As an Asian femme, it has been my prerogative to assert myself as confident, outspoken, and unafraid. The funny part is that alot of Asian Americans also feel the same - so we are our own subset of a cliche. But I don’t care! I will NOT be seen as a docile submissive girl.
An adjacent fear of mine is to fall into the category of fragile and privileged liberal who doesn’t actually do anything for collective liberation. I hate the term “white fragility” for so many reasons, but mainly because “white fragility” is in its own way a fragile term. that “fragility” is just straight up racism. Also, the white woman author profiting off of an anti racist book is gross.
Back to my fear, I don’t ever want to lean in so deep into the intellectualism and my own privilege that I lose touch of real world impact like how white people do all the time.
So in this journey of healing and struggling towards liberation at the same time, I KNOW that I need to feel and allow grief, sadness, joy, anger to move through my body. But I don’t trust the process enough to believe that all of those feels can coexist with forward motion while surviving under capitalism. Writing that sentence out…I can see why I don’t. Capitalism doesn’t leave much room for us to be in our bodies - especially for those of the global majority.
(Wow I really set out for this space to just follow my stream of consciousness and it’s happening. No idea where this is going.)
Now, combine not wanting to come off as a submissive asian girl or/and a fragile liberal, letting myself feel sad and soft is really rough. As I’ve said before, I’m a Leo! My chiron in cancer is laughing. To be a fragile asian who doesn’t actually practice what they believe in is my worst nightmare.
Time for my adult self to step in to talk to my inner child:
I hear you! Being misunderstood and then judged is scary. Of course you don’t want that. But I see you accurately. I accept and love you in your times of bravery and also in your sadness. People will perceive you many different ways, and you’re right - sometimes it won’t be accurate. In your journey, I will be here to remind you that integrity is holding firm in our values whether people can see it or not. I will be here when you do hold firm and when you stumble. You get to be human.
I’m going to start ending my posts with this question: What does Liberatory Imagination spark in me today?
It feels like a softening of this little spot behind my sternum and the energy roots down past my spine - all the way down into the ground where it spreads out connecting to other people’s roots who have the same trajectory.
