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Back on Twidder because I am entering our Year of the Metal Ox reflective and underslept, and I need to process my self-centered thoughts in a way that is as grotesquely public as possible.
It’s so strange and dissociative for me to do the most innocuous, unremarkable thing on the show and have a bunch of curdled motherfuckers flatten it exclusively along lines of race or queerness.
It’s so strange and dissociative when people tell me I should consider not being gay and/or Asian every now and then in the interest of “range.” It’s so strange and dissociative that those identifiers are considered character games. Is that not so fucking depressing?
Our elders are getting mutilated in the streets, so none of what I’m going through is that dire. But all the sadness from the past two weeks makes me think of Cathy Park Hong saying how draining this is because “it’s ontological. It’s like explaining to a person why you exist...
...or why you feel pain, or why your reality is distinct from their reality. Except it’s even trickier than that. Because the person has all of Western history, politics, literature, and mass culture on their side, proving you don’t exist.”
And so you get locked into a state of hypervigilance over how to behave in this Prairie of the White Gaze that is comedy or television or our weirdo country.
Eventually you lose all proprioception and awareness of your spatial movements, because all you’re focused on is how overwhelming the space itself is.
If and when I’m playing a hot Asian fagg [sic] on TV and you don’t know what to do with yourself, consider shutting the fuck up and writing a letter to your fucking grandparents.
And if you want “nuanced” portrayals of Asian queerness in a SKETCH COMEDY SHOW, have fun ordering chrysanthemum tea at McDonald’s, you stupid ugly bitch!
Asians, I hope we can herd like the oxen and that our slow, patient movement lets us protect ourselves and each other. I love you. <3