Category: white supremacy

The Safe House (#388)

My neighborhood, which is flat with sidewalks, became super popular for trick-or-treating about a decade ago. Families drove in from other areas of LA, parked at the nearby schools, and made the rounds. I was thrilled, especially once our son Dalton decided I was “not allowed” to escort him tick-or-treating anymore. I’ve never met a holiday I didn’t like, but the elaborate costumes and piles of candy make Halloween one of my favorites.

Because dogs go insane over door knocking and doorbells (and we always have at least one dog), my friend JM and I sit at the bottom of my porch on Halloween night, wearing witch hats and handing out candy from a huge cauldron. Last night, I even had my K-Pop Demon Hunters playlist and speaker ready to blast the second we saw any members of Huntr/x or the Saja Boys.

Andy, who is not a holiday person, was happy to raid the cauldron, take all the Reese’s, and watch TV inside.

Generally the cauldron is emptied of candy by 8:30 PM. Until last night.

We had far fewer tick-or-treaters last night than last year or the year before. No one parked in the school parking lot, either.

Much to my sorrow, there was only ONE Rumi from K-Pop Demon Hunters.

We told every kid to take whole handfuls of candy. If they passed us again, we insisted they take some more. We pushed candy on every parental escort.

We flagged down adults walking their dogs AND the UPS driver, reverse-robbing them by demanding they take candy.

The horde of teens that usually comes by to mop up (maybe with a single mask or wig shared between 5 adolescent males) never showed.

We were ready to pack it in, cauldron still more than half-full, when a minivan finally stopped right in front of us. And sat there for a full minute.

JM and I saw a flap of black fabric, perhaps a Dracula cape, caught in the rear passenger door. There was movement in the car, maybe the twinkle of sparkly fabric briefly catching the streetlight.

We held our breath, like you do when you’re afraid to startle a wild animal.

Finally, the minivan disgorged a mass of costumed kids: an inflatable capybara jockey, a walking tombstone, something requiring glittery orange veiling, and more that I can’t remember because I was entranced by the capybara.

Those trick-or-treaters were bit taken aback by the enthusiastic cheering from two middle-aged white women. We had to encourage them to take as much candy as they wanted, which they did. It still wasn’t as much candy as I wanted them to take (but probably it was more than Dalton the candy hoarder wanted them to have).

Even though there were elaborate decorations and lights on all down the block, most of the group immediately returned to the minivan. Only the capybara jockey tried the house next door (yes, the one belonging to my infamous, asshole cop neighbor).

No one answered.

After the cabybara jockey returned, the minivan drove away. JM and I stared at each other, confused.

JM asked, “Um…why just your house?”

“I know, right? Every other house on the block looks like an infestation of Halloween inflatables and I just have the wreath you made me. I didn’t even do a jack-o’-lantern this year, since Andy thinks it’s a waste of money to buy food for decoration.”

Shaking my head, I looked back at my porch and its minimal fall decor.

And saw the flag I hung out months ago.

A white and red flag that reads "ABOLISH ICE"

I barely notice that flag any more. But I’m glad someone else did.

LA Is Not Okay (#381)

Los Angeles is never quiet. The county has about 10 million people. Less than half of them speak English at home. There are so many races and religions that not everyone sleeps in on the same holidays. We have 80 school districts, accommodating everything from Jewish High Holy Days to Asian Lunar New Year.

LA County was designed to include many mini-cities, connected by the Pacific Red Car. But since car and oil companies have spent over a century working against public transportation, we’re now mainly connected by freeways. The LA-centric Valentine’s Day card reads: “I love you so much I’d take the 134 to the 101 to the 405 to the 10 for you.* (*Excluding rush hour.)”

The immensity of Los Angeles is hard to explain to non-residents. Until you’ve spent 20 minutes descending over the lights before a night landing at LAX, you probably can’t fully comprehend that LA County is geographically larger than Delaware and Rhode Island combined, and just a little smaller than Connecticut. It has more people than 40 states in the U.S.

Even during the early days of COVID, LA wasn’t quiet. In fact, I ran into more folks than usual when walking my dog early in the morning.

Which made last week eerie.

My windshield after turning on the wipers to get the ash off.

Los Angeles was quiet. There were mornings where Tankie and I saw no one as we walked through our neighborhood.

All we saw were red skies. Falling ash. And smoke.

And yes, of course I was wearing a KN95.

The air quality improved dramatically over the weekend in our area. Sunday morning I woke up to a “good” air quality rating, with minimal particulates.

The sun was shining, the sky was blue. From our hillside in southwestern Los Angeles county, I couldn’t see any smoke.

And yet it was still so, so quiet.

Because everything was canceled. And no, not in the way the MAGA meatheads scream about, which is actually consequences for celebrities being misogynistic, racist, or transphobic.

Local events were canceled. All youth sports were canceled. Grammy events were canceled. Premieres were canceled. The announcement of Oscar nominations was postponed.

Everyone stayed home—unless they were a first responder (including incarcerated firefighters, who you can support here), an animal rescuer, a reporter, or an asshole content creator flying drones into Quebec water bombers.

The screen of Watch Duty, which shows the fires and your location (blue dot)

We spent the week glued to the news, social media, and the literally life-saving new app called Watch Duty, sifting through an INSANE amount of disinformation lies as we tried to figure out what was happening.

And then figured out how we could help.

While also answering calls and texts from every single out-of-state friend and family member who couldn’t remember our address or use Google maps to discern how far away we were from the fires.

I have an enormous family. They are also a very smart family. And yet most of them still checked, individually, to make sure I was nowhere near the fires. It was an absolutely heart-warming pain in the ass.

As I explained to them, I am okay. Physically. Mentally, like every other Angeleno, I am a mess. I am one “Their dog survived the fire!” reel away from tears at all times. I am also one fucking MAGA misinformation meme about how the Black woman mayor of Los Angeles CITY (not the county) is somehow personally responsible for draining the reservoirs of all the surrounding cities from throwing my phone at any house flying a Trump flag.

I am constantly, easily distracted. I started this post 6 days ago. I lost the original draft because I hadn’t saved it when it was “Document 1” and my computer updated overnight. Since then, I’ve managed maybe a paragraph a day.

Like everyone else in SoCal, I deal with a lot of ash. While the air quality has improved, the dirt blown by the initial winds and subsequent fires’ ashfall will continue to cover our streets and sidewalks until it rains. If it rains.

Right now, it looks like even our normally rainy February might be dry.

Our hillside. A picture I took in January of 2023 on the left, January 2025 on the right. Can you tell we’ve had no measurable rainfall for months?

But thanks to fire crews and trucks from all over California, Oregon, and Utah, the Palisades and Eaton fires are gradually being contained. New fires have been put out. Help and support have come from all over the world.

Thanks for making me cry some more, all you kindhearted jerks.

Seriously, though, I appreciate all those who cared, worried, and donated. Which is pretty much everyone except Donald Dickhead Trump and the Californian Republicans who ditched their burning state to go kiss his ass at Mar-a-Lago.

Oh, and billionaire Elon Musk? Keep your incredibly generous donation of 3 rust-prone, rolling dumpsters cybertrucks—supposedly earmarked for one sheriff’s station that lost power.

Teamsters and locals are handling these issues much faster.

 

For those wanting to help, the best way is to donate to the organizations doing good work on the ground here: World Kitchen, the California Wildfire & Disaster Relief Fund, the Pasadena Humane Society, and the Sante D’ Oro Rescue Group.

Here are two of my favorite nonprofit groups that are rescuing and moving animals from LA to help our local shelters make more room: Best Friends, Dogwood Animal Rescue.

Other ways you can help? Stand up for legislators who stand up against fossil fuels.

Clap back against disinformation. 

And never stop caring.

Our Own Grave (#377)

Well, fuck.

I specifically did not write a post before the election about how Harris would win because I didn’t want to jinx it like I did in 2016. Instead, I donated money, wrote letters to voters in swing states, and smugly watched Republicans panic.

I flew a “Harris-Walz” flag and put up a yard sign:

My dad, my friend JM, and even Brilliant Blonde Lawyer Sister were not so sanguine about a Democratic victory. Not even when I extolled the virtues of the Dem’s ground game, the problem with polling Gen Z and Millennials, and the fact that surely America had figured out that TRUMP IS A DODDERING IDIOT AND CONVICTED FELON WHO KILLED HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF AMERICANS WITH A BOTCHED COVID RESPONSE AND THEN ATTEMPTED A COUP.

Sorry, fam. I will never underestimate the stupidity of my fellow white Americans again.

More than one of my social media friends in Europe asked me, “How the hell could this happen?”

The mathematical answer? Based on the projected final vote count, approximately 6 million fewer people voted for Harris than voted for Biden in 2020, while about 2 million MORE people voted for Trump this time around. (Harris will probably get 9-10 million more than Hillary Clinton did in 2016, in case you are wondering.)  The loss of blue voters isn’t due to a declining population, either. The United States has added approximately 6 million eligible voters to the rolls since 2020.

So at least 8 million people couldn’t bring themselves to vote for a Black woman. There’s a word for that: misogynoir.

And 6 million people went from, “Biden’s old, but Trump must be stopped” to “The options are a treasonous, convicted felon rapist or a Black woman? I can’t vote for either. Oh, well.”

As for the 76 million people who  actually vote for Trump? Originally I wrote a long historical explanation for this post. It had dozens of hyperlinks and theories about this country’s glorification of rugged individualism (i.e., willful ignorance and toxic masculinity), the impact of our inability to apologize/make amends for slavery or genocide, and the Republican agenda of defunding education after the Vietnam War.

But I’m gonna spare you all that. Since this country is so enamored of someone who “tells it like it is,”* here’s me, telling it like it really is.

If you’re well-off and you voted for Trump, you’re a selfish asshole. You got yours. You have no empathy and do not care about women dying, the planet becoming unlivable, or Putin annexing Europe. Your money and privilege are, after all, so much more important than mere people.

If you’re middle class and you voted for Trump, you can’t math. Trump plans on more tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy, plus tariffs to destroy the strong economy President Biden painstaking rebuilt from the LAST inept Trump administration.

If you are a white woman who voted for Trump, congrats to you, you good little foot soldier for the white supremacist patriarchy. Welcome to the Republic of Gilead. Kiss your birth control, bodily autonomy, and other rights goodbye, sweetie, especially if you live in a red state. At least that red robe matches the blood on your hands real nice.

And if you’re a naturalized or first generation Trump voter who isn’t a white, male billionaire? You think you’re “one of the good ones,” and are utterly unprepared to be rounded up and deported. Too bad the ICE goons are coming for you no matter how many MAGA hats you wear.

Oh, and if you’re Christian and voted for Trump? No, you’re not. You’re not about feeding the hungry, welcoming the stranger, and loving your neighbor. You’re a Christo-fascist (and Old Testament, at best).

And when any of you Trumpers land in the hole you dug by voting for that vile, fascist monster?

I’m gonna be the first to toss in a shovel full of dirt and say, “We fucking told you so.”

“TWICE.”

 

*Yes, I know Trump doesn’t actually tell it like it is. He just lies.

Waiting (#314)

I am not a patient person. I was the kid in the car asking “Are we there yet?” every 10 minutes. My many siblings were equally impatient. Road trips were an endless chorus of questions about how long it was to the bathroom, restaurant, and destination.

Unsurprisingly, we didn’t go on many road trips.

My Chinese-American husband is patient (sadly, he grew up on Oahu, which is too small for road trips). I’m not sure if he’s naturally mellow, or if the tropical “hang loose” vibes worked on his personality the opposite way that the intense, political atmosphere of Washington, D.C. affected me.

Perhaps our different levels of patience exemplify the difference in our cultures. My Western mindset insists that I can control my destiny if I work, scheme, and worry enough. At the very least, maybe I can get someone incompetent fired if I document the crap out of his failings. But Andy doesn’t see the point; people are gonna be stupid and other people are gonna cover for them. That’s life, and you have no control over your own fate, let alone anyone else’s. Why exhaust yourself changing nothing? Continue reading Waiting (#314)

Election Night: Then and Now (#305)

Over 70 million Americans have spent the week holding their breath. We remember how confident we were four years ago. How we arrogantly assumed that the rest of the country saw Donald Trump for what he was: a hateful, racist, incompetent, misogynistic narcissist who would run the country into the ground.

I watched the numbers roll in on CNN and compared it with the New York Times website. And by 7 PM PST, it was clear that Clinton did not have the votes in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. It was shocking, but true. Numbers don’t lie. The trend was obvious.

My Chinese-American mother-in-law was visiting. She didn’t understand why I was upset. “It will be fine,” she said.

“It will not be fine,” I told her. “With the Senate also Republican, there will be no checks on that man.” I fled to my bedroom. Continue reading Election Night: Then and Now (#305)

12 Step Program for White Women (#293)

 

  1. PUT DOWN THE PHONE. Yeah, I know you are in mid-text to the one Black woman you know from work five years ago, or the PTA, or from your kids’ dance class/ baseball team/ Girl Scout troop. STOP. Sure, someone on social media said “check in with your Black friends.” But you aren’t friends. You are, at best, acquaintances. If you were friends, you’d know she’s exhausted by all the other white women texting her. What you really want is to know that you are a “good” white person and she doesn’t hate you. Here’s the thing: a) you probably microaggressed the shit out of her because all of us white people do it, and b) you’re expecting more unpaid labor from a Black woman. Which brings us to…
  2. DO YOUR OWN WORK. Pretend you are back in school. You were probably a  good student and the teachers loved you because you were a white woman with an A+ in people-pleasing. You never cheated (although you undoubtedly gave an undeserving mediocre white male the answers at least once). So why are you now asking Black women for the answers? Come on. Think about how pissed off and resentful you are daily because your white husband automatically expects you to handle all the kids’ activities, schooling, and healthcare while keeping the house clean, providing meals, and serving as household counselor/ cheerleader. Now, imagine he comes back from a long business trip and says, “Hey, I saw this article about how women do all the emotional labor. I didn’t bother to actually read it, but give me a pat on the head for noticing it and explain it all to me, please.” If you weren’t so tired, you’d throw something at your idiot husband. And he’d fucking deserve it. Well, Black women are about a thousand times more tired than we are, which you will understand if you…
  3. DO YOUR HOMEWORK.  Read at least two books on the current New York Times Non-Fiction Bestseller List. Yes, the NYT is biased and totally cheats BIPOCs (when you your homework you will know what BIPOC means) by switching their criteria to favor white authors. However, the non-fiction section is currently dominated by Black Americans writing about race relations because the other 4.0 white people are finally doing their long overdue reading for Honors English.
  4. DO MORE HOMEWORK. Once your head stops spinning after you finish at least 2 books from #3, read The Hate You Give. It’s easier going and reading fiction is supposed to increase empathy. Yes, of course you are a very empathetic person, but crying over Subaru commercials and rescued animals is not the same as understanding the effects of systemic racism on a visceral level. Ask yourself why you were more outraged over the police shooting dogs than Walter Scott. Or De’Von Bailey. And then…
  5. ACKNOWLEDGE COMPLICITY.  We swallowed the white supremacist narrative that Black Americans deserve the violence meted out by racist cops. And yes, we should have done better. Get yourself some tissues and have a good cry, but do NOT, under any circumstances, call your Black acquaintance and sob over this epiphany. They’ve spent a lifetime surviving what we just learned. They’re too busy giving their offspring “The Talk” to give us absolution. Instead…
  6. TALK TO YOUR OWN OFFSPRING. Since you’ve done your homework, you now know that it is on you to cover all the material state textbooks leave out (some states more than others, TEXAS). There are statues of slave traders, Confederate generals, and Christopher Columbus coming down all over. Use these exciting visuals of destruction as a starting point. End with a comparison between the United States and Germany. (Hint: Germany apologized for the Holocaust, banned the Nazi salute, and DOESN’T have Hitler statues).
  7. CALL OUT YOUR PARENTS. Repeatedly. Don’t let them get away with perpetuating the “by my own bootstraps,” myth or any other racist crap. Overwhelm them with your homework facts. Use the parental controls on their remote to keep them from watching Fox News. Until they shape up, withhold grandchildren on the grounds that you do not want your children to be brainwashed into evil. Never excuse them with bullshit about “but they’re good people,” who would “give you the shirt of their backs.” If they excuse the violence perpetrated on Black bodies, and/or putting kids in cages, they are white supremacists and fascists. Would you let your kid hang out with the KKK or Hitler?
  8. CALL OUT ALL THE RACISTS ALL THE TIME. This is probably the hardest part for us. We’ve been trained to be good hostesses. We smooth things over. We don’t create scenes. We’re gonna have to get over that–fast. If we aren’t making white people uncomfortable, we are not doing the work.
  9. PROTEST. THEN CHANNEL YOUR INNER KAREN TO COMBAT POLICE BRUTALITY. Policing is done at the local level. Instead of calling the police on Black Americans enjoying life, call your mayor. Call your city council, and your police commissioners. Attend their Zoom meetings. Identify yourself as a constituent and then, because you did your homework, point out how much goddamned money is spent on the police—especially their unnecessary military gear and their pensions. Since every city will be facing huge revenue shortfalls this year, there is no better time to demand a massive reduction in the police budget. Push for social services and education instead of police!
  10. DONATE. If you’re worried about being scammed, start here. Always, always google organizations. A little research can save you from financing some problematic activist’s failed mountain climbing expedition instead of a solid organization.
  11. FOLLOW BLACK WOMEN–especially on Twitter. (If you haven’t found them by now, you got an F on your homework. Go back to #2 and start over.) Staying current on events and the conversation is vital; it will keep you from embarrassing yourself or donating to the failed mountain climbing dude. Centering and listening to Black voices is even more important, and we’re really, really bad at it. WARNING: never, ever insert yourself in the conversation—Twitter will drag you deservedly and mercilessly. Just listen. Learn. Consider events and history from a non-white perspective. Retweet. Amplify. Repeat.
  12. NO TITLES. Maybe we did the work and feel like we deserve a treat. Resist. Never, ever call yourself “an ally.” Nor “an accomplice.” Why? If we only did the work to signal our virtue, we’re assholes, not allies. But most of all…

“Ally” is the one title no white person can bestow.