What my Asian Mother Would Tell Young Black Leaders

When I was very young, at the knee of both of my immigrant parents, I was told a truth. In my white, affluent, suburban neighborhood, I would have to work twice as hard as other people because of the color of my skin. And as all my Asian American kin know, we have inherited a cultural appetite for the down and dirty, Earth-elemental work.

My parents weren’t philosophers. It was simply known. People will find reasons to discriminate against you. Showing weakness is not an option when your livelihoods, your successes, depends on your strength of discipline and mastery of skills.

Quantum Mechanics aside, Mom and Dad knew that you could fix the odds of your future with overwhelming effort before the collapse of the probability function.

This is why this blog exists. Not as some suggestive 30 second video to draw eyes

But as a consistent shout into the void.

I work hard on these posts. Steady at the tides.

Hold truths; hands toil. [Have you read my poetry?!]

The practice has given me a lot. I trust my voice. I believe I think clearly and globally. I’m coherent and well-spoken. Traits that my parents would be very proud of if they ever read these articles. [sobs in misunderstood first child]

However. All of what I’ve learned and developed has been challenged. The roots of what I thought were racism and difference thrown into new perspective as I watch George Floyd get choked. And recently as I heard and saw Elijah McCain’s execution. The needle of ketamine that gets shot into his neck. The disgust in the officer’s voice, as if the dead boy on his hands was like an accidental handful of shit, instead of a blatant murder by suffocation.

As if none of these cops were charged.

And so. Like everyone who thought this to be sickeningly enough to have to do something, anything. I marched. Hours and hours. Miles.

It wasn’t enough. I set up voter registration tables. Shared poetry all the time. Buffered police lines. Ran an open mic art collection. Cleaned up Occupy City Hall. Worked with different groups in different places.

It still wasn’t enough.

I wanted to yell in the chants. I wanted to rage against the City Council that would dare suggest raising the NYPD budget. The streets were rolling with anger, and I would have swelled my chest to corral the highs and channel the energy.

See I have a tendency to lean into leadership positions.

But here and now, it was important to be humble. So  I stayed busy and quiet. And listened.

I heard great black voices.

Especially. And I want to say. Black women and all the women of color really stepped forward. The LGBTQ+ community unapologetically owning their space.

It was inspiring to see and useful to absorb.

If all of that toil has given me a chance to say something then. If all this absorbing has turned out any advice worth sharing then let me turn to my mother and say what she would say to all young black leaders.

You need to be better.

This world isn’t fair. You won’t win. We won’t win if you aren’t better.

This doesn’t come from hate, in fact in comes from pure love, much like my mother would whisper to me in her low, serious voice reserved for truths I needed to hear.

Because it isn’t enough. Not yet.

Part of all of that listening leads to the exposure of many different voices. Like not just the disillusioned but plenty misinformed or misdirected. So many conspiracy theories. So many egos. So many problems. Immigrants too, in their own shades of prejudice and misunderstanding.

Even though everyone on the streets were supposed to be on my side, I found positions that were undefendable. Like COVID or 5g or anti-vaxx or way crazier. For every well intentioned or informed opinion, there were at least, at least, one that wasn’t. Sometimes from the same person!

The only cure will come from inside. It starts within your POC communities. Leaders with Black bodies, Asian hair, Latino music, Native Tribe voices. This is not something an outsider can solve.

Not everyone is a leader. It’s unfair to push that responsibility on you. But sometimes people step into the mantle of leadership and find that it fits them well. To those people; with the courage to stand and the humility to always seek improvement.

You will need to carry on your shoulders your brothers and sisters. You will need to be that much stronger so that you can lift yourself but also your family, as you rise. To push roses from the concrete until the sidewalks are lined with bushes and we can all finally breath free.

We will look to you for leadership and you must never faulter at each and every hurdle, for even tiny missteps will be weighted four or fives times as much. See the Obama’s or Jay-Z or Ice Cube.

We will need every one of you.

It will not be easy. It will challenge you from your very cores, day in and day out. You will never be finished; you will die with neither society close to your imagination and yourself not close to completion, but that is the struggle we must all face in our own way.

And if you really get close, like Malcom and Martin. They will literally kill you. Because of your skin. Because of their fear.

I’m not a philosopher. It’s just true.

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I’m not even really giving advice, and I beg forgiveness for the using liberties of nuanced truth in the name of art and creation.

Look. In today’s black and white narratives; by this point in the opinion piece most readers have drawn their conclusions. I lost the suspense of disbelief and the reasonable doubt in two sentences and the rest of the way is critical analysis for flaws or facts to support a pre-existing notion. I get that. We as a society live in a meme driven economy; if I don’t understand this in two phrases and an image; I’m making my own assumptions.

Fine. For all of those; consider this The End and go on your merry way. Thank you for reading.

For everyone else; I don’t actually know anything. But I was raised by some excellent-if-flawed parents. At the knee of my mother, I learned some valuable lessons on how to make myself presentable to powerful white people; and educated enough to pass, if not excel. These were tools not of oppression, but empowerment; to take my Chinese skin, my ancestors’ blood further and better, fashioned in the furnace of class and racial divides. But I found those tools applied broadly.

So I lay them before you; those who might still be in this struggle, to see if they’ll help.

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At the end of it, I want to say to every black person and particularly black women I marched behind; followed past the curfew; listened to discuss dynamics, rules, regulations, history. From that matronly head of Occupy City Hall Circles to the black violinists, to the 17-year-old at Barclays and the 79th Police Precinct. Thank you. I’m cheering for you. I hope you continue to grow; to challenge yourself; to become even greater.

We need you to be.

But if we get there, consistent steadily toiling; I still believe we can win.

I believe that we will win.