We need to Stand Up Against Asian Hate in the Media

BY KCY

My Asian mom is still afraid to go out.

In fact, she is more afraid now.

This past week, she was on her weekly walk with one of her friends who is also Asian. As they passed a woman, she yelled at them “Go back to your country!” The woman continued to make racist remarks to my mom and her friend who walked as fast as their 75 and 80-year-old bodies would let them. There were others around but no one said anything to the woman who yelled these racist remarks. And my mom and her friend ran away because they were just too afraid that they would be attacked physically.

Every day, I become more and more angry. They say anger is not a true emotion, but rather a sign of something else.

And they are right. Because the anger I feel is actually a sum of disappointment, hurt, fear. I’m disappointed in our society that people still do not see the need to stand up for the racist aggressions and microaggressions Asians face. I’m hurt because it feels like people don’t care. And I’m fearful, because I don’t want anyone to experience harm.

I stopped watching the Real Housewives franchise and all things Bravo this year. If you know me, then you know, this is a big deal. I’ve been an avid fan for years and have watched almost every show.

I probably should’ve stopped watching years ago. I should’ve recognized that there was a whole lot of white privilege going on in the shows. That there was a lack of diversity. But I kept watching until I saw the way Bravo handled a situation when a video surfaced of Brandi Redmond, one of the cast members of the Real Housewives of Dallas, making fun of Asians.

In 2017, Redmond posted a video on her Instagram stories mocking Asians in an offensive Asian accent. “They ask me what Asian I am because my eyes, they squinty,” she said, with her young daughters laughing behind her in the background.

This video resurfaced in January 2020. Redmond apologized. Then apparently sought treatment for mental health because of this video. She revealed that she was suicidal and on the premiere of season five of the Real Housewives of Dallas, she revealed: “The reaction of people was to cancel me, that I was a horrible person, a horrible mother, I couldn’t say I was sorry enough.”

Well…um…yeah. What kind of person makes racist remarks, especially in front of her young impressionable daughters?

I probably should not have been surprised she was still on the show. After all, all she did was make fun of Asians and she was really sorry, so sorry to the point that she felt suicidal. Right, Bravo? She was the victim here.

Instead of kicking her off of the show, what Bravo did was cast an Asian doctor. Whether or not, she was cast before this whole incident or not, it seemed like the whole purpose of casting her was not to diversify the cast, but to show that Redmond could play nice with Asians and was really not racist. And for the Asian cast member to verify that Redmond was a good person who just made a mistake. Because if an Asian person could forgive her for making fun of “squinty eyes”, then surely it was okay and justified even that she was kept on the show.

As silly as you may think these reality shows are, what happened with this situation on the Real Housewives is a mirror of what is and has been going on in society for a very long time. We, as a society, accept and justify racist aggressions and microaggressions against Asians. And, we as Asians, stay quiet.

This is not okay. Racism is never okay, no matter who it is against.

It’s time that we stood up for each other. For everyone. I urge you to stand up for Asians. For Asians to stand up for ourselves. So, people don’t think it’s okay to just cast one of us to justify someone’s racist actions. So, people stand up to someone yelling racist remarks to two old Asian women.