On Monday, in response to a legitimate question about Covid-19 testing from CBS News White House correspondent Weijia Jiang, you told her to “
ask China” instead. Your response wasn’t just disrespectful to her as a prominent member of the press. It was a thinly veiled microaggression aimed at her race and ethnicity, and she was rightly shocked and appalled to have been so targeted.
For many of us Asian Americans, it was just another reminder that our status in American society — our very status as Americans! — has been deeply endangered by your rhetoric, your policies and the hateful climate you’ve encouraged.
Yes, Donald Trump. Asian Americans are “very angry.” And I’m one of them.
But I’m not angry at China. Any mistakes and misdeeds for which the Chinese government is responsible on coronavirus should — and will — be uncovered eventually, after this global crisis has faded.
Your mistakes and misdeeds, however, continue to happen in real time and because you occupy the highest office in my nation, they impact me, my loved ones and hundreds of millions of other Americans in ways that have shaken the very pillars of our nation.
Your chaotic incompetence and willful ignorance over warnings about the pandemic has helped lead to
thousands of preventable deaths and
billions in economic damage.You have slashed funding to
global healthcare partnerships, thwarted
critical cooperation with other nations and used the pandemic as an excuse to
target vulnerable communities.And with your words and actions, you’ve generated an insidious miasma of
fear and resentment that has contributed to nearly 1,500 reported cases of anti-Asian bias in just the past few months, and that millions of us experience whenever we step outside to shop or jog or walk our dogs.
We see it in the look of disgust in those who step off the sidewalk to avoid us. We see it in
graffiti being scrawled on walls, in
smashed windows and anonymous
flyers, in acts of sometimes horrific violence. We see it in the dark words welling up on social media, calling for the
forced quarantine of Asian communities, or demanding war against the nations of our ancestors.
So yes, I’m an “angry Asian American.”
I’m angry at you for making me feel unwelcome in the land of my birth.
I’m angry at you for trying to
shut down immigration, the lifeblood of our nation, and eliminate
birthright citizenship, and even
denaturalize those who’ve already become citizens.
I’m angry at you for distracting us with attacks on China while Asian American frontline healthcare professionals like my sister and my ex-wife work double shifts with insufficient personal protection, treating people for a disease you’ve utterly failed to contain.
I’m angry at you for taking a month that has been set aside to celebrate the
achievements of our Asian American and Pacific Islander forebears, people who gave their toil, their tears, their hopes, dreams and lives to this country, and turning it into a time of outrage, anxiety and despair.
But most of all, I’m angry at you for daring to claim that you know or care what I feel as an Asian American, what I feel as a part of a community with roots that stretch down deep into this nation and out far across oceans.
Because you, Mr. President, do not speak for us. And most assuredly, you do not speak for me.
