I just don’t trust white people with multiple Asian flags in their bios, each flag itemizing another foreign language they have conquered.

I guess you could call them... red flags.

Like imagine if my bio said “21 | | from but family from ” It just feels so pretentious to me, especially when many of these flags are symbols of hate and represent various imperialisms and globalist beliefs.

It’s dangerous how white people have managed to acquire language without learning about any of the language around the language, the histories of these countries’ flags and what they represent to different marginalized groups within said countries.

I think there’s just a more trauma sensitive and historically appropriate way to go about it. I have less of an issue with people listing the languages like “EN / 中 / 日 / 한” TBH, straight up, as a Taiwanese person it sends a chill down my spine whenever I see a hinomaru, a .

And for all the people who are like “Well I’m not ashamed of MY country or MY language or the language rhat I’M learning,” you should be. It’s a cross you carry. Knowing what I know, I would never put an American flag in my Bio even though I do identify as Asian American.

And so what do white people get out of putting Asian flags in their bio because they have some sort of proficiency in the language? I’m genuinely curious. Are you really unable to meet other language hobbyists without it? Is it a flex? What’s happening here?

I think that people who are citizens of a certain country taking pride in their heritage can be reclamatory, sure, but that’s not what this conversation is about.

It’s about white people, for example, putting Japanese flags in their bio after taking four years of college Japanese and thinking they belong to the wabisabi pathos within the Japanese condition when they can’t even begin to fathom the depth of Japanese war crimes and postmemory

I—

Thank you to the DM who asked “Which flag would you even use to represent the English language? ?” That’s such a loaded, yet important question.

All countries are fucked, yes, but there’s something nefarious in the way that a flag pridefully claims that fuckedness, and even goes as far to cherish and encourage further fuckedness.

All of you need to read Christina Sharpe’s, In the Wake: On Blackness and Being if you haven’t already.

Manfred B Stegner’s, Globalization: A Very Short Introduction is another good book for understanding all of this.