The Ugly Phenomenon Of Asian Hate!

After hearing about the events of Asian hate crimes over the past year and then seeing the event in Atlanta, I got to thinking about it and discussing it with a friend. I'll grant, what he said, made sense to me on some level. He told me if everyone thought about it as simply as I did maybe it would be a better place. Granted, my thought process is simple sometimes. Especially when it comes to people. Because people are far too complex to be simplified. It's frustrating though, so I'm going to have a frank discussion on paper about hate.

Living in one of the greatest places to live is oftentimes a confusing and mind-boggling exercise in understanding the news around us. America is, after all, the land of the free. Lately, however, things haven't been so great. We've all just started to see the tail end of a pandemic that started in late 2019 as Covid-19 began its' spread around the globe. Who amongst us didn't consider hiding the fact that we were American's during that dismal excuse for a 2020 election cycle? Personally, our leaders on both sides acted without dignity and shamefully during the entire time they were supposed to be getting the country through our generations' first pandemic response. So, here we are, a little over a year after the first lockdowns, and we're still experiencing some of the same grievous things that make humanity look like the immature little children that we are. I, of course, am talking about hate.

Hate is not something that is easy to discuss. In all of human existence, it's always been there and probably, albeit, unfortunately, always will continue to be with us. It's like the herpes virus, the kind of herpes you get after a drunken weekend in Las Vegas. Unlike the herpes virus, the cure has always been right there in front of us. It just lays past our reach.

To understand the hate or anything that we struggle with, starting with a good definition is probably the most prudent thing to do. Hate, according to Merriam-Webster Dictionary is:

Hate-Intense hostility and aversion usually deriving from fear, anger, or a sense of injury.

My guess is that we are all going to say we hate something, and with good reason. There are those things that I hate. Fingernails down a chalkboard come to mind. Certain politicians come to mind and most certainly, those people that would do unnecessary harm to children, attack women, and bully people because they can. Sure, I hate a couple of foods, like liver and onions. For the most part, however, hate is an emotional response to a set of stimuli. That's just how I myself, and the majority of the world, was raised to think. Whether our parents raised us in environments that were fostering the next millionaire success stories or we were born into lower and middle-class homes, we were raised that there are some things it's alright to hate.

What I have never thoroughly understood in my almost fifty years of living in this sometimes horrid world, is things like the Spa slayings in Atlanta.

I used this image because it depicts a fancy spa situation and an Asian woman. I will even ask the question that first pops into most people's heads when they hear about such atrocities. Why? Why would a place like this attract a violent actor? Why would this lovely young woman, or any of the men or women that were victims, attract a violent actor? I may be alone in my thinking, but don't honestly believe I am, when I say, "It makes no sense."

Some people would have us think that the rise in Asian Hatred is because of Xenophobia. If you're like me, I didn't even hear this word used regularly until early last year. Sure, I'll admit, that it was being used politically by Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, AOC and the Squad. When I looked it up, I found that the entry into Merriam-Webster actually ends with "Did you know?"

Xenophobia - fear and hatred of strangers or foreigners or of anything that is strange and foreign.

So, thinking about it, how many Xenophobes do you know? Personally, I can't come up with a single person that I personally know. History is already telling us that there are those in power that blame former President Trump for the rise in Asian Hate because he called the Covid-19 virus the "China" virus. Maybe there's something to this claim, maybe there's not. I suppose that is a discussion that will continue for years. Did it create Xenophobes or a Xenophobic response to Asians? If it did, that is a horrible response to a horribly nicknamed virus. Let's face the facts. There were stories that China was ground zero for the start of the virus, told by all of the major news media. Further making the matter worse, there were stories that the Chinese government was less than honest about the response, its spread, and the effects of the virus on its' own people. That said, what did those poor people in Atlanta have to do with it?

Abusing, harassing, and assaulting people of Asian descent, or Pacific Islanders, or anyone else for that matter, makes no sense because they didn't have anything to do with it. For all the would-be justifications people will spew and sputter out of their keyboards, or worse, their mouths, what was done the past year to people of Asian descent was not retaliatory or in some fashion part of protecting America. It was done because those that seek to do harm just need a direction to aim harm. That's all. At the end of the day, their psychosis and their beliefs are looking for someone to take out their frustrations on and we visually associate. Someone says China virus and then there's an Asian Spa.

So, I'm going to turn my thoughts now to why this "hate" is a waste of time.

Hate is a strong emotion. As I stated above, we all have a hatred for something. Our hatred of one thing doesn't make us bad people. It makes us flawed, even closed-minded. Perhaps I should try liver and onions again. I used to swear by all that was holy that I hated spending time watching cartoons at my age. Yet, the world of animation has grown by leaps and bounds and the storytelling is now well above what I experienced as a kid. I tried it, and what happened was I wound up loving certain ones and not caring for others. Using that as an example, let's try to imagine the things that are "hated" not being there. If hate spread across the world, what would we be forced to have lived without?

To answer that question we would have to look at the past. Imagine all the good things of the past that would be erased from your memories. If you are having a rough time considering things that would be gone I feel for you, truly. It means that your life wasn't varied and your exposure to different peoples was limited. I'll make it easier for you, take a long hard look at your favorite things to eat when you're not eating out. Chinese is one of my absolute favorites, as are Italian and Mexican. How about your favorite actors and actresses, favorite movies, and even your favorite television shows.

Jackie Chans' movies have brought in over two billion dollars at the box office domestically. Now, while two billion dollars isn't a lot in Hollywood by today's standards, especially with such stellar movies as the MCU has had, it is a ton of money that was made by the American Theater Industry. In this hateful reality, if hate were to win and we never had Jackie Chan movies, that would have cost a lot of us a lot of enjoyment.

Looking at the statistics from last year, the victims have been predominantly female. This should put a face on the kind of attackers and hateful little trolls that are acting out. I'm going to bet that not a single one of them would attack the ass-kicking, martial artist, actress, and Agents of Shield stand out, Ming Na Wen. Again, in a hateful world that hate is allowed to win, where would the agents be without Ming Na Wen? We wouldn't have her in the Star Wars Mandalorian series, where she did phenomenally well, and she would never have been there to put old Charlie Harper in his place in the hit Two and A Half Men. Ming Na Wen has been entertaining us for decades. I literally can't imagine a world without her.

"The China Virus" - Former President Donald J. Trump

I don't know what the ridiculous reason is for the assaults on people of Asian origins. If I could say one thing to people that are so hateful as to take human lives, abuse their brothers and sisters, and do it with such a lack of respect for life, is that you need help. We live in a country where we are fortunate enough to be envied by people in other cultures and other parts of the world. Why, when these things happen in our country so regularly, I don't know. But, we definitely need to start acting like what they see our country as because a great place deserves great people, and as long as this hatred of things we don't know or understand continues, we are not that.