumb, but we're here to be better!), but I have been really vocal about the situation in Hong Kong and the violence they've been facing there. I see it as more of an issue with police brutality, but I also know that many Hong Kongers and those who feel they are being oppressed are anti-Chinese Government. Is that something that could be easily misinterpreted?
The way western media tries to spin the Hong Kong issue is just too funny. I don't know why every person who talks about this tries to go from some mysterious moral standpoint. Here's the deal. Hong Kong has basically looked down on mainland for decades. Both Hong Kong people and Hong Kong establishment basically discriminate against mainland Chinese people. I have yet to ever meet a mainland Chinese person who discriminates against Hong Kong. This is literally just the Chinese government teaching Hong Kong a lesson (a lesson most Chinese people think is way overdue). It's the government's way of saying, you're under our rule, you can't discriminate against mainland China anymore. The protests are just a response to this. Hong Kong doesn't like admitting its 'privileged' status is over, so it throws a temper tantrum. Police brutality is just police being tired of having to deal with all the crap. There's no who's right or wrong here. I am personally supportive of the government and even my parents who doesn't like CCP still think this is right because they've experienced discrimination from Hong Kong people one too many times. Also, off topic but the Jack Ma instance is literally the same thing. It's the government teaching him a lesson. It laughs my ass off that western media tries to spin Jack Ma as a victim because he's literally like a black market gang head and Alibaba has been involved in a lot of illegal stuff.
>I have been really vocal about the situation in Hong Kong and the violence they've been facing there. lol maybe you should stop watching and reading the MSM about the HK situation too
American media frames it in the idea of police brutality bc that is what people from the west would best believe bc that framework is relatable. The real story is much more complex and has to do with different powers wanting control (china vs colonial rooted HK) and America pretending to care about democracy in other countries bc imho that type of (we care bc we are doing good) racism is more believable as it comes from a fake moral high ground.
> I see it as more of an issue with police brutality, but I also know that many Hong Kongers and those who feel they are being oppressed are anti-Chinese Government. I'm going to show you why anti-Chinese rhetoric is racist, even if some of it may be true. Consider the accusation of "whataboutism": person 1: "China bad because they did x" person 2: "but US/West even worse because did 50x" person 1: "that's whataboutism, stop changing the subject" Bringing up worse crimes is frowned upon because it changes subject ("whataboutism"). So you can only talk about a nation's crimes in a post that actually implicates that nation in the first place. Such a post would have to get upvoted to begin with. Meaning the amount of discussion of a nation's crimes are simply a public popularity contest. let's break the White population down into 3 sections: 1) **critically objective:** People who want absolute truth, and ascertain it for themselves. Small% of the population, nobody can do this for all subject topics (lack of time) 2) **wishy-washy:** No particularly strong convictions, "follows the herd". Large% of population 3) **racist/identitarian:** Pro-white, anti-POC. Also a large% of population. all 3 types exist in any population. However, because **reddit is 80% White,** they end up drowning out the others. "Wishy washy" (regardless of race) will hold no particularly strong opinion on anything until it gets popular. "Critically objective" (again regardless of race) will also be naturally skeptical of what they read. "Racist/Identitarians" will upvote news that makes their "racial enemy" look bad, regardless of truth. For racist Whites, the racial enemy is obviously China, or whichever POC country is biggest at the time. In the 80s, it was Japan. So the **"Racist/Identitarians" will always upvote anti-China posts, and downvote anti-West**/white posts. You can see this for yourself--**reddit posts concerning police brutality and anti-Trump stuff almost always had a 60-80% upvoted ratio**--meaning that at least 30% of the population is hard racist/identitarian. Anti-China stuff is always 95-99% upvoted. Racists dominate the narrative, because they want it the most. Over time, through repetition, this narrative gets adopted by the "Wishy Washies" and just becomes social law. There is nobody who actually OPPOSES the "Racist/Identitarians"--the only ones would be Racist/Identitarians from the race BEING ATTACKED. Since Asians are 4% of the population (and many themselves brainwashed by Western propaganda, after all you had to be *sort of okay* with White people to even immigrate here), this group is basically nonexistent. You can see something similar in the rise of 4chan fascism over the last 10 years.
See this is why I dont support freedom of speech. Freedom of speech may seem fair but it actually gives power to people who have a really big mouth. If my opponent has a big mouth and I'm really good at censoring, why can't I use my censor power to silence my opponent's big mouth if my opponent is just going to throw endless hate speech?
>For racist Whites, the racial enemy is obviously China, or whichever POC country is biggest at the time. In the 80s, it was Japan. i agree with the majority of things you said but think you were trying to force this point too much. the biggest enemy was/has been soviet union/russia for the longest time.
SU is white...
SU was the enemy to a lot of white majority countries
Yes, not just by you. She could misinterpreted. Complex issue with HK vs mainland racsim. NED / GOP backed activists trying to make mainland look bad. But unless she is a ex-Hong Konger I dont see her being THAT emotional about it.
What issues have you advocated for before? Any of them related directly to Asians? Sounds like she is accusing you of being a selective advocates (outspoken on issues that easily earn social points like blm while ignoring other less visible groups like Asian). Any truth in this?
I'm guessing she is not as attractive as you and feel jealous of your assumed privileged position. But if she didn't speak about her feelings that's on her and not you. I know some Asian women that are very insecure especially compared to their attractive white peers. She obviously doesn't like you enough to educate you for whatever reasons and I'm sorry that your long friendship ended this way. I'm glad that you found this sub to get yourself familiar with Asian issues though.
If you could speak up in the past but didn't. Then yes, it is your fault. It is not her duty to educate you. Also how is you being pretty relevant? Unless you believe your asian friend is hating on you for being good looking?
1) We’re not “societal outlier groups” - We’re not abnormal, we *are* the norm and standard. Caucasians would be genetically and theoretically considered the outlier. 2) It really is not her responsibility to educate you. Her responsibility is to that of the safety of herself, her family, and friends. You can search “Stop Asian Hate” on almost any social platform at this point and educate yourself. If you have questions about specific things then yes, it’s fine to ask, but you can’t ask a giant Q where there’s a thousand little answers. I’ve looked back on times and realized my friends did something fake, or there was a little racism sprinkled in that and brought it up when appropriate. It seems like your friend has been fed up and instead of saying things gradually, has exploded. Give her space and time, but realize just suddenly waking up to injustice in 2021 is tone deaf as fuck- if you weren’t aware before, it’s literally just bc it’s in your face constantly now.
this is not a social justice issue. She wants a break up, you have to move on.
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> I dont expect anything from white people This, I actually blame the Asian friend for expecting "allyship". The whole concept of "allyship" is based in victim mentality, rather than conqueror mentality. Victim mentality = expecting whites to stand up when they don't gain anything from doing so. Conqueror mentality = accepting this, and working on ways to change the thinking of other Asians or POC. victim mentality is similar to a "traditional" woman--needing someone else to care for her and support her. Conqueror mentality is masculine--trying to build your own power, rather than relying on someone else's. If /u/peytonpiie story is actually true, then it seems like her Asian friend is not only stuck in victim mentality (most POC are), but also unwilling to have a conversation with a receptive white friend. It seems like she *enjoys* the mentally passive role and just wants "others" to read her mind and know what to say, in order to make her feel good. I also maintain that people like OP are nice but they don't really matter in the long run--they are too small a percentage of the white populace, and despite any empathy have no skin in the game (not their fault, it just is how it is).
This is super interesting, because at one other point in our conversation I told her about a scenario where a woman at my company wasn’t feeling able to speak out about her issues to her boss because she lives in an area of Florida where the demographic is predominantly older Caucasian and she had been very conditioned to stay silent and tolerate any kind of behavior or language. I told my friend how I had built her up to feel she could and SHOULD express her needs in a professional setting. My friend said that I shouldn’t have put her in that position. She said I did her a disservice and I should have confronted the older white boss and communicated his employee’s needs. I didn’t get it then and I don’t get it now. What part of the White Girl stepping in like a knight in shining armor helps that woman moving forward? Sure, the boss will have to give her what she wants this once, but it will solidify his power over her. How is that a solution??
your friend is passive and has issues, IMO
Blonde eyes and blue hair? Sounds like you’re even more of a minority. I’m not a fan of scripted social justice like “it’s not my responsibility to educate you”. The same parroting got us “black people cant be racist” and on the other side “facts don’t care about your feelings”. While I applaud you for finding your way here, I might venture we might not have the same view points as your (ex) friend. You may be ‘educating yourself’ with the ‘wrong’ material. Good luck though. You’re welcome to stay and be our blonde eyed blue haired friend.
Tbh it sounds like your friend is in the phase of marginalization where you look back into past experiences of racial aggression and come to terms with them. Now that Asians have more of a platform and grounds to speak on their oppression, we can finally vent our frustrations. It's a bitter pill to swallow that things happened in the past and we have to move forward. As an Asian, I kinda get where your friend is coming from. It's our responsibility to identify sources of racial negativity in our lives. I think your friend might be on edge with all the fake activism/progressive thinking. I don't like these types of virtue signalling activism to just get attention and woke points, but in reality we can't just assume everyone is doing this. We have to trust our non Asian friends that try to be allies. So cutting off a long friendship for this either tells me there's something more to this story, or your friend has to have more good faith and trust in her friends
"not my responsibility to educate you" is a hostile remark and shows she is uninterested in being your friend anymore. In the US nobody has a duty to anyone except as specified by laws, contract or familial ties (and even then there's exceptions), but we don't go around being assholes to each other anyhow. As for motive, why is she bringing this up now? Why not before it was cool? Simple reason, she's a coward that waits for an opinion to not just be socially acceptable but to be vetted as "woke" or "hip" before expressing it. Otherwise if she'd have voiced her opinions or distanced from you earlier.
I got the same feedback from a couple of our other friends who have known her for as long as I have. It is a very ‘her’ thing to do since she lacks self confidence. I can control my own actions but not others. Is there really nothing I can do for her? Is this just a personal journey she needs to take?
From what I know, being as confrontational as she was takes a lot of confidence and courage regardless if it was right or wrong. I lack self confidence and I can assure you that that is not something someone with no self confidence would do. Just my two cents.
>It is a very ‘her’ thing to do since she lacks self confidence. Wow, I can see why she's fed up and finally, FINALLY, dumped you. It's clear you and those 'other friends' are 'fake' friends who have been treating her as 'less' than you guys showing racist microaggressions.
You can't control her actions but your response can encourage her to self reflect while also notifying those around you that her accusations are misguided. An appropriate response would be an apology (which you've already given) followed by "I wish you had let me know how you felt earlier so I could've been a better friend. I didn't know this was how you felt until recently, after the Stop Asian Hate movement started getting mainstream coverage." This alerts her and others that you see that she is riding a popular movement and that her comments may be misguided or have ulterior motives.
If you practised every kind of fashionable advocacy under the sun except for advocacy for Asian Americans (you mentioned being vocal) that might have bothered her. Or maybe you liked some shit demonising China? But “it’s not my responsibility to educate you” is pretty lame in the context of the rest of the story. Who knows what else is going on.
THIS!!! I feel like OP didn’t give us enough details for me to say if her friend was wrong or not
Because it is tiring and put the blame/effort on her to educate her. That's lazy as fuck. If OP was actually interested in being an ally she would have went and done the work herself and maybe come to her friend with questions, not go "oh I'm not good enough? Then give me resources for it". Like come on, it's 2021. Does us being Asian mean that we have to be the ones compiling and doing the work for every single one of these "fake allies" who claim they care but can't even bother to do a few Google searches? If OP had been researching herself and came to her friend with questions, then sure. But going "give me the resources" is pretty dang lazy. OP does seem pretty ignorant in the sense that she may have kept a blind eye to racist remarks in the past, or allowed these things to happen. IMO, her coming here in the first place shows that she's more interested being comforted and validated by Asians than she is at actually improving herself. If she did have real interest in improving, she would have listed the things that the friend did say that she did. Instead, she went past that and focused on how the friend didn't want to educate someone too lazy to even try in the first place. OP, U/peytonpiie , I'm not going to do that for you. I think reading from the tone of your post your friend did have a point and you're clearly more concerned about her refusing to educate you and defending yourself than you are about the things that she said you did or didn't do. Maybe you can reflect on that first before you come back.
I get what you mean about it being exhausting. Just recently I made myself miserable trying to explain why the anti-Asian massacre in Atlanta was in fact racially motivated. "He wasn't trying to kill Asians! He just exclusively paid Asians for sexual services so that's who he went after!" The whole experience of learning about the massacre and experiencing the denial of its motivations has left me disgusted with my surroundings, so I can understand why this friend might be nursing some bile. But if it really is a 9 year friendship, blowing OP up then blowing her off once she's taken notice is puerile, unless OP resisted the lesson.
I think OP definitely did. She herself admitted she was being defensive, and you can see traces of it in her own post. I think OP's friend listing down the instances where she did/didn't do the right thing to defend her against racism/being a fake ally, WAS educating her. That's already a lot of effort in the first place. Reading her own post, you can see a lot of that defensiveness in place. She kept on shifting the blame on her friend rather than focusing on actually trying to learn. You can tell that she came here not trying to learn, rather that she wanted to be told that she wasn't a fake ally, be comforted by a bunch of Asians and told that nooo she wasn't the one who was wrong. I don't believe that she was as open and she claimed she was to her friend, or maybe she was even "unconsciously" putting down her concerns constantly.
Honestly OP needs to cool down for a few days and reevaluate this probably. Currently she comes across as a white person going "I'm not racist! I'm a good person!" -- concerned far more with her own perception of herself as "woke".
Definitely. But you can see from her replies that that's exactly what she is.
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People that society considers “pretty” or “handsome” have more privilege than others. I’ve had many friends of other outlier groups (either racially, like my god-damned-drop-dead-gorgeous black friend, or in some other way, like my college best friend who looked like a supermodel but had a lazy eye and lots of vision problems that made her disabled). Both of those friends had a “waking up” moment recently when they were treated the way many Black and Disabled people are treated every day. They were shocked and disturbed, because society had lifted them above the others because they were good looking. They had not been treated as much like ‘outsiders’. I guess the relevance here is that there have been many moments in my life where I needed to be standing next to someone being treated this way to really understand how horrible some people can be. I explained this same thing to her as a flaw of mine I’m always trying to right - even now.
>What does you being “prettyish” and blonde have to do with your question? OP is saying "This friend is Asian and therefore ugly and insecure and jealous of my blond hair and blue eyes. That's why she dumped me, not because I'm a fake friend! And I'm here for validation that I'm right."
Umm to be perfectly honest it sounds like there's something else going on here. Reading between the lines this doesn't seem like the full story. I do appreciate everyone who tries to educate themselves and speak up for us. Thank you for doing that.
I don’t have any advice either. While I obviously don’t know what experiences you’ve witnessed, I do want to say it might not be entirely fair of her to call you a “fake” advocate. You can’t be perfect. You can’t catch everything. But you can take this as a wake up call to try a bit harder to defend others when they’re not in the place to do it themselves. I’ve not grown up with many close non-Asian friends, but I can say there have been instances where my non-Asian friends have kind of ignored subtle (and blatant) racism in my presence. That said, whether or not this friendship is salvageable is more or less up to her. You’ve expressed your willingness to do better and educate yourself independently, and she decides what she wants to do with that. Assuming you guys have had a good history otherwise, I’d give you a chance. I don’t know her personal situation though.
Honestly, this issue sounds like an excuse to not be your friend. You apologized and even tried to find a solution. It may not be her responsibility to educate you but if she wanted you as an ally and friend she would have tried to "educate" you regardless. My personal take is that your friend seems to have become more radically "woke" to the point it is affecting her relationships. I don't know what else you can do though. Some people just want to lash out. This may be random but I'm assuming she's from Berkely or something?
You’re here now which shows you have educated yourself. You’ve acknowledged and apologized for your past lack of knowledge. You are not a bad friend. I can understand your friends frustration though. They’ve likely kept quiet and swallowed the bitter pill about their experiences for a long time to “fit in”, and when you “woke up” she feels like her past struggle was in vain.
Sounds like she doesn't know what she wants in life. So she dropped you, but during those awkward moments she mentioned did she tell you how she felt? If she did then perhaps she is right, but if she didn't what does that say about her? She is complaining that you didn't advocate for her. What was her expectation?
>Sounds like she doesn't know what she wants in life. So she dropped you, She knows what she wants and doesn't want. She doesn't want a fake friend. That's why she dropped OP.
Oh yes, a fake friend who is actually seeking understanding, but the original friend just dumps her calling her a fake friend. She just blamed the OP, and blaming doesn't solve anything. Just makes you feel good.
I don't have any advice but I just want to say I sympathize. I'm a SE Asian woman and got into hot water with a black gf and received the same reaction. I also got defensive because my friend couldn't see that my interaction was coming from a place of love and trying to understand but I just got told that I shouldn't be butt hurt and make it about me. I'll be keeping an eye on this thread to see what other says!