Asian Woman Fatigue or Am I Just Tired?

I am exhausted.  I have been feeling tired lately, a deep exhaustion that I cannot seem to shake off after a good night’s rest or a weekend of Netflix and leftovers (and of course, my familial responsibilities which come naturally to me like breathing and eating).  Initially, I thought it was my age - I am definitely getting older and not younger.  But I remember my mother who was climbing mountains, starting new businesses/ministries, and getting speed ticket every other week in her 50’s and 60’s.  So then I thought that it must be the pandemic.  I have been working from home, checking emails, joining endless zoom meetings, and catering to constant demands from graduate students.  But then I prefer working from home than from my cramped office space where I could overhear almost every conversation from my colleagues. And I have never been much of going-out type of a girl.  So I thought that it must be all the projects on my plate, the constant pressures of running a nonprofit without any money with volunteers who are stretched too thin.  But this is not the first time I have started a nonprofit or the first time I have juggled a million things.  So then perhaps, it is a combination of everything.  

But my students, colleagues, and friends ask if I am tired because of the shooting in Atlanta, if I have been traumatized or triggered by the recent event.  I guess I grew up with so much maleness and whiteness that have tried to belittle my differences that I have accepted it as ‘normal.’  I expected kids to call me “chink” or feel disempowered because of my gender or to be considered “inferior” for being poor, Asian immigrant.  I guess I have come not to expect much from the male or white culture and to be honest, was not surprised by the hate-shooting. As I write this blog, we just had another shooting in Boulder in which 10 innocent lives were again taken.  Who knows what triggered this shooting? It has been a barrage of anti-Black, anti-immigrant, anti-Asian, anti-LGBTQ sentiments in our social media and news of the violence that follows so much of this hatred. I mean, guns has overtaken rhetoric and it is more than us trying to erase cultures with our thoughtless comments and stupid policies but attempts to decimate different people by means of violence, the ultimate silencing of people you deem less than.  I would not be so worried about cancel culture rather than I would be of the exterminating culture.

I’ll be honest.  I am tired of men blaming women for their unchecked sexual and violent appetites, Americans blaming immigrants for taking their jobs, white people blaming everyone who is slightly different for upending their lifestyle, straight people blaming gays for imperiling their moral values, terrorists blaming American lifestyle for being an affront on their true religion.  It is as if everything wrong with our society is not about them but others who should be but fail to be like them.  And I am even more tired of people, especially white liberal people who think that an anti-Asian meme on FB or pro-Black Lives Matter t-shirt or a word of condolence would somehow exonerate them.  But I can hear them say, “would you prefer that we not show our allegiance to the movement?”  Oh how wonderful to be male and/or white and enjoy all the privileges and at the same time be congratulated for being so enlightened? Sorry but I really don’t feel like applauding you for your 10-second effort.  I’m just too damn tired.

So what is it that I want?  I guess I want people to take ownership not only for their own actions but the actions of their ancestors, to really understand how their past and present actions have done to hurt people and our environment.  But honestly, maybe part of me want them to suffer for their actions - who in their anger has not wanted some revenge for their pain?!  Maybe part of me wants them to wallow in their guilt - who in their sadness has not wanted people to feel their rejections?!  Maybe part of me wants to get up and cuss them for being such f_____ a______.  So yes, I will be honest and say that I do not particularly care for maleness and whiteness at moments in my life.  But no, I do not plan on eradicating men and white people with the point of a 9-mm handgun that Robert Aaron Long used to kill 8 innocent people in Atlanta.  I refuse to embrace violence because that would mean I would become like one of them and embrace their arrogance in believing that they can do whatever they want because they are male, they are white, they are straight, they are … and no one else can be.

So why am I tired? I don’t know. All I know is that I wish life would be different and I can just be me without the world trying to eradicate my difference. Life is already difficult without the added stress of the exterminating culture.