Retiring Cakes for Chinny

This was my blog was so many years and now it is time to move on again. A new blog anew.

What is White Privilege?

White privilege does not mean that you are monetarily wealthy or a homeowner or with stock options or possess a degree of higher education or are able to waste food or have taken lavish vacations abroad or can afford to go shopping loaded down with consumerable goods or come from a high class.

It means that you will be able to be published author and not be toted as an “upcoming Chinese American author”, your ethnicity is irrelevant not only because you’re white but because you are seen as a person not attached to the color of your skin.

It means you have the power and convenience to rail on about how afraid you are about driving in the “ghetto of Oakland” because you are afraid of people who will harm you because of the color of your skin. It means you think of yourself as nonracist yet you inherently fear black people because you have been sufficiently indoctrinated with the notion that white women’s virginity must be protected from the dark men of color who will rape you.
 
It means you will legitimize the overt racist jokes in your favorite TV show “2 Broke Girls” because you identify with these two “poor” white girls because you fail to see the privilege they possess because they lack monetary wealth or class status, and because they make fun of “all races equally” yet fail to see each of the racist, sexist stereotypes that demean men and women of color into nothing but caricatures and you can afford to laugh at them because you will never ever face racism or sexism like I do, like my family does, like my friends do, like my loved ones do because of our ethnic origins, because of our religion, because of what we look like.

It means you glorify television, literature, music that glorify white culture and the conquerors because they are the ones who won and you hide behind your some percentage of your heritage being (as you claim) Native and Italian. It means you will never understand that discrimination and racial discrimination is different. Italians suffered prejudice and discrimination in this country but they did not suffer racism or colonialization or imperialism or genocide like we of color did.
It means that you declared yourself not racist because you are a subvert racist as opposed to an overt racist. Just because you don’t say the N-word or called me “gook” or “chink” does not mean you are not racist.

It means you tell me that I am racist, because I did not want to be your friend anymore because you would rail on against people because of their personal choices, because of their religions, because of their cultures, because you think everyone is out to get to you. It means you will never ever understand what I have to go through and what people for centuries have gone through and you know the ironic thing is?

Being a history major. What history were you studying? Do you think because there was a Civil Rights movement, racism is over? You think we live in a post-racial society? You are a History Major. You study what you want to study and believe what you want to believe. The conquerors, the colonists of the West-European civilizations are proud of you. You believe what they wrote because what they wrote must be true. History is told from the perspective of those who won.

You look down upon Ethnic Studies, upon Intersectionality, upon Queer/Gender/Women’s Studies. They threaten you. Because deep deep down you know my words have standing.
One thing white privilegists hate: being told “NO.”

Why? Because that means you lose power, you lose your footing.

And what is more terrifying than a person of color who is powerful. I mean look what happened to leaders of color? You may glorify them now, but they suffered for their strength. We of color, women of color, we of queer communities will resist you. We will fight you. We will not be your friend and educate you and hold your hand.

That is white privilege as I know it, as I’ve seen it.

You want me to be unhappy, because you're happy

Your happiness depends on my depression. If I am depressed it enables you, it gives you reason to throw me away because who would want someone so unworthy and so unhappy? My unhappiness would tarnish your happiness, so why not just slip into the river like a dead baby? Why not conceal me under the carpet and tread on me with the hardness of your shoes to flatten me out and disguise me in your past, so you don't have to mention to anybody that I was real?

If I'm unhappy it happys you. You are happy knowing you are triumphant in the wake of my failure. The unraveling of my emotions makes me a lunatic to your genius as you bask in the glory of your warm successes. If I dare to dream of happiness, you laugh because I'm so irrelevant.

If I cry, if I scream, if I anger, if I, if I, if I...it legitimizes you're right and I'm wrong.

Dreams

I'm starting to have dreams that I can remember, which is pretty unusual lately. I cry myself to sleep, the usual ritual and then I suppose I dream until I wake up. I have dreams about men. About being with them.

I don't know what that means. If it's a sign. A sign that I should move on. I had on edream with DB in it but he just dismissed me and starting macking on another girl.

The Cost of Knowing You

It's funny how when a relationship ends, no matter how many relationships you have, when they end. You are exactly in the position or rather, state of being that you were before you met your partner. But instead of finding yourself single and just "single," you are solitary and unattached and no longer with your partner, but you also know that they exist in the world and so your perspective is now not without them skewing it. I can't just exist anymore, because now I know that DB exists and lives and breathes, presumably and it is with this knowledge and in addition to the fact we had spent two years of our lives together and now we are apart, but I am forced to remember that he in fact "is"...I don't know how I will manage.

It's the cost of knowing you. I know you exist. I know that I still love you. I know that in this silence and the lack of you doing anything to fill it, that you must not care to. I know that one day you might find someone else if you haven't already. I know that one day if you have not already, you'll be having relationships with someone else. And I know, as I always have known, that it is killing me a little bit more every time I know this information to be true.

I also know that you may never be, in fact, part of my life again. And of course everyone questions me as to why I would ever want a person like you, or "you" in my life again and well that is an answer that I think should silence them all, but it doesn't because there are always, always rebuttals to the simple fact:

"I love you."

Three words and yet nothing quite can really illustrate or explain how much I love you or what that means. It means that I miss you. I miss that you could produce in me feelings that were like a sexual purr, a kind of vibrating warmth that meant I desired you and everything that was wonderful about you turned me on. I miss that you could produce the kind of warmth that the sun radiates and that touches you skin so intensely and yet makes you feel good and is necessary for the production of good health in your body, Vitamin D. I miss you in ways that neither sunshine or a cat purring could ever heal me.

That DB, is the costing of knowing you.

Love musings

I have memorized the tattoo on your shoulder, what your name means, every scar you endured from soccer injury and when I was able to hold you always tried to memorize your scent.

I am scared that without photographs I may forget your face but I will never forget how you made me feel, how I filled with light and warmth that can be only recreated by standing in the sun now. I will never forget how you smiled down at me, how every crease and contour formed your smile.

No matter how much I smile or laugh, I never replace yours, I never will replace yours. I carry with you with me under my skin, deep down in that hole you left behind and in my memories. You are more than words, more than a label, more than a way to dispel loneliness. I was never lonely before you and I shall not be lonely after you.

No.

You became part of my life, but I feel you dying in me now. I don’t want to, but you can’t grow anymore in me even though I will never forget, never regret, never stop missing you, never stop loving you and loving us, loving what we had when we were together. I miss you and I love you.

I am triumphant because no matter how hard you were, how cold you were and how much things you have said at the end that threatened to destroy me…You failed. You failed because while I love and I do respect you, you were weak. Too weak to handle my emotional intelligence, my gentler nature and my powers thanks to the deep love you uncovered in me. I am triumphant because you did not succeed in making me not care for you.

I still do. Though I have lost you, I still win. But it does not mean my sadness is lessened and the pain is eased.

This is how much I miss you

I remember everything. Every little thing you share with me. You told me. You did for me. I haven't forgotten. I can't remember without crying. I remember you more than once a day. I miss you with every fiber in my being. You were my life. You were my breath. And now you're gone and I have to remember how to breath without you. Live with you.

It's easy. But not really. I'm scared of you. I'm scared that you will think only the worst of me. That you can't just miss me or love me the way I do.

Nobody will. I'm the only me.