As this is an informal opinion piece, there are no sensitivity readers attached to this post. Any mistakes made in language or any of my own stepping into anti-black racist territory is of my own doing, and I more than welcome such being pointed out so that I can fix them.

It's time to talk about everyone's favorite topic: privilege and how it relates to you. Is this post specifically targeted toward white people? Yes, of course. It's more than relevant to the situations of the times. Over the past few days, I've seen posts flood my social media feeds of pain and grief — and, on the flip side, anger directed at the wrong people and defensiveness that has no place or utility in the conversation that's currently happening. Let me be clear: this is not the post that says "all white people are racist".

But it's also not the post that apologizes for your hurt, white feelings. Or the one that pads your white guilt.

Racism has existed, most likely, as long as rational thought has. It comes in many forms, and, yes, it's inside of communities of color, too (that's called colorism). It's "a light-skinned Vietnamese person = middle/upper class because of the assumption they're fairer skinned because they mostly stay indoors with their AC and indoor jobs" vs. "a dark-skinned Vietnamese person = poor because their heavy tan implies lots of outdoor labor under the sun". And you know which one society prefers over the other. Rinse and repeat for ethnicity of your choice. (Especially for black people.)

But just because it exists inside of communities of color doesn't mean that you're excused from looking at the racism that's ingrained itself into your life. When there are posts on social media going "everyone faces racism" or similar veins, that's not acknowledging the problem — that's circumventing step one in order to save your own feelings. Yes, sexism exists, ageism exists, college students have less job opportunities in this day and age, etc. — everyone has their own problems, so why should this matter, right? Why is racism suddenly the white person's burden to carry, to educate themself on how to act, talk, and "police" their behavior around minorities?

Because we've been doing that for years. Decades. Centuries.

I can't speak from a black person's perspective, and at the time of writing this after midnight, I'm not going to wake up my nearest black friend to get their opinion (which in itself would be a problematic thing for me to do because my "wokeness" is not their responsibility). But where I can speak from is my place in society as a Vietnamese-American. I am not white enough to have privilege, and I am not black enough to be killed over taking an extra piece of candy from a store. I am not black enough to have as momentous of a social justice movement to stand behind, but I am white enough to be able to buy a toy gun from the Asian market and not worry about being shot for carrying it into the parking lot. I consider my place in American society to be extremely odd because I come from a family of immigrants (the """right""" kind, haha), so I'm "allowed" to be here. At the same time, people don't want me here because Asians are too smart, good at math, and keep stealing American jobs and spots in universities (I'll be honest for a moment — the national average SAT scores aren't great and I've been to public school, we're not doing anything to y'all that wasn't already a result of a terribly built education system, that's not the fault of Asian communities).

I have had to "police" my behavior over the years. I lost my language when I entered elementary school. My parents raised me speaking only Vietnamese, and I learned English from reading books on my own. When I entered kindergarten, I took ESL classes for almost two years, and by the end of those years, I couldn't speak Vietnamese anymore because I simply didn't practice it regularly enough. I still understand it completely, but my vocabulary right now is menu items (those are always easiest). But that's what I did in order to fit in. If I said I knew another language, I would get the usual "Oh! Can you say something in Vietnamese?" I mean... what am I, an exotic tiger for you to watch dance around? Is it because another language fascinates you so much because most Americans live in an English-centric worldview and only know one language? You know that, overseas, plenty of countries have English as their predominant second language because of tourism, right? Native English speakers really don't have to change their comfort zone all that much when they visit other countries. Wild concept. The point is — I don't get that question from people who know more than one language. Or, even better, people who understand that my culture is not here for their consumption.

In a very bold statement that is probably not pretty to read, I will say that I've had to tone down my own intelligence in order to make sure people around me didn't get upset. That's another thing I feel like is a display of anti-Asian racism — we're "too smart". Of course, we get good grades. Of course, we got into those good colleges. We're Asians. Not Bsians. Ha. Well, while you have a laugh about that, I spent much of my life being grounded because of my grades. The result is that I got straight A's during high school, but nobody got to see my life behind closed doors. I have some fun childhood trauma that attributes to my incessant need to be the loudest voice in the room now, and it all comes from the fact that my mother pushed me to be the best otherwise she'd take away all of my electronics until my next quiz/test grade (and if that one wasn't an A or a high B then the grounding would continue). Simultaneously, I was silenced at school because none of my friends would ever take my complaints seriously. "Oh, I would kill for grades like yours", "You can't complain, you have good grades!", etc. What was a source of emotional grief for me was perceived as a privilege — except, for me, it wasn't. It wasn't my luxury. I wasn't going home to relax on the couch, kick my feet up, and bask in my amazing grades and full ride to Harvard. I was going home to yelling because, even with my good grades, they weren't good enough. Nothing I ever did was good enough for my mother's standards, and my voice wasn't listened to.

It wasn't until I got to college that I realized many things at once; most of them came along with my conversion to Christianity and baptism. The first and most important thing was that there was already a plan for me, a divine plan that I believed in, specifically for me. What that meant was that there is a space for me in this universe already, and it's attached to that plan. So, what was I doing with that space? I was hiding from it. I wasn't using it, I was filling it with platitudes and pretenses. I was eating American food during high school because I didn't want to bring Vietnamese food to lunch in case my friends made fun of me for it. I took every piece of my Asian identity, and I stripped it until I was a Twinkie (yellow on the outside, white on the inside, if you're not familiar with the idiom). I had no language, I had no interest in learning my culture, and I had no identity. And then I found identity in Christ and with that came the revelation that, while identity in Christ is first and foremost, it did nothing to help me if I shunned the culture I came from, either.

Sometimes comes the argument of "but in Heaven, we're all going to look the same" or "we're all made in God's image so we're all the same so what's the point in getting involved in racial politics when it'll all go away one day?" — sure. Sure, but look around you. Is this an equal world we live in? No, not even close. But that equal world, if you're a Christian, won't come from sitting back and waiting for Jesus to come. You can still believe that he'll come and fix all of our messes that we've created through destructive social constructs and categorizations, but what will you do in the meanwhile? I sure hope you won't sit back and continue to ignore the voices that are crying out to be heard.

Often, Romans 12:2 comes up in Christian communities in favor of not getting involved in things like "racial politics" — because as Christians we're supposed to focus on God and not the world, right? I counter that getting involved in the conversation doesn't go against what God commands us to do and be. "Conforming" to the pattern of the world simply means "don't follow what the world wants out of you". Follow what God wants from you. In fact, I'd go further to say that to stay silent and "neutral" because it's not your place and/or you don't "want to get involved" in "that kind of politics" is conforming to the world. The world wants you to forget about us. The world wants you to choose neutrality and silence over using your voice to help others. The world wants you to think that this isn't your problem. Racism is over, right? We elected a black president, after all.

The rest of Romans 12 is just as relevant to this. Paul does not call us to be complacent, nor does he call us to be quiet. "Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn" — this is not about an attack on cops. This is not about an attack on white people. It's a statement that the system that we all live under is unfairly balanced against people without privilege, starting with black people. When your social media feed is flooded by black people posting their own experiences with being pulled over and fearing for their lives, why are you making posts about how George Floyd may or may not have had a prior rap sheet? Why does that matter? Is it okay to watch a cop on a crime drama break a murderer's arm in the process of arresting him because the guy murdered someone? Does committing a crime make someone less human — so that it's easier for you to justify the violence done to them because they've done worse? It shouldn't matter if George Floyd had an arrest record or not. If it matters to you, then I have some truth for you: he is not human to you. He is a series of numbers on a case file. Your worldview is horribly skewed, and you believe that justice is ends justifying the means. That's not very Christ-like of you.

Why, instead, aren't you listening to those voices? It's not about calling all white people racist, but when you respond to a post with biblical "evidence" in support of complacency or counter arguments that the masses should be analyzing why Floyd was arrested in the first place — that's pure tone deafness. People of color asked you to listen, and instead you said, "Why are you attacking me?" That's what white privilege is. It's, for maybe the first time in your life, realizing that something is wrong, seeing that the world isn't equal for everyone else, and your instinct is to go on the defensive about it. Your instinct is to shout that blue lives matter just as much as black ones. Well, sure. All lives do matter. But when you say all lives matter, you just want to make sure that your whiteness isn't picked apart. You want to make sure that you are safe from those crazy rioters, those loud, angry, inhumane black people setting fires and creating chaos. If all lives matter so much, then why didn't Floyd's matter to you?

Do I sound accusatory? Good. Imagine how the opposite of that feels, to be stopped and frisked for the color of your skin, for running in your own neighborhood, for playing with a toy gun you purchased with your allowance. Imagine how the opposite of that feels, to live with your skin color every day and think about how to present yourself before you walk into a room. How you present yourself to other people in every setting possible. Personal, professional, romantic, whatever. Can I talk to my friends about Asian Americans and the coronavirus or are they going to think I'm being too loud when black people are being gunned down every few weeks? Am I being too loud? I'm not white enough, but I'm also not black enough — and here you are, white enough, but you might have never had to think about your skin color that way. Maybe you're a white woman, and you've had to think of your womanhood that way, making sure that you don't wear something that could be called "provocative" but it's 90 degrees in Houston and the humidity is at 90% and it rained this morning. Maybe you're a white man and you haven't had to think about your skin color or your gender that way. Maybe you should start to think about that and how that must feel for others to have that burden on them their whole entire lives.

Privilege is a nice cushion. Everything is wonderful in the bubble of privilege until something makes you realize "oh, hey, not everyone has a bubble like me..." but what are you going to do about it? For some, privilege means that the moment they realize not everyone has a bubble like them, they get angry and defensive — "Why is that my fault that not everyone has a bubble? Stop attacking me just because you don't have a bubble!" But nobody's attacking you. We're pointing out that a system, older than all of us, has set it up so that some of us have comfortable bubbles and some of us don't. Some of us even have multilayered bubbles, and those keep you even further sheltered from the realities of the world. We're saying, "Hey, you have a bubble, and we don't... Help us fix this. Everyone should have a bubble to be comfortable in."

Women gaining more rights, equal pay, etc. doesn't take away from those luxuries already granted to men. In the same way, a black person getting to live doesn't take away from a white person's life. It just means that there's one less death to grieve over.

Your white privilege means a lot of things. It means that you live with a lot less problems in certain areas. (No, not getting into a certain college when more Asians do is not an example of reverse racism. That's not how it works.) It means that you are able to feel safe in certain situations and have a guarantee that you won't get shot, beaten, or lynched. It means that you have a voice that, by default, is louder and speaks more volumes and is heard more clearly by figures of authority. Just because black lives matter doesn't mean that all lives don't matter — but black people want everyone to listen to them when they haven't been listened to for all of history. And, instead, history repeats itself. The death of George Floyd turns into your opportunity to use your white privilege to get angry about anti-cop hate. You've missed the point, and worse, you continue to live in ignorance of the pain that is going on around you.

Use your voice. And, I'm aware this sounds harsh, don't expect us to educate you, either, because this isn't a hand-holding type of thing. There aren't baby steps to fighting racism. The world throws you in the deep end, and you have to learn how to swim. Yes, there are resources out there to learning about the history of racism, the history of civil rights movements, how to "police" your language and behavior to be less racist, etc. You might get pointed to some by some black friends, but they're not library books for you to go to when you don't know how to proceed. They've lived their lives having to deal with anti-black racism, so it sure isn't their job to teach the rest of the world what they've lived through. There is a mental capacity everyone has, and when you're a black person in America and black people die every month from some new case of police brutality, it becomes so tiring that you don't want to answer questions anymore. Educate yourself. Learn. Make mistakes, be better, do it all over again. The war that rages is not a war against cops or white people — it's against the system that oppresses.

Being able to speak out against that system is a luxury. Share your luxury with others, and use it to help the fight, not put yourself in the victim's corner.