The Fairy Princess did not sleep well, because yesterday, a white 21 year old male, entered 3 establishments, including The Gold Spa, screaming he would “Kill All the Asians!”.

While he did not kill ‘all’, he killed 8 people.

Six of them were Asian women.

Why he did it, is not, frankly, something one has to consider when dealing with a hate crime. No one cares that he had, as local police who apprehended him without harm to him, ‘a bad day’.

His day was not as bad as the Asian Americans that he killed.

His day was not as bad as the non Asian American woman he killed, or the non Asian man that he killed.

They had a truly bad day. They just woke up and got dressed and went to work, and now they will never come home. Their families will not see them. They will not be able to laugh or cry or prepare food with them.

When TFP told you, years ago now, that ‘representation’ on our screens and stages was important, not because of the careers of the few AAPI actors who were struggling, but because of the very real danger of our humanity being erased – there was not a lot of listening.

When TFP told you, that overly sexual roles, usually set in brothels once a season on a cop show, was an ‘issue’ – because that was the only time the ‘public’ saw ‘us’ and therefore contributed to our lack of humanity – there was not a lot of listening.

When AAPI Hollywood told you that we needed Diversity initiatives, and those were enacted and we rejoiced, but they had the effect of a drip of water running down the Hoover Dam, it did not change things. Perhaps over the last 20 years, we can point to a few ‘breakout’ stars – they would have had an Agent or a Manager or a Showrunner that was in their corner, and we can glory in their success, yes of course.

However for the majority of AAPI actors, we remained the ‘also rans‘, the “quirky sidekicks’, the ‘Tiger Moms”, the “Dads with no feelings“, and all that has trained this country to believe that we have no emotions, we are automatons, we exist to serve a narrative that we are a group – and yes, none of you have tried to tell us apart, so don’t start now – we are a GROUP that can be used primarily as background for a narrative where we are the enemy. Or, for sex. Sex without feelings, commitment, sex that can be violent and deviant and even end our lives without reprisals for the enactor of the violence.

We have phrases that denigrate us and they come from films.

We have tropes that harm us, and they come from film and television and stages.

We have seen White faces try and ‘play’ us to great Hollywood acclaim, tape their eyes, change their skin tone, and the result is, while many laud us for having privilege due to ‘proximity to whiteness’ – it is that very proximity that lets us be gunned down or mocked or asked if we are available for purchase – and that all, all of it, can be lain at the doors of our American stages, televisions, and films.

We see ‘our’ narratives sung by people who wear us like a costume, but within that costume, rob us of our humanity and our dignity- leaving behind only outlandish behaviors. Shuffling. Tittering. Bowing. Submissive. Accepting. Asexual with the men and hypersexual with the women.

We have all seen this over and over.

It must be said that FOX News, President Trump, Breitbart – they are all complicit as well. They took what there was from Hollywood – and they ran with it. They stoked the flames of hatred, pointed it at uneducated minds, and let loose – and these shootings, 3 of them, by one man – is the result.

American Show Business has taught the world – not just America –the world – that we are either a monolithic superpower intent on submission, or sweating in a hole in the ground just for the opportunity to rise up and slaughter Americans, or we are there to serve whatever sexual pleasure is wanted. That we are faceless. That it does not matter what our names are, or how to pronounce them, because we’ll be dead in the project in the next few minutes – our deaths inspiring the white hero to drink herbs, become adept at our fighting styles, and keep love for us in our hearts while he goes off with the hot girl.

We have this year, two Asian males nominated for Best Actor by the Academy Awards. First time ever. One is American, one is British. That is diaspora.

We have animated films nominated which were created and contributed to by AAPIs from all over the globe – and that too, is diaspora.

We have Directors who were born elsewhere and are nominated here in America, and that is again, diaspora.

Change is upon us, change is happening – it is not all doom and gloom, but it has been exhausting to get here.

We have now Production deals, and writers, and Stars, and things are slowly changing – but they did not change fast enough for those six women in Atlanta.

They did not change enough for the two non Asians killed in Atlanta.

They did not change enough for a 21 year old man having a ‘bad day’ – and a reminder, not an excuse – at 21, the human brain is not fully formed yet. That does not happen till 25. So we have an immature thug whose made a bad decision based on his emotion, because he has been taught that his emotions are more important than Asian lives for his entire 21 years. He had access to a rifle, and he used it.

He had access to a firearm, and he had bad decisions in his brain, and he had hatred in his heart – and he used them to go to a place where he knew there were Asian women, and he killed them. The media wants us to believe he is a good church going boy who made a mistake.

It is a mistake to buy into that rhetoric. Churches do not preach mowing down people with a weapon – at least not the mainstream ones.

He killed them because they were Asian.

TFP has seen some people trying to distance themselves from this issue – some Pacific Islanders saying “Well, that is an Asian thing, not a Pacific Islander thing.”

No. It is an ‘all of us’ thing. All of us – because this guy killed indiscriminately – and he killed people who were not Chinese. He did not know enough – because American culture has not insured that Americans know the difference between us – so we all must mourn, collectively.

We all must rage against this injustice.

We must take all the horror and enact change and that involves gun laws, that involves restrictions on hate speech, and education, conversations that will be difficult. He chose to do this because those women he felt were beneath him, whose very existence tempted him, they were at the lower socioeconomic end of society- the people we, as a society- have been told are ‘disposable’ people, so he could kill them without punishment. That is what he has observed in his 21 years.

He chose to do this because he thought that his entitlement to them, and their lives, were more important than their actual lives.

Who taught him that?

American Entertainment.

TFP is so very angry. She cannot even tell you the tidal waves of sadness that are washing over her right now. That she did not sleep. That she is still in her pajamas at 12:45 pm. That she is disgusted and heartsick and feels that she would go through the three verbal attacks she had happen, by three different people, AGAIN during this pandemic if those 8 people could live.

If the seniors being randomly killed for no reason other than being Asian while walking, could live. She would take the abuse, the uneasiness of feelings, if it would make any cosmic difference to that man’s decision to share his ‘bad day’.

She would take it all.

She would take it, because no one should have to die because they look like where their families originated from. She would take it all if her son was not told that ‘the Chinese gave us Coronavirus’ so he did not get a high five from a fellow camp goer.

She would take it.

Even though, she is ‘only’ half.

That is the thing about being Asian – you do it for the Family. Right now, our collective ‘Family’ is under attack – and she needs us all to pull together – all of us, not just Asians – and right this wrong.

Call it a hate crime.

Then look around and see where he got the hate.

TFP out.