Asian/Arab American woman here. I am so sick and tired of the way white women act in this country (USA). I am so sick and tired of the thousands of examples of being ignored, belittled, insulted, humiliated, explained to or told about my culture, treated as though they know more than me, deserve more than me, or should always be treated like the white princess that they are.

I went to a language class yesterday. Walk in and there’s two stuck up looking white women students and a man of color teaching the class. The moment I step in the room, the two women look at me as if I’m a piece of turd that got stuck on their shoe. Then proceed to spend the next TWO hours utterly ignoring me, talking across me, and every so often making a face at me as if I’m dogshit smelling up the room. They literally never once made eye contact, spoke to me, or treated me like a human being. And we’re not talking about 12 year olds here, we’re talking about women in their 20s and 30s. I assume they couldn’t handle having a woman of color there taking attention away from “their” attractive man of color teacher. Or they’re just racist assholes who hate brown women. Who knows?

I just sat there quaking with rage and the teacher never noticed or pretended not to notice. I hate these situations because afterwards you feel like" Oh, I should have said this" or you imagine all the things you could have done differently. But that’s the insidious nature of this type or racism- they didn’t SAY something racist or outrageous that I could have called them out on. Its the kind of racism that makes you question yourself, wonder if you’re being “oversensitive”, which is what you’ll inevitably be accused of if you call them out on it. Its the daily racism that just pokes holes in you, humiliates, embarrasses you and accumulates until you feel like you can’t take the indignity any longer.

And there’s a double trauma of racism in this country- you have these shitty things happen to you, and then there’s even more shitty things that happen to you if you point out they’re happening. I’ve had white women get angry, dismiss me, use their power to punish me when I disagree with them or point out what they’re doing. Oh and crying- that’s another white woman tactic sure to make everyone else feel bad for them and turn you into the “mean woman of color” even when it’s the white women who is the one at fault!!! And let’s just get this straight. I’m a nice, kind person. When this shit happens to me, I always point it out in a nice, constructive way. It doesn’t help. No matter what you do it sometimes feels like a lose-lose- either you call them out and then get dismissed and even more hostility, or you stay silent and seethe and feel bad about it and end up googling “Angry Asian Girls” to find somewhere you can rant about this and get some solace and comfort.

I usually end up speaking up about it and about 75% of the time I get backlash or dismissed. But there are a few times it has worked and the white person actually apologized and recognized the wrong they had done. What keeps me going normally is this quote by Audre Lorde, “

"When we speak we are afraid

our words will not be heard

nor welcomed

but when we are silent

we are still afraid.

So it is better to speak

remembering

we were never meant to survive.”

I wish I could say it gets better but I don’t think it does, at least not in my experience. I think what happens is you get stronger and develop a tougher skin. A few years ago I would have just seethed and seethed or internalized it as something wrong with me. Now I can look at a situation like that and basically know that it’s these women who are just racist entitled assholes and who are most likely miserable with their lives anyway. Martial arts or just punching a pillow helps too.

Alright that’s all I have to say. Feel free to cut it down if it’s too long. Just so fucking fed up after 20+ years of this treatment and need to rant about it somewhere.