First things first. Black lives matter. Period. Now..
This is to my Asian Christian guys: how do you feel during this time? I won’t be moralizing or lecturing at you; you can message me directly on your reaction to my reflections.
As depressingly regular as racial tragedies are, like the “natural cycle” of school shootings, I posted *just a wee* bit more on social media this "cycle” because of the high velocity of events. And with that have come some challenges, albeit welcomed challenges and more welcomed lessons.
There are certain Asian archetypes. Going from broad to niche, mine are as follow:
Male ->Father ->Chinese ->American-born ->Suburban middle-class ->Higher education in urban area ->White-collar ->Christian ->Hobbyist in Hiphop ->Immigrant parents went to HBCU ->Lived in West Baltimore as child
Each sub-category comes with its own social circle, sometimes seemingly mutually exclusive in worldview to one another. This became super apparent when a person from my suburban context and people from my urban, POC, and hiphop contexts were arguing about policing. (My original post was resharing account of police use of force on children and residential home areas)
I think with the archetypes I’ve been given, I will not be able to please anyone 100% (that hits on my idol of wanting to be liked). I don’t want to argue online publicly, and instead do things one-to-one, because my Christian ethic values peacemaking and wisdom, instead of fruitless posturing. I don’t want to downplay racism and police brutality (in fact, I want to broadcast) because I value justice.
6/1 EDIT: My saying “I don’t want to argue online publicly” specifically means not having an argument in the comment section. Example here:
I very much want people to reshare/post all the anti-racist resources and accounts they can. But here is where I disagree with some in the social justice cohort -- when they say "you need to cancel your racist friends" "you need to unfriend your racist friends" "you need to embarrass/fold your racist friends."
I don't agree with those statements. That's what I'm trying to convey. I have POC friends that are probably disappointed I didn't blast the white guy in the comments, and I didn't do that because I wanted to engage in a more meaningful way, which I did in DMs. Through DM, this persion actually apologized and we wished each other well, which I thought was God perhaps at work. This is a kind of ministry principle to me, that if the comment section is combative you can't do ministry there. (Not because I'm wise, but opposite, I've made the mistake before.)
Wonder if other Asian Christians of varying overlapping archetypes are trying to figure this out? I’ll be messaging folks in the coming days to think through, but now that that’s done, again, black lives matter.
