Why are so many people racist towards Chinese?
I will be picked on for having Asian eyes. I will be called chink. Ling Ling. North Korean. The food I eat will be startling. The clothes I wear will either be too white or too Asian. And how I talk, act, and carry myself will be too white, too Asian, too ethnic, too know-it-all.All that made me insecure. I was insecure throughout grade school. The noticeable curiosity and uniformity of all the other children created an imaginary barrier between us that had formed before I had even been aware.I am afraid of change. Kids are afraid of change— the uniformity and standardization of children’s dress, behavior, education, etc. That leaves them unprepared for difference and the strength that exudes from the difference.Chinese kids are an easy target for children who see only white characters, white moms, white dads, white families, white parents. Everywhere from T.V. to books to video games to newspaper articles.This is why representation is so important.Representation normalizes the differences we all have, and the differences we might not. The dumplings and seaweed and stir-fry I brought in wasn’t normal. It was the outlier that no one had been exposed to. I was the outlier.Earlier this year, the O’Reilly Show on Fox News released a segment that interviewed non-English speaking Chinese people in New York’s Chinatown on the election. It was unbearably degrading, and I first heard about it from this video:"The O'Reilly Factor" Gets Racist in Chinatown-The Daily Show with Trevor Noah - Video Clip | Comedy CentralI actually personally know one of the women Ronny Chieng interviewed in the video (the “I’m from Queens!” one). And she is trying to change the poor image that the U.S. delivers Chinese people. This is poor and racist representation of Asian-Americans in general… that barely had ANY backlash. At all.Everyone knows it’s stereotypes that affect the Chinese community so badly. But the root of that cause is the misrepresentation in media.