Grace Meets Grace (no.3)

Post #3

“So what do you think of when you see an Asian person?” my friend Anne asked pretty nonchalantly one Friday afternoon during a playdate with our girls. 

Anne is an attractive, late 30’s, super smart Chinese American former attorney, who I met in baby group when our girls were two months old. 

I liked her instantly. 

She spoke her mind, called truth to power, and pulled no punches. Whereas most of the other women in our group, seemed far more preoccupied with winning some unknown popularity contest. Many ripe with second homes, nannies, and lives I could not relate to.

Anne always kept it real. 

So here we are eight years later, sitting in her spacious kitchen in the hills of Los Angeles with another mutual friend, Liz, who has brought us back together after a few year hiatus. 

Drinking white wine, munching on brie and apples. 

Liz is a psychotherapist, a solo parent whose daughter just joined our school.  

As a single mama myself, Liz was a welcome change to our school full of traditional nuclear families. 

Our daughter’s attend a progressive independent school, that’s a euphemism for “private”. 

My daughter attends a private school. 

I could spend a whole lotta time defending my choice to send her to a small social justice school and how it’s incredibly diverse and a whole lotta different than your typical predominantly white, entitled “private” school in Los Angeles but that would take us off topic. 

Back to the wine & brie. 

Liz is telling her tale of yoga class where she noticed another woman’s medically enhanced lips, wondering why this woman would ever want such large lips. During class, she became so preoccupied with these lips, it began to impact her practice.

First, I wanted to know what Liz, the regular person, thought the reason might be, then I wanted to know what Liz the therapist thought. 

(You know because therapists aren’t exactly regular folk). 

She said “it’s because of porn”. 

“Wait, what?” 

What am I missing, “do I need to watch more porn?” I thought. 

She had this whole theory--that came from her clients. “Men watch all this porn and women have these huge lips in porn so men, in real life, now imagine getting blow jobs from women with huge lips. And now women are going out to get big lips.”  

At this point, I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry, is this really a thing?  

That’s when Anne stepped in with her own inquiry, “what do you think when you see an Asian person?” 

It wasn’t quite like a record scratch, but sortof in my own mind. 

I mean we’re talking big lips and porn, so I wasn’t quite sure how that lined up with Asians.  

Now mind you, I was two glasses of wine in, and I’m more of a “one glass is not enough and two is too many” kinda gal. 

So I might’ve been a little slow on the subtext of this conversation, but our Anne don’t miss a thing. 

She got it. 

We're talking judgement here. 

Women judging other women. 

I was a little caught off guard and I loved it. 

Right back to the very reason I fell for her 8 years ago. 

I’m rarely taken back because most people are so damn careful, tip toeing worried about being PC. 

I tend to step on toes a lot, so it’s nice to be face to face with a kindred soul. 

I mumble some crap about whatever, nothing memorable. 

Then I follow up with, “I can tell you what I would’ve said 10 years ago, ‘I don’t see color’.

I know, I know, believe me, I don’t say that anymore. I’ve grown and learned a lot since then.  

Anne lost in her own thoughts, follows up with “I’ve just started to notice how I’m treated different lately and I can’t help but wonder if it’s because I’m Asian?”

This was her opportunity to launch into her own judgement of white women. 

Both Liz and I are white. 

“When I see a white woman getting out of her Range Rover, first thing I think is ‘entitled Karen’ I judge her right away.  Then I make all these judgements of the moms at my kid’s school, who are wealthy & white.  Later I get to spend time with them and turns out they are pretty cool. This happens a lot.” She admits with a sheepish grin.

She takes a long pause, and a sip of her wine. 

“I don’t know, is this all in my head?”

I don’t know either, but I do know about the crap I make up. And I tell her this. 

From the first time I walked on the campus of my daughter’s school, I felt unworthy. The tuition is more than my parents made in a whole year.

That mere thought, made me weep during our tour. 

And that feeling of “I don’t belong” stayed with me to this very day. 

It’s International Day-- a big deal at our school, typically parents are invited, but because of the pandemic parents have not been allowed on campus in two years. I learned Liz would be there. 

I made up this whole story that I was intentionally excluded because only certain parents were chosen. (you know the ones that give great big donations, with loads of access).  

Later I learned, they asked everyone for parent volunteers at the ONE all school meeting I missed.  

These are the stories we tell ourselves, confirmation bias everywhere. 

We can be white, Asian, rich, not so rich, whatever. And I’m not saying that racism isn’t very much alive, it is, it absolutely is.  I will not pretend to know what someone else’s motives are, Anne could very well be encountering a bunch of ignorant racist fools-I don’t know.  What I do know is the stories we tell ourselves are something fierce. And oftentimes, far more powerful. 

So here is my antidote to judgement. 

No matter the question, empathy is the answer.

Because I have to walk around with the voice in my head and I’d rather walk around with the story that you are a good person having a shitty day, than you are a shitty person, doing shitty things, you know just because you feel like it.  

Empathy is easier on me.

Sometimes with all this estrogen and wine flowing it’s hard to take a breath and collect my thoughts. I went to the powder room to give my mind some space to really think about what I wanted to say to Anne.

When I returned I said, “Anne, when I really think about it, for me, it’s really more about who I want to be in the world, how I want to show up. So yes, I see that this person is Asian and I see she is different from me, with completely different lived experiences. And I can also see we are connected by some of the same pain and struggles, I see our shared humanity. I might also see she’s a mother, maybe a Prince fan or other things that connect us. I tend to look for common bonds.” 

I came home that night and couldn’t stop thinking about our conversation that afternoon. 

The truth is on my worst day, I don’t see that she’s Asian at all because I don’t see her at all, I’m in my own private pain and she’s invisible. I’m in my head obsessed with my own thoughts.

If I’m in a mid-range, average day, I see she’s Asian, I might smile or make eye contact, wondering about her life, how the pandemic has impacted her and her family. 

And when I’m in all my glory, I see a bright soul, and I go past her exterior and right to the core, I see and feel her aura, her energy, and her essence. 

I see her pain, her struggle, I see all of her. And I embrace it all. I’m in my glory and I see her glory. I’m in my beauty and I see all of her beauty.  

Grace meets grace.