I spent my week-long break with the flu, scrolling through Tumblr and whatever social media to distract me from my fever and bout of gastric. I had just binged "Dear White People" in less than an evening, and I was looking at some threads about the show. Many POC commended the show's blatant rebellion, from the name to the contents. The show has since been out for a few days, but recent news about a 'Cinco de drinko' party (some attendees showed up as maids and construction workers) held by Baylor University's Kappa Sigma chapter is eerily similar to the events that unfolded in the show.
It's true. As a university student at a largely liberal and diverse school, I live in a bubble. I live in an existence where I have the privilege to feel safe. This is an optimistic illusion that many of us live in until a racist party is thrown where people believe chanting, "Build that wall" is appropriate. We live in a country where celebrities can show up in blackface, and Fox News can claim that there is no more racism. Where people can call you 'Jungle Asian,' and they get offended when you do. Maybe "Dear White People" came out at the exact right time. At a time where a 15-year old is shot because he is black. And where a man can kill 3 innocent people for the insidious crime of not speaking English.
It was interesting to watch these events unfold while "Dear White People" was still fresh in my mind. It baffles me how people do not see the racial crimes. Or perhaps, do they wish to just ignore it? The narrative of many POC on social media has changed. They are tired. They are tired of having to defend their basic human rights and having to fight for equality. When will the world wake up? There is a new Jim Crow forming and somehow everyone is ignoring it. There is a new Jimmy Chao line where Netflix feels like they can take parts of Asian culture and make it white.
While Netflix is far from perfect (very very far), i.e. their upcoming adaptation of Death Note makes me gag, I can only hope they expand their "Dear White People" series to talk about different chapters or different minority groups, as we all have very different and complex issues on our own. I myself am pretty much done. I am pretty exhausted myself. I can no longer ignore comments from presidential candidate Marine Le Pen that colonialism was good. I can no longer accept people telling my father to speak English "better" just because he has a slight accent.
I refuse to be treated like a quota, just a cog in Affirmative Action.
I am not your model minority.
I don't want to be used in your "diversity" percentage.
Don't use my country for poverty-porn.
And absolutely, positively, do not try to repress my memories, culture, language, and history. My discourse in history is why I am here, in America. So I can learn and help develop the country you fucked up. A country you mined dry and took soldiers for your war, but abandoned when the Japanese reached our shores. You took our people and gave them shovels in a gun fight. They came back in caskets with a bill for the blood they spilled on the shoes of their commanding officers, not even a thank you.
Dear White People, I am not anyone important, but speaking from experience, I am sick and tired of this bullshit, "there is no such thing as race," because there is, and there always will be when you're not the right color.
P.S. this is obviously not aimed at all white people, more like the system, so please don't call me anti-white or whatever bullshit. This is an article meant to keep the conversation that the series started, going.
