Many years ago, a friend suggested that I move to his company. He maintained that I qualified for several software engineering positions, and he would get a referral bonus. He even marveled that it’d be a larger sum since I, an Asian male, qualified as a diverse candidate. I never took him up on that offer, but he joked later that he looked up the details and for software engineering at his company, Asian men were not considered diverse candidates. Statistically, Asian men are not a minority in this particular population.
As far as minorities go, Asian men are among the most favorable. Other minorities suffer from different stereotypes involving laziness, illegal activity, or lack of intelligence. If anything Asian people generally benefit from the stereotype of intelligence. People may also believe that we’re disproportionately soft-spoken, but that’s not a trait that typically threatens them. Naturally, kids in school still bullied me for being different, but I navigated adulthood fairly smoothly.
For years, I could fly under the radar and go unnoticed. Truthfully, I didn’t think about it. As long as I behaved enough like Caucasian people, I could avoid detection, like wearing camouflage with an active sniper. I didn’t care as long as that sniper aimed at someone else.
For years I didn’t care about politics
I once posted online that Joe Biden was my first vote for a Democratic presidential candidate. While this was completely true, a conservative friend called me out for being ‘sneaky’. I neglected to mention that until that vote in 2020, I had only cast one other vote for president, for Ross Perot. However, I did not intentionally deceive people, my friend chose to ‘fill in the blanks’.
I felt generally apathetic about politics. I navigated my life with a ‘live and let live’ attitude and chose not to involve myself in the angst I observed in so many others. Furthermore, I wanted to avoid jury duty as much as possible and believed I might avoid it by not registering to vote. I understood the pragmatic reasoning behind the assertion, “If you don’t vote, you can’t legitimately complain.” I generally had few complaints about the government, so I didn’t lose sleep over neglecting to vote.
My apathy about government extended similarly by the idea of voting for the “lesser of two evils.” For instance, if I channel surf and happen upon a baseball game, I don’t continue to watch if I have no passion (either for or against) for either team. Voting often felt like watching a baseball game in October between two losing teams.
I generally trusted the government not to run things into the ground and didn’t burden myself with the details. And one day, the leader of our country uttered the words “Kung-Flu”.
The consequences of apathy
In 2022, the Supreme Court, filled with Trump appointees, reversed Roe v. Wade. Some conservative states already had laws in the books restricting access to abortion, which went into effect immediately. Other conservative states rushed to establish new legislature to restrict access to abortion. One such state is Texas. However, if you’re happily married and looking to expand your family, these laws don’t impact you.
Lifelong Texans Kate and Justin Cox were precisely that, parents of young children looking to expand their family. When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, they probably didn’t think it’d affect the trajectory of their life. The conservative generalization that only promiscuous women who were lackadaisical about birth control sought abortion. The conservative state of Texas merely looked into forcing these women to ‘keep their knees together’ or upon getting pregnant, holding them accountable for getting pregnant. These new restrictions wouldn’t apply to Kate and Justin Cox, except that these laws did affect them.
The couple found that doctors diagnosed their expectant daughter with trisomy 18, a genetic condition that causes severe developmental problems. The prognosis was grim. The couple decided to abort the pregnancy and a battle for her to undergo that medical procedure in her community ensued. They eventually needed to leave the state to abort the pregnancy.
The laws functioned as intended, they made getting an abortion in Texas as difficult as humanly possible. Texas even has bounty laws that allow practically anyone to sue for $10k against anyone who aids in appropriating an abortion. Some counties even disallow traveling through their roads to get an abortion.
Kate and Justin Cox are merely collateral damage, a rounding error. Texas is making a figurative omelet and doesn’t mind breaking a few eggs.
Politics cares about you
You may not care about politics. You don’t want to endure this angst daily as you navigate the details of: executive orders, laws, divulging of information, etc. I completely understand; I would prefer to avoid the outrage and distress. However, this angst beats the alternative. These new laws and policies that violate our moral compass pass under the cover of night, while we sleepwalked and didn’t allow politics to ‘burden’ us.
Do people like Kate and Justin Cox not care about politics? We prefer to navigate life without thinking about the cold sobering truth, these executive orders, legislation, and shenanigans by our government impact our lives. As much as you don’t care about politics, politics cares about you. While you can change rule #1, you can’t change rule #2.
For years I sleepwalked through life, never paying any mind to politics. The biggest perceived impact was when 7-Eleven stopped carrying Playboy and Penthouse. As a single Asian straight man, who navigated life mostly as a Caucasian computer geek, most policies wouldn’t impact me. However, to continue with the active sniper analogy, I had camouflage (and perhaps a Kevlar vest or cover) and considered myself safe.
However, the problem is not whether I may avoid the sniper’s attention or have resources that increase my survival. The problem is there’s a sniper that actively looks to harm people, even if I’m not the one targeted, someone is targeted. The solution is not to avoid detection. The solution is to not need to avoid detection.
What about the people you love?
Take a quick look at your favorite social media platform and look at one number: the number of friends (or I suppose contacts or followers) you have. As a hypothetical, suppose that number is a modest 200 people, statistically:
- 1-3 are transgender
- 15 are homosexual
- 100 are female
- 25 are black
- 10 are Asian
- 37 are Latino
- And oh, 28 are immigrants
Now wrap your head around this. Can you legitimately claim that you love any of them if you approve (or defend) laws and policies that actively harm them? Here’s an extraordinarily simple example, if you have loved ones who are gay, should they not have the same rights as straight couples to adopt a child? And if they do, can we oppose a policy change that makes it easier to discriminate against gay couples?
Can you look them in the eye and tell them they don’t deserve to be parents?