Stop hate.

It starts within.

I’ve been trying to process this pivotal moment the Asian community is having right now. I can’t understand the level of hate that still exists, both covertly and the within horrific accounts that do get published. Many of us in this community have had our own personal accounts with racism, not necessarily all violent, but each important, traumatic, and problematic nonetheless.

So you want to help? 

Start by looking inward and analyzing your own stereotypes, how we have helped this privilege and supremacy along — we all have them ingrained from our collection of experiences throughout our lives. Yes, we can even be coloured and still behave racist.

So dig, get uncomfortable, call yourself out. This includes what media we consume, what brands we support, who we surround ourselves with, the conversations we choose to engage in (or not). The ideas we’ve built and how we view a certain “kind” of person. Just because you have a coloured friend, you’re not in the clear. And yea, the time when you did that shitty Asian accent (or was around someone who did) that counts too. It doesn’t matter the context, it matters where it came from — and if we did not act from a place of love, there is no space for that. No more.

Hate is everywhere. It’s in our headlines, it’s in the language we use and hear day-to-day. Heck, a confederate flag was raised up high in a public place here in Calgary (which doesn’t even make sense btw). We are no better up here, we’re just being too damn polite.

Wake the f*k up. Don’t think that you’re helpless.